MSL: April 8, 2024

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network.

All right, everybody, welcome to the show.

It's me, Matt Slick.

You're listening to Matt Slick Live.

And if you want, you can give me a call.

Same as always.

All you have to do is dial 877 -207 -2276.

Easy to do.

You can also email me at info at karm .org, info at karm .org.

And if you do that, please put in the subject line, put in the header there,

radio question or radio comment, and that'll do it.

That'll be fine.

Okay?

Today's April 8th.

I understand the eclipse has happened or might be happening.

I don't even know when.

I've been so busy working on stuff.

But I saw an eclipse about three, four years ago here in the Idaho area.

And it was just like they see, like they show on movies and, you know, pictures and stuff with the

scintillating, the flares going way out.

You could see it with your eyes, you know, with the...

It was just awesome.

And I remember that so clearly.

I would love to have been down there to see it or over there in the east to be able to see it again.

But, well, you know, that's what it is.

That's what it is.

Got too much to do here.

All right.

Like I said, if you want to give me a call, 877 -207 -2276, and if you want to

watch, you can do that by going to rumble .com forward slash Matt Slick live.

And we're on YouTube also, Matt Slick hyphen live,

because, I don't know, has YouTube, let's see,

got us out of jail yet?

They're only supposed to have me have, that is an account, we have a different account.

We have several ones on YouTube.

We're supposed to have it out there for like two weeks, penalize 10 days.

It's been, what, two months?

So you're not supposed to talk about COVID, you're not supposed to talk about a bunch of stuff that the political correct people

don't want you to talk about.

So it's called Right Speak, Right Think.

I would suggest you read the novel, 1984.

All right.

So there you go.

Yeah, I'm looking, everything looks fine, everything looks okay.

877 -207 -2276, we got one caller coming in.

Doing hard YouTube time, that's right, Humble Clay.

But we are on Rumble, we are on Rumble, and we're getting more

subscribers, I don't know how many we have now, 531 on Rumble, which is not as

popular.

But we do have over 20 ,000 on Karm .org videos.

So the reason we don't broadcast this to the YouTube Karm .org videos is because if I say

something the powers that be don't like, then I get penalized.

You're not supposed to talk about certain things.

You can't say I have opinions, you can't say things because it's misinformation.

And then when I ask them, well, what is the right information?

We don't know, we just know what you're saying isn't right.

Well, wait a minute, how do you know?

And even though, even though I give documentation and statistics and stuff like that from official

sources, I'm penalized anyway.

That's what leftism does.

If it doesn't fit through the leftist filter, it doesn't matter what you say.

Let's get to Jan from North Carolina.

Jan, there we go.

Jan, you're welcome, you're on the air.

Hey, Matt, how you doing?

I'm doing all right, hanging in there, hanging in there.

What do you got?

Oh, great.

Great.

OK, so my question is, when Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane

and he was just having those agonizing prayers and

the disciples fell asleep, then how did they know what he

said as he was praying?

He probably told them later on or the Holy Spirit gave it to them.

OK, that's what I thought.

Maybe it was the Holy Spirit.

Yeah, the Holy Spirit could certainly have told them.

Yeah, I think he could have told them during the 40 days.

Well, I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

I was just thinking.

I hadn't thought about it.

I was thinking Jesus didn't have time to tell them.

I forgot about it.

He came back.

He woke them up after he rose.

Yeah.

And so the Holy Spirit works through the prophets and the apostles and

can certainly bring to their understanding and awareness things that otherwise they wouldn't have known.

Just like when Jesus was in the wilderness.

What was said?

Well, it could be that, for example, he told the disciples what he said to the

enemy and they remembered it.

And when Luke and Matthew wrote what they did, they remembered or they interviewed people who knew

and they wrote it down.

And something similar could have happened here.

He's praying what he's praying to the Father.

But if that's not the case, that he physically told them, which it may have been, it's

also certainly possible that the Holy Spirit gave it to them.

One of the things I'd be curious about is if it says every single disciple fled or

wasn't with him.

When it says the disciples went to sleep, does it necessitate every one of them?

Maybe one of them heard what Christ said.

Maybe a woman or two heard what he said and repeated it to the men.

So we don't know for sure, but there's several possibilities.

Okay. That makes great sense.

