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Speaker 1: Life audio.

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Speaker 2: Good evening, so joy to be back.

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Speaker 3: Thank you so much for Veritas for planning this, and

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Speaker 3: a joy to be back, Paul, thanks for greing to

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Speaker 3: do this again. Thoroughly enjoyed it last year. Been looking

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Speaker 3: forward to this conversation for a long time. Pretty obviously,

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Speaker 3: tonight we're wrestling with what can be considered the perennial

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Speaker 3: question about the world. All of us, believer or not,

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Speaker 3: at some point have asked a question, why is the

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Speaker 3: world broken?

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Speaker 2: Is there a God? Or is there not a God?

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Speaker 3: Kicking this off as a Christian professor, I'm hoping to

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Speaker 3: frame this conversation with four points that might help. First Off,

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Speaker 3: every single worldview has to make sense of why there's

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Speaker 3: evil and suffering in the world. Buddhists have a solution

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Speaker 3: they think works to this. Hind News have to make

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Speaker 3: sense of evil and suffering, Muslims, Mormons, atheists. Tonight, Paul

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Speaker 3: is going to give a worldview perspective as an atheist

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Speaker 3: to the suffering and evil in the world.

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Speaker 2: So really, the question is.

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Speaker 3: Which worldview makes the most sense of evil and suffering.

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Speaker 3: Now I'm not a Christian because I could tell any

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Speaker 3: one of you who came up to me and said, Sean,

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Speaker 3: why did this evil or suffering happen in my life?

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Speaker 2: I don't know the answer to that.

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Speaker 3: In fact, I don't think we'll know the answer to

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Speaker 3: many questions until we get to the future and we

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Speaker 3: look back, and then we understand. Plus, in a Christian worldview,

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Speaker 3: the fact that we're finite and God is infinite. He

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Speaker 3: knows everything, and we're limited in knowledge. We shouldn't expect

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Speaker 3: to know everything. I'm a Christian because as a whole,

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Speaker 3: I think Christianity offers the most intellectually and existentially satisfying

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Speaker 3: response to why there's evil and suffering in the world. Second,

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Speaker 3: it's vital to make a distinction between what might be

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Speaker 3: called the intellectual problem of evil and the emotional problem

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Speaker 3: of evil. The intellectual challenge would be how we make

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Speaker 3: sense of, say, God's power in God's goodness with evil

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Speaker 3: and suffering in the world. The emotional problem is how

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Speaker 3: we care with people, care for people who are hurting,

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Speaker 3: or maybe deal with somebody who's angry at God because

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Speaker 3: of pain that they've experienced.

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Speaker 2: Now, a Christian.

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Speaker 3: Response to emotional pain is not to give an argument.

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Speaker 3: Sometimes well meaning Christians say things that are not only

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Speaker 3: not helpful, but unbiblical when somebody is hurting, no quota

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Speaker 3: Bible verse Adam, don't you know Romans eight twenty eight

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Speaker 3: says all things work together for the good. Take that

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Speaker 3: frown and turn it upside down. Not only not biblical,

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Speaker 3: but not he hopeful. I think a genuine biblical response

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Speaker 3: is found in Romans twelve fifteen, where it says rejoice

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Speaker 3: with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. I

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Speaker 3: have a daughter who's nineteen years old. She's a college student.

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Speaker 3: Got an A on a chemistry test. Last week. She

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Speaker 3: called me up to tell me what was she looking

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Speaker 3: from for from me?

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 3: I know some of you are thinking money, No, don't

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Speaker 3: be jaded, not the case. What she wanted is her

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Speaker 3: dad to say, and I did because I love my daughter. Congratulations,

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Speaker 3: I'm so proud of you. Thanks for sharing with me.

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Speaker 3: I know you studied hard to meet her emotionally where

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Speaker 3: she's at well. Same is true when somebody's hurting. A

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Speaker 3: Christian response is to be present with them and hurt

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Speaker 3: with them. And I point this out because oftentimes in

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Speaker 3: our life we think we want an intellectual response, but

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Speaker 3: in reality, we're hurting and we need comfort and we

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Speaker 3: need care. Third, the problem of evil must be considered

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Speaker 3: in light of all of the evidence for the existence

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Speaker 3: of God. Now, I think the evidence is quite compelling

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Speaker 3: that God exists. From the shocking discovering the twentieth century

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Speaker 3: that the universe had a beginning pointing towards a cause

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Speaker 3: outside of it. From the surprising discovery that the laws

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Speaker 3: of physics are exquisitely fine tuned for life, discovered by

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Speaker 3: an agnostic, by the way, not a Christian, the discovery

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Speaker 3: of the complexity of life in the cell, the amount

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Speaker 3: of information arguably points towards an information giver, objective beauty

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Speaker 3: in the world near death experiences, the ontological argument, and

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Speaker 3: of course the evidence for Jesus. Now, we're not going

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Speaker 3: to go into that tonight, and I'm pretty confident because

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Speaker 3: Paul and I have had a number of conversations that

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Speaker 3: he has responses to that we go back and forth.

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Speaker 3: But in many ways, if you put it on a scale,

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Speaker 3: the argument against God would be evil and suffering. But

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Speaker 3: on the other side of the scales, what I would

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Speaker 3: consider of vast amount of evidence from the origin of

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Speaker 3: the universe and the fine tuning information to cell beauty,

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Speaker 3: objective morality, near death experiences, and so on pointing towards

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Speaker 3: the existence of God. In a conversation about whether God

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Speaker 3: exists or not, we need to consider that as well,

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Speaker 3: even though we won't be tonight. The last thing, although

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Speaker 3: evil obviously poses a significant challenge to the Christian faith,

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Speaker 3: I think the existence of evil, if it exists, is

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Speaker 3: one of the best reasons.

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Speaker 2: To believe that God exists.

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Speaker 3: Sans Lewis, who was an atheist and then became a

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Speaker 3: Christian while at Oxford, reflected back on when he was

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Speaker 3: an atheist.

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Speaker 2: He said something very interesting.

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Speaker 3: He said, my argument against God was that the universe

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Speaker 3: seems so cruel and unjust.

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Speaker 2: But how had I gotten this idea of just and unjust?

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Speaker 3: A man does not call a line crooked lest Unlet's

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Speaker 3: ye have some idea of a straight line. What was

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Speaker 3: I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? C.

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Speaker 3: S Lewis said, as an atheist, he looked at the world.

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Speaker 3: He said, it's unjust.

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Speaker 2: But wait a minute.

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Speaker 3: If I'm saying it's unjust, that implies an objective standard

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Speaker 3: of justice.

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Speaker 2: But how do you get an objective standard of justice

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Speaker 2: if there is no God?

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Speaker 3: Just like a bent stick implies the standard of straight

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Speaker 3: So think about it this way.

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Speaker 2: What's more basic, truth or a lie? The answer, of

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Speaker 2: course is truth.

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Speaker 3: You can have truth that's the standard without somebody telling

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Speaker 3: a lie.

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Speaker 2: But a lie, by definition.

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Speaker 3: Is an intentional misrepresentation of the truth. So just like

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Speaker 3: you can't have injustice without justice, you can't have a

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Speaker 3: lie without truth. You can't have evil without good. Evil

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Speaker 3: is not the opposite of good. Evil is a corruption

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Speaker 3: or privation of good. It depends upon the existence of good.

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Speaker 3: There is objective good, then the best explanation seems to

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Speaker 3: be that there's a God. You see, when we talk

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Speaker 3: about evil in the world and suffering, in part, we're

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Speaker 3: saying something's broken, things should not be that way, things

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Speaker 3: are not the way they should be, or they are

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Speaker 3: the way they shouldn't be. Both of those imply a

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Speaker 3: certain standard or purpose or way the world should be.

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Speaker 3: That only makes sense if there's a God and a

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Speaker 3: designer who's built it. Now, of course, the existence of evil,

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Speaker 3: if it implies the existence of goodness, is a piece

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Speaker 3: of evidence for the existence of God. That doesn't tell

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Speaker 3: us why God allows evil and suffering and why God

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Speaker 3: allows pain. I think we'll get to that, but when

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Speaker 3: properly placed, the complaint about evil is one piece of

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Speaker 3: evidence that morality is objective and there's good and hence

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Speaker 3: to God. I look forward to getting into it. Thank you.

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Speaker 1: Well. I'd like to thank everyone at the Veritas form

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Speaker 1: for inviting me here. I'd like to thank Sean for

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Speaker 1: being my partner again in conversation, and I'd like to

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Speaker 1: thank my wife Robin, for helping me think through some

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Speaker 1: of these issues. So I'm going to address the question

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Speaker 1: how do you make sense of pain and suffering? And

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Speaker 1: why does belief or unbelief in God matter? For that question, Well,

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Speaker 1: belief matters when, especially when you consider natural suffering, which

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Speaker 1: is suffering caused by things like earthquakes and hurricanes, it's

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Speaker 1: not caused by human agency. On the one hand, making

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Speaker 1: sense of natural suffering is easily explained from a non

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Speaker 1: religious materialist position. In an indifferent universe with no creator God,

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Speaker 1: in a system as complex as the environment on Earth

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Speaker 1: with life in it, suffering is going to happen, sometimes

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Speaker 1: for no conceivable reason. But on the other hand, natural

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Speaker 1: suffering occurs on vast, enormous scales that make no sense

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Speaker 1: that a loving all powerful God would exist, and I'll

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Speaker 1: explain why. First, God's loving nature requires that God eliminate

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Speaker 1: natural suffering, and the reason for this is not complicated.

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Speaker 1: Love means that love, by itself, absent any other factor,

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Speaker 1: does not tolerate suffering. However, other considerations might change that picture.

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Speaker 1: So let's look at something. You could say, well, maybe

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Speaker 1: God did have a greater purpose in allowing suffering to happen. Well,

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Speaker 1: first of all, that's just speculation. But there's a more

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Speaker 1: difficult problem. The uncertainty in the word maybe creates an

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Speaker 1: irresolvable conundrum. Presumably we should help people and try to

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Speaker 1: stop their suffering. Well, but on the other hand, maybe

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Speaker 1: we should allow their suffering because there might be a

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Speaker 1: greater purpose in it. The conundrum is that there's no

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Speaker 1: way to decide whether to help them or not. Because

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Speaker 1: we don't know if there's a greater purpose or not.

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Speaker 1: We're stuck. There's no way out. Okay, Well, let's assume

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Speaker 1: that we do know that God does have a greater

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Speaker 1: purpose in allowing some suffering. We just don't know what

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Speaker 1: that greater purpose is. This is sometimes phrased as we

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Speaker 1: can't understand God's reasons or God works in mysterious ways.

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Speaker 1: But this is an illegitimate move for a rational discussion

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Speaker 1: because it's unfalsifiable. There's nothing we could imagine that would

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Speaker 1: eliminate an unknown reason as an explanation, you could always

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Speaker 1: explain away anything with we can't understand God's reasons. You

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Speaker 1: could say that to explain away the suffering caused by

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Speaker 1: the most evil God imaginable, couldn't you? Okay, Well, let's

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Speaker 1: say we can identify a greater purpose. One greater purpose

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Speaker 1: that has been proposed is called soul building, when suffering

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Speaker 1: instills higher values like courage or perseverance. Another is the

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Speaker 1: solidarity and bonding that happens among people who suffer together. Well,

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Speaker 1: there's still problems. Remember God can do anything, so there

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Speaker 1: is always a way for God to achieve a greater

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Speaker 1: purpose without suffering. With one caveat God can't do what

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Speaker 1: is logically contradictory. He can't make a square circle. A

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Speaker 1: square circle is just an incoherent idea. So the greater purpose,

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Speaker 1: let's say the greater purpose is the solidarity in bonding

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Speaker 1: among people who suffer. Then I agree there would be

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Speaker 1: a logical contradiction if God did prevent such suffering because

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Speaker 1: you can't identify or bond through your suffering with others

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Speaker 1: who suffer unless you are also suffering. That's just logically true.

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Speaker 1: But the greater purpose can't be achieved when suffering is

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Speaker 1: so intense that it overwhelms any purpose or growth in

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Speaker 1: a person. Particularly when a person dies while such intense

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Speaker 1: suffering is still going on, there's no time for any

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Speaker 1: growth to take place. Suffering in that case is not

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Speaker 1: sole building, it's soul destroying. Intense pain can destroy your

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Speaker 1: ability to pay attention, to use your higher faculties, to

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Speaker 1: reflect on your suffering, to even hold a coherent thought

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Speaker 1: in your head. And of course babies and animals who

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Speaker 1: die like that are incapable of spiritual growth to begin with.

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Speaker 1: So imagine it's hundreds of years ago and you're alone

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Speaker 1: in a forest and you have a fall and you

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Speaker 1: break both your legs and they get pinned somewhere and

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Speaker 1: you can't move, and now a forest fire is coming.

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Speaker 1: You can't run away. The forest fire gives you severe

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Speaker 1: burns over your entire body, and you die in nothing

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Speaker 1: but total agony. If you like, God could go to

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Speaker 1: a person with broken legs in the forest before the

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Speaker 1: fire reached them. Would you say, I could rescue you

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Speaker 1: and heal your legs right now and save you from

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Speaker 1: the oncoming fire, But because I love you so much,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to do nothing and let you die a

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Speaker 1: horrible death. But that will serve a greater purpose. Oh

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Speaker 1: but I'm not going to tell you what that greater

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Speaker 1: purpose is. Or would you say, I'm going to break

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Speaker 1: my own legs so we can suffer together and get

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Speaker 1: burned together, and this will deepen and transform our relationship,

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Speaker 1: and you'll see that it's worth it. Well, no one

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Speaker 1: with an ounce of compassion or an ounce of logic

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Speaker 1: would ever say that if they could rescue someone from

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Speaker 1: horrible suffering instantly and effortlessly, like God can. How many

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Speaker 1: people have died alone in total agony through natural causes

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Speaker 1: like a forest fire or an earthquake throughout time? How

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Speaker 1: many animals? How many animals had to suffer at being

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Speaker 1: eaten alive? How many humans? Every single one of them

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Speaker 1: and there's billions of them. Show that there is no loving,

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Speaker 1: all powerful God. Justifying that type of suffering runs the

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Speaker 1: risk of losing sight of the real world. And here's

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Speaker 1: a kind of crazy case of that. Mother Teresa was

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Speaker 1: a Catholic nun who is stablished a mission in India

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Speaker 1: for the poor, and she told the following story at

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Speaker 1: the nineteen ninety four National Prayer Breakfast, and you can

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Speaker 1: look at this story online. She said, quote, one day

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Speaker 1: I meet a lady who is dying of cancer, in

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Speaker 1: a most terrible condition, and I told her, I say,

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Speaker 1: you know, your terrible pain is only the kiss of Jesus,

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Speaker 1: a sign that you have come so close to Jesus

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Speaker 1: on the cross that he can kiss you. And the

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Speaker 1: patient joined her hands together and said, Mother Teresa, please

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Speaker 1: tell Jesus to stop kissing me. Now, some people think

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Speaker 1: that's funny, but that patient's intense pain all too firmly

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Speaker 1: planted her in the real world, where Mother Teresa romanticized

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Speaker 1: the patient's suffering is a kiss. A kiss is a

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Speaker 1: gesture of affection. But Mother Teresa said that terrible pain

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Speaker 1: is the kiss of Jesus. Horrible suffering is affection. Where

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Speaker 1: are we, Well, let's get back to the real world

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Speaker 1: and I'll sum up involuntary natural suffering for a greater

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Speaker 1: purpose we can't identify, or we only think might be there,

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Speaker 1: and is so severe that you can't even think, and

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Speaker 1: without any time for growth anyway before you die, or

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Speaker 1: involving animals and babies, and without any identifiable logical contradiction

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Speaker 1: if it was alleviated, and that love by itself would

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Speaker 1: always alleviate, means that God is not all loving, or

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Speaker 1: is not all powerful, or is neither or doesn't exist

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Speaker 1: at least one of those must be true, you choose.

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Speaker 4: Thank you both for sharing those statements. You guys did

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Speaker 4: a good job helping us better understand this question that

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Speaker 4: we're going to be discussing here tonight. So we're here

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Speaker 4: to talk about a pretty heavy and expansive topic, that

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Speaker 4: of suffering and pain. To start off our moderated portion

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Speaker 4: of the forum, let's begin with some stories. Can both

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Speaker 4: of you share about a time where you experience pain

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Speaker 4: in your life and how did you process or handle

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Speaker 4: that experience? Did that experience influence your belief or unbelief

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Speaker 4: in God? Doctor Rensler, would you like to start.

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Speaker 1: Sure, I'm going to talk about the pain of a

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Speaker 1: person and the suffering of myself. So I was in

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Speaker 1: third grade and one of my good friends, Barb, was

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Speaker 1: sitting in the seat in front of me in class,

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Speaker 1: and I'd seen similar things on cartoons, And I had

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Speaker 1: only an idea that I was going to do something

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Speaker 1: really funny. And what I did was, just as she

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Speaker 1: was going to sit down, I pulled the chair out

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Speaker 1: from under her. She had no idea I had done that.

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Speaker 1: She went straight to the ground. Now she wasn't injured.

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Speaker 1: She was shocked and it was painful, but there was

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Speaker 1: no permanent damage or anything. But the minute she hit

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Speaker 1: the floor, I instantly knew that I had done something very,

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Speaker 1: very bad. And it still gets me today. I still

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Speaker 1: can't stand to think that I did that to her.

