Bashir Vania

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.
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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And welcome to the Janet Mefford Show. Wait a minute, what are we doing? Where am
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I? I don't know. That's not going to make any sense five years from now listening on the
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Wayback Machine, but I guess I should explain that this is hour number four for me today anyways.
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I did get a break anyways, a couple hours break, I suppose that makes it somewhat better. But some of you, well,
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I don't know if anybody, I don't think any station carries all three hours live, so I doubt there'd be anybody, unless you were listening to the feed live, have already heard three hours worth of the program today.
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But I've been filling in for, and I can feel it in my voice, I'm going to have to back it off a little bit here, but I've been filling in for Janet Mefford on the
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Salem Broadcasting Network the last two days, and I've got one more day tomorrow, and tomorrow
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I don't have any guests, so it's just going to be me, myself, and I. But today, yesterday
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I had Carl Truman on the first hour, and that was fun. He and I get along real well and have similar senses of humor, if people could identify it as that.
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And then today, Dr. K. Scott Oliphant, both, I've just been,
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I think Westminster needs to send me some books or something for all the advertising I've been doing for them for the past two days, but Dr.
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Oliphant, who teaches Systematic Theology and Apologetics there at Westminster in Philadelphia, joined me and we,
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I got through, Dr. Oliphant has ten tenets in his book
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Covenantal Apologetics, and I think, I sort of squished together some of them,
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I guess, and sort of, we had to summarize some of them in some way.
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But we got through about eight of them, I would say, and that was pretty good.
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I was sort of proud of myself for having gotten quite that far. But I know it's a subject probably not overly normal for a program like that.
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You know, I was a little concerned that some people might have some issues with that.
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But it went well. We had a really good time together. And then the next hour
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I did 1 Corinthians chapter 1, and we got some interesting calls, including a
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Universalist. Yeah, that was interesting. These haven't been posted yet. I just checked on Janet's site, and they're not up yet.
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I did put a link up. Jordan Legg had asked me on Twitter where the interview, because then the third, well, actually,
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I just realized Jordan Legg didn't understand what I said. Someone had asked me where the link would be, and I checked, and they're not up yet.
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So probably tomorrow, today's programs will be up and so on and so forth. But I had said the third hour, then
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I did a review of Reza Aslan's book. And so he actually asked, can we get a link for the archive of that interview?
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I didn't do an interview with Aslan. I don't think we'd end up doing an interview, especially since some of the stuff
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I read today. I didn't mention this on The Mefferd Show, but some of the tweets that I have read from two different sources from Aslan have been troubling, foul, profane, nasty, just nasty, extremely unscholarly.
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Though, obviously, there are many people who are called scholars who are profane and nasty and everything else. So I suppose it shouldn't be how
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I describe it. But anyway, it's been really interesting.
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It's a whole lot easier to do this, to do The Dividing Line. More enjoyable, too, in this sense.
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I have this clock. I have this – well, not really a clock, but I just have these breaks, and they're called hard breaks.
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You've got to go into them. And so Bobby Belt, the professor – yeah, right. Well, the professor of the program.
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The producer of the program, he can talk to me in my earphones.
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And so it starts at six minutes after, and I've got to do one of these quick promos.
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I've got to do about a five - to seven -second thing about what the program is going to be about.
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And so you have to come up with that, hope you get it right the first time. And then the theme music starts, and then you go from six to – what is the first one?
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Thirteen, I think. Yeah, six to thirteen, and then you take a four -minute break. And then the next section is the longest section you have where you're actually live on the air.
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You get the most done there. And then you go out at 30, and you come back in at 34, and then you've only got six minutes.
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You go out at 40, and you have four, and then you go to 52, and that's eight minutes.
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And then you've got three and a half at the end, basically, before the hour is over with.
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And they're hard breaks. You can't miss them. You can't go, ah, let's just skip this one. It doesn't work that way.
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And if you're interviewing somebody and you ask them a question, you've got to sit there and go, are they going to get this done, or how do
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I interrupt them nicely? So it's different.
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Here, I just talk for an hour. And if I go, ah, let's take a break, then we can queue up a break.
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And it's the same old commercials all the time. I will never forget when we first left
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KPXQ and went webcasting. By the way, I'm in the studio where you were, because you'd look over at the studio
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I was in. Right. But where you were is the studio. So the old engineering studio?
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Yeah, that's where I'm doing it. So is that still the engineering studio, or did they just simply move that?
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I don't know, because both KKNC and KPXQ are there, and it's all done by computer.
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Well, I will never forget, I tried to put together this structure. Oh, yeah, right.
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And I'm like, okay, we'll take a break here and here. And you're like, well, you can try.
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That's right, that's right. Yeah. Well, most radios like that, though.
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I mean, when I grew up doing radio, though, the only hard break I had, and when
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I say grew up, I was on air at age 16. Actually, I think age 15. But the only hard break
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I had was UPI News at the top of the hour. I mean, if you remember the old radios, they'd have a beep, they'd have a tone at the hour.
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So that was the only hard break I had. I would have stuff, you know, at the half hour you're supposed to do X, Y, or Z, but it didn't have to be right on.
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It was a soft break. You could slide into it, and it could be 30 seconds either direction. It didn't make any difference. Well, given the fact that you haven't,
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I don't think, in the six hours between yesterday and today, uttered the word, uh, once.
