1
00:00:02,720 --> 00:00:03,640
Speaker 1: Life audio.

2
00:00:05,280 --> 00:00:09,240
Speaker 2: What do you even mean by taking religion seriously?

3
00:00:09,400 --> 00:00:11,960
Speaker 1: Because I didn't take it seriously for a long time.

4
00:00:12,240 --> 00:00:15,040
Speaker 1: I was always open to there's a mystery about the

5
00:00:15,120 --> 00:00:16,720
Speaker 1: universe that was always out there.

6
00:00:16,760 --> 00:00:18,840
Speaker 2: This is really important for people to hear because it's

7
00:00:18,880 --> 00:00:23,320
Speaker 2: not always this aggressive atheist agnostic professor. It's just kind

8
00:00:23,320 --> 00:00:26,880
Speaker 2: of subtle dismissal of religion that if you want to

9
00:00:26,920 --> 00:00:29,080
Speaker 2: fit in, you just don't believe.

10
00:00:29,360 --> 00:00:33,320
Speaker 1: Finally, in the mid nineteen nineties, I was getting moved

11
00:00:33,360 --> 00:00:36,360
Speaker 1: away from my simple lack of attention to religion.

12
00:00:37,120 --> 00:00:41,160
Speaker 2: Why would a Harvard and MIT trained policy analyst who

13
00:00:41,240 --> 00:00:45,120
Speaker 2: was thoroughly socialized to be secular write a book describing

14
00:00:45,159 --> 00:00:49,760
Speaker 2: his journey from happy agnostic to Christian. Our guest today

15
00:00:49,800 --> 00:00:55,680
Speaker 2: is Charles Murray, author of the new book Taking Religion Seriously. Charles,

16
00:00:55,680 --> 00:00:56,800
Speaker 2: thanks so much for coming on.

17
00:00:57,440 --> 00:00:58,240
Speaker 1: It's my pleasure.

18
00:00:58,880 --> 00:01:01,760
Speaker 2: Well, let's just start right with the title of your book.

19
00:01:01,840 --> 00:01:05,800
Speaker 2: What do you even mean by taking religion seriously?

20
00:01:07,280 --> 00:01:09,920
Speaker 1: Because I didn't take it seriously for a long time,

21
00:01:10,319 --> 00:01:14,559
Speaker 1: And by taking it seriously, I mean and I'm speaking

22
00:01:14,640 --> 00:01:18,959
Speaker 1: to unbelievers. As I say in the introduction, there are

23
00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:23,039
Speaker 1: tens of millions of people like me who are well educated,

24
00:01:23,120 --> 00:01:26,679
Speaker 1: were professionally successful, and religionist has not been an important

25
00:01:26,680 --> 00:01:30,120
Speaker 1: part of our life, and a lot of us have

26
00:01:30,319 --> 00:01:32,840
Speaker 1: sort of assumed from the time we were in college

27
00:01:33,880 --> 00:01:37,640
Speaker 1: that smart people don't believe that stuff anymore. In my case,

28
00:01:37,880 --> 00:01:40,720
Speaker 1: I went from Newton, Iowa, where I was raised a Presbyterian.

29
00:01:42,400 --> 00:01:44,720
Speaker 1: My family would go to church every week, and I'd

30
00:01:44,760 --> 00:01:48,400
Speaker 1: go with them, but I was not deeply committed. And

31
00:01:48,800 --> 00:01:52,240
Speaker 1: I get to Harvard and I like to fit in,

32
00:01:52,720 --> 00:01:56,440
Speaker 1: and I learned that smart people don't believe that stuff anymore.

33
00:01:56,520 --> 00:01:58,800
Speaker 1: And I bought into that just the same way I

34
00:01:58,840 --> 00:02:00,920
Speaker 1: think an awful lot of other people people did, and

35
00:02:00,960 --> 00:02:03,760
Speaker 1: we've never really given it much thought. And I'm saying

36
00:02:03,760 --> 00:02:06,960
Speaker 1: to them, look, I'm not trying to proselytize, not trying

37
00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:11,200
Speaker 1: to get you to do anything in particular except realize,

38
00:02:11,480 --> 00:02:13,639
Speaker 1: you've got to look at this stuff. There's a lot

39
00:02:13,680 --> 00:02:16,440
Speaker 1: of material here you need to confront.

40
00:02:17,320 --> 00:02:20,320
Speaker 2: Tell me a little bit more about that socialization process.

41
00:02:20,400 --> 00:02:22,600
Speaker 2: She talked about having a faith it didn't take seriously,

42
00:02:22,639 --> 00:02:25,680
Speaker 2: but maybe bleeded in God on some level. Were people

43
00:02:25,760 --> 00:02:27,960
Speaker 2: trying to talk you out of your faith? Like, how

44
00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:30,480
Speaker 2: did you come to the point that you were a

45
00:02:30,520 --> 00:02:32,679
Speaker 2: materialist or close to being a materialist.

46
00:02:33,639 --> 00:02:38,680
Speaker 1: That's the interesting thing that nobody worked hard to convert me.

47
00:02:39,960 --> 00:02:45,440
Speaker 1: I took no courses on Thomas Aquinas's mistakes, okay, And

48
00:02:47,120 --> 00:02:51,280
Speaker 1: in fact, basically the subject of religion just never came up,

49
00:02:51,440 --> 00:02:56,320
Speaker 1: and if it did, it was usually of dismissively or

50
00:02:56,360 --> 00:03:00,000
Speaker 1: sometimes the subject of humor. I didn't have any friends

51
00:02:59,800 --> 00:03:05,040
Speaker 1: who were noticeably religious. It was just in the air,

52
00:03:05,400 --> 00:03:09,320
Speaker 1: the zeitgeist, and I bought into that this.

53
00:03:09,360 --> 00:03:11,440
Speaker 2: Is really important for people to hear because it's not

54
00:03:11,480 --> 00:03:16,320
Speaker 2: always this aggressive atheist agnostic professor. It's just kind of

55
00:03:16,600 --> 00:03:20,280
Speaker 2: subtle dismissal of religion that if you want to fit in,

56
00:03:20,880 --> 00:03:23,520
Speaker 2: you just don't believe. And so a lot of it,

57
00:03:23,639 --> 00:03:26,560
Speaker 2: arguably they describe it happened more under the surface than

58
00:03:26,600 --> 00:03:30,880
Speaker 2: it did above the surface. So or go ahead, were

59
00:03:30,919 --> 00:03:31,480
Speaker 2: you going to jump in?

60
00:03:31,560 --> 00:03:33,800
Speaker 1: Well, I just wanted to point out two things. Also,

61
00:03:33,919 --> 00:03:36,840
Speaker 1: you go to college like that, and you have a

62
00:03:36,920 --> 00:03:41,800
Speaker 1: few things that militate against religious belief. One of them,

63
00:03:41,840 --> 00:03:46,240
Speaker 1: of course, is the argument, look, we are human beings

64
00:03:46,280 --> 00:03:49,920
Speaker 1: who are more advanced animals than others. We've all reached

65
00:03:49,920 --> 00:03:53,400
Speaker 1: this through the same process of evolution, and whereas we

66
00:03:53,480 --> 00:03:56,520
Speaker 1: have consciousness and other animals don't, there's no reason to

67
00:03:56,560 --> 00:03:59,960
Speaker 1: think that there's anything that goes on after the brain

68
00:04:00,120 --> 00:04:04,000
Speaker 1: stops functioning. And another thing is you learn about a

69
00:04:04,120 --> 00:04:09,560
Speaker 1: universe that has a billion galaxies, not a billion stars,

70
00:04:09,800 --> 00:04:13,760
Speaker 1: but a million galaxies and tens of millions of light

71
00:04:13,840 --> 00:04:17,080
Speaker 1: years across, and the whole idea of a personal god

72
00:04:17,279 --> 00:04:20,320
Speaker 1: just says, of course, not that that's not in the

73
00:04:20,360 --> 00:04:21,320
Speaker 1: rem of possibility.

74
00:04:22,920 --> 00:04:24,560
Speaker 2: So tell me a little about what you mean by

75
00:04:24,800 --> 00:04:28,120
Speaker 2: happy agnostic. And I love this because I just interviewed

76
00:04:28,120 --> 00:04:30,599
Speaker 2: somebody who describes herself as a little bit more of

77
00:04:30,640 --> 00:04:34,200
Speaker 2: an aggressive atheist, and it seems to me you're not

78
00:04:34,279 --> 00:04:37,520
Speaker 2: on some spiritual journey trying to disprove religion. You're just

79
00:04:37,600 --> 00:04:40,960
Speaker 2: kind of live in your life, and yet these questions emerge.

80
00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:43,680
Speaker 2: So talk a little about why you describe yourself as

81
00:04:43,680 --> 00:04:45,400
Speaker 2: a happy agnostic and what that meant.

82
00:04:46,279 --> 00:04:48,839
Speaker 1: Well, it was a particular period of my life. I

83
00:04:48,880 --> 00:04:54,560
Speaker 1: can pinpoint of nineteen eighty five. July nineteen eighty five.

84
00:04:55,160 --> 00:04:57,120
Speaker 1: My wife and I have been married for two years.

85
00:04:58,080 --> 00:05:02,159
Speaker 1: She's my soulmate. I've never been happy beer and we

86
00:05:02,360 --> 00:05:05,640
Speaker 1: just have a new daughter, and I just had a

87
00:05:05,680 --> 00:05:09,360
Speaker 1: successful book, an unexpectedly successful book, at the opening of

88
00:05:09,400 --> 00:05:17,880
Speaker 1: my public career, and life was complete. And it was

89
00:05:17,920 --> 00:05:20,400
Speaker 1: at that point, a couple of months after the birth

90
00:05:20,440 --> 00:05:24,359
Speaker 1: of our daughter, Anna, that my wife came to me

91
00:05:24,520 --> 00:05:27,320
Speaker 1: and was talking about the love that she felt for Anna,

92
00:05:28,040 --> 00:05:33,360
Speaker 1: and she said, I love her far more than evolution requires,

93
00:05:34,040 --> 00:05:37,120
Speaker 1: which is a great it's a great line. It is yeah,

94
00:05:38,320 --> 00:05:42,440
Speaker 1: in several ways. One is I'm Harvard and mit, she's

95
00:05:42,520 --> 00:05:45,279
Speaker 1: Oxford and Yale. Okay, this is what this is the

96
00:05:45,279 --> 00:05:48,760
Speaker 1: way you put it, love her more than evolution requires.

97
00:05:48,960 --> 00:05:51,800
Speaker 1: And what she was saying was that something else was

98
00:05:51,839 --> 00:05:54,320
Speaker 1: going on, and she felt that she was a conduit

99
00:05:55,040 --> 00:05:59,200
Speaker 1: for some larger love. And you know, an awful lot

100
00:05:59,240 --> 00:06:06,200
Speaker 1: of people in my position dismiss openly spiritual believers because

101
00:06:06,320 --> 00:06:12,320
Speaker 1: we say, well, they're kidding themselves, they're deluding themselves. Maybe

102
00:06:12,320 --> 00:06:15,279
Speaker 1: they aren't that smart. I could say none of those

103
00:06:15,320 --> 00:06:19,440
Speaker 1: things about my wife, so I did not have the

104
00:06:19,440 --> 00:06:23,599
Speaker 1: option of dismissing her experience. And you were quite correct

105
00:06:23,640 --> 00:06:27,720
Speaker 1: the way you described me. I was never a militant atheist.

106
00:06:28,320 --> 00:06:32,720
Speaker 1: In fact, I use the word agnostic advisedly because I

107
00:06:32,800 --> 00:06:40,040
Speaker 1: go along with the proposition that of all the religious positions,

108
00:06:40,480 --> 00:06:45,520
Speaker 1: simple atheism is at least plausible. So I was always open.

