Provoked - Debate with Atheist

For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you, and for all those at Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

The Mission of the Show: Preach the Gospel, Rescue Babies, and Defend the Faith

What's up, everybody? Welcome to another podcast provoked. We are so thankful that you're here on this wonderful Wednesday that God has given us, and my redheaded sister is not able to be here today, which I'm kind of bummed, so I'm hoping the show doesn't suck.

She kind of adds a spice and a flavor to it. But sitting to my left is Mark Oje, and we're going to be having a conversation with him. We'll talk to him in just a second. And to my right is Sarah Chouinard, and I'm going to introduce you a little bit better in a few moments.

So if you just tuned in to provoked, you don't know what the heck or who the heck we are. We are part of Apologia Studios and a part of Apologia Church. Really, the purpose of the show is to preach the gospel.

That's what Jesus has called all Christians to do. Therefore, go into all the earth and proclaim the gospel. That's Mark chapter 16, verse 15. So that's our heart. That is the primary mission, I think, of the Christian church, right, is to go into everywhere and proclaim the good news of salvation in Jesus.

And also, we want to rescue little babies who are headed to death at abortion mills. Desi, I don't know if you saw that video. A couple of days ago, I got a call and a mom was just reaching out to us for help.

And my sister was able to call her and give her some counsel and love. And she's deciding to keep her baby. So we're super happy about that. And thirdly, we want to defend the faith and help equip our brothers and sisters to do the same.

Scripture say that we are to have an answer to those who ask. And we're supposed to go out into the world with the gospel and with the truth on our lips, with the spirit of gentleness and love for those that we want to reach.

So that's what we're trying to kind of encapsulate as far as our mission here. Preach the gospel, rescue babies, and defend the faith. What are we doing or where are we going? Just so you know, kind of we're going as a podcast.

I kind of like to know what I'm listening to and what they're planning on doing. But we want to really focus on debates. It's, I think, through the debate format that you really learn. I love learning audiographically and I learn so much just by listening to different topics and different people debating.

Maybe a little bit different style for us is we don't want to, I was just talking to Sarah about this, we don't want to get into just this proud kind of debate format to where it becomes just semantics or just a name game or name calling or wordplay.

It's actually, you know, honoring those that we're speaking to, valuing them, and really explaining what it is we're doing and all the ins and outs, a very explanatory kind of debate format. So we're going to be debating some professing atheists, some pro-choicers, flat earthers.

We've gotten a ton of message from the flat earthers about debating. Yeah. And so for all those, I've got a message like, when are we going to debate? When do we get in debate? We're going to set up some debates in June, maybe July, but I'm really preparing myself to deal well with argumentation.

I don't know if you go on YouTube and just type in like flat earth. These videos get like millions of views, millions of millions. There's a guy out there and he's a science guy and he has started debating flat earth.

Actually he did it about a year and a half ago and his videos got maybe 4 ,000, 5 ,000 per video. And when he started doing flat earth, it just like rocketed up to like 10 million, 1 million, 5 million.

So there's a massive interest out there. And I think a question that we also get is why debate flat earthers when we know that the earth is irrefutably round, spherical? And I got that too, because a lot of people say, well, if you're debating a flat earth, you're almost giving a legitimacy to the theory, which I don't necessarily believe in that.

I can kind of get that argumentation, but from a Christian perspective, most flat earthers that I've seen out there base their belief in a flat earth on the Bible. So they say, what you'd do is I've done it before.

You'll present to them like a mountain of scientific evidence out there that shows that the earth is irrefutably spherical and they'll completely not acknowledge the scientific evidence and say, the Bible says that it's flat, therefore it is.

And so what you're doing is you're using the Bible to teach a lie. If you're using the Bible to teach a lie, then the Bible cannot be trusted. And so the Christian, his primary and her primary mission is to proclaim the gospel.

And so if you're on like a Facebook, your Facebook feed, and you're saying Jesus is the only way to God, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and you're elucidating the gospel. And then in the next, you say the earth is flat.

Why would anybody believe in your proclamation of the gospel, which is firmly rooted in scripture when you're trying to tell everybody.

The earth is flat? It doesn't add up. And we should be defending the Bible. When somebody's lying about what the Bible says, we should be defending that. That's part of our job as.

Christians, right? Oh, exactly. Yeah. That's our job. That's our duty. But when you say, hey, look at the scientific evidence because all truth comports with reality, right? The flat earth does not comport with reality, therefore the flat earth is not true.