Good.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

You're welcome. Very much. God bless.

Okay. Have a good one.

Thank you.

Bye. You too.

Thanks.

All right.

Hey, you want to give me a call?

877 -207 -2276.

You can also email me, info at carm .org, C -A -R -M dot O

-R -G.

And just put in the subject line, radio question or radio comment.

Let's get to Chris from Ohio.

Hey, Chris, welcome here on the air.

Thank you for taking my call.

So we were right in the direct path of the eclipse.

And my wife and I were sitting on the deck looking over the land, and

we both cried a little bit about thinking about how

it must have been when Jesus died on the cross and the sun was gone.

And I just wanted your thoughts on.

Did you think the people that crucified him knew what they had just done when

that happened?

Because it was really an awe -inspiring moment.

I think some did and some didn't, because there's a lot of people there.

We know what a centurion said, you know, this is the Son of God.

So I think that some people really knew who he was, and others just rebelled and

didn't, so couldn't say how many.

But there's a lot of people around there for crucifixion.

It takes a lot of support staff to perform the ceremony.

They all wanted a sign.

What's that?

They all wanted a sign.

Well, I got a sign.

You know, when there's an earthquake and the sun goes dark, that's a bit of a sign.

And the veil's torn.

The veil's torn in the temple, but the Romans wouldn't know that, and the people

at the crucifixion site wouldn't have known that.

But, yeah, it's something special.

And the veil was like four inches thick of heavy woven material.

It's not something you can rip easily.

You know, I don't know, today we might need cars to pull apart, you know,

trucks, who knows.

But it's, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I just want to share with you that it was, when we thought about it, relative to what

Christ went through, it was a touching moment here in mid -Ohio.

Yeah, you know, I wanted to go down to Texas.

I have friends down there to see it.

But I could have gone anywhere, you know.

I could have just gone anywhere, but I'd already seen it.

It's like a lot of travel for three minutes of stuff, you know.

So I didn't go, but I'm glad you saw it, though.

Did you see the flares coming out from the sun?

Yeah, we did, and I think that's when the tears came.

Yeah.

You know, here's some trivia that's really interesting, is that the size of the sun and

the size of the moon and the distance from the moon to the earth is

incredibly precise in order to allow exactly what you see.

If the moon is further away, you'll see a ring, and you won't see the solar flares.

If it's closer, the whole thing's blotted out, and you won't see the solar flares.

And I read an article years ago about this, and because of the exact ratio that it is,

scientists were able to look at the sun and some stuff while the eclipse was going and learn stuff they

could not learn any other way.

It's very, very precise, so it's interesting.

Oh, as far as how to measure things?

Well, I mean, it's like an exact equivalent.

The size of the moon over the size of the sun at that distance is exact.

It's really interesting.

If the moon was further out or closer, you wouldn't have what you see.

I remember in Southern California, I saw an annular eclipse where the moon was further out because it has a

perturbation in its orbit, a feeling of parallel helium.

And in this one, you saw a ring around the sun, and the moon was further away, it

was smaller, and so you saw a ring.

And in fact, everybody left because in Southern California, the clouds, it was

overcast, no one was there.

I didn't have a camera.

And the cloud broke, and get this.

This is what I saw.

Imagine the horizon looking out at the ocean, and then an eyeball

blinking with the eye open.

And that's what happened.

The shape of the sunset, the clouds opened like the shape of an

eye, just in that one area, and the sun, annular, looked like a pupil in light as it

went right down in there.

It was like a gigantic eye.

I remember that.

Wow. That gives me goosebumps.

Hey, Matt Grad says, thanks, Matt.

Matt said that.

So anyway, it's really coincidental that that is exactly how it

is.

Interesting coincidence.

Yeah, well, we're thankful that he did what he did in all his humiliation, and I

appreciate what you do.

So I just wanted to share our experience.

Thank you.

Well, praise God, man.

I'm glad you had that.

That's awesome.

Praise God.

All right.

Bye -bye.

Well, that was Chris in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Got to see some great stuff.

Praise God for that and awesome stuff.

Let's get to Christopher from Raleigh, North Carolina.

Christopher, welcome.

You're on the air.

Hey, Matt.

Thanks for taking my call.

I called, like, last week, and I was like, oh, man, I just saved your number.

