Responding to Top 5 Worst Atheist Memes

Opening Announcements and Upcoming Conferences

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala, and today I am going to be talking about the top five worst atheist memes. Now of course, as I go through my top five, I am sure there are other ones out there that are deliciously bad.

These are the ones that I've chosen to cover, and hopefully they will be somewhat entertaining and instructive. We take a look at a meme. Memes have a very powerful way of getting a message across in a very simple way through a picture or a picture in some words or something along those lines.

Hopefully it will provide for us a context to have some good theological and apologetical discussion. If there are any questions, as I always say on my show, if you have a question and you ask nicely, preface your question with a question and I'll try my best to get to it throughout.

I kind of planned this at the last second. I'm going to be away until Sunday. My family and I are going to Florida. I live in North Carolina. We're going to go on vacation. As a teacher, I have a wonderful schedule where I am currently on a fall break and I have two weeks off.

Last week I had off. This week I have off. Now we're going to Florida. It's going to be a lot of fun. I figured let me just do a live stream before I head out. I picked this topic and I thought it would be a fun way to do something before I go dark for a little while.

Again, just as a reminder, there are a couple of things I want to bring to folks' attention. I want to kind of wait until we get a little bit more of an audience. Let me get this on the screen here. There we go.

I'll just kind of preface this with some simple stuff here. If you guys enjoyed my discussion with Dr. Lane Tipton of the Reformed Forum, I am planning to have him back on again. That, in my opinion, was one of my favorite discussions that I had.

We covered such a wide range of issues relating to Cornelius Van Till, the Doctrine of the Trinity, presuppositional apologetics, and things like that. Looking forward to having him back on to discuss a little bit more about his book regarding Van Till and Van Till's Trinitarian theology and some other areas that I think are going to be very important and very interesting to folks.

Real quick, before we kind of jump into our topic for today, I want to remind people that if you have benefited greatly from Revealed Apologetics and you want to support Revealed Apologetics, and I, to be perfectly honest, I totally need it, so I would greatly appreciate it, folks.

We're willing to support. But here's one way you can support. I am hosting the Epic Online Presup Conference where there are a total of five speakers. This online conference will range from 10 a .m. to 4 .30 p .m. with some periodic breaks in between, but I will be presenting an overview of presuppositional apologetics where my speakers are going to be jumping into specific areas of application that I think are going to be very useful for folks.

And so if you really want to dive deeper, and folks have been asking me, especially folks who took my PresupU course that can still be purchased on the website, many of them have reached out to me and said, hey, is there anything that we can do to kind of jump in a little bit deeper than just kind of an overview or an introduction?

This is our opportunity, right? So if you sign up to this conference, you not only will be supporting Revealed Apologetics and helping me out, but each speaker is going to cover and go deep into their specific area.

So what I want to do right now is just briefly summarize each of the areas that each of my speakers will be covering. So number one, I will be covering an overview of presuppositional apologetics, kind of like a refresher, kind of a recap of what presuppositional methodology is all about, its foundation, kind of relating to what I teach on my online course that is offered on my website, but kind of just an overview.

And then my guest speakers will be covering specific areas. So for example, Dr. Chris Bolt, that gentleman with the beard on the bottom left there of the flyer, he is an excellent resource. And of course, Dr. Bolt will be covering transcendental arguments in general, and the uniqueness of Cornelius Van Til's transcendental argument.

So this will be kind of a survey of transcendental arguments throughout history, and then the specific uniqueness of the presuppositional transcendental argument. So that is the topic that Dr. Chris Bolt will be covering.

And of course, we have Dr. Jason Lyle. His talk will be covering specifically how to understand the role of evidence within a presuppositional framework. And that's going to be a very important topic to cover.

I get this question all the time, people who are on the fence as to whether they should use a more evidential approach or a classical approach, or whether they should use a presuppositional approach. And people will say, well, wait a minute, I like the cosmological argument.

