Sean Penn's Anti-Christian Diatribe

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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 good morning, welcome to the Dividing Line on the 24th day of February 2009, a beautiful Tuesday morning here in Phoenix.
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You can actually get out with the sun now and ride fairly comfortably. Looking for 85 degrees in the shade today, well in the mid -90s if you're out in the sun.
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So we did schedule winter in for about a week or so and I think my tree out front lost its leaves for about one week.
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That was it. Week later, starts growing them back. That's just how it works out here. It's a little different than what folks are accustomed to back east,
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I would say. 1 -877 -753 -3341. I was going to be, last evening
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I was going to record a video in response to certain comments made at the
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Academy Awards and I guess I was providentially hindered from doing so.
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Took me 75 minutes with assistance to beat a video conversion codec issue, basically.
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And we did get it fixed, but that was all the time I had for making the video anyways, so we'll have to do it at some other point.
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I just saw someone sneaking around the corner out there in one of the videos. I wonder where Barry is.
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I was over toward the church somewhere. But anyway, just letting Rich know a little something about this super secret location here and stuff like that.
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But anyhow, I could just be misleading somebody. You know, that's all there is to that. Anyway, so I want to talk about today.
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I'll still do the video, though of course that could get me bounced right off of YouTube as well. We really do live in an incredibly upside down age, and the speed at which cultural decay is taking place, and every generation talks about cultural decay, but it really seems like our generation can talk about it and not be making things up because the speed at which things are changing and the upside down nature of morality now in our culture is truly amazing.
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Remember back before the election over in California about Proposition 8.
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Remember the video of the little old lady and the massive crowd of Prop 8 opposers, of rowdy individuals, and this little old lady has a cross and he knocked the cross of her hand.
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They're stomping on the cross and threatening her and all the rest of it. Remember that picture? Remember that video? And remember that as she was leaving what they were chanting, shame on you.
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Shame on you. Now isn't it amazing that people supporting homosexuality, supporting the utter overthrow of the institution of marriage would chant shame on you?
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I believe that they are doing this because shame is something they live with.
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They experience it every day. It is part of that.
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In Romans 1 when it says, and we're gonna look at Romans 1, when they are suppressing knowledge of God, that is a part of what they have to suppress daily.
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And so they want to project it out on others. Anyone who would dare remind them of their conscience is to be shamed.
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But shame requires some kind of standard. Shame requires some kind really of a divine standard because it has to come from within us.
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I mean, it seems today those who do not believe that God has created us with a purpose, that God has the right to determine what is appropriate behavior for us, that he knows what is life giving and life taking, that absent that our society has to base shame upon majority opinion.
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Shame on you if you do not bow and reverently say the name
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Barack Obama with breathlessness. Shame on you if you believe that socialism is a bad thing.
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Shame on you. Well, that really takes away from the meaning of the term shame.
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Because you see, shame is something we experience because we're creating the image of God and we know what's right and wrong and we know that others share that image.
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And so when we have done something that is inappropriate in God's sight, that we've in a high handed way sinned against God, we experience shame.
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And so it has evidently been sent out in one of the memos that what you need to start doing is you need to start saying to anyone who believes in Christian marriage, believes that marriage is defined and established by God, you are to say that they should be ashamed of themselves.
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That must have gone out in the memo because Sean Penn got it. Sean Penn got the
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Academy Award. Everybody, if you haven't figured out yet, the Academy Awards are when
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Hollywood gets together and narcissistically worships itself for its hatred of God and everything that's good.
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That's what the Academy Awards are all about. How can we demonstrate in as many ways as possible that we hate anything that is godly, anything that is right, celebrate our rebellion against God?
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That is what the Academy Awards are. So we shouldn't be surprised by this. But once again, I just ask you a question.
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Not only is it obvious to everybody that this kind of behavior would have been utterly unacceptable in our society even 30 years ago and would have caused just an incredible uproar, but change some of the names here.
