Practical Presup Explained & Employed Pt. 2

Okay, so last week we did part one practical pre -sup for beginners.

We're going to continue on, just with a really quick review. Does anybody remember what

I used as the illustration for pre -suppositionalism? Yes, the jigsaw puzzle, exactly.

And what did we call the structure, what would be the technical term for the structure, the framework of the jigsaw puzzle?

Metaphysics, right? That provides the context and the framework for our world view.

And then what is the jigsaw puzzle made of? Little, right?

Cardboard. What do you call the little things that you put in there? The pieces, right?

And what do the pieces represent in our illustration? Facts, right?

So the pieces are facts, and that's based on our epistemology, how we know what we know. Why is something a fact?

Fact is a fact because God defines it as a fact, like our brother Eli says, God is the father of all facts.

He defines and names everything. And within the framework, everything has to fit together.

It needs to be coherent and consistent, which is where our ethics come from. So every worldview needs a metaphysic, it needs an epistemology, and it needs an ethic behind it.

All worldviews have those three things in common. We also want to recognize that there are contradictions and arbitrariness in certain people's worldview.

So this is where we get brute facts and autonomy. What is autonomy again?

Self -law or self -rule. In other words, no one rules over me, I rule over myself.

I decide what is and what isn't. Then we have the preconditions of intelligibility, the things that must be true in order for anything else to be true.

Preconditions are assumptions that we come to the argument with before we even begin to argue.

So they're thoughts and ideas that we hold before we even begin to describe our worldview.

And finally, what's the last thing, the most important thing about the worldview? The box top, right?

And what was that called? When your puzzle matches the box top, what's that called? Truth, good job.

All right. So remember, this is, remember, remember, I'm from New York.

Remember, this is the metaphysic provides the framework for our worldview.

The context is in the facts and the coherence, the consistency. So if I told you like the illustration

I used the other day, the Yankees scored a touchdown last night and you'd be like, well, that the

Yankees don't play football. And you'd be right because football is played on a football field, baseball is played on a baseball field.

So your metaphysic would be the field and the facts and the context would be the rules of the game.

So in a football game, a guy can't strike out. Why? Because he's not playing baseball, different set of rules.

So every worldview has its own set of rules. The Christian worldview has a set of rules.

The atheistic worldview has a set of rules. The Islamic worldview has a set of rules.

The question is, are those rules consistent in itself or are they arbitrary?

Do we have something called like these little black triangles?

What would that represent? Pieces that don't belong. So that would be something called a brute fact.

This would be a contradiction. This black triangle doesn't fit in the puzzle.

It doesn't belong there. But now the atheists would look and say, well, that's just a brute fact.

It just is with no grounding for it whatsoever. So could you imagine the

Christian saying, well, Jesus rose from the dead. It just is. Would they accept that?

No, of course they're not going to accept that. You got to prove it to me. But yet they'll say things like atheism just is.

No, the quote we used last week was from Bertrand Russell. The universe just is and that's all there is to it.

And they accept that as a brute fact with nothing to substantiate it.

So we have to watch out for things that are contradictions and just arbitrary. Oh, I arbitrarily decided this is a brute fact and it doesn't have any relation to anything else.

When the fact of the matter is that brute fact has a lot to do with their worldview.

A lot of things hinge on it. Ultimately, we need the preconditions of intelligibility, the things that must be in place in order for you to have a jigsaw puzzle to begin with.

And that would be laws of logic, laws of mathematics, ethical laws, moral laws, uniformity of nature.

How do I know this puzzle piece is going to fit in there tomorrow? How do I know the shapes aren't going to change?

How do I know the facts aren't going to change? There needs to be a consistency in the worldview.

And ultimately, your worldview has to match the box top. If your worldview doesn't match the box top, well, then it's not true.

That make sense? So what I want to do real quick is to go over a presuppositional method in three steps.

So I want to teach you what to look for in three easy steps. Sounds like, what's the guy who sells the stuff on TV?

Yeah, Billy Mays, Hayes, or whatever is next. I'm going to have to cut this out of the video now. All right.

First thing you want to do is identify their claim. When the atheist says, that's not true, or it's wrong, it's wrong to own human beings as slaves.

You want to identify that and figure out where it fits in the puzzle. When he says it's wrong to own people as slaves, what kind of claim is that?

It's a moral claim, OK? So now we know we're dealing with morality.

Next, we want to push the antithesis, push his position to its limit.

In other words, we want to push and see if it's arbitrary, inconsistent, or if it has the preconditions of intelligibility, right?