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Not a single time. That's interesting. That I've noticed. I think folks can tell you've done radio before.
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Oh, well, yeah. And this is kind of second nature to you. Well, it is, but it's still different than this.
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This is a whole lot easier. This is less stressful.
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Today was easier than yesterday. Today was a lot easier than yesterday. Once you start getting the breaks down, it's like, oh, okay.
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And you know when Bobby's going to be talking to you in the ears. And at two minutes, he'll go, two minutes.
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And sometimes you have to go, did I hear that? And the thing is, because of the delay, it's not on the clock.
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It's eight seconds earlier than the clock. So you're having to go, okay, 52 seconds.
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And the first day, it's just sort of like, meh. But you get used to it.
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And Bobby's probably listening to this already and probably laughing and going, stop telling our secrets and things like that.
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But he did laugh today when I told him during one of the breaks. I said, I'm just going to have to say good afternoon. I have to say good afternoon.
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Because whenever you're on hold for Janet, either as a guest or a caller, Janet's got this recorded things.
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And do I say good afternoon? Because our program airs at different times during the day. And you just get this overwhelming evil desire to say good afternoon.
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It's like, don't eat the cookies. You just have to do it. Anyway, that was ‑‑ but at least every few minutes, you get a four‑minute break.
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I suppose that's better than nothing if you're, you know. But the music is just so relaxing during the four‑minute break.
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You just sort of fall asleep and then wake up. Anyways, I did,
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I actually, believe it or not, I am quite the multitasker today. I looked up the ten tenets real quick.
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I just opened up Kindle and grabbed the book. And this is what Dr. Oliphant and I talked about today.
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If you have not picked up the book, we should, by the way, we should carry it. Obviously, it should be something we should carry.
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We're always a little bit behind. We're just the world's greatest marketers. But the ten tenets, he seemed to enjoy going over those.
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And it sort of gave some structure to our conversation. And it was a good conversation.
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I think I'd love to see if we could have it posted longer than it normally is posted or get a copy of it or something like that, because I think it was a good discussion.
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But the ten tenets that Dr. Oliphant has, if I recall, is page 55 of the paper edition of the text.
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The faith that we are defending, this is number one, must begin with and necessarily include the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who as God condescends to create and to redeem.
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So we start with the Christian God. We don't start with a mere, a bare theism, a mere theism, a general theism, because, as Dr.
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Oliphant likes to say, general theists go to hell. Not go to hell, general theists, but it's an observation.
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It's a fact, not a curse. Number two, God's covenantal revelation is authoritative by virtue of what it is.
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And any covenantal Christian apologetic will necessarily stand on and utilize that authority in order to defend Christianity.
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And so we're talking about the revelation of God in Christ, especially about Scripture itself at that point.
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Number three, it is the truth of God's revelation together with the work of the Holy Spirit that brings about a covenantal change from one who is in Adam to one who is in Christ.
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If a person is going to experience that great grace of God in conversion, then it is the truth of God's revelation together with the work of the
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Holy Spirit that brings that about. And you don't trust in that, then you're always going to be looking for something else, and you're going to be looking for some other kind of apologetic methodology, which, unfortunately, is what many people do.
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Man, male and female, as image of God, is in covenant with the triune God for eternity. What I did is
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I took four, five, and six, and I sort of squished them together because we were running out of time. You only have, like I said, what, six?
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I forget what it is. I've been staring at it, and I can't add it all up. But you've got less than 40 minutes per hour,
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I think, grand total. So it's not a lot of time. So I put all these together.
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Number five, all people know the true God, and that knowledge entails covenantal obligations. And number six, those who are and remain in Adam suppress the truth that they know.
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Those who are in Christ see that truth for what it is. And so we sort of put them together as a summary of biblical anthropology.
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You've got to know who it is you're trying to reach. And you've got to know that they're going to be suppressing the truth. You've got to know that they're made in the image of God.
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These are vitally important things. And he agreed that that really is the dividing line. And that certainly came out in the
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Jarosz conversation. I feel really badly. I am three quarters of the way through a fairly lengthy response to Kurt Jarosz written.
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I have just never finished it. I started it when I was in New Mexico. Just too many things.
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I've got all this going on, and I've got to get sermon prep done before Sunday. And I've got all sorts of emails going back and forth about stuff in South Africa and all the rest of that kind of thing.
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And so it's just like, ah! I'll get to it eventually. Someday. By then, no one will care anymore.
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But we'll get to it eventually. Number seven, there is an absolute covenantal antithesis between Christian theism and any other opposing position.
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Thus, Christianity is true, and anything opposing it is false. I had a good conversation of the radical nature of that last statement.
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But the radically logical statement. The radically logical nature of that last statement. Thus, Christianity is true, and anything opposing it is false.
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That's just given from the nature of truth and error. And given that so many people reject objective truth, it makes sense why they would find that to be just so offensive.
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Number eight, suppression of the truth like the depravity of sin is total but not absolute. Thus, every unbelieving position will necessarily have within it ideas, concepts, notions, and the like that it has taken and wrenched from their true
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Christian context. This is the stealing from the Christian worldview issue. I didn't read that one, but we did get to it.
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We did touch upon it as well. Number nine, the true covenantal knowledge of God and man together with God's universal mercy allows for persuasion and apologetics.
