Black Hebrew Israelites with Vocab Malone | Apologetics Live 0042

It's Apologetics Live! With Matt Slick and Andrew Rappaport, part of the Christian Podcast Community.

Black Hebrew Israelites, Israel-Only Groups, and the Question of Identity

Alrighty, alrighty, alrighty, we are live! Apologetics Live here with you on Thursday night. Every Thursday night, 8 o 'clock Eastern Time, to answer any of your apologetic questions, challenges, and even sometimes debates.

I doubt that we're going to have much of a debate as we hoped tonight, because I think that saying that I'm running scared are, well, running scared. I am your host, Andrew Rappaport. We're striving for eternity.

Later, I'm going to be joined in about half an hour by a friend of mine, Vocab Malone, and we're going to talk specifically about an area he is an expert in, and that is Black Hebrew Israelites, which, by the way, we've got to change that because they don't like the word Black anymore.

So it's just Hebrew Israelites, or as one person referred to it today as Negro Hebrew Israelites. I was like, oh, that's interesting. We're bringing that word back. Okay. So I'm not sure. They keep changing their name.

But here's a thing that I want to do before Vocab gets in, because those of you who have been on Apologetics Live Facebook group, and also the other group that we deal with is called Christian Apologetics.

And we have been infiltrated by a new group that I'm not. I never heard of this group before, but it's Israel only. And so it was the first time I dealt with them. And wow, are they wacky, but challenged one of their guys to come in and actually defend his claims.

And he said, I'm running scared. So I'll just give a shout out, Chaz. I'm right here. Not running anywhere, am I? No, I do this show every Thursday night, usually with my friend Matt Slick, who is just still dealing with a lot of issues as he's trying to get between family issues and then trying to pack up still and move, which was delayed from before.

And so we are usually here to answer your apologetics questions. We actually do take debates. Actually, I've been accused of being a liar because the Jewish guy that I mentioned, he won't debate me. He won't contact me back.

I've left. Well, you can't leave a voicemail because it's a pager. So I've paged him. I've sent emails. So unfortunately, I guess we won't talk about rabbinic Judaism, but oh, well, that doesn't make me a liar because I actually did what I said.

I tried to reach out to the guy. I'm not running scared from a debate with a Jewish person. Nope, I am not. I am hoping to be able to debate Tovia Singer. Not going to say that he's running scared. I'm just going to say that.

Yeah, we can't seem to set that up. But what I do want to do is to start with is to talk about this whole thing of what I've been noticing, maybe not so much with the Israel only, but when we talk about black Hebrew Israelites or Hebrew Israelites, I never know now which is the proper terminology to use.

So if I use a term that is not the one that someone listening may hold to, it is not that I'm trying to be disrespectful to your group. It's just when the names keep changing or people use different names, I don't know which one to use.

So I'm going to call them black Hebrew Israelites. That's how I was introduced to them as, or I'll try to sometimes call them Hebrew Israelites. I think that's different than an actual Hebrew Israelite, which I would be.

So there's a thing that I've noticed. You look at, like, the Roman Catholic Church, and they want to claim that they have priests like Israel had priests. And there's, like, almost like there's hangover.

There's things that they want to carry over into the church to try to say, well, we have the authority that Israel had. You know, God had their chosen people, and therefore people seem like they want to get some sort of, I don't know what's the best word, maybe like a little bit of a spiritual boost or something saying that they are somehow more spiritual because they're Israel.

I see this when I look at the black Hebrew Israelites. I see this when I look at the Hebrew Roots Movement, people trying to claim some authority because they claim that they're more Jewish or more in line with Israel.

And they are that God's chosen people. So I noticed that there seems to be this idea that people want to be identified with Israel. Now, Israel had a purpose as a nation, and they were God's chosen people for one reason, to bring about the Messiah.

Messiah came. Now, is there something still special about the nation of Israel? I would say yes, and it's not just because I'm a Levite that I say that. And by the way, I should mention this because I know that a lot of the Hebrew Israelites claim that I can't be a Hebrew Israelite.

The way you would determine this sort of thing would be to go back, you know, your father was so-and-so, your father was so-and-so, father so-and-so, all the way back. And if your father goes all the way back to Abraham and you're in that genealogy, that would make you an Israelite.

So you'd be the Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, one of those 12 tribes. So if you're in that line, that would make you an Israelite. That would make you a Hebrew. Now, that's different than what we would talk about when we say a spiritual Israel that we'd see in Romans 6, where there are Gentiles at the church and the church ends up being referred to as Israel.