So the question I would ask him is, by what standard is this immoral?

Is this objectively immoral or subjectively immoral? And we're going to get to that illustration in a second,

OK? And then the last step is to offer the solution. We offer the

Christian worldview and that solution and show them how it fits consistently within our worldview.

How when you look at morality, it makes complete sense from a Christian worldview because human beings are created in the image of God.

You can't own a human being. You can't torture a human being. You can't use them as lab rats and experiment on them.

You can't use human beings like that. Why would you not be able to use a human being like that on atheism where there is no standard of good or evil?

There is no ultimate consequence for good or evil. We were talking about it before. Jeffrey Dahmer's worldview, his evolutionary atheistic worldview, led him to do what he did.

He said it. Ted Bundy said the same thing. He's a serial killer. There's no ultimate consequence for good or evil.

So who cares? It's fine by me as long as I don't get caught. If I get caught, well, then it's bad for me.

Maybe it's good for society. But again, who's to say what's good or bad on an atheistic worldview? So for example, let's use morality as an example.

We are going to identify their claim. It's wrong to torture babies for fun. It's wrong to own slaves.

Again, now we know that we're dealing with morality. So we're going to hone in on that. We want to push the antithesis.

By what standard are you using? Is morality objective or subjective?

Now, who wants to tell me what the difference between objective and subjective is? Excellent. Subjective is inside the person.

It depends on the person. It depends on the subject. Again, I like Rocky Road.

You like butter pecan. You like strawberry. It's subjective. It depends on me. But if you had a headache and there were two bottles, one has aspirin, the other one has arsenic, which do you want to take?

Is it subjective at that point? Oh, I like the taste of this one. No. It depends on something outside of you.

So morality, for it to be objective, there must be a standard outside of us by which we measure actions to see if they're moral or immoral.

Otherwise, it just becomes a matter of taste, a matter of preference.

Now, atheists are going to say, well, morality evolves. Really? OK.

So it was OK to own slaves back in the 1800s, right?

It just went out of style, basically. But then again, it could come back into style, and that would be

OK, right? Well, no, no. It wouldn't be OK. Well, why not? If it's subjective and it's based upon the whims and the preferences of the subjects, the people, why couldn't it come back into style?

What would be wrong with that? See, if it's objective, then they have a problem because they recognize their own sinfulness before God.

We recognize our own sinfulness before God because He's given us a standard, but He's also given us the solution to that because He knows that we're going to fall short.

All right? Obviously, we're going to offer the solution. It is objectively wrong to own slaves, kill babies, only in a world with God.

It's not objectively wrong in an atheistic worldview because there's no objective moral standard by which we're measuring this.

Make sense? It only is objectively wrong in a world with God because we have an objective standard to point to.

They have to borrow from God to make sense of their view. See, here's part of the problem for the atheist.

He's created in God's image. He's in God's metaphysic. He's in God's world.

And he has God's law written on his heart. He's stuck in God's world trying to get out.

He can't make sense of the world on his view, so he has to borrow morality from God to say something is right or wrong.

A consistent atheist can't say that. And there are some consistent atheists that deny objective morality.

Richard Dawkins is one of them. He says, in this world, it's blind random chance.

Some are lucky. Some aren't. It's just the way it is. It's blind, pitiless indifference.

And he doesn't hold to objective morality. Yet he'll say that it's wrong for Christians to do this, or it's wrong for Christians to say that.

How can you say it's wrong if there is no such thing as objective morality? It might not be what you like, obviously, but that's just your preference.

You like butter pecan, right? So I call this the IOU principle. They use immaterial, objective, and universal laws.

So with every word out of their mouth, they issue an IOU to God because they're using

God's collateral to try to disprove God's worldview. They have no collateral of their own.

Everything they're using, they're borrowing from God to try to disprove God. Like Van Til says, they're basically sitting on God's lap in order to slap him in the face.

You cannot say these things on an atheistic worldview and have them be true.

Again, is there truth on an atheistic worldview? So questions to internally critique a worldview.

Now, who remembers what internally critique means? Wonderful. Yes.

Inconsistent and contradictory, right? All right, so what you're going to do, again, we call this the hokey pokey principle.

You stick your right hand in, you pull your right hand out. That's what you don't want to do. You don't want to stick your hand in, critique their worldview while you're standing in your own.

You have to put the whole body in or the whole body out. So to internally critique a worldview, you want to put your complete self in that worldview, adopt all the tenets of that worldview, and see where it goes.

See what is logically consistent or inconsistent. See if it's coherent or not.