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Speaker 1: That's my suffering. She was just in pain, but I'm

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Speaker 1: still suffering about that. And I wouldn't say that that,

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Speaker 1: you know, as a determinive factor in me deciding whether

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Speaker 1: God exists or not. But I will say this that

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Speaker 1: because my reaction was instantaneous, it came from a place

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Speaker 1: that I didn't even think about. I mean, I didn't

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Speaker 1: have to I was in third grade. But I didn't

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Speaker 1: have to have any sort of philosophical grounding for my

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Speaker 1: moral worldview to understand that I had done something very

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Speaker 1: very wrong. I just knew it innately. And I think

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Speaker 1: everybody has that innate sense of empathy for people where

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Speaker 1: that's just how people are put together well, with possible

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Speaker 1: exceptions sociopaths. But that's a whole nother thing, and that

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Speaker 1: doesn't prove or disprove God's existence, but it shows that

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Speaker 1: God isn't necessary for us to understand and realize that

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Speaker 1: we have this innate sense of empathy when people are

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Speaker 1: undergoing pain.

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Speaker 3: Thanks for sharing that I'm turning fifty in May, and

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Speaker 3: I thought at least one person would appreciate.

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Speaker 2: That I did. Thank you, because he's been there. You've

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Speaker 2: been there.

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Speaker 3: I tell you that it's about two and a half

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Speaker 3: years ago. I went through the worst pain ever in

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Speaker 3: my life, probably on an eight scale plus excruciet, and

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Speaker 3: I dropped to one hundred and thirty five pounds. And

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Speaker 3: in case you haven't noticed, I don't have a lot

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Speaker 3: of weight on myself anyways, Probably about three or four

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Speaker 3: hours a day I would lie on my back in

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Speaker 3: so much pain. I just remember taking a breath at

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Speaker 3: a time, just hoping it would be done. And I'll

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Speaker 3: tell you it didn't make me question the existence of God.

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Speaker 2: For two reasons.

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Speaker 3: One, because my faith is not rooted an experience or

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Speaker 3: a feeling. I thought about my life like a fighter pilot.

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Speaker 3: If a fighter pilot is confused and going so fast,

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Speaker 3: they lose what is up and down. They follow their

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Speaker 3: instruments what is true to guide them. And I think

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Speaker 3: about my faith the same way. My faith is rooted.

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Speaker 3: I really think Christianity is true from the stuff I

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Speaker 3: mentioned before, the beginning of the universe, the fine tune

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Speaker 3: of the universe, information in the cell. I think the

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Speaker 3: evidence for Jesus is compelling. So I'm sitting there on

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Speaker 3: my back in so much pain, it didn't make me

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Speaker 3: question God. And the other reason why is if you

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Speaker 3: sign up to be a Christian, you're not signing up

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Speaker 3: not to experience pain. If that's what you think the

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Speaker 3: Christian faith is, you've signed.

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Speaker 2: Up for a false gospel.

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Speaker 3: If you're hurting and you're in pain right now, I'd

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Speaker 3: encourage you to read the Psalms, some of the largest

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Speaker 3: category of the songs. There's one hundred and fifty of

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Speaker 3: them in the Old Testament, and they're songs that are poetic,

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Speaker 3: and they're written by people like David, a man after

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Speaker 3: God's own heart, and he's.

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Speaker 2: Like, God, why have you abandoned me?

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Speaker 1: God?

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Speaker 2: Where are you? God?

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Speaker 3: You're silent. My enemies are defeating me, and so having questions.

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Speaker 3: Going through pain and suffering is a part of the

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Speaker 3: Christian faith. Now we're going to get to where I

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Speaker 3: think the Christian faith authors us hope and meaning and

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Speaker 3: purpose in our suffering. But it didn't make me question

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Speaker 3: my faith. One of the results interesting. I know my

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Speaker 3: wife since third grade. We grew up in a little

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Speaker 3: town called Julian in the mountains of San Diego, famous

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Speaker 3: for apple pies, and we've been married twenty six years.

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Speaker 3: And my wife said to me, she said, two times

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Speaker 3: she's seen my life change.

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Speaker 2: The most.

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Speaker 3: Number one actually I was in grad school where I

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Speaker 3: teach now at taut School. Theology, my theology, my philosophy

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Speaker 3: really gave me confidence. And she said, Second, as you

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Speaker 3: came through and out of that pain, you realize your

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Speaker 3: own mortality got home. Would you God softened your heart

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Speaker 3: and really changed me in ways that if we were

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Speaker 3: having this conversation five years ago probably would have been very,

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Speaker 3: very different.

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Speaker 4: Thank you both for sharing those stories. Sean, you kind

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Speaker 4: of mentioned that as a Christian we don't sign up

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Speaker 4: to just not experience any pain. Do you think that

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Speaker 4: it's a part of God's plan for humanity to endure

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Speaker 4: pain and suffering.

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Speaker 3: Part of God's plan that we endure pain and suffering.

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Speaker 3: We can't survive without pain. Pain is not bad. Pain

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Speaker 3: is like on your dashboard of your car if something

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Speaker 3: if a signals it's like something's.

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Speaker 2: Wrong with a car.

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Speaker 3: So we need to have pain to survive what happens

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Speaker 3: sometimes with lepers there's a professor I name of doctor

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Speaker 3: brand who went and studied with certain leper colonies. And

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Speaker 3: what lepersy can do is sear the body's ability to

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Speaker 3: feel pain, and you quite literally self destruct if you

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Speaker 3: can't feel pain, touch something hot, don't realize this, burning

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Speaker 3: wreck your hand.

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Speaker 2: Some who stepped in a nail and destroyed their feet.

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Speaker 3: So God has blessed us with pain censors to survive

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Speaker 3: and thrive within the world. Without it, we couldn't live.

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Speaker 3: On the flip side, I don't think we could have

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Speaker 3: the pleasures that we have without pain.

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Speaker 2: I think they go together.

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Speaker 3: But I don't think we could even be here if

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Speaker 3: it were not for the existence of pain.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for that, Paul.

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Speaker 4: From your perspective, you mentioned something of kind of an

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Speaker 4: evil God that could be justified. In your opening statement,

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Speaker 4: do you think it's more reasonable to reasonable to believe

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Speaker 4: in a bad God or no God given the presence

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Speaker 4: of pain and suffering.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an interesting question, and I think it's the

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Speaker 1: philosopher's Steven Law who has written about this extensively. And

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Speaker 1: he doesn't say that the evil God is more likely,

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Speaker 1: but he says, given the balance of good and evil

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Speaker 1: in the world, and given one apologetic Christian apologetic that, well,

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Speaker 1: you wouldn't really appreciate the good if you didn't have

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Speaker 1: the evil. That would be a totally different thing. He says,

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Speaker 1: we can just flip that and think of an evil

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Speaker 1: God that lets you feel some good, So the bad

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Speaker 1: stuff feels even worse because you're missing the good stuff.

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Speaker 1: And his point is that just based on the evidence

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Speaker 1: of the mix of the evil and evil and good

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Speaker 1: in the world, there's no way to decide between those two.

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Speaker 1: So I wouldn't say it it shows it that God

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Speaker 1: is evil. But now we have a kind of a

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Speaker 1: question mark. And I guess my opening statement said that, well,

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Speaker 1: the question mark is is God really loving? So I

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Speaker 1: think that's as far as I would go.

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Speaker 2: Can I fall up with you?

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Speaker 3: Do you believe evil actually exists? Is it real? Is

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Speaker 3: there real evil in the world, because you kind of

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Speaker 3: talked about good and evil as if they're both real

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Speaker 3: things and counterbalance one another, which raises kind of the

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Speaker 3: question where they come from in a material universe.

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Speaker 1: So I was referencing what Stephen Law said, and he

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Speaker 1: was kind of entering into the Christian apologetic of why

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Speaker 1: is there evil and why is why is there good?

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Speaker 1: So for myself, I wouldn't call it evil because I

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Speaker 1: think evil has certain theological Christian connotations that, of course

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Speaker 1: I don't adopt. I would say, bad things happen, people suffer,

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Speaker 1: people have sometimes pain that they don't want. Sometimes the

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Speaker 1: people have pain that they do want, like when you

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Speaker 1: go exercise and it's it's a good workout, that can

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Speaker 1: be a type of pain. But I wouldn't I think

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't use the word evil. I would I would

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Speaker 1: use the word suffering or bad, something bad or something

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Speaker 1: you don't prefer.

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Speaker 3: One more just for clarity, not meant to be gotcha question,

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Speaker 3: you know, son, example of like torturing a child for

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Speaker 3: adult entertainment. Yes, that's suffering, Yes it's bad effects. I

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Speaker 3: have no problem saying that is evil and twisted and

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Speaker 3: morally corrupt. What would you say to that, now evil

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Speaker 3: or is that just bad and suffering?

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Speaker 1: I would say it's it's really twisted. It would take

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Speaker 1: a socio.

439
00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:43,720
Speaker 2: Morally twisted or sure, yes.

440
00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:46,000
Speaker 1: Morally twisted that that is not a good thing to do.

441
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:47,840
Speaker 1: That is not a good thing to do.

442
00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:54,000
Speaker 4: Okay, all right, fair enough, thank you for sharing that.

443
00:25:55,119 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 4: In order to exhaustively address the topic of pain and suffering,

444
00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:00,760
Speaker 4: we're gonna now dive deeper into consider during the different

445
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:03,399
Speaker 4: types of pain and suffering. And so I want to

446
00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:07,280
Speaker 4: first touch upon suffering in light of morality, and so,

447
00:26:08,040 --> 00:26:11,440
Speaker 4: based on your world views, how do you make sense

448
00:26:11,600 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 4: of pain that's directly caused by people's actions. Is suffering

449
00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:18,879
Speaker 4: that results from people's actions just unfortunate? Or can we

450
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:23,159
Speaker 4: hope for justice and that these experiences would ultimately be rectified?

451
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:26,160
Speaker 4: And Sean, would you like to go first?

452
00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:28,920
Speaker 2: Sure, so we've shifted.

453
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:32,280
Speaker 3: You raised the question of natural evil in your talk,

454
00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:34,880
Speaker 3: which is fair, it's an important question. Now we're talking

455
00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 3: about moral evil, which are choices that individuals make, murder, theft.

456
00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:42,960
Speaker 2: Et cetera. Would you agree with that distinction?

457
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:47,000
Speaker 3: Okay, So before we go any further, there's a challenge

458
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:50,199
Speaker 3: for the naturalistic worldview, and that if there is no

459
00:26:50,359 --> 00:26:54,399
Speaker 3: soul and if there is no God, why determinism is

460
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:58,840
Speaker 3: not true and why actually there's no distinction between natural

461
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:02,600
Speaker 3: evil and between morall evial. So if there's no soul

462
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:06,439
Speaker 3: and God doesn't exist, everything is chemicals in motion, laws

463
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:09,800
Speaker 3: of physics, and so many atheists seem to me there's

464
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:12,440
Speaker 3: two options. I debated Michael scheron this, and Sherman's like,

465
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 3: we have free will, and I was like explaining, he's

466
00:27:14,359 --> 00:27:18,960
Speaker 3: like basically magic popped into existence, which is a non explanation.

467
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:21,639
Speaker 3: Or Sam Harris argues, who wrote a whole book on it,

468
00:27:21,640 --> 00:27:24,240
Speaker 3: how we're like puppets on a string and there actually

469
00:27:24,480 --> 00:27:27,280
Speaker 3: is no free will. So in many ways, the fact

470
00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:30,040
Speaker 3: that we make this distinction and we all recognize it

471
00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:32,720
Speaker 3: kind of tells us that we think we have choice,

472
00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:36,960
Speaker 3: We think we have agency, which is arguably best explained

473
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:39,040
Speaker 3: by us actually having a soul.

474
00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:40,120
Speaker 2: Now, with that.

475
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:43,320
Speaker 3: Said, I would say this is where God has given

476
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:46,560
Speaker 3: us free will. If God is going to make us

477
00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:50,520
Speaker 3: as beings who can love him and love others, we

478
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:53,959
Speaker 3: have to have the option to not love him and

479
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:59,159
Speaker 3: not love others. Otherwise, were coerced. So, if there's something

480
00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:04,920
Speaker 3: valuable in relationships, in marriage and parenting, friendship, if there's

481
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:07,880
Speaker 3: something valuable in that in which we choose to be

482
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:12,359
Speaker 3: faithful to people, that's going to require something like free

483
00:28:12,359 --> 00:28:16,120
Speaker 3: will for that to actually happen. And so if God

484
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:18,639
Speaker 3: gives us free will to do good, you're gonna have

485
00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:21,160
Speaker 3: the example that you gave of people having free will

486
00:28:21,359 --> 00:28:24,680
Speaker 3: to do evil. Now, one other thing on this, It

487
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:28,040
Speaker 3: sounds like this is a two part question. Is is

488
00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:32,440
Speaker 3: there any hope? Well, I'll be really honest with you.

489
00:28:33,119 --> 00:28:36,560
Speaker 3: Today was a pretty tough day for me. We had

490
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:38,400
Speaker 3: some friends reach out to us, and I'm gonna try

491
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 3: to keep this vague. Whose child was really severely abused

492
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:49,200
Speaker 3: and she testified today and we got a text back

493
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:54,320
Speaker 3: that the sentence was not remotely fitting to the crime.

494
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 2: Now, a couple things.

495
00:28:58,040 --> 00:29:01,640
Speaker 3: If there's such a thing as justice, then the punishment

496
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 3: should fit the crime. That's one piece of it. Second,

497
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:08,880
Speaker 3: if he gets off, he's probably gonna go do it

498
00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:13,040
Speaker 3: to somebody else, which is terrible. But in part, if

499
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 3: the government here is not going to do with it, then,

500
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 3: to me, in an atheistic universe, people get away with

501
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:25,120
Speaker 3: all sorts of morally twisted evil, wrong, bad things, because

502
00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:29,760
Speaker 3: there is no hope beyond the grave that justice will

503
00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:32,959
Speaker 3: be met. So I think there's moral evil like you described.

504
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 3: I think it's obvious because we have choice and agency,

505
00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:38,160
Speaker 3: and we have a soul, and I think God being

506
00:29:38,200 --> 00:29:41,080
Speaker 3: the ultimate governor in a sense, who we're accountable to,

507
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:45,200
Speaker 3: means that even like that fellow today who did horrible

508
00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:48,840
Speaker 3: evil things will be held account for that.

509
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:52,760
Speaker 4: Thank you for that, would you like to respond?

510
00:29:53,080 --> 00:30:00,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we have to be careful that the desire

511
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:06,680
Speaker 1: for ultimate justice, for all the injustices to be taken

512
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:12,320
Speaker 1: care of in the afterlife don't influence our decision as

513
00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 1: to whether there is going to be an afterlife or

514
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:17,120
Speaker 1: there is going to be somebody who will take care

515
00:30:17,160 --> 00:30:20,400
Speaker 1: of all that injustice in the afterlife. It's a little

516
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:23,760
Speaker 1: it's a little too enticing. So I mean, I don't

517
00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:26,320
Speaker 1: want to reduce this down to whether does God exist

518
00:30:26,440 --> 00:30:29,880
Speaker 1: or not, because well, that is the ultimate disagreement between

519
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:34,080
Speaker 1: us when everything will come down to it. But the

520
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 1: atheist is perfectly comfortable with saying, well, this is just

521
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:40,680
Speaker 1: the way the world is. I mentioned in my opening

522
00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 1: statement that we're in a universe that is indifferent to us.

523
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:46,240
Speaker 1: Bad things are going to happen. And if I may

524
00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:51,080
Speaker 1: slip into the vernacular, excuse me, shit happens and people

525
00:30:51,120 --> 00:30:54,000
Speaker 1: can get away, jeeves. Just look around the world, pick

526
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 1: up any look at any headline, and you can see

527
00:30:57,160 --> 00:31:01,160
Speaker 1: bad people getting away with doing bad things and they

528
00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:06,760
Speaker 1: don't get the justice that they deserve. It happens. The

529
00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 1: hope that we have is that it's going to be

530
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:14,040
Speaker 1: up to us to refine our social systems and to

531
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:16,760
Speaker 1: refine our sense of justice so that we can hold

532
00:31:16,760 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 1: people to account. And that's just something we have to

533
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:21,920
Speaker 1: get better at. And let me let me go back

534
00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 1: to one of the things you said early, by the.

535
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:25,320
Speaker 3: Way, before I come back with that vernacular.

536
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:27,240
Speaker 2: You're lucky we're not doing this in a church.

537
00:31:27,160 --> 00:31:30,080
Speaker 3: Just for the record, but you know, keep going just

538
00:31:30,120 --> 00:31:31,880
Speaker 3: for fun, or it would have.

539
00:31:31,840 --> 00:31:34,160
Speaker 1: Been cool had we done it in a church. It

540
00:31:34,160 --> 00:31:40,360
Speaker 1: would have been even cooler. The difference or the lack

541
00:31:40,400 --> 00:31:45,240
Speaker 1: of a difference you mentioned about natural evil and moral evil.

542
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:48,320
Speaker 1: If determinism is true and we don't have free will,

543
00:31:48,560 --> 00:31:51,920
Speaker 1: well then it's just chemicals moving. When a person does

544
00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:56,160
Speaker 1: a bad thing. It's just chemicals moving when a snowslide

545
00:31:56,480 --> 00:32:00,200
Speaker 1: happens and there's an avalanche and it hurts people. So

546
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:03,840
Speaker 1: at some level that's true. Determinism would would say that.

