Responding to Top 5 Worst Atheist Memes

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Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala, and today

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I am going to be talking about the top five worst atheist memes.

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Now of course, as I go through my top five, I am sure there are other ones out there that are deliciously bad.

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These are the ones that I've chosen to cover, and hopefully they will be somewhat entertaining and instructive.

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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.

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Hopefully it will provide for us a context to have some good theological and apologetical discussion.

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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.

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I kind of planned this at the last second. I'm going to be away until Sunday.

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My family and I are going to Florida. I live in North Carolina. We're going to go on vacation.

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As a teacher, I have a wonderful schedule where I am currently now on a fall break and I have two weeks off.

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Last week I had off. This week I have off. Now we're going to Florida.

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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.

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Again, just as a reminder, there are a couple of things I want to bring to folks' attention.

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I want to kind of wait until we get a little bit more of an audience. Let me get this on the screen here.

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There we go. I'll just kind of preface this with some simple stuff here.

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If you guys enjoyed my discussion with Dr. Lane Tipton of the Reformed Forum, I am planning to have him back on again.

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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

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Trinity, presuppositional apologetics, and things like that. I'm 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.

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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

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Revealed Apologetics, and to be perfectly honest, I totally need it, so I would greatly appreciate it, folks.

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We're willing to support. But here's one way you can support. I am hosting the

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Epic Online Presup Conference, where there are a total of five speakers.

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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.

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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?

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This is our opportunity, right? So if you sign up to this conference, you not only will be supporting

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Revealed Apologetics and helping me out, but each speaker is going to cover and go deep into their specific area.

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So what I want to do right now is just briefly summarize each of the areas that each of my speakers will be covering.

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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

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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.

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So for example, Dr. Chris Bolt, that gentleman with the beard on the bottom left there of the flyer, he is an excellent resource.

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And of course, Dr. Bolt will be covering transcendental arguments in general, and the uniqueness of Cornelius Van Til's transcendental argument.

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So this will be kind of a survey of transcendental arguments throughout history, and then the specific uniqueness of the presuppositional transcendental argument.

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So that is the topic that Dr. Chris Bolt will be covering. And of course, we have Dr. Jason Lyle.

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His talk will be covering specifically how to understand the role of evidence within a presuppositional framework.

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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.

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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.

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And at the same time, I think presuppositional apologetics really has something going for it. How do

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I balance these two things, the evidence and the arguments and a presuppositional method?

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Dr. Lyle is going to explain how we understand evidences within a presuppositional framework.

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So that's a very useful and important topic. So that's going to be a really, really good talk.

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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.

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I've benefited greatly from each of them. Of course, Matt Slick from CARM .org, that's the

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Christian Apologetics Research Ministry. Matt Slick is a friend of mine, he's been on the show multiple times.

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He's going to be covering how to apply a presuppositional method to the cults. There's another question that comes up often.

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Well, a transcendental argument, presuppositionalism works well when you're discussing issues with atheists.

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But what happens when you're discussing issues with Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and different cultic groups?

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How do we apply a presuppositional method in that context? Matt Slick will be covering that for us in this epic online presub conference.

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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.

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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.

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You can check that out in the backlog of the videos.

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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

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Bonson tradition. I would say he is an expert in the Bonson flavor of presuppositionalism.

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What he is going to cover is how to answer the objections to presuppositional apologetics.

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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.

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It will assume some level of background knowledge, but that's going to be an excellent talk there.

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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.

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Now, I'm super excited about this. This is the first time

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I am announcing this right 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.

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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.

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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,

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I want to thank my speakers for the epic online presub conference who are doing this out of a favor to help support

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Revealed Apologetics, and for the next conference that I'm about to reveal, Revealed Apologetics, see what

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I did there? I would like to thank you as well. And so, in January, I will be hosting an epic

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Calvinism conference, and here is my flyer.

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It has not been shared anywhere. You cannot sign up for this just yet. This is kind of just the teaser, the introduction.

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And so, for this epic online Calvinism conference, I am proud to announce that I will be having

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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.

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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.

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I have Scott Christensen, who has written a couple of books on free will, evil, and suffering from a

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Calvinist perspective, and so he's going to be covering a specific topic as well that I will be announcing in the future.

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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 layperson's perspective.

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And so, hopefully, with these different speakers, we can cover a different area of depth and application.

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Now, this is not going to be the generic Calvinism conference where each of the speakers goes through one of the five points of Calvinism.

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We're going to be covering specific areas that are of importance. It's not simply a summary.

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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.

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So, I will be sharing this flyer either later tonight or sometime this week on Facebook.

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There is no date. All I know is that it is in January, and I will definitely let folks know as the time comes.

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Also, these gentlemen have been so kind to participate in this, helping me out as well, so I'm trying to raise money for Revealed Apologetics because, you know, unfortunately, the reality is to do what

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I'm doing and to upkeep websites, subscriptions, and pay the bills, you know, you need money for that.

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So, I'm trying to ask for support in ways that also will benefit those who are willing to support.

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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

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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.

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So, I don't know if you know this, but it looks like things are going great, and they are.

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I'm so blessed, and God has really been blessing the channel. But, by way of support,

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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.

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So, I would greatly appreciate it that folks consider supporting.

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All right. Well, that's it for my kind of announcements in terms of what's coming up.

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I hope you're excited. I'm super excited. That's really awesome. Hopefully, somewhere down the line, further down the line,

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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.

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All right. Well, that is it for my introductions, and I promise

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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.

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So, let's jump right in. The Top 5 Worst Atheist Memes, in my opinion.

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Okay? If you know of ones that are even worse, I'm sure they're out there.

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Feel free to explain in the comments, things like that, and yeah.