But when you're saying, hey, the Bible says this, the Bible proves the earth is flat, then you're using the Bible to prove that which is a lie and the Bible can't be trusted. So that, if you're hearing us, that's kind of our launching pad when we debate the flat earth is we're going to look at the scientific evidence, which I think is fascinating and just out there for you to look at, but also get into the scriptures that people supposedly use to prove that the earth is flat.

Mark Auger’s Background and Why He Cares About the Discussion

So what are we doing on this episode? We are going to talk with our friend, Mark Auger, and I pronounced your name, right? Finally. And I appreciate you being here. I appreciate your, just your attitude and your willingness to be on and just your friendliness.

I really dig it. I appreciate you, man. And then to my right is Sarah Shenard, and she's a member of Apology of Church. You used to be a lawyer, not now.

Yeah, I'm licensed, but I don't really practice ever, so.

Yeah. A lot of work, you said, not so much money.

Yeah. Yeah. Because there's so many lawyers out there that you don't have to pay them very much.

Yeah. Awesome. Well, I'm glad you're here. And the purpose that you're here is because you want to defend the faith. And like me, you want to continue to learn how to defend the faith and you have to defend the faith to kind of know how to defend.

Right. Right. Right. We got to practice, get better.

Exactly. And so we are presuppositional apologetics, which I'm going to explain in just a moment. But if you go on YouTube, there's not a lot of women engaging presuppositionally with atheists and whoever.

Right. There's actually not a lot of presuppopologists at all and definitely not a lot.

Of women. Yeah. I don't even think there's any women. Yeah. So I can't think of any. And maybe you guys, you can post a link in the comments below this video if there is, but it's kind of cool that you might be the woman kind of spearheading this public exposure of women who are biblically defending their faith presuppositionally.

I think it's kind of exciting. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I'm glad that you're here. And so what we're going to do is we're just kind of going to get into it. I'm going to let Mark tell us a little bit about him and what he's doing, and then we'll go from there.

Well, I mean, I appreciate you guys obviously having me and obviously going through like spirited debates. So I definitely thoroughly enjoy them obviously from a science standpoint, from an evidentiary standpoint, but also from a subjective standpoint based on like interpretation or based on our own cultural upbringings.

But yeah, I mean, as far as I'm concerned, I'm in events and entertainment, a bunch of different other industries, a retired Marine, been out for seven.

What was your MOS, your job position again?

So 0311 and then 6046. So I was a rifleman, so basic rifleman, aka a grunt.

So you were infantry. Oh, wow. I didn't know that.

Yeah. So I was a grunt.

Bullet catcher.

Yep. Yep. Sender and receiver.

Yeah.

But I did that until I got injured and then forcibly lat moved, transferred over to the air wing. And then I basically became a desk jockey, technical publications librarian through maintenance admin.

My job was essentially to handle all the technical manuals that dealt with specific aircraft, eventually getting to the point where I was not just handling like a squadron, but I was also assisting like an entire base after I did the squadron.

And I mean, I could bend your guys's ear off with ridiculous amounts of stories when it comes to.

Maybe, maybe another time.

Yeah. When it comes to the military career. But that's also another reason as to like why I have the beliefs that I have is because of what I have seen in or done in the military. Plus, obviously like my, my upbringing and just my experiences in general.

Cool. So, yeah.

The Humble Aim of Christian Apologetics

Awesome. Okay. So kind of our plan here, you know, jumping or segwaying into our discussion is that when we defend our faith as Christians, it's important. If we're not presenting the gospel in the midst of defending our faith, we are really failing.

We're not here, like Ed said before, just to win an argument or to somehow boast in our intellect, our ability to defend the faith, our ability to win some type of argument, put somebody in their place.

I think we see a lot of that. I just really don't think that's the humble approach. Because when we're dealing with somebody from the Christian worldview or Christian perspective, we're dealing with somebody created in the image of God.

We believe Mark has created the image of God and we value him. We believe he has dignity and worth, and we are concerned about his eternal destination. So it's dealing with somebody in such a loving way that you have this motive that they would come to Christ.

Of course, we can't make that happen. We can provide proof, I think, but we can't provide persuasion. I guess we can do our best, but ultimately it's the work of God through the gospel and through the truth and how Mark, you respond to that and whoever else.

So all we do is try to do it with, I guess, feet of clay in our own brokenness and finiteness, and we try to do it well and we try to honor Christ. But that's where we're coming from. We want to treat you with dignity, and we're not just here to win our argument.

