Provoked: Jeff Durbin vs an Atheist

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00:04

Brothers, what we do in life echoes in eternity. I mean, this is what's wrong with the

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Christian church today. We don't know who God is, and we don't know who we are. This is where we hold them.

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This is where we fight. Officer, you need to repent of your lawless conduct.

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You don't know the law, and yet you pretend to represent it. That's not law enforcement, sir.

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That's being a thug. We will not stop fighting and bothering you all until this monstrous, barbaric practice of legalized abortion ends, and we are teaching our children to do the same.

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God's word says that the shed blood of innocent humans cries out for justice. And mark my words, they will have their day in court.

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Nobody gets saved by being treated nicely. They get saved by hearing the gospel.

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Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. If we don't open our mouths and commend

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Christ, we're not loving them, no matter what we're doing with our hands.

01:25

What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Provoked on this wonderful Wednesday.

01:30

I'm Zach, and this is my beautiful, stunning, and always sleepy, sleepy co -host.

01:37

Yeah, always sleepy. Yeah, how's the sleeping going? It's going a little bit better, but yeah, I'm always tired, but it's just part of making a baby.

01:45

You know, the baby's gone. How far along are you now? 27 weeks. 27? Yep, little Knox is coming soon, so.

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That's exciting. And to my left is a man who needs no introduction, the ninja himself, one of my best buddies in the whole planet.

01:59

That's right. Fellow pastor. How's it going? Good, man. Glad to be here. Good. Hey, I think.

02:05

I like your set. Yeah, it's pretty sweet, huh? It's nice. We've had this wall for five years, and we never really get to use it often, and now it's all yours, and it looks great.

02:15

Actually, it fits perfect. Yeah, Isaac is a master. Isaac cooked it up. So, hey, we just wanted to say to you,

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Pastor Jeff, thanks so much for putting together our intro, which is the bomb. Yeah, that was fun to do. Yeah, we love it.

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And, you know, all glory to God, but if it wasn't for you and Pastor Luke, we wouldn't even be here, and I was just thinking about how integral, or integral, you guys have been in this whole mission.

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I mean, think about it. If you guys didn't, and this is all glory to God, and I know I don't want to embarrass you or anything like that, but we just want to say thanks for doing what you do so we could do what we could do.

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I mean, just think, if you guys, God didn't use you, none of this would be here. Just think how many people would be in bondage to Colts.

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Just think how many babies would be dead. And so, we love you, and we thank you for providing for this opportunity.

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And I think it'd be safe to say that you, as a human, have probably consumed more

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Yerba Mate than any other human on the planet. That's true, and look, I knew, bringing it in, I was like, you know what, another comment's gonna come, like every time

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I see Jeff, he has a Yerba Mate, which is precisely what my family has said for 20 years, something like that.

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Yeah, I would put money. I'm gonna live forever, by the way, because it has five times the antioxidants of green tea, all the vitamins and minerals you need to sustain life.

03:26

This is commercial, they should pay you for it. Yeah, they should. Actually, Goyaki, if you see this, just know millions and millions of viewers every year, you could do a good thing by sponsoring, yeah.

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I bleed Yerba. Yeah, I probably do, yeah. You gotta have the Guinness Book of World Records for it, so.

03:42

Yeah, I like it. It's good. So, we are provoked, and what do we do? What's the purpose of our show?

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It's to provoke you to accurately and adequately share the gospel. The gospel is the answer.

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The gospel is the power and the salvation. So, we wanna come alongside of the church, our brothers and sisters in Christ, and do all that we can to help you do that.

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Number two, rescue babies from the brutal butchery of abortion, abortion clinics. So, contrary to popular belief, the greatest crisis in our nation is the genocide happening at local abortion clinics all around the world.

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Right, that is the greatest situation. And that's not to lessen all the other issues that we're dealing with.

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It seems like every single day we wake up, we're dealing with an even greater crisis that we're looking at. But the greatest issue on this planet,

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I think, would be the slaughter of human beings. So, you can go to inabortionnow .com, talk to us, and all we wanna do is come alongside of you, resource you, help you to get out to the clinics.

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And then thirdly, the purpose of the show is to encourage the church to tear down cultural idols.

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Every single thought or anything raised up against the knowledge of God, we are to dismantle, to tear down.

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So, that's us. What you could do is you can go to apologyastudios .com

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right now and become an All Access member. That's what you can do.

04:57

We would hope that you would do that right now. What's gonna happen if you become an All Access member? You get into Apology Academy.

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It's a second to none theological training. All sorts of seasoned experts in all sorts of fields.

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It's just an amazing blessing. Some guy said this about it. Apology Academy is the best thing humanity has ever produced.

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Who said that? Luke? And I was, that's kind of a stunning review.

05:24

That is. I mean, the best thing the human mind has ever produced is Apology. The Coliseum, no?

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Not the Mona Lisa. That might be overstated a little bit. It's good, it's good, but I don't know.

05:38

I heard it's getting better too, right? Some guy said, he didn't mention how much you paid him.

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Luke. Some guy named Luke Pearson. But isn't there some cool new stuff coming too?

05:49

Yes, so we're working right now. We're in the midst of discussions with somebody to possibly,

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Lord willing, turn Apologia All Access into essentially an online seminary of sorts.

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I mean, it's gonna be the same basic training. It's the highest caliber training. And we're just waiting for approval.

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And if it is the case, then we're gonna upload everything. And you'll have access to just, so I'll be on it all the time because it's one of my favorite teachers in the world.

06:19

Yeah. That's awesome because there's already so much on there. Yeah, there's thousands of hours. TV show, the After Show, the

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Academy. And then the hundreds of radio shows and podcasts. Yeah, lots of stuff to encourage.

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Yeah, so go there and do that. And if you do that, you think about it, you're not only gonna get continued education for yourself, but you support us in what we do.

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And all we wanna do is get the gospel out. All we wanna do is continue to equip the church, rescue people out of colds.

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Of course, the Lord doing this and saving babies. So it's always a good time to be an All Access member because you're gonna support us in our work.

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And that means all that work of kingdom building and gospel dissemination is just gonna go farther and wider.

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And that's all that we're about. We're in this for Jesus's glory. We're in this to build his kingdom. So if you could, go there, become that All Access member and support the work the

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Lord is doing here. All right. So today, we are having a discussion together with a man named

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Quentin Silva. And don't know too much about Quentin, but he sent me a message. And the message said, hey,

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I listened to your conversation with Bill Rooney. And I think you guys did a good job. So thanks for that compliment,

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Quentin. But he also said he's very pro -choice and he thinks that he can give good questions, or sorry, give good answers or responses to the question we pose.

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So we're gonna go ahead and bring Quentin on right now. Quentin, are you there? Hello? Hey, Quentin, how's it going?

07:41

Good. How are y 'all? Good, good. Thanks for your patience there as we worked out our audio issues.

07:48

But I'm so glad you're on the show. So before we get into kind of launch into the conversation,

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I just wanted you to kind of tell us a couple, for a couple minutes about who you are. So yeah, my name's

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Quentin. I live in Texas, originally born in New York. I actually have a black belt in Taekwondo.

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I've been practicing for a while. And I got my undergraduate degree in sustainable community development, about to go into a master's program, in fact, and also in sustainable development up in Belgium as long as things work out.

08:28

Wow, Belgium. In the next few months, you know? Wow. And so that's kind of crazy. But yeah,

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I'm a easygoing guy. I've always enjoyed reading about science stuff, environmental type issues, animal things.

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But yeah, hearing about the things that y 'all talk about, definitely it piques my interest, you know?

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So it's cool to get to speak. A black belt in Taekwondo? Black belt, yeah.

09:01

Nice. What kind of Taekwondo? Chundaquan? Combat Taekwondo?

09:09

Yeah, yeah, like kickboxing type stuff. Oh, okay. What kind of forms did you do? Did you do like Chung Mu Hyeong, things like that?

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What'd you do? They didn't, or I'm not for sure what a traditional title for it was, but now they've changed it from what we did when

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I originally started. Each belt did a different set of, did a different form, and now everyone does the same form.

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It's just like white belts stop at this point, yellow belt's here, and then black belt does the entire thing, you know?

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But that's at least where I go. That's how they do it. Right on. Well, congratulations on your black belt.

09:49

Thank you. Cool. So thanks, man. We wanna get to know you better. And yeah, so let's get into the conversation.

09:57

Just a couple ground rules. You've probably heard them if you've talked to, or if you listened to that conversation with Bill Rooney. We just, of course, nothing that you say is gonna be edited, but we do wanna allow each other to finish our thoughts.

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Sometimes, and I was talking to Pastor Jeff about this, the need to kind of interrupt respectfully is right, because there's assertions that are made that we, you know, you or we all together should address.

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So we just wanna do it as coherently and as clearly as possible. So if we could just do that, that will be it.

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And also, just so you know, the whole purpose of the show is to proclaim the gospel and lead you to Jesus.

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You know, from your own assertions here about your life and the worldview that you espouse to, we know that based upon your own, just your own assertions or explanations of what you think, you're not ready to meet

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God at this moment if your life were to be required of you. So in love, out of concern for you, we do wanna share with you the gospel and point you to Jesus.

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Ultimately, that's the bedrock purpose of the show. So let's just get into the conversation.

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It's just, again, gonna be organic, back and forth. It's probably gonna touch a different, go ahead. By the way, like you had mentioned, kind of like interrupting respectfully, of course, and yeah,

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I get that. And I would also like to say, like, if you guys are saying something, like attempting to dismantle some type of argument, if I don't hold to that, like,

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I'll say something. Sure, okay. I'll tell you, like, no, I don't even think that. And like, I would hope y 'all would do the same.

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Yeah, we actually believe it's important, yeah, to accurately represent the other side. Totally.

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Yeah, no strawmanning or creating fictional characters sort of thing, so, yeah. Okay, so let's start right here, and I'm just gonna start out with a question, and hopefully this will be a launching pad or a way of kind of opening up,

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I think, the topics that are on your mind, as far as the reasoned responses that you say that you have for the questions that we've had in the past.