547
00:32:04,280 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 1: But you can still make a distinction between moral evil

548
00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:11,760
Speaker 1: and naturalistic evil by saying moral evil happens when all

549
00:32:11,800 --> 00:32:15,160
Speaker 1: those chemicals are doing what they're doing within a human being,

550
00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:20,400
Speaker 1: and natural evil is the stuff that happens outside of

551
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:22,680
Speaker 1: that human being. And that human being is a real,

552
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 1: real special thing because you know, you can talk all

553
00:32:25,360 --> 00:32:30,760
Speaker 1: you want to rocks up on a mountain and you're

554
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:32,880
Speaker 1: not going to convince them not to do a rock

555
00:32:32,960 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 1: slide that's going to kill people. But you can talk

556
00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:40,800
Speaker 1: to a human and even through deterministic procedures, you can

557
00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:45,520
Speaker 1: modify their behavior. You can't do that with natural evil.

558
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 3: In case you're not persuading, you're not convincing, you're controlling

559
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:54,400
Speaker 3: somebody through modifying their bodies. Because we're physical systems just

560
00:32:55,120 --> 00:32:56,200
Speaker 3: same thing, right.

561
00:32:56,000 --> 00:33:01,120
Speaker 1: Because the physical system has that capacity for logic and

562
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:04,560
Speaker 1: reasoning and empathy and all of that, and you can

563
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:08,040
Speaker 1: encourage someone, you can bring out that natural empathy or

564
00:33:08,240 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 1: you know, if a person who's brought up a certain

565
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:13,240
Speaker 1: way that in whatever natural empathy they had might be

566
00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:18,400
Speaker 1: never encouraged and camped down, or it could be incurred

567
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:19,640
Speaker 1: then and brought out.

568
00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:24,000
Speaker 3: But I think the question is is how, Because I'm

569
00:33:24,040 --> 00:33:27,440
Speaker 3: here to persuade people, appeal to ideas and make a

570
00:33:27,520 --> 00:33:29,719
Speaker 3: case that they think about something. Oh, you know, I

571
00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:32,280
Speaker 3: think Paul's more convincing this, and I'll believe that. No,

572
00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:34,080
Speaker 3: I think Sean made a good case. I'll believe that

573
00:33:34,120 --> 00:33:38,160
Speaker 3: I'm appealing to minds and reason and rationality, which seems

574
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:40,520
Speaker 3: to me what universities are built on.

575
00:33:41,320 --> 00:33:42,800
Speaker 2: So if natural.

576
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:46,800
Speaker 3: Evil is really no different than human evil, we call

577
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:50,920
Speaker 3: it the same thing, but it's still determinism in motion.

578
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 3: It seems to me the whole moral project collapse. That

579
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:57,320
Speaker 3: collapses then, because I don't say to a hurricane you

580
00:33:57,320 --> 00:33:59,680
Speaker 3: shouldn't do this, or a virus you shouldn't.

581
00:33:59,240 --> 00:34:01,400
Speaker 2: Do that, But I say to people, you shouldn't do that.

582
00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:07,000
Speaker 3: But it was Kant who said Aught implies can, Aught

583
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:10,959
Speaker 3: implies can. So the whole moral project we're talking about

584
00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:14,399
Speaker 3: the problem of evil. The moral project implies that we're

585
00:34:14,440 --> 00:34:18,359
Speaker 3: agents with choice. So I say to you, you shouldn't

586
00:34:18,560 --> 00:34:22,600
Speaker 3: do fill in the blank, because you have the choice

587
00:34:22,640 --> 00:34:25,520
Speaker 3: to do that or not do that you ought to

588
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 3: do this because you have a choice to do that

589
00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:30,840
Speaker 3: or not do that. So like moral blame, if I

590
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 3: blame somebody, I don't blame a hurricane, but I blame

591
00:34:33,040 --> 00:34:34,239
Speaker 3: a person because they should have.

592
00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:37,360
Speaker 2: Known better and acted differently.

593
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:41,000
Speaker 3: I give moral praise over here because somebody acted in

594
00:34:41,040 --> 00:34:42,719
Speaker 3: a good way, and we want to hold that up

595
00:34:42,719 --> 00:34:43,360
Speaker 3: as example.

596
00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:44,520
Speaker 2: Other people will follow.

597
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:48,120
Speaker 3: But that only makes sense if we actually have free

598
00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:53,239
Speaker 3: will and reason and rationality and can choose. But if

599
00:34:53,360 --> 00:34:57,280
Speaker 3: moral evil reduces to natural evil, it seems the entire

600
00:34:57,360 --> 00:34:58,759
Speaker 3: moral project goes with it.

601
00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:03,120
Speaker 1: More or counter reply, I don't see whether there's any

602
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:09,759
Speaker 1: reason why deterministically people don't have agency and make decisions

603
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:14,560
Speaker 1: and consider, you know, have empathy for other people. There's

604
00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 1: nothing about determinism that would say you can't do all

605
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:21,080
Speaker 1: those things that you mentioned that are really the moral

606
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:22,400
Speaker 1: the moral project.

607
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:25,560
Speaker 3: I think the challenge is in your in your argument,

608
00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:27,520
Speaker 3: you said there's three premises for God.

609
00:35:28,160 --> 00:35:29,200
Speaker 2: There's three options.

610
00:35:29,239 --> 00:35:31,880
Speaker 3: Either God's not a good, God's not all powerful, or

611
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:36,240
Speaker 3: God doesn't exist. Right, those are the three logical options. Well,

612
00:35:36,680 --> 00:35:39,600
Speaker 3: either it's determinacy or it's free will. If we are

613
00:35:39,719 --> 00:35:43,279
Speaker 3: determined by laws, of nature, we don't have free will.

614
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 3: If we have free will, we're not determined. So I

615
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:50,160
Speaker 3: think that's the root of the question. I think the

616
00:35:50,200 --> 00:35:55,360
Speaker 3: materialistic worldview reduces to determinacy, and it seems like you

617
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:56,880
Speaker 3: agree with me and I just don't see where the

618
00:35:56,920 --> 00:35:59,200
Speaker 3: moral project fits in. Now we could go down, we

619
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:00,759
Speaker 3: could go down this show. But there's one area I

620
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:02,800
Speaker 3: did want to agree with you on. From before you

621
00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:05,879
Speaker 3: said we shouldn't believe in heaven just because we desire it,

622
00:36:06,320 --> 00:36:07,080
Speaker 3: I totally agree.

623
00:36:07,120 --> 00:36:08,520
Speaker 2: I think both sides.

624
00:36:09,040 --> 00:36:11,920
Speaker 3: You can make the argument that somebody not you doesn't

625
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:15,320
Speaker 3: want to believe in God because they don't desire accountability

626
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:17,440
Speaker 3: for their life, and I want to believe in heaven

627
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:20,920
Speaker 3: because I want there to be justice. Truth should not

628
00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:24,239
Speaker 3: be determined by our wants, but by evidence. I think

629
00:36:24,239 --> 00:36:25,560
Speaker 3: that's an area we would agree on.

630
00:36:25,640 --> 00:36:30,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, thank you both. Kind of touching again on

631
00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:35,600
Speaker 4: the natural causes in suffering. This type of suffering can

632
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:39,759
Speaker 4: come from seemingly random events such as natural disasters like

633
00:36:39,760 --> 00:36:43,680
Speaker 4: we've touched upon, and so based on this worldview, how

634
00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:47,520
Speaker 4: do you make sense of the randomness element in these catastrophes?

635
00:36:47,960 --> 00:36:53,760
Speaker 4: Would you like to start.

636
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 1: On one level, there's no making sense of it because

637
00:36:55,160 --> 00:36:58,120
Speaker 1: random stuff happens. I mean, when you calculate the digits

638
00:36:58,160 --> 00:37:02,799
Speaker 1: for pie, there and there's no sense that you can

639
00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:06,960
Speaker 1: make of it. So, given the complex world that we

640
00:37:07,040 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 1: live in, weird things are going to happen, and you know, deterministically,

641
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 1: there is a reason why all that happened, but it's

642
00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:19,919
Speaker 1: so fantastically complex that we can't calculate it. We can't

643
00:37:19,920 --> 00:37:22,160
Speaker 1: figure it out, so we kind of just have to say, yeah,

644
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:25,600
Speaker 1: we don't. We can't explain it. We can't show all

645
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:30,399
Speaker 1: the steps in why it happened, but it still is

646
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:33,719
Speaker 1: happening due to the laws of physics and all of that.

647
00:37:34,120 --> 00:37:39,400
Speaker 1: So the randomness, how bad things can happen to people randomly.

648
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:44,440
Speaker 1: There's a flood and one person drowns and the person

649
00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:49,239
Speaker 1: right down the street doesn't drown. Why did that happens?

650
00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:53,680
Speaker 1: It's something we can't figure out. But that doesn't mean

651
00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:57,399
Speaker 1: that you have to think there's some grand mystery. It's

652
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:00,279
Speaker 1: just a problem so complex we can't solve it.

653
00:38:02,960 --> 00:38:06,160
Speaker 3: So with natural I hesitate to use the term natural

654
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:11,400
Speaker 3: evil because I think evil implies agency. It's natural disaster. Certainly,

655
00:38:11,520 --> 00:38:14,040
Speaker 3: pain and suffering results. But the term like you said,

656
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:17,960
Speaker 3: that is used is natural evil. So four points come

657
00:38:18,040 --> 00:38:23,120
Speaker 3: to mind. Number one, we need certain natural disasters and

658
00:38:23,280 --> 00:38:28,919
Speaker 3: processes to actually have a functioning planet. So ninety nine

659
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:34,400
Speaker 3: percent of viruses are positive, one percent are potentially harmful.

660
00:38:35,120 --> 00:38:38,719
Speaker 3: Get rid of viruses and human beings are gone. One

661
00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:41,279
Speaker 3: reason would be to limit the growth of bacteria. We

662
00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:42,919
Speaker 3: don't have viruses to wipe them out.

663
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:45,440
Speaker 2: We're gone. Things like earthquakes.

664
00:38:46,600 --> 00:38:51,360
Speaker 3: Less than point zero two percent of earthquakes cause any

665
00:38:51,440 --> 00:38:55,640
Speaker 3: suffering or pain for human beings. Get rid of earthquakes

666
00:38:55,719 --> 00:38:58,920
Speaker 3: and we're not here again. Whether it's our iron core

667
00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:03,040
Speaker 3: kind of a protective from rays from the sun circulating

668
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:05,880
Speaker 3: some of the elements. We need earthquakes to have a

669
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 3: planet capable of supporting life.

670
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:11,760
Speaker 2: Things like forest fires, We need fire.

671
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:17,279
Speaker 3: These are processes that we actually need. Fact during interesting enough,

672
00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:20,600
Speaker 3: during maose Dung's Great Leap Forward nineteen fifty eight to

673
00:39:20,680 --> 00:39:24,240
Speaker 3: sixty two, they're trying to get rid of sparrows and pests,

674
00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 3: and it had they killed like.

675
00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:27,320
Speaker 2: Millions of sparrows.

676
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:31,520
Speaker 3: It had a massive backlash because then the locusts went

677
00:39:31,800 --> 00:39:36,200
Speaker 3: wild and destroyed all the crops. So we don't always know.

678
00:39:36,320 --> 00:39:38,759
Speaker 3: Back to your point, we don't always know what purposes

679
00:39:38,800 --> 00:39:43,120
Speaker 3: are for things. But there's a very fragile balance in nature.

680
00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:44,879
Speaker 3: When we think I could just get rid of that

681
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:47,120
Speaker 3: and then the world would be better, it's like, wait

682
00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 3: a minute, you don't quite know what that does in

683
00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:51,480
Speaker 3: the scope of things.

684
00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:52,600
Speaker 1: Now.

685
00:39:52,760 --> 00:39:55,400
Speaker 3: The second thing I would say is in Christianity, the

686
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:58,200
Speaker 3: world starts good. In Genesis chapter three, we have the

687
00:39:58,200 --> 00:40:02,640
Speaker 3: Fall actually says in Rome that creation grows. So these

688
00:40:02,719 --> 00:40:05,840
Speaker 3: natural processes have been affected and upset, and the apple

689
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:10,440
Speaker 3: cart's been turned over by sin in some capacity. The world,

690
00:40:10,480 --> 00:40:13,719
Speaker 3: you might say, is broken. Third thing I would say

691
00:40:14,160 --> 00:40:19,000
Speaker 3: is natural disasters cannot be separated from moral evil. So,

692
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:22,520
Speaker 3: for example, why did the earthquake in San Francisco nineteen

693
00:40:22,560 --> 00:40:26,799
Speaker 3: eighty nine have a third of the less of the

694
00:40:26,880 --> 00:40:29,440
Speaker 3: devastating effect than certain earthquakes in Haiti.

695
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:32,799
Speaker 2: The buildings were not built to be earthquake proof.

696
00:40:32,840 --> 00:40:35,759
Speaker 3: There's been a lot of corruption and evil that has

697
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:39,680
Speaker 3: taken place by people in power that's intermixed with the

698
00:40:39,760 --> 00:40:42,960
Speaker 3: natural disasters and exacerbates the suffering.

699
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:45,000
Speaker 2: All of this. Know that happened in COVID.

700
00:40:45,040 --> 00:40:47,080
Speaker 3: Now I'm not going to take sides The last thing

701
00:40:47,160 --> 00:40:49,319
Speaker 3: we want to discuss is politics, but we can all

702
00:40:49,320 --> 00:40:53,160
Speaker 3: give our favorite example of the pandemic, something somebody did

703
00:40:53,200 --> 00:40:57,560
Speaker 3: to exacerbate suffering and evil. Finally, on the random one,

704
00:40:57,600 --> 00:41:00,239
Speaker 3: that's a fair question, and I think we can kind

705
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:03,560
Speaker 3: of agree to one level on this, Paul, why did

706
00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:05,720
Speaker 3: this flood kill this person not that person?

707
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:08,399
Speaker 2: In some ways I don't know the answer to that.

708
00:41:09,160 --> 00:41:11,600
Speaker 2: I'm not God. God is sovereign.

709
00:41:12,239 --> 00:41:15,000
Speaker 3: Now, I'm not working this into my system to get

710
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:18,359
Speaker 3: God out of a problem. This is built into what

711
00:41:18,440 --> 00:41:22,759
Speaker 3: it means to be God. God is infinite, God is

712
00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:26,560
Speaker 3: all knowing. God is eternal. We are finite, limited knowledge,

713
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:30,440
Speaker 3: and temporal. So I don't think we should expect to

714
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:35,040
Speaker 3: know God's ways because of the vast epistemic distance between

715
00:41:35,120 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 3: us and between God. The further thing on random I

716
00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:44,080
Speaker 3: would say is maybe if the highest good, if God exists,

717
00:41:45,080 --> 00:41:49,440
Speaker 3: the highest good is to know God personally and to

718
00:41:49,560 --> 00:41:55,040
Speaker 3: experience eternal life with God. Maybe in a world in

719
00:41:55,080 --> 00:41:58,719
Speaker 3: which we can't always see the patterns, is a reminder

720
00:41:58,840 --> 00:42:01,560
Speaker 3: to all of us us that we can't just trust

721
00:42:01,600 --> 00:42:04,799
Speaker 3: our health, we can't just trust our finances, we can't

722
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:09,279
Speaker 3: dress the government. This world is not eternal and we

723
00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:13,920
Speaker 3: can't control it, and we look beyond ourselves to something eternal.

724
00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:16,880
Speaker 3: So even the rich could get wiped out, even the

725
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:21,320
Speaker 3: powerful could. I think that randomness could The one reason

726
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:23,160
Speaker 3: for that randomness could be that God wants us to

727
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:25,719
Speaker 3: turn to him and our suffering and our pain and

728
00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:31,120
Speaker 3: our evil. That could be one reason why thank you.

729
00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:35,200
Speaker 4: For that on that topic. Does the same go for

730
00:42:36,120 --> 00:42:39,800
Speaker 4: personal suffering that we can encounter that seems cruel and unnecessary,

731
00:42:40,080 --> 00:42:44,840
Speaker 4: like unexpected death or things like that, where it's super

732
00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:49,359
Speaker 4: emotional and painful, and it seems like it's hard to

733
00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:53,520
Speaker 4: justify a good God with pain and sufferings such as

734
00:42:53,719 --> 00:42:54,960
Speaker 4: that on that personal level.

735
00:42:55,760 --> 00:42:59,879
Speaker 3: You're looking at me, Yeah, sorry, So I totally agree

736
00:42:59,920 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 3: with the way that this is framed. There is horrific,

737
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:06,800
Speaker 3: terrible things in the world that all of us, regardless

738
00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:10,680
Speaker 3: of world view, our worldview, hate and wish we could stop.

739
00:43:11,400 --> 00:43:13,640
Speaker 3: But you said it at least twice, you said what

740
00:43:14,200 --> 00:43:16,759
Speaker 3: seem to be a certain way.

741
00:43:17,520 --> 00:43:20,560
Speaker 2: That's the key. We don't always know.

742
00:43:21,360 --> 00:43:24,719
Speaker 3: We don't know what's going on, we don't know what

743
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:27,400
Speaker 3: God is doing, we don't know how it affects other people.

744
00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:32,080
Speaker 3: We can't possibly know nor should we be expected to know.

745
00:43:32,719 --> 00:43:33,800
Speaker 2: So I agree.