109
00:06:48,040 --> 00:06:51,000
Speaker 1: There's something, there's a mystery about the universe that was

110
00:06:51,000 --> 00:06:55,719
Speaker 1: always out there. But that was nineteen eighty five that

111
00:06:55,760 --> 00:07:01,480
Speaker 1: my wife she migrated to Quakerism. And whereas a lot

112
00:07:01,480 --> 00:07:04,280
Speaker 1: of Quakers are socially active and not all that spiritual,

113
00:07:04,680 --> 00:07:08,560
Speaker 1: she's a spiritually active Quaker. And I watched her for

114
00:07:08,600 --> 00:07:14,360
Speaker 1: ten years moving along her discoveries. The way she put

115
00:07:14,440 --> 00:07:19,040
Speaker 1: it is that it was like being in a room

116
00:07:19,080 --> 00:07:22,160
Speaker 1: with a light on a rheostat, and as time went on,

117
00:07:22,280 --> 00:07:24,800
Speaker 1: the light got brighter and brighter in terms of her

118
00:07:24,840 --> 00:07:29,240
Speaker 1: own developing faith. And finally, by the mid nineteen nineties,

119
00:07:29,400 --> 00:07:36,320
Speaker 1: I was getting moved away from my simple, my simple

120
00:07:36,440 --> 00:07:37,880
Speaker 1: lack of attention to religion.

121
00:07:39,480 --> 00:07:43,040
Speaker 2: So if I'm hearing correctly, at the birth of your child,

122
00:07:43,720 --> 00:07:47,560
Speaker 2: this just stirs something up in her, this deeper love

123
00:07:47,600 --> 00:07:50,680
Speaker 2: that she doesn't think can be reduced to this evolutionary

124
00:07:50,760 --> 00:07:55,400
Speaker 2: kind of survival mode of mother's biologically caring for the child.

125
00:07:55,800 --> 00:07:58,520
Speaker 2: Her response is to go to a Quaker church and

126
00:07:58,560 --> 00:08:04,400
Speaker 2: start kind of growing and adapting spiritually. Ten years past,

127
00:08:04,480 --> 00:08:06,920
Speaker 2: what's happening in your mind? Are you intrigued by this?

128
00:08:07,080 --> 00:08:09,360
Speaker 2: Are you upset by this? Like what's happening for this

129
00:08:09,440 --> 00:08:10,520
Speaker 2: decade in your world?

130
00:08:12,360 --> 00:08:19,200
Speaker 1: I watched her lovingly and encouragingly of I thought this

131
00:08:19,280 --> 00:08:22,680
Speaker 1: was a good thing that she was doing. It, just

132
00:08:22,760 --> 00:08:25,760
Speaker 1: didn't you know, what does it have to do with me?

133
00:08:26,120 --> 00:08:29,400
Speaker 1: And the answer was, and here's where we get down

134
00:08:29,440 --> 00:08:36,080
Speaker 1: to a something that I've taken away that I've come

135
00:08:36,120 --> 00:08:38,959
Speaker 1: to believe I did not believe at the time. That

136
00:08:39,120 --> 00:08:44,959
Speaker 1: is that receptivity perceptual ability when it comes to spiritual

137
00:08:45,040 --> 00:08:48,280
Speaker 1: things is like any other human trait. It goes from

138
00:08:48,320 --> 00:08:51,960
Speaker 1: low to high in different human beings. And I like

139
00:08:52,040 --> 00:08:57,400
Speaker 1: to use the analogy with music. I've had professional musicians

140
00:08:58,240 --> 00:09:02,040
Speaker 1: who when they hear music, they're hearing something completely different

141
00:09:02,040 --> 00:09:06,640
Speaker 1: from what I hear. They are getting an emotional impact,

142
00:09:06,640 --> 00:09:10,560
Speaker 1: from an intellectual impact, from a spiritual impact from it.

143
00:09:10,600 --> 00:09:14,600
Speaker 1: Oftentimes that I don't get. I loved I love a

144
00:09:14,640 --> 00:09:18,600
Speaker 1: Beethoven symphony or a Mozart sonata, but I'm not hearing

145
00:09:18,640 --> 00:09:21,840
Speaker 1: what they hear. I don't have as much RECEPTIVI music,

146
00:09:22,120 --> 00:09:25,440
Speaker 1: and some people are simply tone deaf too well. I

147
00:09:25,480 --> 00:09:32,400
Speaker 1: think with spirituality, I'm deficient. If you know, if you

148
00:09:32,480 --> 00:09:36,440
Speaker 1: think suppose that we suppose we score spirituality the same

149
00:09:36,440 --> 00:09:40,040
Speaker 1: way we score IQ, I'd be somewhere around seventy or

150
00:09:40,080 --> 00:09:46,079
Speaker 1: seventy five, and my wife is way up there. And

151
00:09:46,960 --> 00:09:50,640
Speaker 1: if that's the case, when you start to take religion

152
00:09:50,720 --> 00:09:54,240
Speaker 1: seriously in a way, I don't have the same option

153
00:09:54,400 --> 00:09:57,640
Speaker 1: she did. I can you know, for example, she is

154
00:09:58,240 --> 00:10:04,120
Speaker 1: very active and contemporary, and I was unable to follow

155
00:10:04,200 --> 00:10:10,600
Speaker 1: into that. But at the same time, since I wanted

156
00:10:10,640 --> 00:10:13,240
Speaker 1: to take it seriously, I'll keep going back to that phrase.

157
00:10:13,760 --> 00:10:18,920
Speaker 1: I ended up going a more empirical route, and I

158
00:10:19,000 --> 00:10:22,439
Speaker 1: was pushed along in that. I did have a sort

159
00:10:22,480 --> 00:10:26,480
Speaker 1: of road to Damascus moment, but it wasn't spiritual. It

160
00:10:26,559 --> 00:10:29,960
Speaker 1: was when I read a book called Just Six Numbers,

161
00:10:30,320 --> 00:10:35,080
Speaker 1: which was by a British astrophysicist, and this was not

162
00:10:35,400 --> 00:10:38,679
Speaker 1: had no religious overtones. He was talking about the Big Bang,

163
00:10:40,080 --> 00:10:43,960
Speaker 1: and he was talking about something that physicists have known

164
00:10:44,040 --> 00:10:47,240
Speaker 1: since the nineteen seventies, which is that at the moment

165
00:10:47,240 --> 00:10:50,120
Speaker 1: of the Big Bang, when the universe emerged out of nothing,

166
00:10:50,640 --> 00:10:55,320
Speaker 1: a dimensionless point and not only space where probably time

167
00:10:55,440 --> 00:11:00,120
Speaker 1: was created, it's as if there were a whole bunch

168
00:10:59,960 --> 00:11:04,960
Speaker 1: of settings which, if they had not all been perfectly aligned,

169
00:11:05,520 --> 00:11:08,440
Speaker 1: would have produced a universe in which life was not possible.

170
00:11:09,280 --> 00:11:12,720
Speaker 1: It would have been a universe that was radiation but

171
00:11:12,840 --> 00:11:16,839
Speaker 1: no stars and galaxies, a universe with black holes. And

172
00:11:17,000 --> 00:11:20,000
Speaker 1: instead we get a universe that creates all the elements,

173
00:11:20,720 --> 00:11:26,040
Speaker 1: and the elements create planets eventually and stars, which eventually

174
00:11:26,480 --> 00:11:30,040
Speaker 1: enable life. The chances against that are about a trillion

175
00:11:30,120 --> 00:11:35,720
Speaker 1: to one, and that calculation actually is by another astrophysicist,

176
00:11:36,240 --> 00:11:41,360
Speaker 1: a Nobel Prize winner, and I read that, I said

177
00:11:41,400 --> 00:11:46,200
Speaker 1: a trillion to one chance against this happening. I don't

178
00:11:46,200 --> 00:11:49,960
Speaker 1: believe in trillion to one chances, and I was left

179
00:11:50,080 --> 00:11:54,480
Speaker 1: with the option of believing in the multiverse, which is

180
00:11:54,600 --> 00:11:57,720
Speaker 1: the theory, and it's purely theory that there are millions

181
00:11:57,760 --> 00:12:02,120
Speaker 1: of universes like this. To me just not that's just

182
00:12:03,240 --> 00:12:05,840
Speaker 1: I can't buy into that in any way, shape or form.

183
00:12:06,280 --> 00:12:10,400
Speaker 1: And the only plausible opportunity is that there is an

184
00:12:10,400 --> 00:12:15,120
Speaker 1: intention behind the universe. And simply saying that to myself

185
00:12:15,200 --> 00:12:16,320
Speaker 1: was a big step.

186
00:12:17,640 --> 00:12:21,839
Speaker 2: As an apologist. Hearing somebody have a Damascus Road experience

187
00:12:21,880 --> 00:12:26,160
Speaker 2: that involves reading a science and philosophy. Book actually makes

188
00:12:26,200 --> 00:12:29,680
Speaker 2: me really happy to hear that. On one level, Before

189
00:12:29,679 --> 00:12:31,760
Speaker 2: we get to some of the evidence, you cite some

190
00:12:31,840 --> 00:12:35,920
Speaker 2: other historical and scientific evidence that was pivotal along your journey.

191
00:12:36,520 --> 00:12:37,959
Speaker 2: Let me take a step back for a minute. So

192
00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:40,600
Speaker 2: you see your wife over this ten years kind of

193
00:12:40,640 --> 00:12:43,480
Speaker 2: growing and expanding. You're trying to be loving to her.

194
00:12:45,280 --> 00:12:48,040
Speaker 2: You ended up reading this book, so you had some

195
00:12:48,520 --> 00:12:52,800
Speaker 2: intentionality spiritually. What was your goal and what was your

196
00:12:52,960 --> 00:12:56,280
Speaker 2: mindset to get to that point? And since you didn't

197
00:12:56,280 --> 00:13:01,560
Speaker 2: go to a Quaker services that were seen more experiential

198
00:13:01,640 --> 00:13:05,200
Speaker 2: like your wife had, what kind of investigation were you

199
00:13:05,240 --> 00:13:06,400
Speaker 2: intending to pursue.

200
00:13:07,440 --> 00:13:10,959
Speaker 1: Well, the first point is that I started attending Quaker

201
00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:14,360
Speaker 1: meeting regularly with her in the mid nineteen nineties because

202
00:13:14,400 --> 00:13:17,640
Speaker 1: by that time we had a second child and both

203
00:13:17,640 --> 00:13:20,400
Speaker 1: of the children were old enough to go to what

204
00:13:20,480 --> 00:13:25,839
Speaker 1: Quakers call first day school Sunday School. And I felt

205
00:13:25,920 --> 00:13:31,200
Speaker 1: very strongly then that it's a good children should grow

206
00:13:31,280 --> 00:13:33,440
Speaker 1: up in a religious tradition. I was very much in

207
00:13:33,480 --> 00:13:38,360
Speaker 1: favor that I should support that. But here's the it.

