Answering Objections on God's Existence

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we are we are beginning we are at class 5 tonight which means we have gone over the midpoint over this over the center line as it were and where you're going to be tonight dealing with a specific objection and we're going to be talking about how we can interact with this specific objection so we're going to in the last half of the course be dealing with a little bit more of the practical applications of all of the well theory and philosophy that we've talked about in the first half of the course hopefully you all did your reading hopefully you came tonight prepared to engage I do have a couple of handouts they were over there I don't know if they've made their way around I've been here thank you you should have of course your well I mean I have mine here excuse me you should have a copy of chapter 7 and 8 that's next week and a copy of the classical arguments for the existence of God that is what we're going over after the break that's what we're going to be talking about after the break so set those off to the side for now and very quickly I want to ask you some questions on last week's class so if you were here and you took notes you may want to grab your notes and take them out so that you can answer these questions we talked last week about objections and object tours that we face what are the three categories of objections that we will see what's one of them Janice the existence and nature of God that's one of the objections and we said there are many arguments that come under that category but that's a specific category the existence and nature of God what's this another one yes James nature nature and reliability of Scripture yes it's the second one and what's the third one I saw another hand James or I'm yeah John interpretation application of Scripture very good all right from there we said there were five different types of people that might use one of these objections what was one of those atheism that's atheist agnostics was number one Bobby good number two anybody secularists spiritualists number three false religions false religion is number four heresy number five hyper skeptics anti theists I have a friend of mine who is an evangelist and he goes and he's and he he engages when they have these these big events I don't know if you know this but there there are events that go on where atheists will gather together and and encourage one another in their atheism it's like it's just it's just another religion they're just you know getting together to encourage their disbelief in God there I think the free free thinkers can't rally or something they call it but he goes to these things and he talks to people engages with people and a few years ago down and I think it was down in Stark they put up a monument to something some some ungodly thing they put up this monument and so my friend stood on it to preach I stood on their monument to preach the gospel and he said the whole time he was scared to death because he said he was about this high off the ground standing on it preaching he thought they were going to come and clip his legs you know just because he said if somebody would have come and not that you know I mean anybody can be immoral he wasn't saying that necessarily they would do that because they're atheists or we were just afraid because he's on this sort of precarious perch and if what he said would have made somebody mad enough you know these hyper skeptics you know he said if they would have come and hit his legs he would have probably fallen to his death because it was you know five feet off the ground he probably would have fell headfirst you know so just just made me think about that when I think about hyper skeptics and I do want to apologize right off my my voice is going as you can probably tell and I don't think that I'm sick I don't have any fever or anything like that I think it's just over time you know my voice needs a break and I haven't really had one recently so you may find that it may be hard to hear me at times tonight I'll try not to let that happen so tonight we're going to begin to unpack some of the objections and provide answers tonight specifically we're going to provide an answer to this if you face somebody and they say to you I do not believe God exists that's the specific objection we're going to deal with tonight and provide some answers to that objection and I want to just write off I want to say this please do not try to memorize these answers this I'm not giving you a script you know if one of the things you'll learn if you ever do spend any time if you ever go and talk to say Jehovah Witness or anything like that you'll you'll learn a lot of those people are in their mind going off of a script they've learned to memorize a script and if you start talking to them they have specific scripted answers to like if you bring up John 1 1 to a Jehovah Witness boom they they've got their scripted answer because they they know what you're going to say and boom they go they have their answer and that's not we're not doing that we're not creating little just robots that can repeat stuff I want us to understand the concepts of what we're talking about and then you formulate your own way of speaking to people this is why my favorite thing to do when a Jehovah Witness comes to my house which is rare anymore is I like Ray Comfort's knife in the back analogy where you know you person knocks on the door open the door hi how are you you know and you know if they're Jehovah Witnesses almost immediately because they're going to be holding literature from either the awake magazine or some other watchtower publication and so what I what I do is I listen for a moment to their initial spiel and then I just say I want to ask you a question if you came here today and you found me dying I had a knife in my back and I only had two minutes to live and that's all the time that you have to share your message with me I want you to tell me how I can be saved