I was like, I feel like we're going to be calling back a lot.

So my question is in regards to, like, witnessing to Jehovah's Witness.

The reason is I just got recently married, praise God, and

my father -in -law, he's a Jehovah's Witness.

And I love him.

He's a cool guy, but it's just like, you know, I'm wondering.

I know it's not so, like, black and white.

Oh, say this one thing, and then they'll have a relation.

I know there's prayer and stuff, but how should I go about,

you know, witnessing to him?

Because I know Jehovah's Witnesses are trained to kind of shut down.

Mm -hmm.

Yep.

You know, so what would you recommend?

How should I approach that?

You have to know your doctrine, and you also have to realize that they're brainwashed.

So what I recommend people do is go to their kingdom halls or service, their kingdom halls.

Ask them to go, if you want to go.

Don't go and argue.

Don't go and do anything other than observe.

And you say you're not there to argue, you're not there to do anything.

You just want to see what happens.

See what he says.

And we've got some music coming up, and I'll tell you why that's important and what might happen out of it.

So hold on, buddy.

Okay, we'll be right back.

Folks, after these messages, please stay tuned.

Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276.

Here's Matt Slick.

Everybody, welcome back to the show.

Let's get back on here with Christopher from Raleigh, North Carolina.

Christopher, you're back on.

You there?

Yeah, I'm here.

All right, so what I was suggesting was that you ask him to go to a meeting

with him,.

And you don't argue.

And what this will do, it'll do two things.

One, it'll tell you what you're up against, because you have to understand that they aren't Christians.

They're Watchtowerites.

They are brainwashed.

They're brainwashed by the Watchtower organization.

They're Watchtowerites.

And you'll notice that if they're still doing things, I haven't

been to one in a couple decades now, but I used to go every now and then back in the day and check them out.

They're all the same.

What they would do is – maybe we should go to another one sometime.

But what they would do is someone would get up and do a reading, but they would open the Watchtower

magazine and read out of it.

And they would let the Watchtower guide their thinking, guide their analysis, guide their

questions, guide their answers.

And so I remember it's like this.

They would go up and read, and it might say something in the text like, We know that Jesus is not God,

because in John 14 .28, Jesus says, The Father is greater than I.

Let's turn to John 14 .28.

In their Bibles, they would do it.

The Father is greater than I.

As you can see, since the Father is greater, if He's God, He'd be equal to.

He's not greater than.

Well, the Father is greater than Him, so He's not equal to.

Therefore, He's not God.

Therefore, the Trinity is false.

And then we go on to the next point.

So this is how they're trained.

They're trained with bad logic, bad exegesis.

They don't think.

The Watchtower just tells them what to think and how to think.

And of course, well, the answer to that is, well, because He was made under the law, and He was required

to follow the will of God the Father.

But He's also called calling God His own Father, making Himself equal to God, John 5

.18.

You see, they don't look at all the scriptures because it doesn't suit them.

So this is one of the reasons you need to go and grab literature, grab stuff, and just say you want to read it.

And He's going to be suspicious right away, but you don't argue.

You say, I want to know.

And then you read some material, and pretty soon He's going to say, well, what did you think?

And then that's when you talk.

And you say, well, and you say positive things.

I think you're very dedicated, and I see that as being good.

And that you want to serve God, and you want to do what's right.

But I have questions, and I'm just not so sure about what it is that's going on.

And me, I'd be saying something like, well, you know, I noticed

that the watchtower told you what to ask and what the answers were.

And that concerns me because how do you know it's getting it right?

It's just a seed right there.

It's a seed of doubt.

There's so many different ways to approach it.

And one of the things I like to do when the J -dubs, who don't come to my door anymore, which I can't figure out

why, but they used to, but they don't come to my door, is I would say to them,

can I use your Bible for a second?

And they'd say, sure.

I remember, I go to Genesis 19 -24, but they changed it in their latest Bible.

They changed it.

It says Yahweh, or Jehovah, ran far and brimstone from Jehovah out of heaven.

And they altered it.

So now it doesn't show two Jehovahs.

Now it just shows one.

And I would show it, and I said, that's an interesting verse.

And then they would say, are you trying to show us a trinity?

And I would say to them, you got the trinity out of that?

I'd say, is that what you got?

Wow, that's interesting.