746
00:43:33,880 --> 00:43:35,879
Speaker 3: When I look out things, I'm like, I don't get it.

747
00:43:36,200 --> 00:43:39,719
Speaker 2: That makes no sense. That seems crazy. But I have

748
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:41,879
Speaker 2: a limited, finite perspective.

749
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:45,120
Speaker 3: I cannot see, nor should I be expected to see,

750
00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:49,840
Speaker 3: from God's perspective, how he could possibly use something. So

751
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:51,600
Speaker 3: I don't see this as a maybe that's a fifty

752
00:43:51,600 --> 00:43:54,600
Speaker 3: to fifty. I think it's what we would expect if

753
00:43:54,640 --> 00:43:56,040
Speaker 3: there is a God and we're not God.

754
00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:56,959
Speaker 2: So if you come.

755
00:43:56,880 --> 00:43:59,359
Speaker 3: To my house and Paul, we're hanging out having to drink,

756
00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:02,160
Speaker 3: and I'm like, you know, there's a flea in here,

757
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:03,800
Speaker 3: and you're like, I don't see it, Well, you shouldn't

758
00:44:03,800 --> 00:44:05,879
Speaker 3: expect to see a flee But if I said there's

759
00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:09,400
Speaker 3: an elephant and you don't see it, you should expect

760
00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:13,800
Speaker 3: to see the elephant. Should we expect to know all

761
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 3: of God's purposes for even what seems the way you

762
00:44:18,120 --> 00:44:20,799
Speaker 3: described it, I would say no.

763
00:44:21,160 --> 00:44:21,919
Speaker 2: I would say no.

764
00:44:22,719 --> 00:44:27,439
Speaker 1: So let me respond to that the I mean, that's

765
00:44:27,480 --> 00:44:31,000
Speaker 1: true as far as it goes. But the problem that

766
00:44:31,800 --> 00:44:38,000
Speaker 1: creates is that you can't judge whether something would be

767
00:44:38,080 --> 00:44:42,760
Speaker 1: from God because or something is according to God's plan

768
00:44:43,200 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 1: or not, because you kind of throw up your hands

769
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:50,319
Speaker 1: and say, I can't understand how God would would do this.

770
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:53,680
Speaker 1: At that point, I think the intellectually honest thing to

771
00:44:53,719 --> 00:44:58,799
Speaker 1: say is that that is something that argues against the

772
00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:04,719
Speaker 1: existence of a loving, all powerful God, rather than the opposite.

773
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:08,319
Speaker 3: So you said God's plan or God's will. I've read

774
00:45:08,560 --> 00:45:10,080
Speaker 3: all the verses in the Bible.

775
00:45:09,800 --> 00:45:12,839
Speaker 2: That talk about God's will all over the place.

776
00:45:12,600 --> 00:45:17,040
Speaker 3: Whether it's First Estonian's four, whether it's Daniel four, Romans nine,

777
00:45:17,160 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 3: and the Bible talks about God's will on two levels.

778
00:45:19,760 --> 00:45:21,880
Speaker 2: One is God's moral will.

779
00:45:22,520 --> 00:45:26,239
Speaker 3: Honor our parents, tell the truth, care for the poor,

780
00:45:26,960 --> 00:45:31,719
Speaker 3: care for widows, do just things. I'm reading the Old

781
00:45:31,760 --> 00:45:33,479
Speaker 3: Testament prophets right now and.

782
00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:36,319
Speaker 2: Over and over again. It's like God gets so.

783
00:45:36,440 --> 00:45:39,680
Speaker 3: Angry because people are taking advantage of widows, taking advantage

784
00:45:39,719 --> 00:45:42,840
Speaker 3: of poor, not being humble and just and loving.

785
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:43,600
Speaker 2: That's God's will.

786
00:45:43,640 --> 00:45:47,319
Speaker 3: Second is God's sovereign will, which we don't understand and

787
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:49,000
Speaker 3: we never could understand.

788
00:45:49,480 --> 00:45:51,320
Speaker 2: That's what it means to be God.

789
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:54,239
Speaker 3: So God's sovereign will can give us trust that God

790
00:45:54,360 --> 00:45:58,640
Speaker 3: is moving the world in ways towards his good. But

791
00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:02,360
Speaker 3: when it comes to God's will. It's clear in scripture

792
00:46:02,400 --> 00:46:06,520
Speaker 3: that we are supposed to do good things and then

793
00:46:06,680 --> 00:46:09,320
Speaker 3: trust God with the results from that. So I don't

794
00:46:09,440 --> 00:46:11,960
Speaker 3: see why that flips the point that I made on

795
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:14,200
Speaker 3: my head in this argument against the existence of God.

796
00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:18,040
Speaker 1: I get the distinction between I was referring to God's

797
00:46:18,080 --> 00:46:22,480
Speaker 1: sovereign will with if you kind of wall off God's

798
00:46:22,480 --> 00:46:24,640
Speaker 1: sovereign will and say, you can, guys say it could

799
00:46:24,640 --> 00:46:27,640
Speaker 1: be anything. That that is. God could be the most

800
00:46:27,680 --> 00:46:32,359
Speaker 1: evil God imaginable, and his sovereign will would be beyond

801
00:46:32,120 --> 00:46:35,840
Speaker 1: our judgment. We couldn't say that, you know, we couldn't

802
00:46:35,840 --> 00:46:38,960
Speaker 1: say that it was good or bad. That I think

803
00:46:40,080 --> 00:46:43,520
Speaker 1: is a wall that prevents you from making a using

804
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:47,200
Speaker 1: your judgment and making a determination and accepting that, hey,

805
00:46:47,440 --> 00:46:48,319
Speaker 1: this doesn't fit.

806
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:51,239
Speaker 3: This could take us a little aside. But I don't

807
00:46:51,239 --> 00:46:53,239
Speaker 3: know what it means to say an evil God. If

808
00:46:53,320 --> 00:46:56,080
Speaker 3: evil is a corruption of good and depends upon the

809
00:46:56,120 --> 00:47:00,520
Speaker 3: existence of good and evil, God would require a standard

810
00:47:00,520 --> 00:47:05,800
Speaker 3: this God is corrupting above itself, that actually would be God,

811
00:47:05,920 --> 00:47:08,239
Speaker 3: so to speak. So I don't know what that evil

812
00:47:08,280 --> 00:47:11,040
Speaker 3: God would mean. But if there were such a being,

813
00:47:11,040 --> 00:47:12,959
Speaker 3: I have no interest in defending that God. I'm talking

814
00:47:12,960 --> 00:47:16,160
Speaker 3: about the Christian God and how it makes sense of

815
00:47:16,200 --> 00:47:19,799
Speaker 3: the sovereign will. So that's a fair objection to another perspective,

816
00:47:19,880 --> 00:47:22,360
Speaker 3: but I don't think would address mine.

817
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:23,160
Speaker 2: If that's fair.

818
00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:24,359
Speaker 1: We move on.

819
00:47:26,120 --> 00:47:29,160
Speaker 4: Transitioning into a little bit more of a hopeful perspective.

820
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:35,400
Speaker 4: How do you, guys, find hope amidst the pain and suffering?

821
00:47:35,960 --> 00:47:41,000
Speaker 4: And does your justification of God not knowing and kind

822
00:47:41,040 --> 00:47:44,319
Speaker 4: of the God knowing more than we would, does that

823
00:47:44,440 --> 00:47:47,799
Speaker 4: give you hope in what ways? How you can kind

824
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:51,400
Speaker 4: of I guess grapple with that because it seems like

825
00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:53,840
Speaker 4: some people would say, oh, that's not enough to just

826
00:47:53,840 --> 00:47:56,200
Speaker 4: say that I don't know or that God knows more

827
00:47:56,239 --> 00:47:58,239
Speaker 4: than me. But I guess for both of you, guys,

828
00:47:58,239 --> 00:48:00,760
Speaker 4: how do you find hope amidst this pain and suffering?

829
00:48:03,600 --> 00:48:05,560
Speaker 2: Sure? I'd be happy to so.

830
00:48:06,239 --> 00:48:09,960
Speaker 3: In John sixteen thirty three, Jesus says, in this world

831
00:48:10,000 --> 00:48:14,560
Speaker 3: you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome

832
00:48:15,200 --> 00:48:19,640
Speaker 3: the world. I really believe that Jesus lived and died

833
00:48:20,080 --> 00:48:23,520
Speaker 3: and rose again on the third Day and defeated sin

834
00:48:24,040 --> 00:48:25,840
Speaker 3: and death has already been defeated.

835
00:48:26,440 --> 00:48:27,920
Speaker 2: I believe that that's a separate topic.

836
00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:32,239
Speaker 3: Obviously we're not having tonight, But that gives me hope.

837
00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:35,320
Speaker 3: That gives me confidence that in the midst of suffering,

838
00:48:35,360 --> 00:48:39,040
Speaker 3: when I don't know why it's happening, and it seems

839
00:48:39,200 --> 00:48:42,920
Speaker 3: agreedious the way you're describing it, that God is sovereign

840
00:48:42,960 --> 00:48:46,880
Speaker 3: and he's good, and he's already shown that death doesn't

841
00:48:46,960 --> 00:48:51,520
Speaker 3: have the last word. So because I think God exists

842
00:48:51,640 --> 00:48:54,880
Speaker 3: and I believe that God is good, that gives me

843
00:48:55,000 --> 00:48:58,600
Speaker 3: hope when I'm suffering. I get hope from other believers

844
00:48:58,640 --> 00:49:01,279
Speaker 3: who have suffered. Well right now, some of you have

845
00:49:01,360 --> 00:49:04,760
Speaker 3: maybe seen Ben Sass former University of the University President,

846
00:49:04,840 --> 00:49:09,560
Speaker 3: University of Florida, senator from Nebraska, dying of pan created cancer,

847
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:13,239
Speaker 3: was given three months to live, and he's out there

848
00:49:13,280 --> 00:49:15,600
Speaker 3: talking about how he believes in Jesus and he gave

849
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:17,480
Speaker 3: him a hope and a peace when he has a

850
00:49:17,520 --> 00:49:19,640
Speaker 3: death sentence. He did an interview with New York Times

851
00:49:19,719 --> 00:49:22,440
Speaker 3: ross doubt it and he's bleeding all over his face

852
00:49:22,560 --> 00:49:26,040
Speaker 3: and he's like, I'm going to see my Savior and

853
00:49:26,200 --> 00:49:28,919
Speaker 3: Jesus has risen from the grave. So I get hope

854
00:49:28,920 --> 00:49:32,040
Speaker 3: from believing that and looking at other Christians who suffer well,

855
00:49:32,480 --> 00:49:34,040
Speaker 3: and I also get hope at the times in my life.

856
00:49:34,080 --> 00:49:35,719
Speaker 3: I'm getting old enough to look back and be like

857
00:49:35,800 --> 00:49:39,799
Speaker 3: at times when things seem ridiculous and the pain was

858
00:49:39,840 --> 00:49:42,520
Speaker 3: so overbearing and I didn't understand why God allowed it,

859
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:46,399
Speaker 3: I'm able to more so look back and see it now.

860
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:50,160
Speaker 3: Sometimes God heals and sometimes God doesn't. But I thought

861
00:49:50,200 --> 00:49:52,320
Speaker 3: of this right now. I'm literally dropping the video Friday

862
00:49:52,360 --> 00:49:55,759
Speaker 3: of a neuroscientist who had a He was told your

863
00:49:55,800 --> 00:49:58,120
Speaker 3: life is going to end. You have a terminal disease.

864
00:49:58,200 --> 00:50:02,319
Speaker 3: He prayed and experienced a super natural healing. Now, the

865
00:50:02,360 --> 00:50:05,320
Speaker 3: Bible doesn't promise God will always do that, but sometimes

866
00:50:05,320 --> 00:50:09,120
Speaker 3: he does, and that gives me hope when I see

867
00:50:09,160 --> 00:50:11,440
Speaker 3: when I suffer and see other people suffering.

868
00:50:11,800 --> 00:50:15,040
Speaker 1: I have a question, Sure, would you say that you

869
00:50:16,160 --> 00:50:19,920
Speaker 1: experience any other type of hope besides what you get

870
00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:21,880
Speaker 1: from Christianity.

871
00:50:23,280 --> 00:50:24,399
Speaker 2: Any other kind of hope?

872
00:50:24,520 --> 00:50:24,719
Speaker 1: Yeah?

873
00:50:25,960 --> 00:50:26,960
Speaker 2: Sure, I mean it's.

874
00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:30,160
Speaker 3: Not my supreme, my ultimate hope, but I have hope.

875
00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:32,839
Speaker 3: I mean politically, at times, I'm like, I've got hope

876
00:50:32,840 --> 00:50:33,399
Speaker 3: in this guy.

877
00:50:33,560 --> 00:50:36,040
Speaker 2: Sure, I mean, we're obviously not going there.

878
00:50:36,560 --> 00:50:39,160
Speaker 3: I have hope in certain scientific research that they're going

879
00:50:39,200 --> 00:50:40,040
Speaker 3: to discover things.

880
00:50:40,440 --> 00:50:42,120
Speaker 2: I have some hope in AI.

881
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:45,600
Speaker 3: I have some concern, but AI has been used to

882
00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:48,839
Speaker 3: solve certain diseases they found. So sure there's other things

883
00:50:48,880 --> 00:50:52,200
Speaker 3: I find hope. But my deepest hope that gives me

884
00:50:52,320 --> 00:50:56,120
Speaker 3: meaning one percent found in who I think Jesus is

885
00:50:56,160 --> 00:50:58,719
Speaker 3: and the fact that He's raised for me slave.

886
00:50:58,840 --> 00:51:01,360
Speaker 1: So I think that's something else that not only you

887
00:51:01,440 --> 00:51:03,200
Speaker 1: and I would agree on, but probably you and other

888
00:51:03,239 --> 00:51:06,120
Speaker 1: atheists would agree with all that other type of hope.

889
00:51:06,360 --> 00:51:08,680
Speaker 1: So all that other type of hope, beyond the hope

890
00:51:08,680 --> 00:51:12,560
Speaker 1: you get from Christianity, is the hope that atheists have,

891
00:51:12,800 --> 00:51:17,640
Speaker 1: which probably everybody has. The Christianity stuff just gets slathered

892
00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:21,919
Speaker 1: on top of it. So sure atheists have all those

893
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:25,760
Speaker 1: similar types of hopes that everybody has.

894
00:51:26,760 --> 00:51:29,000
Speaker 3: Can I see, how do you think about? Like I

895
00:51:29,000 --> 00:51:32,360
Speaker 3: asked myself this question sometimes, what's more powerful?

896
00:51:32,480 --> 00:51:34,400
Speaker 2: Death or love?

897
00:51:36,440 --> 00:51:40,120
Speaker 3: If Christianity's true love is more powerful, If atheism is

898
00:51:40,160 --> 00:51:42,000
Speaker 3: true death is more powerful.

899
00:51:42,040 --> 00:51:44,319
Speaker 1: Off to doctor Freud about that, he'd have something to

900
00:51:44,360 --> 00:51:44,840
Speaker 1: say about it.

901
00:51:44,960 --> 00:51:47,160
Speaker 3: I wish I could talk to doctor Freud about that.

902
00:51:47,280 --> 00:51:51,600
Speaker 3: But what gives you hope? I mean, basically, philosophy throughout

903
00:51:51,600 --> 00:51:54,839
Speaker 3: the history of the world is about dealing with and

904
00:51:54,880 --> 00:52:00,640
Speaker 3: confronting death. So government AI, all those things run out

905
00:52:01,520 --> 00:52:05,040
Speaker 3: when you face death. What gives you hope or confidence

906
00:52:05,600 --> 00:52:06,479
Speaker 3: as you face death?

907
00:52:08,080 --> 00:52:10,719
Speaker 1: The only well, I don't have any hope for the afterlife.

908
00:52:11,280 --> 00:52:16,719
Speaker 1: So but that's okay, So I guess you brought it up.

909
00:52:16,760 --> 00:52:22,800
Speaker 1: I'll go there. You have three options. You can change something,

910
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:27,000
Speaker 1: you can accept it, or you suffer. And one of

911
00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:29,279
Speaker 1: the things people suffer the most about is the fear

912
00:52:29,280 --> 00:52:34,080
Speaker 1: of death. And if you live long enough, you can

913
00:52:34,120 --> 00:52:38,719
Speaker 1: come to accept it. You can't change it. So if

914
00:52:38,760 --> 00:52:40,399
Speaker 1: you're not going to change it and you're not going

915
00:52:40,440 --> 00:52:42,640
Speaker 1: to accept it, your only hope is to suffer about it.

916
00:52:43,120 --> 00:52:46,600
Speaker 1: And if you come to accept it. This is just

917
00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:50,040
Speaker 1: the cards. You know, you're not going to get six

918
00:52:50,520 --> 00:52:54,839
Speaker 1: jokers in a card to five stud poker. That's just

919
00:52:55,040 --> 00:52:58,000
Speaker 1: that's not what the game is. The game here is

920
00:52:58,000 --> 00:53:00,720
Speaker 1: that we're not going to live forever. So well, once

921
00:53:00,760 --> 00:53:02,840
Speaker 1: you accept it, and it's a hard thing to accept

922
00:53:02,920 --> 00:53:06,480
Speaker 1: because evolution has created us to want to live. We

923
00:53:06,480 --> 00:53:09,480
Speaker 1: wouldn't be here that didn't create us like that. It's

924
00:53:09,520 --> 00:53:12,720
Speaker 1: a hard thing to accept, but it's possible think about

925
00:53:13,160 --> 00:53:15,319
Speaker 1: and I'll bet you you can do this too. You

926
00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:18,000
Speaker 1: think about a really bad thing that happened in your

927
00:53:18,080 --> 00:53:21,239
Speaker 1: life that made you suffer. Have you eventually come to

928
00:53:21,320 --> 00:53:23,920
Speaker 1: accept it? I mean I can think of things in

929
00:53:23,960 --> 00:53:26,920
Speaker 1: my life. Yeah, you can eventually come to accept it.