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All right. Well, let's jump right in. Our first meme.

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Okay. Well, okay. So, here are, for those who are not initiated on what a meme is,

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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

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YouTube channel after discovering the internet for the first time. A meme is a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc.,

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that is copied, often with slight variation, and spread rapidly by internet users.

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Okay? A meme could be funny. A meme could be not funny. It can be very serious. Memes can be mean.

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Okay? Or they can just be super lighthearted. But the thing is, memes, because they're so easy to share, they become very popular.

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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.

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I know that sounds incredible, but it's true. This is the society we unfortunately live in.

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So, however, the creation of memes, more specifically atheist memes, provides a wonderful teaching opportunity.

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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.

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So, hopefully this will be useful for folks who, you know, see an atheist meme pop up, and you might interact and try to strike up some conversation.

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So, hopefully it will be helpful to that end. Now, in between each of these, if I see questions in the comments,

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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.

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Alright. Meme number one. I literally just went on Google and typed in atheist memes.

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Okay. These are a couple that I found. Alright. Now, this is a bad one. Alright.

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According to Genesis, we all come from Adam and Eve who had three sons.

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The bottom part there says, think about it. Take all the time you need.

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Okay. According to Genesis, we all come from Adam and Eve who had three sons.

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Think about it. Take all the time you need. Alright. So, the point is that this makes no sense.

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If Adam and Eve had three sons, you know, how do we explain the rest of mankind who is supposedly supposed to populate the earth or something along those lines.

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And that's, again, the meme is pretty bad. A couple of things we want to keep in mind.

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The Bible also states that Adam lived another 800 years and had other sons and daughters.

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That's Genesis chapter 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.

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And, of course, we have, I believe, Adam lived, I want to say 900 and something years.

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I don't know the specific years escapes me. But it says here in Genesis 5 verse 4, he lived another 800 years, had other sons and daughters.

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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.

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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.

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Because Cain says, after he murders his brother, he feared that anyone who finds me will kill me.

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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.

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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

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Cain this idea that he should fear the fact. That he would have some kind of repercussions for his murder of his brother.

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Okay? So again, how does one respond to this? Well, just read the rest of the story.

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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

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Bible without reading the context or just reading the chapter. So it is important to know the broader context of the

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Bible so that we could just point people to these verses. Listen, yeah, they had other sons and daughters.

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This shouldn't be difficult. So this is pretty bad. I thought this was, again, you could find ones that are worse.

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I thought this was a fun one. All right? All right. Moving forward too quick.

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Let me take some questions here. All right. So Arthur Bear says, how would you apply the precept method to Gnosticism?

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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.

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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.

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Okay? 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.

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Then someone says, aha, but how would you use the precept method against a Muslim or a

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Mormon? Well, surprise, surprise, the method doesn't change. Okay?

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We're arguing the Christian worldview, right? This is still the same when we're arguing with a

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Gnostic or anyone from any religious perspective or philosophical perspective. We are arguing the

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Christian worldview as a system. We are offering this system as that by which intelligibility and knowledge is grounded.

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Okay? And let's see here. And when

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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.

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The key thing to do, and this is not just like precept, this is just normal human interaction.

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If you are engaging someone over the topic of our religious beliefs, it is important to ask questions, right?

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When a person identifies as a Gnostic, I think it is helpful to ask the question, what do you mean by that?

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Okay? As you know, there are different flavors of Gnosticism. It's not a monolithic perspective.

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But I would ask questions and in asking the questions, I look for three things.

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Okay? And this is precisely what I would do with the Gnostic. Okay? There are three foundations to every single worldview.

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Okay? And these three things help me not have to know every single detail of that person's worldview perspective.

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And so the three things are metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Everyone has a metaphysical perspective.

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What is reality? Everyone has an epistemological perspective, their theory of knowledge. How do we know what we know?

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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.

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Okay? Now, again, I can say that what that looks like is going to depend on what the person says, what their perspective is.

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So obviously the way that conversation is going to look is going to depend on really the nature of the discussion.

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But that would be the general blueprint that I would use. And yes, Arthur says,

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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.

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It has been a while. But yeah, possibly. Thank you so much for that. That's an excellent question.

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Let's see here. Trevor Lewis asks the question, are you post mill? Yes, I am. I am a post millennial.

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I believe that we win in the end, right? The gospel will go out into all the earth and by the time

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Christ comes, the gospel will have an overriding positive effect upon the world.

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The kingdom of God starts incy bincy and expands, right? And, and we participate in that expansion through the proclamation, the victorious proclamation of the gospel.

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So yes, I am a post millennial. All right. Let's see here. Spanish bowl

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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.

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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.

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And part of that involves our enjoying relationship with him.

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So we could ask the question, why did God create the world for his glory? Why did God create man for his glory?

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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.

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What is the purpose of man? The purpose of man is this to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

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I strongly believe that that is very much a part of the reason why God created man to glorify

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God. We were created for worship and enjoy him relationship forever, eternal.

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We were created to worship, have eternal relationship with God and enjoy him forever.

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So part of the reason God created the world and us image bearers was to have an eternal relationship with him.

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That does not benefit him, but benefits us. And because God is love and the essential feature of love is other centeredness.

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God shares his love with his creatures. So that's how I would answer the question.

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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.

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All right. Let's see here. Erico Mendez.

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Greetings, Eli. Please talk about why people in general think it was wrong for brothers and sisters to marry and why they are wrong.

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Yeah. So yeah, we know today, I mean, I'm not, I'm not a scientist, so I'm not, I'm not knowledgeable on all of the genetic information.

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Right. But it is known today that if close siblings were to copulate to mate, that can have a negative genetic impact upon the offspring.

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And so it is not something that is encouraged very much today, unless you live in some parts of the world.