And I wouldn't answer the question, but I would go on to the next.

Amos 4, 10 and 11, where God is speaking.

He says, I saw your young men by the sword.

It caused a stench to rise up in your nostrils.

You have now returned to me, declares Jehovah.

I overthrew you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.

And I think Jehovah's Witnesses look at this text and just stare at it for a minute.

Stare at it.

Because they don't know what to do with it.

And I just don't say anything.

So you want the Word of God to be powerful.

And there's other ways.

There's a lot of stuff you can say.

So there you go.

So what you do is you pray and you ask the Lord to bind the demonic spirit of Jehovah's Witnesses.

And to free your relative in this area.

But when you pray like this, just be ready for a bit of a ride.

Because it will probably be a little bit worse for you.

Spiritual stuff, you know.

Yeah.

Okay, cool.

Awesome.

Just real quick, what was that scripture you said that they just look at

once you present it to them?

Well, it was Genesis 19 .24 in combination with Amos 4

.10 -11.

And if you go to the old Bibles, in fact, it's worth getting an older Bible.

Get one that's from the 80s, 90s.

It's your Bible.

Here it is.

And then you show it to them in the Bible.

You show it to them.

And it will be different.

Genesis 19 .24 will be different.

And you say, why are they different?

Why has it changed?

See?

Questions.

You can't tell them they're wrong.

You have to ask questions.

It takes a long time for someone to come out of a cult.

It takes about two years for someone to come out on an average.

And it comes out.

They usually come out a little at a time.

A question that you ask, a question somebody else asks.

And it just gradually causes them to ask or doubt.

Then they have to ask a question.

And then they're ostracized.

And then that pushes them out.

Another way is by trauma.

A traumatic thing that brings them out quickly.

Like their son or daughter can't have a blood transfusion and they're dying.

The JWs look in the Bible for this.

And they can't find why you can't do this.

It says don't drink the blood in Leviticus 17 .14.

But that has nothing to do with a transfusion.

It has to do with dietary laws.

So that happens also.

There's a lot there.

So you said Genesis 19 .24 and Amos 4 .10 -11?

Yep. That's it. You got it.

Okay.

Cool.

An 80s and 90s JW Bible.

Okay.

And I'll be looking on your website for some other stuff too.

And last point before I get off.

I remember watching a video from you.

You said something about get an interlinear Bible from the JW.

And it points out John.

The Gospel of John.

It says in the beginning was the word.

The word was with God.

The word was God.

Okay. Awesome.

The old ones are in green.

So go online and you can find old ones.

Or go to thrift stores and you can find them.

And grab them.

Green.

Green ones, interlinears.

They're back in the 60s and 50s.

And I've got a few.

All right?

Okay.

Perfect. Awesome.

Thanks, Matt.

All right, buddy.

God bless.

All right.

If you want to give me a call, 877 -207 -2276.

David from Texas.

Hey, did you see the eclipse?

No.

Bummer.

Yeah.

Oh, well.

Anyways, I called a couple weeks ago.

A couple of times.

And we were talking about different things.

And we left off on morality.

And I guess where atheists would come.

Okay.

We'll get to that.

Because I want to talk to you.

And just hold on.

Hey, folks.

We'll be right back after these messages.

If you want to give me a call, 877 -207 -2276.

We'll be right back.

It's Matt Slick Live!

Taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276.

Here's Matt Slick.

All right.

Welcome back to the show.

Let's get back on with David from Texas.

You still there?

Okay, man.

So what do you got?

Well, you were asking me how I could justify things morally under an atheistic framework.

And I guess you were going to explain why you can justify things under a Christian framework.

So what do you want to do?

You want to tell me why you can't and I can or what?

I mean, I believe that is and ought are permanently separated

as many philosophers believe.

If you think you have a way to, you know, to combine those two,

I would love to hear it.

Yeah, God is the one who is and reveals what ought.

To be.

And so, as a Christian, we would say that the revelation of morality comes from God's

character, who's the ultimate, against which nothing is equal.

Okay?

Go ahead.

Well, that still seems to be subjective because it's subjective to what God says.

Yeah.

And it is subjective to what God says.

And since God's character is pure, perfect, holy, righteous,

eternal, then the morality that He reveals is also good,

perfect, righteous, eternal.