930
00:53:27,000 --> 00:53:30,120
Speaker 1: You understand this is just what the reality is. And actually,

931
00:53:30,120 --> 00:53:33,360
Speaker 1: whether you believe in an afterlife or not, you still

932
00:53:33,880 --> 00:53:38,000
Speaker 1: have to accept that death in this life is going

933
00:53:38,080 --> 00:53:42,640
Speaker 1: to happen. And even religious people apparently aren't happy about that.

934
00:53:42,760 --> 00:53:45,200
Speaker 1: Although if you got the afterlife, why does it matter

935
00:53:45,600 --> 00:53:49,960
Speaker 1: so much? But even religious people have to learn to

936
00:53:50,040 --> 00:53:55,440
Speaker 1: accept that death. That's something everybody has to do. I

937
00:53:55,480 --> 00:53:57,120
Speaker 1: wish you luck you can do it.

938
00:53:58,480 --> 00:54:01,960
Speaker 4: Thank you both. Before I give the floor for the

939
00:54:02,040 --> 00:54:04,840
Speaker 4: last question. This is the time for the audience to

940
00:54:05,440 --> 00:54:08,160
Speaker 4: scan the QR code, to go on Slido to submit

941
00:54:08,200 --> 00:54:13,560
Speaker 4: your questions for our speakers and for you guys. Do

942
00:54:13,600 --> 00:54:17,280
Speaker 4: you have any wisdom for us cal Poly students about

943
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:19,440
Speaker 4: how to maintain hope in the midst of a trial

944
00:54:19,960 --> 00:54:21,359
Speaker 4: or a tough period of time in life.

945
00:54:22,320 --> 00:54:25,760
Speaker 1: Well, Humility says, I'm not going to give you any wisdom,

946
00:54:26,160 --> 00:54:33,040
Speaker 1: but I can say something. So if you hope that

947
00:54:33,080 --> 00:54:37,280
Speaker 1: you're going to do well on a midterm. Don't hope

948
00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:45,360
Speaker 1: study walk into that midterm knowing, Hey saying I know

949
00:54:45,440 --> 00:54:47,600
Speaker 1: that material because I studied on it. I don't have

950
00:54:47,640 --> 00:54:49,080
Speaker 1: to hope that I'm going to do good on it.

951
00:54:50,400 --> 00:54:53,279
Speaker 1: I know I can. And if we for anything that

952
00:54:53,320 --> 00:54:55,920
Speaker 1: we hope for in the world, to make a better society,

953
00:54:55,960 --> 00:54:59,520
Speaker 1: to have better laws, to have better politicians in office,

954
00:54:59,760 --> 00:55:05,319
Speaker 1: to have better friends, friendships, whatever it is, of course

955
00:55:05,360 --> 00:55:08,080
Speaker 1: everybody hopes good things are going to happen. I hope,

956
00:55:08,080 --> 00:55:11,759
Speaker 1: I hope I win the lottery, but do something about it.

957
00:55:11,800 --> 00:55:13,840
Speaker 1: I'm not saying go out and buy a lottery ticket,

958
00:55:14,360 --> 00:55:16,560
Speaker 1: don't do that. But for the things that are important,

959
00:55:16,640 --> 00:55:19,359
Speaker 1: it's it's more important to do something about it than

960
00:55:20,440 --> 00:55:22,800
Speaker 1: merely to hope that it's that it's going to happen.

961
00:55:25,400 --> 00:55:27,719
Speaker 3: Part of the nature of this dialogue is about pain

962
00:55:27,800 --> 00:55:30,279
Speaker 3: and suffering and how we make sense of it. There's

963
00:55:30,320 --> 00:55:32,320
Speaker 3: a new book that just came out I ordered and

964
00:55:32,320 --> 00:55:35,160
Speaker 3: I'm working through it. It's called Tell Me Where It Hurts,

965
00:55:35,640 --> 00:55:41,160
Speaker 3: by neuroscientists and the native doctor Zoftness, and she describes

966
00:55:41,200 --> 00:55:43,160
Speaker 3: how there's been Maybe you could use the term of

967
00:55:43,200 --> 00:55:46,759
Speaker 3: revolution in neuroscience. We used to look at pain as

968
00:55:47,040 --> 00:55:51,000
Speaker 3: mechanistic and physicalist, like if a car's broken, fix the

969
00:55:51,040 --> 00:55:53,920
Speaker 3: door for the house is broken broken, fix it physically.

970
00:55:54,520 --> 00:55:58,080
Speaker 3: But now we have a much more multi dimensional, you

971
00:55:58,160 --> 00:56:05,400
Speaker 3: might say, holistic approach that involves body and soul to

972
00:56:05,480 --> 00:56:10,839
Speaker 3: be a healthy person. So pain comes from things like

973
00:56:11,080 --> 00:56:13,440
Speaker 3: trauma in the past, stories we remember all the way

974
00:56:13,440 --> 00:56:14,160
Speaker 3: back in third grade.

975
00:56:14,200 --> 00:56:14,800
Speaker 2: That's amazing.

976
00:56:14,840 --> 00:56:19,399
Speaker 3: You remember that it comes from our emotions, It comes

977
00:56:19,440 --> 00:56:25,160
Speaker 3: from our experiences, and the stories we tell us deeply

978
00:56:25,440 --> 00:56:28,279
Speaker 3: shapes our pain. So in the books she describes, you

979
00:56:28,360 --> 00:56:31,880
Speaker 3: find this fascinating pulse. Is this at this construction site,

980
00:56:31,960 --> 00:56:35,280
Speaker 3: this guy who's working jumps off a four foot ledge,

981
00:56:36,000 --> 00:56:39,560
Speaker 3: lands on a nail on his boot and start shrinking

982
00:56:39,840 --> 00:56:44,280
Speaker 3: in pain. Rush him to the hospital, give him pain

983
00:56:44,520 --> 00:56:46,160
Speaker 3: like anesthesia.

984
00:56:45,520 --> 00:56:46,680
Speaker 2: To deal with it.

985
00:56:46,760 --> 00:56:49,560
Speaker 3: They take off the boot and the nail went through

986
00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:53,040
Speaker 3: his toes, didn't even hit him. What triggered is his

987
00:56:53,120 --> 00:56:58,880
Speaker 3: pain was the expectation the people around him, previous experience.

988
00:56:59,280 --> 00:57:01,080
Speaker 3: And then it took another other person from a construction

989
00:57:01,200 --> 00:57:05,440
Speaker 3: site and shot a nail gun and this person saw

990
00:57:05,800 --> 00:57:09,480
Speaker 3: the nail go and disappear. But then later on over

991
00:57:09,520 --> 00:57:12,840
Speaker 3: the next few days, started feeling jaw pain, just didn't

992
00:57:12,840 --> 00:57:15,160
Speaker 3: feel right. Went to the doctor and the nail was

993
00:57:15,200 --> 00:57:18,560
Speaker 3: embedded in his jaw, but he didn't feel it because

994
00:57:18,560 --> 00:57:20,920
Speaker 3: he was convinced that he had seen feel it as

995
00:57:20,960 --> 00:57:24,000
Speaker 3: badly he had seen the nail go elsewhere.

996
00:57:24,920 --> 00:57:26,840
Speaker 2: The point is, pain is.

997
00:57:26,760 --> 00:57:30,560
Speaker 3: Not just physical. It's the beliefs that we have. It's

998
00:57:30,600 --> 00:57:33,960
Speaker 3: the stories that we tell us, which does help us.

999
00:57:33,960 --> 00:57:35,960
Speaker 3: Weigh into animal pain a little bit. I know that

1000
00:57:36,000 --> 00:57:37,800
Speaker 3: would take us aside, but so much of the pain

1001
00:57:37,840 --> 00:57:40,600
Speaker 3: we have is not just our physical bodies, but the despair,

1002
00:57:40,960 --> 00:57:45,120
Speaker 3: the hopelessness, the lies that we tell ourselves. Now this

1003
00:57:45,240 --> 00:57:48,120
Speaker 3: revolution neuroscientist. Of course I'm a Christian, so I'm gonnaterpret

1004
00:57:48,200 --> 00:57:49,920
Speaker 3: this way. I'm like, yeah, this is what we'd expect

1005
00:57:50,160 --> 00:57:53,880
Speaker 3: because we are body and we are soul. This is

1006
00:57:53,880 --> 00:57:56,960
Speaker 3: why Paul can write a letter called Philippians from a

1007
00:57:56,960 --> 00:58:03,080
Speaker 3: Philippian jail about joy, because as our circumstances don't determine us.

1008
00:58:03,840 --> 00:58:07,560
Speaker 3: And as a Christian, I really believe that there's purpose

1009
00:58:07,720 --> 00:58:12,080
Speaker 3: in your suffering. God will walk us through our suffering.

1010
00:58:12,520 --> 00:58:16,200
Speaker 3: There's eternal life. So why one Peter five seven says

1011
00:58:16,280 --> 00:58:21,200
Speaker 3: cast all your anxiety upon him. It's actually care for

1012
00:58:21,280 --> 00:58:25,800
Speaker 3: our bodies. But our beliefs about these things can help

1013
00:58:25,920 --> 00:58:29,040
Speaker 3: us deal with pain and suffering. And that's why I

1014
00:58:29,040 --> 00:58:32,360
Speaker 3: think some of the beliefs that Jesus offered line up

1015
00:58:32,400 --> 00:58:36,400
Speaker 3: with believe it or not, the Human Flourishing Project beliefs

1016
00:58:36,480 --> 00:58:40,120
Speaker 3: in like gratitude, which the Scripture is full of, commanding

1017
00:58:40,640 --> 00:58:44,200
Speaker 3: you flourish most as a human being as a sense

1018
00:58:44,320 --> 00:58:47,000
Speaker 3: of gratitude. So if you want to deal with pain

1019
00:58:47,080 --> 00:58:49,240
Speaker 3: hurting your life and culture this, care for your bodies,

1020
00:58:49,920 --> 00:58:54,600
Speaker 3: but also care for your souls because we're both.

1021
00:58:57,960 --> 00:59:00,480
Speaker 4: Thank you both for that. I'm gonna ask a few

1022
00:59:00,560 --> 00:59:02,920
Speaker 4: questions that have been submitted in the slide out from

1023
00:59:02,920 --> 00:59:09,240
Speaker 4: our audience. Our first one is towards you, what is

1024
00:59:09,280 --> 00:59:11,800
Speaker 4: the purpose of life for an atheist?

1025
00:59:12,440 --> 00:59:15,040
Speaker 1: Ah? The purpose of life? Well, that's an easy question.

1026
00:59:16,920 --> 00:59:26,479
Speaker 1: So there may not be one that is unless it's

1027
00:59:26,720 --> 00:59:31,000
Speaker 1: given from beyond you. You have to make it yourself.

1028
00:59:31,600 --> 00:59:36,160
Speaker 1: And well, I guess I'm speaking from my perspective. I

1029
00:59:36,160 --> 00:59:38,840
Speaker 1: guess that's all I can do. But I'm really happy

1030
00:59:38,880 --> 00:59:41,760
Speaker 1: I get to make my own purpose. I get to

1031
00:59:41,840 --> 00:59:45,040
Speaker 1: determine what sort of person do I want to be?

1032
00:59:45,440 --> 00:59:49,080
Speaker 1: Within limits. That is, I'm still evolution constructs me in

1033
00:59:49,600 --> 00:59:52,760
Speaker 1: a certain way that limits that. But within those limits,

1034
00:59:52,840 --> 00:59:55,080
Speaker 1: I get to decide what type of person do I

1035
00:59:55,160 --> 00:59:56,600
Speaker 1: want to be? What do I want to do with

1036
00:59:56,640 --> 00:59:59,360
Speaker 1: my life? I have a finite time on earth. How

1037
00:59:59,440 --> 01:00:01,960
Speaker 1: do I want to spend it? You can create your

1038
01:00:01,960 --> 01:00:06,640
Speaker 1: own purpose, and in fact, religious people do that as

1039
01:00:06,680 --> 01:00:15,400
Speaker 1: well as atheists. So the purpose of life? Actually, it

1040
01:00:15,440 --> 01:00:17,720
Speaker 1: just occurs to me that I answered the question what's

1041
01:00:17,760 --> 01:00:21,960
Speaker 1: the purpose to a life? That's the question I really answered.

1042
01:00:23,080 --> 01:00:25,400
Speaker 1: The purpose of life is actually to go on living.

1043
01:00:25,640 --> 01:00:28,440
Speaker 1: I mean that again. An evolution is constructed life to

1044
01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:34,720
Speaker 1: build organisms that will leave descendants, so that they can

1045
01:00:34,800 --> 01:00:39,200
Speaker 1: leave descendants, and that's why life exists. The purpose of

1046
01:00:39,240 --> 01:00:43,360
Speaker 1: life is to live. The purpose of a life is

1047
01:00:43,760 --> 01:00:47,120
Speaker 1: your own choosing, and that's a beautiful that's a great thing.

1048
01:00:47,240 --> 01:00:49,520
Speaker 1: Go for it. Make your life what you want it

1049
01:00:49,560 --> 01:00:49,880
Speaker 1: to be.

1050
01:00:52,000 --> 01:00:53,600
Speaker 4: Sean, would you like to respond to that at all?

1051
01:00:54,640 --> 01:00:54,920
Speaker 1: Sure?

1052
01:00:55,440 --> 01:00:56,840
Speaker 2: Thank you for that response.

1053
01:00:57,600 --> 01:01:02,800
Speaker 3: I think I would say, if a naturalistic evolutionary account

1054
01:01:03,080 --> 01:01:08,040
Speaker 3: is true, you're absolutely right. There is no objective purpose

1055
01:01:08,320 --> 01:01:11,880
Speaker 3: to life. We might feel that we should care for

1056
01:01:11,920 --> 01:01:14,600
Speaker 3: our neighbors or do good or tell the truth. But

1057
01:01:14,720 --> 01:01:18,640
Speaker 3: this is, as Michael Ruth says, a trick played upon

1058
01:01:18,760 --> 01:01:22,320
Speaker 3: us by our biology to get us to behave to

1059
01:01:22,440 --> 01:01:26,360
Speaker 3: pass on our genes into the next generation. So if

1060
01:01:26,400 --> 01:01:29,880
Speaker 3: that's the case, and we're talking about a life is

1061
01:01:29,880 --> 01:01:34,360
Speaker 3: what you choose, then no life is objectively better than

1062
01:01:34,440 --> 01:01:36,959
Speaker 3: any other life.

1063
01:01:37,040 --> 01:01:39,040
Speaker 2: My question is do you really believe that.

1064
01:01:40,200 --> 01:01:45,200
Speaker 3: Do you believe that Hitler's life was not objectively worse

1065
01:01:45,880 --> 01:01:49,400
Speaker 3: than Mother Teresa's life spent caring for the poor and

1066
01:01:49,560 --> 01:01:55,400
Speaker 3: marginalized and sacrificing for them. My suspicion is God agrees

1067
01:01:55,440 --> 01:01:59,040
Speaker 3: the lights came on. I mean, my goodness, I'm just kidding.

1068
01:02:00,320 --> 01:02:02,200
Speaker 2: My evidence. Don't write that one off.

1069
01:02:03,320 --> 01:02:07,880
Speaker 3: I think all of us know that there's better ways

1070
01:02:07,920 --> 01:02:11,520
Speaker 3: to live life than other ways. I mean, if our

1071
01:02:11,600 --> 01:02:13,680
Speaker 3: sense of morality is just tricked in us by evolution,

1072
01:02:13,760 --> 01:02:15,880
Speaker 3: and somebody says, well, my purpose is I do want

1073
01:02:15,880 --> 01:02:22,440
Speaker 3: to torture kids for pleasure? Is not doing something objectively wrong.

1074
01:02:23,280 --> 01:02:26,640
Speaker 3: I think we all know that's wrong, which means there's

1075
01:02:26,640 --> 01:02:30,280
Speaker 3: something right which cries out for a bigger explanation.

1076
01:02:30,600 --> 01:02:31,400
Speaker 2: That's how I see it.

1077
01:02:31,400 --> 01:02:34,720
Speaker 3: So my personal life is to love God, love others.

1078
01:02:35,080 --> 01:02:38,760
Speaker 1: We got we touched. We just skipped over the issue

1079
01:02:38,760 --> 01:02:41,880
Speaker 1: of objective reality last time we talked, and that it

1080
01:02:41,880 --> 01:02:43,640
Speaker 1: looks like we're going to have to do it again.