If you're in an atheistic worldview and you're making objective morality claims, how can you ground that?

If the world came from nothing, is going to nothing, and it's just random chance in between, right?

Where do you get objective moral laws without an objective moral law giver?

What's the difference between a bug, a bird, a baby, a bonsai, or a boulder? It's just all molecules, right?

Why is any one of those things different than the other? Why is a baby different than a bird on their worldview?

Because we said so, right? It's arbitrary. They assign meaning to the baby when they want.

If it's in a woman, it's not a baby, it's a clump of cells. When it's outside the woman, well, then it's a baby. Up to the first month so that we can kill it, right?

And that's not all atheists, by the way. Not all atheists hold to that. Okay, so what

I want to do is just give you a list of questions to start thinking about when you're internally critiquing an atheistic worldview.

First, what is truth? That stumps so many people right off the bat.

What is truth? What do you think they're going to say? The smart atheist is going to say that which corresponds to reality.

And I've told you this before, who's reality? Mine? Hitler's? Jeffrey Dahmer's?

Mother Teresa's? Who's reality? If it's subjective, reality is how

I perceive it. If it's objective, ah, now we have an obligation.

So on an atheistic worldview, who am I obligated to? The universe?

All of a sudden, the universe is my boss? I'm not obligated to the universe. You can only be obligated to a person.

And morality is something that's within persons, right? You can't be immoral. Trees aren't immoral to each other, right?

Bugs aren't immoral to each other. Somebody kills a bug, another bug eats another bug.

Is that immoral? Some people are like, I hope they eat them all, right?

Whatever. All right, so what is truth? Is there an immaterial realm? Is there something beyond the physical realm that we can identify?

I mean, so many atheists say no, there is no immaterial realm.

And I asked an atheist one time, he says, I said, do you believe in an immaterial realm? He says, no. I said, well, did you think about that before you answered?

He said, yes. I said, did you use your mind? He said, yes. I said, so you used your immaterial mind to think immaterial thoughts to conclude immaterial things don't exist?

He goes, wait, say that again. I went through it with him and it just caught him off guard. He says, I never thought of it like that.

How do you assess truth or falsity on your worldview? What's the standard that you use to see what's true or not true?

Where does that come from? Is the world broken or is this the way it should be?

This is a great moral question. Everybody looks out at the world and says, man, things are bad.

The world is broken. How do you know? Without a box top with missing puzzle pieces or puzzle pieces all mashed together, how do you know that the world is broken?

You only know that the world is broken if there's a picture of the way the world should be.

If there's a picture of the way the world should be and this picture that we're in doesn't line up with it, well, then you know.

But that's not subjective, that's objective because the picture's outside of us. Does an objective moral standard exist?

We've gone through this one. Okay, where did it come from? Where does your objective moral standard come from on an atheistic worldview?

Who are you obligated to as an atheist? Is there an ultimate consequence for breaking the standard, the moral standard?

Now, Christopher Hitchens, who we've talked about several times, he would go out in front of Christian audiences all the time and say, what is one thing you can say as a

Christian that I can't say as an atheist? And nobody answered him. And I wish

I was in the audience because I would have been like, there's an ultimate consequence for evil. You can't say that because there is no consequence ultimately for evil.

If you get away with it in this world, there is no next world. You're just six feet on the worm food.

But if my worldview is true, you are obligated to the creator of this worldview.

You will answer to the creator of this worldview and he will issue consequences for you rebelling against him and for you injuring other image bearers of God.

That's where our value and worth come from. It's not goo to you via the zoo, right?

You're not pond scum that evolved into fish that crawled up on land and somewhere along the lines became a human being.

Is there a right and wrong way to think? What is this pointing to? Laws of logic, right?

We have logic laws, right? The law of non -contradiction. How many times have

I seen people, atheists who are trying to be consistent, they say, well, contradictions are allowed in my worldview.

And you simply say, no, they're not. Yes, they are. No, they're not.

Yes, they are. No, they're not. Why do you keep saying that? I'm contradicting you, which you said is okay in your worldview.

All of a sudden, it's not okay when you actually contradict them. See, they can't live consistently in the world they're putting forth in their minds.

So that's not the way they live. They live inconsistent with logical logic laws, laws of logic.

Okay, so what's the difference between a bug, a bird, a bonsai, a baby, or a boulder? Can the scientific method prove itself, right?

Is the scientific method the only way we can know truth? What do you think?

How else can we know truth? Word of God, sure.

Right, we have historical truth. That's not based on the scientific method. The theory of evolution isn't based on the scientific method.