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But if you'd like to talk about a certain topic before, we can go there, too. But I want you just to look at this question and see if you can answer this question, and again,

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I think it's just gonna be kind of a catalyst for a more deeper, meaningful conversation. So here's a question for you.

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When is it ever okay to murder a helpless, innocent, developing human being while still in their mother's womb?

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I'll say it again right there. When is it ever okay to murder a helpless, innocent, developing human being while still in their mother's womb?

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Go ahead. So y 'all are not gonna like my response, but I do think it's accurate, and it's telling that you said developing human, that yeah, if it's still developing, like it's not fully formed, it's still needing to use its mother to be able to keep growing, to develop,

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I'd say earlier the better would be when to, and also not like to simply like rip it apart as y 'all love to talk about, love to mention,

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I guess I'd say, but yeah, using other types of drugs to remove the pregnancy, basically,

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I'd say the earlier the better, before 20 weeks is when I would say to do it, because like before it's viable, before it's able to survive on its own.

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I think like if it can live outside of the womb, I say give birth and do whatever afterwards, like keep it or adopt it, whatever the case, but before that,

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I think it's fine. I don't have a problem with that. So all the way up into the point of the hour, the day before delivery, you'd be fine with the termination of the baby?

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I didn't say that. No, he's saying if it's able to come out and even be premature, but survive, then he would say you should have it adopted out or protect its life at that point, but before that, and so I guess

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I would ask a question on that, Quentin, by what standard are you making that judgment?

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Because I guess the question I would challenge you with is we're talking about developing human beings who are dependent upon their mothers, and just to push sort of that and extend that, developing human beings who are dependent upon their mothers is true of my one -year -old, my eight -year -old, my 10 -year -old, and so by what standard are you using to say, well, we can kill a developing human who's dependent upon their mother here, but not here?

14:57

What standard is that? So I'm saying when I'm mentioning that, yeah, you're a one -year -old, seven -year -old, even an 18 -year -old kid is still dependent upon you, but I would say that it's still, being financially dependent is completely separate from having to literally be physically attached to another person in order to survive.

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That is completely different from my perspective. No, I appreciate that. If I'm having to use you, like your liver perhaps,

15:36

I don't know, in order to live, you don't have to do that.

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You're not gonna be tried for murder if you say, no, you can't use my liver to live, you know? Okay, so I think there's a category, or I think they're in terms of something that's a voluntary situation of somebody taking a part of my body to survive, like a kidney or whatever the case may be, but in the scenario that you're illustrating, let's say we have a one -year -old or one -and -a -half -year -old that is dependent upon its mother's bodily functions, like breastfeeding, to survive.

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So she's feeding her child by breastfeeding, say one years old, is it appropriate to say we can kill a human being who's dependent upon its mother's bodily function at one years old, because it's still dependent upon the mother at one via breastfeeding?

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That goes into some other aspects of being alive, I think, in that, yeah, that child is now, it's still not fully developed,

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I know, but its brain isn't fully developed, the organs aren't either, you know? And so it still has a bit of work to do in that way, but at that point, when it's out, and once its brain is developed to a point, then even at one years old, where it's still barely anything,

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I think that at that point, it's still, that child now has bodily autonomy, like so you can't, yeah, it needs to breastfeed.

17:09

Bodily autonomy. Can I ask you a question about that, Quentin? Bodily autonomy, so what do you mean when you use the argument for bodily autonomy?

17:19

Are you saying that a human being who is independent from another has certain rights because they have bodily autonomy because they're a distinct human being from another?

17:33

What do you mean when you say bodily autonomy? Is that what you mean? Yeah, when

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I say that, I'm meaning that, yeah, it has, it's independent of anyone else, like it doesn't need to be physically attached to someone in order to survive.

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And it needs, where else were you asking? Well, I guess I was wondering what you meant by bodily autonomy.

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I guess there's an assumption there that certain human beings have particular sets of rights and ought to be protected because they have bodily autonomy.

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And I'm wondering what you mean by that, because all of us from conception are unique, independent, distinct human beings from one another from the moment of conception.

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That's a fact of biological science. It cannot be disputed. And that's agreed to on all sides.

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At the moment of conception, you have the unique DNA, the unique developing human being from that moment, the moment of conception.

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So if we're using a bodily autonomy argument, I'm wondering what does that mean? And I guess

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I would also ask you with that, maybe you can answer this along with it. When you talk about, we can kill distinct human beings different from one another if they are dependent upon others for their survival,

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I would ask, can I kill the person who is say 35 years old and dependent upon life supports and machines to keep them alive?

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Is their life now no longer valuable or worthy of protection because they're dependent upon other human beings to keep them alive via their bodily functions?

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Yeah. So backtracking with that, yeah, within bodily autonomy,

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I do like, in my perspective, yeah, I do think that I would say that, and also it would be in line with biology that if you're at conception, yeah, that's a separate person.

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It has another, it has its own DNA, all that type of stuff. And everything within it is developing.

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And so I'm with you there, but then it's still having to live off of another.

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It doesn't, at that point, it does not have bodily autonomy. Yeah, but - It's still, it's having to live off of another.

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Yeah, just to follow - There's no gray, it's a very gray area. It's not like a snap of the fingers and then like, okay, now it's completely independent or whatever.

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Now we can live outside of the womb on its own. Let me just try to simplify your argument real quick and you can tell me if I'm wrong.

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But you're saying that if a developing human being requires the assistance of another human being to live, then they should be worthy of death.

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Or somehow, what I'm hearing you say is that baby in the womb is dependent upon its mother for life.

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Inside of the womb, it's of course, as you just said, and Pastor Jeff just said, it's a distinct human being, their own distinct genotype,

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DNA, fingerprints, totally different human, but they're developing and they're dependent upon the body of their mother to live.

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So because of that, that should be the grounds for the baby to be executed. Is that correct?

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Not simply that it's like, that it needs someone else to take care of it. Like, I think that you guys are like blending the two together.

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I'm saying that, yeah, if it needs to be like physically attached to someone else in order to live, then it's not, in order to grow and everything, then it doesn't have bodily autonomy.

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So we can kill breastfeeding kids then. You can do that. So we can kill breastfeeding children because they're connected to another physical body and dependent upon that body for their survival.

21:33

They're not literally physically attached though. Oh, I assure you, I've had four children and they were definitely physically attached. There are more ways than breastfeeding.

21:41

But yeah, what I guess I wanna point out, it seems like your standard here for executing or ending the lives of other human beings seems completely arbitrary.

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So I guess I would ask you this question. Are you an atheist? Yeah, I am. Okay, so I appreciate you telling me that.

21:57

So on what basis as an atheist who believes ultimately there's no transcendent meaning to the universe, its creation, all of us are descendants from bacteria ultimately, on what basis are you complaining about anything morally at all?

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I don't understand why it takes away that we evolved from simple life forms.

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Like it's true, yeah, we evolved from simpler creatures. We are, like human beings are still apes.

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Like that's a biological fact too. And that we share so much with every other animal that does exist and that has existed on this planet.

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That doesn't take anything away from anything. Well, yeah, to answer that, yeah, like I have my own standards for complaining about things just like you.

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Like there's things that I might disagree with morally or just thinking that some type of thing doesn't make sense.

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But, and also just looking at other rules or like a group mentality as well.

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Like all these different people disagree with this thing. And so like, those are the types of standards I use.

23:17

Perfect, that really helps. So what I would point you to is the complete arbitrary nature of your moral position.

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You don't have any justification, ultimate justification to have anything that's a moral ought.

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Like you ought to do this. In other words, it's true outside of my likes and my dislikes, outside of the group think, those sorts of things, societal convention, all of that.

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So I would just point you because you brought up why does this matter?

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Well, I would say if we evolved in a purposeless universe from fish and ultimately our ancestors were fish or bacteria then you're no different than any other product of meaningless evolutionary forces.

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Time and chance acting on matter doesn't give transcendent meaning or value to anything whatsoever.

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So what I would say is you as a descendant of bacteria really have no moral justification given your worldview.

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I think you're in the image of God. I think that you are valuable, you are worthy of my respect and dignity, all the rest.

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But according to your worldview you really have no ultimate justification or meaningful justification to complain about anything morally at all.

24:27

And if you did move sort of to say, well, morally speaking we have society that's determined that these are no -nos and these are good things.

24:35

I would say, well, that's been tried in history too. If you were in Nazi Germany, not very long ago people were looking at Jews and saying things like I know that it's looks like a person it's not a person that's a

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Jew. And then further back, people were looking at black people saying, I know it looks like a person that's not a person it's a black person.

24:53

And I think if you base it on societal convention then you're gonna really struggle in time. Say for example, if you and I went back hand in hand

25:01

I think we would totally agree. And we tried to do something about the slave trade. By the way, man stealing and kidnapping and enslaving in scripture is worthy of the death penalty.

25:10

That's what the Bible says about it. But if we went back together during the time of the slave trade you and I believe 100 % would be hand in hand decrying the atrocity and the injustice of that slave trade.

25:22

But you would be going back into a time where there were many people around that had a societal convention that said, no, this is a moral happy thing to kidnap and enslave black people.

25:33

So actually if you use your standard in that society you would be the immoral one because they accepted it.

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And they said at by convention, this is moral you're disagreeing with it. Therefore you are the immoral one.

25:47

If you base it on societal convention just what a group of people get together and decide this is moral, this is not.

25:53

So I would just point you to that and then I'll shut up here. I think as an atheist with an atheist worldview an atheist ontology or metaphysic of a view of reality and what's real you don't have really any basis to make any moral complaints about what ought to be or what ought not to be because you're just a random result of evolutionary processes.

26:14

You're really no different than flies, horse flies but what are those things?

26:21

Killer hornets, what are they called? Murder hornets. Murder hornets. You're no different than the slime on the rock of an ocean shore.

26:30

You're just a result of evolutionary processes. So that's what I would say to challenge you making any moral complaint at all.

26:38

I think it's arbitrary what you're saying in terms of when we can kill a human being but I also would point you to the fact that as an atheist with your worldview you can't complain about anything at all consistently.