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Because, see, who opposed Proposition 8? Well, actually, a large majority of African Americans supported
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Proposition 8, I should say, who oppose the revolution of gay marriage.
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A large majority of African Americans in California voted for the ban, quote unquote, on gay marriage.
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It's not a ban on gay marriage. It is an affirmation of what marriage has always been in our society. They obviously want they have to change the grounds of discussion.
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They all do that. You're going to hear Sean Penn say, we have to have equal rights. Everybody has equal rights to marry. It's just what marriage is.
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It's not even a subtle shift of the real discussion. It's blatantly, simplistically puerile.
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It's infantile, childish. But that is the level of the dialogue in our culture, unfortunately.
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And so that's what happened. So let's listen to, first of all, Sean Penn when he when he first begins speaking starts like this.
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You commie homo loving sons of guns. Ah, there you go.
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That's a great way to start off your acceptance speech. Welcome to 2009 in America.
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Then later on, evidently what happened is Fred Phelps and his little cult showed up.
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And they were outside the Academy Awards. And as soon as I heard
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Penn mention the people with their hate signs, I knew who it was. And these folks just love
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Fred Phelps. Fred Phelps isn't intelligent enough. Well, maybe he is, but he is so self -deceived, cult leaders are that way, that he doesn't recognize that he is the greatest friend of the people that he protests they could ever have.
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I mean, he is the biggest blight upon truth and righteousness and everything else, because he and his little cult do not understand what the scripture says about how you approach these things.
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For those of you who haven't heard the story, I ran into Fred Phelps once, too. He and his little cult were outside the
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General Conference, the Mormon Church, and they were doing their thing.
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They just sort of show up wherever they can show up to get some some free advertising and publicity. And I started talking to him, and I actually talked to him for more than just a few seconds before he lost his mind, because I pointed out that I had just recently debated
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Barry Lynn on the subject of homosexuality in New York, and that caught his interest. And then
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I said, but sir, don't the scriptures tell us that we are to speak the truth in love?
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Now, the scriptures do state that, by the way. That is an apostolic command. As soon as I said that, his response was,
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God hater. And as soon as he does that, then his cult members are trained like Pavlovian ringing of the bell to descend upon whoever he's talking about, get between them and Fred Phelps, shout them down with irrational diatribes.
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And that's the end of that. And that's what took place. That was on the, let's see, that would be the north side of North Temple, right out on the sidewalk in front of the assembly hall of the
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LDS church there in Salt Lake City. So anyway, Fred Phelps and his cult evidently were out there being used to bring great disrespect and disrepute upon the gospel, as they always are.
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And so Sean Penn used that. He's not going to differentiate between them and serious
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Christians and people who aren't members of cults. No, of course not. They just throw them all in the same thing because, well, you can't be prejudiced.
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You can't be biased. You can't be bigoted. You're on the left. And so you don't need to make necessary distinctions, anything like that.
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Hypocrisy is the name of the game when you're on the left of things. And so he took that as the basis for saying the following words.
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For those who saw the signs of hatred as our cars drove in tonight,
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I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren's eyes if they continue that way of support.
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We've got to have equal rights for everyone. And there you hear, of course,
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Hollywood demonstrating its utter lack, its utter bankruptcy on the moral level, cheering and so on and so forth.
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Notice the tremendous leaps of illogic, which no one's going to accuse
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Sean Penn of being a logical person, a philosopher. Really, what has Sean Penn done in his life?
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I mean, he's talking about shame. Evidently, he's not ashamed of sex, drugs, rock and roll and everything else.
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So we have a complete change of paradigm here, do we not? So he goes from the
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Fred Phelps people to anyone who voted for the, quote, ban on gay marriage.
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Okay, now notice the shift. Not only are you changing what it was, which was an affirmation of what marriage has always been in the state of California and in the
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United States of America up until the last, what, five years. But then you have this idea that anyone who voted for that, anyone who holds a position other than the orthodoxy of the left should be ashamed.