And that is a little bit of a different sense because what you end up seeing there is that he's using the word, the term differently than the nation of Israel. I personally believe that God's not done with the nation of Israel.

I think that's why they're still around today. And you have people that identify as Jews or Israelites and they're back in the nation. I think God is going to do something with them. And because of that, I think they are still special in some way that God is going to fulfill the promises he made to them.

But as a nation, there's actually nothing super special about them other than God selected them. And so I say that as someone who is Jewish and therefore it's not like, oh, we got to make something special about them.

I often tell people when they ask me, well, you know, how did you get saved? Like there's something different about the way I got saved versus every other person. I got saved the same way every Gentile gets saved by the grace of God bringing me to repentance.

So we shouldn't try, I think, to raise the nation of Israel or a background to Israel in a higher position than God would claim. And so that's just something we need to think through. Now, what I want to do is I'm going to bring Adam in here because he and I were talking before we went on.

So welcome, Adam, to Apologetics Live.

Thank you, Andrew. I apologize in advance if my audio is not great. I am on my iPhone, but I'm glad to be here.

Well, see, but the advantage you have is you're a better looking guy than me. So right off the bat, no one's going to care. They're just going to be like, just get Andrew's face off of it.

You're still hanging on by a thread there.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Less and less threads up there. It was funny. Matt actually said that when I laugh, there's a Hebrew letter that forms right between my eyes. He's like, frown for me. Frown for me.

I'm like, no, I don't hurt you.

Oh, man. So speaking of Hebrew, these Israel-only cultists.

Hyper-Preterism and the Claim that Salvation Is Closed

Yeah, you've done a little bit of research on that. Like I said, you and I were talking beforehand. I never heard of them before about a week ago when they came into the Apologetics Live. And so funny the behavior you see in Facebook groups.

So in the Christian Apologetics group, one guy just put out into another group, hey, here's a group where they'll let us talk about this. And then they all came in. Within a week, we had dozens of them.

And they're like, oh, and that's like every post is about this. And it's a trolling technique that I've seen. I've seen it with a bunch of different groups that do this. But this is where it's helpful because I would not, I don't think you would have known about them had we not been in this group.

No, and it definitely gives us an opportunity to sharpen our apologetic against different worldviews and arguments, even if the arguments are relatively one dimensional.

Yeah, so now you've done a little bit more research than I did. And so can you explain what you've been able to figure out? Because I'll tell you, when I looked at this Israel only, I'm like, okay, are they black Hebrew Israelites?

No, wait, there's some white guys. Okay, are they claiming they were, they're Israelites? Okay, are they claiming that they're Hebrew Roots Movement? I was so confused. I started to realize that actually, they're just kind of saying crazy stuff.

Yeah, and I'm sure we'll be able to get into that a bit. But some of the research that I've done, and I want to throw a shout out to Praetoristarchive .org for the research that they had already on hand for them.

But they're being classified as hyper-Praetorists, or what they like to call consistent Praetorism. But the entire idea behind it, first off, it's important, as a presuppositionalist, it's important for me to note that there is no faith commitment, nor is there any commitment to the Word of God in what their argumentation is rooted in.

So from that perspective, just from a starting point, I have to question that in the validity of such an argument, especially when it's trying to handle God's Word. What I have been able to find out about them, both through my research and through my interactions with them on the Apologetics Forum, is essentially that they are trying to close canon completely on the Christian faith, by saying that the Christian faith should not have existed, that we're borrowing a redemption story from 1st century Israel and prior to that, and that with the conclusion of that, basically just what it sounds like, full Praetorism, that there's no return of Christ, everything occurred in 70 AD.

I think it's especially deceptive, what it is, the argument that they've crafted, because there are so many partial Praetorists that are well within orthodoxy in the Christian church right now. So it's not a far cry to try to persuade people into full Praetorism.

The problem is what you sacrifice when you do that.

Responding to Trolls, Pride, and the Need to Walk Away

Yeah, and I think, you know, I don't know that the group is as clear as we would like to think, because I think some of them do claim that they are real Jewish people or real Israelites. Some, as some people have contacted me this week, some have that are tied to Hebrew Roots movement.

One, that seems to be an atheist. What do you do with that? I'm almost convinced that it's a hodgepodge of just people trying to come up with something new. They can feel, you know, there is a pride that everybody has.