26:48

And I a million percent disagree. There's like morality has been, is arbitrary like forever.

27:01

Morality has never ever ever been a million percent consistent like everybody agrees on every single thing ever in human history.

27:11

That has never. Can I challenge you on that just for one second ask you to just sort of elaborate on that. So was there ever a time in history where it was right for a group of men to rape a woman?

27:23

There were multiple points. There still are. Where people do that. I'm asking you is it moral? There are people that who do that, who justify it.

27:30

Right. I'm asking you though according to your perspective because you said that morality is an ultimate. It changes, it's arbitrary over time.

27:37

That is atheistic morality. I would agree with you. You're being consistent there as an atheist but I don't think you really believe that because I think if you saw a group of men raping a woman you'd probably intervene.

27:48

Yeah. Why? But then yeah, there are people who can justify it who have always, who have been able to justify it in the past or like just a hundred years ago people would do it like they'd be able to justify it.

28:02

Quentin, we all agree people do. I'm asking you why you morally complain about it.

28:07

I know people do it. They do it all the time. Yeah. I believe they deserve the death penalty for it but according to your worldview you said morality is all arbitrary.

28:15

So why would you complain about men raping women? Because it's undue, it's unnecessary harm.

28:24

Says who? It's hurting someone. It's going against their bodily autonomy.

28:29

Thank you. Thank you for that pro -life argument. Our perspective. Thank you for the pro -life argument, Quentin. Is not good.

28:37

Like we go against that. So we shouldn't violate. Western world. We should, yeah.

28:42

Western world was created as a result of the Christian worldview. And so we have those ideals because they came from scripture.

28:48

There's a lot that goes into it. Well, okay. So what I would point you to is you argued that rape is wrong essentially from your perspective because you're doing something to somebody else's body without their permission, correct?

29:01

Yes. So that's a pro -life argument. That's just a person with, that's an argument for a person who has empathy, who has compassion.

29:12

So you would want to be compassionate to other human beings who are having things done to them without their permission?

29:21

Yeah, people who can feel pain, who can feel fear and who have the mental capacity to be able to say like, no,

29:32

I don't want this to happen. Like, yes, I would sympathize with those people. I would say like, no, you shouldn't do that because this person does not want you to do it.

29:40

So what you've done here, Quentin, just to kind of maybe explain it a little bit is you said that morality is arbitrary.

29:48

And what you're saying there is morality is relative. It's basically the product of subjective experience, consensus, like what

29:57

Pastor Jeff just said. But what you've done is you've said that you've given that definition to morality, but all in through, and you can go back and listen to this when we air it, you're appealing to an objective standard of morality.

30:08

Whenever you say things like we should do this or we ought to do this, really your image of God is bleeding forth because you're asserting definitions related to morality that you are not consistently holding to.

30:23

So when we say, when Pastor Jeff says something like, well, when you say it's never okay ever to rape a woman, or let's say this, do you think in the history of mankind it would be ever okay to hit an innocent two -year -old over the head with a rock?

30:37

No, we would all agree that regardless of the situation, the civilization, the time in history, it's an objective standard there.

30:45

We're appealing to an objective standard that it's not okay to abuse a child for fun, all right?

30:51

So if there exists, which there does exist objective standards of morality, and everybody really gives testimony to that when they say, hey, you shouldn't be doing that.

31:02

You shouldn't be hurting me. Why aren't you doing this? They're appealing to morality. They're expressing their desires for morality, right?

31:09

Or fairness. See, what we're getting at, brother, is that according to our own experience, no, morality is not arbitrary.

31:19

There is an objective standard of morality that God has written upon our hearts, as scriptures say, imprinted upon our hearts.

31:25

It's a reflection of God's own character. And we can't get away of giving testimony to that reality, even in like you've just kind of explained or illustrated, even though we deny it.

31:39

Does that make sense? I understand what you're saying, but at the same time, there's like,

31:45

I don't think that it's like, sorry, you said a lot. I'm trying to backtrack.

31:52

Yeah, I can explain it. Take your time. Yeah, take your time. Yeah, so maybe to simplify it again, when you're saying that morality, the way that we ought to treat people, aunts or ethical requirements, ethical obligations, whatever they may be, when you're saying that they're arbitrary, you're saying that all morality is unfounded, that morality itself has no frame of reference, morality itself has no standard, that morality is open to whatever human being, whatever group of human beings opinion.

32:28

So if that is the case, that is the case. Go ahead, go ahead. Yeah, so with that,

32:35

I don't like, no, there's, I don't think morality, like, yeah, you had, now I'm remembering, you had mentioned like every, that whenever I say that X thing is wrong or X thing shouldn't be done, then

32:50

I'm appealing to an ultimate perspective. I don't, from my perspective, from my own worldview, not like a broad brush stroke or whatever, from my own perspective,

33:02

I see that as, that it's universal. Like, it's not ultimate because I don't think morality has ever been ultimate ever in human history.

33:15

One test of that. It's universal. Most people modern day in the world would agree with these things.

33:20

Okay, yeah. But that just means that we're using morality. What we're trying to get you to, or trying to maybe explain or ask questions about is how we can justify it, how we can account, or from an atheistic, especially from an atheistic worldview, how you can make sense of it.

33:37

How can you make sense of morality in a sense, especially if we just come from chaos and random chance processes.

33:44

But here's a test. Here's a test right here. And we'll actually go back to that. When a guy breaks into your house and says, hey, don't,

33:50

I don't want you to kill me or steal my stuff. And he says, I don't care what you think.

33:55

What would you say to him? I'd say, I don't care.

34:01

You're in my house. If you're trying to take stuff from me, we're gonna have a problem.

34:07

Is stealing wrong? Yeah. That's standard, yeah. Says who?

34:14

Says the law. Says the fact that I don't want my own things taken away from me.

34:19

So you, as a random result of evolutionary forces, are saying things to another random result of evolutionary forces, and the universe doesn't care about us with no transcendent meaning or value or ought.

34:31

You're saying that you shouldn't do this, even though morality has never been ultimate.

34:39

For the moment, I would like you not to steal from me, but it's not ultimate. No. I'm saying that if you're like, and plus another thing, you're like random results of evolutionary processes.

34:53

No, they're ordered results. Like in nature, we can see how things evolve.

34:59

It's not purely random. Like we have no idea how it's gonna go or how it could have gone. I think you misunderstood.

35:05

I think you misunderstood. Oh, I think there's... Just real fast, just to make sure the clarification there.

35:10

When I say random results that I'm talking about, it wasn't purposeful. There was no meaning and purpose behind the created order itself.

35:17

Random results, it is time and chance acting on matter. And you're looking at the order and the design inherent in nature.

35:23

I would say that's screaming at you about your creator. But when I say random,

35:28

I'm talking about what you and I would both agree is inherent in the Neo -Darwinian perspective of the past.

35:35

There was no purposeful creation or meaning behind the creation. There was no creator behind it.

35:41

It's random in the sense that there's no purpose or meaning behind it. Okay.

35:47

Like if you wanna put it that way, or I still see it as like, it's completely, it's a natural, like it is, it's not like someone behind deciding how it happens.

36:01

That's true, yeah. It is, but it is ordered in the fact that - It's pretty amazing design, huh?

36:06

It happens. It makes me, what? It's an amazing design, isn't it? Yeah, because you brought -

36:12

It's a natural design. Well, you use - From what I see, it's a beautiful, natural thing that happens. So just to - I can see in fossils how it happens.

36:19

Well, just as a - And how nature affects it. Just a point, a couple of things out here. When we talk about morality, you say it's arbitrary.

36:25

You say there's no ultimate. Never has been an ultimate morality, but then you keep saying that there are things that somebody ought to do or ought not to do.

36:32

As a matter of fact, I would say you're being on the show today, and I mean this with a humble respect and love towards you because I do appreciate you and I do respect you, but you're on a show today to argue about what ought to be done in the issue of abortion while you're saying there's never been a moral ought.

36:46

And then you're using words like design. I would ask you, do you know of any other time in your experience where somebody would call something design that didn't have a designer?

36:56

I would say all of this shows you are inescapably, inescapably in God's image, and you're trying very hard as a unique and beautiful creation of God to live in God's world apart from him, but it can't be done.

37:11

And the problem is sin. It's not that you don't have enough light. It's the problem of all of us.

37:17

We're rebels, Quentin. All of us are rebels. We all know the same God, and we just can't. We will try very hard to construct sophisticated worldviews to get away from the knowledge of our creator.

37:27

We'll say there's no ultimate morality, but then we'll complain about somebody stealing from us. We'll say there's no ultimate morality, but then we'll tell somebody that slavery is wrong.

37:35

We'll say there's no ultimate morality, but then we'll decry injustice, and we'll glory in the phenomenal design and creation of the world, and then say, although in this case, nobody's behind it.

37:50

It's a worldview that sort of collapses and folds in upon itself. Do you see? No, I don't.

37:56

I see it as, like, I get what you're saying. I understand the argument that you're putting, but I still, like, and also

38:06

I'll say it to the, as respectfully as I can, too, that, yeah, like, I appreciate,

38:12

I can appreciate the kind words and everything, you know, but I don't, like, no,

38:18

I don't think that I'm created by God or anything. I'm created by my parents.

38:23

Like, that's it. I'm a genetic combo of my parents, and I don't think that this world, as beautiful as it is, then, like,

38:32

I don't think, like, I can see how it happened naturally. Like, there are natural explanations for every single thing that we see, even up to morality, as in, like, because it's a social construct.

38:45

Ah, it's a social construct. We have used it forever. Like, it's been, it's evolved over time from simple types of, like, whatever, caveman days, groups, like, family groups, using morality for, like, rudimentary,

39:07

I guess, for deciding who gets to eat first or whatever. Like, we're not gonna give the stranger food yet.

39:15

We're gonna have the family members eat first, and then eat whatever someone else, like -

39:22

Yeah, well, let me, yeah, I guess I'll ask you on that point, I have two questions, but the one

39:27

I would ask you is that you live in Texas, right? Yes. So, I would say this is a very loving challenge to you.