The scientific method is, it has to be observable and repeatable. Anybody in here a million years old?

Two million? Pastor said he feels like it. Nobody's been around for a couple of million years, so macro evolution hasn't been observed.

Is it repeatable? Have you done an experiment in a lab that can repeat it?

No, you need a couple of million years. This is why it's called the theory.

Even professors over at Stony Brook University, they know it's not a law, it's a theory, and this is why.

You wanna ask questions of origin, identity, meaning, morality, and destiny. In other words, origin, where did

I come from? Identity, who am I? What is the meaning of life?

What am I here for? Morality, is there a right way to live? Is there a wrong way to live? And then destiny, where am

I going? Atheism cannot answer any of these questions consistently in their worldview.

All right, so now this is what I wanted to get to. This is really important. This is gonna be the practical application.

I wanna show you a conversation I had with Anthony Esposito on Facebook with an atheist.

Now, I posted this up, I said, it shows you a bunch of people out for Thanksgiving. I've been a bunch of people out for Black Friday shopping, a bunch of people out at a sports event, and look at church, very few people.

All right, so my friend, Andrew Herzman, who's an atheist, he loves to reply on everything that I put up.

So he says this, isn't Thanksgiving just thanking God for the things you have, sporting events, just praying to God for your team to win at Black Friday, just buying presents for Jesus' birthday?

Looks like church outside of church. Anthony Esposito comments back, man, you're so close to getting it.

Now, I was just gonna let the conversation go, but Anthony jumped in. So Andrew responds back,

I get it, but I don't buy into it. Anthony says, yet you, like all people, worship something.

All right, we know that as Christians, in the absence of God, you will find something else to worship. He responds back, nope.

Anthony responds back, yes, you do. It appears to be science, since you appeal to that as your highest level of authority.

It's surely odd to worship science, considering it's just a process, but nonetheless, it's clear you worship it.

So what's he doing right there? He's identifying an inconsistency, he's identifying the problem for Andrew Herzman and pointing it out to him.

You worship something, and he knows, because throughout everything that I post, he's seen the fact that everything

Andrew Herzman does needs to be proved by science. So he responds back, no,

I respect the method. Science is not a god. Apologetic members constantly look at atheists through a distorted lens.

Atheism is not a religion. Not believing in God is not a belief. Respecting the scientific method is not worship.

Anthony responds back, you appeal to something as the standard of truth. For you, that's the scientific method.

Again, a silly standard, considering it's designed to prove claims wrong. Science is not about figuring out what's true.

It figures out what works and what doesn't work. If you are merely respecting the scientific method and not appealing to it as a standard of truth, then you're just telling me about a standard you happen to prefer, but you can't make any true claims based on that standard.

He's showing him that his choice of the scientific method is arbitrary.

Why doesn't he pick a different standard? He's picking the scientific method because he thinks this is the method that's going to give him truth.

Essentially, you're telling everyone about the reality inside your own head, but not a reality that anyone else lives in, unless, of course, you do have some objective standard of truth.

See where he's pointing him? He's trying to take him from his subjective faith in science and show him that it's not objective.

You're saying you hold to science. In fact, Anthony's pointing out to him that you worship science, this is your standard, but there are other methods and ways of knowing things.

He actually responds back, wow, you're right. Science doesn't make truth claims. This is gonna come back to hurt him.

You'll see this in a minute. Science doesn't make truth claims. A scientific method gets you as close to the truth as possible, given the current evidence and tools we have to measure the evidence.

The only way to prove science is wrong is with more science, not an old book. Anybody point out something wrong with that particular comment?

Second sentence, oh, I'm sorry, fourth sentence. The scientific method gets you as close to the truth as possible.

What's wrong with that? He doesn't believe in truth. How does he know how close it is to him?

It's subjective. If there's an objective measure of truth, now we say, yeah, we're getting close, but we're aiming at something.

This is like somebody shooting an arrow into the air and say, oh, I just missed. Just missed what?

You weren't aiming at anything. Andrew, this is

Anthony. Serious question here. How do you know anything you believe is correct? How do you know you are close to the truth at all?

If you lived in a different century, you'd believe the Earth was the center of the universe or that leeches cure disease, because that was the position of science at the time.

He's highlighting the fact that science doesn't point you to truth, right?

Science can be wrong. It's entirely plausible that literally everything you believe about reality is complete nonsense that will be laughed at by future generations.

There was a point in time where everybody thought the Earth was flat. Some people still believe the Earth is flat, right?