I like the teleological argument, the moral argument, and all these different arguments. And at the same time, I think presuppositional apologetics really has something going for it. How do I balance these two things, the evidence and the arguments and a presuppositional method?

Dr. Lyle is going to explain how we understand evidences within a presuppositional framework. So that's a very useful and important topic. So that's going to be a really, really good talk. And I have the pleasure not only of being one of the speakers, but being able to listen in on each of these speakers myself.

I've benefited greatly from each of them. Of course, Matt Slick from CARM .org, that's the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry. Matt Slick is a friend of mine, he's been on the show multiple times.

He's going to be covering how to apply a presuppositional method to the cults. There's another question that comes up often. Well, a transcendental argument, presuppositionalism works well when you're discussing issues with atheists.

But what happens when you're discussing issues with Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and different cultic groups? How do we apply a presuppositional method in that context? Matt Slick will be covering that for us in this epic online presub conference.

And of course, Josh Pillows. I've had Josh Pillows on before. I moderated a debate between Joshua Pillows and David Paulman on the issue of apologetic methodology. That's on the channel too. Excellent exchange.

I highly recommend that if you want to see the two methodologies, evidentialism and presuppositionalism set side by side. You can check that out in the backlog of the videos. Joshua is a great resource in that he has listened to and took copious notes and has a very deep understanding of presuppositional apologetics from within the Bonson tradition.

I would say he is an expert in the Bonson flavor of presuppositionalism. What he's going to cover is how to answer the objections to presuppositional apologetics. He's going to go through a list of common objections and not so common objections.

Again, this is going to be an intermediate level conference. It will assume some level of background knowledge. But that's going to be an excellent talk there. I'm looking forward to that. Now, I know I'm blabbing and I'm kind of going on and on before I jump into my main topic, but I'm going to share my next slide.

Now, I'm super excited about this. This is the first time I am announcing this right now. Now, if you notice the epic online presub conference, my desire is to put out a series of, quote, epic online conferences, getting people together that you might not think would ever get together and give a talk on some important theological or apologetic issue.

So I have been planning for next year, early next year in January, the specific date is to be decided, but I have my speakers confirmed. And just before I show my next slide and I show what the conference is about and who the speakers are, if they ever watch this, because all of the speakers are super busy, so I don't know if they'll watch this specific live stream.

I want to thank my speakers for the epic online presub conference who are doing this out of a favor to help support Revealed Apologetics. And for the next conference that I'm about to reveal, Revealed Apologetics, see what I did there?

I would like to thank you as well. And so in January, I will be hosting an epic Calvinism conference and here is my flyer. It has not been shared anywhere. You cannot sign up for this just yet. This is kind of just the teaser, the introduction.

And so for this epic online Calvinism conference, I am proud to announce that I will be having Dr. James White as one of the speakers. The specific topic that he is going to cover will be announced somewhere else down the line, not right now.

This is kind of just an intro to the event. I have Dr. Guillaume Bignon, who is also going to be participating and covering a specific topic as well. I have Scott Christensen, who has written a couple of books on free will, evil and suffering from a Calvinist perspective.

And so he's going to be covering a specific topic as well that I will be announcing in the future. And Saiten Bruggenkate, who is typically associated with apologetics, but I actually wanted him to join this conference to kind of address a specific area of Calvinism from kind of a lay person's perspective.

And so hopefully with these different speakers, we can cover a different area of depth and application. Now, this is not going to be the generic, you know, Calvinism conference where each of the speakers goes through one of the five points of Calvinism.

We're going to be covering specific areas that are of importance. It's not simply a summary. The only person on this panel who will be doing a summary is myself. So my topic, I can tell you right now, is going to be an overview of the doctrines of grace.

But each of these speakers will be covering different areas that I think are going to be very useful to folks. So I will be sharing this flyer either later tonight or sometime this week on Facebook. There is no date.

All I know is that it is in January. And I will definitely let folks know as the time comes. Also, these gentlemen have been so kind to participate in this, helping me out as well. I'm trying to raise money for Revealed Apologetics because, you know, unfortunately, the reality is to do what I'm doing and to upkeep websites, subscriptions, and pay the bills, you know, you need money for that.

