BIASED! Debate Teacher Reacts to Hate Comments

Wise Disciple

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Poorly developed facial hair? How dare you?

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If I still had my mustache right now, it would crawl right off my lip and slap you right across the face.

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How dare you, sir? Welcome back, everybody.

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Got a brand new video for you. If this is your very first time hanging out with me, well, you sure picked a doozy of a video, okay?

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My name is Nate Zala. I'm the president of a Christian ministry called Wise Disciple, and here at Wise Disciple, we're all about living effectively as Christians in today's culture.

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As a lot of you know, I started a series back in 2020 when a lot of us had a lot more free time at home.

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Do you remember that? The series was called Debate Teacher Reacts, and the basic premise is I, as a former debate teacher here in Clark County in Las Vegas, Nevada, I look at,

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I analyze, I react to, and I judge apologetics and theology debates.

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The whole trick of the premise is a lot of these kinds of debates are more informal and therefore are not adjudicated more formally, and so I lean more formal, and I talk about who performed better, who

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I would say won the debate if we were holding to a more formal structure. And that means in these kinds of videos,

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I call out what was good, but I also call balls and strikes, as it were, and I declare winners and losers for most of the videos.

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And that has caused many on the loser's side to call me out. And so today, let's take a look at the quote -unquote hate comments.

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What do I mean by hate comments? Thanks for asking. I mean, not those comments where someone disagrees with me, but comments where not only do they disagree, but they also strive to go above and beyond, if I can put it that way.

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And also say things, make general observations about my intelligence, my bias, and my overall general appearance.

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So without further ado, I've got 10 -ish hate comments in no particular order.

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Let's go. You should retitle this to Christian Apologist Reacts to Debate. Okay, that still kind of flows off the tongue.

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Actually, you know what? That doesn't go far enough for me. How about this? Christian Apologist, who is a former debate teacher, reacts to an apologetics debate between a former atheist turned

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Christian and a popular skeptic who never makes a legitimate argument. Dunder Mifflin apologizes to valued client.

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Some companies still know how business is done.

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That's way better. So there's a couple of things with this. Number one, it sounds like I'm misleading people with these videos.

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The titles of the videos say, Debate Teacher Reacts. That's not untrue about me.

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I am a former debate teacher. The reason why I title these videos Debate Teacher Reacts is because these are in the same vein of other teacher react videos, doctor react videos, stuff like that, where there's something on the technical side that I want to focus on in these kinds of videos.

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Also, just so we're all on the same page, I don't consider myself an apologist, which is also why you don't see that in the title.

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Haters can disagree, but that's not how I see myself. Just being real. I am a

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Christian. I am a Protestant. I'm a teacher. I'm a pastor and the president of a

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Christian nonprofit organization. By the way, I say all this in the first minute of every video, if you're paying attention.

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But I just don't see myself as an apologist. You won't find very many videos of me arguing for the

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Christian faith using apologetics arguments. There are a lot of great ministries out there that do that kind of thing.

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That's not where my heart is at. My heart is in evangelism and discipleship. Those are the kinds of materials and videos you'll find here at this channel.

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I hope this guy doesn't actually teach debate. Oh yes, me teach debates.

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Me teach the debates for the students. As a matter of fact, I remember every year for student orientation,

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I would sit in the cafeteria with a huge sign that said, join the debate team and win arguments against your parents.

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That was just to get the students in the door. To be technical, I taught what is known as forensics.

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The second school I ever taught at here in Clark County in Las Vegas, the forensics teacher was retiring and so they put it out in the staff email if anybody wanted to take over for her.

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She was a very nice lady and I was tremendously interested in debates, but I didn't know anything about forensics.

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Forensics is debate plus speech. Speech consists of all kinds of subcategories.

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You got humorous interpretation, extemporaneous, dramatic interpretation, duo interpretation. In the area of speech,

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I really struggled. I was like fish out of water. That was just not my forte at all.

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Thankfully, there was a varsity team in place that helped me find my footing with all that stuff, but debate was way more my speed.

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As a matter of fact, I would always end the year with a huge mock murder trial. I put together a whole murder case with a defendant and everything.

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All students got involved and took on roles and they had to go through the murder trial as prosecuting and defense teams, judge, jury.