208
00:13:38,400 --> 00:13:42,000
Speaker 1: With a Quaker meeting, I'm bad at meditation. I try,

209
00:13:42,200 --> 00:13:45,080
Speaker 1: I try, and I just lose my focus. But it

210
00:13:45,160 --> 00:13:49,200
Speaker 1: is permissible a Quaker meeting, not encouraged, but permissible to

211
00:13:49,240 --> 00:13:53,920
Speaker 1: read the Bible. So I would take the Bible with

212
00:13:53,960 --> 00:13:58,080
Speaker 1: me and I would read that maybe half an hour

213
00:13:58,160 --> 00:14:00,920
Speaker 1: out of the hour of the Quaker service Sunday. Well,

214
00:14:01,720 --> 00:14:04,360
Speaker 1: over several years you read a lot of the Bible

215
00:14:04,400 --> 00:14:08,400
Speaker 1: that way, and the New Testament. I read the New Testament,

216
00:14:08,480 --> 00:14:12,320
Speaker 1: you know, repeatedly, and different portions of it. So I

217
00:14:12,400 --> 00:14:19,440
Speaker 1: was acquiring that kind of knowledge. I was persuaded even

218
00:14:19,600 --> 00:14:22,960
Speaker 1: before I read just six numbers about the Big Bang,

219
00:14:24,480 --> 00:14:27,440
Speaker 1: you know, the famous question why is there something rather

220
00:14:27,520 --> 00:14:32,640
Speaker 1: than nothing? That was that was very much in my

221
00:14:32,760 --> 00:14:35,880
Speaker 1: mind in the last half of the nineties, the whole

222
00:14:35,920 --> 00:14:40,520
Speaker 1: point about the simplicity of the relationship between mathematics and

223
00:14:40,880 --> 00:14:44,280
Speaker 1: the physical world. I kept thinking, why should it be

224
00:14:46,080 --> 00:14:52,400
Speaker 1: that something like the eee equals mc square of Einstein's

225
00:14:52,440 --> 00:14:57,720
Speaker 1: famous theory, Why should that be mathematically so simple. It's

226
00:14:57,880 --> 00:15:02,600
Speaker 1: as if the mathematics would not be that simple unless

227
00:15:03,280 --> 00:15:07,080
Speaker 1: assembly had planned it that way. So there was a

228
00:15:07,120 --> 00:15:13,280
Speaker 1: series of nudges, and of a couple of things happened

229
00:15:14,640 --> 00:15:18,400
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five. Well, first I wrote a

230
00:15:18,440 --> 00:15:22,960
Speaker 1: book called Human Accomplishment, long book about the arts and

231
00:15:23,040 --> 00:15:28,120
Speaker 1: sciences and the great accomplishments in it. And I had

232
00:15:28,120 --> 00:15:35,920
Speaker 1: a Catholic friend, Michael Novak, who's a famous Catholic philosopher,

233
00:15:35,960 --> 00:15:38,880
Speaker 1: not theologian, but anyway, he said to me when I

234
00:15:38,920 --> 00:15:41,960
Speaker 1: set out on the book, he said, I think you're

235
00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:45,080
Speaker 1: going to find as you go into this that Christianity

236
00:15:45,160 --> 00:15:48,520
Speaker 1: played a huge role in Western civilization, developing the arts

237
00:15:48,520 --> 00:15:53,440
Speaker 1: and sciences. And I liked Michael a Latin, and admired him,

238
00:15:53,440 --> 00:15:55,960
Speaker 1: but I said to myself, well, you know, the Greeks

239
00:15:55,960 --> 00:15:58,360
Speaker 1: were kind of their first in terms of Plato and

240
00:15:58,400 --> 00:16:04,680
Speaker 1: Aristotle and logic. But I didn't argue with him. And

241
00:16:04,800 --> 00:16:09,240
Speaker 1: then as I worked in the book, I was increasingly

242
00:16:09,320 --> 00:16:14,360
Speaker 1: impressed by the fundamental role that Christianity played, not just

243
00:16:14,400 --> 00:16:19,160
Speaker 1: in the arts, where Christianity was very obviously the inspiration

244
00:16:19,320 --> 00:16:21,400
Speaker 1: for an awful lot of the great visual art, a

245
00:16:21,440 --> 00:16:24,000
Speaker 1: lot of the great music, a lot of the great literature,

246
00:16:24,440 --> 00:16:27,120
Speaker 1: but also the sciences. So I came to the end

247
00:16:27,320 --> 00:16:31,080
Speaker 1: of writing Human Accomplishment in a Round two thousand and four,

248
00:16:32,560 --> 00:16:38,480
Speaker 1: and I was already bothered by the degree to which

249
00:16:39,320 --> 00:16:43,160
Speaker 1: Christianity had had this powerful impact and on the last

250
00:16:43,200 --> 00:16:48,880
Speaker 1: page of the book, I said, you know, you have

251
00:16:48,960 --> 00:16:52,440
Speaker 1: to realize how many of these great creators of art

252
00:16:52,480 --> 00:16:58,320
Speaker 1: and literature were devout Christians. And I had a sentence

253
00:16:58,320 --> 00:17:02,440
Speaker 1: that said, Johan's Austin Bach doesn't have to explain himself.

254
00:17:02,800 --> 00:17:04,960
Speaker 1: He does not have to defend his way of looking

255
00:17:05,000 --> 00:17:08,640
Speaker 1: at the world. His music does it for him. And

256
00:17:09,040 --> 00:17:12,800
Speaker 1: so I was opened up by that point. Then I

257
00:17:12,840 --> 00:17:16,080
Speaker 1: read Cus, then I read C. S. Lewis, and I

258
00:17:16,359 --> 00:17:18,280
Speaker 1: was sort of tipped over the edge into a whole

259
00:17:18,280 --> 00:17:19,480
Speaker 1: new set of things.

260
00:17:19,760 --> 00:17:21,239
Speaker 2: Okay, so we're going to come back to that. That

261
00:17:21,280 --> 00:17:24,720
Speaker 2: CS Lewis moment seems really significant. But I'm trying to

262
00:17:24,720 --> 00:17:27,480
Speaker 2: get in your mindset year. This kind of starts in

263
00:17:27,560 --> 00:17:31,719
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty five, and then you're kind of tipped towards Christianity,

264
00:17:31,840 --> 00:17:35,879
Speaker 2: like two decades later in two thousand and five. And

265
00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:38,840
Speaker 2: during this time you're writing books on other stuff, being

266
00:17:38,840 --> 00:17:42,120
Speaker 2: a policy analyst. Is this kind of a hobby for you?

267
00:17:42,280 --> 00:17:44,119
Speaker 2: Is it in the back of your mind that's just

268
00:17:44,240 --> 00:17:47,440
Speaker 2: kind of gnawing you, Like, what was your mindset and

269
00:17:47,840 --> 00:17:52,399
Speaker 2: intentionality in discovering the truth about these questions during that

270
00:17:52,600 --> 00:17:53,240
Speaker 2: two decades.

271
00:17:54,800 --> 00:18:00,240
Speaker 1: I had a sense that my wife was acquiring stuff

272
00:18:00,280 --> 00:18:05,520
Speaker 1: in her life that I envied, and so I had

273
00:18:05,600 --> 00:18:10,080
Speaker 1: a not very well articulated desire to participate in that.

274
00:18:11,320 --> 00:18:19,200
Speaker 1: And also, even before I read the Big Bang material,

275
00:18:20,160 --> 00:18:24,879
Speaker 1: I would run into things like near death experiences, which

276
00:18:25,680 --> 00:18:28,560
Speaker 1: I had done a lot of reading in that, and

277
00:18:29,119 --> 00:18:30,920
Speaker 1: I'd done a lot of reading for a long time,

278
00:18:31,000 --> 00:18:34,520
Speaker 1: and I took a lot of those accounts seriously. But

279
00:18:34,840 --> 00:18:39,000
Speaker 1: then it sort of grows inside me that, you know,

280
00:18:40,040 --> 00:18:43,200
Speaker 1: if these near death experiences are real, it means consciousness

281
00:18:43,240 --> 00:18:47,600
Speaker 1: can exist outside the brain. And so that was hovering

282
00:18:47,640 --> 00:18:54,199
Speaker 1: in the background. One of the reasons I've wrote the

283
00:18:54,240 --> 00:18:57,119
Speaker 1: book the way I did was to avoid making it

284
00:18:57,160 --> 00:19:02,960
Speaker 1: sound systematic. And I avoid the word journey. I don't

285
00:19:03,119 --> 00:19:05,159
Speaker 1: use I don't think I use the word journey. And

286
00:19:05,200 --> 00:19:09,040
Speaker 1: the reason is I had no sense of being in

287
00:19:09,080 --> 00:19:13,440
Speaker 1: any kind of straight line. I had a much more

288
00:19:13,480 --> 00:19:17,000
Speaker 1: diffuse sense of As time went on, there were new

289
00:19:17,040 --> 00:19:20,520
Speaker 1: things intruding on my understanding of the world, and I

290
00:19:20,560 --> 00:19:22,040
Speaker 1: was still trying to fit them together.

291
00:19:22,960 --> 00:19:25,560
Speaker 2: So there's really no sense of urgency. It was just

292
00:19:25,680 --> 00:19:28,800
Speaker 2: kind of curiosity and something just kind of gnawing at

293
00:19:28,840 --> 00:19:31,720
Speaker 2: you a little bit that she knew, something experienced, something

294
00:19:32,440 --> 00:19:34,440
Speaker 2: you were missing out on. Is that a fair way

295
00:19:34,440 --> 00:19:35,000
Speaker 2: to look at it.

296
00:19:35,560 --> 00:19:37,760
Speaker 1: That's a fair way to look at it with plus

297
00:19:37,800 --> 00:19:41,440
Speaker 1: one edition. And this is something I'm trying to communicate

298
00:19:41,480 --> 00:19:44,639
Speaker 1: to my readers who are not religious. This stuff is

299
00:19:44,680 --> 00:19:51,399
Speaker 1: fascinating you. When you get into all sorts of the

300
00:19:51,480 --> 00:19:55,280
Speaker 1: issues I've just talked about with consciousness and the scientific

301
00:19:55,320 --> 00:20:01,000
Speaker 1: findings unconsciousness, that's fascinating. And when you get into apologetics,

302
00:20:01,080 --> 00:20:04,239
Speaker 1: as I did later, into the study of the New

303
00:20:04,280 --> 00:20:07,000
Speaker 1: Testament and the historicity of it and the dating of

304
00:20:07,040 --> 00:20:12,320
Speaker 1: the Gospels and all that, it's just plain, intellectually really riveting.

305
00:20:13,880 --> 00:20:15,960
Speaker 2: You don't have to convince me about that. You are

306
00:20:16,040 --> 00:20:19,359
Speaker 2: preaching to the choir. That is music to my ears.

307
00:20:19,560 --> 00:20:22,080
Speaker 2: I love it. I'm probably gonna clip that one and

308
00:20:22,200 --> 00:20:26,119
Speaker 2: just use it because that's so true to me. Okay,

309
00:20:26,160 --> 00:20:29,160
Speaker 2: So one last question before we get to you kind

310
00:20:29,160 --> 00:20:33,439
Speaker 2: of reading into mere Christianity. The nudges an issue you

311
00:20:33,440 --> 00:20:36,480
Speaker 2: had wrestled with the first one you describe as mathematics,

312
00:20:36,560 --> 00:20:41,880
Speaker 2: that why can we capture things like laws E equals

313
00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:45,399
Speaker 2: mc squared in such a simple way? And why is

314
00:20:45,560 --> 00:20:49,560
Speaker 2: order built into the universe? The origin of the universe

315
00:20:49,680 --> 00:20:52,000
Speaker 2: began to bug you, like, why is there something rather

316
00:20:52,080 --> 00:20:55,680
Speaker 2: than nothing? This points towards a cause outside of the universe.

317
00:20:56,359 --> 00:20:59,920
Speaker 2: And then the fine tuning of the universe also points

318
00:21:00,080 --> 00:21:04,719
Speaker 2: towards kind of a mind that best explains with intentionality

319
00:21:04,880 --> 00:21:08,200
Speaker 2: the order of the universe set for life. And then

320
00:21:08,359 --> 00:21:10,840
Speaker 2: consciousness seems to bug you. This is wait a minute,

321
00:21:10,880 --> 00:21:14,640
Speaker 2: I can't reduce human beings down just to matter. There

322
00:21:14,640 --> 00:21:17,240
Speaker 2: seems to be mind or a soul and with near

323
00:21:17,320 --> 00:21:21,600
Speaker 2: death experiences that can at least minimally survive the brain.

324
00:21:21,640 --> 00:21:24,200
Speaker 2: Does that capture kind of where you were intellectually before

325
00:21:24,320 --> 00:21:25,119
Speaker 2: Mere Christianity?

326
00:21:25,800 --> 00:21:28,760
Speaker 1: That's very well put you encapsulate the whole thing.