39:34

You are heavily influenced by and surrounded by the blessings of the Christian worldview that uphold value and dignity and worth for other human beings, that talk about loving our neighbor and those sorts of things, and talk about justice and all those things, so I think you've been heavily influenced by the

39:49

Christian worldview, but I would point to the fact that all over the world today there are still tribes who kill other human beings and eat them, but in their society, that's a moral, happy thing.

40:00

Are they right for that? Because it's - I don't know that I'd call it - You argue that it's by societal convention, so people get together and they determine what's right and what's wrong by convention, and so if that is the case, these cannibalistic tribes that exist today, outside of Texas, they still kill people and hunt them and eat them today, but their society says it's moral.

40:25

So, is it moral? Because they say that it is? I don't know that I'd say, or only because it's like a taboo, basically, from our own culture.

40:37

So, it's not really wrong. Eating other people is just like, we honestly do just think it's gross.

40:43

What about torturing them, then eating them? How about hunting and killing and then eating human beings?

40:50

Is that moral? If society determines it is? Yeah. It is? Those people will say it is, yeah.

40:58

Yeah, but is it moral? Those groups will. Is it moral, according to them? From my perspective,

41:04

I don't think it is. Just because - Obviously, they do. Because you just - They're gonna do it because they're on their own, they're secluded, and so they're not really under any jurisdiction from some other, from another larger group, like other tribes or something, or a bigger government type of idea.

41:24

I'm gonna ask one more question on that. They're gonna do what they do. So, I'm gonna ask you a question. If you and I, we left the confines of Arizona and Texas, we flew over to one of those tribes, and hung out with them for about a year, and we joined them in hunting and killing humans and then eating them, and we returned to Texas and Arizona, would we be moral people at that point?

41:45

Because we engaged in hunting and killing and eating humans, but we did it over where it was acceptable? I know that you think, you know, we shouldn't do it because it's icky, but something more than icky,

41:55

I think, is important for when we're talking about morality. So, if we went to some other place, and we participated in eating people -

42:06

Hunting, killing, and eating, yes. It's okay over there. By convention, they've determined that's moral.

42:12

Would we still be moral men when we returned to Texas and Arizona after having engaged in that for a year?

42:20

Depends how you see it, or how, also, I would say it depends on how it was done.

42:26

Like, if you're just toying with anything. Like, it doesn't, whether a person or a deer, or whatever the case may be, if you're attacking, grabbing it, and just killing it slowly, you know, torturing it or something, toying with it, you know?

42:42

So, torturing is wrong? Based on location. I would say that's wrong, because it's just more inflicting pain on something that can feel pain, you know?

42:50

That can feel tear. And, but, like, if you're actually going, like, to dispatch something really quickly, and then, like, eat it, like, yeah, and you're gonna use the whole thing.

43:03

Like, you're not gonna waste anything. Honestly, that's not that bad, I don't think.

43:08

So, if I kill and dispatch, dismember, gut, cook a human quickly and painlessly, that's moral?

43:16

Yeah. Yeah, well. I honestly don't think it's that bad. I don't, like, if you're gonna do that, like, you're gonna kill this person quickly, and then you're going, like, you're using them for sustenance, you know?

43:29

Like, you're going, like, you're eating them. And Quentin welcomed the idea, as well. That's not different, that's not different from doing it to a deer.

43:36

Yeah, brother. Like, it's the same principle. Yeah, I mean, I think. You see what I'm saying? Well, we don't, of course, no, we don't agree that it would be ever okay, regardless of whatever tribe you may be in, part of the world you may be in, section of history, time, it would never, ever be okay to torture an innocent human being, dispatch them quickly, and eat them.

43:55

Okay, so what you're explaining. No, of course not. I wouldn't agree with that, either. Okay. But if you're doing it, like, quickly, honestly,

44:02

I don't think it's that bad. Well, we wouldn't agree with that, either. We wouldn't agree with that, either. And here's the thing, brother. I think, deep down, you're trying to be consistent, which

44:07

I appreciate. You are trying to be consistent with your assertions here, but brother, as you abandon the

44:14

God of the scriptures, as you abandon him, I think what we are seeing here in this show is that you are left in the realm of absurdity.

44:24

Because your explanation of what's moral is completely absurd.

44:31

This is not a slide against you, and I'm not trying to personally attack you in any way, but I want you to go back and listen to this.

44:37

But for somebody to ever assert that it's okay to hunt and quickly dispatch a human being to kill them, and that's a moral thing, goes contrary, you're actually suppressing the moral code that God has written upon your heart.

44:50

You're doing it to be consistent, but you're living in the land of absurdity here, to where your assertions are unaccounted for, and they're absolutely arbitrary.

45:00

Ultimately, what you've just demonstrated is that Quentin determines what's moral,

45:05

Quentin determines what's true. What I'm saying is, if you could live in that world, brother, you have no basis or justification whatsoever to tell another human being they should not be able to do that, or we should be able to kill babies early on.

45:18

You have no basis to do that, no justification, no solid ground of good reasoning to do that, based upon your own definition of morality, right?

45:30

That's what we're getting at. When we say - I see what you're saying, but then I see it still as like, like I had mentioned before, with a fetus in the womb, then, well, probably before that, but still, as I had said, that a one -year -old kid, it's different if you're gonna just stab a one -year -old who needs to breastfeed.

45:57

It's different from using pills for six -week -old fetus, basically.

46:08

No, it's not fetus at that stage, but it's different from that because the one -year -old, including for an animal as well, if you're gonna just use, if you're gonna torture them, like instill fear and pain and all that type of stuff, because they can perceive it.

46:31

They can perceive those feelings, and then that's when I would have a problem with it.

46:37

That's when people with empathy would have a problem with seeing something suffer.

46:42

Oh, Quentin, I'm enjoying listening to you say this because I am hearing in you, and I mean this,

46:49

I believe flattery is a sin. I believe it's wrong. I mean this. I can hear the beauty of the image of God coming out of everything you're saying, talking about things like empathy.

47:02

I'm sure you can. Concern for the pain of others, but I just wanna remind you, you seem like a very intelligent guy.

47:09

You probably know history. I mean, you're going to Belgium to do amazing things. I mean, you're obviously a smart, smart guy, and I mean that.

47:15

I just wanna remind you that there are places in history not very long ago, and even current, where people like inflicting pain.

47:24

They enjoy it. I mean, Marquis de Sade, he enjoyed, like there's a whole history behind this in terms of people believe that they should live for pleasure, and they enjoy inflicting pain upon other living creatures.

47:40

It makes them feel good. It makes them happy. Why are you trying to get in the way of their happiness? They're another random result of evolutionary processes.

47:47

They enjoy inflicting pain. Yeah, there are people like psychopaths, sociopaths. Why are they psychopaths?

47:53

Who feel that way. They enjoy it. Why are they psychopaths? You've determined that they are, but they enjoy it. They're in this purposeless universe just like you.

48:02

No, that's not like, I'm not saying that they're psychopaths. It's like those people are diagnosed with psychopathy.

48:08

Morality has never been ultimate. Or whatever. Morality has never been ultimate. Remember that. Morality has never been ultimate.

48:15

And so. Yeah, this is what it is. That's how we feel about it. Even, well, sort of, kind of, maybe they, if someone is, yeah, who loves to kill, loves to inflict pain, loves to hurt people, that type of stuff, gets off on that even.

48:32

Matt, people enjoy it. Even in like, even like dark ages or whatever, those types of people would be seen like, they wouldn't immediately insist that like, this person has a mental disease, you know?

48:45

Like their brain chemistry is off. Wait, okay. They would still know like, this one's crazy. Okay, that helps me a little more to understand your perspective.

48:52

So you think human actions and thoughts and those sorts of things, those are just the results of chemical processes happening in the brain?

49:02

Every single thing that happens in our bodies are chemical reactions. Sure, okay.

49:07

So you're condemning the action or behavior that came from chemical processes. So you have things, purposeless, meat machines, essentially, in a universe that doesn't care about them, with no ultimate meaning, destination, goal, forces, morality, and you have them essentially producing chemical processes.

49:30

They're fizzing. You're complaining about the chemical process occurring in another person's skull and that led to inflicting harm on another, but they don't share the same brain as you.

49:43

They're just chemically fizzing in this purposeless universe just like you are. So you've got a certain chemical fizz that says no pain and they say pain.

49:52

On what basis are you complaining? Remember, there's no transcendent meaning. Morality has never been ultimate. And just sort of kind of sidetracked, do you think that morality in general, like human morality has ever been the same ever?

50:10

I'll get back to everything else you said. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's a great question. I'm glad you asked it. We believe that morality, ethics, that realm of discussion, the ethical discussion is based upon the character, the unchanging character of God.

50:26

And so when we're as Christians rooting something and this is a moral ought, we're saying that it's based in the character of God which is unchanging, which he has revealed.

50:36

So we have a revelational epistemology. God has revealed himself in history. He's revealed himself in history as his son.

50:47

Jesus revealed himself, took on flesh, walked among us as a matter of historical record. And of course, God's revealed himself to us through his word.

50:53

So we have a revelational epistemology where we can say this is objective outside of us. It's always been true.

50:59

God's character has never changed. And so that's what we're basing our moral appeals in.

51:05

But yours is based upon brain gas. I, another thing, why is it like we're meat machines?

51:15

Like I can, yeah, I can agree with that. Like everything that happens within us is chemical reactions, more biological facts right there.

51:23

Like that's just how it is. But that's all you have though, Quentin, right? Why is simplifying it to that degree make it -

51:31

I'm reminding you of your worldview. I'm reminding you of your worldview where you're supposed to be holding to.

51:36

Your metaphysic is ultimately materialism. There's nothing transcendent. What we have is chemical reactions.

51:43

And your chemical reactions think that hurting others is not the right thing to do.

51:49

You think eating other people is icky at the moment, but other people, they fizz differently than you.

51:55

And so they enjoy it. Now you're complaining about it, but there's really no ultimate basis because your basic fundamental assertion is morality has never been ultimate.

52:05

So a lot of what we're doing here is just arbitrary. Well, Quentin thinks, and well, this particular grouping thinks this, but that grouping over there, they're different.