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And not only should you be ashamed, but you will be the shame that you will experience in the eyes of your grandchildren.
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Please note that the forces of cultural decay have decided that your grandchildren are theirs, and they are going to shove their hatred of the institution of marriage.
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They are going to shove their rejection of anything that is good and right down our throats, and we just have to accept it.
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We just have to embrace it, and that's just all there is to it, and that's how it's going to happen.
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There's not going to be any argumentation here. In fact, the only argumentation given here is that we're talking about equal rights.
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And yet that's such a completely bogus argument that that kind of argument would not last in a meaningful debate for more than a few moments, a few seconds.
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Now, of course, I said meaningful debate. We don't have much meaningful debate in the
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United States any longer, so if you're just going for, you know, the emotional thing, then you can milk that one for a lot.
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But it is not a matter of equal rights. But if that is the argument, that marriage should be redefined so that two men can marry and two women can marry, then on the basis of equal rights, what other things need to happen?
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Well, polygamy, obviously, needs to be brought in and apologies made to the state of Utah and to the
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Mormon Church. Upon what basis can you possibly say otherwise? Logically. There is no argument against that.
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None. Zip, zero, nada. It just you need to be able to have polygamy age limitations on marriage.
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They need to go equal rights. And who said you have to marry another human being?
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I mean, seriously, the lady, you know, last week, the chimp attack bathed with that chimp ate with that chimp slept with that chimp.
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Why not? I mean, seriously, we need equal rights as long as a person's desires are the new determination of what is right and wrong in our society.
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And if you desire to marry your beagle, then you should be able to marry your beagle. Why not?
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Give me a reason why not. Well, there isn't any reason why not. Because once you have abandoned what marriage is, what marriage is supposed to be, how it's supposed to function in society, and once you abandon the fact that God has revealed in his word what is right and what is wrong, and that our society up until only the past few generations did not blush to say that openly and to accept that, then you've got no other basis upon which to act anyways.
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And so what is the basis, however, of this shame? What is the basis of this shame,
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Mr. Penn? I think if I compared my life and your life together and we would look at what we've done in our lives, that everyone has things that bring them shame.
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And I certainly have not lived a perfect life. But comparatively speaking,
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I've heard a lot about Sean Penn and his behavior over the past number of decades.
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Evidently, he's not ashamed of any of that behavior. So what makes one's viewpoint on marriage something that should bring shame, whereas one's personal behavior and one's personal morality is now irrelevant?
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I don't know about you, but it strikes me as sheer hypocrisy on the highest level.
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For someone like Mr. Penn to even use the term shame. And yet the left is more than willing to do so.
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But upon what basis? What basis? What logical basis is there for the left to talk about shame?
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Well, the only basis they can come up with is they believe that they are going to build a cultural consensus and that cultural consensus will change.
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Now, we all know, all of us know what this leads to. Well, I'll take that back.
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At least people in my generation should know. But one of the things that has truly frightened me, frightened me about the next generation,
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I've talked with my daughter about this, and she agrees with me. Her generation is utterly disconnected from history.
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Utterly disconnected. Now, you can blame my generation for not building that foundation, that bridge, and connecting our children to those who've come before us.
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You can blame us for that. We are accountable for much of—we are the ones who are so busy building our own dreams and fulfilling ourselves that we did not instill in our children.
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I'm speaking generally here. It's not everybody. I certainly tried on some level, but only as I get to this age am
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I really seeing how much more important it should have been to build a connection to those who've come before, to see, you know, what's—the great worth of those who have sacrificed so that we might have what we have.
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The next generation thinks they deserve what they have, that they have a right to whatever it is they have.
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And that's frightening. It really is. It's—part of that is they have no connection to history.
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And so things like World War II are ancient history to them. The people who fought that don't really exist in their thinking.
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The sacrifice that took place in that context doesn't really exist in their thinking.