Science showed us the difference. No, it's not, but science is based on other facts.

So if another fact enters the picture that you didn't know about, that can change the complexion of everything, right?

For the longest time, scientists believe in a steady -state theory. In other words, the universe had no beginning.

It just existed from eternity past on and will go into the future. Now they look at the red shift in light and the heat in the universe, and they say, no, no, it's a big bang.

It came to existence at a point in time. So a couple of extra facts changed their perception.

Andrew Herzman replies, we will never get to 100 % truth. How do you know that?

What is 100 % truth? But that's not required standard for reasonable and rational belief. Oh, so reasonable he is.

Demonstrable evidence that can be repeated over and over and verified through peer review, aka the scientific method, works well enough to double our lifespans, get us to the moon, and make it possible for us to communicate over the internet.

The God belief, not so much. Isn't it funny? All the early scientists were all believers in God and got us to the moon because they recognized that tomorrow is going to be like today because God upholds the universe, right?

By the power of his hand. He keeps everything constant. How in a random chance universe do you know that tomorrow's gonna be like today?

How do you know the strength of gravity isn't gonna change? How do you know the speed of light isn't gonna change? How do you know that atomic mass isn't gonna change?

You don't. You have faith that it is. We have faith, but it's based on what the word of God says.

So Anthony D 'Esposito responds back very well. He says, so you concede that it's entirely possible everything you believe is totally incorrect.

I like that. So how do you know you're close to the truth at all? You don't.

We will never get to 100 % truth, right? These are statements he's making that he can't back up because he doesn't have a standard for truth.

If truth is subjective, how can you get close to it? All right, that was a good point.

All right, so Herzman responds. Possible, but highly unlikely considering not only the evidence, but the results and byproducts of measuring the evidence.

Even if science was 100 % wrong, no way to figure that out, that still wouldn't get you any closer to meeting your burden of proof for your

God claim. Anthony, there's no basis for your claim since you appeal to a standard of truth that you yourself concede may be completely false.

Right? He just admitted that science doesn't make truth claims. So now he's saying it wouldn't get you any closer to meeting the burden of proof.

I just, and I responded, he, meaning Andrew, just gave up knowledge. You can have no certainty outside of the

Christian worldview. Now Anthony's point was that big. That was incredibly good, right?

For him to come back with that reasoning. So Andrew responds back, there are thousands of more times better evidence for science than there is for God.

Faith is the least reliable way to certainty. Now, he still hasn't given us evidence that science is the only way that you can know things.

Science can't prove that what the Nazis did in Germany was wrong. Science can't prove that there are other minds in this room besides my own.

Science can't prove that everybody in this room wasn't created two weeks ago with the appearance of memory.

Science can't prove a lot of things. Science can't prove that the scientific method is the only way of garnering knowledge.

So I respond back, evidence, which is what you keep asking for, presupposes truth, which your worldview cannot give you with certainty.

Okay? You have faith in science, but a random chance universe that cannot ground the uniformity of nature and physical constants renders science impossible.

I gotta give myself credit for that one. All right? So his worldview cannot give you certainty.

He keeps talking about 99, we're 99 .999 % close to the truth with no standard that he's able to show us, right?

So he's shooting arrows in the dark, not knowing if he's hitting the target or not, yet he's confident about this.

The bottom line is he has faith in science. So Andrew Herzman responds, complete nonsense.

You act like 99 .9999 % certainty isn't enough to be rationally sure.

He can't give us that. Where is he getting those numbers? If something is zero whatever percent uncertain, you can't just assume it's false.

Rational assumptions are not faith -based. Science is not only possible, but the very fact that everything invented from rockets to vaccines to electronics proves science is overwhelmingly probable.

So Anthony responds back, where are you getting these odds from? Can you scientific, can you prove scientifically that everything you believe is 99 .9999

% accurate? Right? Do you see what he's doing? He's pushing the antithesis.

He's pushing him to prove the claims that he's making. We're able to, you act like 99 .9

% certainty is not enough to be sure. Okay, you made the claim, 99%.

How do you know it's 99 % positive or sure?

You don't. And all we do is point it out. Now I'm frustrated at this point, so I just put he always does this.

Like I wanna back out of this conversation, but I keep getting pulled back in because Anthony's doing a great job.

Anthony Esposito, that is. Okay, so, Herzman responds back.

For example, evolution. We have overwhelming evidence for evolution from the fossil record to genealogy to DNA.

Now, as an evidentialist, I would point him to the fact that Stephen Jay Gould, who's the world -renowned

Harvard paleontologist who's dead right now, who now passed away, he said that the bankruptcy of the fossil record is the trade secret of paleontologists.