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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.

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Right. We'd have to actually multiply. Right. And so at the beginning, this was not an issue.

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As a matter of fact, it was essential that brothers and sisters, quote unquote, marry and multiply.

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But eventually, through, because of the results of sin and other factors, God gave in his law a prohibition against this specific practice.

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So it was once allowed, and for specific reasons, it was not allowed later on.

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And that's given to us in God's law. All right. All right. Well, thank you for those questions. I hope

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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.

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All right. So let's continue with these, these memes. Now, Bill Murray. I have no idea if Bill Murray actually said this.

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I have no idea. Okay. Remember what I said at the beginning, I went and I Googled atheist memes.

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So I have no idea. This is, you know, this is one of them that popped up.

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I love Bill Murray. I, growing up, I was a huge, and when I say huge, it doesn't even capture the reality of what

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I'm getting at here. When I was a kid, I was a huge Ghostbusters fan. I loved

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Ghostbusters. I still love Ghostbusters. I loved Ghostbusters one. I loved

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Ghostbusters two. It is a debate in my mind, which one I like better. The Ghostbusters with the women in it.

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Ah, let's just say this. Okay. It didn't feel like a Ghostbusters movie when

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I watched it, but I laughed a couple of times, but overall it wasn't on the caliber of the other

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Ghostbusters. So eventually, um, but, but again, I am a sucker for bad movies.

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There are certain movies that are bad that I actually enjoy. Um, I probably, many people would probably unsubscribe if I were to tell you the sorts of movies that I, that I do like.

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Um, but, but that Ghostbusters, the one with the women definitely deserves the criticism, but there are elements of it that I liked.

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Um, and then the, the last Ghostbusters that came out, I really, I enjoyed, uh, what was it? Uh, Ghostbusters afterlife.

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I really enjoyed that. But be that as it may, I have no idea if Bill Murray actually said this. Um, but regardless of who said it, um, let's see how we could respond.

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So religion is the worst enemy of mankind. No single war in the history of humanity has killed as many people as religion.

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Okay. Now this is a common, um, criticism of religion.

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Um, it, it, it, beyond just being a meme, this has confronted us in books.

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It has been, especially at the beginning, um, uh, after, uh, 9 -11 where you had the new atheism, uh, become very popular.

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Uh, this is really was a common talking point by many atheists. Um, and so how might we respond to this, uh, apologetically?

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There are a couple of things. Okay. Uh, number one, we want to kind of understand what is typically implied by this statement, right?

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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.

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Okay. So what's typically implied by this is that religion produces violence.

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Religion produces violence or religion is manmade because look, you know, it, it, it makes sense that religion would produce violence because man created it.

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Right. And they are, they're greedy, they're self -centered, they're lusting for power and people use religion to manipulate the masses, these sorts of things.

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Um, and so, uh, religion is, is manmade. Religion in general and Christianity in particular is false.

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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 been, that has come about because of, uh,

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Christianity in particular, but religion, uh, in general. All right. Now there are a couple of things

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I want you guys to keep in mind. Now I want you to think about this logically. Okay. Religion is the worst enemy of mankind.

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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.

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All right. What follows from this statement?

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Suppose you were talking to a friend who happened to say this, you know, religion is the cause of most, uh, most wars.

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Okay. What follows from that? All right. That, that's, that's an important question to ask.

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Okay. So there are a couple of things. Number one, there are two responses we can give. Number one, that's factually false.

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Okay. So, 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.

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That is factually false. All right. And it's logically irrelevant.

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Okay. It is logically irrelevant. What do I mean by this? Um, 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, uh, we could very easily respond with.

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So, and your point is, okay. Religion is the cause of most wars. Therefore what, what follows from that?

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Well, the falsity of religion and the falsity of Christianity in particular, doesn't logically follow from that fact.

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Even if I were to grant the truth that religion, uh, in general and Christianity in particular has been the cause of most wars and, uh, violence art history, it does not logically follow that.

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Therefore, you know, Christianity is false or religion is bad or things like that. Okay. So a couple of things.

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So number one, factually false. Here is, this is taken from Phillips and Axelrod's three volume set, uh, the encyclopedia of wars.

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Um, 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.

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Out of that percentage, 66 or 53 .66 % were related to Islam.

31:31

Okay. So in other words, uh, wars that have been started, uh, for religious reasons, most of them have been

31:39

Muslim initiated, okay. Initiated by Islam. Now, granted that now that fact too, does not mean

31:46

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

31:55

Islam is false. Okay. So you want to keep that, uh, you want to keep that in mind, right?

32:01

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.

32:09

Um, and if, 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, um, germane to, you know, what the person's trying to say.

32:27

Okay. If someone says, you know, religion is the cause of most wars. So therefore what, what follows from that?

32:32

Not the falsity of Christianity, right? If they think that's what follows from that, then they need to show that.

32:38

But again, it's logically irrelevant. And as we show here, it is factually false. If you want to get a visual, uh, take a look at this chart here.

32:46

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.

32:58

Islamic wars are slightly larger than that. And non -religious wars, the visuals help,

33:05

I think. Okay. Notice that the statement, okay, let's go back here.

33:11

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.

33:20

Not only is that factually false, it is redonkulously not even close to reflecting what is actually the case.

33:28

I mean, look at this. Here's another one. Ready? Non -Islamic, non -Islamic religious wars represents the 3 % of the blue.

33:35

Uh, maybe that's changed since the last time that this, uh, this data was, was given, but I would imagine not very much.

33:42

Uh, the orange 4 % Islamic wars and the red non -religious wars.

33:48

That is a giant, giant chunk of that little chart there. So this is, uh, not this,

33:55

Arthur Bear says there's a pretty large gap. Yeah, that's a pretty large, a large gap. Okay.