So I'm trying to ask for support in ways that also will benefit those who are willing to support. So if you can do that by signing up to the EPIC Presub Conference, and eventually when this is set up and people are able to sign up, you can support Revealed Apologetics by signing up for the EPIC Online Calvinism Conference.

In doing so, you are helping me out, and I greatly appreciate it and definitely need it. So I don't know if you know this, but it looks like things are going great, and they are. I'm so blessed, and God has really been blessing the channel.

But by way of support, I'm not getting lots of support, and things add up. You know, my ministry account gets sucked out because I have subscriptions and website upkeep issues. And when money's not going in, money's definitely coming out, and so funds get very low, and then we get into the danger zone.

So I would greatly appreciate it that folks consider supporting. All right. Well, that's it for my kind of announcements in terms of what's coming up. I hope you're excited. I'm super excited. That's really awesome.

Hopefully, somewhere down the line, further down the line, I can do an EPIC Eschatology Conference, and we can cover all of these super interesting and fascinating theological topics that I think will bless people in terms of developing a deeper knowledge of some of those important theological topics and perhaps also draw some apologetic application from all that.

All right. Well, that is it for my introductions, and I promise I won't do that again, and I won't do that every live stream, but I figured those are pretty big announcements, so I wanted to share that with folks.

What a Meme Is and Why Atheist Memes Matter

So let's jump right in. The top five worst atheist memes, in my opinion. If you know of ones that are even worse, I'm sure they're out there. Feel free to explain in the comments, things like that. All right.

Well, let's jump right in. Our first meme. So here are, for those who are not initiated on what a meme is, I figured, you know what? Everyone knows what a meme is, but just in case, if you don't know what a meme is, you happen to be an old dude who just stumbles upon my YouTube channel after discovering the Internet for the first time.

A meme is a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc. that is copied, often with slight variation, and spread rapidly by Internet users. A meme could be funny. A meme could be not funny. It can be very serious.

Memes can be mean, or they can just be super lighthearted. But the thing is, memes, because they're so easy to share, they become very popular. And interestingly enough, because we live in kind of a microwave culture where everyone wants this kind of quick information, a lot of people get their perceptions of Christianity, religion, political issues from memes.

I know that sounds incredible, but it's true. This is the society we unfortunately live in. However, the creation of memes, more specifically atheist memes, provides a wonderful teaching opportunity. And so I know a lot of us who do apologetics, if you're not doing it face-to-face with people on the streets, a lot of it is interacting online.

So hopefully this will be useful for folks who see an atheist meme pop up, and you might interact and try to strike up some conversation. So hopefully it will be helpful to that end. Now, in between each of these, if I see questions in the comments, I will try my best to address them.

I already see a couple of questions there. But let's get started first on our atheist memes. All right. Meme number one. I literally just went on Google and typed in atheist memes. Okay? These are a couple that I found.

Now this is a bad one. According to Genesis, we all come from Adam and Eve, who had three sons. The bottom part there says, think about it. Take all the time you need. According to Genesis, we all come from Adam and Eve, who had three sons.

Think about it. Take all the time you need. So the point is that this makes no sense. If Adam and Eve had three sons, how do we explain the rest of mankind who is supposedly supposed to populate the earth or something along those lines?

And that's, again, the meme is pretty bad. A couple of things we want to keep in mind. The Bible also states that Adam lived another 800 years and had other sons and daughters. That's Genesis 5, verse 4.

People forget that. Now, whether you think it's incredible or impossible or whatever, the reality is, in the book of Genesis, we are told that the pre-flood human beings lived a very, very long time.

And, of course, we have, I believe, Adam lived, I want to say, 900 and something years. I don't know if the specific years escapes me. But it says here in Genesis 5, 4, he lived another 800 years, had other sons and daughters.