327
00:21:28,840 --> 00:21:33,320
Speaker 2: Good, Yeah, awesome, just trying to track. That's really good. Okay,

328
00:21:33,400 --> 00:21:36,720
Speaker 2: So why did you read Mere Christianity? Who gave you

329
00:21:36,760 --> 00:21:38,679
Speaker 2: that book? What do you have that idea? And then

330
00:21:38,720 --> 00:21:41,320
Speaker 2: what was the next step that book took you along

331
00:21:41,440 --> 00:21:44,120
Speaker 2: in your intellectual non journey?

332
00:21:44,960 --> 00:21:48,239
Speaker 1: It was Pete Pete Water. Pete Waiter also is a

333
00:21:48,240 --> 00:21:52,760
Speaker 1: policy atalyst, but he also writes religion. He's a evangelical

334
00:21:52,840 --> 00:21:57,520
Speaker 1: Christian and he was formerly a speech writer for George W.

335
00:21:57,680 --> 00:21:58,120
Speaker 2: Bush.

336
00:21:58,920 --> 00:22:03,000
Speaker 1: So he invited me to go to lunch at the

337
00:22:03,040 --> 00:22:07,280
Speaker 1: White House mess the little cafe in the White House,

338
00:22:07,320 --> 00:22:09,919
Speaker 1: which is really cool to go to because you're in

339
00:22:09,920 --> 00:22:12,680
Speaker 1: the White House and you've never been there before. And

340
00:22:15,640 --> 00:22:18,320
Speaker 1: I knew he was an evangelical Christian, and I asked

341
00:22:18,400 --> 00:22:20,359
Speaker 1: him during lunch. I said, how did you come to

342
00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:24,960
Speaker 1: your faith? And he said by convincement mostly, I was

343
00:22:25,000 --> 00:22:28,399
Speaker 1: just convinced it was true. And he mentioned to see S.

344
00:22:28,480 --> 00:22:33,280
Speaker 1: Lewis and Mere Christianity as a turning point. And I

345
00:22:33,400 --> 00:22:36,399
Speaker 1: left the lunch and bought the book and read it

346
00:22:36,440 --> 00:22:42,760
Speaker 1: over the next few days, and I was really impressed.

347
00:22:43,800 --> 00:22:47,600
Speaker 1: Remember what I earlier I said about deciding when I

348
00:22:47,640 --> 00:22:50,320
Speaker 1: went to college that people were right and saying smart

349
00:22:50,320 --> 00:22:54,080
Speaker 1: people don't believe that stuff anymore. You don't read Mere

350
00:22:54,160 --> 00:22:57,440
Speaker 1: Christianity and say smart people don't beleave that stuff anymore.

351
00:22:57,480 --> 00:23:05,199
Speaker 1: Because if there's a voice that just radiates intelligence, it's C. S. Lewis.

352
00:23:05,760 --> 00:23:08,719
Speaker 1: And a lot of people who are who are watching

353
00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:11,399
Speaker 1: have have read C. S. Lewis themselves. They know this,

354
00:23:11,600 --> 00:23:15,359
Speaker 1: but if they haven't, when I said he radiates intelligence,

355
00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:20,199
Speaker 1: he does it with his conversational, casual, informal style that

356
00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:27,480
Speaker 1: is totally engrossing, and he has the wonderful characteristic of

357
00:23:27,800 --> 00:23:31,280
Speaker 1: your reading him, and you're sort of mentally arguing with him.

358
00:23:31,960 --> 00:23:35,120
Speaker 1: And then after you've said, oh, well, this is why

359
00:23:35,160 --> 00:23:38,320
Speaker 1: I don't agree with them, the next paragraph says, perhaps

360
00:23:38,359 --> 00:23:43,840
Speaker 1: you're thinking that he does, and he answers your objection.

361
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:49,320
Speaker 1: And so that had a huge effect on me, and

362
00:23:49,440 --> 00:23:53,480
Speaker 1: I was by this time there were lots of redigious

363
00:23:53,480 --> 00:23:56,200
Speaker 1: books coming into the house because of Catherine, she reads

364
00:23:56,240 --> 00:24:02,320
Speaker 1: full humorously. But one that I saw independently of her,

365
00:24:02,359 --> 00:24:08,240
Speaker 1: I guess was Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. I'm sure you're

366
00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:16,120
Speaker 1: familiar with it. It's Richard Baucom, British theologian, and he

367
00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:19,199
Speaker 1: starts out the book saying, well, I know this is

368
00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:22,560
Speaker 1: a minority view, but this book the thesis is that

369
00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:28,480
Speaker 1: the New Testament Gospels are deliberately trying to convey how

370
00:24:28,560 --> 00:24:33,360
Speaker 1: much of their material is coming from eyewitnesses, and that

371
00:24:33,440 --> 00:24:37,560
Speaker 1: he is making the case for the traditional interpretation of

372
00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:42,680
Speaker 1: the Gospels that, for example, it was tradition that Mark

373
00:24:42,760 --> 00:24:48,080
Speaker 1: had taken down Peter's reminiscences in effect, and he's saying,

374
00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:50,960
Speaker 1: there's really good evidence that that's exactly what Mark does,

375
00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:57,840
Speaker 1: and so forth, and that did something really important for me,

376
00:24:58,200 --> 00:25:02,760
Speaker 1: because I had already read into the revisionists. I'd read

377
00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:06,000
Speaker 1: some of bart Eraman, I'd read some of the other things,

378
00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:10,160
Speaker 1: which says, oh, the Gospels weren't really written. They accumulated

379
00:25:10,200 --> 00:25:13,600
Speaker 1: traditions over decades in different parts of the Roman Empire.

380
00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:18,120
Speaker 1: It's like the telephone game, and so we really can't

381
00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:22,919
Speaker 1: even be sure that what Jesus is purported to have

382
00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:26,040
Speaker 1: said there's any resemblance to anything he did say. I

383
00:25:26,080 --> 00:25:29,480
Speaker 1: knew about the Jesus Seminar, and I kind of thought

384
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:35,000
Speaker 1: that they've won. I'd assume that, yeah, you know that

385
00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:39,080
Speaker 1: more or less the New Testament had been discredited, and

386
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:43,639
Speaker 1: all at once, here's Malcolm writing a very error type book,

387
00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:46,359
Speaker 1: and it seems to me he's making a lot of sense.

388
00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:49,199
Speaker 1: And then I start from there and I end up

389
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:54,600
Speaker 1: reading a variety of other defenses of the tradition, and

390
00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:57,800
Speaker 1: some of which were written before Malcolm. I hadn't known

391
00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:03,520
Speaker 1: that these existed. And is I did that? I kept

392
00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:07,160
Speaker 1: saying to myself, I'm more impressed by the empirical evidence

393
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:12,000
Speaker 1: by the defenders than I am by the revisionists.

394
00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:18,640
Speaker 2: So when I teach classes, on apologetics, I often walk through,

395
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:22,720
Speaker 2: like the scientific evidence that points towards a mind that

396
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:28,480
Speaker 2: began the universe that's intelligent, timeless, changeless, purposeful. Will walk

397
00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:31,200
Speaker 2: through the fine tuning, which I think advances that a

398
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 2: little bit further, talk about things like the origin of

399
00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:37,040
Speaker 2: life and the information to sell which is not something

400
00:26:37,200 --> 00:26:39,840
Speaker 2: you go into, which is fine, talk about consciousness in

401
00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:41,920
Speaker 2: the way that you do that there's life apart from

402
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:44,800
Speaker 2: the body. But the big piece when I talk about

403
00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:49,119
Speaker 2: mere Christianity is that in the scientific evidence, there's a

404
00:26:49,359 --> 00:26:52,880
Speaker 2: mind that made us, but we can't ascertain anything moral

405
00:26:53,160 --> 00:26:58,480
Speaker 2: about this mind. Lewis's argument, even independent from the Bible,

406
00:26:59,080 --> 00:27:02,440
Speaker 2: is like, there's the moral law and we know it

407
00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 2: and we expect it and we act as if it's real,

408
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:09,760
Speaker 2: which moves us along the pendulum from this mind that

409
00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:15,400
Speaker 2: began the universe to this seemingly personal agent behind this

410
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:19,440
Speaker 2: moral law. Do you agree with that thinking? Is that

411
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 2: a part of your process or am I kind of

412
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 2: reading stuff in post facto that maybe wasn't there?

413
00:27:25,119 --> 00:27:32,120
Speaker 1: No, No, I've that's the first five chapters of mere Christianity.

414
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:38,159
Speaker 1: Doesn't say a word about Christianity. It's all about the

415
00:27:38,480 --> 00:27:42,280
Speaker 1: existence of the moral law. And then at the end

416
00:27:42,359 --> 00:27:47,879
Speaker 1: of it he hits you with the bludgeon. He says, well,

417
00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:55,760
Speaker 1: if you have a God that is trying to communicate

418
00:27:55,880 --> 00:28:02,720
Speaker 1: with human beings, how can he exhibit himself? And the

419
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:08,600
Speaker 1: answer is he can exhibit himself by pushing us towards

420
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:14,640
Speaker 1: certain ways of behaving. And at the core of that

421
00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 1: is a kind of love agape. And so what we

422
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:23,760
Speaker 1: see in what he's been describing with the basis for

423
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:28,159
Speaker 1: the moral law is the nature of God, and the

424
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:32,280
Speaker 1: nature of God corresponds very closely to the Christian nature

425
00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:37,679
Speaker 1: of God. God is love, and it provides a moral

426
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:42,400
Speaker 1: basis for behavior and for a lot of people. Francis

427
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:47,520
Speaker 1: Collins is another example. For Francis Collins, it's that passage

428
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:53,640
Speaker 1: that sort of brought him up short and was a

429
00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:56,800
Speaker 1: transforming experience, and it was close to that for me.

430
00:28:57,160 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 1: It was certainly very influential.

431
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:03,400
Speaker 2: So the next step, of course, in mere Christianity and

432
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:06,600
Speaker 2: in your journey, and I think logically, is if we

433
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:09,880
Speaker 2: have this mind that is behind the universe, and this

434
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:14,200
Speaker 2: mind has put a moral law into the universe and

435
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:17,480
Speaker 2: also on our hearts to behave in a moral fashion

436
00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 2: has this mind or God revealed himself now on the

437
00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:24,840
Speaker 2: last page of your book. This is actually one of

438
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:28,200
Speaker 2: my favorite inserts from your books. So we're somewhat skipping ahead,

439
00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:32,240
Speaker 2: but you write this, you said during one such wakefulness

440
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 2: a few months before writing these words, I was thinking

441
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:37,520
Speaker 2: about what it would be like to meet great religious

442
00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:42,840
Speaker 2: figures from the past, such as Gautama, Buddha, Louzy, Moses,

443
00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:46,360
Speaker 2: and Jesus. It'd be fascinating, of course, to see what

444
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:49,200
Speaker 2: they were like in person, and I would naturally treat

445
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:52,760
Speaker 2: all of them with the utmost respect. Unbidden, it came

446
00:29:52,800 --> 00:29:57,640
Speaker 2: to me that I would treat Jesus differently, with reverence.

447
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:01,760
Speaker 2: So what motivated you to then say, okay, maybe this

448
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:05,760
Speaker 2: God has revealed himself in the person of Jesus.

449
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:09,760
Speaker 1: Well, we did skip ahead, which was fine. We did,

450
00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:15,160
Speaker 1: but which is fine. But what I want to emphasize

451
00:30:15,360 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 1: to people are watching is I was surprised by this

452
00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:27,840
Speaker 1: instinctive feeling I treat him with reverence. Surprised in the

453
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:34,240
Speaker 1: sense that I had reached a belief without internally processing

454
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:38,040
Speaker 1: the degree to which I had had reached that belief.