So what I failed to do last time we spoke is I failed to really define, I think, adequately our base argument and how we differ kind of from different Christians in the field of apologetics. So what I want to do, and I kind of wrote it down so I can, I'm getting old and I forget everything.

Some guys could just stand up and just remember it all, but I wanted to just do a good job and so you can know exactly where we're coming from in our argumentation, and then we'll just go from there. We'll see what you think about it, and then we can let that conversation just.

Kind of organically move around where it's going to move around. Awesome. I'll just add, sometimes when people practice precept apologetics, it looks like it's like a word game and we're just sort of tricking the unbeliever.

So Zach and I talked about how if we could just tell you what we're to do before we do it, we don't want to look like we're doing that, right? We want to be completely transparent about what we're doing.

We don't want it to look like we're trying to.

Sort of trick you. Well, for sure. I think I'm pretty solid, and I mean, obviously, last time when we came over and had our discussion and debate, I thought it was fantastic. It was great. It didn't feel like an argument.

There's a fight to the death. Well, yeah, and I think we can argue.

Here's the thing is, with the balance of that, it's okay when you can argue. Oh, for sure, for sure. You can argue, and you have, like you said, a spirited debate, and you get passionate about what you're about.

That's completely fine. I guess behind it is the motive of the Christian. Is your motive really to bring knowledge to light and really lovingly answer and be able to respond to argumentation, or are you just there to promote yourself?

So I just don't think that's part and especially when... I can't think of his name. I must decrease, but he must increase. John the Baptist. Ouch, don't let anybody know I forgot he's John the Baptist, or I'm going to get fired from my pastoral job.

So what did he say? He said, I must increase, Jesus must, or I must decrease, Jesus must increase. That's the humility of the believer in really handling God's Word and apologetics. So if you can condense it down to just one statement, which I'm going to unpack, the proof that God exists is that if the God of the Bible doesn't exist, we couldn't prove anything.

So as I'm going through this, you can chime on in and add to this explanation if you want, and then when I get to the end, I'll hand it over to you. Okay. Sounds good. So number one in this explanation is we aren't classical or evidential apologists.

So what does that mean? Is that we don't simply present evidence to the unbeliever and place them in the judge's seat. And people kind of look at that and they're just waiting in their interaction with a Christian just to hear where's the evidence so that I can believe, but we don't do that.

And so we believe evidence is ample for the existence of God. I'm just going to give you a couple examples here. Information theory, I think is some irrefutable evidence for God's existence. And that is kind of summed up and information always, always, always requires a mind to produce that information.

And so you must have a mind before anything was created, a mind really transcendent from natural creation. DNA, the information encoded in the first cell must have had the information prior to its formation.

So again, the source of information, even in the DNA has to have a transcendent because it cannot have a naturalistic explanation. And of course you can respond to that too. And if you want later on down the road.

So there's information theory, there's the irreducible complexity of like biomechanical machines. So within the cell, in order for a cell to have any type of functionality or stay alive in within that biomechanical machine is independent molecular machines that must've been created at once because they depend on each other for survival.

So there is, we believe good evidence out there, but we don't start with evidence with the hope that the unbeliever will be persuaded and through the power of reason and persuasion, believe in God. We don't do that.

So we are presuppositional apologists and we start with God as the only necessary foundation to believe or even to know anything. That is probably a good definition of presuppositional apologetics. We don't present evidence to the unbeliever so he can believe in that evidence.

And because of his belief in evidence, believe in God. Now we start on the foundation of God has to be the necessary starting point. You don't, you don't work through evidence to get to God. God has to be the standing port and standing point that you stand on.

So why don't we just lay out evidence to the unbeliever? Number one, unbelievers will not accept the evidence. And this has to do according, because we're standing on the foundation of God's word, we go to it for our answers, right?

For our truth, for as we seek truth, we go to God's word. And so this non-acceptance of the evidence presented to the unbeliever, it has to do with the condition of the soul and the natural bent for people to reject God.

That's all throughout the scriptures, it says our hearts have enmity with God, that we don't seek after God. Somebody once said this, the unbeliever wanting to find or seek after God is kind of like the criminal wanting to find a cop, you know?

So when we're dealing with evidences, we're dealing with worldviews. And our worldviews are really our foundational presuppositions. They determine how we interpret the evidence that's presented to us.