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So they—all they hear, the only thing they think of when they think of Hitler is how you, if you're losing an argument, try to defame somebody by comparing them to Hitler.
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But the reality is there is a period of time, almost a full decade in length, when one of the most enlightened cultures of the past century engaged in the most amazingly subhuman behavior.
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And how did it happen? How did it happen? And why is it that we thought we had the moral right to destroy that culture for what they were doing?
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Serious stuff to think about, isn't it? But this next generation doesn't think that way.
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They're too busy, you know, making sure the iPod's full and, you know, that I've got my good internet connection and that my car is good looking and so on and so forth.
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Just so obsessed with the things of the world that higher order stuff, higher order contemplation of the meaning of life and important overarching themes just doesn't enter into anybody's mind.
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What they don't seem to understand, what all of us need to recognize, is that the rights we have, the rights that even allow
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Sean Penn to stand up there and make a fool of himself, because in God's sight, it's exactly what he did.
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And man, I wouldn't want to be accountable for what he said on Judgment Day. Let's remember there will be a
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Judgment Day and every one of us will stand before God to give answer for every word we have spoken.
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There will be a Judgment Day. The freedoms that we have to do even what we're doing right now are based upon certain societal foundations.
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And my friends, those foundations are being openly not just attacked, they're gone.
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We are living on inertia. We're living on the fumes in the gas tank.
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It's like in those cartoons, you know, remember the
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Roadrunner and how he can run out into open air and the poor coyote, when he gets out in open air, he just, but there's a moment where he's still there long enough to make a funny face.
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We can all laugh. And then somehow his body gets much longer and he falls down into the poof of sand down there at the bottom of the canyon.
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And somehow the Roadrunner can run right back on the solid ground. That's where our culture is. We are at the poof point.
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The poof point, there's a book there, the poof point. We've gone as far out as the inertia is going to take us.
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And now we are heading down at a shocking speed. And if the foundations are no longer there for the freedoms, the freedoms will disappear.
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We have lost the lesson of fascism. We've lost the lesson of what happens when a government is given unbridled power.
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And we are already seeing in our own society those who wish to utterly destroy free speech rights.
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Now, they want free speech rights for their side. They want to be able to stand out there and say pedophilia is great and bestiality is great and homosexuality is great.
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We've got the free speech to say that. But you don't have the right to say anything's morally wrong that we say is right.
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And they are in power. And I just simply say to you, we have gotten the government we deserved.
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We have gotten the moral leadership that reflects a nation under the wrath of God.
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And I just ask my fellow Christians, have you given much thought to how you live in a nation under the wrath of God?
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The only—and I'm saying this to myself—the only hook that the world has to rob us of our peace and joy at times like this is how much we love our things.
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That's the only hook the world has. How much do I love my things?
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How closely connected am I to this world which, hmm, now I think about it, wow, ever notice that phrase in 1
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John, this world which is passing away? It has no permanence to it.
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And Christians in most societies for a long time have understood what that was all about.
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They've had the right priorities. They've had to because they haven't had much of the things of the world. We live in a land where we have so much and we love it.
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And we want it. And that's the world's power over us. That's the world's power over us.
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We have to give consideration to all these things. I've read it before.
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Let me remind you of it again. There is much to be learned from the inspired word.
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And it is, well, just listen to what the scripture tells us. The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
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God's truth is there. God's the one that's revealed it. Mankind suppresses it.
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It is an action of man to suppress God's truth. And as hokey as the word is in our society, our job is to preach repentance.
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The thought is across you. How many let's let me give you just a quick Christian thinking test.
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Here's a Christian thinking test. Here it is. Has it ever crossed your mind, even for a moment, that the current recession going into depression is the wrath of God?
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I would say for the vast majority of evangelicals, all you think about is, well, you know, if this group over here,
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Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and if that hadn't happened over there, and the subprime mortgage and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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And that's all that ever crosses almost any evangelical's mind today. Because we don't think like a
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Christian. But what is the most perfect, logical punishment upon a nation that loves its stuff more than it loves
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God? What about a nation that will not give thanks, that refuses to acknowledge the source of its plenty and its safety and its bounty?