455
00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:42,680
Speaker 1: I remember Catherine saying to me one time early on

456
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:46,600
Speaker 1: in this whole process. She sort of laughed and said,

457
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:49,520
Speaker 1: you know, you believe in God, don't you. You do realize that,

458
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:53,120
Speaker 1: don't you. And I said, well, but she was putting

459
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:55,560
Speaker 1: out something that she had perceived that I had not

460
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:59,080
Speaker 1: fully perceived myself, And that was true a lot of this,

461
00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:02,680
Speaker 1: And in a way, I think that should be encouraging

462
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:07,680
Speaker 1: for unbelievers, because you know, if you say to yourself

463
00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 1: that you've got to have a born again moment, a

464
00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:18,320
Speaker 1: revelation of I think you're likely to be disappointed. That

465
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 1: happens to some people. I think those are authentic experiences

466
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:25,400
Speaker 1: some people. But it's not the only way. It's not

467
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:29,600
Speaker 1: the only way that a person can migrate to a

468
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:34,000
Speaker 1: new set of beliefs, and it is not all rational

469
00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 1: and intellectual. I did not say to myself, well, I

470
00:31:37,520 --> 00:31:40,000
Speaker 1: think the odds are now eighty nine point four percent.

471
00:31:40,280 --> 00:31:42,640
Speaker 1: Such and such as the case, and so I'm going

472
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:50,440
Speaker 1: to believe it was a combination of rational appraisal of

473
00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:56,880
Speaker 1: a lot of empirical information along with a harder to

474
00:31:57,000 --> 00:32:05,160
Speaker 1: describe gradual spiritual process. But they did not feel spiritual

475
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:07,320
Speaker 1: at the time in an emotional way.

476
00:32:10,120 --> 00:32:11,640
Speaker 2: So in the book, one of the things you talk

477
00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:15,480
Speaker 2: about the famously C. S. Lewis kind of Lord, liar lunatic?

478
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:18,520
Speaker 2: Is that one of the art arguments because you'd been

479
00:32:18,560 --> 00:32:23,000
Speaker 2: reading the Gospel for a while going to the Quaker services,

480
00:32:23,040 --> 00:32:26,160
Speaker 2: so you're familiar with the stories and who Jesus claimed

481
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:29,280
Speaker 2: to be. Is that one of the pieces at this

482
00:32:29,400 --> 00:32:31,440
Speaker 2: time in your life where you're like, oh, my goodness,

483
00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:35,680
Speaker 2: I have to draw some conclusion about who Jesus is personally.

484
00:32:36,360 --> 00:32:40,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, because my reaction to the trilemma liar, lunatic or

485
00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:45,120
Speaker 1: Lord was they say, well, aren't the only options? And

486
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:49,320
Speaker 1: I was thinking of the revisionists at this point that no,

487
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:51,960
Speaker 1: it was that what we're getting in the New Testament

488
00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:56,160
Speaker 1: there's no relationship to anything that actually happened historically. Well,

489
00:32:56,280 --> 00:32:59,240
Speaker 1: if I'm going to say that, then it's kind of

490
00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:04,200
Speaker 1: incumbent on me to investigate the historicity of all this.

491
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:10,800
Speaker 1: And I had at the same time a curiosity about

492
00:33:11,480 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 1: these traditions, so that I would read that there was

493
00:33:15,760 --> 00:33:21,320
Speaker 1: an early tradition about Mark recording Peter's reminiscences, There is

494
00:33:21,360 --> 00:33:23,800
Speaker 1: an early tradition of this, an early tradition of that,

495
00:33:24,640 --> 00:33:28,840
Speaker 1: but the people never actually said where the tradition came from.

496
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:32,320
Speaker 1: And so one of the things that is I started

497
00:33:32,360 --> 00:33:35,640
Speaker 1: reading that I found the most fascinating and also the

498
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:43,040
Speaker 1: most impressing were the very early Patristic writings of Papias

499
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:47,040
Speaker 1: and of if I'm pronouncing that right, and Clement and

500
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:51,800
Speaker 1: Iranius and others where and there were a couple of

501
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:57,080
Speaker 1: books I read which had extended quotations from them, and

502
00:33:57,160 --> 00:34:01,760
Speaker 1: I read those. I think specially of of Clement writing

503
00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:06,200
Speaker 1: about how it is that you only had two Gospels

504
00:34:06,240 --> 00:34:11,400
Speaker 1: written by apostles, and the way he describes that just

505
00:34:11,560 --> 00:34:15,319
Speaker 1: sounds like a historian describing something that was well known

506
00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:18,759
Speaker 1: at that time and that he's relating it to us,

507
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:22,760
Speaker 1: and it sounded plausible. And I also assumed that Clement

508
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:25,120
Speaker 1: had access to a lot of written material that we

509
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:28,920
Speaker 1: don't have access to anymore because it's been lost, and

510
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:35,359
Speaker 1: this sounded like a serious recounting of This is why

511
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:41,799
Speaker 1: John wrote John, this is why Mark. This is how

512
00:34:41,880 --> 00:34:46,560
Speaker 1: Mark took down the reminiscence of Peter. It was percuisive.

513
00:34:47,280 --> 00:34:50,760
Speaker 1: And then I also came to the question of dating

514
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:55,719
Speaker 1: the Gospels. It would never prettically bothered me that they

515
00:34:55,719 --> 00:35:00,480
Speaker 1: were dated at seventy to ninety AD, because I figured

516
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:04,640
Speaker 1: they could still be quite accurate that long after the crucifixion.

517
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 1: But it shorter is better. And I think the evidence

518
00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:14,400
Speaker 1: that Acts was finished by the early sixties is persuasive.

519
00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 1: And if Acts was written by the early sixties, that

520
00:35:18,160 --> 00:35:23,239
Speaker 1: pushes everything else back. And so you're looking at the

521
00:35:23,239 --> 00:35:26,800
Speaker 1: Gospels certainly in the fifties and maybe in the forties,

522
00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:35,160
Speaker 1: and you put that alongside the Pauline letters. And so

523
00:35:35,239 --> 00:35:40,520
Speaker 1: as I explored this, I came to believe that Lewis's

524
00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 1: trilemma was better than I had initially realized. That it

525
00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:53,000
Speaker 1: was not the case that Jesus as having a special

526
00:35:53,080 --> 00:35:56,080
Speaker 1: relationship with God, son of God. That was not a

527
00:35:56,160 --> 00:36:00,000
Speaker 1: late invention, that was I came to say, the revision

528
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:03,280
Speaker 1: us are wrong about that. I'm not a biblical scholar,

529
00:36:03,320 --> 00:36:05,800
Speaker 1: but that was my conclusion on the basis of my reading.

530
00:36:06,640 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 1: And he did claim that. And so now we have

531
00:36:10,239 --> 00:36:13,560
Speaker 1: to say, can we reconcile him to both be a

532
00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:16,279
Speaker 1: great moral teacher and also being a lunatic when it

533
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:19,239
Speaker 1: comes to talking about his relationship with Got And that's

534
00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:20,000
Speaker 1: hard to do too.

535
00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:23,720
Speaker 2: Now I think this is post two thousand and five

536
00:36:24,120 --> 00:36:26,400
Speaker 2: for you so two part question, when are you kind

537
00:36:26,440 --> 00:36:30,560
Speaker 2: of reading Bacham and mere Christianity? And are you reading

538
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:34,480
Speaker 2: it like hoping it's true or just interested or like

539
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:37,040
Speaker 2: I hope it's not true. What was kind of your mindset?

540
00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:39,520
Speaker 2: And when did you read those kind of works.

541
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:43,600
Speaker 1: You're asking in questions that I've never had to answer before.

542
00:36:44,480 --> 00:36:51,120
Speaker 1: That is interesting. Good. Uh, yeah, you know. I think

543
00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:57,319
Speaker 1: the best way to say it is that one of

544
00:36:57,360 --> 00:37:03,120
Speaker 1: my virtues is I'm really curious. And I've written lots

545
00:37:03,120 --> 00:37:05,960
Speaker 1: of books on lots of different subjects, and I haven't

546
00:37:05,960 --> 00:37:09,520
Speaker 1: really repeated myself much. I've headed off all the time

547
00:37:09,600 --> 00:37:12,040
Speaker 1: into brand new areas. And the reason I do that

548
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:15,040
Speaker 1: is because I really love getting into new topics. And

549
00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:19,239
Speaker 1: so as I was doing this, I had a feeling of, Oh,

550
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 1: here's this whole literature out here that I didn't know existed,

551
00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:24,759
Speaker 1: and it's really interesting and I'm going to keep reading it.

552
00:37:25,239 --> 00:37:31,480
Speaker 1: And was I aware that something important was this was

553
00:37:31,520 --> 00:37:38,680
Speaker 1: a really important topic? Yes, I was. But my basic

554
00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:42,040
Speaker 1: process was the same as I used for writing Human

555
00:37:42,080 --> 00:37:45,799
Speaker 1: Accomplishment or the Bell Curve or Coming Apart. It was

556
00:37:45,840 --> 00:37:49,040
Speaker 1: an intellectual curiosity that yielded fruit.

557
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:55,640
Speaker 2: M That makes total sense. I guess partly I'm curious

558
00:37:55,640 --> 00:37:58,080
Speaker 2: because when we start getting to the person Jesus, it

559
00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:02,800
Speaker 2: gets a little more personal. It's not just an academic issue.

560
00:38:02,800 --> 00:38:06,960
Speaker 2: But he demands belief. He says, eternal life rests on

561
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:10,879
Speaker 2: what you do with me, and I'm the only way

562
00:38:10,920 --> 00:38:13,200
Speaker 2: to the Father. So is there a point where you

563
00:38:13,239 --> 00:38:15,480
Speaker 2: started to realize, Oh, my goodness, I'm not just writing

564
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:18,799
Speaker 2: a book on human accomplishment or the Bell curve. This

565
00:38:19,080 --> 00:38:21,880
Speaker 2: really matters for my soul and I've got to land

566
00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:24,960
Speaker 2: this plane with more at stake than anything else I've

567
00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:25,400
Speaker 2: written on.

568
00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 1: Well, here's where let's have full disclosure. I am not

569
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:36,719
Speaker 1: an orthodox Christian. Okay. So, and by the way, I

570
00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:44,960
Speaker 1: don't consider that my sequence of steps all is over yet.

571
00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:48,359
Speaker 1: I am hoping and expecting that there will be further

572
00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:54,799
Speaker 1: development as time goes on. But I am not a

573
00:38:54,960 --> 00:38:57,680
Speaker 1: I'm not an evangelical Christian. And so if it comes

574
00:38:57,680 --> 00:39:02,239
Speaker 1: to well salvation only is through me, I still I

575
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:08,319
Speaker 1: still back off from that it and I don't have

576
00:39:08,440 --> 00:39:16,439
Speaker 1: good theological reasons for saying that. It just okay, more

577
00:39:16,480 --> 00:39:24,719
Speaker 1: backdrop here, uh, I assume that any God worth the

578
00:39:24,800 --> 00:39:28,480
Speaker 1: name is as unknowable to me as I am to

579
00:39:28,520 --> 00:39:32,480
Speaker 1: my dog. Okay, and the the I use that analogy

580
00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:35,879
Speaker 1: because I have a border Collie dog and that dog

581
00:39:35,960 --> 00:39:40,720
Speaker 1: is really smart, okay border colleagues. He that border colleague

582
00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:43,400
Speaker 1: knows who I am and knows a lot about me,

583
00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:46,040
Speaker 1: knows what I want him to do more or less,

584
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:50,200
Speaker 1: which usually he doesn't do. But that dog has no

585
00:39:50,280 --> 00:39:52,040
Speaker 1: idea what I'm doing when I sit in front of

586
00:39:52,040 --> 00:39:55,239
Speaker 1: my computer. He has no idea of the Enermy and

587
00:39:55,400 --> 00:39:59,000
Speaker 1: I believe that it's it's wrong to anthropomorphize God. So

588
00:39:59,440 --> 00:40:03,120
Speaker 1: I start out with that as a very strong belief

589
00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:08,560
Speaker 1: that I still have. If that's the case, then it

590
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:12,640
Speaker 1: is going to be very hard for human beings to

591
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:19,400
Speaker 1: accurately convey certain things. I don't know if you're familiar