I honestly, if I may interrupt for just a moment, I honestly think that it is a concerted effort to try to bring a slow conclusion to Christianity in general. I think that's the ultimate endgame goal, which is ambitious on their part, but silly from our perspective.

Obviously, we know that the church is ordained by God. In my experience, though, I just wanted to specify, and I think that this is such a hodgepodge of so many different characters that are coming together to present this argumentation, that I don't think that there's necessarily an orthodoxy there.

The people that I have talked to have not claimed that they are Israelites. They have not claimed that they've obtained salvation. Rather, they claim that salvation is closed, and we essentially live in the realm of eternity now.

Yeah, and the sum that we're giving in arguments to me were basically saying that basically after 70 AD, all of, I mean, Israel's just done. Completely done after 70 AD. And I'm like, okay, not at Christ at the cross.

It's 70 AD. Okay. Well, that's because, yeah, they want to incorporate Matthew 24 and everything else into it, so they have to say at 70 AD.

And so what you end up seeing, though, that's really interesting with it is they're arguing that. Then they're arguing that one person was arguing, well, Christian is the wrong term because it's still a Jewish religion.

It's an Israelite religion. I'm like, okay. So what do you do? They're saying it's only to Israel. And the one person was saying that God only has a relationship with Israel. And I went, well, what do you do with Daniel 4, where he seems to have a relationship with a pagan king?

That's right. Yeah. Fantastic point. Yeah.

And he's like, but you didn't deal with the text that I said. Well, see, the thing is you're taking that text out of context, and that was true by looking at another verse where God does have a relationship with Gentiles.

And there's plenty of examples of that. You can go to Acts 10, which is what I'll be preaching this weekend. Right after the text I had from last week is the text where Peter is sent to a Gentile home.

And he's like, no, no, no, I can't do that. That wouldn't be kosher, quite literally.

Right. And don't call. What did he say?

God puts this food in for him and he says, I've never eaten anything unclean. He says, don't call unclean what I call clean.

Right. Right. Well, and there's so many points in Scripture. And I really do want to touch on their ability to use this term loosely, but their ability to exegete Scripture is really, really poor. Obviously, they're just taking everything out of context to suit their narrative.

But I want to touch on why. Wait, exegete Scripture? Right. Yeah. No, they're just pulling verses and saying what they wanted to say.

Yeah. That's called eisegesis where you read a meaning into the text. Exegesis means pulling the meaning out of the text. Right.

They're not doing that. Yeah. No. Yeah. Thank you for the correction. Absolutely. Eisegesis as opposed to exegesis. But I do want to touch on that. Going back to what you were saying before, I don't like proof texting, but there are so many texts that in the proper context completely refute their entire position, the Great Commission or Acts 17, where Paul goes before the Greeks and says, I see in all ways you're very religious.

He's obviously proselytizing to Greeks that are not in the Jewish family. There's just so much in the Scripture that that absolutely refutes what they're saying.

The Difference Between Honest Questions and Bad-Faith Arguments

Yeah. And I think that, you know, some of the arguments they're making, it's this is the thing that you end up seeing. There's two types of people that you end up seeing in apologetics type groups. There's those that are asking honest questions or have honest challenges.

And both I'm putting in the category of honest, meaning there are those who I mean, I've had conversations, plenty of professing atheists who they don't believe in God or so they claim, but they are they think they have a really good challenge and they think they're going to you can't answer it.

OK, well, that's fine. Let's have that debate. And what you end up seeing is there's others like many of these guys that I saw that are nothing more than trolls. They're there not to answer a question.

I mean, we had this guy, Chaz, who says, you know, he's like, he can't make it Thursday night. And I said, OK, well, any Thursday night and someone else I don't remember who was like, something tells me he's going to never be able to make it on a Thursday night.

And sure enough, he's like, I have plans every Thursday night. So I surprised. I was like, OK, so what are your plans? I mean, that's a simple question, right? His response was like, how dare you? You're the nerve of you.

You know, I'm like, oh, that's defensive. Like, you know.

Yeah, well, and obviously, you know, they're here to present a one dimensional argument to try to to refute what it is that is, you know, the foundations of our worldview. And I don't think that their argument, though it seems like somebody's put a lot of thought into it.

I don't think it's deep enough to be able to really dig at the roots of truth. There was one thing you said at the beginning of the show that I just thought was so great that you are a Jew and that you've come to salvation and come to Christ according to the grace of God.

