all right so I'm going to try to be um really direct and honest um thank you so um short statement and then two two related question short statement um I I'm immediately uh angered and offended that this kind of thing happens on public property um so that's what where I'm coming from but given that I'm going to try to ask very honest direct questions you bet um so on the can I respond to your first statement yeah of course I think what you've just expressed is the essence of intolerance I respect anybody's right to stand
out here be the atheist communist Marxist leninist capitalist agnostic Buddhist Hindu Muslim and say what they want to say and I'm very grateful that I live in a country that supports Free Speech secondly I thought that I was in a liberal arts educational environment I thought that the basis of liberal arts education was the belief in the free exchange of ideas the right to disagree with each other and then to explain respectfully why we disagree [Music] [Music] this is an imbalanced conversation when you have an enormous institution and huge amount of people behind you on
one side and a very small number of denters That's Not Free Speech tell me who's behind me what's this big institution that's behind me um well the majority of people here are listening very reverently this isn't like a a two-sided debate um sure you're not have no one has forced you to stand here no one's forced me to stand here I'm under the impression that you have Free Will and you've chosen to be there and I respect that and these people choose to sit here because they choose to I don't know who they are and
I don't have any big organization behind me for crying out loud so why don't you get in touch with reality it's a refreshing exercise well I was hesitant to stand up anyway but I would actually like to ask two questions and they're coming from my heart okay okay um as someone who has been raised outside of the church and I just don't take the Bible as evidence is there any way that I could be converted is that the only way that you can reach out to someone that doesn't have any kind of cultural upringing that
hasn't been raised with already those doubts how can you speak to someone who's absolutely legitimately in atheist pleas I mean please answer directly I have many friends who are former atheist and these people who are former atheist relaxed their mind they tried to to be as objective as possible and to look at the evidence that God exists and then once they move from atheism to theism then they relax their mind they try to be as objective as possible and read the gospels not as the word of God simply as accurate history because the evidence is
the gospels give us some accurate history and confronted by the lifestyle teachings death and resurrection of Christ they saw the evidences Christ is reliable and they chose to put their faith in him so you you you said that there were two steps there the second step once you've acknowledged that there could be some sort of right all knowing all powerful all good thing right um the second after once you've done that that's fine it's that first step that I'm really concerned with so you're saying that there's actually fact-based evidence that is best explained through an
existence of God philosophical evidence yes sir I'm not talking specifically about um experiments or anything like that but even even philosophical evidence philosophical you think that's the best most rational explanation yes okay so we we have thousands of years of history of of debates about these corner of things and I don't want to revisit those but do you have an answer for someone who's already gone through those and hasn't been convinced of the factual ACC accuracy or of aam's Razor I mean if there if if I honestly think that there are just more reliable descriptions
that match the facts better theory that just has fewer things that you have to assume that explain it just as well if I'm in that position knowing that I am a limited person and could be wrong is there room for faith that was kind of a technical question would you like me to try to repeat it mhm so is it do you think that it's possible to both think that the best answer is atheism that that I can logically disprove the existence of the all knowing all powerful all good yet through knowing my own limitation
through knowing that logic itself can be flawed that our brains cannot understand everything is that enough of a doubt to admit the kind of Faith that's required to believe in God sir all you've got to do is look at the evidence for the reliability of Christ then you say no I'm sorry not enough evidence I can't believe but when you say that what you are clearly saying is before I trust anything to be true it must meet this level of evidence so my two questions for you then are in light of the fact that Jesus
Christ is not supported by enough evidence what is the object that you have chosen to trust in and secondly what is the preponderance of evidence that supports this option as being more reliable than Christ I would say that the the discussion isn't between two different things that that explain the the the environment that we see but it's a very specific proposition of either an all knowing all powerful God exists or it doesn't and I believe that the evidence supports the second and I don't think that you need to that that that argument specifically requires there
to be something else that you believe in just like I you can talk about the non-existence of something if it were if it logically would impact your life in some way and it doesn't impact in your life in that way then it doesn't exist without positing something else in instead tonight when you put your head on your pillow tonight when I put my head on my pillow like it or not you are living for something or someone like it or not I'm living for someone or something you have said the reason that you cannot believe
in Christ is because of a lack of evidence no I said an Evidence against that's a very important difference all right fine evidence against okay so what I need to challenge you to do is explain to me what or who you are living for and why what's all the evidence that points to whatever the option is you've chosen other than Christ what's this overwhelming evidence that has convinced you that this option is more trustworthy than Christ well we're talking about two different things here um and I I'm going to I'm trying to answer your question