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What is the best judgment there? Look at the Bible. How many times did the people of God become accustomed to luxuriant living and they stop thanking
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God and they become idolaters and they start oppressing everybody around them? They no longer have any concern about godliness.
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What happens? God brings that nation to its knees.
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And all of its stuff gets carried off and given to somebody else. And we are so proud of our stuff.
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We are so proud of our military strength. Well, that could never happen to us. Yeah, think about it.
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It can't happen to us. And it will, unless there's repentance. And what is the job of the people of God in the context of God's wrath coming upon a culture?
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We call for repentance. We do not shrink back from proclaiming to our culture that the reason what's happening is happening is because of the wrath of God.
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The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.
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And right now, this culture pays millions and millions of dollars to reprobates who stand in front of cameras and use the skills
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God has given them to teach us to hate God's law. And you think
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God will be mocked in that matter? He will not. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.
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We'll shift gears after this break. Be right back. And such a rarity today.
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So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away.
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So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away.
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So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away.
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So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away.
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So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away.
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So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away.
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So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away.
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So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away.
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So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away.
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So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away.
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So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away.
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So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away.
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So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away.
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So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. Discussion of the proper methodology of apologetics. Discussion of the proper methodology of apologetics.
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If you want to read, I think, an excellent work on the subject, we carry a book in our bookstore called
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Always Ready. we carry a book in our bookstore called Always Ready. It was actually posthumously produced from the writings of Dr.
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Greg Bonson. It was actually posthumously produced from the writings of Dr. Greg Bonson. I've used it as a textbook. We'll be using it again as a textbook, in fact, in a class that I'll be teaching.
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In fact, I should mention this. I'll be teaching a class the 1st and 2nd week of June, I believe, the 1st and 2nd week of June, I believe, here in Phoenix, in the
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Scottsdale area, here in Phoenix, in the Scottsdale area, for the Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. It's going to be an intensive apologetics class. We'll be discussing the
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New Atheism, Bart Ehrman, Islam. So that's going to be, if you're in the area, or if you're planning on maybe doing an early vacation type thing, or if you're planning on maybe doing an early vacation type thing, and you'd like to take a seminary class along the way, you could get hold of the folks at Golden Gate and the
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Arizona Regional Campus, and we'll be doing that in June. and we'll be doing that in June.
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But anyway, one of the books that I've used for similar classes, and we'll use again, is
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Always Ready by Greg Bonson. And a lot of folks are new to the program, and so I thought
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I would take a few moments to once again go over the basics and illustrate for you one of the fundamental differences between the presentation of apologetics that is very common in our society, which is called evidentialist apologetics, and that which
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I think is consistently biblical, which is called presuppositional apologetics. Is this just some meaningless little distinction?
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I do not believe that it is. I think it's a very important distinction. I think it's difficult for some people to really understand what the distinctions are until you hear presentations based upon the two different perspectives.
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When the Apostle Paul went to Athens, and he appeared at the
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Areopagus recorded for us in Acts Chapter 17, we read these words that he proclaimed to the philosophers there at the
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Areopagus. ...