The bankruptcy of the fossil record. The fossil record will not get you to evolution. In fact, he proposed something called punctuated equilibrium, that there was a super -fast movement of evolution, and that's how everything evolved so fast.

It's called punctuated equilibrium. And scientists look at this and say, wow, that's brilliant, right?

So the fossil record does not support what he just said. Genealogy to DNA.

If he knew anything about DNA, DNA is information, right? So I would ask him, say, listen, if I hold up an empty book, like a notebook, will the laws of ink and paper just start writing words on the book that I would be able to understand?

The laws of ink and paper, no, wouldn't that work? Well, no, why? Why wouldn't that work?

Well, because information needs an informer. You need someone behind the information that's communicating to you.

Again, that's from an evidentialist point of view, but I would still use that in this situation.

So all of it points to evolution. Change over time is true. It's possible that one day we might find a piece of evidence that contradicts evolution.

Is it? Sure, possible, but that's where I get the 99 % from. Same with gravity and all other scientific theories.

How did he get 99 % out of just making that statement? What mathematical formula did he do that he calculated the 99 .99

%? So he's answering me, yes, I always prove what I believe with demonstrable evidence.

Try it sometimes with your God belief. Anthony responds back, you just made a truth claim after telling me explicitly that science doesn't make truth claims.

Oh, no ding. Excellent, excellent question, right?

This is pushing his position where he said it could substantiate his claim.

It can't. So Anthony's highlighting the fact that you just said science doesn't make truth claims.

Now you're making a truth claim This is inconsistency and unethical. So Anthony changes the subject.

Do you believe in morality? What about equality? If so, how do you prove those things? I put your worldview cannot ground truth, therefore you have no access to truth or falsity or evidence.

Now Andrew's getting upset again with my worldview. You have the burden of proof to prove your

God. My worldview has nothing to do with it. Your worldview has nothing to do with it because your worldview doesn't exist.

So he responds back, how do you prove God? Your worldview, this is

Anthony responding back to Andrew, your worldview isn't objective. It's entirely based on your faith in science, which you admit can be and has been completely wrong at times.

He responds back, that doesn't prove there's a God. He's eagerly trying to get off of giving evidence for his worldview because he knows he can't.

He wants to shift the burden of proof to the Christian, which we've told him over and over and over again in order to have objective morality, in order to have uniformity of nature, in order to have laws of logic, which are laws of thought, right?

A good question to ask an atheist is, when did reasoning start in the world and how would you know?

If reasoning is just a function of the molecules and the synapses in your brain firing, how do you know reasoning is going on?

It's just like dominoes falling, right? So at one point in time in the evolution of the universe, did people start to reason?

And how would you know? What's the standard? So Anthony goes back to Andrew, I'm only pointing out the absurdity of your worldview.

By the way, I'll take your lack of an answer on morality and equality question to mean you don't believe in those either since you can't prove them scientifically.

Oh, Andrew responds back, my worldview, my morality, or anything else about me doesn't prove there's a

God. You guys are so fixated on me, but if I didn't exist, you would still have no evidence that would prove there was a

God. And he's responding back to, Anthony, proving me wrong doesn't prove you right.

And that's true. So I respond back, but Andrew, you haven't and can't prove your worldview.

You keep asking for evidence. And my question is, how does your worldview substantiate evidence?

Why is evidence required from my worldview, but not yours? I said, my argument is transcendental.

It's like saying that truth doesn't exist. That's a truth statement, and therefore it refutes itself.

Like we've gone over this before. When someone says, there's no such thing as truth, the first thing out of your mouth should be, is that true?

Because if that's true, there is such a thing as truth, and you just contradicted yourself. Without God, you can have no true knowledge.

Remember the butter knife example, right? I can use the butter knife as a screwdriver, a pry bar, a weapon, a toy, all different kinds of things, right?

Does that mean I know what the butter knife is? No, but I have scientific and empirical evidence that it can be used as a pry bar and all those other things.

The only way I can know for sure what that butter knife is, is if I'm introduced to the inventor.

When I'm introduced to the inventor who says, I created the butter knife to spread butter, now

I can have certainty. We have an omniscient God who reveals information to us.

And when an omniscient God who has 100 % knowledge reveals something to you, can you be certain of it?

Absolutely. Can you be certain of it if you, who have less than one scintilla of a percent of all the knowledge there is in the universe, could you be wrong about everything you know?