52:11

So yeah, I guess it's okay over there. So ultimately I wanted to point this to you, and I don't mean this in any way to disrespect you or to stand above you, because I'm as much of a sinner as the rest of humanity.

52:24

But I wanna point you to the fact that you know the God that we're talking about, it's all over you.

52:29

You talk about empathy, you talk about inflicting harm and pain. Because I'm like listening to you going, yeah,

52:36

I mean, there it is, Quentin. I mean, you're talking about caring for other human beings. You're talking about upholding their dignity and their value.

52:43

You're even talking about animals and saying we should protect and not abuse animals, which

52:48

I totally agree with. And that comports to the Christian worldview. But in the end, there's no basis.

52:54

There's no justification for it. Because if you really get down to what you're saying about reality, none of this makes really any sense at all.

53:05

So yeah, when I see, I think that my morality would basically go towards like, yeah, in many senses, there is a group mentality to it.

53:17

And as I see it, I don't see how it's really a gotcha point in saying that, yeah, people, different people, different cultures have seen things, have had different moralities forever.

53:29

Like their culture is far, far older than anything Christian ever has been.

53:35

And they're like, they had different types of morality. They had different ways of thinking and they evolved in a sense.

53:41

And like over time, mixing together and stuff. And so like,

53:47

I don't really see how it's a gotcha point that they, that, yeah, they changed their ways of thinking over time.

53:54

Can I just maybe, and I don't mean this, and I feel the same way. I don't want it to be like a gotcha point.

54:00

I wanna try to ask you just to think about it. And I wanna think about everything. I wanna think about what you're saying to me very seriously.

54:05

So all I would ask you to just think about this seriously. When you're saying, I don't see how it's a gotcha point. I don't intend for it to be that, but more of a stepping into your position and asking you to think about it.

54:16

Is it consistent? When you say it's essentially by society, like we've determined that this is moral or not moral.

54:27

I just want you to think about this challenge, okay? And you don't even need to answer right now if you don't want to, but just maybe reflect on it a bit in terms of, can

54:33

I really base this in this category? Society has determined it's moral.

54:39

Again, I'll point you back to the fact that if you went back during the time of slavery, let me ask you, just a quick answer for this one.

54:48

Would you have tried to fight against it? Yeah, I would be against slavery.

54:54

Okay, good. Against people owning people as property, yes, I would be against that. Okay, excellent.

55:00

Okay, that is consistent with the law of gods. I'm glad you said that. But what I would say is in that society, you would be the immoral one based on your own definition.

55:11

Society determines what's moral, what's a right and what's a wrong. But if you went to that society and you complained about the enslaving of black people and using them as property, you would in fact be the immoral one for complaining because society has already determined this is moral to do this.

55:29

You'd be immoral. And that, like if I went back to like, yeah, 1600s.

55:36

To any society. 150 years ago. To any society today, to any society today, if they determine something is immoral and you go in to complain about it, you're one person against the society.

55:45

But your definition of morality is the society determines what's moral, which means that there is never an opportunity because there is no ultimate morality to complain about anything in that system whatsoever.

55:57

Because whatever society determines is moral is moral. There's no societal change. There's no transformation.

56:03

There's no working to make things better because once society determines something is good and moral, the person who argues against it is now immoral.

56:14

Wait, say that again. You cut out. Okay, so once society, according to definition, determines something's moral, any argument against their system is immoral.

56:26

And I, yeah, I get that. But then you said that it's unchanging.

56:31

Like once the morality is like, yeah, if a group decides that, okay, we're gonna enslave people, like doesn't even matter what color their skin is.

56:42

We're just gonna enslave people, own this property, blah, blah, blah. And then, but that can change.

56:49

Like that, like, yeah, they may think that right now. And when they think it is, they could come to a different conclusion on their own or other people could show up and tell them this is something different.

57:01

That's it. They're immoral then at that point. Other people coming in to tell them this is wrong is immoral because they've already determined it's right.

57:09

And let me ask you this. They think that in the beginning, but then it can change. Well, let me ask you this. It always does. If all of America right now determine, all governments determine, and most of the society determined that kidnapping and enslaving people and using them as property was a moral thing.

57:25

That's good then, right? In America, that'd be good? It's now moral, correct, to enslave human beings according to your definition, correct?

57:36

They would think that, yeah. If the whole society decided that this is a good thing, then yeah, they would think it's good.

57:44

But is it good? Do you think it's good? Do you think it's moral? I don't think it is. So you're appealing to an objective standard.

57:49

So you're appealing to something outside of yourself. That's not objective. It is. It doesn't have to be objective at all.

57:56

It could just be that I don't agree with that. That's the only justification I need. So then you're already -

58:01

I don't need, it doesn't have to be ultimate. It can just be universal in some senses.

58:07

Or it could just be like, no, I don't. Someone wants me to smoke, a whole bunch of people are smoking. They say, you should smoke too because we're all smoking.

58:14

No, thanks. This is a different category than that. It's the same thing. I think what you're saying then is that morality is subjective completely.

58:23

It's not really based on society. It's subjective. That's what we're getting down to here is it sounds like what you're saying - Yeah, yeah, sorry. Yeah, like it -

58:29

It's okay. All morality is subjective. Morality is shaped by societies, yes.

58:35

But - It's ultimately subjective. It's not ultimate. Morality has never been ultimate. So -

58:41

I don't know how anyone could say that it has been in any point in history.

58:47

Like it's never been ultimate. And so, yeah, people - It's always - Have made changes. People have thought about things, have had different, have had changes of heart, all that type of stuff.

58:57

That's happened throughout history for thousands of years. So there's plenty of examples of this and then

59:03

I'll shut up here. There are plenty of examples of this. It can be, we could do it ad infinitum, ad nauseum, and it would be very, very sad.

59:11

Of people who had kidnapped small children, raped them, dismembered them, and then buried their bodies.

59:19

Right. If all morality is subjective, that's not really an immoral act that they committed.

59:25

We find it distasteful, some of us do. They liked it. But you don't really have an argument against it because all morality is ultimately subjective.

59:33

It's just based on what the person prefers. They prefer to kidnap, rape, and dismember children, and you're saying,

59:40

I personally am not for that, but. Yeah, that person, that person, there have been plenty of people who are into that.

59:49

They want to rape a kid and eat them, all that type of stuff. But then they live in a society that is not okay with that.

59:58

And so then that person now has to contend with that. Like the person, like the children's family members who may be out for revenge for that, or just the law in general.

01:00:09

Like the law is saying that, no, you can't kidnap children. At the moment. We decided this law, you can't do that.

01:00:16

At the moment, though. Remember though, a moment ago, you were arguing that ultimately the society itself can make wrong moral judgments.

01:00:24

And I don't know what really that means, wrong, if it's all subjective anyways and changes over time. But you have a particular instance of a person doing a horrific thing to a child.

01:00:35

You're saying, well, they might be in a society that actually says that's, they deem that immoral. But if the society deemed it moral, according to your position, it's now moral.

01:00:46

No one, if that were the case, then yeah, no one would have any issues obviously with it.

01:00:52

But then, but they live in a society where that is seen as wrong.

01:00:58

Like they've figured out that this thing is not favored. It doesn't, it's against the wellbeing of the entire community.

01:01:06

And so it's not okay. Like we're gonna go against that. And so yeah, they could change it.

01:01:11

Well, remember though, at the time of slavery though, you'll remember I'm sure at the time of slavery, there were people that argued that you were gonna destroy the wellbeing of society by ending the slave trade and black people as property.

01:01:26

They were making the same arguments and saying you're gonna destroy society by stopping the slave trade and letting these people go.

01:01:33

These people are my property. You're stealing from me. Yeah. Yeah, they thought that.

01:01:40

And then, but then in a sense, they were proved wrong. But when they were, when -

01:01:45

Wrong means wrong, but where wrong assumes, can I point that out to you?

01:01:51

Can I point that out to you? Just point, Quentin, just think of the last thought. And I will shut up after this point. We're just, we're having a good exchange here.

01:01:57

Wrong assumes an ultimate standard of what is true and right. Quentin, you gave that up when you gave up God.

01:02:06

You don't have that anymore. I gave up wrong? You gave up ultimate, you gave up truth when you gave up God, because remember, you are just, you're just matter in motion in a purposeless universe.

01:02:15

You don't have any ultimate morality. You don't have anything that's ultimately true beyond your own preference or experience.

01:02:21

Well, your own definition of morality, for one, saying that morality is arbitrary or subjective. That's not truth claims.

01:02:28

Okay, wait, so, okay. Morality and truth are completely separate. I'm sorry, I don't wanna take over this whole show. Go ahead. Great, okay, so let's do, let's move past that, because I think we got to the point there on terms of how you view morality.

01:02:39

But I think we really need to ask this question when you bring up the issue of truth. You know, this is an important one, because when we talk about something as true, we're talking about something that is true outside of my own likes and dislikes and preferences and experience.

01:02:52

It's true out of what my community thinks at the time. It's something that's outside of us. And truth has a transcendent nature to it, in a sense.

01:03:01

But it also requires of us to use laws of logic to get to truth.

01:03:07

We have to say something that's consistent. Inconsistency is a sign of a failed argument. Inconsistency is a sign of something that's not true.

01:03:14

So I would ask you, as somebody who's an atheist, a materialist who believes you evolved from bacteria to get here, and you're an ape,

01:03:22

I would ask you, on what basis are you appealing to immaterial, universal, unchanging laws of thought?

01:03:35

Because you believe that all that's happening in your skull right now is just chemical processes.

01:03:41

So, I mean, truth requires reason, laws of logic. So how are you appealing to laws of logic, universal laws of thought, when you believe that you're the descendant of bacteria?

01:03:57

Because laws of logic, laws of morality as well, laws of ways of thinking about things are just concepts.

01:04:07

They are abstractions, for sure. They're abstractions, right. Now, those concepts, are they universal?

01:04:15

They apply today in North Africa, Iceland, Antarctica, Phoenix, Texas?

01:04:24

Yeah, everyone would agree with them, yes.