And one thing that I put into the into the the group earlier today, because what I saw was a lot I saw a lot of people who are trying to present Scripture like we've been doing, trying to present Scripture in conversation with these Israelite only or Israel only full Praetorists, so to speak.

And my belief is this, is that we are our eyes are open. We have eyes to see and ears to hear by the grace of God alone. And that is a critical part of properly understanding Scripture. So if we are if we're given those eyes to see and they're not of our own and these people are clearly not regenerated, these people are clearly not interested in salvation currently, their entire argument refutes that.

Then why would we take their advice on what they have to say on Scripture?

Yeah, exactly. And that's the thing that you end up seeing is that a lot of these folks. Well, look, when you it is one thing I had to say to someone, if you have to take the Scripture out of context, twist the meaning, try to give it a meaning it never had to make your argument, then your argument is not valid.

That's right. You know, so you're not at that point I'm dealing with someone who's not interested in truth. I think there's a different category for people who disagree. And they they have their disagreement and they're just they can't see what is being explained.

That's different than I think these guys who don't even attempt to they don't attempt to listen. They don't attempt to converse with you. It's just they have some there to say they're almost like the flat earthers, you know, the same same category.

It's just that they're just they're there to teach. They're not there to listen. They know it all. And at that point, you're dealing with someone with pride, which I think God's pretty clear on his position.

I think he hates it. Yeah, I've had to stop. I've had to step away from a couple of the conversations in the Facebook group just because of that very reason, because I know that if I, you know, if I'm continuously engaging the same person over and over again, that's really just my pride trying to win a conversation.

That's what they're here for. But in apologetics, we should be here to save souls. These people are militant atheists. They're haters of God. They're at enmity with God. And that's why they're here proselytizing their their anti anti gospel message.

Yeah. And I think the thing you end up seeing is when you have people like this, I think that and I'm trying to remember, I think it was either Gabe Hughes. I'm pretty sure it was Gabe Hughes that told me he's got a three comment rule.

He bases this off of the passage where Paul says, you know, reject a divisive man after the second or third admonition. So cast not your pearls before swine. Yeah. He gives it three times. You say, son, he tries to correct it.

They come after you, tries to correct it. After the third time, he's just done. OK, you got the last word. I'm done with it. And he walks away.

Oh, well, you know, I think in an environment, scripturally speaking, when we are commanded to give a reason defense of our faith, that is so providential on God's part by including that in his word, saying, try once, try twice and then walk away.

Yeah. And I think there is there is a time that we have to walk away. I admit, I will freely admit there's plenty of times I should have walked away a lot sooner.

Thankfully, we have the blood to cover our sins in that fashion.

You know, I will say this. There is a guy who I've always done this as a way of trying to show someone his his pride. I'll say to someone, I'll say, look, I'm not going to read what you what you post.

I'm not going to whatever you say. I'm not responding again. I'm not reading it. But the fact that you're going to feel like you have to respond, the fact that you probably will respond is the proof that you have the issue with the pride, because I'm going to walk away now.

And it's amazing how many I mean, every time I've done that, probably hundreds of times, one guy actually didn't respond. Right. I was like, wow, that was the first.

Yeah, you got it. Yeah.

One other thing, you're using their own pride gets into that way, because it's like, if I respond, I'm proving this guy right.

Answer not the fool according to their folly. Right. Yeah. So one other thing that I wanted to say about these these people is don't if I can, if I can, if I'm in a position which I'm not, I'm nobody but a blue collar worker.

But if I'm in a position to offer anybody any advice as it comes to dealing with them, I just if it's a one dimensional argument, if you take the scripture out of their hands, they have no argument left.

If you simply doubt the fact that they're able to rightly divide the word of God, then it cuts the legs right out from underneath them.

Yeah. Yeah, that is true. All right. Well, I appreciate you coming in, Adam. And, you know, listen, you're welcome. Any any Thursday night, if you have any questions and want to come in, you know where to find us at ApologeticsLive .com.

I should have mentioned that in the beginning. I didn't. Folks, if you're watching this and want to join us, you could go to ApologeticsLive .com. Now I'm trying to draw a blank dot com. I think either one work, but dot com.

Go to either one and we will you'll be able to find the links there every week to watch or to join. I'm going to bring in Jeff. We're going to hope that his microphone will be working. It was not last week.