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... how i think things are i think there's a better probability that my religious beliefs are true over against yours let's put these in a computer and figure out hey i've got fifty four percent and you've got forty two percent so you should take my viewpoint because i've got a better probability than you do that's not the apostolic proclamation he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed not whom he may have appointed whom he has appointed and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead so on the day of judgment there's going to be no excuses god's going to say i raised him from the dead no one's going to be able to stand in front of god and say well you know i didn't know and romans one addresses that yes you did know and you expressed that knowledge but even more so well i didn't know it was going to be christianity i thought maybe it was going to be buddhism i thought maybe it was islam he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead the new american standard says having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead he's provided the evidence that this is the one whom i have appointed the resurrection of christ demonstrates this and so the point is that from the apostolic perspective the preaching of the gospel even and this was in the context of unbelievers this is this is these are not christians these are pagan greeks who are going to mock his mention of the resurrection of the dead so he says and he knows that he knows as soon as he says that they're gonna start laughing because to the greek mind resurrection from the dead was just the exact opposite of what you would expect salvation was being freed from the physical body not being encased in it again so he knows that but he will not pander to that which he knows his audience wants to hear he's gonna tell them what he they need to hear and so he preaches this he presents it and the apostolic proclamation is not a matter of probabilities it is a matter of certainties and it makes sense because if you're gonna proclaim jesus christ is the creator of all things in heaven and earth visible or invisible whether principalities powers dominions authorities all things are created by him and for me he is before all things in him all things hold together that is a radical christian epistemology that is a radical christian view of knowledge everything that exists does so in christ for christ is held together by christ is defined by christ that's radical but that's christianity and so the apostolic proclamation is not well we invite you to judge god that's not the proclamation proclamation is you are going to be judged by god and he is provided evidence he has given assurance to all do what he has done in jesus christ and so that's the foundation of apologetics the presupposition list goes the
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Bible he says look there are certain presuppositions that are a part of the fact that we are creating the image of god and we also find the
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Bible there certain sinful presuppositions are part of the nature of the fallen man you cannot make appeal to those fallen sinful presuppositions that are opposed to the knowledge of god and you have to oppose those things you have to expose them refute them and call the person to repentance for having held them yes even holding certain presuppositions is sinful in god's sight we live in a land in this culture where what you think is totally up to you it doesn't matter god doesn't care about your thoughts that's not the case so that's what the presupposition list emphasizes is that you cannot grant to man a view of himself that is going to be fundamentally opposed to the gospel you which wish to proclaim to him if your apologetic methodology always has you going back and changing what you said before fixing your arguments in essence well you know
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I know I said this before but now I didn't really mean that but but you've already agreed with me so you know this is good but now you see what
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I really meant was this if that's what you have to keep doing I I don't think that's honoring the truth out there is honoring the gods of biblical so with that in mind normally how
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I illustrate this is I have my classes listen to the bonds and Stein debate on the existence of God and I prepare them for that we go through biblical texts about Christ the creator of all things try to build a meaningful
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Christian epistemology from scripture allow God's word to define that rather than man's philosophies and so on and so forth and then
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I contrast that with at least the opening portion of a debate that took place a number of years ago between William Lane Craig and Frank Zindler and I I think this is in the late nineties maybe middle nineties now that I think about it because I've been playing this
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I I'm pretty certain that I used it as early as ninety six or ninety seven teaching up at the
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Mill Valley campus Golden Gate so it's probably early nineties now that I think about it and I want you to hear again let me let me emphasize what the presuppositional is the same when when
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Greg Bonson debated Gordon Stein basically here's the argument apart from the
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Christian God not just a nebulous concept of God but apart from the
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Christian God we can't even explain why we're having debate here this evening all human predication all human thought requires that you borrow from my world view you have to borrow my
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God long enough to deny he exists the presuppositional says that you have to start by defending the right
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God that it's not a step -by -step process where you maybe bring a person to deism and then maybe to theism and then hopefully to monotheism and eventually to the
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Christian God to a full Trinitarian monotheism now that's not how the apostles did it they remember when
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Paul said to the Galatians one time you worship those which were by nature not God's but now you worship the one true
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God it wasn't well first you worship those of nature not by God's and then we got to be a little bit less pagan a little bit less pagan and eventually we got to the right spot that's not how the apostles did it and so Bonson is saying