01:04:32

Okay, so these laws of thought, laws of logic, you do believe they're universal.

01:04:39

Okay, are they material in nature? No, they're concepts.

01:04:45

Okay, so they're abstractions. So they're universal abstractions, and are they the result of communities determining these laws of logic, or do they exist outside of communities acceptance of them?

01:05:01

Are these laws universal and abstract and unchanging immaterial laws, or are they something that human beings just by convention determine?

01:05:12

Yeah, it's kind of a weird type of question, I think, but yeah, they are concepts.

01:05:20

They are made by not simply humans, but just minds in general.

01:05:26

You need a mind to be able to come up with these types of concepts. Right, okay. Even like a chicken could come up, could have some type of logical faculties, rudimentary as they may be, but they have them too.

01:05:39

But yeah, they are contingent upon minds, not simply human minds, like they're important too.

01:05:46

So question then, based upon that, if there were no human beings alive on Earth today would laws of logic be a thing?

01:05:56

In some type of sense, yes, it would be. So they're immaterial. Someone else would have mental faculties, even if it's not a person.

01:06:05

So if there were no brains on Earth, would laws of logic still be universal, immaterial, invariant laws?

01:06:18

If there were no brains? Do laws of logic exist outside of human minds, or is it just the product of a human mind?

01:06:26

It's a product, I said a mind in general. It doesn't have to be human. Whose mind? A mind, like something, like it can be animal too.

01:06:36

Like it doesn't have to be like humans. Like yeah, we gave it the name logic. We gave it an adjective of abstract, of conceptual, but if it's like a chicken can have logical faculties just the same as a person, it would be rudimentary, but they'd still have it.

01:06:56

Yeah, we're talking about something beyond the basic left, right, up, down, danger, ahead sort of conceptual.

01:07:02

That's what it is. Well, we're talking to something about something in terms of reasoning. Reasoning powers.

01:07:07

This would be the difference between your worldview and mine. I believe that human beings are different than other creatures like chickens, snakes, horses, and dogs.

01:07:16

We're very, very different and distinct as image bearers of God, or reflections of God to that extent.

01:07:22

But I would point out that when you and I refer to laws of logic, you know that you and I are referring to things beyond left, right, up, down, danger, ahead sort of a thing.

01:07:31

We're talking about things that, we're talking about laws of non -contradiction.

01:07:37

We're talking about fallacies, things like that. And just as an example, when we're building bridges around the world today, people are using laws of thought, laws of arithmetic, laws of logic to even build bridges, correct?

01:07:52

Yeah, those are all like, mathematics was invented, but that's also like, yeah, it's not a material thing, obviously, but -

01:08:01

Wait, so hold on, I gotta ask you this question and then I really will. I really will just shut up now. Quentin, my friend, you don't believe that mathematics is just a way of thinking.

01:08:11

Do you think they build bridges like that? It's, well, I don't know, maybe - Yeah, they use mathematics, they use -

01:08:17

They certainly do. They come up with these things. They certainly do, Quentin. They come up with these concepts, and then if they work, if they do the whatever type of calculations correctly, then they know, okay, this works.

01:08:29

Very good, so those laws - It gives up. Discovered them. So those laws reflect the nature of reality.

01:08:35

They're not just human conceptions. Yeah. So in other words -

01:08:40

I don't think I see, I don't think that, from my perspective, I don't see it exactly like that.

01:08:46

Well, what I'm saying is that - It's not like a literal material law that someone has to write down. Exactly.

01:08:52

It's different from that. Oh, for sure, for sure. We agree that writing down on paper or on the chalkboard the mathematical problem is a reflection of the transcendent law that we're getting to, and I just want to point out to you that the

01:09:06

Christian worldview can account for and provide the preconditions of intelligibility for the use of mathematics, building bridges, science, all the rest, and laws of logic, but your worldview as a materialist can't account for the immaterial, certain reality of arithmetic.

01:09:24

So for example - Did we agree that they're concepts? They're abstractions, but I believe they're universal laws.

01:09:32

You can't have universal laws in your worldview. You're a materialist. You're meatbag protoplasm in a universe that doesn't care about you, and here you are appealing to all these immaterial, universal, unchanging laws in nature.

01:09:44

Why does the fact that I recognize that human being, that every living creature is, yeah, it is a meat machine, like when you get down to it, how does that mean that I can't recognize that mathematics is a thing that we use?

01:10:01

Well, no, I know you do because you're in the image of God, you live in God's world and you can't escape it, but I would point to you, one of your own, a prophet of your own,

01:10:08

Dr. Will Provine, professor of biology at Cornell University, he says in terms of thinking about the atheistic worldview, your worldview, materialism, all the rest, he says there is no good, there is no evil, he says that there are no goal -directed forces in the universe, there's no purpose, there's no meaning, he says there's nothing ultimate, he says you live, you die, and you're gone, you're absolutely gone when you die.

01:10:32

That's your worldview. No, it isn't. That's not mine. Then what's your argument with Will Provine?

01:10:40

I see that, yeah, there are like, sorry, say one more, like the last part of Will Provine.

01:10:47

Sure, I'll summarize it. I mean, there's a number of quotes you can get from him, but he holds to your worldview and he's very consistent with it.

01:10:52

He says there is no good, there is no evil, there's no moral, you disagree with him there?

01:10:59

Keep going. You said morality has never been ultimate.

01:11:06

I'm not sure how you could disagree with Dr. Provine at that point. He'd probably object to that before I would. He says in this universe, there's no goal -directed forces or purpose or meaning.

01:11:17

And he says we live, we die, and we're gone, we're absolutely gone when we die. Now, you want to construct a worldview even holding his perspective.

01:11:28

I'm sure he has differences of opinion on different issues, but he holds to your basic metaphysic and view of the world and origins and all the rest.

01:11:38

You wanna live in a world where you use the word beautiful, you use the word design, you use the word you should do this, shouldn't do that.

01:11:46

You don't wanna inflict harm on others. But your worldview doesn't comport with that.

01:11:52

I think you're imaging God. And I think I want you to know Jesus. I do think that mine does.

01:11:57

I don't think that I need a God to justify how I live my life. But that's the whole question from our perspective is that you said you don't need a

01:12:07

God to justify your worldview, but we're simply asking you to explain or justify your worldview without God.

01:12:15

You see, you can't make sense of morality. You can't make sense of anything if God is not the source or what you point to to be the source of that.

01:12:25

And let me explain it this way. Given the atheistic worldview, there are preconditions of intelligibility that we take for granted.

01:12:35

I'm not gonna get too far this way. What I was gonna say is this conversation is running a little long. We'll have you on again in the future.

01:12:40

So maybe we can conclude. You can watch the show. Maybe you can process this.

01:12:46

We'll have a part two. Yeah, we'll have a part two. But what I'm... I got me off guard.

01:12:53

What I'm... What was that? We'll have a part two. Part two. He said part two. So here's the issue.

01:13:00

Here's our contention. It's called the transcendental argument for the existence of God. And it's pretty simple to explain.

01:13:06

It says without God, we can't prove anything or we can't justify the assertions that come out of our mouth, whether it be moral, whether they be a truth statements, whatever they may be.

01:13:18

Our contention is this, that we all take for granted preconditions of intelligibility.

01:13:25

Those things are the laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, and a moral code that we all appeal to whether or not we think it's subjective, right?

01:13:33

So what we are asking the atheist is given the atheistic model, is how can you explain these things when behind everything asserted by the atheist, there is no mind, there is no...

01:13:46

Even though... And I think you said there was order, which I'd like to talk to you about next time. How in the world can you get order from a universe that does not operate on order?

01:13:56

And where could order possibly come from other than a mind that directs that order?

01:14:03

So what we wanna challenge you with and maybe just think these things through in preparation for our next talk, is how can you account for the laws of logic?

01:14:12

How can you account for morality? And I'd love to get into this one. Any type of uniformity in nature, believing that the future is going to be like the past.

01:14:22

How can you account for that or justify that? How do you make sense of that given a random chance universe?

01:14:30

Okay, so let's stop there. I think... That's really easy, but we can do that next time. Yeah, that's just... I think that's really easy to answer.

01:14:37

Okay, great. So we'll get into that. I think my sister wanted to talk to you for a little bit here. Hi. Okay.

01:14:43

I've just been listening. How's it going? Good, how are you? I'm okay. How do you feel after that conversation?

01:14:49

I feel a little dizzy. It was interesting. Yeah, it went longer than I expected, but it was cool.

01:14:56

Yeah. Well, we appreciate you coming on the show. I would just say I'm kind of listening to you as a mom.

01:15:02

It makes me a little sad to listen to your worldview. I can't imagine my son thinking some of the things you do.

01:15:09

And I'm not trying to say this in a condescending way at all. I think you sound like you're very smart. It's just...

01:15:16

Man, Quentin, you were all over the place. You said a bunch of things that contradicted each other.

01:15:21

You basically think that you're a biological animal. And so,

01:15:29

I don't know. It just made me a little sad, but I am thankful for your time. I would just say, like I talked to Bill, our last guest.

01:15:36

I mean, come on, you know that there's a God and you just let him. No, like, yeah,

01:15:42

I can appreciate your concern and everything. But then, I mean, I don't...

01:15:48

Yeah, I know that humans are animals. I know this is a biological fact. That doesn't take anything from me.

01:15:55

You're different. Honestly. You're different than an animal, though. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. Yes, you are genetically different than an animal.

01:16:01

I mean, people in your own field, scientists would say that. I actually have this printout from Princeton University.

01:16:08

I thought you were gonna debate when life started. And I have an article that was written 20 years ago or something like that from a doctor from Princeton, basically saying that life does begin at conception.

01:16:22

But you didn't negate that. You were just saying, yeah, life begins at conception, but I think that you should be able to kill the baby if they can't feel pain or if they can't live outside of the womb.

01:16:34

So you went that direction, but... There are a lot of different aspects to that argument, but yeah, there's more to...

01:16:41

Scientifically, you're different than a baboon. You are. I mean, yeah.

01:16:47

How? I'm not that different. I'm not that different. Yeah, your genetic code is different, though.