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And number ten, every fact and experience is what it is by virtue of the covenantal, all -controlling plan and purpose of God.
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Good tenets to look at. Good book to have if you want to just hold. If you haven't gotten it yet, then wait until we offer it and then get it from us.
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But most people I know have already gotten it, who are already interested in these types of things.
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So that's been great. Tomorrow, I'm not 100 % certain what I'm going to be doing, but I'll probably in the first hour talk about whatever
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Christian needs to know about the Koran. I did sort of during the Aslan thing go off on a tangent about Laylat al -Qadr, because this is
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Ramadan right now, and this is the week of Laylat al -Qadr. And I've explained
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Laylat al -Qadr on the program before, the Night of Power. But if you didn't hear that, just really briefly, the odd numbers of that last week, 21, 23, 25, 27, and if it's long enough, 29.
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One of those evenings, one of those nights is called Laylat al -Qadr. Now, the
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Muslims do not know exactly which night it is. It had been revealed to Muhammad, according to the
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Hadith. But then when he came out and he was about to tell the people which night it was, they were arguing with one another.
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And because they were arguing with one another, he was caused to forget which of the nights it was, other than it was one of those odd -numbered nights.
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Muhammad had this weird thing for odd numbers. He'd only eat an odd number of dates and you're only supposed to use an odd number of rocks to cleanse yourself when you go to the bathroom and all this other sorts of strange stuff.
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So anyway, I don't know which night of Ramadan it is right now.
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I didn't look it up. Maybe somebody can go online and tell me right now which night of Ramadan it is.
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But sometime around this time, what that means is that our Muslim friends are probably doing all -night stuff right now and sleeping during the day.
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Because prayers on the night of Laylatul Qadr, forgiveness of sins on the night of Laylatul Qadr are much greater than any other night of the year, according to Muhammad's teachings.
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And that's going on right now. So I sort of took a little diversion there and explained that, which is not the normal kind of stuff that they're probably used to.
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And the affiliates are probably going, what is this guy doing?
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But those have to recognize that I'll be out of there by the end of the weekend.
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She'll be back. It must be tough, though, to do a program like that. You just don't get a whole lot of time off.
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And Bobby was telling me that they've only had a few guest hosts. She must do this a lot.
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So anyway, I guess J .D. Hayworth filled in for once.
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And Wheaton, who? No, the tennis player that I was on with just recently.
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Huh? David Wheaton. Right. He's filled in, too. Sorry about that, David. But it's been a long day.
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I have a number of items here in the GetPocket .com.
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It's a nice little program, I've got to admit. An app or whatever you call it. Website? I don't know. I have
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GetPocket on my phone, on my iPad, on my Macs.
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Anyplace I've got a browser, I've got this thing. And when I run across something that I want to use in a program now,
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I used to do this. How did I do it? I did it in Chrome. Oh, yeah, I dropped it into a bookmark thing
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I had. But since I've had to stop using Chrome as my primary browser because it likes to fry
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Mac CPUs, I found this website called
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GetPocket .com. And you can just click a thing, and poof, it's there. Really, really nice.
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Really, really useful. One of them was actually sent to me by Bobby Belt, who's Janet Mefford's producer.
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I don't think he'll mind if I use some of the things he sent to me that I didn't use in the program, but use them now.
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Creation science and intelligent design are religion and not appropriate content for science courses at a public university such as Ball State University because it violates academic integrity, the school's principal said in a letter
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Wednesday to faculty and staff. Intelligent design is overwhelmingly deemed by the scientific community as a religious belief and not a scientific theory.
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Therefore, intelligent design is not appropriate content for science courses, Joanne Gora wrote. She wrote that more than 80 national and state scientific societies have said that intelligent design and creation science do not qualify as science.
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Such ideas can be taught in humanities or social science courses, she said, but must be discussed in comparison to other views and philosophical perspectives, each other with no endorsement of one perspective over another.
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It's just amazing the blindness of the academy and academics.
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I think what we're seeing is the result of academics where not only, of course, as expelled, documented so thoroughly and could document with even more thoroughness today, the bias and bigotry on the part of the science community that is absolutely parallel to the bias and bigotry of the
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Roman Catholic Church with Galileo. Just an utter unwillingness to even consider the possibilities that the prevailing sentiments are incorrect.
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But the utter nonreflective nature of especially scientists who are just completely ignorant of epistemology and all the things that they are completely controlled by but don't even know it.
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I guess a good parallel would be when you talk to certain people. Remember Dave Hunt?
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James, I have no traditions. Yes, Dave, you do. But the fact that you don't think you do means you don't see them.
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And that's the same thing here. Here you've got an academic, and that's just religion. All these groups have said so, and they must have thought through it fairly.
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Well, no, they didn't actually. But we're still going to make this statement.
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It is an amazing thing. And anybody who can look at the complexity of life and go, ah, intelligent design?
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No, no. I mean, it's so basic. It's so clear. And so anybody who doesn't see it, if that doesn't demonstrate to you their foolish hearts are darkened,
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I don't know what would. I really don't know what would. It shouldn't be shocking to us.
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I mean, this is just a fulfillment of Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 1 and 2. It is, but that's the way that is.
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Another one that was sent to me was very interesting. I'm not going to read it, but there was one from ChristianPost .com.
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Economist pitches plan to reverse decline of United Methodist Church before it, quote, ceases to exist as we know it, end quote.