So an atheist and a creationist or an atheist and a Christian, they'll look at the same evidence provided to them and they'll come up with two very different conclusions. And you know that, because I know you argue with, you know, lovingly argue with Deandre, which I appreciate.

And so you guys are looking at two different things, whether it be scriptural testimony or whatever, and you're coming up with two different conclusions. So the atheist will look at maybe like a fossil and they'll say, well, this came during a long process of random chance mutation.

And it gives evidence that evolution is true. And therefore we really don't need God. We've explained it through the process of Darwinian evolution. He'll look at that fossil. And then the Christian and their creationists will look at that same fossil, the same piece of evidence presented to them.

And they'll say, oh, this is just evidence that God exists. How could this come from nothing? Things like this, you know, this is an example of the, you know, the creatorship of God. This is a unique fossilized organism.

Or, you know, they'll get into maybe not only the study of origins when looking at fossils, but they get into like the divine inspiration of the scripture or something like this. Christian will say, look at the Bible and they say, this is obviously inspired by God.

I remember I didn't grow up in a Christian home whatsoever. I didn't have any type of Christian influence whatsoever. Somebody preached the gospel and all of a sudden I just believed. And I knew from that moment, this is God's word.

But the atheist will look at the same Bible and say, I don't see any proof. This is not adequate proof that this is inspired by God. This is just kind of bronze age thoughts of some goat herders back then.

So what we're dealing with in this explanation of our apologetic method is we're dealing with the fact that both parties are bringing their worldviews. You bring your worldview to bear upon the evidence, which determines what they believe about that evidence.

So when we debate, we're really essentially debating worldviews. And just a definition here, it's not my definitions, it's Dr. Bonson's definition, but he says, a worldview is a network of presuppositions untested by natural science and in light of which all experience or evidence is interpreted.

I'll say it one more time. A worldview is a network of presuppositions untested by natural science and in light of which all experience or evidence is interpreted. So our worldview consists of our presuppositions and our presuppositions, and I know I'm throwing around philosophical jargon.

That's why I kind of wanted to explain it. Because when I first heard this, I was like, I gotta get a dictionary.

And you're like, what?

Yeah, exactly. What's a worldview? What's a presupposition? We don't normally use this just in everyday lingo. So a presupposition is something that is assumed in advance or taken for granted. So we assume these things, these things that we say, and then those are what construct our worldview.

Then we bring this worldview to bear upon how we come to intelligible.

Conclusions about whatever. You know what I found interesting, Mark, when you were giving your introduction, you said, you basically said, that's how I get my worldview. You know, this is my military experience, that plus being raised the way I was, that's why I believe what I believe.

Correct. You might as well have been saying, that's where.

I got my worldview. It is. It's 100%. It's like, at the end of the day, we're a product of what influences our life. So there are plenty of people in the world who will never know the word of God, will never understand religion or any sort of belief or faith-based system, simply because they have not been exposed to that influence.

Now, that then poses the question, all right, well, does God or does faith or that belief-based system, does that even exist? Well, to that person, it's almost like ignorance to it. And it's not saying that ignorance is an excuse for it, but ignorance is bliss in that regard.

So now you have the ability to choose consciously right and wrong. And I feel like that's where belief-based structures, again, come into play. It's our interpretation of what we're reading, what we're influenced to, and what we're exposed to will, again, build us as who we are.

Like me, I was raised in a non-denominational Christian household by a Catholic father and a Christian mother. And after being raised in that, we're talking every single Sunday, every single Wednesday, we're talking Bible study classes, everything that you could possibly get to.

And until I was of a certain age and certain things in life happened that influenced my life, then I kept on moving and moving and moving and being experienced to, again, multiple cultures, multiple religions, multiple beliefs.

And then you had to start essentially building your own conclusions to support, I guess, everyone's rhetoric. And it's like, well, this person's wrong, this person's right. And it's like, we start then building our own interpretation of what is right and wrong.

Okay, cool. Yeah, actually, that's a good place to connect because I want to finish this, not to interrupt you or anything, but I think you said a good thing, is you challenge their worldview. And that's exactly what presuppositional apologetics is, is you challenge your worldview to see if it can hold up under its own, really, what it proclaims inside of the worldview.

Do these things actually hold up to reality? Truth, one of the best definitions of truth, if you would accept it, is truth is that which comports with reality. That's why flat earth can't be flat earth, because it does not comport with reality.

You're not a flat earther, are you?