go that's and I've done that and first the the look of stunned because they're not used to that question kind of throws them off their their script but it also points out a fundamental flaw in the Jehovah Witness theology they don't have a gospel that can save a dying man they don't have a gospel that will save someone because their gospel is based on works they don't have a gospel in fact they have bad news not goodness and so that's a way to begin the conversation to point out the error in their system but that again as I said is just the you know if you if you learn a script and somebody somebody addresses something you're just not ready for it's gonna throw you off your script so it's best just not to do that so instead of trying to memorize answers I want you to internalize the reason and principle behind what we're talking about tonight and as we consider specific objections tonight and next week is next week we're going to look at the problem of evil listen for the underlying presuppositions of the of the objector himself be aware that when the objector is coming at you he is often stealing from the Christian worldview to make his argument make notes of that and understand this there may be times when you run into people who argue better than you and just because someone argues better does not make their argument correct dr.
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James White points this out very well because he is a seasoned debater having been in over 150 public moderated debates and he is a Reformed Baptist but he will sit down and he and I've talked about this before he'll sit down with people and he'll pretend to be a Mormon and he'll argue not I mean people know it but what I'm saying is he can argue against the position because he's such a good arguer he's such a good debater that even if it's a position he doesn't hold he can argue it because he's so good at arguing and this is one of those things that we have to remember we're not seeking to become the best debater in the world we just want to present the truth and just because someone argues well does not make them right also just because someone is an expert in one area does not make them an expert in all areas I've talked to people and and they they they're experts in something and they think that that expertise in that area makes them somehow able to opine about other things give you an example from my own life this probably won't apply to you guys in an immediate sense but you know I spend a lot of time with karate people because I do karate been karate 20 27 years and you get around them the karate masters and I've been they've been karate 40 50 years and these guys are they're the head you know and they get to talking and everybody's oh this guy knows all this stuff usually they don't they know about karate they know that about the one thing the same thing happens I mean think about Bill Nye all right Bill Nye the engineer that's what he is he has a degree in engineering is engineering science well it's yeah it's a one of the sciences one of the ways that science is executed and so is he a scientist in that sense yes but he speaks on global warming as if he is an expert he speaks on abortion as if he is an expert he speaks on human sexuality as if he is an expert he's neither a theologian neither a philosopher but he speaks as if he is and people go oh he's the Bill Nye the science guy he knows all these things no he really doesn't so can somebody be good at arguing yes doesn't make him right and just because someone's an expert in one area does not make them an expert in every area so keep that in mind don't ever let somebody talk down to you just because they may be an expert in whatever their field is and I want to say that's one of the reasons why very rarely anymore do I make scientific arguments when I'm discussing God's existence because I'm not a scientist I know a little bit about science I know a little bit about a lot but I don't know enough to have a real live scientific conversation that goes deep into the weeds with a scientist so it's really not my goal to have a scientific conversation now that's not saying I won't reference certain scientific principles which we'll see tonight but ultimately I'm not out there trying to you know make scientific arguments I'll give you a good example and this is from my own life and failure when I first became a believer I really started looking at all the arguments for evolution and I was like oh that's so terrible it's not scientific and I came to this conclusion entropy denies the evolution and so the second law of thermodynamics is the law of entropy and entropy makes evolution impossible therefore if you believe in entropy which is a scientific fact you shouldn't believe in evolution and I said that to a bunch of people because I thought it was right it's not right entropy does not deny evolution and that's not a good scientific argument but you've probably heard that you've probably heard people say the second law of thermodynamics denies the the principles of evolution it doesn't it's not a scientific it's not a good scientific argument scientists know about entropy and so if you try to use this argument that you don't really understand because I didn't know what it meant I just heard it and it sounded good you're gonna end up in a bad way if you try to make arguments that you really don't know are true and you really don't understand so you got to be careful with that am I making sense so I realize this may seem belabored but my point is to say that we need to be we need to be honest and how we present the faith and how we present our answers to objections and understand that we're not standing on our scientific pedigree we're standing on the Word of God that's my basis not the scientific principles of entropy or any of that stuff I'm standing on the Word of God so how do we respond to someone who says I don't believe in God well where would this fall into the category that we discussed of the three categories this is the very