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Why don't these, I don't even know why they've ever been called mainline in the first place. I don't know where that term came from, mainline denominations.
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But why can't anyone get the clue that abandoning historic
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Christianity is bad for a denomination? I mean, all you've got to do is look at the numbers and it's just, you know, that's the only way to describe it is this massive decline.
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In fact, I think I have one in here that talks about the, yeah, why is liberal
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Protestantism dying anyway? Well, duh, there's a reason for it.
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And I guess that wasn't the one that had the graph in it. There was one that had a graph that was really, really interesting that just showed the decline, and it's like it's real clear, it's real obvious, why don't you recognize really what's going on?
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But they don't. And then, of course, this X -key score thing, you know, the
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NSA X -key score thing where Snowden is saying that basically it's not just our phone calls.
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It's everything. It is everything. It's every online chat. It is every email.
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It's all there, which, of course, the government's saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
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No, you can't. No, you can't. No, you can't. They just get shriller and shriller and shriller.
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But they've actually got the presentations. It's the PowerPoint stuff on how to do this stuff.
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It's like, hello. It's called documentation. No, no, we can't. No, we can't do that.
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Oh, yes, you can. You just got to realize something. If you say something with any type of a microphone, electronic microphone, anywhere nearby you, just assume you're talking to the government.
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If you type it, if you say it, I think we should all just start walking around, texting each other, witnessing to all the people in the government that are listening to us.
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That might be the best way to do evangelism in the future, until they start doing other things.
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Yes, sir? As you say that, in my Facebook feed this morning, there's a story of a family.
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He's sitting on the computer Googling backpacks, while she's sitting on her computer
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Googling pressure cookers. Next thing you know, they have six stormtroopers on their doorstep.
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And at first, the story was they were feds. And now the feds are saying, no, it wasn't us.
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So apparently this was a, what do you call it, when different agencies get together, a task force.
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Terrorism task force in Massachusetts. Locals. The question is, how did the locals know that she was
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Googling? Oh, no, you can't do that. The Obama administration has told us you can't.
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No, no, they're not watching. No, no, no. We all believe you. Yeah, right.
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I'll tell you. Government is an aggregation of sinners.
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And if that's not good enough reason to fear the government, I don't know what else would be.
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But anyways. Anyhow, lots of interesting stuff. There was also another one that I had actually come with this.
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Rafe Badawi. Saudi Arabia. Islamic authorities sentenced a liberal journalist to six hundred lashes and seven years in prison after he questioned the role of religion.
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And this is in Saudi Arabia. Yeah. Rafe Badawi, founder of the
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Free Saudi Liberals website, was sentenced to six hundred lashes and seven years in prison. His crime, insulting Islam, speaking ill of Saudi Arabia's religious beliefs.
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I think you just did that. And most puzzling of all, parental disobedience.
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There you go. There you go. Can you can can you survive six hundred lashes?
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Or is that just done like, you know, 30 a day for 20 days?
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Or I don't even know. I don't even know. Jared's Infant and Channel.
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We should just walk around evangelizing the government via prism. Hey, let's use everything.
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You know, let's maybe we can just get all those people that are listening to everything we're doing saved. Well, I was
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Googling my pressure cooker the other day and looking for a backpack. And then you go into a prison. I started thinking about how sinful
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I am and my need of salvation. Yes, that's that would be the way to do it.
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Wow. Amazing. Because that's scary because I was I actually Googled backpack recently.
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And I'll tell you why. When I rode the double triple bypass, I I decided
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I needed to carry enough rain stuff, but I didn't want to wear the rain stuff. I didn't have anything to carry it in.
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There's there's just too much for my jersey. And so I did is I I used my little it's called a camelback or it's a water reservoir.
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But this is a type that didn't have the flap over it. So it just had this big hole. It worked.
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But, you know, what I want is a really small one. So I actually saw an ad advert, you know, the side column things.
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I clicked on it. And and I'm just awful glad I wasn't looking for any cooking utensils at the same time.
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This is something you might want to avoid in the future. Yeah, that's interesting. Wow. Okay. Obviously, I have now wandered all over.
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Oh, we've covered everything so far. Yeah, I can only concentrate for I am three hours a day.
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That's it. I am now running in the red zone. And so that's just just how it works.
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I better go. I better get back to responding to Bashir Vanya here or I'm not going to know what in the world
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I'm talking about. At least when I'm responding to somebody, they're actually sort of providing the guidance of what
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I'm supposed to be talking about. So I suppose that's a good thing. All right. And that'll give us half an hour's worth of response, which is about what
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I've been doing, too. So that's that's good. Bashir Vanya, we've already listened to the beginning.
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Someone, by the way, I want to thank whoever did this. I don't have it up in front of me. But someone who was listening to the last program looked up all the member
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Bashir quoted all these people. And so he looked them up.
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He looked up who these people were and when they lived. And they're all from the late 1800s. All of them.
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Nothing from the modern period. Nothing that would reflect, for example, the existence of the papyri or anything like that. It was pretty weird.
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And I appreciate that email. Thank you very much for saying that to me. But we continue on listening to Bashir Vanya's opening statement.
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Let me sum it up quickly for you. Firstly, the most complete manuscripts of the
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New Testament, Codex Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Codex Visa, are dated at around 400
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A .D. And, as I was just saying, very, very dated information.