How many sons and daughters did he have? Well, we're not told, right? We're not told how old Cain and Abel were at the time of the account of Cain's murder of his brother. And the text strongly suggests that this event that we read about between Cain and Abel occurred while other siblings were born from Adam and Eve.

Because Cain says, after he murders his brother, he feared that anyone who finds me will kill me. Well, of course, if he's the only one there with his brother Abel and his parents, I mean, he's not referring to his parents.

If anyone finds me, there obviously seems to be other people around. And so, because of the long periods of time that they lived, because of the fact that we're not told specifically when this event occurs, it is quite reasonable and not even difficult to imagine that there are many other people already around that gives Cain this idea that he should fear the fact that he would have some kind of repercussions for his murder of his brother.

So again, how does one respond to this? Well, just read the rest of the story. A lot of these memes, a lot of these kind of quick pop objections to the Bible come from a very patchwork-ish attempt at pulling things out of the Bible without reading the context or just reading the chapter.

So it is important to know the broader context of the Bible so that we could just point people to these verses. Listen, yeah, they had other sons and daughters. This shouldn't be difficult. So this is pretty bad.

I thought this was, again, you could find ones that are worse. I thought this was a fun one. All right. All right. Let me... Moving forward too quick. Let me take some questions here. All right. So Arthur Bear says, How would you apply the precept method to Gnosticism?

Well, Arthur, unfortunately, I do not know enough about Gnosticism to apply the method in a way that I can summarize it for you here. However, there's still something that we can say. So for example, when we use a presuppositional method on anybody, the method is going to be generally the same.

So if someone were to say, How would you use a precept method against an atheist? And then I give my answer, which many people have seen in my debates or in my other videos, that you could see what that looks like.

And then someone says, Aha, but how would you use the precept method against a Muslim or a Mormon? Well, surprise, surprise. The method doesn't change. Okay. We do. We're arguing the Christian worldview, right?

This is still the same when we're arguing with a Gnostic or anyone from any religious perspective or philosophical perspective. We are arguing the Christian worldview as a system. We are offering this system as that by which intelligibility and knowledge is grounded.

Okay. And let's see here. And when I'm speaking to the Gnostic, I've never met a Gnostic before, but I suppose they're out there. Otherwise, the question wouldn't have come up. The key thing to do, and this is not just like precept, this is just normal human interaction.

If you are engaging someone over the topic of our religious beliefs, it is important to ask questions, right? When a person identifies as a Gnostic, I think it is helpful to ask the question, What do you mean by that?

Okay. As you know, there are different flavors of Gnosticism. It's not a monolithic perspective. But I would ask questions. And in asking the questions, I look for three things. Okay. And this is precisely what I would do with the Gnostic.

Okay. There are three foundations to every single worldview. Okay. And these three things help me not have to know every single detail of that person's worldview perspective. And so the three things are metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics.

Everyone has a metaphysical perspective. What is reality? Everyone has an epistemological perspective. Their theory of knowledge. How do we know what we know? And everyone has an ethical theory. How should we live our lives?

And so when I identify either of these foundational pillars, then when you get enough information, you can then engage in the internal critique, hypothetically granting the truth of the perspective and showing that on its own terms, the foundations implode.

Okay. Now, again, I can say that. What that looks like is going to depend on what the person says, what their perspective is. So obviously the way that conversation is going to look is going to depend on really the nature of the discussion.

But that would be the general blueprint that I would use. And yes, Arthur says, I suppose you got some future content. Yes, thank you. Perhaps I can do, I'd have to study a little bit more on Gnosticism.

It has been a while. But yeah, possibly. Thank you so much for that. That's an excellent question. Let's see here. Trevor Lewis asks the question, are you Post Mill? Yes, I am. I am a Post Millennial.

I believe that we win in the end, right? The gospel will go out into all the earth. And by the time Christ comes, the gospel will have an overriding positive effect upon the world. The kingdom of God starts incy bincy and expands, right?