34:01

Now this does not mean that Christianity is true. It doesn't mean that Christianity is false.

34:07

It's irrelevant to the question of truth. It is irrelevant to the question of what one ought to believe.

34:15

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, or whatever.

34:24

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

34:41

But ironically, um, the death toll, um, 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.

34:56

Let's give you some numbers here. Okay. Non -religious dictators lives lost under their regime.

35:02

Joseph Stalin under Joseph Stalin, over 42 ,672 ,000 lives were lost.

35:08

Under Mao Zedong, 37 ,828 ,000. Adolf Hitler, 20 ,946 ,000.

35:16

Chiang Kai -shek, or it's supposed to be Shek, sorry, that darn auto -correct, right?

35:22

10 ,214 ,000. Vladimir Lenin, 4 ,017 ,000. Hideki Tojo, 3 ,990 ,000.

35:30

And Pol Pot, 2 ,397 ,000. That's a lot of lives. That is a lot of lives.

35:36

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?

35:47

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.

36:01

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.

36:12

All right. Before I go to the next one, let's see if there are any more questions. Let's see here.

36:22

Let's see here. Hello, hello. All right.

36:34

Bibblesia, 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?

36:43

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.

36:50

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.

36:57

So the term religion kind of gets a bad rap. Let me fix my focus here. Hello.

37:04

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

37:11

Christian slash pastor slash whatever. Ready? Christianity is not a religion.

37:19

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?

37:28

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.

37:40

Christianity is a religion. It has stipulations. It has rituals, has ceremonies. We worship a deity. There is nothing wrong with calling

37:47

Christianity a religion. And that does not negate the reality that Christianity is also a relationship.

37:54

Part of the Christian religion involves content that speaks of the nature of the relationship that believers have with their maker, right?

38:03

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.

38:12

To be religious does not necessarily mean to be legalistic. The Christian religion does not teach legalism.

38:18

So to call Christianity a religion and to look closely into the content of that religion, what do we learn?

38:25

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

38:39

Pharisees, in the Gospels. We have examples of, you know, this legalism of the negative sort.

38:47

All right. So thank you so much for that question. That is a good, good question. And let's see here.

38:56

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.

39:07

Yeah. And that's true just within like the past couple of centuries, right?

39:12

In the short time, more deaths because of regimes like that than all of the religious wars combined.

39:18

Okay. So it's an interesting fact of history. Again, doesn't speak to whether it's true or not.

39:24

It's just an interesting point and a way that we could respond with some facts. So, all right.

39:31

Let's see here. Oh, thank you. Bible. Bible Sia. He says, I nailed it.

39:37

Great impression. Thank you very much. I try very hard with my impressions. I really do try to be accurate in my representation of evangelical

39:46

Christian or the atheist. If you see me role play as an atheist, when I have a guest and I kind of try to take on the role of the atheist,

39:52

I try my best to make it entertaining. So, all right, let's continue here. So let's move on.

39:58

Now, again, I just wanted to close that meme with an important verse, James chapter 4, verses 1 through 2.

40:04

What is the cause of war? What is the cause of conflict? And I think it's important to inform this discussion with what the

40:11

Bible has to say. In the book of James, it says, what is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you?

40:17

Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members. You lust and do not have, so you commit murder.

40:24

You are envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. Christianity is not the cause of evil in the world.

40:32

It is the issue of sin. We are sinners.

40:37

And the Bible, I think, gives a perfect picture of the sinfulness of man. And those of us who know the sin in our own lives and know the sin that we observe every day, we know this to be true.

40:49

So, again, the issue is not religion being the cause of this. It is human sin. And that's why we need a savior.

40:56

So, all right, let's move on to the next one. All right, so this one here says, begins with a talking snake, that is the

41:04

Bible, and ends with a seven -headed dragon, and it's nonfiction. Okay, now, this is a bad one.

41:13

This is a bad one. Begins with a talking snake. That's true. I believe that there was some kind of serpent creature that spoke in the garden with Adam and Eve.

41:21

Yeah, I'm not ashamed of that at all. Ends with a seven -headed dragon. I mean, does the seven -headed dragon in the book of Revelation entail that the

41:31

Bible is fictitious? Should we believe it's fictitious because there's a seven -headed dragon described?

41:39

Well, of course not, right? Those of us who have read our Bibles and maybe studied a little bit of the genre of Revelation, we know that seven -headed beasts and these creatures that are described in the book of Revelation are, you know, they're, this is, the book of Revelation is an apocalyptic piece of literature.

42:00

And so it uses symbols, it uses metaphors, it uses a lot of Old Testament imagery and imagery that would have been familiar with the readers of the book.

42:09

And so no one believes, Christians don't teach that there are literally seven -headed, there's going to be a seven -headed dragon when the events of Revelation are fulfilled.

42:18

I mean, that's just ridiculous. But again, there are a couple of things I want to point out here that I think are presuppositionally apropos.

42:27

Are talking snakes implausible? Again, when we deal with the question of whether something is implausible, we need to keep in mind the issue of presuppositions.

42:39

We need to keep in mind the issue of worldviews. Are talking snakes implausible? Well, it depends on your presuppositions.

42:46

If I were to ask the question, are miracles implausible? Well, again, that's going to depend on your presuppositions.

42:54

If you presuppose the non -existence of God or you presuppose materialism or metaphysical naturalism or something along those lines, yeah, of course, all of these things would seem improbable.

43:02

But I'm not a metaphysical naturalist. I'm not an atheist, right? I believe that if God created the world and he's revealed the nature of the world to us in the

43:11

Bible and he's unfolding the story as the events surrounding the fall of man, yeah, these things are quite possible.