this is the only way I know how um I'm talking about whether something exists or not and you brought in value you brought in why why are you living what are you living for you you know what why are you good something like that like what is your purpose and the question that I was asking was very much about what exists and if God does not exist frankly if nothing above me exists that doesn't imp that I have nothing to live for right yeah and I do definitely have things to live for that I can
specifically point to that have nothing to do with whether there's a God right that's right I know that okay then I don't understand why there's a connection there for some reason you and the two gentlemen before I'm not sure that you guys respect language the way I do how do you mean I agree with those who say that language can just be a power move to assert your power and that happens at times but I'm convinced that if we take language seriously and if we listen to each other we can have meaningful conversation I thought
I just said to you tonight when you put your head on your pillow like it or not you're going to have to acknowledge you're living for something or someone yes like it or not when I put my head on my pillow tonight I'm going to have to acknowledge I'm living for someone or something we both have faith now you have said to me crystal clearly that there is not enough evidence that God exists and you didn't want to hear me go over that evidence and I respect that and you have also clearly said that there's
not enough evidence that Jesus Christ is reliable fine no problem but when you say to me the reason you can't believe that God exists the reason you can't believe that Jesus Christ is the truth is because of lack of evidence in order not to be an intellectual hypocrite I'm asking you what do you live for and what's this preponderance of evidence that convinces you that this option is superior to God to Christ I can answer the question I just didn't think it was relevant to the conversation I I I believe in flourishing a human flourishing
in udonia I believe that that we have goodness in our lives that there are good things to experience good things to learn and be I mean it's there there is an inherent goodness to human life that has no relationship with anything higher than humanity and once you acknowledge that there's something higher than Humanity it belittles us I I I specifically just so I don't get off topic that what I live for is flourishing who defines flourishing I do for myself fine and the KKK defines flourishing for themselves that's fine that doesn't mean they're right and
the terrorists who bombed and shot people in Paris to find flourishing for themselves yeah but now you're you're making so you asked what I live for you did not say do I believe in some sort of absolute good I I did I did not I asked you how do you define flourishing who defines flourishing we each Define flourishing okay now if you think about it you're going to realize you've thought it one way Define flourishing one way the terrorists have obvious to it another way nobody's right nobody's wrong it's all relative I'm not talking about
ethics that's why I said this was outside of the realm of the conversation this ising does not include ethics excuse me flourishing does not include ethics you asked what I live for yeah flourishing you said yeah that's not an ethical statement that's a psychological include ethics to flourish as a human being does that include understanding what's good I thought you used the word goodness it includes goodness it doesn't understand the the the UN it does not include the understanding of goodness it includes goodness but not the understanding of good my moral imperative is language is
breaken down no my moral imperative is to flourish my moral imperative is not it does not include having some sort of ultimate goodness I don't have that claim on reality I I I just said earlier in my qu my honest question one that I've asked of priests in the past when I was really questioning my honest question is can is Faith compatible with with this idea that that's that's very specific question okay with flourishing with the fact that my logic is limited I could be wrong I know that I could be wrong when you take
that same idea and apply it to flourishing yes I am going to do my utmost to be a good person but that does not mean that I know what's good is I don't lay any sort of claim to absolute goodness like it or not you have to make a judgment call on what the terrorists did in Paris they Define that as flourishing as their goodness now you just can't live in a vacuum and say well it really doesn't matter it's irrelevant you have to make a judgment call is that right or wrong you have to
make a judgment call is the KKK right or wrong in denigrating black people and elevating Aryan Supremacy you can't just live in a vacuum and say well it's irrelevant it's not irrelevant it's real life so who defines flourishing and if you define it then what makes your definition right the KKK or the terrorist definition wrong our disagreement isn't about what flourishing is our disagreement seems to be that you think that there has to be this objective Rule and if I'm not following you even specifically said it earlier that's why I stood up you you accused
anyone who does not have an absolute idea of Ethics as being a relativist you're you're accusing me of being a relativist and saying that I believe this and someone else believes that and that we're both right in our own spheres and there is there are other ethical views besides absolutism and relativism like you can't set up this false dichotomy and say either I'm making some sort of absolute claim or what I'm saying is useless that's just totally unfair and doesn't match our Human Experience so I mean I it matches my experience totally as it does
kamu SRA and nii bertran Russell and all the great atheistic thinkers who had the intellectual honesty to acknowledge if there is no God there is no mind prior to the human mind which means it's obviously the human mind that defines Justice and Injustice what it means to flourish or not flourish what it means to live a good life or not to live a good life it's all the creation of the human mind it's a human fantasy those are my fantasy is not Superior to your fantasy your fantasy is not Superior to my fantasy it's all