And we participate in that expansion through the proclamation, the victorious proclamation of the gospel. So yes, I am a Post Millennial. All right.

Let's see here. Spanish Bowl FM. Spanish Bowl FM.

Why did God create the world? The ultimate reason. The ultimate reason that God created the world is for his glory. God is the sumum bonum. He is the greatest good. And so he creates for his own glory because his glory is the greatest good.

And part of that involves our enjoying relationship with him. So we could ask the question, why did God create the world for his glory? Why did God create man for his glory? But there are more elements to that question.

I agree with the, I think it's the Westminster Confession of Faith, or the shorter catechism. What is the purpose of man? The purpose of man is this, to glorify God and enjoy him forever. I strongly believe that that is very much a part of the reason why God created man.

To glorify God, we were created for worship and enjoy him. Relationship? Forever. Eternal. We were created to worship, have eternal relationship with God, and enjoy him forever. So part of the reason God created the world and us, image bearers, was to have an eternal relationship with him.

That does not benefit him, but benefits us. And because God is love, and the essential feature of love is other-centeredness, God shares his love with his creatures. So that's how I would answer the question.

But if you want a generic, the ultimate reason, it is for his glory. But there are certain layers to that that I think are important. All right. Let's see here. Errico Mendez. Greetings, Eli. Please talk about why people in general think it was wrong for brothers and sisters to marry and why they are wrong.

Yeah. So, yeah, we know today, I mean, I'm not a scientist, so I'm not knowledgeable on all of the genetic information, right? But it is known today that if close siblings were to copulate to mate, that can have negative genetic impact upon the offspring.

And so it is not something that is encouraged very much today, unless you live in some parts of the world. But back in the day, if God created Adam and Eve and commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, and part of God's purposes was that man multiply and have dominion over the earth, then reproduction would have to be the case, right?

We'd have to actually multiply, right? And so at the beginning, this was not an issue. As a matter of fact, it was essential that brothers and sisters, quote, unquote, marry and multiply. But eventually, because of the results of sin and other factors, God gave in his law a prohibition against this specific practice.

So it was once allowed, and for specific reasons, it was not allowed later on. And that's given to us in God's law. All right? All right. Well, thank you for those questions. I hope I answered them to folks' satisfaction.

Okay? Keep them coming. If you have questions, I'll stop as I go along and try my best to address them. All right? So let's continue with these memes. Now, Bill Murray. I have no idea if Bill Murray actually said this.

I have no idea. Okay? Remember what I said at the beginning. I went and I Googled atheist memes. So I have no idea. This is, you know, this is one of them that popped up. I love Bill Murray. Growing up, I was a huge, and when I say huge, it doesn't even capture the reality of what I'm getting at here.

When I was a kid, I was a huge Ghostbusters fan. I loved Ghostbusters. I still love Ghostbusters. I loved Ghostbusters 1. I loved Ghostbusters 2. It is a debate in my mind which one I like better. The Ghostbusters with the women in it.

Let's just say this. Okay? It didn't feel like a Ghostbusters movie when I watched it. But I laughed a couple of times. But overall, it wasn't on the caliber of the other Ghostbusters. So eventually, but again, I am a sucker for bad movies.

There are certain movies that are bad that I actually enjoy. I probably, many people would probably unsubscribe if I were to tell you the sorts of movies that I do like. But that Ghostbusters, the one with the women, definitely deserves the criticism.

But there are elements of it that I like. And then the last Ghostbusters that came out, I really enjoyed. What was it? Ghostbusters Afterlife. I really enjoyed that. But be that as it may, I have no idea if Bill Murray actually said this.

But regardless of who said it, let's see how we could respond. So religion is the worst enemy of mankind. No single war in the history of humanity has killed as many people as religion. Okay? Now, this is a common criticism of religion.

Beyond just being a meme, this has confronted us in books. It has been, especially at the beginning, after 9 -11, where you had the new atheism become very popular. This really was a common talking point by many atheists.