first one a person who denies the existence or nature of God specifically his existence but what did I say last week about this they may remember it's the least common least common the least common person you're going to run into most likely especially in this area of the world is somebody who says I don't believe God exists now you might Pew Research Pew Research Center states that the number of people who identify as atheists doubled from 2007 to 2014 does anybody want to take a stab at the doubling of people who claim to be atheists what's the number no no percent what's the percentage of people who claim to be atheists it went from 1.6 to 3.1 it went from 1.6 to 3.1 from 2007 to 2014 so again that's out of every hundred people it went from one and a half people and I get half a person there went from it went from one to two people for two to three people basically four out of every hundred now again though we're speaking of a very particular category people who claim that God does not exist or they say I do not believe in God understand this that is a powerful statement and very few people are willing to make it some people would say I don't know if God exists or I'm not sure if God exists but for somebody to say I do not believe in God I have a relative right now she does not believe in God at least what she says is I don't believe in God but it's always followed by the but the last time we talked to her I was so funny she says but my kids do and my husband does now none of them are churchgoers understand this but her little kids who grew up in a home with a mother who doesn't believe that there's they know they want to pray and that's that she won't pray with him I mean consider that the reality of that but that's that's the point right it's even the kids know right so it's even in her house she's only 25% percentage in her own home she makes up less than the majority Al Mohler said this I'll read this to you he said that basically atheism was not even used in any significant way as a as a word until the 16th century I'll read the quote he says atheism has appeared in some form in Western culture since the midpoint of the last millennium the word atheist did not exist within the English language until the reign of Queen Elizabeth the first the earliest atheists were most often philosophical and theological skeptics who denied the existence of a personal God nevertheless the God they almost always rejected is the God of the Bible in other words a specific rejection of Christianity the earliest atheists were usually notorious as well as were well-known heretics their denials of God and the Christian faith were well documented and understood but the early atheists had a huge problem how could they explain the existence of the cosmos with a clear answer without a clear answer to that question their arguments for atheism failed to gain much traction as even the ancient Greeks understood one of the most fundamental philosophical questions is this why is there something rather than nothing every worldview is accountable to that question in other words every philosophy of life must offer some account of how we in the world around us came to be the creation myths of ancient cultures and the philosophical speculations of the Greeks served as evidence of the hunger in the human intellect that takes form as what we now call the question of origins for some time atheists were hard-pressed to offer any coherent answer to that question once they ruled God out of the picture they had virtually no account to offer regarding creation of course that all changed with Charles Darwin in quote that's that was a long quote but that was Moller's statement basically saying up until about the 16th century there were no any anyone who identified as atheists and even then when the atheists were making themselves known the question was where'd we come from you were here how did we get here and and and so it wasn't until the advent of Darwinism that it became actually possible for someone to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist that's what Richard Dawkins says he says Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist that was Richard Dawkins statement so unfortunately in this class we won't get to really dive into Darwinism and its many problems but for now it's important to note that most of the people we will talk to who claim to be atheists will come from an evolutionary worldview because they don't have any other answer most of the people that we talked to who say they don't don't believe in God will almost inevitably believe in evolution as the answer to origins because they don't have any other answer to offer unless they say we came from aliens which is actually gaining traction aliens is the new answer where did we come from huh a god and a person in a person yeah see I don't know about that yeah yes sir it's funny how he submitted a paper called the necessity of atheism yeah now when was when was what what do you remember what century that was yeah yeah yeah well and again that's the rise and you know modernism and the and we see all that and it's a it's a serious issue and that's why we have more today than ever before people who are just saying there is no God but at that point in time it wasn't tenable nobody would accept that idea now for just a moment I do want to say something about Darwinism if you're unfamiliar with that term what I mean Darwin of course is the one most noted for explaining his understanding of the origin of species if you ever if you ever hear people say usually people say the origin of the species that's not what the book is called the book is called the origin of species it's the it's the idea that all species come from a single ancestor that is Darwinism and he didn't really invent the idea he built on the shoulders of people who had come before him and his as Richard Dawkins said it made people who doubted or did not want to believe in the existence of God feel like they had an intellectually fulfilled way of doing so but here's