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It was a lot of fun. It was sort of a culminating assignment of everything they learned in the year.

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It was a really great time. Hopefully, something the students will still talk about to this day.

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Look at all those exclamation points. Oh, so you'll tell us what to think.

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Sure would be bad if people thought for themselves. What? I don't know how to respond to this.

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I don't disagree. I'm Ron Burgundy. I will say this.

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I'm not trying to tell people what to think in these videos. I'm trying to get people to understand what's happening from an inside baseball perspective, a debate teacher's perspective.

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I'm assuming that if you click the video, you already are thinking pretty well before you actually watched my video.

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As a matter of fact, I ask everyone at the end of every video, who do you think won the debate?

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So, I do actually enjoy when people think for themselves. That was a weird comment. All right, moving on.

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Oh, look, another apologist that doesn't understand how logic or evidence work. Is that the whole?

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Is there more? Was that the whole statement? Is there some specific example to support this?

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You know what it is? I'm noticing a pattern with comments like these. What I mean is, when a certain type of atheist or skeptic who is largely marked by a scientistic outlook, they adhere to some kind of positivism or something like that.

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When they see an apologist or a theologian in a debate talking about God or heaven or some of the more common features of the

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Christian worldview, they get angry because they think that evidence is only what can be shoved under a microscope.

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That's why you hear a lot of these kinds of folks say, demonstrate to me your God. They like that word demonstrate.

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I need to see what you're saying demonstrated to me. The problem with that is, evidence is bigger than what these folks think it is, all right?

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Evidence is anything that increases a person's warrant, okay? This is the Tolman model of arguing.

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Is the Tolman model a Christian invention? No. This is what a lot of schools use.

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This is what I used in the classroom as a teacher. The Tolman model kind of goes like this. If someone makes a claim, there must be data or evidence to support the claim, and then there must be a warrant.

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A warrant is the explanation as to how the evidence supports and justifies the claim, okay?

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That's a proper argument under the Tolman model. Again, is the Tolman model some kind of made -up Christian apologist thing?

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No. It's a universally recognized style of argumentation that many schools teach to their students.

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It is not an invention of Christianity. So then, where do these folks get this extremely reductionistic view of evidence from?

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Well, they get it from atheists and skeptics who only think evidence is what you can measure in the lab, all right?

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That's absolutely not the case, and it's a shame that so many people don't know any better because I think understanding what evidence really is will only seek to raise the level of discourse in debates.

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Man, for somebody who's supposed to be entirely neutral when watching these debates, you pick the same side every single time and say they did it better.

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I smell a biased agenda. This isn't a debate channel. It's a

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Christian Reacts to Christian vs. Atheist Debates and Always Picks the Christian Channel. I love it.

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I've turned these guys into Michael Scott over here. Not. So, if you've seen the

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Debate Teacher Reacts series, you know that that's not the case, okay? Christians lose these kinds of debates, too, and I've declared a number of atheists the winner of various debates.

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I think probably the most surprising winner to me, I mean, like, considering who was debating, was when

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Richard Dawkins beat John Lennox in a debate. My goal, and I know this is hard to wrap your head around, is not to be a

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Christian cheerleader. It's to call legitimate balls and strikes when I see them. It's not my fault that a lot of atheists don't do the hard work of research and development of thought when they hit the debate stage.

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Probably because they don't think they need to, which, if I'm right, is just arrogant, in my opinion.

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See, what I think is going on here is, maybe you're biased, and you're drawing conclusions that are unjustified because you watched one or two of my videos instead of actually verifying whether or not

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I really do what you claim I do. Please demonstrate how to prove a negative. Well, that actually wasn't very much of a hate comment, alright?

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So I don't know who... Well, okay, the law of non -contradiction is a universal negative, right?

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So should I say more? The law of non -contradiction states that something cannot be both true and false in the same sense at the same time.

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It's a universal negative, and it's easily provable, okay? Just plug away some examples, and you'll see that it's true.

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This is why it's a law of logic, okay? Maybe I should say to the commentator here that the law of non -contradiction is easily demonstrated.

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It turns out you can prove a negative. It's one of the laws of logic that I understand atheists and skeptics have no problem with, right?

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You guys are cool with the laws of logic, right? Look, I'm not trying to be disrespectful. I just... I wish more people were open about the things that they think they know.