592
00:40:19,440 --> 00:40:24,040
Speaker 1: with John Polkinghorn is that name? Yeah? Yeah, Okay. He's

593
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:29,920
Speaker 1: a British theologian. He was a theoretical physicist at Oxford

594
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:33,200
Speaker 1: or Cambridge for several years before he became ordained in

595
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:36,000
Speaker 1: the Anglican Church. And he has a very good book

596
00:40:37,560 --> 00:40:41,600
Speaker 1: where he goes through the Nicene Creed one phrase at

597
00:40:41,640 --> 00:40:46,640
Speaker 1: a time, and he has kind of an exegesis on

598
00:40:46,800 --> 00:40:51,200
Speaker 1: that phrase as he sees it from his perspective, and

599
00:40:51,239 --> 00:40:53,920
Speaker 1: when he comes to the question of Jesus as the

600
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:58,720
Speaker 1: Son of God, and he considers himself a full fledged

601
00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:02,839
Speaker 1: Christian in every way, but he talks about this difficulty

602
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:07,400
Speaker 1: of using language and he says, well, it's this is

603
00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:10,360
Speaker 1: the word heuristics, which I'm never quite sure what that means,

604
00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:15,280
Speaker 1: but the degree to which we are allowed a certain

605
00:41:15,360 --> 00:41:19,520
Speaker 1: latitude in trying to use language to understand things. And

606
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:21,839
Speaker 1: I think with Jesus as the Son of God, that's

607
00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:28,120
Speaker 1: a classic case. And I use I report the analogy

608
00:41:28,239 --> 00:41:31,880
Speaker 1: that I did not learned during my adult exploration, but

609
00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:34,759
Speaker 1: I learned when I was taking Confirmation classes in the

610
00:41:34,800 --> 00:41:38,439
Speaker 1: Presbyterian Church when I was twelve years old, and the

611
00:41:38,640 --> 00:41:42,080
Speaker 1: Reverend Lowell McConnell of the Presbyterian Church in Newton, Iowa,

612
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:47,560
Speaker 1: I was talking to us about this and he said, well,

613
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:51,759
Speaker 1: suppose you go to the ocean and you fill up

614
00:41:51,800 --> 00:41:57,040
Speaker 1: a jar with seawater. Is that the ocean? And we

615
00:41:57,160 --> 00:42:00,120
Speaker 1: all say no, and he says no, but it's as

616
00:42:00,200 --> 00:42:02,640
Speaker 1: much of the ocean as you can get in a jar.

617
00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:09,239
Speaker 1: And I know this is not I've had some good

618
00:42:09,280 --> 00:42:12,280
Speaker 1: Christians who have been very upset with me with making

619
00:42:12,320 --> 00:42:15,799
Speaker 1: this comparison. They say, no, Jesus was more than as

620
00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:18,480
Speaker 1: much a God as you can get into the human jar.

621
00:42:19,520 --> 00:42:22,320
Speaker 1: But for me that is a good way of expressing

622
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:29,799
Speaker 1: a mystery, because I think any conception of Jesus as

623
00:42:29,800 --> 00:42:35,000
Speaker 1: the son of God is essentially extremely hard for human

624
00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:36,000
Speaker 1: beings to grasp.

625
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:40,880
Speaker 2: Thank you for your disclosure about where you stand and

626
00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:45,080
Speaker 2: not identifying as an Orthodox Christian. I was not totally

627
00:42:45,239 --> 00:42:48,440
Speaker 2: sure reading this because you use the term Christian. You

628
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:50,920
Speaker 2: talk about forgiveness being a part of this, so it

629
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:53,440
Speaker 2: wasn't exactly sure where you land and that you're still

630
00:42:54,560 --> 00:42:56,560
Speaker 2: on the journey of this. You got me thinking with

631
00:42:56,640 --> 00:42:59,520
Speaker 2: the illustration of the dog that's in here. I thought

632
00:42:59,520 --> 00:43:01,719
Speaker 2: about asking and my son, who's thirteen, I like to

633
00:43:01,760 --> 00:43:04,799
Speaker 2: ask him provocative questions, and I'll say things I might

634
00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:08,840
Speaker 2: ask him this, are we closer to a dog and

635
00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:11,760
Speaker 2: our ability to think in reason or closer to God?

636
00:43:12,719 --> 00:43:15,960
Speaker 2: And of course, initially I want to say, far closer

637
00:43:15,960 --> 00:43:19,120
Speaker 2: to a dog than God, who's infinite, and dogs and

638
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:22,160
Speaker 2: I are both finite. But of course we're made in

639
00:43:22,239 --> 00:43:26,640
Speaker 2: God's image with a capacity to reason and think and

640
00:43:26,760 --> 00:43:29,759
Speaker 2: reflect upon things that dogs don't, So we have that

641
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:33,640
Speaker 2: in common with God, so to speak at the root

642
00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:35,920
Speaker 2: of the Christian faith, of course, is like, yeah, we

643
00:43:36,080 --> 00:43:39,640
Speaker 2: cannot get to God on our own. But that like

644
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:42,319
Speaker 2: John one one in the beginning was the word, the

645
00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:45,480
Speaker 2: word was with God, and the word was God takes

646
00:43:45,719 --> 00:43:49,879
Speaker 2: on human flesh to kind of bridge that gap, so

647
00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:54,400
Speaker 2: to speak, so we can at least understand God insofar

648
00:43:54,640 --> 00:44:00,319
Speaker 2: as it goes and relate to him personally. That kind

649
00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:02,400
Speaker 2: of came to my mind when you were you were

650
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:05,040
Speaker 2: making that point. If I can ask, what, what would

651
00:44:05,040 --> 00:44:07,600
Speaker 2: be the barrier holding you back as far as you're

652
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:11,480
Speaker 2: comfortable sharing of not saying I'm not I'm not quite

653
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:14,120
Speaker 2: an orthodox Christian? Is it that what you just said

654
00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:17,960
Speaker 2: about the language not describing God? What are those big

655
00:44:18,120 --> 00:44:19,799
Speaker 2: boulders that are keeping you back?

656
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:32,600
Speaker 1: Confidence in my ability to comprehend certain things pretty much

657
00:44:32,640 --> 00:44:37,160
Speaker 1: I'm repeating what I said a minute ago, okay. And

658
00:44:37,920 --> 00:44:45,520
Speaker 1: confidence in in the ability of the people who experience that,

659
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:57,960
Speaker 1: the disciples, to convey to us the uh I'm treading

660
00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:05,120
Speaker 1: on all sorts of uncertainties, okay. And and if you

661
00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:11,680
Speaker 1: if you talk about the big barriers, one of them

662
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:18,359
Speaker 1: is of a central claim of Christianity, which is of

663
00:45:18,400 --> 00:45:21,280
Speaker 1: course one of the most problematic for a lot of people,

664
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:27,279
Speaker 1: which is the physical resurrection. M and so part of

665
00:45:27,360 --> 00:45:30,600
Speaker 1: me wants to fudge that one too, And this one

666
00:45:30,680 --> 00:45:37,200
Speaker 1: in Polkhorn has phrased that that he is that the

667
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:41,400
Speaker 1: the evidence from the First Easter says that there was

668
00:45:41,480 --> 00:45:47,000
Speaker 1: some extremely profound experience that the disciples had and it's

669
00:45:47,080 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 1: really hard to push it too far from that. And

670
00:45:50,320 --> 00:45:54,520
Speaker 1: but in some real concrete sense, the Jesus of the

671
00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:58,600
Speaker 1: first century is still alive in the Church of today

672
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:03,160
Speaker 1: and has a continue is historical presence. And so you

673
00:46:03,280 --> 00:46:11,120
Speaker 1: have that, I said, the fudge factor. And here's where

674
00:46:11,160 --> 00:46:16,200
Speaker 1: I think, probably I'm getting too involved in empiricism, But

675
00:46:16,520 --> 00:46:18,960
Speaker 1: you have to come to grips with the shroud of Turin,

676
00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:28,960
Speaker 1: which is pretty mysterious piece of cloth. And I say

677
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:34,480
Speaker 1: to myself, the only thing holding me back there is

678
00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:39,719
Speaker 1: a little bit more confidence in the dating. So they

679
00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:41,600
Speaker 1: have a method of dating which has put it at

680
00:46:41,640 --> 00:46:46,800
Speaker 1: two thousand years old. And of course there was a

681
00:46:46,840 --> 00:46:52,479
Speaker 1: notorious carbon dating which was badly screwed up. And I'm saying,

682
00:46:52,520 --> 00:46:54,879
Speaker 1: you know, if they can reinforce that dating at two

683
00:46:54,880 --> 00:46:59,840
Speaker 1: thousand years old, I just have no more excuses left

684
00:47:00,120 --> 00:47:06,080
Speaker 1: of not believing in the physical resurrection. And I'm of

685
00:47:06,120 --> 00:47:10,880
Speaker 1: two minds about that. One is that I think I

686
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:13,680
Speaker 1: would be logically forced to that conclusion, and the other

687
00:47:13,719 --> 00:47:17,319
Speaker 1: one is I can still still feel myself resisting it

688
00:47:18,560 --> 00:47:24,400
Speaker 1: because of probably personality characteristics over which I have little control.

689
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:28,759
Speaker 1: I give the example in the book of that kind

690
00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:33,400
Speaker 1: of resistance when one time in the nineties I was

691
00:47:33,600 --> 00:47:38,080
Speaker 1: meeting and something had been bothering me a lot, and

692
00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:40,600
Speaker 1: so I decided I was going to pray, and I

693
00:47:40,719 --> 00:47:43,760
Speaker 1: was going to do I'd never tried to pray before,

694
00:47:44,640 --> 00:47:47,439
Speaker 1: and I was going to and I did. I did

695
00:47:47,480 --> 00:47:52,319
Speaker 1: my level best to pray, and a couple of days later,

696
00:47:52,400 --> 00:47:55,040
Speaker 1: I realized that whatever it was that was bothering me

697
00:47:55,200 --> 00:47:57,880
Speaker 1: and I can't remember what it was, had gone away.

698
00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:03,239
Speaker 1: Scared me to death. The reason it's scared me to

699
00:48:03,280 --> 00:48:06,920
Speaker 1: death was not because prayer failed, but because it worked.

700
00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:10,239
Speaker 1: And so in the one hand, you say, maybe I

701
00:48:10,280 --> 00:48:12,960
Speaker 1: ought to be doing this all the time, and on

702
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:16,200
Speaker 1: the other hand there is there are things holding me back.

703
00:48:16,719 --> 00:48:18,560
Speaker 1: But here I think you just have to say, look,

704
00:48:20,120 --> 00:48:24,759
Speaker 1: human beings are strange creatures. And my wife would be

705
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:28,279
Speaker 1: the first to confirm that I'm strange too. I use

706
00:48:28,440 --> 00:48:31,480
Speaker 1: I use the I think I do use the phrase

707
00:48:31,520 --> 00:48:35,880
Speaker 1: I'm an eccentric Christian or at some point during the book,

708
00:48:37,440 --> 00:48:44,200
Speaker 1: and I guess that where I am right now is

709
00:48:44,239 --> 00:48:48,759
Speaker 1: that I have limitations in terms of faith that I

710
00:48:48,840 --> 00:48:52,600
Speaker 1: have not been able to overcome and God will understand.

711
00:48:53,640 --> 00:48:58,799
Speaker 1: That's that's sort of a I do believe. Of all

712
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:03,200
Speaker 1: the things that I think I have taken on board

713
00:49:03,280 --> 00:49:07,480
Speaker 1: most deeply, the concept of God is love is one

714
00:49:07,520 --> 00:49:11,400
Speaker 1: of the most important. I think that's one of the

715
00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:17,480
Speaker 1: most meaningful statements you can that is full of implications

716
00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:21,759
Speaker 1: if you have an universe that a God which is love.