the thing about Darwinism that you need to remember because you will face people who say I'm an evolutionist or I'm a Darwinist or whatever you need to understand that it does not it does not deal with the most profound questions of human existence because it proposes a naturalistic answer for the origin of life but it does not provide the mechanism for that origin Darwinism is about change within an existing system it does not deal with the origin of the system well but that's not even Ed I know what you're talking about but that's not even the point I'm making is they deal with the changes they don't deal with where the starting point is see the idea that everything came from a single cell that's the argument but a cell itself is complex and the inner workings of a cell are in fact so complex that they could not have come together by accident that's Michael be he's argument in the book Darwin's black box he proposes the idea of irreducible complexity that even if we go back to the cell and say the cell is the beginning of everything and everything comes from the single cell the single cell itself is so constructed that it is it could not have come about by random chance it had to have been created and irreducible complexity I've talked about in previous sermons he uses the example of a mousetrap he says a mousetrap has five pieces it has the base it has the spring it has the latch it has the trigger and it has the hammer part that slams he says if one of those pieces were missing the mousetrap would not work so the question is when did when did it become a mousetrap well when all the pieces came together and the argument is what was it before it was nothing it was pieces how did the pieces come together it had to it demanded an intelligent creator to put that master something as simple as a mousetrap is irreducibly complex you take one piece away it doesn't function and his argument is the same for the the cell now I have a picture on that if you go to the Sovereign Grace Academy page I posted a picture of a cell I know some of you aren't on Facebook but the picture of the cell that was so intricate and so so amazingly designed you can just google just google the the live a living cell and what is involved in a living cell and see the ideas Darwin believed that that was it was just it was simplest matter of what creates all things it was this it was it was this it was it was simple but it's not simple it's highly complex when we get down into the the nanos if you get down into the the microscopic things we find out that complexity doesn't end how complex are you look at DNA and how complex is our DNA and it's it's so small it it's almost invisible even with the technology that we have it's so small so the concept of well we all came from a simple cell no such thing no such thing so here here is my here really all that's this introduction here's here's how I would respond if someone were to say I do not believe in God if someone were to simply just you know and I've had this happen so I can speak from experience on this and I said well I just don't believe God exists my first question to them I wouldn't go I would I wouldn't go into the I wouldn't immediately go to Romans 1 and say you know God exists you're suppressing that truth and unrighteousness you need to repent and believe now I may get there but I'm not necessarily going to start there my first question would be how do you believe life came to exist I would that would be it first I do not believe God exists okay I do not believe God exists how do you believe life came to exist and if they say evolution my answer would be evolution is not an answer to how life came to exist because it does not it does not give an answer to the origin of life only how life has supposedly changed through the process of the survival of the fittest well that's where we're going it's not example how life came to exist just how life changes and see I don't deny and here's the thing don't get don't throw your tomatoes yet I don't deny that evolution exists now I deny Darwinian evolution because Darwinian evolution says that all life came from a single cell therefore you and I have the same ancestors as do the orangutan and the and the bonobos and all the different monkeys and all that we all have the same ancestor that is not true biblically the Bible says I have an ancestor his name is Adam and God created him specifically in his own image that's my ancestor and he didn't come from an animal he came from God he was created by God so immediately I deny the idea that me and the monkeys and the zebras and everything came from one single source the Bible doesn't teach that and I don't believe it but I don't have to argue with them about change within the species because they'll say well don't you believe humans are evolving and I'll say well in one sense yes because for instance the today boys in high school are setting records in track and field that would have won them gold medals a hundred years ago at the Olympics because of better diet because of more training because of better exercise methodologies and because of all kinds of things that create better athletes we now have again people young boys setting records that were that were or beating records that were set by professional athletes or at least athletes at the top of their field 100 years ago so is that evolution no it's it but it is change it's growth in one sense survival of the fittest is not necessarily anti biblical it's built in God builds in the the that strength overcomes and builds and grows and growth and all these things are you know think about life expectancy I mean the Puritans you know the life expectancy was a 30 40 years old I mean I was I'm already dead you know I read you know but right now what's life expectancy Bobby's counting down the days apparently 78.6 years it's the same so right away if someone were to say I don't believe God exists my first question would be how do you believe life came to exist if they said evolution I would say that's not an