Well, I mean,.

What we talked about last time was I said something along the lines of I think it's morally wrong to harm anything that's

alive.

And I'm aware of the issue with that, eating, right?

But I just take it as a first principle.

It's wrong to harm anything that's alive.

The consequences are a secondary issue, not a first principle.

And how can I justify that under atheism?

I don't think that atheism is just the answer to one question, as you might have heard.

It doesn't offer a framework.

I have to come up with my own.

And I don't really see the Bible offering a framework of morality.

That's.

Feasible.

At all.

It does not seem to be moral if you look at the whole thing.

Overall.

So it doesn't seem to be moral, but yet you don't have an absolute morality by

which you can judge what is or is not moral, but yet in your subjectivism you say that it doesn't seem to be moral, which means

you're refuting yourself.

You're being inconsistent and illogical.

Okay?

I have a subjective opinion of what morality is, and I guess I would say the Bible is incongruent with my

subjective opinion of morality.

Let me ask you a question here.

Is the following statement true or false?

It is always morally wrong for anyone to torture babies to death merely for their personal pleasure.

True or false?

I'm going to say true.

Okay, then you as a subjective moralist are now asserting a universal moral absolute obligatory to

everyone.

Because you said the statement's true.

But that's inconsistent with your.

Subjectivism.

Well, I'm not saying that it's objectively true.

I'm saying it's subjectively true.

Yeah, you say subjectively from your opinion.

It's always wrong for anyone to do this.

So what you're saying is I believe that morality is subjective, but I also believe that it's always wrong for

everyone else to do something.

That's inconsistent.

Okay, let me clarify what I think I mean by subjective versus objective.

Subjective doesn't mean sometimes or most of the time.

It could mean always.

It just means it's dependent upon someone's frame of reference.

Well, if it's dependent upon someone's frame of reference, then someone is God, who is the universal creator, beginner of all things,

who reveals what is right and wrong, and the consequences that you'll face for not obeying Him.

Well, you mentioned torturing babies.

There is a passage where King David's son,

infant son, was being tortured and then killed by God.

Right?

Being tortured and then killed by God.

No.

My son died.

Yeah, and my son had a birth defect.

My son had a birth defect and died in my arms.

He wasn't tortured by God.

I'm really sorry to hear that.

I'm not trying to make this personal.

No, that's okay.

I get it.

I'm just saying you need to pick your words carefully.

Most atheists, and you'll do what a lot of atheists do, you try and use an emotional thing and you change how things

are.

Oh, God tortured him.

Really?

Where do you get that?

What you're doing, you're not being objective, you're being subjective again, and then you're using emotionally laden words to try

and do a straw man, not a steel man.

See?

You're making mistakes.

Well, God caused David's infant son to be sick and then die.

Is that false or true?

Probably true.

I have no problem with that.

And when it comes to the law of Moses, which is, I guess, really the law of God,

there's two different things.

There's thou shalt and there's shall.

Two different things.

So if God gives us a law about farming, that's not for God.

That's just for us.

No, it doesn't say that.

Huh?

No, it doesn't say don't harm.

God doesn't say that.

You can't harm anyone.

I'm not saying that my morality is that.

God has...

No, I'm saying.

If you're going to represent Christianity, do it accurately.

Most atheists don't.

I would like to represent it accurately.

There's a passage that says that the son shall not be put to death for the sins of the father and vice versa.

Right.

Uh -huh.

And what's wrong with that?

This is a shall.

It's not a thou shalt not put a son to death.

It's a son shall not be put to death.

Right. Yes.

So if God can break that rule, meaning he's...

The only way to interpret this with the execution of David's infant son is that God can break his own rules,

and then this kind of puts morality into waters.

I can't understand.

Because if God can do whatever he wants because he's sovereign, then what does it even

matter what morality is?

It's more of a divine command theory rather than what actually is moral.

Well, how do you know what moral is?

You have no standard.

Don't you see the problem with your subjectivism trying to lay guilt at the feet of God

himself?

Well, I have a standard.

I have a subjective experience of reality.

I know what I feel is wrong to me, and so I would try to abide by

that and be consistent, and not do things to other people that I would not want done to me.

Oh, so it's a selfish motivation.

Okay.

No, it's not selfish.

It's based on how I view the world.