relative and I'm saying sir I don't think you can live that way I think I could be wrong I think you live as if the terrorist attack in Paris France were absolutely wrong you see you can't say that if you're going to hold to what you believe in which is there is no God morality is relative I Define flourishing I Define goodness for myself fine if what you say is true if what you believe is true then have the intellectual honesty to say the terrorist Define good flourishing life their own way they're not wrong I'm
not right it's all taste it's a matter of taste in case it's not obvious I do think that atrocities are wrong in case it's not obvious I think that they're incredibly bad things happening in the world and then we have a personal responsibility to stand up and do something about it I sure you do our disagreement is not about that our disagreement is about whether there's an intermediate ground not even intermediate putting it on a spectrum is false but something that's neither absolutism nor relativism an example from from a relatively Christian person was Emanuel KH
he said that there is a trans Al mind that people come together not literally come together but there is an understanding among humans of what is right and wrong and it's not an individual person but neither is it an absolute thing there are other ways of looking at this besides this false dichotomy so that I I think that maybe I'm getting a little too technical but I mean honestly I wanted to ask the question about given that I just don't see the evidence but it is the knowledge of my own lack enough to admit faith
and it seems like what you're saying is no you have to admit the evidence and what that means to me is that I can't have faith so that's that's my conclusion here unless unless you'd like to try to answer that question the reason it's so frustrating to talk with you is because I don't think you listen to me very carefully I'm sorry I I think I feel like I have been I'm sorry if we're not I said sir you have faith I have faith don't you remember I talked about tonight both of us are going
to put our heads on our pillows sure I went over twice with you you're very smart there's a problem yes I am answering your question not with a yes no answer purpose not with a yes no answer I'm trying to point out to you that every atheist every agnostic every Muslim Jew Christian we all have Fai what does that mean it means that all of us have to deal with the basic fundamental questions why is a human being valuable is there a purpose to life why do I behave ethically the way I do is there
life after death or is there not none of us can scientifically prove that our answers to any of those four questions are absolutely true instead they are philosophical questions that you have to use logic experience observation to answer we all answer them though all of us have answers to the question is a human being worth anything yes or no is there a purpose to life yes or no is it right or wrong to bomb people in Paris and be part of the KKK yes or no is there life after death or not yes or no
we all have to struggle with those issues you have no choice why because you have to live life that's why you all answer them now guess what all of us have faith when we answer those questions none of us can prove that our answers to any of those questions is right so sir please don't walk away from here telling me or thinking that I didn't say you have faith I know you have got faith same way I've got faith you just have a different Faith from me that's all an atheist has Faith just a different
Faith than I do we all have faith trusting that something is true not because we can prove it but hopefully because we've got evidence and that's why I pressed you sir and said what's your faith in and what's the evidence that whatever it is that you believe in is reliable so I've been straight as an eror with you sir I agree with everything you just said honestly well good no that's not I the problem is that that's not speaking to whether there's a God and I'm specifically asking about no you cut me off with the
knees when it came to answering that I'm sorry how you cut me off intellectually at the knees cuz I started to answer you and you said I don't want to go through all those arguments that have gone over the past 2,000 years over whether God exists or not yeah you're right you cut me off with the knes intellectually so let's not act like oh yeah you've come out here with an open mind inviting me to explain to you why I believe God exists you that's not what I'm asking it's you didn't you cut me right
off I'm not asking you to explain why you believe in God I'm really not because I've been doing that for 20 years what what I want to know is given that I've already decided that I that the evidence doesn't support it am I is the question done Is there further work to be done here if I know the the best evidence supports that there's no God Is there further work should I still keep looking yeah simply because of the knowledge of my own imperfection yeah you sure should and I told you why cuz like it
or not you have to answer the question is human life valuable if so why well it answered those it has nothing to do with God yeah and you're up a creek without a paddle when it comes to explaining why human life has value if there is no God innate intrinsic value yeah if there is no know God I give my life value you give your life value or Society gives your life value but it's not innate and intrinsic which means if you happen to be born at the time of The Dread Scott decision and you
happen to be a black person tough luck you are three fths the value of white folks according to the US Supreme Court that's what Society has decided and my point is I could give a rip about what Society decides racism is absolutely wrong because human beings are created in the image of God they have an intrinsic innate value that is not determined by my opinion your opinion or the United States government's opinion how is God giving us value more intrinsic than us giving ourselves value because if there is no God your number came up in
