When Subjective Reasoning Fails

How are you guys doing? Doing well, man. How are you doing? So, what is this? Yeah, so it's a gospel tract.

So, what do you believe? I'm an atheist. You're an atheist? Yeah. Okay. So, tell me what you think then, reading that.

Reading about, like, trusting your feelings? Yeah. So, I got, because I was actually

Mormon. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, like, I kind of fell out of that. Wait, what's your name, by the way? I'm Sam. Andrew.

Man, nice to meet you, man. You too. But, uh, for me, this is, like, a huge issue that came up.

Yeah, yeah. These are actually Mormon tracts. So, they're actually geared typically towards Mormonism.

Oh, really? Yeah, because you know how to, like, pray about the Book of Mormon, get a burning in your bosom, see if it's true. But a lot of people who come here are actually

LDS. So, I think, like, around 90 % of people, believe it or not, who come to this festival are typically

LDS. So, yeah, so you're atheist now. So, how did that happen? I guess, for me,

I would have experiences when I would pray. Yeah, yeah.

I would feel like, you know, what I thought was the Holy Spirit at the time. But then I also had a lot of experiences where I would pray and I didn't feel anything.

Yeah, of course. And so then I, for me, I just kind of realized that, like, the human mind is just so complex.

I can't definitively say, like, what I'm feeling can be assigned to any just, like, one deity. Yeah.

So, that's kind of how I, like, fell out of it. Yeah, no, I feel you on that. I feel you on that. So, I would agree.

I'd say our feelings are deceiving, right? Like, the Bible tells us in Jeremiah 17, 9, that our heart is deceitful above all things, desperately wicked.

Who could know it? And then the Bible also doesn't tell us to pray about the Book of Mormon or to pray about God, whether you know if it's true or not, right?

It says, God's word defines truth in John 17, 17, sanctify them by the truth. Thy word is truth, right?

So, as an atheist, where are you at now spiritually? I know you say you're an atheist. Are you atheist agnostic?

Like, where is it at? I guess agnostic. Like, I'm not prepared to ever say, I just don't believe. Like, in any

God at all. But, from a spiritual perspective, I've actually gone through a lot more spiritual growth.

Like, once I stopped believing in a higher power. For me, it came down to, now that I don't believe in an afterlife,

I take every minute or every second, at least I try to, for what it is.

Because it's like, I'm not going to have this ever again. And for me, that kind of enlightened me a lot more.

As an agnostic, because when I hear the word agnostic, it means without knowledge, right? So, there's no actual certainty for knowledge in itself.

So, my question for you would be, why does it matter? Why does it matter to have truth? Why does it matter to have enlightenment?

If we're nothing but highly evolved protoplasm, what's the purpose anyways?

What's the purpose? Yeah. That's where you're thinking at right now? Because I don't know if there is a purpose.

I don't necessarily believe that anybody has a purpose. For me, it's like asking, what's a mountain's purpose?

It doesn't have a purpose. It's just a mountain. It just does what it does. But on the individual level,

I can ask myself and say, what is my purpose? So, I don't think that anybody has a purpose, but every individual has a purpose that they make up for themselves.

Right. So, in the grand scheme of things, the purpose is purposelessness. Because no matter what your purpose, your purpose is essentially an opiate for this suffering existence that you have now, which you're just but a vapor, and you're here today, gone tomorrow.

Let me tell you something, Samuel. The reason why you're even searching for truth, even as an agnostic, trying to find meaning in life is because the

Bible says you're created in the image of God. It says that you want value, dignity, respect, love.

All of these things are things that you value because you're created in the image of God. But the Bible clearly defines that we are fallen human beings, that we're sinners.

So, our reasoning faculties are skewed by our sin. So, I think you want those things because you can't help it.

Yeah, because that's what we're built for. Because you're living in pure contradiction of your own worldview, even trying to find purpose in purposelessness.

It makes no sense. But the Bible says, no, man, you're created in the image of God. You have value. You have worth. And Jesus, who is

God himself, with truth is defined from him, because he's a source outside of ourselves, an objective standard of truth, who entered into the world, it says in John 1, and he became flesh.

He dwelt among us. Not only that, he suffered. And he experienced everything we experienced, yet he was without sin.

He was perfect. And he took the death that we deserve on the cross. Because the Bible says this. It says we all die for a reason.