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Not accurate. Putting Sinaiticus with Basica and Canterburgensis when they're about a century or more separated from each other.
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And, of course, the real issue being the fact that now we have the papyri. And, okay, you might say, yes, but you have the papyri, but he said complete manuscripts.
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And so we're actually okay. Yeah, but if you haven't even mentioned the papyri, that's not a good thing.
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Because the papyri are extremely important in the establishment. And the demonstration that the text found in the unsealed manuscripts themselves has a history preceding it.
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And it didn't just pop into existence somewhere. The Gospels, in fact,
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Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, strangely enough, we do not have the Gospel of Jesus by Jesus.
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And, now, you might go, what? But, again, this is a misunderstanding of the
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Quran itself. Well, it may be a misunderstanding. Let me put it this way.
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The author of the Quran is ignorant of the New Testament. That's just a fact. There is no recognition on the part of the author of the
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Quran of the actual contents and teachings of the New Testament.
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As a result, the author of the Quran has heard of the Gospel and assumes that the
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Gospel is a book. And so, since there is not a... and that it was given to Jesus, because it was, you know,
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Christians would talk about the Gospel of Jesus. And so, because there is no, quote -unquote,
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Gospel of Jesus, then Muslims, taking the Quran as their ultimate authority, some
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Muslims, most Muslims, sadly, go, oh, well, yeah, the Gospel is given to Jesus, but that's not the
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Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, or anything like that, following, anachronistically, going backwards, the ignorance of the author of the
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Quran. Assuming, therefore, that there was a book given to Jesus that somehow
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Jesus failed to preserve, and somehow Jesus' disciples failed to preserve, and somehow there's not even a reference to anywhere in history at all.
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Now, which is more likely? That Jesus failed, all his apostles failed, and that none of history even records this, or that one guy in Saudi Arabia, 600 years, didn't know what he was talking about?
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Which is more likely? It's pretty clear. Pretty clear.
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Which is more likely. But, once again, when you just start with, well, the
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Quran just sort of exists unto itself, and yeah, it talks about the stuff that's come before it, but we don't need to worry about that.
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We don't need to judge it on that line. We just need to go with whatever it says. And the Reverend T.
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Manley, M .A. from Cambridge, tells us, all four Gospels are anonymous.
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None bears its writer's name. Well, again, a nice theory. Where'd those names come from?
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I mean, the text itself doesn't say, I, John, wrote X, Y, and Z, as if that's relevant. And again, later developed
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Islamic thought says, well, you know, when you think about it, we've only got one book and only one author, so let's make that really important.
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You can't have any books that are written by multiple people, or you can't have any books where you don't know who the author was, because that makes it spurious.
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Well, that wasn't the standard then, still isn't the standard. And when you ask, why is that? It is the standard, they just default back to, well, it just is.
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And that's not the way to do things. That is from the Bible handbook. In other words, there is no proof or no title that Matthew wrote
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Matthew, Luke wrote Luke, and so forth. Before I continue, ladies and gentlemen, an important question.
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And the question is, did you spot the difference? If not, allow me to spell it out for you.
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I began by quoting prominent non -Muslim scholars, some of them openly hostile towards Islam and Muslims, who have assured us that the historical reliability and authenticity of the
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Quranic scriptures are beyond question. I then proceeded to quote a public committee.
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Now, by the way, none of those sources mentioned anything that the Islamic sources themselves tell us about the history of the
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Quran. None of them mentioned Ubay ibn Kab, none of them mentioned Abdul ibn Masud, none of them mentioned any of the
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Palimpsest, well, of course, they were probably all written before any of the Palimpsest manuscripts, the Sahana manuscripts, or anything else have been found.
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So, I'm sorry, but to go that far back and then ignore the massive developments, both in New Testament studies as well as in Quranic studies.
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Now, there's still so much work to be done in the area of trying to come up with a critical text of the
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Quran, but still, that doesn't really give you an accurate representation of the current state.
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Impeccable credentials, who have also assured us that there are serious problems with biblical manuscripts and biblical scriptures.
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Serious problems. In what way? Define them. See, the assumptions, this is the primary issue with my
35:17
Muslim friends, is the assumptions that are made. The assumption is, well, you have to know who wrote every book for it to be authentic.
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Why? You have to have, especially when it comes to synoptic gospels, and I'm talking with Yusuf Ismail right now about the topic of our debate.
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I want the debate to be on the transmission methodology of the
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Quran in the New Testament, similar to what Adnan Rashid and I did, which people have only seen one version of.
35:50
I really need to start pressing on that issue where Adnan has been very helpful in trying to get the videos from last year, but it's the folks higher up in the era that are basically stonewalling us, and what
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I'm concerned about is that we're going to run into one of these situations where basically, for the first time in a long time, we're going to have someone saying, well, we're not going to give you the videos.
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Even though you were in it, and even though this has your presentation in it, we're not going to give you the videos.
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And it's been nearly a year now, Adnan has done what he can do, and so I'm really hoping it's not going to come to that, because that could really start causing a problem with other debates.
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I mean, are we really going to have to have some type of legal, notarized, we have to start spending money to have attorneys involved, to get contracts written out, and do all the rest of this stuff.