Jeff, are you there? Hi. Can you hear me? Excellent. Hey, there we go. Now, this is a great example, Jeff, in God's Providence, even though I'm not sure you believe in God. But in God's Providence, we couldn't get this working last week.

And there's a whole bunch of people that tell me that I run from debates all week long and hear you disagree with me. And we were trying to get you in here so that you can disagree with me publicly in front of everyone.

That's a strange thing from a guy that runs from debates, I think.

I would agree. I would agree. And I figured out the problem. The really expensive Bluetooth headphones didn't work. So I switched to these cheap five dollar earbuds and they're working fine.

All right. Well, I'm going to what I'm going to do. I know that you and I have a discussion we were trying to have last week, but I'm going to bring in Mr. Vocab Malone just so that because he is going to be our apologist here with us tonight, joining with us, I should say.

And so welcome, Vocab. How are you?

Hey, I'm doing all right, Andrew. What's going on, man?

Good. Now, look at that. He's got this big sign with his name over the back.

Look at that. You know, that's from my my rapping days. I would have a banner at the table where I sold CDs and stuff. So I just kept things like that thing's probably 15 years old.

All right. Well, I wanted to bring you in. So you're here. But Jeff wanted to challenge me on some of my logic. And so we're going to we're going to get to hear whether I am illogical or not. We're going to see.

So, Jeff, what I'll do is I'll let you if you want or if you want me to revisit what we had discussed.

Yeah. I mean, I need to be super careful not to put words in your mouth. So it would be great if you could give us like the three minute version of your argument again.

Sure. So here's the three minute version. Basically, I argue that there is an objective way to be able to examine which religions are manmade versus the religions that are divine. And so we could categorize all the religions into two categories, right, either manmade or God made.

Right. And so the objective standard that I use is to say that men always add their efforts to praise themselves. And therefore, any manmade religion is going to have human effort involved in it. And there's only one religion that doesn't have human effort.

That's the biblical Christianity. So, OK, you have some differing ways because you kind of I think you reversed it, which I understood what you did. But my argument is actually that it's the core part of the argument is that it's an objective standard.

Right. Right. I got you. And the in written form, I tend to view things through the lens of propositional logic. And so that's that's why I asked you for your argument in the form of a syllogism. And if we need to modify this, this is fine.

I'm not trying to nail you down to anything. But the the written form that you gave me, and I'll try to quote it here is quickly, is that man always adds his works to manmade religions. That's one proposition to Christianity is the only religion that does not include works.

And therefore, the conclusion Christianity is not manmade.

Yes, I think when we I would have to find this post. Yeah, that's that's fine. And we can the Apologetics Live group that we had, because that's exactly how you asked me to lay out the syllogism. And I forget how I did it.

But I mean, essentially, you're close. I mean, it's it's it would be I think the difference that I would do is to say that all other religions are manmade. Because stick with the propositions. That would be the conclusion to it.

That other religions are not manmade?

That no, that all religions except Christianity would be manmade.

I'm sorry, I misspoke there. Yeah. Yeah. Other. Is that the same thing as saying that Christianity is not manmade?

Well, if it's if you have a if you have only two options, right? So it's a true dichotomy, right? If it's not manmade, then by the definition of being a true dichotomy, it would it would be in the other category, which in this case would be divine.

Right. So if we say that Christianity is not manmade, is that functionally the same as saying Christianity is God made? Can we interchange those? Say that again? Is the statement Christianity is not manmade?

Is that is that the same as saying Christianity is God made?

Can we enter? Well, I don't know that we could say that definitively, only for one reason. To say that definitively, we would first have to make the the proposition that there's a true dichotomy, that there's only two possibilities.

Right. Right. Because otherwise, if there's a third, then we have a fallacy of the excluded middle. Now, I would say that there isn't I don't believe there's a third possibility. It's either manmade or divine.

But I guess someone could say, well, there's a third. It could be satanic. Right. OK. OK. And and so then my argument, I guess, would say, well, then that if someone pitches that, then it wouldn't be a true dichotomy.

And therefore, you couldn't reverse it like you did.

OK, so even even if even if your whole argument is bulletproof, all your all your premises are sound, the logic follows. We reached the conclusion that Christianity is not manmade, but that doesn't necessarily get us to Christianity is God made.

Maybe somebody might object to that.