It's not about what's best for me.

It's about I don't want to do things to other people that I don't want done to myself.

That's not selfish, I don't think.

Yeah, it is.

It's based on what you want.

I don't want anything to happen to others that wouldn't happen to.

Me.

Isn't that just a standard based on what you prefer?

Well, when.

You say the word selfish, people usually think of the word greed.

I'm not saying this in a greedy sense.

No matter what's happening to me, regardless of what outcome might occur later on, I don't

want to do things to other people that I think are wrong.

Yeah, but okay, so?

I mean, you don't realize what you're doing is that you're just

offering subjective preferences.

That's all you have.

You say, I don't like, I don't like.

Well, okay, you don't have to like.

But so?

What does that mean?

You don't like it?

It's like saying, well, I don't like round circles when they're blue.

I don't like circles when they're blue.

Okay.

Now what?

Now what?

Yeah, I'm well aware that this is what I prefer.

It's not subjective.

I'm saying that there's no objective morality seems nonsensical to me.

Did you say there is or is not?

I'm saying I don't understand how there could be objective morality and the idea of it makes no sense.

To me.

An objective moral would exist if God existed, right?

Isn't that true?

That makes it not objective because it's subject to his existence.

If morality is subject to his existence, it's not objective.

It's objective to you.

There's a universal being out there, God.

He is the standard of holiness and righteousness.

Morality is objective to you.

It's not subjective to him either.

He doesn't do this on a whim.

He does not just, oh, I think maybe I'll do this good or bad.

Yeah, I'll decide.

That's not how it works.

He reveals what is absolutely right out of his absolute and perfect character that is immutable,

unchangeable, and holy.

That's the only standard.

That's the only ultimate standard.

Therefore, it goes with him.

And when atheists tell me, well, it's subjective to him, therefore, it's subjective.

They're playing with words.

Subjectivity to you is what we're talking about.

The atheist comes in and says, well, it's a subjective moral.

Okay, well, yeah, if it comes from you and your preference.

But if it's objective to you, if there's a universal standard, right?

Yes.

And they agree.

But then they go, well, it's subjective to God.

And they play this game.

All you're trying to do, in my opinion, is find a reason to deny the truth and your responsibility before God.

We've got another break, so hold on then, okay?

Hold on.

Okay, folks, we'll be right back after these messages, and hopefully we'll get further down the road with this guy.

I love talking to atheists.

We'll be right back after these messages.

Please stay tuned.

It's Matt Slick Live!

Taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276.

Here's Matt Slick.

Welcome back to the last segment of the show.

Dave, are you still there?

Oh, I just wanted to offer something up.

By the way, what you quoted, the stuff you put to death for the sins of the Father, that deals with legal matters in the context of

Deuteronomy, if you were to read that.

So it's not talking about what you raised it up to be.

You need to always remember the context of something that you cite in Scripture.

Nevertheless, back to the issue of objective morality.

See, I think you're just trying to find a way to deny your responsibility before God.

That's what I think.

Well,.

No, I just, if there's a way to make a morality objective in the sense that it doesn't have to come from

anything, then that's what I would think objective morality is.

If it has to come from somebody, no matter who it is, if it's God, it doesn't matter.

It's subjective.

How about this?

Last time I called in, I wanted to see if there was anything that you had to sort of, you know,

throw at atheism.

And I think we talked about your transcendental argument a little bit,.

And then.

We talked about this.

Is there another thing that you would say is like a weakness of atheism that you want to just

throw at me?

Oh, sure.

Atheism cannot account for universal morality and obligations of right and wrong.

It cannot account for transcendental necessities, and it cannot account for our origins.

These are the three categories that are most important philosophically, and atheism fails in all of them.

Well, we kind of touched on the first two.

What do you mean by atheism cannot account for our origins?

Well, you came into existence because of your parents, who came into existence because of their parents, and it goes

backwards and backwards, right?

It can't go back infinitely.

Are you familiar with that problem of an infinite regression of.

Causes?

This is the Munchausen Trilemma.

Yeah, there's either infinite regress or an undefined term, like a

primitive term, or cyclical.

If it's.

Cyclical...

No, it's not.

If it's cyclical, then you're still back to the infinite.

You have an infinite set of things.

But can an infinite number of events occur, and then having a traversing of those

infinite events?