43:19

Plausibility and implausibility, possibility and impossibility are worldview -dependent categories.

43:28

You have to see that, okay? This is the reason why when you speak with an atheist and say, well, that's ridiculous.

43:34

To say that our claims as Christians are ridiculous is to simply assert you have a different worldview than we do.

43:42

And of course, we knew that from the very start, right? So I have Christian presuppositions.

43:48

I have presuppositions that are grounded in scripture and it is grounded in a God who has revealed himself. Miracles are performed.

43:54

I believe that dead people were raised. I believe that blind people were given their sight.

44:01

I believe that people with leprosy were healed when Jesus touched them. Yeah, that might sound ridiculous and implausible to some people, but that's because you have a different worldview.

44:10

You're not telling us anything interesting by saying, oh, well, that's ridiculous. Well, yeah, of course it's going to be ridiculous to someone who does not share the same worldview, someone who does not share the same presuppositions, right?

44:22

And so it is our job as the apologist to highlight the fact that we all have presuppositions and that our presuppositions impact what we deem is possible and impossible.

44:32

We don't let people just take it for granted that what they say is possible is possible or what they say is impossible has to be impossible, right?

44:42

Because Christians, as Van Til said, Christians need to be epistemologically self -conscious.

44:48

We need to be self -conscious of our theory of knowledge. We need to be self -conscious of our theory of reality and act in ways and speak in ways that are consistent with our self -consciousness of these metaphysical realities and these epistemological realities.

45:00

But the unbeliever is not going to be epistemologically self -conscious. The unbeliever is not going to be metaphysically self -conscious.

45:08

And so it is our job as apologists and as people engaging on believers and conversations to point out the fact that they need to be conscious of their worldview commitments and how that impacts what they deem possible or impossible, plausible or implausible.

45:22

So very, very important to recognize these things. It is possible to presupp a meme.

45:30

When you read a meme, you ask yourself, what are the presuppositions that are inherent within the statement being expressed?

45:37

That's a very important thing to keep in mind. All right, let's see. Are there any new questions in the comments?

45:44

If not, I will continue. Let's see here. Well, thank you so much,

45:54

Justin. I appreciate that. I've been greatly blessed by the content Eli has put out. Well, I'm blessed that you are blessed.

46:00

I really do appreciate that. Well, I mean, again, we're talking about parrots don't understand what they're saying.

46:17

The serpent is having a rational discussion with Adam and Eve. So I think there's slightly different there.

46:23

But again, my points still stand. It's an issue of presupposition. So let's see here.

46:30

Eric says, which worldview makes sense of the concepts of plausibility and implausibility would be the question to ask.

46:39

Which worldview makes sense? Oh, yeah, we could ask the question about how does one's worldview dictate what is possible and not possible?

46:48

Or we can simply state the fact that our worldview impacts what we deem to be possible or impossible.

46:55

All right, here, let's see. Spanish Bowl FM.

47:02

If God is sovereign, how do you explain everything you are saying right now? How does it work? I don't understand the question.

47:09

If God is sovereign, if God is in control of all things and he is kingship and lordship over all things, how do

47:15

I explain everything that I'm saying? Maybe you can clarify the question.

47:22

Maybe the person's asking if God is sovereign or if God has decreed everything. You know, how can

47:28

I explain everything I'm saying if I'm just, you know, decree? I don't know if that's what you're asking. If that's what you're asking, reformulate the question and then

47:35

I'll try to take it in just a bit. OK, pardon. All right. Thank you for the attempted question and feel free to rephrase it if you can.

47:44

I'd appreciate it. All right. So let's continue on. That's OK. That's OK. Spanish Bowl FM.

47:51

I've sometimes type something real quick and the question is all discombobulated. And I'm kind of just like when I see it on the screen,

47:57

I'm like, what did I just ask? So it happens. You know, it really happens to me a lot when

48:02

I am doing voice to text. That's the worst. I will do something.

48:08

I'll ask a question through voice to text and it'll come out all weird. So no worries there. All right. So let's take a look at our next one here.

48:15

So sorry if children are watching. This was, I thought, a meme worth addressing.

48:21

We can talk a little bit about the issue of morality. So first, the first question we need to ask ourselves about this specific meme is why a pigeon?

48:32

That's my question. Why a pigeon? Could have used all the animals in the world. You could have used the

48:38

Velociraptor. You know, some of the memes have the Velociraptor there. This this person chose to to use a pigeon.

48:45

But on a serious note, here's what the meme says. Atheists have no morality. Priests consistently raping children.

48:51

OK, now, again, this is kind of highlighting the some of the controversies that have been prevalent, both in the

48:58

Roman Catholic Church and in some Protestant and evangelical churches, too, where there is inappropriate sexual activity going on in the church.

49:08

Underaged and not, whether it's someone cheating on their spouse or something along those lines.

49:14

Yeah, the discussion is the discussion is is typically if if Christians highlight the fact that they have an objective moral standard, then why are

49:24

Christians turning around and doing these terrible things like priests consistently raping children?

49:30

Well, there are a couple of things we can use to keep in mind. First of all, atheists can have a morality.

49:36

So if you take a look here, atheists have no morality. I don't say that. I don't think that atheists have no morality.

49:45

The issue is not whether you have morality. The issue is whether you can have an objective grounding for morality, given your worldview.

49:53

That's I think that's the question. Right. How do you objectively ground morality?

49:58

And if you are in the apologetics world and you've seen discussions on this, in my opinion,

50:04

I don't think atheists do a very good job at all in grounding objective moral values and duties.

50:11

So atheists can have morality. What they lack is an objective grounding for morality. And hence, they interestingly enough, because they lack the subjective grounding, they would lack an objective basis for condemning child rape on an atheist worldview.