answer in fact if you want an exit you want a picture of this happening watch the movie expelled with Ben Stein because at the end of the movie Ben Stein who's not a Christian but he is a Jew expelled at the end of the movie he sits down with Richard Dawkins and he asked Richard Dawkins where did life come from Richard Dawkins says evolution he says but that's not origins how did it start there Dawkins did not give him a satisfactory answer in fact his answer was he moves to aliens perhaps aliens seeded or if I'm lying I'm dying Bobby you've seen it it's not it's exactly he moves to some other source because if you do not believe the Bible you will believe anything and he has to find something to produce the seed but he with his presupposition because he says even if it were aliens those aliens came about through Darwinian evolution that's almost a direct quote from the movie so what's the presupposition of the person that again we are so we're going to identify presuppositions the presupposition one is that evolution can explain origins and it can't and to evolution is true in the sense that they believe Darwinian ism is true so they've already they've already provided you two of their presuppositions remember I said we're presuppositional apologetics we look we not only think of our own presuppositions we listen for theirs and so at some point in this conversation my next statement would probably be something like this do you want to know what the Bible says about how life came to exist two simple questions how do you think life came to exist let them answer however they want to answer okay we were born off the back of a turtle whatever let him give you whatever answer doesn't matter it's not that you're not listening I am listening I'm listening for their presuppositions I'm listening to maybe perhaps what their level of education is where what have they learned and I'm listening for that as I ask the question how do you think life came to be whatever their answer though is I will immediately go to do you want to know what the Bible says that's fine no that's what I'm saying if they say that's what that's a good thing Ross what you just said if you say that's what I was taught in school I would say you know what I went to a public high school and you know what my science teacher told me this is honest truth my science told me teacher told me he said I'm going to tell you what the book says but I don't believe it's true because I believe God's Word that's what my site mr.
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Kelly and my science teacher my eighth grades or I'm sorry ninth grade science teacher he said he said I'll tell you what the book says he says but I don't believe it because I believe the Word of God so praise God absolutely absolutely that's what the movie expelled is about expelled is about teachers being losing their positions because they're teaching intelligent design interestingly enough I just have to say I don't mean interrupt you but you're what was the classes humanities but he had you right about the end times doesn't come outside and he takes 280 vitamins a day because he believes in the year 2030 something that we're going to discover a way to be immortal yeah the singularity yeah yeah so anyway so I I struggle with it really bad and I actually am really grateful that even though he believes what he believes he still listened to what I had to say as far as in my paper and I completely you know and I kept talking to Keith about it and you still got a good grace praise the Lord and again what is apologetics giving a defense for the hope that is within us that's what you did you said this is what I believe it's true based on the Word of God that is my authority this is why I'm saying I'm not teaching you tricks I'm not teaching you oh if he says this you say this you shock he jives you know whatever you know it's not that it's it's just two simple questions how do you think life began and can I tell you what the Bible says you so that's not much of an apologetic you'd be amazed how much traction the Bible can get because it is the Word of God it actually does what it says it can do the Word of God changes hearts what is Romans 10 tell us faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ right let me just tell you what the Bible says the Bible says God made the whole world you say well I know that we have it but have you ever really thought about what that means that means that everything in the world that you see that is an effect actually does have a cause and everything in the world that you see is dependent actually does have an independent creator and everything in the world that you see that has order actually had one who is himself orderly make it that's what the Bible teaches it teaches that it makes sense of the world around us it makes sense of order it makes sense of purpose and it makes sense of morality kind of hinting at what we're going to get to right what are we going to get to later the classical arguments and what are they classical arguments is the world is orderly the world is purposeful the Lord the world has men have morality and purpose and the Bible gives an answer for that and your worldview doesn't and you don't got to slap them with that but you can kind of bring that out you know like I've told the story I think I even told it in this class but I always like to bring up that young man who sat next to me at the restaurant and he was here why do you believe God exists and we talked to him and talked to him and finally I just said I said you see the girl over there she's waiting on you she looks rather uncomfortable that you came to talk to me yeah that's my girlfriend do you love her yeah I love her why she's nothing but a sack of stardust I said I said a rather attractive sack of stardust but still but still from your worldview she has no intrinsic value her love for you is nothing but the firing of synapses in her brain her emotions are nothing more than chemical changes in her body and at the end of her