a Mont Carlo game you are a freak accident of nature you do not get value out of a freak accident you get nothing you get meaninglessness then you have to create your own value but if you choose not to create the same value tomorrow that you did today you're not wrong you're not right CU it's all a crap shoot it's all do you like broccoli or corn what's your taste oh tomorrow you like the other one more than the one you like today just taste so you want to be Mother Teresa today great go be
Mother Teresa tomorrow you want to be Adolf Hitler just your taste go ahead it's all meaningless sir despair is honest atheism despair is honest atheism don't take it from me really fundamental logical SRA knocked it right out of the ballpark no I mean you can't just say these things if a person makes a decision it's inherently arbitrary that any person can't make you're you're even bringing up kamu you're even bringing up the people who specifically said that people are the ones who make decisions about meaning and it's all relative no it has meing Rel well
just read letron by kamu first lines of the book are the words of a young teenage boy who says yesterday mother died or was it today who gives a rip life is meaningless it doesn't matter whether mother died last week or yesterday life is absurd and that's what kamu struggled with and that's why kamu said the only question modern man must answer is why not commit suicide why go on sucking win in living if it's all meaningless if it doesn't matter whether you're Adolf Hitler II or Mother Teresa II realize life is a meaningless trip
I don't know of a single human being who doesn't struggle with doubt and in Matthew 11 we read about John the Baptist who was the Forerunner of Christ John the Baptist had a tremendous Ministry people flocked to listen to him speak but then when he met Christ he pointed people to Jesus and people began to leave him and follow Christ then John the Baptist pointed his bony finger into the face of King Herod Herod the tetrarch and said you're doing evil in the way you have your brother Philip's wife that's adultery and it's wrong it's
cheap it's sinful well you don't say that to a King Without expecting some consequences and Herod the tetrarch had John the Baptist thrown into prison no problem for John the Baptist I'm sure he was thinking well Jesus is the Messiah certainly he will Spring me from this prison cell certainly he will have me released but instead John the Baptist began to languish in prison Christ continued to preach to heal people to Open the Eyes of the blind to make the lame walk to love on people and John heard about it but he stayed in prison
his expectation was certainly Christ is Messiah he will get me out of this prison cell but the days continued to mount and he languished in prison so finally one day John the Baptist sent his disciples to Jesus to ask them Jesus are you the Christ or did I make a mistake Jesus un OD John the Baptist dilemma and he said to the Disciples of John the Baptist go back and tell John the blind receive sight the lame walk the lepers are healed and the good news is preached to the poor and then after those Disciples
of John the Baptist left Jesus said I tell you he's the greatest man John the Baptist though struggled with doubt understandably so he had some expectations of what God should do of what Jesus the Messiah should do and Jesus didn't quite measure up the fascinating thing is that Jesus never promises to solve all our problems immediately Christ does not promise to get us out of jams to get us out of prison to heal our cancer to heal our melanoma our heart disease no quite to the contrary Jesus said in this world you will have trouble
but take heart I have overcome the world Jesus Christ pointed out that life is unfair that you and I live in a cursed messed up world but the amazing message of the Gospel is God cares he cares so much that he wants to intervene in your life and in my life to grow our character not necessarily heal us of all our diseases not necessarily get us a new job when we're unemployed not necessarily have our estranged spouse come back to us he respects our free will he he respects the free decision of your spouse he
respects your free decisions and he's not going to supernaturally miraculously intervene and change everything but he is promising to be with us and to grow our character to grow our spiritual life to grow a depth and inner strength that will enable us to handle the painful experiences of life and then Jesus says you trust in me and I promise to ultimately solve all of your problems by giving you eternal life in heaven is heaven just a pipe dream is heaven just a way to help grieving people deal with their misery No Heaven is the strongest
most powerful affirmation of your life and my life imaginable God created you and me to live for eternity not to live 60 to 80 years and then become part of the Great fertilizer pit God did not create us to live 60 to 80 years and then have the trap door open and we just fall off into obl instead God created us to know him to love him to love others and to do that for 60 80 40 20 years and then for eternity in heaven in a new Heaven and a new Earth now why on
Earth would someone believe that how on Earth do you deal with your doubt by studying by struggling through the difficult issues and when you're confronted by the dead Jesus who rose from the dead 3 days after he died on that cruel cross you're you're confronted by solid evidence that Jesus Christ is totally credible totally trustworthy totally reliable and that is why faith in Christ is not a blind leap into the dark faith in Christ is a step into the light because the evidence is he was totally in touch with reality and to put your confidence
in him to put your expectations regarding the future on him is a very wise decision for he is all powerful he broke death he rose from the dead he's the living Supernatural God who gave you and me Life in the first place and he promises eternal life to all who trust in him are you looking forward to going to heaven you can when you humbly sincerely trust in Jesus Christ God bless you as you make that most important decision I'm the pastor of Grace Community Church we meet every Sunday morning 9:30 at Grace Farms which
is located at 365 Luke's Wood Road in new Canan Connecticut we also have a 5 to 5:30 evening service and I'd love to invite you to both of those Services join us when you can thanks for joining us for these few minutes have a great day [Music]