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I will only defend the Christian God because I find no other presentation of God to be coherent and I what
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I'm presenting to you is the Christian God not just a God who has spoken with authority and you cannot make sense out of anything apart from my
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God that's what he says that's that's pretty radical stuff but I think it's pretty radically biblical stuff and that's what makes it powerful is because you know again theology matters if you think that your purpose in doing this debate is to glorify
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God through the the proclamation of his truth in a meaningful fashion in a way that is that is as consistent the biblical revelation as you can and if you can actually trust
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God to use that it's the Word of God that's powerful and that God by his spirit draws his people into himself then that's why you do apologetics and that's why you do what you do but if you think that's your job to try to sort of you know talk people into believing in Christ and you don't want to offend them you know you know we don't want to want to shoot too high here you know that's going to impact your your your theology so anyway here's this debate
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William Lane Craig now this wasn't much of a debate on a debate level because Frank Zindler I'd actually had correspondence with him back in the 80s as I recall didn't put up much of a fight
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I mean he's he's really one of those radical atheists and and you know it wasn't much of a debate on that level but I want you to hear how
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Craig lays out his case and what it is he's seeking to defend member
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Bonson the absolute necessity the existence of the Christian God that's that's his his debate thesis let's listen to William Lane Craig good evening in tonight's debate we've been asked to assess the question where the evidence points to atheism or to Christianity now before we can answer that question we need to have some idea of what we're talking about so let me begin by defining some terms first by Christianity I'm in the view that God exists and has revealed himself decisively in Jesus Christ we're not being called upon to debate fine points of doctrine which
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Christians themselves differ on like is the Bible inerrant or did
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God use evolution to create living things these are of secondary importance in comparison with the fundamental truth that God exists and has decisively revealed himself to us in Jesus Christ secondly by atheism
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I mean the view that God does not exist on the atheist view there is no such being or person as God now the question before us tonight is when you weigh the evidence for atheism against the evidence for Christianity which way on balance does the evidence point in support of a
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Christian answer to that question I'm going to defend two basic contentions in tonight's debate number one there's no good evidence that atheism is true and number two there is good evidence that Christianity is true let's look at my first basic contention there's no good evidence that atheism is true now let me just stop right there and make sure you have heard that make sure you have understood that ok
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I'm seeing something out there you already take care of that ok good specifically on balance where does the preponderance of the evidence point is it a 5149 is it a 7030 and it is at that point he said that the case for atheism
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Christianity but he's getting a little more specific hopefully here once he defines a little bit about atheism the claim that God does not exist is just as much a claim to know something as is the claim that God does exist therefore if Mr.
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Zindler is to maintain that the evidence points toward atheism he's got to do more than just say there's no good evidence for God's existence he must present evidence against God's existence he's therefore simply mistaken when he says in the tribune that atheism makes no claims and so it has nothing to defend atheist philosophers have tried for centuries to disprove the existence of God but no one's been able to come up with a convincing argument so rather than attack straw men at this point
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I'll just wait to hear Mr. Zindler's response to the following question what is the evidence that atheism is true let's go on to my second basic contention there is good evidence that Christianity is true and here
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I'd like to present five lines of evidence which render the Christian faith highly probable in contrast to atheism catch that the
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Christian faith is highly probable in contrast to atheism that is the point of contrast between the two methodologies you've already heard say we're not talking about you know an errand say evolution you know it's just as much more focus than that but there's a greater probability it's it's more probably true than atheism and I don't hear the
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Apostles arguing in that fashion I just don't know you know your theology may not be sufficient to allow you to argue like the
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Apostles you may not believe the scripture is clear enough to allow you to argue as the
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Apostles argued there's a lot of reasons that come together
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I mean my biggest problem with William Lane Craig is his monism it cripples any type of meaningful theological foundation upon which to defend the true
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God of the Bible but be that as it may there's lots of reasons why people adopt this what