50:25

Why is child rape wrong? Why is rape in general wrong on an atheist worldview? Why is anything wrong?

50:34

Because it prevents human flourishing or something along those lines.

50:41

Why should we care about human flourishing? Now, I care about human flourishing. I think the atheist cares about human flourishing.

50:47

But given atheism, the question is, why should we care about human flourishing?

50:55

So I would simply point out that atheists can be moral. There's no question there.

51:03

But do they have a grounding for the objectivity of morality? All right.

51:09

All right. Let's see here. We have another question. Do we go here?

51:15

No. OK, so let's see here. Let's see here.

51:21

Spanish Bowl FM strikes again with another question. Does God have to sustain everything he creates?

51:26

Yes, he does. Yes, he does. There's a verse somewhere there. Let me see if I can get the verse.

51:32

Sorry if my face goes away from the camera. I have to open my iPad with... Actually, why don't

51:38

I do my iPad? Let's see here. Let's see here. All right.

51:52

Let's see here. Ah, very good. So Hebrews chapter 1, verse 3.

51:59

The sun is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being.

52:07

Check this out. Sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purifications for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven.

52:16

Right? He sustains all things. All things are sustained by the power of God.

52:22

If God withheld his sustaining power, then everything would cease to exist.

52:30

Nothing in creation has self -existing properties that it can maintain apart from the sustaining and sovereign power of God.

52:41

God upholds all things by the power of his will. If that is held back, all of reality, the created reality, would cease to exist.

52:52

So yes, God has to sustain everything he creates. There is no such thing as something God creates that is not being sustained by him.

53:01

If a created thing is not being sustained by God, then we need to ask the question, what is it being sustained by?

53:08

Is it sustaining itself? How does that work? How does a contingent, dependent being exist without being sustained by that which brought it into existence?

53:20

Right? I think that's an important question to ask. So yes, I think that God has to sustain all that he creates.

53:28

Thank you for the question there. And let's move on here. So let's see, we've answered the pigeon.

53:36

Someone says the pigeon. Let me see here. Someone said something about the pigeon.

53:41

Ah, because Christians are stupid like pigeons. Are pigeons stupid? I guess I'm not a pigeonologist, if that's what it's called.

53:49

So I have no idea of the IQ level of pigeons, but there you go. All right.

53:55

Let's see here. Okay, so meme number five, don't worry if you want another one.

54:04

I have bonus memes just in case, right? So I have a couple more, even though the thumbnail says five, but let's see here.

54:13

Since it is obviously inconceivable that all religions can be right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong.

54:27

This is apparently from Christopher Hitchens. Again, I have found this on the interwebs. I have no idea if Christopher Hitchens said something as dumb as this.

54:36

It's possible. It is possible. And I don't mean that disrespectfully, but this is bad.

54:42

I mean, this is just, look at this for a second, okay? Since it is obviously inconceivable that all religions can be right, that's true.

54:50

That is true. All religions cannot be right. Okay, they make exclusive claims that cancel each other out, right?

54:56

Since it is obviously inconceivable that all religions can be right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong.

55:03

Why? Why? Why does that follow? Why does the fact that all religions can't be right at the same time, how on earth does it logically follow from that?

55:14

That it's the most reasonable conclusion then is that they're all wrong. That's ridiculous.

55:20

That doesn't even logically follow. Okay, so again, we need to think, okay, what follows from this?

55:26

This is a quote. I don't know the context of the quote, but there's an argument in there. There's an argument embedded in that statement.

55:33

Since it is obviously inconceivable that all religions can be right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they're all wrong.

55:41

That just doesn't logically follow, okay? So that one is pretty bad. I left the worst one.

55:48

I think that's my opinion. That's just deliciously bad. All right, so let me get to some questions here, and we'll see.

55:57

I have one or two more left, I think. We'll see how I feel. I have to wake up early and shoot out for Florida.

56:04

I think it's like a seven - or eight -hour drive or something like that. By the way, when I travel, my car becomes a seminary on wheels.

56:15

The reason why I like road trips is because of the long drive,

56:20

I am able to have a sustained and prolonged study time, listening to debates, listening to sermons, listening to lectures, listening to audiobooks.

56:29

That's when I get all of my study in because I just don't normally have time to study in the silence of these books.

56:37

You guys see these books here? People wonder, I wonder if he just sits there and just has a cup of coffee and just reads his book.

56:42

No, I barely have time to read any of these. I have read a lot of them throughout the years, but I don't typically have the time to spend all the time in the world in them.

56:55

However, as you would imagine, I have spent a lot of time in this bad boy.

57:02

Van Til's Apologetic Readings and Analysis. This is my favorite book on presuppositional apologetics, and that is by Greg Monson.

57:12

I have it on digital, but I like opening up the physical book.

57:18

All right, let's see. Let's get to some more questions, and then maybe we'll do one more meme, and then we will wrap it up.

57:25

I just want to let you guys know, thank you so much for listening in tonight.

57:32

If I can just do one more plug, if you have benefited from Revealed Apologetics and you want to support

57:38

Revealed Apologetics, you can do so in a number of ways. You can sign up today for the

57:45

Epic Online Presupp Conference, which will be having Dr. Chris Bolt, Dr. Jason Lyle, Matt Slick, Joshua Pillows, and myself covering various topics on presuppositional apologetics at an intermediate level, so it's a little deeper than just a general introduction.

58:00

All right? You can go to revealedapologetics .com. You click on the drop -down menu, Presupp You, and you get

58:06

RSVP tickets to that event. You can do that right now, and when you purchase a ticket, you are supporting

58:13

Revealed Apologetics. And so I'd very much appreciate it. If you value the content here, go over to the website and RSVP for that event.