No. I've talked a lot about it, but I'm not asking that question.

I've been around the world, and I've been north and south and east and west, and I've done it a few times. I'm fully understanding that we're on a ball.

Again, it's just the challenging of the worldview to see if it comports with reality, if it's true or not. I was talking about presupposition, something is assumed in advance or taken for granted. We make presuppositions every single day, don't we?

We pick up a book, and we presuppose it was written by an author. We really don't think about it. This book could not have arranged itself. It must have had an author. We turn on our cars without fear.

It depends upon what kind. I had a 1976 Firebird, so sometimes I would turn it on. I don't know if it would start up. Typically, when we go and put the key in, we don't even think it's not going to start.

We're actually surprised if it doesn't start. We're assuming, we're presupposing that the laws of physics, which the internal combustion engine is really built based upon, is going to work today the same as it worked yesterday.

That's something called the uniformity of nature or the principle of induction. We assume these things. We take these things for granted. When we say things like, that's not logical or that's not rational, we're presupposing the laws of logic that exist.

The laws of logic are epistemological necessities for us to come to any type of conclusion, to know anything. When we say, science says the earth is spherical, we're presupposing induction or the uniformity of nature that the universe operates in a consistent law-like fashion.

When we say, that's not fair, that's not evil, that's good, you should be doing this, you shouldn't be doing that, then we're really presupposing an objective standard of morality. We're presupposing that absolute, when people throw the word absolute around, it means it applies to everyone, everywhere, at any time, regardless of the person, regardless of the location, regardless of their place in history.

When it's absolute, it applies to everybody. As when you say those things, we're giving evidence that these foundational presuppositions exist and they must exist for us to come to moral conclusions, rational conclusions, scientific conclusions, really for us to prove anything to be true within the field of morality, ethics, or science.

If we're to know anything again, they got to exist. If the laws of logic didn't exist, then we could not come into any rational conclusion if they didn't. Because if they didn't exist, I could be here and I could be there.

One of the laws of logic is the law of identity, the law that A must be A. So I'm Zach and I can't be Zach and not Zach at the same time, or the law of non-contradiction. We're here in the studio, we can't be here and not here at the same time.

So if those things did not exist, how could we come to any type of rationality whatsoever? If an objective standard of morality doesn't exist, then we could not say things like, that was evil, or that was good, that was wrong.

We couldn't even have any form of law that we could be accountable to if the laws of logic were really not objective, or sorry, the laws of morality were not objective. Because the guy would just say, well, I have my own set of morals.

So what I'm saying is within our universe, the way that we live, the way that we live our lives, it goes to show that these things actually exist. If the universe didn't operate in a uniform law-like fashion, assuming that the future is going to be like today, or the future is going to be like the past, or the laws of science, the laws of gravity, the laws of physics, if they didn't perform in a law-like fashion, then we couldn't come to any scientific conclusions.

We couldn't do things in labs, we couldn't even go through the scientific process to come to these conclusions. So our contention, kind of to wrap this up, and I'm sorry for going so long, is that the God of the Bible is the only explanation that provides us with a rational explanation that accounts for the complete conditions of intelligibilities, that actually accounts for the laws of logic, morality, and uniformity of nature, that those things find their source within God Himself and self-revelation.

So what we do is we take, whether it be a Christian worldview, an atheistic worldview, an agnostic worldview, and if it doesn't recognize God as creator, then it fails to provide a logical rationale or explanation for these things.

So if it fails to do that, then it fails to be true because it can't comport with what's real, can't comport with reality. Whereas a Christian worldview can account for these conclusions and these realities, and thus providing a foundation to come to intelligible conclusions.

So when we say, when an atheist appeals to logic or ethics or science, what they are doing is they're stepping off the base, the foundation of the worldview, and they're stepping on the Christian's worldview.

They're actually borrowing from us things that we can account for in our explanation of epistemological realities, in our explanation of reality itself. And so when an atheist says something that's not rational, or this is wrong, or this is, I came to a scientific conclusion, they're proving that God does in fact exist.

And if you deny that, we couldn't prove anything. So if I need to explain that a little better, I'm just going to let you kind of process a little bit, but I don't know how good of a job I did in but that is the base argument that we know that the God of the Bible exists because we could not again come to any rational conclusions if he is not the necessary answer to those questions.

Where do the laws of logic come from? Why do we have morality? How could we ever expect the future to be like the past and for there to be any uniformity or any laws in just a random chance universe? So we would say it's because of God.