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I thought this was a matter of honor, you know, that both sides want to get their presentations out, and so the two debates that we did on the text of the
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Quran and the text of the New Testament were professionally recorded by the
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Muslim side in a Baptist church, and we've seen the one, it's on YouTube, but we want, the agreement always is, and the agreement we had with them was, unedited masters.
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You provide the unedited masters to both sides. And then you make your own version available.
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You don't have to put up the other guy's version, it has their symbol on it, or something like that. And we've done this, every time that we've been in control of the recording, we've always done this, and everyone can tell you that.
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We've been open about it. So, to whoever it is in the
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IRA hierarchy, and to the other Muslims who listen, you might want to contact them, because what they're doing is endangering your ability for us to engage in debates in the future, without unnecessary complication.
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We shouldn't be waiting for a year, and we shouldn't have to be waiting. It's not a matter of, well, you know, we can't pay the guy to do the editing or something, because one of them is already up on YouTube.
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The issue is, well, we're waiting for permission from higher -ups to give it to you. Look, this is just a matter of honor.
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This is just a matter of being truthful. That's all. You record a debate that I did, that's got my presentation in it.
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It's dishonest to not give it to me. That's all there is to it. It's just a matter of honor. If you want to do future debates, if you want to do debates in the future, folks in the
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IRA, listen, if you want to do debates in the future, then you provide these videotapes. If you want that to be the last debate, and us to have to warn everybody, you can't deal with these folks, because they won't be honest with you.
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And they will just record it, and then will not provide the unedited masters. Well, then, that's your choice.
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But it would be a shame, because those were great debates. And I think it's interesting that the only one they've put up, well, we'll see.
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Let's hope that this doesn't have to happen. Let's hope we can report for you very soon.
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The IRA has gotten us, after a year, almost a year, the videotapes that was well understood, the night of the debate, well understood that we were to be provided.
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Let's just hope that happens, okay? I'm talking about the IRA here. I'm not talking about Adnan.
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Adnan has, to my knowledge, done everything he can do to try to get this resolved, and I appreciate that, and I'm looking forward to further conversation with Adnan and so on and so forth.
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So I just thought I'd mention that in passing. Let's not start this, we're going to record it, but not going to give it to you stuff.
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Whenever we're the ones recording, we have always provided it. And when a third party has been recording it, both sides get unedited masters.
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That is just the way it has to be. And that's just the way we go back.
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Let us focus a little bit now on internal evidence, and I must confess, I prefer internal evidence for two reasons.
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Firstly, it allows the Quran and the Bible to speak for itself, and secondly, it allows you, the audience, to check right here, right now, from within the comfort of your chairs, whether I'm telling the truth or not.
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I have with me two Bibles. I've got the Catholic version, and I have the
40:41
Protestant version. What is the difference? Catholic version, 73 books, Protestant version, 66 books.
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Now, you know, I can understand why Muslim apologists raise the canon issue.
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Just as Christian apologists will point out the canonical differences in the much smaller
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Quran, between Abdullah ibn Masud and Ubaid ibn Kab, and the Uthmanic Reversion, and so on and so forth.
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So, too, they're going to raise this issue. Interestingly enough, though, given that the
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Quran specifically states that the Torah is given to the
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Jews, and that this is reflected in Paul's own statement in Romans chapter 3, that the oracles of God were entrusted to the
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Israelites, I would think that if they would do some research on this, that they wouldn't raise this issue, and that they would support the
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Protestant canon. Why? Because the Jews did not consider the apocryphal books to be
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Scripture. That's very clear. They were never laid up in the temple. All you've got to do, we make this book available.
41:54
Of course, is Roger Beckwith's tremendous work, the Old Testament Canon and the New Testament Church. But the reality is that even in Christian history, there has been a broad and in -depth stream of people from the beginning who have rejected the canonical status of the apocryphal books all the way up to the time of the
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Reformation, even including the cardinal who interviewed Luther, Cardinal Cayetan, in his commentary on the
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Bible, published prior to the beginning of the Council of Trent. You have
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Jerome's view taken and a rejection of those books as being canonical. Even the
42:33
Bishop of Rome, the great Gregory the Great, viewed them as non -canonical, or at least some of them as non -canonical.
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So, you know, obviously an issue we've debated more than once. I've debated Gary Machuta on this issue, and Jerry Matitix on the issue of the apocrypha.
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And we go into depth in those particular debates.
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But I've never heard a Muslim apologist show any real knowledge of the historical issues here.
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It's almost always just, well, it's sort of like they're quoting from a website someplace, rather than having really done any in -depth study of these particular materials.
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In other words, a difference of seven whole books. These books are known as the apocrypha.
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In Greek, that which is hidden. According to the Catholics, who accept these books...
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And canonized them officially when? I happen to know. How about you?
43:40
Yeah, April of 1546. April of 1546. It is regarded as books of sacred origin.
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To the Protestants, who reject these books, it is regarded as books of doubtful origin.
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Take your pick, whether you are Catholic or Protestant. I'd rather take my pick based upon the biblical testimony and the historical testimony.
44:03
It is not for me as a Muslim to get involved in this argument between Catholics and Protestants, except to state that it is quite interesting that the seven extra books are to be found in the
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Greek translation of the scriptures, the Septuaginta. Well, sort of.
44:17
They are found in Christian manuscripts of the
44:23
Greek Septuagint. But the assumption that many people make is that since they're in the
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Septuagint, the Septuagint was the Old Testament scriptures of the New Testament church, that means that they are canonical.