You can't do that.

You cannot cross an infinite number of events to get to now.

The illustration I used is, let's say you and I are on an infinitely flat, white surface.

In every direction, it's infinite.

In front of us is a line of dominoes, and we're talking about

infinity, and behind us is an infinitely fast spaceship.

And here we are discussing this, and we hear a noise coming from our left going to our right, and it's the sound of the dominoes

falling, as it passes us.

Now, towards the right, that's in the future.

So it's going to continue on forever.

But what we're curious about is the origin.

Do we get in our infinitely fast spaceship and go back to the origin?

And we realize, wait a minute, there is no origin.

It's an infinitely long line.

We're going infinitely fast.

We're never going to find the beginning, because there is no beginning.

But wait a minute.

If there is no beginning, there is no first event, how do you have a second or a third to get to where we are?

In fact, if an infinite amount of time has been traversed to get to where we are.

Standing,.

Just to hear that, how is it possible that an infinite number of dominoes fell before it ever

got to us?

It can't.

It doesn't make any sense to say that there's an infinite number of events preceding us.

It does not make any sense.

Okay?

So you can't say that.

There has to be a single uncaused cause.

And that cause is either personal or impersonal.

And if it's personal or impersonal, there's only two options.

That it has to have the necessary and sufficient conditions.

We can talk about that.

And then you apply what's called the disjunctive syllogism.

If there's only two options to count for something, just two, a personal god or personal beginning or a non -personal

beginning, there's no in -between.

Well, if that's the case, you negate one, the other is automatically justified.

It's called the disjunctive syllogism.

And if I can show you that the impersonal cause is impossible due to the necessary and sufficient conditions logic, then

it necessitates the other position's true.

There's a personal cause.

This is the basics.

Okay?

I've done this many times with.

Atheists.

Okay?

Well, there's a flaw in there.

So, I know you're not saying that I said there's an infinite regress, but I'm just saying

that right now.

I'm not posing that.

But you're saying there had to be an uncaused cause.

That's false.

It cannot be true.

You mean, there has to be every cause is preceded by a previous cause, right?

No.

So, let me clarify.

So, the beginning of the universe, whether God created it, whether it's the Big Bang or whatever you want to call it,

it cannot have been through causality.

It could not have been caused.

Wait.

You're not talking about magic now, are you?

That things just kind of happened for no reason?

Well, okay.

Let me define causality.

I don't know how to define causality without.

Using the universe.

There's two different ways that I know of.

Number one, it's just a shorthand way of saying system A turns into system B

over a duration of time, right?

Or you could say that you can use Aristotle's model.

He's got four causes, really, just care about the two.

Efficient cause, material cause.

And if the universe doesn't exist at some snapshot of reality,

then there's no material cause for the universe to come from.

So, there could not have been a cause of the universe.

Oh, magic.

Okay.

There's no reason for something to occur.

I'm not saying it's magic.

I'm saying we don't know what it is.

Sure it is.

Yeah, you are.

Look, look.

You're saying there's no real cause to it.

It just kind of occurred.

And this is what you want to hang your hat on?

What I'm saying is causality.

Is a phenomenon that occurs only in our universe.

And something that precedes the universe, you can't use the universe to create the universe.

You can't use things in the universe to create the universe.

Causality only exists in the universe, so causality could not have been involved in the creation of

the universe.

How do you know?

Because that's my understanding of causality.

I'm sorry.

You don't know.

So what you're doing is you're talking about a condition of existence that you have no idea what it means.

And you're saying, I don't know what it means.

It just happens to happen that way.

Don't need a cause for it.

Do you understand how incredibly irrational that is?

What you're doing, you don't even realize it.

It's not irrational.

Yes, it is irrational.

Are you claiming that causality can precede the universe or exist outside of it?

Yes.

Because the universe didn't bring itself into existence.

Because something that does not have an ontos has no properties, no characteristics.

Nothing is simply what rocks think of.

There's no ability or anything.

It can't bring itself into existence.

It's just not logically possible.

Wait.

Hold on.

There's this thing that nothing comes from nothing.

And that's self -contradictory.

Wait.

To say nothing comes from nothing refutes itself?

Yes.

So something comes from nothing.

Let me say it like this.