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I would call lesser lesser path number one the evidence points to a creator of the universe have you ever asked yourself where the universe came from why anything at all exists instead of just nothing typically atheists have said that the universe is eternal and that's all but surely this is unreasonable just think about it for a minute if the universe never had a beginning that means that the number of past events in the history of the universe is infinite but mathematicians know that an actually infinite number of things leads to self contradictions for example what is infinity minus infinity well mathematically you get self contradictory answers that shows that infinity is just an idea in your mind not something that exists in reality
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David Hilbert perhaps the greatest mathematician of this century states the infinite is nowhere to be found in reality it neither exists in nature nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought the role that remains for the infinite to play is solely that of an idea but that entails that since past events are not just ideas but are real the number of past events must be finite therefore the series of past events can't just go back and back forever rather the universe must have begun to exist this conclusion has been confirmed by remarkable discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics now let me just just comment you know people listen to this and in when
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I have a fair amount of time in the apologetics class I will go through a modern formulation of the cosmological arguments and demonstrate that given
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Christian presuppositions such as what's called PSR the principle sufficient reason that is that you can't just have brute facts there needs to actually be a reason why something is the way that it is which is a
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Christian presupposition that given the validity of PSR for example the cosmological argument is valid but that's the whole point is that it again goes to a matter of presuppositions infinite regression
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I agree but again the person who is in rebellion against God the
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Bible tells us that even his way of thinking is perverted by that rebellion there is a twisting of the creator the creator and the creative relationship which results in a twisting of the person's mind as they look at the world around them keep that in mind as you hear this sometimes people hear a non -reformed or inconsistent apologist making a true argument no question about it these these arguments can make sense within a
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Christian worldview but if you think that by providing these arguments to someone who's already actively suppressing the truth of God that you somehow going to cause them to stop suppressing the truth of God that's where the problem comes in because that's not gonna happen the astrophysical evidence indicates that the universe began to exist in a great explosion called the
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Big Bang about 15 billion years ago physical space and time were created in that event as well as all the matter and energy in the universe therefore as the
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Cambridge astronomer Fred Hoyle points out the Big Bang theory requires the creation of the universe from nothing this is because as you go back in time you reach a point at which in Hoyle's words the universe was shrunk down to nothing at all that's what the
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Big Bang model requires is that the universe began to exist and was created out of nothing now this tends to be very awkward for the atheist
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Quentin Smith an atheist philosopher writes the response of atheists to this development has been comparatively weak indeed almost invisible and uncomfortable silence seems to be the rule when the issue arises among non -believers the reason for the embarrassment of non -theists is not hard to find
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Anthony Kenney of Oxford University suggests it in this statement a proponent of the
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Big Bang theory at least if he is an atheist must believe that the universe came from nothing and by nothing but that's a pretty hard pill to swallow out of nothing nothing comes so why does the universe exist instead of just nothing where did it come from there must have been a cause which brought the universe into being from the very nature of the case this cause must be an uncaused changeless timeless and immaterial being which created the universe now
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Aristotle is smiling widely and I I mentioned on the last program that I was listening to shake a society lecture on philosophers philosophy and and orthodox
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Sunni Islam and he spent some time talking about Aristotle and the
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Muslim philosophers who became tremendously enamored with Aristotle as did many
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Christian philosophers and theologians as well of course and I think you could rightly argue that there is a fairly large leap there to the conclusions that were drawn by Dr.
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Craig I mean again I agree but notice something so far you you have a prime mover you don't have a personal
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God and I I mentioned as well that so this is where I think
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Hitchens got the best of Frank Turek a little bit was at the very same point is this huge leap from this a god to the
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God and I think the evidential struggles that point because it's a it's a leap that's difficult to make as you're arguing the wrong direction that's the problem well thanks for listening to the dividing line today
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Lord willing we'll be back on Thursday afternoon maybe with your phone calls and all sorts of new topics to discuss thanks for listening standing at the crossroads let this momentous flow away we must contend for the faith above us fought for we need a new reformation day the dividing line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega ministries if you'd like to contact us call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.
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Box 37106 Phoenix Arizona 85069 you can also find us on the world wide web at AOMIN .org
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that's AOMIN .org where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books tapes debates and tracks join us again this