01:16:53

Biologically, I'm not that different. Well, your genetic code would be different. The genetic code of a baboon is not the same.

01:16:58

Why is a baboon not sitting next to me talking then? I mean, you are different. You are different and you're made in the image of God.

01:17:05

But you know what? I know that this went long. Anyways, I just wanted to thank you for your time. But I would say that you are demonstrating the absurdity, the absolute absurdity of a godless worldview and that you love the darkness rather than the light.

01:17:21

There's sin in your life that you wanna hold onto and you love it and you're a rebel against the God you know created you and you need

01:17:28

Christ. And we say that with as much love as I could even muster up in my heart for you because I was that person, too.

01:17:35

And so, man, you need Christ. God is holy, Quentin, and you are not holy.

01:17:42

You are full of sin just like the rest of us. And you are separated from God and you are headed to an eternity without him.

01:17:49

Without Christ, it's hopeless. And so this is why, if you go back and listen, you've contradicted yourself so many times.

01:17:57

And I say that respectfully. Like I said, I'm not trying to be demeaning or condescending to you. When I said I listened to you like a mother, it makes me sad that you really don't think that you're more than an animal.

01:18:09

You are. Even the scientific medical journal I printed out, it's like 20 pages.

01:18:15

Anyways, it just talks about that every single person at the moment of conception, or at the moment of, yeah, fertilization, is a unique individual, okay?

01:18:26

So you are a unique. I agree with you there. Yeah. I'm with you there. There's more to the arguments, but yeah.

01:18:32

They're not a unique baboon. They're not a chicken. Your DNA is different than that. But there is purpose for your life.

01:18:39

It just makes me sad to think that you think that. Why can I not decide what that is for myself? Okay, well,

01:18:46

I'm just saying. On this question. I don't understand where you're going with that. Why can't I decide what my purpose is?

01:18:52

Yeah, like why do I need someone else to decide what my life is? Why can't I figure that out on my own?

01:18:59

I don't think that's the argument. It's just, you're saying that. It seemed like that's what you were alluding to.

01:19:06

If it's something else, then okay. No, you're doing. But we can speak more on it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, we can speak more on it in the future.

01:19:13

What I'm saying is that you're saying that everything is purposeless, but you wanna decide your purpose.

01:19:20

But I'm saying that there is a God that created you. You're not a baboon. You're not the product of random processes.

01:19:27

Like you are an individual made in, you are made in the image of God and worthy of respect.

01:19:34

And we do respect you and thank you for coming on the show, but we love you enough to tell you you are dead in your sin and you need

01:19:41

Christ. And so Zach's gonna give you the gospel here. But, and thank you for your time. I really do appreciate it.

01:19:46

And I learned a lot just listening to my pastors, speak with you. And I've actually never met an atheist before that admitted that they would eat somebody.

01:19:56

I mean, have people not done it before? No. Like if it comes down to it. Maybe we'll get into that in the future.

01:20:03

I mean, I honestly don't see it as that much different. But most of the time people are like, no, that's gross. Of course, you know, most.

01:20:08

I would think it's gross too, yeah. I would say most. I would totally think that it's gross, but. Most atheists would be like, no, because as a society we've evolved to understand that that is not acceptable.

01:20:19

But you were like, yeah, we should catch up. It wouldn't be something that I would want to do by any means.

01:20:25

That would be like a last ditch effort. Right. If it comes down to it, I mean. All right, well, let's go ahead. People have had to do that.

01:20:31

Let's close it up. Because again, I think we all could talk for hours. And it was interesting. And I thank you for coming on. I know it takes some courage to come on the show.

01:20:38

I don't know if you've ever been on a podcast. And I want to thank you just real fast for your graciousness and your demeanor and your respectfulness.

01:20:45

I really appreciate that much, Quentin. Thank you. Right. So we'll do a part two. And when this comes out, you can check it out and see the topics that you want to kind of talk about or kind of unwrap.

01:20:57

But I do want to share with you the good news of the gospel of what Jesus Christ has done. I'm just not going to do it too exhaustively or go too in -depth.

01:21:05

But if a Christian loves you and truly cares about you, they're going to share with you the gospel. Because the

01:21:10

Bible says in the message of the gospel is the power of God into salvation that Jesus came proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and inherent in the message of the gospel,

01:21:19

God utilizes that to make dead sinners alive. So take this as a message of love, even though I know at this point, you do disagree with this.

01:21:27

But I'm going to go ahead and share it with you real quick. It just starts with the gospel, I guess, summarily or simplistically is good news, bad news, good news.

01:21:36

The good news, number one, is that we were created, we are created in the image of God that every single human being is knit together in their mother's womb.

01:21:44

That we don't come from random chance processes. This is the proclamation of the scriptures. This is the proclamation of the

01:21:50

Christian worldview that God is our creator and maker. But God is not only our creator,

01:21:55

God is holy and he's perfectly righteous and perfectly pure. But the fact of the matter is, is because of our sin, we are not.

01:22:02

That we are sinners separated from God. We're rebels from God. We only do that, which he commands us not to do.

01:22:08

And it's because we have a sinful heart within our chest. We really have two big problems. We have this internal problem of a sinful heart that only wants to sin and break

01:22:16

God's law. And then we have this massive rap sheet of crimes against God that has to be accounted for.

01:22:22

So it's the bad, the good news, God's our creator. Bad news, because of our sin, we're separated from him. We're headed to a judgment.

01:22:28

And there is a day of judgment. The Bible says that it's once for a man to die and after that comes a judgment. That God has fixed a day that when he will judge the world in righteousness and that by the man

01:22:38

Christ Jesus. And what needs to be communicated on that day of judgment, we cannot appeal to any standard or let me explain that.

01:22:48

God's not gonna judge us based upon any other standard other than his law. And what we do in our sin is we live life based upon the way that we see it.

01:22:57

We think on that day of judgment, it's gonna be a day of arbitration or mediation. We'll act as our own attorney and we'll be able to just kind of explain to God what he needs to hear.

01:23:06

That's not gonna be the case. It is gonna be the day of judgment when he judges all men according to their deeds.

01:23:13

And brother, if we're found in our sin, if we have not turned from our sin and turned to Jesus Christ in faith, then the punishment for all lawbreakers is an eternity in hell.

01:23:22

It's an eternal jail cell. It's a punitive outpouring of God's wrath because of sin. But here's the good news.

01:23:28

God didn't leave us in our sin. He didn't leave us in our helpless to stay. He didn't need to. But 2000 years ago,

01:23:33

God sent Jesus, fully God, fully man, lived the perfect life we could never, ever live for 33 years.

01:23:40

He lived that life. We can't even live it for 33 seconds. The law of God tells us we need a savior.

01:23:45

Then Jesus, what does he do? He dies on the cross unimaginably. God becoming man, absorbing in himself the penalty for sins that he didn't even deserve, but we rightly deserve.

01:23:55

And after three days, he raises from the dead, voluntarily giving his spirit to the Father. Now he's seated at the right hand of God.

01:24:03

He's ruling and reigning. He's the king. We live in his world and we can't escape it. And so the command to all men everywhere is turn from your sin, turn to Christ.

01:24:11

That's what we want for you. And that is the good news. The good news is this. You can be brought into relationship with God.

01:24:17

You can inherit eternal life. You can know abundant life. You can come into the family of God, assured that your sins are forgiven, assured that you're saved by a great savior.

01:24:28

And brother, that's ultimately what we want for you. So we love you. Think about these things. We're praying for you.

01:24:33

And then I'll be in touch. But I just wanna say again, I appreciate you coming on and we'll talk again in the future.

01:24:40

Does that sound good? Yeah, thanks for having me on. Thank you, Quentin. Appreciated you today, man. Thank you. Thanks, bro.

01:24:45

We'll talk to you soon. See you later. So maybe just a couple of things before we wrap up.

01:24:54

Do you have any thoughts about it? Ultimately, I loved the way that this went because we just wanted to bring you on the show just to almost do like a how to argue with a pro -choice or with an atheist, with Pastor Jeff.

01:25:07

Is there any kind of principles that we wanna look at? Yeah, I would say that, so we started the conversation talking about life in the womb and what ought to be done or ought not to be done, those sorts of things.

01:25:22

And we could stay in that realm and conversation for a long period of time. But what we're neglecting is the fact that there's all these hidden assumptions underneath this discussion.

01:25:32

Like there's something we ought to do or ought not to do, right? And what we saw at the very beginning with Quentin, very, very sweet man, obviously very gentle, respectful, and actually really enjoyed talking to him.

01:25:46

And what we see is that as he starts to communicate his position, we realize that it's essentially an arbitrary position based upon his own personal preferences and those sorts of things.

01:25:58

But he's arguing that there is a moral aspect to this, but his position is it shouldn't be done after this point.

01:26:07

And you ask the question on what basis? And then he gets to some other arbitrary principle over here, and that's where you have to sort of go at the bottom and say, well, wait a second here, we're talking about things that ought to be done or ought not to be done.

01:26:18

That assumes that there's this ultimate morality, but you're an atheist. So what we wanna make sure we point out to somebody that's in an atheist worldview, that's what they've adopted, is that they're essentially borrowing capital from the

01:26:32

Christian worldview in order to make sense of their own. And as soon as you show that they've borrowed some capital and you start going to get it back, that's where you can sort of dig into their position and say, you don't really have any capital of your own.

01:26:46

You shouldn't be arguing for these things given your worldview, because if you're consistent with your worldview, it's gonna lead to this.

01:26:54

And the unbeliever says, no, no, no, no, no, I don't accept that. But you keep pushing, you keep pushing and keep pushing, and then they go, well, yeah,

01:27:02

I guess in some societies if they think it's okay to hunt and kill human beings and eat them, then that's all right to do because they've determined for themselves.

01:27:09

So the issue, you know, Van Til is famous for saying, give the unbeliever, and I don't mean that in an offensive way, we're all unbelievers before Jesus, but give the unbeliever rope and time and eventually they're gonna hang themselves.

01:27:25

The unbelieving perspective can't make sense of the world that they live in and the life that they're living.