Everything that we see in a reality, even beyond the universe, we would think it can be modeled by

rules.

Hold on.

Let's get back to this.

Are you saying that something happens for no reason?

There's no cause.

It just happens?

Let me clarify.

I'm not expecting tricycles to appear in outer space.

Why not?

Yes, you are.

Yes, you are.

Because if nothing is there...

But I said nothing comes from nothing, which is true.

You say it's not true.

That means something comes from nothing.

That's what you're saying, right?

If there is a rule that says nothing can come from nothing,

then if nothing that truly exists... I can't say nothing exists, but if nothingness is

obtained, if there is nothing, if the state of a reality contains nothing, then the rule nothing comes

from nothing cannot exist.

And if it can't exist, it doesn't apply.

Your parachute's not opening on this, okay?

You're in free fall.

Look, if nothing has no properties...

Then the rule from nothing nothing comes does not exist.

Nothing has no properties, has no characteristics.

It isn't anything.

You can't derive...

Hold on.

Hold on.

Hold on.

You can't derive something out of something that doesn't exist.

It just doesn't work.

It's logically impossible.

There's nothing there.

It doesn't bring itself into existence because there is nothing.

There's nothing.

You're not saying...

If I say to you, nothing comes from nothing and you say it's false, then you're saying that something comes from nothing.

How is that possible?

Not necessarily.

The most commonly held position is that there just can't be nothing.

It's just not even possible.

Well, how do you know from your perspective?

Because...

Suppose there's nothing.

Then the rule from nothing nothing comes doesn't exist.

So it doesn't apply.

There you go.

If that rule doesn't apply, then what can happen?

Something can come from nothing.

What you're doing is you're imposing a universal logical system upon an idea.

The idea of nothingness, which we can't even describe.

It has no properties.

But we can say that nothing has no properties.

Nothing can come from it and it can't perform an action.

Which requires cognition and requires the laws of logic.

Which means that the laws of logic and nothingness aren't related to each other.

Nothingness as a concept is subjected to the laws of logic, which are universal abstract entities.

But again,.

You're doing a glass half -empty approach here.

You're saying that nothingness has no potential.

But I'm also saying.

Nothingness has no restrictions either.

You can't say that.

Why not?

Because it's nothing.

There are no restrictions on nothing.

There's nothing.

You can't even apply anything to it.

You can't say there aren't any restrictions on it.

You can't say...

Look, you're not thinking.

This is what atheism does to you.

It takes the hamstrings in your brain and it slices them.

You just can't go very far.

You're actually telling me that you're understanding or trying to argue about what nothing is and how it can relate

to actuality.

This is where you have to go.

I asked you if it's always wrong.

I asked you if it's always wrong to torture babies with this.

You said yes.

From your subjectivism, you offer universal absolute, which you can't do that consistently from your position.

I show you that the universal transcendentals, if you want to talk about that some other time, we can talk about that and why atheism can't

account for those either.

But now what we're talking about is causation.

I can't believe it.

You're telling me that things can come into existence on their own without a cause?

This is just a thought exercise.

The idea of what I'm trying to say is I don't think nothingness can even exist.

It's a wrong statement.

Nothingness doesn't exist because it's nothing.

There is no existence to it.

Right.

The state of reality in which there is nothing.

Cannot be obtained, is what I'm saying.

Right.

And what's the cause of the universe?

It's not nothing.

I don't know. There's already something.

It's something.

The cause of something precedes the something.

The cause is either personal or it's impersonal.

If it's impersonal, we have logical problems.

I can show you those if you want to call back tomorrow, I can show you.

Because we're out of time.

If I can, I usually work around this time.

But I'll call back sometime when I can.

Okay.

You might want to go to my website and look up the issue of a teleological argument.

No, don't use that one.

Use the causation argument.

And necessary and sufficient conditions.

You get familiar with them.

Atheists always stumble with these.

They always do.

It's the same argument.

Same thing.

Okay?

Alright.

Thanks for talking.

Alright.

Well, that was a good conversation.

I hope it was interesting and entertaining.

And I enjoyed it.

If you are interested in continuing this tomorrow, you'll have to wait until then.

And I hope you have a good evening.

May the Lord bless you.

And by His grace, we'll be back.

On air tomorrow.

We'll talk to you then.

God bless you.

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