44:37
Again, I would direct anyone to the excellent discussion of that very issue in Beckwith's book,
44:44
The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church. All these seven books are to be found in the Old Testament. Let me now refer you now to the
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New Testament. Again, two versions. The King James Version and the
44:58
Revised Standard Version. What is the difference? The King James Version goes back to the ancient manuscripts.
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The Revised Standard Version, the most ancient manuscripts. Sort of.
45:14
Obviously, the far more accurate way to state it is the King James Version is based upon the Textus Receptus, which is based upon half a dozen to a dozen
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Byzantine manuscripts of the 11th to 14th centuries, approximately.
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And the modern texts, including the Revised Standard Version, certainly not the one I would be referring to, but anyways, primarily upon the
45:39
Alexandrian text. I listened again yesterday morning to Yusuf Ismail's debate with Brother Sikkim down there in South Africa, where he laid out his primary textual arguments against the
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New Testament. And I need to get the video, because I was listening to the audio,
46:00
I need to look at the video. But I'm concerned that Yusuf Ismail might have bought into some King James -only stuff, because at one point he argues that the modern
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Greek texts, the eclectic Greek texts, UBS, any Messiaen platform, only utilize 17 % of the manuscripts here, 18 % there.
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And I'm like, that sounds like some kind of King James -only argument, where they're saying, well, if you've got the majority of manuscripts reading one way, and it's reading a different way, then it's only using this number of manuscripts.
46:38
That's not an accurate way of putting it all. No scholar would put it in that way. Someone who's trying to make a point would, but no scholar would.
46:46
That if, for example, you look at a key variant, such as John 118, and whether you have
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Mnagonese Theos or Mnagonese Hwios, the only begotten God, the only begotten Son, that if you go with Theos, that you're only going with 5 % of the manuscripts.
47:08
No, you've examined 100 % of the manuscripts. But if you're going to make a textual decision, then if you choose the earliest manuscripts, including the two earliest papyri manuscripts of the
47:25
Gospel of John, P66 and P75, along with the earliest unseals, then you're somehow only utilizing 5 % or 10 % or something like that.
47:38
That's not an accurate, that's not how scholars would view it in their writings.
47:47
What is the difference? You will find that Christian scholars themselves tell us that many scribes, many people interpolated, they added on to the scriptures things which were not supposed to be in the scriptures.
48:00
So what they've done in the revised standard version is that... Well, again, let's talk about what quote -unquote interpolation means.
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Unfortunately, I think most of my Muslim friends think that that means that scribes sat around going, well,
48:20
I'd like to add something to this. That's not the case. An expansion of the text would come from a lot, many different reasons.
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I've pointed out, for example, the origin of the Gospel of John 5, verse 4 is probably a gloss, an explanation that was in the margins of a manuscript, and Christian scribes tended to be very conservative.
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That is, they didn't want to lose anything, and if they could not ascertain from the original author whether this was meant to be in the text or it was just a note in the text, they would include it.
48:56
And so you have that inclusion there at John 5, 4. You also have expansion due to memory.
49:05
So, for example, when you have parallel passages, especially in the Gospels, but it even happens in the
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Pauline epistles, where you have similar phraseology used in Ephesians and Colossians. In Colossians 1 .14,
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you have a parallel to Ephesians 1 .7. And so in a few manuscripts, you have an expansion in Colossians, only about nine manuscripts grand total, but you still have the expansion, based upon the fact that the scribe was familiar with the rendering in Ephesians and probably didn't even realize that the scribe was expanding the phrase.
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And it would be wonderful, it would be really interesting if we could have enough manuscripts collated and provided in a critical edition to examine the parallel text in the
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Quran, where the Quran tells the same story, but does so in different words, just like you have in the synoptics.
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So in the casting out of Iblis from heaven and the Sodom and Gomorrah story, there are parallel accounts, sometimes numerous, sometimes as many as four different accounts.
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And I bet you anything, if we could have the kind of information available for the
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Quranic manuscripts that we have for the New Testament, you would find that you would have the same type of accidental memory -based parallel corruption in those texts as you find in the
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New Testament as well. But we don't have that kind of information. The study of the Quranic text is at such an infant stage in comparison to the
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New Testament that we can't even look at it. But I bet you it's there. Same reasoning.
50:54
They have revised the Bible, and they have taken out many of the things that were not supposed to be there in the first place.
51:02
When you say taken out, if what you mean is the modern texts are able to recognize expansions.
51:10
I forgot to add the other source of expansion. I apologize. The expansion of piety, one that we've discussed many times, how the names of deity become expanded over time.
51:24
And again, I think it's just a matter of piety. So you start writing down the Lord, and it's more common for you to say the
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Lord Jesus, and so it gets expanded. Any examination of the Byzantine manuscripts in comparison with Alexandrian manuscripts will demonstrate this expansion of piety over time.
51:45
And again, it would be interesting to see if the same thing happens in the text of the Quran.
51:50
We just don't have the information to do it. And if you do this process, you will find that this process does away with some of Christianity's most cherished traditions.
52:00
For example, the conclusion of Mark, from chapter 8 onwards, not there. Why is that a cherished tradition?