58:22

All right, let's go back to where we left off, and I'll take some questions, and let's see here.

58:32

Arthur Bear asks, what would you say to a person who says, my right and wrong comes from within?

58:38

I don't need a standard outside myself because I'm my own standard. Right, so when someone says that, what you do is you reach over into the person's pocket, and you take their wallet.

58:52

Okay? And wait. You take his wallet, and you wait to see how he reacts. Okay? And when he shows you his displeasure for having taken his wallet, you just say, well, wait a minute.

59:04

I have my sense of right and wrong comes from within. I don't need a standard outside myself, you, namely you, because I'm my own standard.

59:13

Right? It sounds cool to say that because it sounds autonomous, and I'm independent, right?

59:20

But in reality, no one lives consistently like that. Right? I would just speak to that person directly.

59:27

I mean, do you really honestly think that morality comes from within, and that is an objective basis for moral rights and values and things like that?

59:40

Right? So, yeah. That sounds cool, but doesn't work in the real life.

59:46

Here's the thing. People typically act upon what they believe, and I would be interested to see whether someone who says they believe that actually acts consistently with that.

59:55

All right. Let's see here. Yeah, there we go. Apologetics from the Attic says, I would answer that question the way

01:00:02

RC did, steal his wallet. Yeah, that response was floating around in my head. I was wondering, where did

01:00:07

I get that from? There are a lot of things floating up in this noggin here that I don't remember where I got it, but I think, yeah, that's right.

01:00:14

RC, I think, said that. All right. Let's see here.

01:00:22

Oh, boy. So, I like that God sustained Christopher Hitchens to say something dumb. Yes. So, yeah.

01:00:27

So, speaking to that. So, God sustains in existence all of creation, which includes believers and unbelievers.

01:00:37

When a believer is doing something that is honoring to God, God is sustaining that person in existence.

01:00:44

When an unbeliever does something evil, God sustains that person in existence while they're doing it.

01:00:50

Okay? Now, God doesn't make them do it, right? They are morally responsible for their actions, but it is

01:00:56

God who sustains that person in existence because the person cannot sustain themselves. Human beings cannot sustain themselves independent of God holding the world together, which includes natural laws.

01:01:07

If God removed his sustaining hand, how would you survive without the laws that God upholds and the order that God imposes upon the world?

01:01:18

I mean, there's no way you can do it, right? So, yeah. Let's see here. There you go.

01:01:27

So, we have Brenda says morality is not objective. Yeah. Okay. You could say that. I would be interested to see whether people live consistently with that.

01:01:37

Yeah. And by the way, that would not be my, that would not be my go -to way of proving

01:01:44

God's existence or something like that. And that's why I love the transcendental argument. It goes straight to the issue of intelligible experience.

01:01:51

We could argue morality and objective and subjective and different theories of ethics and things like that.

01:01:57

But when you argue for intelligibility, morality, moral codes and ethics presuppose intelligible experience.

01:02:04

And so we can bypass the whole morality question and just go to whether one's worldview can ground intelligible experience, right?

01:02:10

If you can't, then you can't ground your, your ethical theory that is based upon an incoherent worldview.

01:02:16

So, but thank you for sharing, sharing that Brenda morality is not objective. Okay. Okay.

01:02:23

Let's see here. Arthur says, give me your purse, Brenda. We're not, come on. We're not going to actually don't take your purse.

01:02:30

Let's see here. What is morality to a single -celled organism?

01:02:37

Nothing. Single -celled organism is not necessarily a person. So I, I don't, what is morale?

01:02:46

Yeah. I don't feel if I were to kill a single -celled organism, I wouldn't feel that I've committed some moral crime, but thank you for that.

01:02:58

All right. Let's see. Okay. That's it. I think that's it. Let me see if there's, do I have, do I have another meme?

01:03:04

I have two, but let's see here. Let's see. We'll do one more. I have two of them.

01:03:10

So this is a scene from the matrix, the matrix, I guess. I don't know if that's Neo or some bald person coming out of the matrix and realizing that he is in the matrix, right?

01:03:20

That feeling when you become an atheist, but everyone knows everyone, you know, still goes to church.

01:03:25

Oh, we'll do the last two. Why not? That feeling when you become an atheist, but everyone, you know, still goes to church.

01:03:32

All right. Okay. All right.

01:03:39

You have yet to give a justification for your first premise, Eli. Jack has asked you many times and yet we have yet to hear an answer.

01:03:45

I have answered many times on the channel. People can go back and watch the show.

01:03:51

The first premise to the transcendental argument. What did I say here? If there is intelligibility, then the

01:03:58

Christian worldview is true. There is intelligibility. Therefore, the Christian worldview is true. And I showed that the first premise is demonstrated through a transcendental argument.

01:04:06

It can come in the form of a disjunctive syllogism, or it can come in the form of another deductive argument, which

01:04:12

I gave in a past episode with Joshua pillows. People can go back and watch. All right. So, so yeah,

01:04:18

I have a justification for my first premise. Anyone who watches my channel knows how I would defend a transcendental argument. I don't need to rehearse it here again.

01:04:26

All right. Let's see here. So that feeling, that feeling when you become an atheist, but everyone, you know, still goes to church.

01:04:35

Okay. Now the problem with this one is that it's when you become an atheist, you kind of have this perspective on reality and look at these people stuck in the matrix.

01:04:46

They're just these sheep, right. That are stuck in there in their ignorance. Right. But the problem with this is

01:04:54

I could insert atheist with something else and it doesn't really tell us anything. Right.

01:04:59

That feeling when you become a Christian, but everyone you know is still an atheist. Right. What happens when we reverse it?

01:05:05

Right. Of course, when you come to a position, you think you've, you've risen above the ignorance and become enlightened.