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That's all. I strive to do that. Lord knows I've changed my mind on lots of things. Heck, I was an atheist until I was 30 years old.

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Wouldn't it be great if we all tried to be more open -minded and less dogmatic?

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What a world that could be, right? How can you call yourself a debate teacher and not even understand that there are more than two positions to take?

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Positions? Like... What is it? Like job positions? Oh, like in a debate. Is that what they're trying to say?

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So in debates, well, that's not true. In debates, there are what's called the

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AF, or the affirmative on the topic, and the NEG, or the negative. That's it. What would a third position be in a debate?

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Like, how could you even draw out clash from a third position on a given topic?

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I'm not following this. Maybe what's going on is this person means, like in regular conversations, there can be more than one position to take, especially when it comes to issues related to God.

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Okay, fine. But debates are not normal conversations. You know, that's the point.

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They're supposed to be about two interlocutors who are providing arguments, like the best arguments and evidence for and against a specific topic.

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Debates are meant to help the audience think through the best thoughts on either side of an issue. But see, that's not what

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I'm seeing with a lot of these debates. I don't know how many episodes we've done now, somebody can tell me. So far,

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I'm seeing one side, mostly the Christian side, do a lot of the work. And the other side, the non -Christian side, just kind of leaning back and folding their arms and doing nothing of substance.

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And people wonder why the atheist loses those debates, it's because they failed to do the hard work.

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It doesn't get more complicated than that. Keep wearing that tight white shirt with the tie. I'm sure that will make it easier for your

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Lord to find you. Tight white shirt. What can

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I say? COVID has been too kind to my midsection. Alright. I like doughnuts.

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Blueberry doughnuts. First off, super humble name you picked for your channel.

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Second, thought I was about to get a fair summary of the debate, but then I found out you were a

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Christian. As soon as I saw your very humble channel name, and knew that that wasn't going to be the case, effing sad.

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Wow. Okay. Gosh. Every time I see somebody write a comment and then end it with sad, it reminds me of Donald Trump.

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You don't have to be a fan of his or anything to remember this, but do you remember some of Trump's Twitter rants? As a matter of fact, let me try this.

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Thought I was about to get a fair summary of the debate. Very fair. A lot of people want fair.

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So many people, they don't want masks. No more masks. A lot of people are telling me this.

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Thought Wise Disciple was going to be fair, but found out he was a Christian. Very sad.

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Very sad. I will say this, okay? Wise Disciple, the name, is not about me.

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Alright? It's not describing Nate Sala's intelligence or anything. It's not meant to make me seem like I'm better than anybody else.

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If you are reading into that, that's not my intention, so I'm happy to clarify. Wise Disciple comes out of Jesus' command for His own disciples.

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In Matthew 10, verse 16, He told them, Behold, I'm sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.

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Therefore, be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. If you noticed the logo from my ministry, it's a serpentine formation with wings on either side.

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Wise as serpents. Innocent as doves. Okay? You see it? The name is not trying to make myself unique and special.

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The name Wise Disciple is a reminder of Jesus' comment to all Christians everywhere.

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This is what Jesus expects of His followers. The debate preacher, aka average disciple's poorly developed facial hair, means his comment should be ignored.

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Poorly developed facial hair? How dare you?

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If I still had my mustache right now, it would crawl right off my lip and slap you right across the face.

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How dare you, sir? You know what's interesting about this? I'm half

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Samoan, okay? And so, in a way, I kind of have Keanu Reeves' beard.

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You know what I mean? You ever see this? Keanu Reeves when he has a beard. Right? Splotchy. Keanu Reeves is part

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Hawaiian. And probably because of this, this is my argument, because of that, his beard, it just doesn't fully grow in.

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You know? It's kind of incomplete in places. No criticism of Reeves. Like, I love Reeves and I love his movies.

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But I have a similar issue, okay? I'm half Samoan. And I'm also part Arabic. And if you put that together, it makes it

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Filipino, apparently, because everyone thinks I'm Filipino. Alright? Or Hispanic. I get

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Hispanic sometimes. So there are areas of my face where the hair grows in full, like my mustache, and then other areas of my face that have just decided to stop growing and go surfing.