Yes. Yes. But they're making truth claims, right? As if this is 100 % verifiable.

Okay. Well, that was a good point I made, I guess. All right.

We do not argue evidence to prove the existence of God. We argue from the existence of God to prove evidence and truth.

That's backwards. You can do that with anything you can make up. Anthony responds back, nothing at all can be proved in your worldview.

You simply have faith that what you've been told is correct. Wrong. I have demonstrable evidence for what

I believe. Demonstrate God. He keeps trying to push it back to our side. Anthony responds back, you have demonstrable evidence for morality and equality?

That's a good one. What's that have to do with proving your God? Stop trying to shift the burden of proof.

He knows, he knows that he can't respond on his worldview for objective morality, because he has no basis for objective morality.

So he tries to mock me. I do not argue evidence to prove the existence of leprechauns.

I argue from the existence of leprechauns to prove evidence and truth. See how ridiculous this is? And I would say, if you actually held to that, then you must believe in God.

I argue from nothing as an atheist to prove evidence. How does that work?

Andrew, I respond back to him, demonstrate evolution. Again, without a personal, powerful, moral, logical being, you cannot have knowledge, period.

Anthony now chimes in, actually the burden of proof is on you. I recognize the existence of morality because I derive it from an understanding of God who is outside the space -time reality.

If you don't agree with it, that's fine. But I can articulate why I believe those metaphysical concepts.

Remember, this is our playing field. In a Christian worldview, we're on a playing field where objective morality actually exists because we have an objective moral law giver.

You, however, have declared the scientific method as your basis for determining truth. So I ask again, how do you prove morality from your rational worldview?

He responds back, the burden of proof is on those who make a claim. You claim there is a

God. You see how he keeps running away from the questions because he cannot answer them.

He knows that he has no way to do this. Andrew responds back, the mutation of bacteria is a demonstration of evolution.

I didn't wanna get into it with him, but what does bacteria mutate into? More bacteria.

It never mutates into a camel. It never mutates into a grasshopper. It never mutates into a person.

Okay, this was an excellent answer by Anthony. So I respond back to her husband,

Anthony Esposito gave his reason and proof. You not accepting that and asking for a different answer is on you.

What you consider as evidence is irrelevant. Now, what is your argument, proof, basis for objective morality?

And I was responding back to his evolution claim about bacteria, that's microevolution. We believe in that. You're holding to macroevolution, which no one has seen or can prove.

Anthony asks, Andrew, is morality a demonstration of evolution? Andrew's responding to my claim.

I'm not making a claim for God. You are, and he responds back to me. If you believe in microevolution, you believe in evolution.

I don't believe, and Christians don't believe in macroevolution. Nope, I don't believe my ancestors were fish who climbed out of the ocean and onto the beach and then became us.

That's a fairy tale with no proof whatsoever. He says, I agree. Unfortunately, that's what scientists believe.

So Anthony Esposito is trying to hone him down. I'm not simply asking if you believe morality exists and how you prove it.

If you reject morality, can you concede that? He says, morality has nothing to do with science,

God, or anything else. I said, okay, so where does it come from and how can you ground it on your view?

Simple question. How do you ground morality? How do you ground it objectively, not subjectively?

Some people kill babies, some people kiss them. It's just a preference on his worldview.

On our worldview, one of those is seriously wrong, seriously immoral, because we have an objective standard outside of us that tells us that.

He says, irrelevant to whether a God exists. I said, I agree. Now answer it. The topic is whether a

God exists or not. I said, so you won't tell us how you know morality exists and is objective. Why not?

It's irrelevant. You want me to start another thread so that you can answer this? I'm being a little sarcastic.

I reply, it's not irrelevant if you can't do it, which is what I've been saying all along. Without God, you can't have objective morality.

Game over. Unless you want to grace us with your answer, somehow I doubt you will, because you can't. He goes back to provide evidence for a

God. You can't do it, which is what I've been saying all along. Without evidence, you can't have an objective God. Game over, unless you wanna grace us with your answer.

He likes to do this. So I said, the guy who continually asks for evidence can't give evidence for his own position.

Even if you don't think I can give evidence for your God, you should still be able to give evidence for your position. You won't, because you can't.

Oh well, no evidence for God. Or morality or an atheism, either.

You operate on faith, but you can't admit it. So now I like the way Anthony does this one.

I think you're misinterpreting my questions as debate. I understand you don't think God exists. Okay.

Now I am asking a genuine question. How do you, an atheist, demonstrate the existence of morality?

He says, pretend I'm an atheist also. How does an atheist prove morality to another atheist?