And so how might we respond to this apologetically? There are a couple of things. Okay? Number one, we want to kind of understand what is typically implied by this statement. Right? So let's read it again.

Religion is the worst enemy of mankind. No single war in history, in the history of humanity, has killed as many people as religion. Okay? So what's typically implied by this is that religion produces violence.

Religion produces violence. Or religion is man-made. Because, look, you know, it makes sense that religion would produce violence because man created it. Right? And they are greedy. They're self-centered.

They're lusting for power. And people use religion to manipulate the masses, these sorts of things. And so religion is man-made. Religion in general, and Christianity in particular, is false. Sometimes people draw the conclusion there's no reason to believe Christianity is true.

Because, look, if Christianity were true, look at all of the violence that has come about because of Christianity in particular. But religion in general. All right? Now, there are a couple of things I want you guys to keep in mind.

I want you to think about this logically. Okay? Religion is the worst enemy of mankind. No single war in the history of humanity has killed as many people as religion has. All right? I want you to ask yourself the question.

All right? What follows from this statement? Suppose you were talking to a friend who happened to say this. You know, religion is the cause of most wars. Okay? What follows from that? All right? That's an important question to ask.

Okay? So there are a couple of things. Number one, there are two responses we can give. Number one, that's factually false. Okay? So the statement, religion is the worst enemy of mankind. No single war in the history of humanity has killed as many people as religion has.

That is factually false. All right? And it's logically irrelevant. Okay? It is logically irrelevant. What do I mean by this? If I wanted to be sarcastic, and we don't want to be sarcastic unnecessarily, but if we wanted to be sarcastic, if someone says, man, you know, religion has been the cause of most wars throughout history.

We could very easily respond with, so? And your point is? Okay. Religion is the cause of most wars, therefore what? What follows from that? Well, the falsity of religion and the falsity of Christianity in particular doesn't logically follow from that fact.

Even if I were to grant the truth that religion in general and Christianity in particular has been the cause of most wars and violence throughout history, it does not logically follow that therefore, you know, Christianity is false or religion is bad or things like that.

Okay? So a couple of things. So number one, factually false. This is taken from Phillips and Axelrod's three-volume set, The Encyclopedia of Wars. And it says here, out of the 1 ,763 wars waged over the course of human history, 123 of them have been categorized as being religious in nature.

Out of that percentage, 66 or 53 .66 were related to Islam. Okay? So in other words, wars that have been started for religious reasons, most of them have been Muslim-initiated. Okay? Initiated by Islam.

Now, granted, now that fact too does not mean Islam is false. Okay? If someone were to say Islam is the cause of most religious wars throughout history, it does not logically follow that therefore, Islam is false.

Okay? So you want to keep that in mind, right? You always want to ask, if someone's making an argument or making a statement that is implied to be an argument, you want to ask yourself what logically follows from that.

And if you can show that the conclusion they're trying to get to doesn't logically follow from their statement, then that will actually alleviate you from having to do unnecessary heavy lifting, jumping into areas of discussion that aren't really germane to, you know, what the person's trying to say.

Okay? If someone says, you know, religion is the cause of most wars, so therefore what? What follows from that? Not the falsity of Christianity. Right? If they think that's what follows from that, then they need to show that.

But again, it's logically irrelevant, and as we show here, it is factually false. If you want to get a visual, take a look at this chart here. You have non-Islamic religious wars right here on the far left.

Okay? So non-Islamic religious wars would include wars that were initiated by Christians and other religious perspectives. Islamic wars are slightly larger than that. And non-religious wars, the visuals help, I think.

Okay? Notice that the statement, okay? Let's go back here. Hold up. Hold up. Notice that the statement, religion is the worst enemy of mankind. No single war in the history of humanity has killed as many people as religion has.

Not only is that factually false, it is redonkulously not even close to reflecting what is actually the case. I mean, look at this. Here's another one. Ready? Non-Islamic religious wars represents the 3 of the blue.