We die because sin is in this world and we are sinners. Yet God took our place on the cross. What is sin, then?

Sin. Great question. Because for me, sin's always just been like a contradiction of God's commandments or God's will.

But I'm like, if God's the one who's willing it, then why is he such a... So stringy about it.

Here, let's go over here. So think about this. So think about this.

What you have done now is you've placed yourself in the judgment seat of God. I'd say this. Stick back into your own worldview and try to be consistent.

So according to your worldview, morals, all of these things, it's all purposelessness. But now you're trying to take the moral high ground before God.

You're not being consistent with your worldview. And that's what I'm saying is because you're made in the image of God. You're appealing to objective standards of truth, but you're not staying within your worldview.

So I'd say if you truly believe what you believe, you need to stick in your worldview. But you're not. You're being inconsistent.

Agnosticism without knowledge. You can't actually define what is good or bad. You don't know. Yeah, I don't. But now you're doing that.

So you're being inconsistent. So I'm not. I'm not saying that there's anything inherently good or bad.

But sin is inherently bad. But I'm just saying I don't believe in sin just like I don't necessarily believe in God.

So I don't believe in any good or bad. You don't know if you believe or not. Yeah, I guess that's a better way.

I don't believe it. So I don't know. I don't see how there's an inconsistency there. Perfect. Okay, cool. So the inconsistency would be essentially to when you get out.

You're stepping out of your worldview now. And you're saying that God, I'm going to judge you according to a standard that you don't even follow.

But this is the thing. So I would say in terms of sin, what it is. The Bible defines it. It says a transgression against the law of God.

That's something that's against his character. That's what sin is. Yeah.

So I would say with you, what my hope is for you, man, is I would say that God loves you.

He cares for you. He created you. It says that before we even came into this world that he knew who we were. He formed us.

He knew our inward parts, right? He knitted us together in our mother's wombs. And he sent people out here to tell you today, man. He's like repent and believe in the true

God which is Jesus, right? Like we can't even have objective truth apart from God.

All things would be meaningless without him. Gnosticism doesn't give you the answer. You can't actually stay consistent.

But like I said, I come from a position that there is no answer. See, that's inconsistent because it's

Gnosticism. They don't say that. They say they don't know. So now you're saying there's a supreme obsolete truth which is you can't know.

But that's in contradiction with Gnosticism because it's without knowledge. You can't know. Gnostic is saying I don't know.

But you just said you can't have truth. That's an absolute truth claim. Well, I don't think we can have truth because we're a subjective.

Everything that we are experiencing is purely subjective. We're subjective beings living in an objective world.

So I don't think you can have like... That's just your opinion. Yeah, I mean, yeah, you're definitely right.

Think about this. That's what I'm saying, dude. I agree with you in your confusion because you're a fallen human being, right?

So you're using subjective reasoning in your own personal thought process to try to understand a reality that is objective.

Oh, okay. Hey, I'll be here until 12, okay, Samuel? That was a great conversation. Andrew. But hey, dude, just know.

Jesus Christ came in the flesh. He died on the cross for our sins. Died the death that we deserve. All we have to do is have peace with God.

That peace with God is to trust in Jesus Christ for our salvation. The eternal God. Not the

Mormon Jesus. It's a totally different Jesus than the one in Scripture, okay? I say flee from this place, man.

This is a wicked place that's worshiping a false god. Yeah. This is an idol.

Dude, look what you're doing, bro. You're wearing white. Everyone's wearing white. They're going into this place all wearing white. You guys look like cult members, bro.

You went from one cult to another cult. And they're worshiping Hare Krishna on the radio. Oh, it's okay. Chant with us.

Chant with us. Dude, flee from this place, Samuel. What are you doing, bro? I'm enjoying my time. I'm enjoying this culture.

I believe you are, but it's not just culture, brother. It's worship. It's worship. Well, I mean, this is so ugly.

This is a festival, like, for a... For spring, right?

It originated in India. There's all kinds of different claims about that, but what it is...

Dude, just listen to the songs. They're worshiping Hare Krishna. They're saying, it's okay, chant with us.

It's not just a festival. All the things that we do in this life are worship, my friend. It's worship.

And we've offended a holy god. This does not please him. Jesus Christ is the one who split the veil in the temple.