life she will be nothing but stardust from stardust she came and from stardust she shall return is that all she is of course and you know that yeah it's getting back to yeah and it's really though it's all of it and what we're gonna see it's a transcendental argument kind of fits into all of the classical arguments because it all goes back to the very reason for reason is that God exists he thought about it you again he didn't fall down and believe in Jesus and you know start praying at that moment and I can't remember every word that we had but he was a very polite young man again he pulled up his chair at my table and asked if he could talk to me because he heard me talking to somebody else I'm never without loudness in my voice I guess and I said his girlfriend was a little embarrassed but she made for a great illustration so this is where again I would begin that the first question how do you believe life came to exist second question do you know what the Bible says about how life came to exist and you ought to know that answer but you know if you don't spend some time with what the Bible teaches the Bible teaches God made everything out of nothing because he has the power of being in creation in himself the Bible says God made all things very good all of them that's important for next week to talk about the existence of evil God made the world good and you might even throw this at them say do you believe it's possible that something would come from nothing do you believe that it's possible that something would come from nothing and if they say no then say well then you do believe that something is eternal because you do believe there's something here now right unless you believe this is all an illusion again the brain in the vat they may they may believe their brain in the vat but if you believe there's something here now which if you don't you know reach out and pinch them on the arm or something you believe something is here now then that would necessitate something has always been but everything you see is in effect what's the cause what's the first cause they might say well matter and energy and they might take a scientific attack and say listen matter is neither created nor destroyed energy is neither created nor destroyed in fact matter is simply a form of energy and so energy is neither created nor destroyed right that's the argument say yes but energy that is undirected and matter that is unintelligent does not rise and give rise to that which is orderly and intelligent and purposeful so what you're saying is an impersonal force gave birth to a personal universe that we are able to relate to yes I just want to show you something John because you're going to because that is the thing right if you say God created everything the very next statement is often if God made everything who made God and this gives you an opportunity to become not just an apologist but a theologian and by the way if you want to be a good apologist first become a good theologian if you really want to defend your faith in God grow in your faith and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ no more about him because the answer to that really is this God says in his word I am what the word am means there's it means exist and that speaks of God's aseity aseity means that he has being in himself and that he is the only one who is absolutely independent God depends upon nothing needs nothing and has nothing outside himself that he is contingent for his crew for his own being see Christians believe in a major distinction and the distinction is the distinction between the creator and the creature and God is the creator and everything else earth moon Sun stars Saturn Pluto still a planet all of that all of that is creature and that's the one great divide is the divide between creator and creature so when somebody says if God made everything who made God I can easily answer and simply say God does not need to be made because God is not an effect God is not dependent and he's not contingent God is the uncaused cause of all things uncaused cause of all things go ahead Ross so I said prove it in scripture she became she become Bostonian that's in the Gospels no that's a good question from a scriptural standpoint I'm trying to think of a verse that just says that there are several verses that point to God's aseity the one from Exodus which says I am that that speaks of his existence in Isaiah God says specifically before me there was no God form and there'd be no form after me so I would I would point to that passage and then of course Genesis 1 1 in the beginning God you know there has you what's interesting is there's there's um I think it's five things that the that the universe needs you know it's was it a space matter energy time maybe it's four things but it's all in Genesis 1 1 in the beginning time God created that's energy the heavens that space and the earth that's matter you know and all that's there in Genesis 1 1 a sanity a s e i t y so again and again I'm not giving you a I'm not giving you a script you're saying this is how I would kind of handle this and again it might go all kinds of directions and if somebody may eventually just say well I don't believe that any being can be eternally existent and have it have had the power of being in and of himself okay but that is what the Bible teaches thank you for letting me share that's right and that's true we don't have anything to compare God to because there's nothing like unto him I'm God and there is no other I'm God there's none like me that's it all right so we can't just point it and say God's like that or God's like this he's not most of the people that we come in contact with is that almost all of them are familiar with one of the Abrahamic you know sure you know that does give us a healthy starting point that's a good start because they all have one thing in common yeah yeah that's well and I know what you're saying monotheism is the default of the United States would be different if we were in India or China but in