717
00:49:24,600 --> 00:49:28,160
Speaker 1: So I see myself as believing in some really big

718
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:36,760
Speaker 1: things associated with Christianity, finding myself in difficulty making further leaps,

719
00:49:38,680 --> 00:49:43,160
Speaker 1: and not too troubled by it because of the sense

720
00:49:43,160 --> 00:49:48,920
Speaker 1: that I'm trying hard. I'm trying sincerely, and as I

721
00:49:48,960 --> 00:49:52,920
Speaker 1: said before, the God that I am comfortable with right

722
00:49:52,960 --> 00:49:56,719
Speaker 1: now is a very forgiving God plus being all plus

723
00:49:56,800 --> 00:49:57,480
Speaker 1: being all wise.

724
00:50:00,680 --> 00:50:04,279
Speaker 2: I really appreciate your candor on this, you know, as

725
00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:06,360
Speaker 2: far as the first way you framed it up. Some

726
00:50:06,480 --> 00:50:09,960
Speaker 2: of my thinking is you're right in the level of like,

727
00:50:10,080 --> 00:50:13,239
Speaker 2: I can't get to the depths of God through my

728
00:50:13,480 --> 00:50:17,920
Speaker 2: own reasoning. But if a God exists that's described in

729
00:50:17,960 --> 00:50:21,640
Speaker 2: the Bible that broadly speaking, we both believe in revealed

730
00:50:21,719 --> 00:50:25,719
Speaker 2: himself in the person of Jesus, commissioned the disciples, as

731
00:50:25,719 --> 00:50:28,799
Speaker 2: the scriptures say, to write in a way that we

732
00:50:28,840 --> 00:50:32,640
Speaker 2: can understand this God and his desire for our life.

733
00:50:33,239 --> 00:50:36,480
Speaker 2: There's a level of a leap that's there, but it

734
00:50:36,560 --> 00:50:40,759
Speaker 2: seems reasonable and seems in fitting with the character of

735
00:50:40,800 --> 00:50:43,960
Speaker 2: that God and what we know about him from general

736
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:48,839
Speaker 2: revelation but also within the scriptures. Does that ring true

737
00:50:48,840 --> 00:50:50,239
Speaker 2: to you or you like, I don't know that I

738
00:50:50,239 --> 00:50:51,160
Speaker 2: can quite get there.

739
00:50:53,680 --> 00:51:02,840
Speaker 1: You've described a framework within which I'm still working, and

740
00:51:05,719 --> 00:51:10,560
Speaker 1: so I think that as if you're trying to put

741
00:51:10,560 --> 00:51:16,680
Speaker 1: it all together, that it's like a canvas that I

742
00:51:16,800 --> 00:51:22,400
Speaker 1: have partly filled in that I'm trying to continue to

743
00:51:22,520 --> 00:51:30,000
Speaker 1: fill in that's not there yet, but the process is

744
00:51:30,160 --> 00:51:36,880
Speaker 1: enormously rewarding. Another message I'm trying to give to non believers,

745
00:51:38,800 --> 00:51:46,399
Speaker 1: and that I am at peace with that, And I'll

746
00:51:46,440 --> 00:51:51,399
Speaker 1: just tack onto that another case of where I realized,

747
00:51:51,719 --> 00:51:55,279
Speaker 1: without thinking, without knowing what was the process that was

748
00:51:55,320 --> 00:51:58,840
Speaker 1: going on. I realize that I have a much different

749
00:51:58,920 --> 00:52:04,920
Speaker 1: feeling about forgiveness of sins then I had twenty five

750
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:10,880
Speaker 1: years ago, thirty years ago. I remember of one time

751
00:52:11,520 --> 00:52:14,440
Speaker 1: feeling very guilty about something I shouldn't have done that

752
00:52:14,480 --> 00:52:18,320
Speaker 1: I did do in my twenties and saying to myself,

753
00:52:18,400 --> 00:52:20,440
Speaker 1: I don't want to be forgiven for this. I shouldn't

754
00:52:20,480 --> 00:52:23,640
Speaker 1: be forgiven. I should feel bad about it, I should

755
00:52:23,680 --> 00:52:29,520
Speaker 1: always feel bad about it. And I didn't murder anybody

756
00:52:29,640 --> 00:52:34,200
Speaker 1: or anything like that. It was, but it was. It

757
00:52:34,360 --> 00:52:38,560
Speaker 1: was a case of recently, or maybe several years ago,

758
00:52:40,719 --> 00:52:43,000
Speaker 1: suddenly realizing that that had been a very silly way

759
00:52:43,040 --> 00:52:46,359
Speaker 1: to look at it, and also very ecocentric. I mean,

760
00:52:46,360 --> 00:52:48,840
Speaker 1: who am I to decide whether I should be forgiven

761
00:52:48,920 --> 00:52:52,600
Speaker 1: for something I've done. My job is to be repentant,

762
00:52:53,120 --> 00:52:57,239
Speaker 1: to be truly repentent, not making it up, not faking it,

763
00:52:57,320 --> 00:53:03,440
Speaker 1: but truly repentant. And it's up to God whether I'm forgiven.

764
00:53:04,880 --> 00:53:09,240
Speaker 1: And I had a sense of believing in God's grace,

765
00:53:10,640 --> 00:53:17,040
Speaker 1: which is a more traditional language for saying God will understand.

766
00:53:17,440 --> 00:53:24,920
Speaker 1: And so that's that's that's another piece of the painting.

767
00:53:24,960 --> 00:53:28,799
Speaker 1: That's filled in that wasn't filled in maybe ten years ago,

768
00:53:28,840 --> 00:53:33,800
Speaker 1: but got filled in sometime in the in the intervening time. No,

769
00:53:33,880 --> 00:53:37,760
Speaker 1: I'm maybe two, so I don't have forever. But but

770
00:53:37,920 --> 00:53:39,080
Speaker 1: that's continuing to go on.

771
00:53:40,760 --> 00:53:43,680
Speaker 2: You now, as you mentioned born again experience earlier, I

772
00:53:43,719 --> 00:53:47,760
Speaker 2: was thinking of John chapter three where Jesus says to Nicodemus,

773
00:53:47,800 --> 00:53:52,120
Speaker 2: you must be born again, and Nicodemus doesn't understand what

774
00:53:52,160 --> 00:53:54,360
Speaker 2: he's talking about, like, what do you mean born by water,

775
00:53:54,520 --> 00:53:58,360
Speaker 2: born by spirit? Jesus tries the second time to explain

776
00:53:58,480 --> 00:54:00,239
Speaker 2: from him, and then finally at the end he's like,

777
00:54:00,280 --> 00:54:03,480
Speaker 2: you know what, you just need to believe in me

778
00:54:03,920 --> 00:54:08,240
Speaker 2: as the son of God for forgiveness of your sins.

779
00:54:08,280 --> 00:54:11,400
Speaker 2: Those who believe are saved, those who don't are condemned.

780
00:54:11,920 --> 00:54:16,680
Speaker 2: It's like he says, this born again experience, the best

781
00:54:16,719 --> 00:54:19,960
Speaker 2: way to put it is believing in Jesus for forgiveness

782
00:54:20,120 --> 00:54:23,720
Speaker 2: of your sins. And of course I'm collapsing that down.

783
00:54:24,760 --> 00:54:28,719
Speaker 2: That would probably be an Orthodox way of understanding what

784
00:54:28,760 --> 00:54:31,759
Speaker 2: the gospel is. I couldn't tell. At the end of

785
00:54:31,760 --> 00:54:33,920
Speaker 2: your book, when you talk about forgiveness of sins, I'm like,

786
00:54:34,120 --> 00:54:36,840
Speaker 2: is he there with that? Kind of grace or is

787
00:54:36,880 --> 00:54:39,359
Speaker 2: that still a part of the narrative. You're like, I'm

788
00:54:39,400 --> 00:54:43,000
Speaker 2: working out if I need that forgiveness from God and

789
00:54:43,080 --> 00:54:44,560
Speaker 2: his grace in my life.

790
00:54:44,560 --> 00:54:50,759
Speaker 1: In that fashion, you have accurately understood the ambiguity that

791
00:54:50,840 --> 00:54:51,919
Speaker 1: still persists.

792
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:52,600
Speaker 2: Okay.

793
00:54:52,640 --> 00:54:57,000
Speaker 1: You know, I've reminded of another conversation I had with

794
00:54:58,920 --> 00:55:02,920
Speaker 1: Michael Novak, Catholic, and I was talking to him once

795
00:55:02,960 --> 00:55:07,799
Speaker 1: about religion, and this is a long time ago, and

796
00:55:07,960 --> 00:55:10,360
Speaker 1: I said to me about, you know, I'm very impressed

797
00:55:10,360 --> 00:55:12,800
Speaker 1: by a lot of things about Catholicism and so forth,

798
00:55:12,840 --> 00:55:17,840
Speaker 1: but why do you persist in having his dogma transubstantiation

799
00:55:19,360 --> 00:55:21,960
Speaker 1: in the course, because I said, that's just simply an

800
00:55:22,080 --> 00:55:28,120
Speaker 1: unbelievable doctrine. And Michael said to me, because I think

801
00:55:28,200 --> 00:55:32,279
Speaker 1: probably if you put Michael into a lighted Texter that

802
00:55:32,920 --> 00:55:36,880
Speaker 1: probably he probably would have had a very powerful and

803
00:55:36,960 --> 00:55:42,600
Speaker 1: eloquent theological description of how he still accepts transubstantiation. But

804
00:55:42,640 --> 00:55:46,239
Speaker 1: I don't think he does literally. Okay, but here's what

805
00:55:46,280 --> 00:55:50,080
Speaker 1: he said to me. He said, God's God needs a

806
00:55:50,200 --> 00:55:54,880
Speaker 1: church that can speak to everyone. And what I interpret

807
00:55:54,920 --> 00:56:02,480
Speaker 1: him as saying there is that the transubstantiation for a

808
00:56:02,520 --> 00:56:05,319
Speaker 1: lot of people is something which helps them to get

809
00:56:05,360 --> 00:56:12,360
Speaker 1: to the larger truths of Catholicism. And in a similar

810
00:56:12,480 --> 00:56:19,160
Speaker 1: kind of way, I think that their aspects of Christian Christianity,

811
00:56:20,560 --> 00:56:31,040
Speaker 1: where they serve a function of leading people to the

812
00:56:31,200 --> 00:56:36,680
Speaker 1: underlying truths, but in different ways. And if you want

813
00:56:36,719 --> 00:56:41,680
Speaker 1: to think of it this way, transubstantiation may be a

814
00:56:41,760 --> 00:56:46,200
Speaker 1: powerful way for God to speak to some very simple

815
00:56:46,239 --> 00:56:52,160
Speaker 1: people who come from cultures where are not sophisticated. Well,

816
00:56:52,200 --> 00:56:57,480
Speaker 1: you know what, It's conceivable that C. S. Lewis and

817
00:56:57,600 --> 00:57:02,280
Speaker 1: Richard Balcom are God's way of speaking to over educated

818
00:57:02,360 --> 00:57:07,399
Speaker 1: agnostics like me, which is that he puts stuff out

819
00:57:07,440 --> 00:57:11,880
Speaker 1: there whereby no transsphentiation isn't going to get me there.