52:09
The fact that the longer ending of Mark, or the medium ending of Mark, or the conflated ending of Mark, or whatever, the fact that Mark 16, 9 through 20, is a textual variant, even many of the early unseals contain sigla, or notations, or marks, noting this fact.
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This is something that's been known to us for a very, very, very, very, very long time. And again, it's only because we have a freely transmitted text that we even know this.
52:44
If there had been an Uthmanic revision 400 years down the road or something like that, we might not even know.
52:51
See, it's much better to have the information that demonstrates the variance than to have a controlled transmission where you wouldn't even know, especially if there has been a destruction of manuscripts to provide that revised edition, as you exactly have in the issue with Uthman.
53:11
So that's a very, very important issue. The classic verse on the Trinity, 1 John 25, verse 7.
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The Kamiohaniam is not a classic verse on the Trinity. What would make a verse a classic verse on the
53:23
Trinity? What would make it? What would qualify as a classic verse on the
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Trinity? It would be a verse that has been utilized throughout the history of the Church as one of the key texts demonstrating the doctrine of the
53:37
Trinity. This was not the case with the Kamiohaniam in the early Church. It was not.
53:45
Where did the early Churches utilize that particular text and make it a central aspect of their defense?
53:56
Where did Athanasius do that, for example? It was not a part of the
54:03
Greek manuscript tradition. It's still not a part of the Greek manuscript tradition. It was actually inserted into a
54:12
Greek manuscript in 1520. Codex Manfortianus, which is in the Trinity Library in Dublin.
54:18
I've held it in my hands and examined the text personally. But that doesn't mean it's a part of the manuscript tradition in the sense that it then became inserted into the printed editions, but it's not a part of the ancient manuscript tradition.
54:38
It's not in any of the unseals. It's not in the papyri. It's well known.
54:46
And every time I hear someone starting in on the Kamiohaniam, I just know this is not someone who has actually done first -hand study of the text of the
54:54
New Testament. Just hasn't done it. They're going on secondary information. They're not going on primary research information.
55:03
Not there. An interpolation and addition. The word begotten. John chapter 3, verse 16.
55:09
Not there. Jesus being the only begotten Son of God. Untrue. Just a factual misstatement on Bashir's part.
55:17
John, I assume he's probably confused by the same assertion that Yusuf Ismail made in regards to the
55:28
Latin translation of Unigenesis. I would assume that, anyways. That's what
55:34
I would think is actually going on there. But, John 3, verse 16.
55:42
The Greek term that is used there, monogenes, I am unaware of any variations whatsoever.
55:52
Certainly, Nessiol in 27th does not list any variations there. And I'm scanning down the
55:58
CNTTS here real quick to see if there's anything at all.
56:05
Loved, Theos, Kosmon, CNTTS is very long. Huion, we've got
56:12
Tan Monogenes, Tan Monogenes. All of them have monogenes.
56:19
There are different. The only variants in regards to monogenes are a few manuscripts where the scribe didn't know how to spell it.
56:29
So, manuscripts 13 and 346, monogenane, added a movable new.
56:38
Manuscripts 47 and 56 doubled the new. And that's just someone who doesn't know the root of the term.
56:48
They're going for ganao there, or just assumed it was there. And then there's even one, 58, that has two news and then a new after the ada.
56:56
But they're all spelling issues. The term itself is there.
57:05
And possibly, well, there's a number of translations that says indeterminable because of the meaning of the word.
57:15
And I've got one indication here of number 1478, which is a 11th or 12th century gospel manuscript located at Mount Athos, which may not have any word there at all.
57:32
But an 11th, 12th century manuscript is not going to give you any standing as far as trying to say that that term is not there.
57:41
So, remember, we're talking about the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John is the earliest attested in the papyri manuscripts.
57:51
And very clearly, the term monogamase was exactly what was written.
57:58
So I would challenge Bashir to check his facts on that and to change his presentation in light of the fact that, well, who knows?
58:10
I have been known to give some of my opponents a critical edition of the
58:16
Greek New Testament in debate. So, maybe. Oh, great.
58:22
Thanks, Brigham. I appreciate that. Somebody on the channel says, I think Doc is at his limit. Great. So I'm sitting here trying to work on looking at the
58:36
CNTTS apparatus, which some of you have never even seen the CNTTS apparatus. It is not easy to use and to scroll through.
58:46
And so what do I get? I get shot by my friends in the channel that, well, I guess that's about all you can handle one day, is four hours.
58:59
You must be getting old. Retire him. Get somebody else in there. Let's start working on when
59:06
Brigham's going to be doing a four -hour dividing line for us. Okay? You want to start scheduling that one right now?
59:12
That's what we're going to do. Why isn't the music playing? It's a minute and a half after when the music's supposed to be playing.
59:19
Oh, you want me to go longer. Thank you very much. Thank you ever so much.
59:26
I mean, today of all days, for you to be late on the music, make me talk for 90 more seconds.
59:36
Oh, gracious. Well, thanks for listening to Dividing Line today. I was going to say
59:43
I'm going to have a silent weekend where I don't talk, but I just realized I'm preaching. I think on Saturday I'm going to become a monk for a while and just vow of silence.
59:54
Thanks for listening. We'll be back again, Lord willing, next week. God bless. I believe we're standing at the crossroads
01:00:17
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Won't you lift up your voice Are you tired of plain religion It's time to make some noise
01:00:42
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01:00:50
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