01:05:12

Right. But how do you know, right. To be able to step out, but by the way, it is the atheist that has the problem of the matrix.

01:05:19

How do we know we're not in a matrix right now? The Christian doesn't have a problem with that. I know

01:05:24

I'm not in the matrix because the matrix, the mate, the concept of the matrix would destroy knowledge.

01:05:30

Okay. Everything would be illusory. We'd have no way to get outside of ourselves. That is only a problem for philosophical perspectives that start with what we call an egocentric predicament.

01:05:39

You start with man, then you end with man and there's no way to get outside your, your system. But a worldview that is grounded in a transcendent creator in whom we are in touch with in lieu of the fact that we are image bearers of God, we do not have the egocentric predicament problem.

01:05:54

And therefore the Christian is not subject to what is famously been called the, the matrix paradox or something along those lines.

01:06:04

Okay. So again, as a Christian, I can say that, that feeling when you become a

01:06:09

Christian and everyone, you know, still as an atheist, like what's the, what's the, what's their problem. Right. It sounds cool, but it doesn't really tell us anything.

01:06:16

And again, we'd have to explore on atheists, on any flavor of atheistic, an atheistic worldview perspective, does an atheist perspective even have the ability to remove themselves philosophically from the problem of the egocentric predicament?

01:06:33

I mean, I've heard atheists say, you know, we, we can never know whether we are in a matrix or not.

01:06:38

This is just, you know, the issue of the problem of solipsism, these things like there's no way, there's no way to know if you're not just the only mind out there and everyone else is a figment of your imagination.

01:06:48

Right. And people kind of foo -foo that away. Oh, that's just silly philosophical game. Well, if it's so silly, answer it, answer it.

01:06:55

How do you know solipsism isn't true? And if you can't know that, then you might as well might, you might be in the matrix, but the

01:07:01

Christian doesn't have that problem at all. Okay. Start with yourself. You're going to end with yourself. Christians start with an innate knowledge of God who is transcendent, who created reality, gives meaning to reality and has the ability to convey the nature of reality by revealing himself to his creatures.

01:07:19

Okay. Now you might not believe that and that's fine, but the fact that you don't believe it doesn't mean that we're not justified in believing it.

01:07:27

By the way, when we believe this, we alleviate ourselves from the philosophical problems of the positions that reject it.

01:07:32

Okay. All right. Let's do one more. I have one more here. Okay. Let's see.

01:07:37

This is the last one. All right. Don't pray for me. Your God made me an atheist. Have a little faith in his plan.

01:07:43

That's a good one, right? Oops. Sorry. Let me get this back up there. That's a good one. Okay. So, so don't pray for me.

01:07:49

Your God made me an atheist. Have a little faith in his plan. Okay. Now let's see here.

01:08:00

Let's see. I'm reading some comments. Sorry. Thanks, Eli. Okay. Appreciate it.

01:08:09

All right. Yeah. So, I'm a good old Calvinist. I believe that God ordained everything that comes to pass, whatsoever comes to pass,

01:08:16

God has ordained, right? Don't pray for me. Your God made me an atheist. If he made me an atheist, what's the point?

01:08:21

Why are you praying for me? Well, the simple answer from at least a Calvinist perspective, and I would imagine some other people might take this perspective as well, but I believe that God not only ordained the ends, but he also ordains the means.

01:08:34

And the means, the ordained means by which certain ends would be reached is through prayer.

01:08:41

God commands us to pray, and he has ordained that it is by our prayers that he will interact with us and grant our prayers.

01:08:50

That's why I pray for the atheist, because while it is true that God ordained,

01:08:56

I wouldn't say he made you an atheist. There's some problems with that phraseology, but while it is true that God ordained that certain people are atheists at this moment, it may also be the case that God ordained that the way that person becomes a believer is through prayer and gospel proclamation and conversation and showing love to that person and being in relationship with that person.

01:09:17

God ordains the ends, but he also ordains the means.

01:09:24

That's why prayer to a God who knows all things even before they happen, prayer to the one who knows what we will pray for before it happens, okay?

01:09:37

That whole system does not make prayer meaningless because God ordained that he would respond to man as a result of prayer.

01:09:46

All right? So there you go. There's not a problem there. All right.

01:09:52

So that was the last of our memes. Again, those are my top five, two bonuses.

01:10:00

So seven, okay? Sorry for the misdirection there with the thumbnail, but those are the ones that I chose.

01:10:08

And I hope my answers were somewhat helpful and useful to folks who are listening.

01:10:14

Hey, if you guys like this sort of thing, you know, top five, such and such, you know, say something in the chat, in the comments, leave me a comment.

01:10:21

If you want me to cover some idea or concept or, you know, issue, let me know.

01:10:27

I'm interested in what you guys are interested in.

01:10:32

I want to give you guys content that will be useful for you. All right. Well, I am going to call it a quit.

01:10:38

So I have to wake up early and drive to Florida from North Carolina. I want to thank everyone so much, whether you're a

01:10:46

Christian listening in, whether you're not a Christian, I appreciate everyone in the chat, everyone who listens and even shares their thoughts.

01:10:53

I want to encourage people, if you're a Christian, interacting with non -Christians in the chat, remember 1 Peter 3 .15,

01:10:59

we must be gentle and respectful, right? So please show respect to our unbelieving friends and unbelievers who think that morality is not objective.

01:11:11

Then I hope your subjective perception of reality is that one ought to be polite while interacting.

01:11:18

So enjoy a conversation in the chat. I don't usually get a chance to read what comes after, but I appreciate everybody.

01:11:25

All right. All right. Well, that's it for this live stream. Thank you so much for listening. Take care and God bless.