I think someone might. And my argument is that when we look at all the religions, I'm putting them just in those two categories. OK, because really the question is, which ones are which ones divine? We.

One of the one of the things we can and really the goal that I'm having is to try to say that there is a way to evaluate religion outside of a subjective feeling, which is how most people try to say, oh, you're it's everything's about a subjective feeling.

OK. All right. So let me let me give you like the three minute view of my my three minute view of your argument here. And you can you can tell me what you think. So the conclusion we're after here is that Christianity is not manmade.

Now, obviously, this argument is meant to convince someone who doesn't already believe that doesn't already agree with that. I mean, if if you're talking to someone who already agrees with the conclusion, why bother making the argument if they see what I'm saying?

So these in propositional logic, arguments are meant to convince someone of a conclusion that they don't currently agree with. You know, your your interlocutor isn't isn't going to agree with your conclusion, but then you set up a series of premises and you walk them through your premises.

And if they're a rational person, then logic will force them to agree with your conclusion.

They are rational, but they just may not always think with that side. They don't always give in to their rationality.

That's true. Most most people don't most of the time.

Yeah. And I would see some other purposes for for some of the logical arguments, though, because you could have a logical argument, not necessarily to try to convince someone that you're right, but to expose someone's wrong or to to validate something.

Sure, sure. Absolutely. You know, sort of like we were just talking with the Israel only folks that that we're mentioning when when you're taking something and you have to you have to be dishonest about what something says.

I can evaluate what they say. I could use the logic to examine that and say it's false. Right. Yeah. I may not be trying to prove them false with it. I might just look at it and say, OK, here's why it's false.

Or or at least prove that their position hasn't been proven true or hasn't been established. Yeah, I'd agree. OK, so I I see one thing in in your argument generally that feels really circular to me. And it's that if you're if you're talking to someone who doesn't agree with your conclusion, then then you might be talking to someone who thinks that Christianity is also a manmade religion.

And then there's there's no reason for this person to accept your premise that man will always add his works to manmade religions, like like man will always add a works based soteriology to manmade religions.

Because, you know, the the person opposite of your argument is coming to the argument with the belief that, well, Christianity is just another manmade religion and it doesn't have works soteriology. So there's an exception to the rule there in your first premise.

And so the only way to convince that person of the premise is is to somehow exclude Christianity from the group of manmade religions before they get to your premise and before they get to your conclusion.

So you basically have to convince them of your conclusion before you can get to your conclusion.

Well, for one thing, I mean, usually what I do is I I'll ask people whether men always add, you know, their own praises to two things. And if they're agreeing with that, then they usually don't have a problem with examining it that way.

Right. Because we would agree, I think, at least on this premise, is that we're either going to have if if God created a religion and I know you'll have issues with the term religion because you'll think of it as an organized.

You know, that's fine. That's fine. Go ahead. But if God created something that he's calling a true religion, if if they're you're going to have man or Satan or anything that is going to corrupt it, it's going to be corrupted at the most crucial element.

That being, how do you get right with God? Because that's what if you think of religion, that is what it's ultimately about. And if all religions are in the category of morality because they're all works based and then you have one that says God did all the work and God gets all the credit, there's a serious distinction there between those two.

Right. You agree with that, at least? I do agree with that. I mean, Satan doesn't care what kind of crackers you use for the Eucharist. You know, he's if you're right. I mean, if he's going to throw things off the rails, he's going to pick the most crucial point.

Yeah, but the but the priest might be worried about which crackers. So let me ask you, because I don't even know you. Are you what's your background?

I'm an atheist. That's probably the most relevant part for this discussion.

The Gospel of Grace Versus Works-Based Religion

Yeah, that's what and that's what I had assumed. But I wanted to be clear. Yeah. So let me ask you this. What would be in your mind? And I know that the show tonight we want to get to with vocab here on something that we want to educate some folks on.

But I do want to just ask you, what would you say would be your best argument you think for atheism?

My best argument for atheism? Um, wow, that's a good one. Well, I don't, you know, a lot of atheists are going to say that it's it's not a positive position. It's a negative position where I'm just I'm just not convinced there's that there's not a God.

I'm not saying that there's not a God. And that that whole thing is pretty hairy. I think it causes a lot of conflict and confusion there. I actually I actually had some notes about that. I'm trying to look up.

Well, you know how to get in here for next week if you find the notes later. I mean, if we think about this, would you see you really be more in agnostic camp than it sounds like where you just don't know?