Maybe that's changed since the last time that this data was given, but I would imagine not very much. The orange, 4%, Islamic wars. And the red, non-religious wars. That is a giant, giant chunk of that little chart there.

So this is not, this, Arthur Bear says there's a pretty large gap. Yeah, that's a pretty large gap. Okay? Now, this does not mean that Christianity is true. It doesn't mean that Christianity is false.

It's irrelevant to the question of truth. It is irrelevant to the question of what one ought to believe. It doesn't follow that you ought not believe in Christianity because look how much violence has been produced because of Christianity or religion or whatever.

Okay? So again, to see the visual, not even close, not even close. And ironically, the non-religious wars can have, can be politically initiated and social issues and various revolutions, political issues involved.

But ironically, the death toll of religious wars does not even compare to the death toll of wars that reflect more of an atheistic regime. Just in our modern context alone, let's give you some numbers here.

Okay? Non-religious dictators, lives lost under their regime. Joseph Stalin, under Joseph Stalin, over 42 ,672 ,000 lives were lost. Under Mao Zedong, 37 ,828 ,000. Adolf Hitler, 20 ,946 ,000. Chiang Kai-shek, or it's supposed to be Shek, sorry.

That darn auto-correct, right? 10 ,214 ,000. Vladimir Lenin, 4 ,017 ,000. Hideki Tojo, 3 ,990 ,000. And Pol Pot, 2 ,397 ,000. That's a lot of lives. That is a lot of lives. Okay? Again, does this mean that atheism, because these regimes were more atheistic in their orientation and their philosophical outlook, does that mean atheism is false?

No, it doesn't mean atheism is false. Okay? The fact is that the statement that religion is the cause of most wars is just factually false and irrelevant to the truth of religion in general and Christianity in particular.

Okay? So once people make these sweeping claims, it's very interesting to kind of get to the specific numbers to show not even close and that we need to think more carefully about these issues. All right.

Before I go to the next one, let's see if there are any more questions. Let's see here. Let's see here. Hello, hello. All right. Biblesia? Biblesia, I guess. I'm so sorry. Thank you for your question.

Even in the face of atheism, how do you feel about recovering the word religion from negativity? Thanks for your work, Eli. What I've seen from you is very encouraging. Thank you so much. I do appreciate that.

Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, I think there's nothing wrong with the term religion. Let me just remove this real quick and we'll jump right back in. So the term religion kind of gets a bad rap.

Let me fix my focus here. Hello. Yeah, the term religion gets a bad rap. You often see this in a lot of evangelical churches, right? Ready? This is my impression of the generic evangelical Christian slash pastor slash whatever.

Ready? Christianity is not a religion. It is a relationship, right? We've heard this, right? It's not a religion. It's a relationship. And I kind of get the sentiment behind that. But that's just false.

Right? It is false. Christianity is a religion. There's nothing wrong with calling it a religion. A religion is just a belief system with a set of beliefs that's centered around a deity or a philosophical perspective or something like that.

Christianity is a religion. It has stipulations. It has rituals. It has ceremonies. We worship a deity. There is nothing wrong with calling Christianity a religion. And that does not negate the reality that Christianity is also a relationship.

Part of the Christian religion involves content that speaks of the nature of the relationship that believers have with their maker. Right? So there's nothing wrong with the word religion. I have no problem calling Christianity a religion.

I don't think it should be looked at negatively. To be religious does not necessarily mean to be legalistic. The Christian religion does not teach legalism. So to call Christianity a religion and to look closely into the content of that religion, what do we learn?

That the content of the religion of Christianity teaches the importance of relationship with our maker and it speaks against the practice of legalism or an inappropriate religiosity as we see in the Pharisees, in the Gospels.

We have examples of this legalism of the negative sort. All right? So thank you so much for that question. That is a good, good question. And let's see here. Let's see here. Not a question, but a comment.

Pigs can fly. I wish they could. In other words, secularism and especially communism, government-enforced atheism has killed by far the most people throughout history. Yeah. And that's true just within like the past couple of centuries.