So now the God picture's out of the question. He's standing completely 100 % in the atheist worldview.

God doesn't exist. I live in this atheistic worldview. It's completely material, no immaterial realm.

How do I now prove objective morality exists? Anthony asked him again.

I'm sure if an atheist asks you to explain why murder is wrong, you wouldn't reply with, you can't prove

God exists. Good, good statement. Atheists make no claims about God, you do, so you have the burden of proof.

I put, right, irrelevant, so why are you harping on it? Anthony responds back.

Well, I don't think morality is irrelevant, but I guess to an atheist, there's really nothing wrong with being a murderer or a racist, since morality can't be scientifically proven.

I'm not making claims, you are. You see how this has just become a feudal? Like he's not getting it, but other people who are watching this and reading this, hopefully are getting it.

Andrew says, I think you're misinterpreting my questions as debate. This is what he does. He repeats what you said previously.

I understand you think God exists, okay. Now I'm asking you a genuine question. How do you, a theist, demonstrate the existence of God? Pretend I'm a theist too.

How does a theist prove God? Well, if you were a theist, I wouldn't have to prove it to you because you believe it already. I actually hung in there for you.

I did this for you. All right, how would I prove this? By the impossibility of the contrary.

The same way you prove truth. Deny it and you end up proving it. When you deny the existence of God, you deny anything objective.

It's all subjective, which you don't live your life by. When someone says truth doesn't exist, they're making a truth claim and therefore it's self -defeating.

I'm sure you wouldn't agree with that, but now tell us how you would do it. Everything is possible.

Claims without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. He's just not arguing rationally.

Still no answer to my question. You make the claim everything is possible. Please prove that. Please tell us what standard you're using and how you know it's true and liable.

Quantum mechanics. I'm an atheist now.

Quantum mechanics. My goodness, my new God. So I said, how do you know quantum mechanics is true and liable?

Evidence. I think he's getting tired too. You've seen the evidence?

Have you seen the evidence or are you trusting in the priests of science? Can science prove truth? He would get upset with us.

He thinks Christianity is priests, Catholicism, that kind of stuff. So I just tell him, oh, you have priests too.

They're called scientists. He says, can science prove truth exists?

The double slit experiment can be done easily with a laser pointer. And that proves truth exists and everything is possible?

Yep. It proves photons can be both a wave and a particle in a superposition.

Quantum mechanics proves how particles can be entangled. Einstein called it spooky action from a distance and that the future impacts the present.

All things we would assume was impossible in regular mechanics. I don't know how that proves truth, but that's another thing.

So Anthony asks, so you've conducted these experiments yourself or do you have faith in what the scientists written is reliable?

I said, all this proves is that there was an intelligence and rationality behind the creation of matter. Thank you for conceding the atheistic position.

Right, when he says the particles, they're both, I'm sorry, he was going to scientists create matter from nothing in a groundbreaking experiment, right?

What is the assumption in that statement? Scientists create matter from nothing in groundbreaking experiment.

Right, exactly. They didn't start with nothing. You started with an agent and you started with the lab and you started with all the material to say that something can come out of nothing.

So I simply said, no, all this points to is the fact that you needed intelligence to bring something out of so -called nothing.

He doesn't see it that way, lol, it proves you don't need a God for natural occurrences. You can't have nature, you can't have natural occurrences without nature, you can't have nature without God, a

God who created it, but that's besides the point. Andrew responds back, or so these scientists say, we'll just have to take a leap of faith that they aren't lying to us or misinterpreting what they observed or simply recording things they observed in a dream that they thought was real.

Quite a bit of faith required to accept this as proof. I said a random chance universe without intentionality, rationality, context, or purpose cannot give him, meaning

Andrew, the preconditions of intelligibility. He knows that but won't surrender his faith claims. The things that follow the laws of nature are not random.

Yes, he responds to Anthony, I can do experiments myself, no need to take what they say on faith.

Yes, that's exactly what you're doing. Yep, that's what makes me a skeptic. We don't need a God for a wave to crash on the beach, you don't need a

God for water to drop, you don't need a God for a lightning bolt to hit a tree, you don't need a God for a star to form hydrogen atoms clumping together, you don't need, and you certainly don't need a

God for living a good moral life without the fear of hell. All completely inconsistent with his worldview.

So I've gone over time, but do you guys have any questions? Did you see how we pushed his theory?

It's called pushing the antithesis. Push where his worldview can logically go and prove it inconsistent, prove it to be a contradiction, and then point it out to him, and then offer the solution.