1081
01:02:45,880 --> 01:02:50,360
Speaker 1: All I can say is that there once you accept

1082
01:02:50,400 --> 01:02:53,439
Speaker 1: what morality is, which is concerned for the well being

1083
01:02:53,480 --> 01:02:55,880
Speaker 1: of conscious creatures, and if it's not about that, then

1084
01:02:56,080 --> 01:02:58,840
Speaker 1: I don't know what it's about. Once you accept that,

1085
01:02:58,920 --> 01:03:03,520
Speaker 1: then there are objective things, things that you can objectively

1086
01:03:03,560 --> 01:03:09,280
Speaker 1: say that will enhance well being of conscious creatures and

1087
01:03:09,480 --> 01:03:12,920
Speaker 1: things that will degrade it. And the things that enhance

1088
01:03:13,000 --> 01:03:15,080
Speaker 1: it are the things that are morally good, and the

1089
01:03:15,080 --> 01:03:18,720
Speaker 1: things that degrade it are the things that are morally bad. Objectively,

1090
01:03:18,800 --> 01:03:21,840
Speaker 1: you can say that lots of gray area in the middle,

1091
01:03:21,960 --> 01:03:26,280
Speaker 1: but that's true for any moral system. So there can

1092
01:03:26,320 --> 01:03:31,840
Speaker 1: be objective morality in an atheistic worldview, if.

1093
01:03:33,120 --> 01:03:37,120
Speaker 3: Right, that we have objective duties to other beings and

1094
01:03:37,200 --> 01:03:38,560
Speaker 3: moral obligations to them.

1095
01:03:38,800 --> 01:03:43,520
Speaker 1: No, my trumise was morality is about the well being

1096
01:03:43,600 --> 01:03:46,920
Speaker 1: of conscious creatures. That's the definition of what morality is.

1097
01:03:47,080 --> 01:03:50,440
Speaker 1: And if it's is morality about anything besides that?

1098
01:03:52,760 --> 01:03:55,360
Speaker 3: So I think morality is about ethics. It's about right

1099
01:03:55,440 --> 01:03:57,840
Speaker 3: and wrong, what we should do, what we shouldn't do.

1100
01:03:58,720 --> 01:04:01,280
Speaker 3: And so the question is do I have a moral

1101
01:04:01,360 --> 01:04:07,040
Speaker 3: obligation to care for other beings that have evolved. It's

1102
01:04:07,120 --> 01:04:09,080
Speaker 3: kind of begging the question by saying, well, this is

1103
01:04:09,080 --> 01:04:12,680
Speaker 3: what morality is, so we therefore have objections to other

1104
01:04:12,960 --> 01:04:16,960
Speaker 3: organisms and we can objectively assess it. That's something that

1105
01:04:17,040 --> 01:04:19,480
Speaker 3: has to be ground and explain. Not just to find

1106
01:04:19,520 --> 01:04:20,800
Speaker 3: into existence is not.

1107
01:04:20,800 --> 01:04:25,200
Speaker 1: What morality is. It's what morality is about. The content

1108
01:04:25,280 --> 01:04:29,480
Speaker 1: of morality is concerned for the well being of conscious creatures.

1109
01:04:30,000 --> 01:04:32,920
Speaker 1: If that's true, and if it's not, I'm waiting to

1110
01:04:32,960 --> 01:04:35,680
Speaker 1: hear what it possibly could be about other than that.

1111
01:04:36,320 --> 01:04:38,840
Speaker 1: If that's true, then their objective things you can say

1112
01:04:38,840 --> 01:04:41,800
Speaker 1: that will answer degrade the well being of conscious creatures.

1113
01:04:42,400 --> 01:04:44,160
Speaker 3: Okay, so I think we're gonna go round around in this.

1114
01:04:44,320 --> 01:04:45,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, but if next year.

1115
01:04:47,680 --> 01:04:50,320
Speaker 2: I'm down, let's do it. We'll let that one go

1116
01:04:50,480 --> 01:04:50,880
Speaker 2: fair enough.

1117
01:04:50,920 --> 01:04:54,280
Speaker 4: Yeah, Okay, this question is for both of you. Why

1118
01:04:54,280 --> 01:04:58,080
Speaker 4: should we pursue justice or empathy when suffering seems endless?

1119
01:05:01,360 --> 01:05:06,600
Speaker 3: Go ahead, don't let what you can't control stop you

1120
01:05:06,680 --> 01:05:11,960
Speaker 3: from what you can control. If everybody is like, well

1121
01:05:12,240 --> 01:05:16,520
Speaker 3: I can't do everything, so I'll do nothing, then more

1122
01:05:16,880 --> 01:05:18,840
Speaker 3: people will suffer.

1123
01:05:20,320 --> 01:05:21,920
Speaker 2: Of course, we can't do everything.

1124
01:05:22,360 --> 01:05:25,200
Speaker 3: You and I agree, like so much of life is

1125
01:05:25,320 --> 01:05:29,960
Speaker 3: like realizing what can I do and being content with that.

1126
01:05:30,800 --> 01:05:32,960
Speaker 3: In some ways, I say, I thank God the people

1127
01:05:32,960 --> 01:05:35,360
Speaker 3: in my life who've been kind to me, who've been

1128
01:05:35,400 --> 01:05:38,920
Speaker 3: gracious to me. They didn't say, well, you know what,

1129
01:05:39,000 --> 01:05:41,919
Speaker 3: I can't stop all evil, so I'm not even gonna

1130
01:05:41,920 --> 01:05:44,920
Speaker 3: help John. All of us in some way, here are

1131
01:05:44,960 --> 01:05:48,920
Speaker 3: the recipients of somebody who did an act of kindness

1132
01:05:49,360 --> 01:05:53,280
Speaker 3: or courage or bravery or justice to us.

1133
01:05:53,640 --> 01:05:54,800
Speaker 2: Now, why does this matter for you?

1134
01:05:54,840 --> 01:05:56,520
Speaker 3: When I was a college student, there was like a

1135
01:05:56,520 --> 01:05:59,080
Speaker 3: season where I was like paralyzed in the sense of

1136
01:05:59,120 --> 01:06:00,120
Speaker 3: like what am I gonna.

1137
01:05:59,880 --> 01:06:01,040
Speaker 2: Do my life?

1138
01:06:01,120 --> 01:06:04,840
Speaker 3: And read a book by a former US president who said,

1139
01:06:04,840 --> 01:06:06,080
Speaker 3: if you try to figure out what you want during

1140
01:06:06,040 --> 01:06:09,240
Speaker 3: in your life, find a way that you can make

1141
01:06:09,440 --> 01:06:13,560
Speaker 3: somebody else's life better. And I was like, A, that

1142
01:06:13,760 --> 01:06:17,760
Speaker 3: is so simple. B that's profound. Because I think God

1143
01:06:17,840 --> 01:06:21,160
Speaker 3: has wired us in a way that we actually love

1144
01:06:21,240 --> 01:06:22,520
Speaker 3: him and love others.

1145
01:06:23,160 --> 01:06:25,080
Speaker 2: We actually flourish better.

1146
01:06:26,200 --> 01:06:30,200
Speaker 3: Our cultures obsessed with think about yourself, live for yourself,

1147
01:06:30,680 --> 01:06:35,200
Speaker 3: be happy, define yourself, and during that ethos, it's like

1148
01:06:35,480 --> 01:06:38,840
Speaker 3: depression and anxiety and loneliness are going off the charts.

1149
01:06:39,880 --> 01:06:41,400
Speaker 3: But if you just say, you know what, I want

1150
01:06:41,400 --> 01:06:43,840
Speaker 3: to love other people and I want to care for

1151
01:06:43,920 --> 01:06:46,760
Speaker 3: other people, and I can't do everything, but I want

1152
01:06:46,760 --> 01:06:48,240
Speaker 3: to do something.

1153
01:06:48,800 --> 01:06:51,760
Speaker 2: Guess what. You'll actually help somebody.

1154
01:06:51,640 --> 01:06:55,240
Speaker 3: And make a difference, and you'll feel good doing it.

1155
01:06:55,960 --> 01:06:58,760
Speaker 3: Because the purpose of life is to love God and

1156
01:06:58,840 --> 01:07:02,480
Speaker 3: love others. And when we start thinking less about ourselves

1157
01:07:02,760 --> 01:07:06,400
Speaker 3: and just sacrifice for other people, if more people would

1158
01:07:06,440 --> 01:07:10,280
Speaker 3: do that, we could make a significant difference. So young people,

1159
01:07:10,360 --> 01:07:12,640
Speaker 3: don't focus your life on it. How do I make money?

1160
01:07:12,800 --> 01:07:15,280
Speaker 3: How do I eat successful? How do I get followers?

1161
01:07:15,360 --> 01:07:20,560
Speaker 3: I'm turning fifty. That stuff is empty. That stuff is empty.

1162
01:07:21,280 --> 01:07:23,800
Speaker 3: If you focus your life on like what Jesus said,

1163
01:07:24,320 --> 01:07:27,680
Speaker 3: talked about love God and love other people, seek first

1164
01:07:27,720 --> 01:07:30,120
Speaker 3: the Kingdom of God, and all these things will be

1165
01:07:30,160 --> 01:07:33,320
Speaker 3: added under you. I am telling you you will wake

1166
01:07:33,440 --> 01:07:37,000
Speaker 3: up someday with a meaningful life, knowing you made a

1167
01:07:37,040 --> 01:07:39,840
Speaker 3: difference for somebody and did something good.

1168
01:07:41,360 --> 01:07:44,080
Speaker 1: I can sum up my answer to that by very

1169
01:07:44,160 --> 01:07:46,800
Speaker 1: quickly agreeing in one sentence with the first part of

1170
01:07:46,840 --> 01:07:51,000
Speaker 1: what Sean said. Don't let the good be the enemy,

1171
01:07:51,080 --> 01:07:53,680
Speaker 1: or don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

1172
01:07:54,520 --> 01:07:58,000
Speaker 1: Suffering is going to happen. There's no indication we're going

1173
01:07:58,040 --> 01:07:59,920
Speaker 1: to get rid of it, get rid of all of it,

1174
01:08:00,480 --> 01:08:05,840
Speaker 1: anytime soon. But we have Every single time you help somebody,

1175
01:08:05,880 --> 01:08:10,040
Speaker 1: you reduce somebody suffering, you're taking one step on that

1176
01:08:10,280 --> 01:08:14,320
Speaker 1: road of a thousand steps. Thank you both.

1177
01:08:15,760 --> 01:08:18,960
Speaker 4: Another question we have is what is the greatest point

1178
01:08:19,000 --> 01:08:22,759
Speaker 4: of doubt for both of your world views? What caused

1179
01:08:22,800 --> 01:08:26,400
Speaker 4: you to question what you believe? Paul, would you like

1180
01:08:26,439 --> 01:08:27,400
Speaker 4: to start?

1181
01:08:27,520 --> 01:08:32,439
Speaker 1: I think the greatest doubt I received did we talk

1182
01:08:32,479 --> 01:08:37,280
Speaker 1: about this last time, perhaps is the fine tuning argument.

1183
01:08:37,880 --> 01:08:43,000
Speaker 1: I think the fine tuning argument ultimately fails, but it's

1184
01:08:43,040 --> 01:08:46,800
Speaker 1: the one that gave me the most pause. I said, oh,

1185
01:08:48,040 --> 01:08:50,640
Speaker 1: we have to look at this, and you know, I

1186
01:08:50,680 --> 01:08:52,960
Speaker 1: researched it, and I studied it and eventually come up

1187
01:08:53,040 --> 01:08:55,360
Speaker 1: with what I think is a good answer to it.

1188
01:08:55,439 --> 01:08:57,880
Speaker 1: So I think the argument fails, but that's the one

1189
01:08:57,960 --> 01:09:00,639
Speaker 1: that made me do the most just work.

1190
01:09:02,960 --> 01:09:07,160
Speaker 3: I think, hands down, our conversation tonight is the biggest

1191
01:09:07,280 --> 01:09:09,600
Speaker 3: challenge to the existence of God.

1192
01:09:09,479 --> 01:09:10,880
Speaker 2: Or the goodness of God.

1193
01:09:11,040 --> 01:09:13,120
Speaker 3: In some ways, I was somewhat reluctant to do this

1194
01:09:13,200 --> 01:09:16,120
Speaker 3: conversation because I was like, I'm starting on the defense

1195
01:09:16,439 --> 01:09:19,519
Speaker 3: trying to justify God. I was like, but you know what,

1196
01:09:19,600 --> 01:09:22,120
Speaker 3: people have this question, and it's a real question. It's

1197
01:09:22,120 --> 01:09:24,920
Speaker 3: a fair question, and we should ask it. And I

1198
01:09:24,920 --> 01:09:27,200
Speaker 3: think what makes it so hard is two things. Is

1199
01:09:28,080 --> 01:09:33,080
Speaker 3: evil and suffering seems and appears random, as we've talked about,

1200
01:09:33,880 --> 01:09:35,560
Speaker 3: but it's not just intellectual.

1201
01:09:36,320 --> 01:09:37,200
Speaker 2: It's emotional.

1202
01:09:38,120 --> 01:09:42,080
Speaker 3: We feel it, we've experienced it, and that's different than

1203
01:09:42,120 --> 01:09:44,559
Speaker 3: like fine tuning. You had simplications for God, but it's

1204
01:09:45,240 --> 01:09:48,479
Speaker 3: math and astrophysics. It's logical, right, But the problem of

1205
01:09:48,520 --> 01:09:51,960
Speaker 3: evil hits in our guts. When we see kids suffer,

1206
01:09:52,560 --> 01:09:56,320
Speaker 3: when we see pain in the world, it's natural to

1207
01:09:56,400 --> 01:09:59,800
Speaker 3: have doubt and have suffering when it comes to that. So,

1208
01:10:00,040 --> 01:10:01,880
Speaker 3: as I've said a few times in this discussion, I

1209
01:10:01,960 --> 01:10:04,519
Speaker 3: think if we ask if God exists or probably exists,

1210
01:10:04,800 --> 01:10:09,240
Speaker 3: I think the weight of the evidence points strongly towards the.

1211
01:10:09,200 --> 01:10:10,200
Speaker 2: Existence of God.

1212
01:10:10,800 --> 01:10:16,120
Speaker 3: But the problem of evil understandably raises doubts, it raises questions,

1213
01:10:16,840 --> 01:10:20,000
Speaker 3: and I think I don't think anything else arguably comes

1214
01:10:20,080 --> 01:10:20,760
Speaker 3: close to that.

1215
01:10:23,760 --> 01:10:27,880
Speaker 4: Another question we have is more towards Sean. Would a

1216
01:10:28,000 --> 01:10:31,559
Speaker 4: fair God subject a person to an eternity of damnation

1217
01:10:32,200 --> 01:10:38,000
Speaker 4: in exchange for a finite human life time human lifetime

1218
01:10:38,160 --> 01:10:39,080
Speaker 4: of sin on earth?

1219
01:10:40,960 --> 01:10:43,680
Speaker 3: This is the big question, and this is probably the

1220
01:10:43,720 --> 01:10:46,760
Speaker 3: second toughest question behind evil. By the way, since you

1221
01:10:46,800 --> 01:10:49,479
Speaker 3: asked for one, that's all I gave you about Hell.

1222
01:10:49,640 --> 01:10:54,360
Speaker 3: So realize Hell and evil are the flip side questions.

1223
01:10:55,479 --> 01:10:58,480
Speaker 3: Evil is, look at all the suffering in the world,

1224
01:10:58,760 --> 01:11:02,679
Speaker 3: Why doesn't God do anything about it? Hell is God's

1225
01:11:02,720 --> 01:11:07,680
Speaker 3: dealt with evil, but He's done it too much, so

1226
01:11:07,840 --> 01:11:11,040
Speaker 3: you kind of can't say God hasn't done enough and

1227
01:11:11,200 --> 01:11:13,800
Speaker 3: God has done too much. At the same time, you

1228
01:11:13,840 --> 01:11:17,320
Speaker 3: gotta pick your poison, so to speak. Now with that said,

1229
01:11:17,360 --> 01:11:20,519
Speaker 3: there's one main reason that I believe in the reality

1230
01:11:20,560 --> 01:11:20,880
Speaker 3: of Hell.

1231
01:11:21,560 --> 01:11:22,439
Speaker 2: I don't like hell.

1232
01:11:22,840 --> 01:11:25,519
Speaker 3: If I had my drothers. We talked about desires earlier.

1233
01:11:25,520 --> 01:11:27,560
Speaker 3: If I had my drothers, based on my opinion, I

1234
01:11:27,600 --> 01:11:30,519
Speaker 3: will get rid of it because of loved ones who

1235
01:11:30,560 --> 01:11:33,479
Speaker 3: I know. The thought of them going there is heroin.

1236
01:11:34,560 --> 01:11:38,560
Speaker 3: Main reason I believe in Hell is because Jesus believed

1237
01:11:38,880 --> 01:11:44,240
Speaker 3: in Hell and he talked about it read Matthew twenty five. Now,

1238
01:11:44,360 --> 01:11:46,280
Speaker 3: if I was gonna give you a clinic about being

1239
01:11:46,320 --> 01:11:48,800
Speaker 3: an NFL quarterback. None of you should show up. I

1240
01:11:48,880 --> 01:11:53,160
Speaker 3: got no credibility in that realm. Who but if Herbert

1241
01:11:53,240 --> 01:11:54,600
Speaker 3: my man, we're gonna have a good year at the

1242
01:11:54,600 --> 01:11:55,720
Speaker 3: San Diego shows up.

1243
01:11:56,160 --> 01:11:56,720
Speaker 2: Listen to him.