01:27:31

Like you heard Quentin talk about, he used the word beautiful, he used the word design, he's talking about things that you should do, should not do, he's talking about protecting people from pain.

01:27:42

You can't have that in his perspective. And the thing is, is he was wondering, he was wondering how come

01:27:49

I can't have just a meat machine in a purposeless universe and still care about beauty, truth, goodness, how come?

01:27:58

And the answer should be obvious to everybody because you're a meat machine in a purposeless universe. None of those things matter.

01:28:03

You can't get those from meat machines in a purposeless universe. You can get them if you're in the image of God and you do know the

01:28:10

God that I'm talking about. What you see with the atheist is a person that wants everything that only

01:28:15

God can give them in God's world, but they refuse to acknowledge him. And that's what

01:28:20

Romans 1 says, it says that we know the God who created us, he's shouting to us constantly, we have the knowledge of God, but we suppress that truth within us and we switch

01:28:30

God for something else. It even says that even though they knew God, they did not acknowledge him as God, but they became futile in their speculations.

01:28:39

And it says that they didn't want God in their knowledge, meaning they don't want to know him.

01:28:46

And so what you have is people living in God's world under God's gracious hand of love and protection.

01:28:55

I mean, think about this, all the while Quentin is on the phone with us, his heart is beating, he's drawing breaths, all the while he's arguing against the

01:29:05

God who's giving him that beat and giving him, and he's borrowing that breath from God. So he's living in God's world and wants to escape it, but can't coherently live in that world without ultimately acknowledging

01:29:22

God for consistency. And I think that needs to be pointed out.

01:29:28

So what you saw there is an attempt to love him, to point him to the fact that he knows the

01:29:33

God we're talking about, that the problem is ultimately sin, but it was also according to Proverbs 26, four through five, there's a twofold apologetic methodology there.

01:29:42

It says, answer the fool according to their folly, lest they be wise in their own conceit. And what we mean by that is we say, we should do the internal critique of their system, step into their worldview and show them the consequences.

01:29:53

And hopefully in showing the person the consequences of their worldview, they'll see its moral collapse, they'll see its decay, and they'll hopefully see that the heart of this is really just rebellion.

01:30:04

And then through the proclamation of the gospel, they'll turn to Jesus. Because listen, here's the thing, and I'll shut up here,

01:30:10

Quentin gets everything he's asking for with Jesus, beauty, truth, goodness, moral oughts, fairness, all that stuff, respect, dignity, value, worth, all that.

01:30:22

He gets it with Jesus. He doesn't get it with his atheism. He won't have it and can't live consistently.

01:30:29

Awesome. Well, thanks so much for coming on, man. Yeah, I think people need to understand the difference, especially, and I think it's been on display here, the difference between presuppositional apologetics or argumentation and evidential apologetics, which we would believe presuppositional is very biblical, does honor to God.

01:30:48

And like you said, just breaks down scriptural commands on how we're to deal with the unbeliever in a biblical way.

01:30:55

I like how Dr. Lyle says, he says, we can't change a heart, but we can shut their mouths just by showing the logical and inconsistent nature of any type of atheistic explanation for ontology, how they can know what they know.

01:31:12

So I think that we saw that on display. So thanks so much, man. We appreciate you being on. Absolutely, thank you, Pastor.

01:31:18

I would ask you both this, just as my pastors, when do you know when, he just would go on and on.

01:31:25

I feel like we could have probably talked to him for what, eight hours going on different subjects. So when do you know, is it just discernment of like, okay, he's obviously abandoning reason.

01:31:38

I need to go to the gospel. You wanna go? Because I know it's important, like you said, you get to step in and dismantle their arguments, dismantle their worldview.

01:31:48

But I mean, do we just go straight into the gospel or do we just? Well, I think that, I wouldn't say that there's a clock you can put on it necessarily, but I would say that I think if you're doing, if you're reasoning correctly in a way that glorifies

01:32:03

God and you're not pretending neutrality, if you're actually standing on scripture the whole time, my assumptions is what

01:32:09

God says about this man is true. What God says about his world is true. When I'm trying to show this image bearer of God that I love and I wanna know

01:32:16

Jesus, his errors, as soon as I can, what

01:32:22

I try to look for is that moment where he images God and goes to collapse. And so what

01:32:27

I try to do is when they get to the point where their worldview collapses, they say something entirely crazy that they probably wouldn't say normally in public.

01:32:37

Like, yeah, I guess it's cool to eat people in a society that says it's okay. Like, when I see that kind of collapse or I see them imaging

01:32:44

God, I'm gonna put my finger on it and go, see? Do you see how you're imaging God? Do you see how you can't have what you're asking for in your position?

01:32:51

Do you see the absurdity of your position? That's why you need Jesus. The problem is your sin. And so that's sort of what

01:32:58

I wanna do is stay consistent with my feet on God's word. And when I see it, point to it and then say, the problem is sin.

01:33:06

You know the God that I'm talking about. Because I want those words to penetrate. The image bearer of God, when the emperor has no clothes,

01:33:14

I want to be the one pointing it out. Right? While the rest of unbelievers are going, no, no, he's got clothes on.

01:33:21

Like, no, he's naked and you all should be taking a look at it. So when that moment is fulfilled in the conversation,

01:33:29

I wanna point to the capital they're borrowing and the fact that they know the God that I'm talking about. Cause I hope that he is at home tonight.

01:33:37

And I hope at one in the morning, he wakes up, God wakes him up and he starts thinking about what he's doing.

01:33:43

And I hope God uses that to open his eyes. Right? Yeah. That's totally in line with the scriptures.

01:33:48

We tear down every lofty thought or speculation, all of these godless and antichrist ideological systems of thought.

01:33:57

That's a whole part of the evangelistic procedure. And then what do you do? You build the gospel on top.

01:34:04

And they're gonna fight tooth and nail. The Bible says spiritual things are only spiritually appraised. Unless you have the

01:34:11

Holy Spirit, you're gonna be like, yeah, I agree. Yeah, that's only gonna happen when God gives faith and repents.

01:34:16

But what we can do is dismantle that for the glory of God, ultimately, cause he commands us to.

01:34:22

And then say, here's the gospel. This has the power to save you. And then we just leave it to the Lord. I love too, it's like,

01:34:29

I'm listening to Pastor Jeff talk and you've been doing it for how long? Decades? Oh, he's like 55. You're like 100.

01:34:35

Okay, I did feel, I told him this. I felt a little bad cause Quentin didn't know Pastor Jeff was coming on.

01:34:41

We're like, it was like being after school and somebody's like, meet me outside the fight and you show up with your dad. No, no, but I love that it was actually so simple.

01:34:54

Like, because I think we can get really intimidated by people that say they have like a scientific background or their PhD or they're going to get their master's degree and we start going, oh no, am

01:35:02

I gonna be able to do this? But you just, it's so simple. You just bring it back to authority and what they're basing that off of.

01:35:10

And so I love just listening to you as he's going through each line item, even though he was kind of jumping all around because you really just kept bringing it back to what's he basing his authority on.

01:35:21

Right, and a final thought on that is that there are very intellectual, intelligent, sophisticated, highly degreed atheists and scientists that are much smarter than me, much, much smarter.

01:35:40

However, scripture says the fool says in his heart there is no God. And that's not an insult. It's not intended to be an insult.

01:35:46

It's intended to be a moral assessment of the person. The fool says in his heart, there is no God. It's a person who refuses to accept what's obvious to everybody that God is and there's no escape.

01:35:59

And so when somebody is far more intelligent than I am, I know that ultimately this guy's in God's image and he can't even brush his teeth without Jesus.

01:36:09

And so it's at that basic level, you can't brush your teeth in a philosophically consistent way given your atheism because you can't justify the appeal to the laws of logic or to the laws of science.

01:36:24

You can't provide an answer to the problem of induction that nature is uniform, that the future will be like the past.

01:36:30

So you can't put your feet on the floor and go brush your teeth without Jesus and making sense of it.

01:36:36

So as smart as a guy is, he can't hide from Jesus. Right, awesome. Wait, sorry, one more thing.

01:36:42

We'll just go on for eight hours, but I was thinking about this as he was talking, like saying all this, you know,

01:36:50

I don't wanna say crazy because I'm sounding like I'm being insulting to him. I'm not trying to be insulting to him, but basically just like the despair that I think

01:36:58

I would feel if I thought what he was thinking, you know, just like purposeless. I'm just nothing more than a baboon and kind of the same as a chicken and yeah, maybe it's okay to eat people.

01:37:08

And like, as he's talking, I'm like picturing what's going on right now and just the rioting and, you know, corrupt cops and just the despair that's going on in our country right now.

01:37:19

And I just could not like help but think like, okay, we've pulled God out of the schools.

01:37:25

We've turned our back on God. And now it's just all these people that have no hope.

01:37:31

And so we're just treating each other like animals. What you see around you is a logical, it's the logical result of evolutionary humanist worldview and system of law.

01:37:42

This is what you get. You planted that tree and now you're eating its delicious fruit.

01:37:48

Yeah. It's horrible. Yeah. Yeah. But thank God for Jesus, right? Yeah, thank God for the

01:37:53

Lord and the fact that as a Christian, we can account for these things and it's very simple. I mean, it all finds its basis in the

01:37:59

God who created us. And yeah, that's the hope of the world. So we're so thankful.

01:38:05

You guys tuned into the show. We hope it was helpful for you. What we wanna try to do is come alongside of you and equip you to properly and biblically defend your faith, starting with the

01:38:15

God of the Bible, not giving evidence to eventuate to him. No, we start on the foundation that if God didn't exist, we couldn't really prove anything.

01:38:24

So we hope this is thankful for you. And if you liked it, and if this is a God glorifying show, just go ahead and share that and let us know how you feel.

01:38:32

People love to take directions from very old men, like Pastor Zach.

01:38:39

He's got more gray in his beard than me, by the way. That's true. He does. Although I'm getting it pretty significantly.

01:38:44

It's coming on the channel, but not like me. It is. So, hey, we love you guys and we will talk to you next time.