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Why did I spend so much time on that question? I don't know. Let's move on. Biased debate teacher thinks the burden of proof, the burden on proof, okay, biased debate teacher thinks the burden of proof is on the one who does not believe, corrected your title.

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Thank you so much. Here's another one related to this. Nate Sala is just another God -loving fool who is obviously biased.

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Here's another one. There is so much bias oozing from this commentary.

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Oozing has probably got to be the most gag reflux word I've ever heard in my entire life.

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Oozing. There is so much bias oozing from this commentary. Okay, I'm going to be honest with you.

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Every time I hear the word bias in these comments, it sounds like that Thomas Doby song. She blinded me with bias!

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Here's the deal. You ready for this? I am biased. But wait a sec. So are you. So is everyone else.

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Alright? Everyone has a set of biases with regard to their own particular worldview. Okay? Even if your position is agnostic, guess what?

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You're biased against theistic arguments since you have not assented to them, correct? That's my point.

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Everyone who enters into a metaphysical discussion has their own biases. So what?

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To say that I'm biased says nothing, actually. To suggest that I'm not objective because I'm biased, that's probably what you're trying to say.

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Okay? So I'll help you out here. If you want to critique me, try to critique me in this area. Nate, you're not remaining objective because your biases have overruled your objectivity.

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Okay, fair enough. Now show me where that's happened. I lay out my criteria for adjudicating debates.

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I talk about them all the time. I talk about laying a framework. I talk about who better engages with the topics.

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I talk about who brings up questions that have nothing to do in cross -examination. I talk about a lot of different kinds of stuff because that's the stuff that I'm actually paying attention to.

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But that's not what is at issue with people who comment in this way. Nine times out of ten, what these folks do is they get mad at me because I understand evidence to be greater than what they allow it to be.

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And now we're back to what I said previously. Look, it's not my fault that your view of evidence is too reductionistic.

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Okay? It's not my fault that I actually remember the history of philosophical ideas and how they died out in the past.

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Because let's face it, a lot of skeptics on YouTube are like digging up old dead theories to win arguments against Christians.

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I mean, how many times can someone bring up the Euthyphro Dilemma and still think that they've said something significant? I'm not sure what else

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I can say about this. I mean, really, seriously, like, try to stop being so closed -minded and maybe take a class or two or three.

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By the way, even the greatest YouTube videos do not replace reading the literature. Also, can we just go back for a second?

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Bias debate teacher thinks the burden of proof is on the one who does not believe.

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Yikes! Like, let me say this. The burden of proof is on anyone who makes a claim, period.

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That is a general axiom of philosophy. You get that when you go to, like, remedial philosophy, alright? That's one of the first things they teach you.

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The burden of proof is on anyone who makes the claim. Now, I get that sometimes with more formal debates, one side holds the burden of proof.

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Okay? That's great. I acknowledge that. No problem. But you have to ask yourself, why is that the case?

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The reason that is the case, in my opinion, is because of the way that the topic is worded in more formal debates.

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With a lot of these apologetics and theology debates, number one, the debates are not formal. They're way more informal, and number two, the topics are worded in the form of a question, you know?

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Uh, does God exist? Right? That means if you take the F on that, you're going to make your case to prove that, yes,

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God does exist. But if you take the neg on that, you also need to make your own case that God does not exist.

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Look, at the end of the day, our goal should be to watch debates with the attitude of genuinely seeking truth.

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Okay? If you do that, then you should want to hear clear contentions and arguments from the negative side as well.

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From both sides. If not, if you just want to watch these things to cheerlead your favorite speaker, then don't get mad at the rest of us because our aspirations are more noble than yours.

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Alright, got a little spicy there at the end, sorry about that. Look, the reality is, if you have commented on my videos, thank you so much for watching.

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My sincere hope, and the reason why I do what I do, is to have an extended conversation with folks who are genuinely seeking truth.

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Alright? That means, sometimes Christians win debates, and sometimes they lose. So be it.

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We're all the better for it when that happens. Thanks very much for watching this video. As always, if there is a particular debate that you would like me to react to, let me know in the comments below.

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Or, if you want to disagree with me, go ahead and throw those in the comments too. Just be prepared to get a response from me every now and then.

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Alright? In the meantime, thanks so much for watching. I'm so grateful for all of you who continue to come back and interact with me.