1244
01:11:56,760 --> 01:12:00,280
Speaker 3: He's got the goods. Who has the most good to

1245
01:12:00,520 --> 01:12:05,720
Speaker 3: speak on eternal things? Who's ever lived? I realize I

1246
01:12:05,720 --> 01:12:11,280
Speaker 3: haven't established this tonight, but I'm going with the virgin born, sinless,

1247
01:12:12,240 --> 01:12:17,320
Speaker 3: miracle working son of God who resurrected on the third

1248
01:12:17,400 --> 01:12:22,240
Speaker 3: day and hands down has changed the world more than anybody.

1249
01:12:21,840 --> 01:12:22,759
Speaker 2: Who's ever lived.

1250
01:12:23,560 --> 01:12:27,680
Speaker 3: Every religion wants to claim Jesus for their own, everybody

1251
01:12:27,720 --> 01:12:32,760
Speaker 3: does just about I'm going with that guy. So, whether

1252
01:12:32,800 --> 01:12:36,240
Speaker 3: I like it or not, I think Jesus teaches the

1253
01:12:36,280 --> 01:12:38,519
Speaker 3: reality of hell. Now, the answer to that question would

1254
01:12:38,520 --> 01:12:41,320
Speaker 3: be one of two things. Either when people are in hell. C. S.

1255
01:12:41,400 --> 01:12:44,240
Speaker 3: Lewis argued that people keep sinning and gnashing their teeth

1256
01:12:44,280 --> 01:12:50,080
Speaker 3: and rejecting God for eternity, hence it's infinite. Or the

1257
01:12:50,200 --> 01:12:53,960
Speaker 3: nature of our sin is contingent upon the being we

1258
01:12:54,080 --> 01:12:57,599
Speaker 3: sin against. So if you harm an animal, that's messed up.

1259
01:12:58,080 --> 01:13:02,120
Speaker 3: But that's not equal to harming a human being. Harm

1260
01:13:02,160 --> 01:13:06,160
Speaker 3: in human being is not equal to harming and rejecting God,

1261
01:13:06,240 --> 01:13:11,519
Speaker 3: who is infinite. So the question I think stems upon

1262
01:13:11,720 --> 01:13:15,840
Speaker 3: us rejecting the free gift of eternal life that God

1263
01:13:16,120 --> 01:13:21,160
Speaker 3: freely gives us. If God is infinite, then the penalty

1264
01:13:21,160 --> 01:13:25,360
Speaker 3: itself would be infinite. I fully realize. Hell, we've just

1265
01:13:26,000 --> 01:13:27,360
Speaker 3: begin that conversation.

1266
01:13:27,479 --> 01:13:29,280
Speaker 2: That's a whole another one.

1267
01:13:29,439 --> 01:13:33,000
Speaker 3: But in fairness, if there's not objective morality, then you

1268
01:13:33,000 --> 01:13:37,160
Speaker 3: can't complain about evil, and you also can't complain about hell.

1269
01:13:37,960 --> 01:13:41,360
Speaker 3: The very objection assumes there's a real right and there's

1270
01:13:41,400 --> 01:13:44,439
Speaker 3: a real wrong, which I think points towards the existence

1271
01:13:44,479 --> 01:13:45,160
Speaker 3: of God.

1272
01:13:45,880 --> 01:13:53,040
Speaker 1: Do you like to respond, Paul, Well, I can go

1273
01:13:53,080 --> 01:13:56,000
Speaker 1: in a couple of different ways. I guess I'll go

1274
01:13:56,120 --> 01:14:02,240
Speaker 1: this way. The Oh, the bad God. I made a

1275
01:14:02,280 --> 01:14:04,400
Speaker 1: mistake earlier, and you caught me on it. About the

1276
01:14:04,439 --> 01:14:06,600
Speaker 1: evil God. Well, but that assumes a whole lot of

1277
01:14:06,640 --> 01:14:10,160
Speaker 1: theological things. And I use that phrase, So let's talk

1278
01:14:10,160 --> 01:14:17,360
Speaker 1: about the bad God. Wouldn't the bad God put make

1279
01:14:17,439 --> 01:14:22,760
Speaker 1: people suffer horribly for a year?

1280
01:14:23,200 --> 01:14:23,400
Speaker 2: Oh?

1281
01:14:23,479 --> 01:14:26,759
Speaker 1: But I can think of an even worse god, somebody

1282
01:14:26,800 --> 01:14:30,320
Speaker 1: who would make people suffer for two years. I can

1283
01:14:30,320 --> 01:14:32,880
Speaker 1: think of an even worse The worst god you can

1284
01:14:32,960 --> 01:14:38,240
Speaker 1: imagine would be a god who would make people suffer forever. Await,

1285
01:14:39,040 --> 01:14:42,799
Speaker 1: that is hell, isn't it? This is the same problem.

1286
01:14:42,800 --> 01:14:44,920
Speaker 1: What's the difference between the evil and the good God?

1287
01:14:44,960 --> 01:14:46,240
Speaker 1: We can't tell them apart.

1288
01:14:51,439 --> 01:14:57,320
Speaker 4: I have another question centered around morality. Can objective morality exist?

1289
01:14:57,640 --> 01:15:01,439
Speaker 4: Absente God? And how do you find bad with the

1290
01:15:01,479 --> 01:15:03,439
Speaker 4: exist acceptance of pain and suffering?

1291
01:15:04,200 --> 01:15:07,400
Speaker 1: We're psyching that we are we are.

1292
01:15:07,479 --> 01:15:09,360
Speaker 3: The topic is evil, so it makes sense to it

1293
01:15:09,439 --> 01:15:09,760
Speaker 3: come up.

1294
01:15:09,800 --> 01:15:11,000
Speaker 2: Do you want to address that?

1295
01:15:11,080 --> 01:15:13,200
Speaker 1: Well, I guess I already have. I don't know if

1296
01:15:13,240 --> 01:15:16,920
Speaker 1: we can pick up You know, I think objective morality

1297
01:15:16,960 --> 01:15:19,920
Speaker 1: is possible given the definition of morality, but we've kind

1298
01:15:19,960 --> 01:15:20,960
Speaker 1: of been around.

1299
01:15:20,640 --> 01:15:23,479
Speaker 2: That since the question came up.

1300
01:15:23,960 --> 01:15:28,559
Speaker 3: I think we're defining objective morality differently. There's a difference

1301
01:15:28,600 --> 01:15:32,679
Speaker 3: between behavior that we can objectively see if it helps

1302
01:15:32,760 --> 01:15:37,639
Speaker 3: us flourish or not flourish, and behavior that is wrong

1303
01:15:37,880 --> 01:15:42,240
Speaker 3: because of the kind of behavior that it is, regardless

1304
01:15:42,280 --> 01:15:45,519
Speaker 3: of the consequences that it has. That's what I mean

1305
01:15:45,560 --> 01:15:47,439
Speaker 3: by it, and I would argue that most people mean

1306
01:15:47,479 --> 01:15:51,720
Speaker 3: by objective morality torch an innocent child for fun. It's

1307
01:15:51,760 --> 01:15:53,840
Speaker 3: the same effect whether you did it for fun or not.

1308
01:15:54,520 --> 01:15:57,519
Speaker 3: But it's the fun and the intention that makes that

1309
01:15:57,720 --> 01:16:03,800
Speaker 3: particularly evil. So I would argue you cannot have objective

1310
01:16:03,880 --> 01:16:06,720
Speaker 3: moral values and duties if there is no God. I

1311
01:16:06,720 --> 01:16:11,000
Speaker 3: think Fyodor Daskyevsky, the Russian novelist, is right. Without God,

1312
01:16:11,280 --> 01:16:15,880
Speaker 3: all is permissible. I don't know how you get moral obligations.

1313
01:16:16,280 --> 01:16:18,759
Speaker 3: I don't know how you get free will and choice

1314
01:16:18,800 --> 01:16:21,400
Speaker 3: that we have without God and the soul. I don't

1315
01:16:21,439 --> 01:16:24,280
Speaker 3: know how you get objective human value where I have

1316
01:16:24,400 --> 01:16:27,240
Speaker 3: duties to treat you differently than a plant or a chair,

1317
01:16:27,920 --> 01:16:30,599
Speaker 3: if we're not made in the image of God.

1318
01:16:30,920 --> 01:16:32,840
Speaker 2: And by the way, this is not just me arguing this.

1319
01:16:33,280 --> 01:16:36,280
Speaker 3: There's a lot of people like Michael Ruse, again atheist

1320
01:16:36,320 --> 01:16:40,519
Speaker 3: philosopher who's like evolution. Our belief in objectibility is a

1321
01:16:40,560 --> 01:16:44,880
Speaker 3: trick from our genes. We don't really have objective moral

1322
01:16:44,960 --> 01:16:49,320
Speaker 3: values and duties if God doesn't exist. So on the

1323
01:16:49,320 --> 01:16:52,800
Speaker 3: flip side, if God, if we do have objective moralvalues

1324
01:16:52,800 --> 01:16:56,320
Speaker 3: and duties, then that's an argument that God does exist.

1325
01:16:57,520 --> 01:16:58,320
Speaker 2: That's how I see it.

1326
01:16:58,920 --> 01:17:04,000
Speaker 1: So the the trick of our genes. Uh that you mentioned,

1327
01:17:04,560 --> 01:17:08,760
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of hyperbole. It's it's the fact that,

1328
01:17:09,400 --> 01:17:15,280
Speaker 1: of course we doesn't everybody in the room think have

1329
01:17:15,400 --> 01:17:20,599
Speaker 1: the most concerned for your family, and then you have

1330
01:17:20,840 --> 01:17:23,400
Speaker 1: the most concerned for your friends, and then you might

1331
01:17:23,439 --> 01:17:27,519
Speaker 1: even have concern for your community, and that that circle

1332
01:17:28,000 --> 01:17:34,480
Speaker 1: expands out. And this is completely expect expected on naturalism

1333
01:17:34,520 --> 01:17:37,080
Speaker 1: because we are a social species and that's that's how

1334
01:17:37,120 --> 01:17:42,960
Speaker 1: we how we survive, So that that type of morality

1335
01:17:43,000 --> 01:17:45,800
Speaker 1: where we care about things in that order, and maybe

1336
01:17:45,840 --> 01:17:49,320
Speaker 1: animals are out here, maybe for some people like vegans,

1337
01:17:49,360 --> 01:17:53,519
Speaker 1: animals are in here, but that's okay. That variability is

1338
01:17:53,600 --> 01:17:58,519
Speaker 1: again completely it's expected under naturalism that that doesn't pose

1339
01:17:59,360 --> 01:18:03,280
Speaker 1: a problem for naturalism. It's not a trick. It's how

1340
01:18:03,439 --> 01:18:06,320
Speaker 1: we're put together. And of course we would be put

1341
01:18:06,360 --> 01:18:10,000
Speaker 1: together to care about the people closest to us, because

1342
01:18:10,120 --> 01:18:13,679
Speaker 1: that's going to be the thing that makes evolution succeed.

1343
01:18:14,000 --> 01:18:19,920
Speaker 1: And it's more about just acknowledging that fact as a reality.

1344
01:18:20,720 --> 01:18:23,040
Speaker 1: You know, I come back to this kind of theme

1345
01:18:23,360 --> 01:18:26,040
Speaker 1: a couple of times tonight. You just have to accept

1346
01:18:26,040 --> 01:18:29,639
Speaker 1: the reality of it and then move on from there.

1347
01:18:29,880 --> 01:18:32,840
Speaker 1: Whether you like that reality isn't or not isn't an

1348
01:18:32,920 --> 01:18:36,720
Speaker 1: argument for or against it. You just accept that that's

1349
01:18:36,760 --> 01:18:37,360
Speaker 1: the reality.

1350
01:18:38,000 --> 01:18:39,519
Speaker 3: By the way, someone Cook, I think I agree with

1351
01:18:39,520 --> 01:18:43,000
Speaker 3: you on that that if an evolution naturalistic account is true,

1352
01:18:43,360 --> 01:18:45,840
Speaker 3: we would most care for those immediate to us. And

1353
01:18:45,880 --> 01:18:49,200
Speaker 3: then it expands out. Bart Ierman, probably the most leading

1354
01:18:49,320 --> 01:18:52,080
Speaker 3: atheist in the world, last monthly released a book called

1355
01:18:52,120 --> 01:18:56,439
Speaker 3: Love Guy Stranger, and he argued that throughout the history

1356
01:18:56,479 --> 01:19:02,040
Speaker 3: of the world, ancient Greece, ancient Rome, Cynics, Epicureans, there

1357
01:19:02,120 --> 01:19:05,680
Speaker 3: was a sense of caring for your people group, but

1358
01:19:05,760 --> 01:19:09,479
Speaker 3: it's a distinct Christian ethic that we ought to care

1359
01:19:09,520 --> 01:19:13,320
Speaker 3: for those outside of our people group. So when we

1360
01:19:13,320 --> 01:19:16,120
Speaker 3: hear a natural disaster, we feel an obligation to care

1361
01:19:16,160 --> 01:19:17,720
Speaker 3: for those on the other side of the world in

1362
01:19:17,800 --> 01:19:19,600
Speaker 3: light of natural evil and suffering.

1363
01:19:20,680 --> 01:19:22,720
Speaker 2: Bart Erman argues.

1364
01:19:22,439 --> 01:19:26,960
Speaker 3: That this is the ethic of Jesus, so hospitals, orphanages,

1365
01:19:27,720 --> 01:19:31,240
Speaker 3: nursing homes, that we care for people outside of our

1366
01:19:31,360 --> 01:19:33,800
Speaker 3: kin group, and we have an obligation to do so.

1367
01:19:34,840 --> 01:19:39,040
Speaker 3: Many atheists are admitting and claiming this is uniquely a

1368
01:19:39,120 --> 01:19:43,400
Speaker 3: Christian ethic. So do we just have a responsibility wired

1369
01:19:43,400 --> 01:19:46,240
Speaker 3: to us by evolution to those around us, or do

1370
01:19:46,320 --> 01:19:50,439
Speaker 3: we actually have an obligation to care for those beyond us?

1371
01:19:51,200 --> 01:19:52,000
Speaker 2: I think we do.

1372
01:19:52,600 --> 01:19:54,280
Speaker 3: I would argue, in your heart and your mind, you

1373
01:19:54,400 --> 01:19:58,680
Speaker 3: know it's a better life to, rather than work for yourself,

1374
01:19:58,840 --> 01:20:03,200
Speaker 3: give yourself away for others. If so, that points towards

1375
01:20:03,240 --> 01:20:07,120
Speaker 3: something in the ethic of Jesus about the world, about

1376
01:20:07,200 --> 01:20:08,439
Speaker 3: what is actually true.

1377
01:20:10,840 --> 01:20:14,120
Speaker 4: We have another question. How would you define love in

1378
01:20:14,160 --> 01:20:17,519
Speaker 4: a way that does not allow for suffering? That does

1379
01:20:17,600 --> 01:20:20,679
Speaker 4: not what in a way that does not allow for suffering?

1380
01:20:24,240 --> 01:20:26,360
Speaker 3: How do you define love in a way that does

1381
01:20:26,439 --> 01:20:27,759
Speaker 3: not allow for suffering?

1382
01:20:28,120 --> 01:20:30,479
Speaker 2: Is that what you said? Yeah? May I okay, please?

1383
01:20:30,640 --> 01:20:34,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought this might come up. So let's say

1384
01:20:34,880 --> 01:20:37,400
Speaker 1: you have and by the way, you have to think

1385
01:20:37,439 --> 01:20:40,840
Speaker 1: about love without any other factor thrown in love in

1386
01:20:40,880 --> 01:20:43,920
Speaker 1: and of itself. That's an important distinction to make. So

1387
01:20:44,040 --> 01:20:50,559
Speaker 1: you have a child who is suffering very badly, and

1388
01:20:50,880 --> 01:20:57,719
Speaker 1: you have one parent whose reaction is an immediate trying

1389
01:20:57,720 --> 01:20:59,880
Speaker 1: to do everything they can to help that child not

1390
01:21:00,200 --> 01:21:05,040
Speaker 1: suffer anymore. Then you have another child suffering equally as much.

1391
01:21:05,240 --> 01:21:08,960
Speaker 1: You have another parent who sits there with their arms

1392
01:21:09,000 --> 01:21:12,559
Speaker 1: folded and does nothing, which one of those is the

1393
01:21:12,640 --> 01:21:19,240
Speaker 1: loving parent. That's as best a definition of love as

1394
01:21:19,280 --> 01:21:23,200
Speaker 1: I can imagine. Love is the care and concern for

1395
01:21:24,080 --> 01:21:30,000
Speaker 1: is a deep emotion that expresses that, when expressed, comes

1396
01:21:30,040 --> 01:21:32,920
Speaker 1: out in care and concern for another person's well being.

1397
01:21:35,200 --> 01:21:37,160
Speaker 3: I think we're close on that, maybe a little bit different.

1398
01:21:37,200 --> 01:21:40,760
Speaker 3: I think along with love we feel an emotion, but

1399
01:21:40,800 --> 01:21:43,240
Speaker 3: I can still do the loving thing whether I feel

1400
01:21:43,240 --> 01:21:44,840
Speaker 3: that emotion or not.

1401
01:21:45,680 --> 01:21:46,479
Speaker 2: And I think you agree with that.

1402
01:21:46,640 --> 01:21:46,840
Speaker 1: Sure.

1403
01:21:47,040 --> 01:21:52,040
Speaker 3: I think love is when somebody's development and life becomes

1404
01:21:52,080 --> 01:21:56,600
Speaker 3: as important to you as your own, and love is

1405
01:21:56,640 --> 01:21:59,439
Speaker 3: demonstrated by what we sacrifice for.