What do you think?

Let me just add something really quick. So basically when we're practicing precept, what we're doing is saying, okay, this is the Christian worldview. This is the non-believers or the unbelievers worldview.

That's going to look different for different people. So our worldview and your particular worldview, we're just comparing them. So which one makes better sense of the world? Which one's more consistent?

Which one helps us understand the world we have today? So that's basically what we're doing when we're practicing is comparing.

Maybe that's a more simple way of putting it. Which worldview makes sense? Which makes sense? And then I think maybe a rebuttal will be, well, you guys believe the guy rose from the dead. You guys believe an ax had floated on water.

You guys believe that a virgin gave birth to a baby without having sexual intercourse with a physical male. So I can understand where you say, well, testing yours, it doesn't seem as though these things can happen, but that's why our necessary starting point is an omnipotent, all powerful, omnipresent, eternal God.

No, we would say known.

Through the scriptures and through the person of Jesus Christ. Yeah. So an unknown is known.

Through unknowns? We would say, no, you couldn't know anything without God.

So again, an unknown would be known through unknowns.

Help me understand what you mean. Yeah, just let us know what you mean.

So if the only way to justify the only way we're looking, the only way to justify logic and everything is that God must be real, right? So that would literally, that logically would state that God is an unknown variable that makes things known.

We're not sure there's no definitive behind God because God is the definitive. If God is the definitive, so he makes everything known, right? He's, we don't necessarily know. We have a generalized understanding, right?

We follow scripture, things of that nature to better understand God, but we don't fully understand it because there's no way to fully understand him. There's no fully way to.

Oh no. I mean, I would, I would just challenge that and say, I agree. There's no way to fully understand God because in the scriptures, it says his thoughts are above ours. So his own self revelation in the, in the scriptures tell us that he cannot be fully comprehended, but he can be.

Comprehended. So it can be, but he, again, that, that would then, that would then logically place him as, cause again, we can't fully understand. Okay. So therefore he is unknown. I would say.

Not fully known. Correct. So therefore unknown. No, I wouldn't say I would, I would disagree that you can know something. I mean, say we know about the laws of physics, but we don't fully know about the laws of physics.

We know about, uh, some of it, we know some of it. So he can be known to the extent that he's revealed himself and he has revealed himself in such a way that we can know that he exists. And so that's through creation.

That's through the life of Christ. And that's through our conscience, right? Giving us this moral code that we really can't get away from, but go ahead. I don't want to steer us away. Don't worry. That's why I love this.

Uh,.

I guess from, from my standpoint on it is, is again, is it just, it just confirms ultimately that God is like, he is like people know of God. They don't know God. They know God, as far as their interpretation and their belief structure allows them to.

And that again, comes through, uh, influence education and just furthering morality, depending upon what each person's culture allows them to be exposed to. Again, if you're not exposed to it, then how do you know God?

And again, it's through, in that regard, it would technically be through.

Theory. You want to answer that? Well, I was just going to say, so scripture tells us that everybody knows God, but atheists are, or unbelievers are suppressing that truth and unrighteousness. Is that what you were going to say?

Oh yeah. That's the way I was going to just.

Kind of question him about epistemology about, cause he's talking about knowing, you know, you're making claims about our inability to know God fully. And then somehow because of that, he's unknown. He's not known, but she's right.

I mean, and this has to go back to kind of the evidence from a Christian view is that we can give these things to you. And we believe that they are, it's, it is an irrefutable proof, but from the atheistic mind, it's, it's really what sin has done to the mind.

We don't come to that conclusion on our own. We reject it. Um, but, and I mean this as a personal attack. When we do abandon God as our necessary foundation for knowing anything, what we'll do is we'll always get into the realm of absurdity.

So let me explain. So I'm going to just ask you a question. Let's just let you talk. When you're talking about knowing, you've talked a lot about, no, I know this, or these people only know this because they were influenced by a certain religious influence.

So they can only know because of their parents taught, you know, that Allah was God or whatever it may be. So, but my question for you is how do you know anything? How can we know anything? I mean, what is your.

Epistemological foundation? Yeah, there isn't like, again, it all comes on a basis of influence. There is no way to, there's no way to, to, to justify it because just as we're all saying, there's no actual evidence to support that.

And then when you come into the aspect of, of not evidentiary, right? And people are just like, Oh, I have a belief because I have a belief. Some people's logic can follow that suit. And that's just, that's totally fine.