the United States when somebody says God you know what you're talking about and if you're in if you're in India and you say God you know that you'd be God's plural or China would be you know God's you know plural yeah exactly well yeah the only negative I would say if there if you want to say there's a pros and cons the negative would be is that people who already think they have an idea of who God is and they're wrong and there's a lot of that so you have to be you know there's you take the good with the bad on that one but yes sir he repeated where on the chancel churches don't have a stage I'm sorry I'm sorry I've just given you a hard time yeah all right I'm gonna give you a third question I've given you two questions the first question was a simple question what do you believe what do you believe and honestly I remind you care please care about what they believe because it's going to help you and it also matters they'll tell you a lot if you actually ask somebody to tell you what they think don't not care listen because that's going to go into that whole part of you know we want to be persuasive and we want to love them we're not doing this to beat them in an argument this is why some of what I see online with some apologists really just frustrates my heart because it's they're trying to win an argument they're not trying to win a soul and that's so frustrating so here's here's a third question that you may you may use this third question you may not but this is a third question that I think is very useful do you realize the implications of what you believe so if I've asked them what do you believe and I've asked them can I tell you what the Bible says I might then I might then dig deeper and said do you realize the implications of what you believe what's implication mean the danger what's the danger in what you believe it's not just that though it's not just hell and hell is certainly the danger from our perspective but from their perspective here here's the thing ask them here this is a long sentence and I wouldn't expect you to write it or memorize it but just think of this if the order we experience came from disorder what is to keep it from falling back into disorder what reason do you have for confidence in the uniformity of nature and the continuation of the laws of logic what reason do you have to believe that this world will continue to be as it always has I'll give you an example why I ask that question because David Hume who was not a believer he's in your book they mentioned him in your book he was a philosopher he was best known for philosophy philosophical empiric empiricism skepticism and naturalism this is what he said he said although we do indeed believe the future will be like the past the truth the truth is that that belief is not self-evident in fact it is always possible for nature to change so inferences from past the future are never rationally certain you understand the reason why we believe that tomorrow water is going to boil at 212 degrees because always has what if everything changed tomorrow but you don't believe it will but your worldview if you're an atheist doesn't really give you a reason to not believe that you don't have a reason for the uniformity of nature the laws of logic or any of those things because you don't have any personal God who is ordering anything could not the world be different tomorrow completely that's one of the implications of the worldview let me give you a few quotes I'm not just pulling this out of thin air these are quotes from specific scientists number one physicist Paul Davies this is what he said to be a scientist you have to have faith just stop right there take it in take it all in listen to what he says this is he's a this is his quote to be a scientist you have to have faith that the universe is governed by dependable immutable absolute universal mathematical laws of an unspecified origin you've got to believe that these laws won't fail that we won't wake up tomorrow and find heat flowing from cold to hot or the speed of light changing by the hour over the years I've often asked my physicists colleagues why the laws of physics are what they are and the favorite answer is there is no reason why they are what they are they just are in quote that's the best they've got there is no reason why the laws of nature and logic are what they just are and they get mad at us for saying God is because he is physicist Eugene Wigner I think I'm saying that correctly confesses that the mathematical underpinning of nature is quote something bordering on the mysterious and there is no rational explanation for it the mathematical underpinning of nature nature as we said all science is math right it's it's all mathematical and that underpins everything and he says it's mysterious we don't know I know but your worldview can't account for it physicist Richard Feynman no you've heard of this guy if you've ever watched certain television shows about physicists doesn't matter he was Nobel winner for quantum electrodynamics and he said this quote why nature is mathematical is a mystery the fact that there are rules at all is kind of a miracle so what have we heard we've heard faith we've heard a world that's governed by laws and it's miraculous see this is why Werner Heisenberg German theoretical physicist said this he said the first gulp from the glass of natural scientists of natural sciences will turn you in it into an atheist but when you reach the bottom of the cup that's where God is you take a sip from the cup of science and you become an atheist but when you reach the bottom that's where God is you can't get away from it another quick quote Lee Smolin a physicist talks about the laws of nature as if God were sitting at a desk surrounded by dials each one representing a certain value in the universe gravitational force electromagnetic force etc and he said if you were to move one of the dials even the least amount the universe would not exist not just so there would be no life there would be no universe so again mr.