1406
01:22:00,600 --> 01:22:01,439
Speaker 2: We all know this.

1407
01:22:01,840 --> 01:22:05,720
Speaker 3: If I love my wife, I sacrifice my time for

1408
01:22:05,800 --> 01:22:11,960
Speaker 3: my wife. I sacrifice for my kids if they're important.

1409
01:22:12,160 --> 01:22:15,080
Speaker 3: We know what we love by what we sacrifice for.

1410
01:22:15,200 --> 01:22:19,000
Speaker 3: In a sense, you might say what we suffer for.

1411
01:22:20,200 --> 01:22:20,360
Speaker 1: Now.

1412
01:22:20,360 --> 01:22:22,000
Speaker 3: Of course, as a Christian, I'm going to say, the

1413
01:22:22,040 --> 01:22:24,400
Speaker 3: ultimate act of love is to lay down your life,

1414
01:22:24,920 --> 01:22:29,240
Speaker 3: and I think that's what Jesus did for us. He

1415
01:22:29,360 --> 01:22:33,840
Speaker 3: laid down his life to save us from the penalty

1416
01:22:34,160 --> 01:22:38,040
Speaker 3: of sin. That is the greatest act of love. John

1417
01:22:38,120 --> 01:22:40,479
Speaker 3: fifteen thirteen. Great love have no man than this, that

1418
01:22:40,479 --> 01:22:42,519
Speaker 3: a man laid down his life for a friend. I

1419
01:22:42,560 --> 01:22:44,559
Speaker 3: know you would lay down your life for your lovely

1420
01:22:44,600 --> 01:22:47,960
Speaker 3: wife who have him met twice, because we know sacrificing

1421
01:22:48,680 --> 01:22:52,600
Speaker 3: is ultimately where value is, and so to love is

1422
01:22:52,640 --> 01:22:54,840
Speaker 3: going to require some kind of suffering. Now, as you

1423
01:22:54,840 --> 01:22:56,519
Speaker 3: talk about a parent, I think I agree with you

1424
01:22:57,080 --> 01:22:59,519
Speaker 3: in the sense that I want to protect my kids

1425
01:22:59,520 --> 01:23:00,000
Speaker 3: from suffering.

1426
01:23:00,520 --> 01:23:02,840
Speaker 2: But if I do it too much, they will never

1427
01:23:03,080 --> 01:23:04,040
Speaker 2: grow up.

1428
01:23:04,439 --> 01:23:07,600
Speaker 3: There's some suffering we have to allow to grow and

1429
01:23:07,720 --> 01:23:11,160
Speaker 3: mature and develop, and how we balance that as the trick,

1430
01:23:11,720 --> 01:23:14,200
Speaker 3: And of course the analogy with God breaks down me

1431
01:23:14,280 --> 01:23:17,120
Speaker 3: and my kids is different than God governing an entire

1432
01:23:17,880 --> 01:23:21,120
Speaker 3: universe and giving us free will. Is not directly the

1433
01:23:21,200 --> 01:23:24,479
Speaker 3: same as a parent, although there's some overlap there.

1434
01:23:24,680 --> 01:23:27,839
Speaker 1: We were talking about whether you and I will learn anything,

1435
01:23:28,479 --> 01:23:32,600
Speaker 1: and I just learned something I think I'm going to promote.

1436
01:23:32,920 --> 01:23:35,280
Speaker 1: I mean, in the beginning stages they're promoting I guess

1437
01:23:35,320 --> 01:23:41,559
Speaker 1: what I'll call a non cognitivist theory of morality. That is,

1438
01:23:41,800 --> 01:23:45,040
Speaker 1: it's not something you think about, it's not something you

1439
01:23:45,120 --> 01:23:50,760
Speaker 1: have to put together logically necessarily. And the reason I

1440
01:23:50,800 --> 01:23:53,080
Speaker 1: thought about that was another incident that happened to me

1441
01:23:53,560 --> 01:23:58,200
Speaker 1: where I wound up getting somebody stabbing me with a

1442
01:23:58,240 --> 01:24:02,200
Speaker 1: screwdriver in my arm at Laney College in Oakland because

1443
01:24:02,240 --> 01:24:05,600
Speaker 1: this person was trying to attack a teacher, and like

1444
01:24:05,640 --> 01:24:08,120
Speaker 1: a fool, I went after the person. And once I

1445
01:24:08,120 --> 01:24:09,439
Speaker 1: caught up with him, I didn't know what I was

1446
01:24:09,479 --> 01:24:10,240
Speaker 1: going to do with him.

1447
01:24:10,120 --> 01:24:11,479
Speaker 2: But he knew what he was going to do with me,

1448
01:24:11,520 --> 01:24:13,120
Speaker 2: and I was like, courage to me, man.

1449
01:24:14,760 --> 01:24:19,920
Speaker 1: But I didn't think about doing that she was being attacked.

1450
01:24:20,040 --> 01:24:25,840
Speaker 1: I just did it because I think, can something be

1451
01:24:25,880 --> 01:24:27,400
Speaker 1: the right thing to do and the stupid thing to

1452
01:24:27,439 --> 01:24:32,040
Speaker 1: do at the same time. Maybe, So it's not a

1453
01:24:32,080 --> 01:24:37,760
Speaker 1: matter of having it to fit into a large philosophical framework.

1454
01:24:39,439 --> 01:24:44,760
Speaker 1: Free your mind and your ass will follow, all right.

1455
01:24:48,040 --> 01:24:49,840
Speaker 4: As we near the end, I just want to provide

1456
01:24:49,880 --> 01:24:54,400
Speaker 4: a space for any last closing sentiments or topics you

1457
01:24:54,400 --> 01:24:56,040
Speaker 4: guys maybe missed that you want to talk about.

1458
01:24:56,360 --> 01:24:58,600
Speaker 1: I better not follow that up with anything.

1459
01:24:59,280 --> 01:25:02,080
Speaker 3: No, I think you'll want to not land on that

1460
01:25:02,160 --> 01:25:02,840
Speaker 3: last line.

1461
01:25:02,960 --> 01:25:07,400
Speaker 1: Okay, in that case, go ahead whatever. That's the title

1462
01:25:07,439 --> 01:25:13,240
Speaker 1: of a funk song, by the way I would. I

1463
01:25:13,240 --> 01:25:14,960
Speaker 1: can't sum up the evening, so I'm going to go

1464
01:25:14,960 --> 01:25:18,800
Speaker 1: in a slightly different direction. I would encourage everybody in

1465
01:25:18,840 --> 01:25:22,519
Speaker 1: the audience to go to the Wikipedia pages on critical

1466
01:25:22,560 --> 01:25:28,280
Speaker 1: thinking and informal fallacies, because how we think about things.

1467
01:25:28,280 --> 01:25:30,320
Speaker 1: Sean and I are doing our best to make sense

1468
01:25:30,320 --> 01:25:33,519
Speaker 1: of things here. Those two pages will give you a

1469
01:25:33,560 --> 01:25:36,599
Speaker 1: starting point for trying to make sense about things. Just

1470
01:25:36,640 --> 01:25:39,439
Speaker 1: in general, how should you think about something? Teach people

1471
01:25:39,800 --> 01:25:44,200
Speaker 1: how to think, not what to think. An informal fallacy

1472
01:25:44,240 --> 01:25:49,280
Speaker 1: is something like the argument from incredulity, where somebody will say, well,

1473
01:25:50,120 --> 01:25:54,639
Speaker 1: the living cell is so amazing, God must have created it,

1474
01:25:55,200 --> 01:25:58,240
Speaker 1: and there's a ton of the other ones. It's a

1475
01:25:58,280 --> 01:26:02,320
Speaker 1: lifelong study and colleges and schools don't do enough of that.

1476
01:26:02,880 --> 01:26:04,559
Speaker 1: I've strongly encourage you to do that.

1477
01:26:05,680 --> 01:26:10,920
Speaker 3: Over to Shaun, the emphasis on thinking and reason irrationality,

1478
01:26:11,160 --> 01:26:15,160
Speaker 3: I could not agree more and would definitely give an

1479
01:26:15,160 --> 01:26:19,040
Speaker 3: amend to that one sense. The questions on pain and suffering.

1480
01:26:19,680 --> 01:26:22,760
Speaker 3: I'm going to end with this story. So in the

1481
01:26:22,840 --> 01:26:26,000
Speaker 3: eighteen hundreds, there was a priest by the name of

1482
01:26:26,080 --> 01:26:30,479
Speaker 3: Father Damien, and by his own volition, he chose to

1483
01:26:30,520 --> 01:26:34,000
Speaker 3: go be a priest for a colony of lepers who

1484
01:26:34,040 --> 01:26:39,280
Speaker 3: were suffering profoundly on the island called MOLOCHI with full

1485
01:26:39,320 --> 01:26:41,040
Speaker 3: awareness of what it could cost him in the way

1486
01:26:41,080 --> 01:26:44,200
Speaker 3: it could affect him. So he went and for it

1487
01:26:44,400 --> 01:26:48,559
Speaker 3: years he preached to him, he counseled him, he just

1488
01:26:48,760 --> 01:26:53,920
Speaker 3: cared and loved for this community. But after twelve years,

1489
01:26:53,960 --> 01:26:56,840
Speaker 3: he stood in front of his colony and he said

1490
01:26:56,840 --> 01:27:00,840
Speaker 3: two words that changed everything. He stood in front of

1491
01:27:00,920 --> 01:27:07,120
Speaker 3: him and he said, we lepers. Open up his robe

1492
01:27:07,800 --> 01:27:12,519
Speaker 3: and he showed the first signs of leprosy. That was

1493
01:27:12,560 --> 01:27:15,200
Speaker 3: pretty obvious that he cared about him before this, But

1494
01:27:15,240 --> 01:27:19,800
Speaker 3: what happened on that day, he actually became one of them.

1495
01:27:20,640 --> 01:27:24,679
Speaker 3: He wasn't just an outsider who was showing empathy to them.

1496
01:27:25,240 --> 01:27:29,840
Speaker 3: He's now an insider, and he understood, and he experienced

1497
01:27:29,880 --> 01:27:34,080
Speaker 3: the pain, and he ended up dying of leprosy and

1498
01:27:34,240 --> 01:27:39,559
Speaker 3: sacrificing his life for them. I'm a Christian apologist and

1499
01:27:39,600 --> 01:27:43,200
Speaker 3: I'm a Christian evangelist. I actually really believe this stuff,

1500
01:27:43,600 --> 01:27:45,559
Speaker 3: and so it should be no surprise to you that

1501
01:27:45,640 --> 01:27:46,799
Speaker 3: in the end I'm going to bring.

1502
01:27:46,680 --> 01:27:47,559
Speaker 2: It back to Jesus.

1503
01:27:48,200 --> 01:27:51,320
Speaker 3: I think this example of Father Damien is the best

1504
01:27:51,360 --> 01:27:55,680
Speaker 3: example of what I know of how Christianity uniquely addresses

1505
01:27:55,800 --> 01:27:56,959
Speaker 3: pain and suffering.

1506
01:27:57,800 --> 01:27:59,400
Speaker 2: God doesn't just give us a holy book.

1507
01:27:59,439 --> 01:28:03,080
Speaker 3: As much as I love and treasure the scriptures. God

1508
01:28:03,120 --> 01:28:06,200
Speaker 3: doesn't just stand a prophet, doesn't just speak in nature

1509
01:28:06,439 --> 01:28:11,880
Speaker 3: or conscience or dreams or visions. God sends his son

1510
01:28:12,880 --> 01:28:16,360
Speaker 3: Jesus Christ human flesh to be born of a woman

1511
01:28:17,320 --> 01:28:23,880
Speaker 3: and step into and experience human pain and suffering. So

1512
01:28:23,960 --> 01:28:26,720
Speaker 3: Hebrews two and Hebrews four says, we do not have

1513
01:28:26,760 --> 01:28:31,799
Speaker 3: a high priest who doesn't sympathize with us. The very beginning,

1514
01:28:31,840 --> 01:28:33,920
Speaker 3: I said, the emotional problem of evil is when people

1515
01:28:33,920 --> 01:28:40,040
Speaker 3: are hurting, hurt with them and be present with them friends.

1516
01:28:40,080 --> 01:28:42,680
Speaker 2: It's only in Christianity that.

1517
01:28:42,680 --> 01:28:47,960
Speaker 3: God takes on human flesh and actually understands our suffering.

1518
01:28:48,640 --> 01:28:51,120
Speaker 3: If you've been betrayed by a friend Jesus, like yep,

1519
01:28:51,160 --> 01:28:53,320
Speaker 3: that happened to me. Physical pain is like yep, I've

1520
01:28:53,320 --> 01:28:57,080
Speaker 3: been crucified. It's only Christianity that God takes on human flesh,

1521
01:28:57,800 --> 01:29:01,400
Speaker 3: understands our pain and our suffering, dies to the cross

1522
01:29:01,400 --> 01:29:04,880
Speaker 3: for us, and then the Third Day rises from the grave

1523
01:29:05,120 --> 01:29:09,880
Speaker 3: and defeats sin. So I think that tells us God

1524
01:29:10,120 --> 01:29:13,479
Speaker 3: gets it, He understands, gives us hope in this life

1525
01:29:13,520 --> 01:29:17,760
Speaker 3: because our suffering has meaning to our character. It has

1526
01:29:17,880 --> 01:29:21,639
Speaker 3: meaning to other people who are watching. I think when

1527
01:29:21,720 --> 01:29:24,840
Speaker 3: Christians actually suffer with hope, non Christians look on and like, wow,

1528
01:29:24,920 --> 01:29:29,400
Speaker 3: you actually believe this. It has meaning for eternity, but

1529
01:29:29,520 --> 01:29:33,599
Speaker 3: gives us hope after the grave. To me, when I

1530
01:29:33,640 --> 01:29:35,880
Speaker 3: was asked to speak on pain and suffering and evil,

1531
01:29:36,439 --> 01:29:39,120
Speaker 3: I can't make sense of this apart from the person

1532
01:29:39,200 --> 01:29:42,280
Speaker 3: of Jesus and what he did on the cross. I

1533
01:29:42,320 --> 01:29:45,320
Speaker 3: think that's what gives us the deepest sense of hope

1534
01:29:45,680 --> 01:29:48,160
Speaker 3: and meaning. And so my last word of encouragement is,

1535
01:29:48,200 --> 01:29:49,760
Speaker 3: if you're not a Christian.

1536
01:29:50,520 --> 01:29:51,040
Speaker 1: Study this.

1537
01:29:51,240 --> 01:29:53,639
Speaker 2: Read critical theory. I love that that is not.

1538
01:29:53,600 --> 01:29:57,040
Speaker 3: Critical theory, critical thinking. Very that was definitely not what

1539
01:29:57,080 --> 01:29:59,920
Speaker 3: you mean. You live reading critical theory. Correct that one

1540
01:30:00,160 --> 01:30:05,839
Speaker 3: from the record critical thinking. Read that, but also one assignment.

1541
01:30:06,600 --> 01:30:10,400
Speaker 3: Read the Gospel of John. You're here either someone dragged

1542
01:30:10,439 --> 01:30:13,599
Speaker 3: you here. I bet most of you are really curious

1543
01:30:13,600 --> 01:30:16,120
Speaker 3: about this question vivile and suffering. You want to know,

1544
01:30:16,240 --> 01:30:18,800
Speaker 3: you want to make sense of it. Friends, Just read

1545
01:30:18,840 --> 01:30:22,240
Speaker 3: the Gospel John and ask yourself this question. Who is

1546
01:30:22,280 --> 01:30:25,679
Speaker 3: this person of Jesus? Is he really who he claimed

1547
01:30:25,680 --> 01:30:28,320
Speaker 3: to be? And why has he turned the world upside

1548
01:30:28,320 --> 01:30:34,000
Speaker 3: down more than anybody else. That's my encouragement for seekers.

1549
01:30:36,240 --> 01:30:39,559
Speaker 4: Genuinely, thank you Sean and Paul for this time in

1550
01:30:39,640 --> 01:30:41,920
Speaker 4: giving it up and just having an amazing.

1551
01:30:41,720 --> 01:30:45,960
Speaker 2: Evening or good job more than good, drag down in good.

1552
01:30:47,040 --> 01:30:49,800
Speaker 3: Hey friends, if you enjoyed this show, please hit that

1553
01:30:49,880 --> 01:30:52,799
Speaker 3: fall button on your podcast app. Most of you tuning

1554
01:30:52,840 --> 01:30:55,200
Speaker 3: in haven't done this yet and it makes a huge

1555
01:30:55,200 --> 01:30:57,960
Speaker 3: difference in helping us reach and equit more people and

1556
01:30:58,000 --> 01:31:03,599
Speaker 3: build community. And please consider a podcast review. Every review helps.

1557
01:31:03,760 --> 01:31:06,240
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to the Sean McDowell Show, brought to

1558
01:31:06,280 --> 01:31:09,920
Speaker 3: you by Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, where

1559
01:31:09,920 --> 01:31:13,920
Speaker 3: we have on campus and online programs and apologetic spiritual formation,

1560
01:31:14,120 --> 01:31:16,760
Speaker 3: marriage and family, Bible and so much more. We would

1561
01:31:16,760 --> 01:31:19,600
Speaker 3: love to train you to more effectively live, teach, and

1562
01:31:19,720 --> 01:31:22,519
Speaker 3: defend the Christian faith today and we will see you

1563
01:31:22,560 --> 01:31:24,240
Speaker 3: when the next episode drops.