820
00:57:12,320 --> 00:57:16,800
Speaker 1: But if I put somebody really smart, putting some material

821
00:57:16,840 --> 00:57:19,600
Speaker 1: out there that can appeal to this over educated guy,

822
00:57:19,920 --> 00:57:22,880
Speaker 1: maybe I can get to him. And and I am

823
00:57:22,920 --> 00:57:25,520
Speaker 1: being a little bit facetious here, but not very, but

824
00:57:25,640 --> 00:57:29,800
Speaker 1: not very, because there are too many times in my

825
00:57:29,920 --> 00:57:36,200
Speaker 1: life that I've had the eerie sense of things worked

826
00:57:36,320 --> 00:57:44,720
Speaker 1: out in ways that seem mysterious, and it's almost as

827
00:57:44,760 --> 00:57:47,160
Speaker 1: if God willed it, And I say, no, that can't

828
00:57:47,200 --> 00:57:51,120
Speaker 1: really be, can it? And But that's the more pieces

829
00:57:51,160 --> 00:57:53,880
Speaker 1: of the puzzle. So I guess where we're ending up

830
00:57:53,960 --> 00:58:00,600
Speaker 1: is there is truth in packaging on this book, which

831
00:58:00,720 --> 00:58:05,200
Speaker 1: is that what I titled it taking religion Seriously. There

832
00:58:05,320 --> 00:58:11,840
Speaker 1: is sort of an implication there of delving into very

833
00:58:12,000 --> 00:58:16,800
Speaker 1: serious topics that are very difficult, with no promises that

834
00:58:16,840 --> 00:58:18,640
Speaker 1: at the end you'll come out and say, oh I

835
00:58:18,680 --> 00:58:23,520
Speaker 1: got it. And I think I deliver on that ambiguity.

836
00:58:24,520 --> 00:58:26,920
Speaker 2: Very fair. Now we're bumping up against the time you

837
00:58:26,960 --> 00:58:29,040
Speaker 2: committed to Is okay if I ask you two more

838
00:58:29,120 --> 00:58:32,160
Speaker 2: questions at the end? Is that all right? Okay? So

839
00:58:32,320 --> 00:58:34,680
Speaker 2: this I actually was hoping to asked this question anyways.

840
00:58:34,720 --> 00:58:36,760
Speaker 2: I didn't know we were going to land up in

841
00:58:37,120 --> 00:58:39,400
Speaker 2: this conversation where we do, which is fine. I think

842
00:58:39,480 --> 00:58:42,360
Speaker 2: viewers are going to find it fascinating, really appreciate your candor.

843
00:58:43,040 --> 00:58:46,120
Speaker 2: At the very end, this is on page one forty seven,

844
00:58:46,240 --> 00:58:48,440
Speaker 2: so we're within about I don't know, ten pages from

845
00:58:48,440 --> 00:58:52,040
Speaker 2: the end of the book, maybe maybe fifteen pages, and

846
00:58:52,120 --> 00:58:56,320
Speaker 2: you describe to what are kind of like psychological reasons

847
00:58:56,320 --> 00:59:00,240
Speaker 2: if I'm understanding it, that holds you back from some

848
00:59:00,320 --> 00:59:04,000
Speaker 2: of the beliefs, from embracing them more quickly. So she said,

849
00:59:04,000 --> 00:59:07,520
Speaker 2: you're talking about confronting the straightforward implication of the evidence

850
00:59:07,520 --> 00:59:12,040
Speaker 2: that you have a soul is intimidating. So this is

851
00:59:12,080 --> 00:59:15,400
Speaker 2: an an intellectual barrier, and I totally understand it. It's

852
00:59:15,440 --> 00:59:19,360
Speaker 2: like intimidating because what this means for life after death,

853
00:59:19,440 --> 00:59:22,600
Speaker 2: what it means to be human, my accountability, creator, et cetera.

854
00:59:23,200 --> 00:59:25,120
Speaker 2: And then the next line you say, another and more

855
00:59:25,200 --> 00:59:29,120
Speaker 2: prosaic explanation of my resistance is the fear of what

856
00:59:29,320 --> 00:59:34,480
Speaker 2: the other members of my tribe will think. I super

857
00:59:34,560 --> 00:59:38,040
Speaker 2: appreciate your candor on that one. As we get to

858
00:59:38,040 --> 00:59:40,320
Speaker 2: where you're at now, you said it at eighty two,

859
00:59:40,320 --> 00:59:44,200
Speaker 2: Your like, I don't have endless time left. If you're

860
00:59:44,240 --> 00:59:49,000
Speaker 2: gonna say moving forward, how much is intellectual versus how

861
00:59:49,080 --> 00:59:53,320
Speaker 2: much are just kind of these psychological personal reasons that

862
00:59:53,400 --> 00:59:57,240
Speaker 2: might hold you back from embracing orthodox Christianity Or is

863
00:59:57,280 --> 00:59:59,840
Speaker 2: it really hard to just kind of pull that apart

864
01:00:00,160 --> 01:00:01,200
Speaker 2: and make sense of it.

865
01:00:01,880 --> 01:00:08,480
Speaker 1: No, I actually I can. Being worried about what members

866
01:00:08,520 --> 01:00:10,800
Speaker 1: of my tribe will think is less important to me

867
01:00:10,960 --> 01:00:15,040
Speaker 1: than it was. And it's partly that's the case because

868
01:00:17,120 --> 01:00:19,840
Speaker 1: I have a strong sense that the Enlightenment went too

869
01:00:19,880 --> 01:00:24,520
Speaker 1: far I've considered myself. I am a child of the

870
01:00:24,600 --> 01:00:28,160
Speaker 1: Enlightenment in the sense that academia is our all children

871
01:00:28,200 --> 01:00:32,320
Speaker 1: of the Enlightenment, and reason and logic and science are

872
01:00:32,360 --> 01:00:37,160
Speaker 1: the only way to assemble evidence that we can evaluate.

873
01:00:37,640 --> 01:00:41,320
Speaker 1: And anything that smacks the supernatural is out of bouts.

874
01:00:42,320 --> 01:00:47,160
Speaker 1: And that is just as dogmatic a belief among children

875
01:00:47,240 --> 01:00:51,000
Speaker 1: of the Enlightenment as any religious belief. And so I

876
01:00:51,160 --> 01:00:56,720
Speaker 1: have been increasingly irritated that members of my tribe for

877
01:00:58,680 --> 01:01:03,440
Speaker 1: placing too much hubris in the power of human reason

878
01:01:03,520 --> 01:01:08,160
Speaker 1: and logic. And also I had an experience after publishing

879
01:01:08,160 --> 01:01:11,200
Speaker 1: the book and and a couple of the things I've

880
01:01:11,200 --> 01:01:14,240
Speaker 1: written with reactions from members of my tribe which have

881
01:01:14,320 --> 01:01:18,280
Speaker 1: been very dismissive. And they have been dismissive not because

882
01:01:18,320 --> 01:01:22,400
Speaker 1: they took the material I wrote and said here's points A, B,

883
01:01:22,600 --> 01:01:25,840
Speaker 1: and C about why Murray is empirically wrong. They didn't

884
01:01:25,880 --> 01:01:31,080
Speaker 1: do that at all. They just sort of basically said, oh, smart,

885
01:01:31,120 --> 01:01:34,240
Speaker 1: people don't believe that stuff anymore. That's essentially what they

886
01:01:34,240 --> 01:01:36,520
Speaker 1: were doing. So I don't worry. I don't worry about

887
01:01:36,560 --> 01:01:42,160
Speaker 1: them so much. But your other point about the thinking

888
01:01:42,160 --> 01:01:48,680
Speaker 1: that you have a soul is intimidating. Uh, that's the

889
01:01:48,680 --> 01:01:57,360
Speaker 1: way I put it. It's also exhilarating, and so it's

890
01:01:57,200 --> 01:02:01,400
Speaker 1: it's like a too good to be true, but there

891
01:02:01,480 --> 01:02:08,840
Speaker 1: is pretty good evidence that it is true. And it's

892
01:02:09,200 --> 01:02:12,200
Speaker 1: taken me time and will continue to take me time

893
01:02:13,520 --> 01:02:18,200
Speaker 1: to fully embrace that, but I think probably I will.

894
01:02:18,280 --> 01:02:21,480
Speaker 1: But I have in one important respect, which is I'm

895
01:02:21,520 --> 01:02:26,400
Speaker 1: not afraid of dying, and I haven't been for many

896
01:02:26,480 --> 01:02:34,920
Speaker 1: years now, and it is I used to be. I

897
01:02:34,960 --> 01:02:39,040
Speaker 1: had moments before of twenty five years ago when I

898
01:02:39,080 --> 01:02:43,480
Speaker 1: would feel existential dread at the fact of oblivion at

899
01:02:43,520 --> 01:02:48,440
Speaker 1: gone no longer exists, and that went away, and so

900
01:02:48,600 --> 01:02:51,640
Speaker 1: at some level I have accepted the possibility I have

901
01:02:51,680 --> 01:02:59,439
Speaker 1: a soul fully embracing that is to open up a rich,

902
01:03:01,800 --> 01:03:06,520
Speaker 1: a richer way of thinking about your future than non

903
01:03:06,520 --> 01:03:12,040
Speaker 1: believers can possibly enjoy. And so I should have said

904
01:03:12,040 --> 01:03:16,000
Speaker 1: it's intimidating. Ultimately, I think it's going to be accelerating.

905
01:03:16,400 --> 01:03:21,680
Speaker 2: Very very fair. My last question is you describe yourself

906
01:03:21,720 --> 01:03:24,280
Speaker 2: as going from happy Agnostic to Christian, and I think

907
01:03:24,320 --> 01:03:29,600
Speaker 2: more specifically not orthodox Christian, but say eccentric Christian now

908
01:03:29,640 --> 01:03:32,440
Speaker 2: that you're more in this camp, looking back on the

909
01:03:32,480 --> 01:03:37,640
Speaker 2: things that you've written on such a diverse range of topics.

910
01:03:38,240 --> 01:03:41,280
Speaker 2: Are there certain things that you rethink and now view

911
01:03:41,360 --> 01:03:43,360
Speaker 2: differently because of your Christian faith.

912
01:03:45,360 --> 01:03:52,400
Speaker 1: I have thought about that question, and I'm pretty satisfied

913
01:03:54,040 --> 01:03:58,560
Speaker 1: that I haven't advocated anything in any of my other

914
01:03:58,640 --> 01:04:03,880
Speaker 1: books which contradict anything I have said now that are

915
01:04:03,880 --> 01:04:08,200
Speaker 1: not in the same spirit as that. On the contrary,

916
01:04:10,400 --> 01:04:14,320
Speaker 1: I don't want to be self congratulatory here, but I

917
01:04:14,400 --> 01:04:19,200
Speaker 1: made that statement about Johann Sebastian Bach does not need

918
01:04:19,240 --> 01:04:22,000
Speaker 1: to justify his way of looking at the world. He

919
01:04:22,040 --> 01:04:25,800
Speaker 1: of course was extremely devout as a Christian that his

920
01:04:25,960 --> 01:04:32,520
Speaker 1: music does it for him. So I was respectful long

921
01:04:32,600 --> 01:04:39,960
Speaker 1: before I've associated myself as a believer, and part of

922
01:04:40,000 --> 01:04:44,040
Speaker 1: being respectful comes out of the enormous respect I had

923
01:04:44,080 --> 01:04:48,160
Speaker 1: for the Christian teachings, just as teachings and the way

924
01:04:48,200 --> 01:04:51,800
Speaker 1: people ought to behave By the same token, I mean,

925
01:04:51,800 --> 01:04:53,120
Speaker 1: we're coming to the end, and I don't want to

926
01:04:53,160 --> 01:04:57,040
Speaker 1: introduce new stuff. But it's also important and part of C. S.

927
01:04:57,120 --> 01:05:01,840
Speaker 1: Lewis's point that the great systems of ethics uh and

928
01:05:02,040 --> 01:05:05,720
Speaker 1: this is true of confusion, It's true of out dows

929
01:05:05,800 --> 01:05:09,040
Speaker 1: and true of Buddhism. They haven't all been exactly the same,

930
01:05:09,520 --> 01:05:13,120
Speaker 1: but somebody who behaved virtuously in each of those traditions

931
01:05:13,280 --> 01:05:16,680
Speaker 1: is going to behave quite similarly. And I think Christianity

932
01:05:16,800 --> 01:05:20,960
Speaker 1: is perhaps the best exposition of a code of ethics.

933
01:05:21,000 --> 01:05:25,240
Speaker 1: But because I have a long time believed in those

934
01:05:25,280 --> 01:05:31,080
Speaker 1: concepts of virtue, I was kind of helped to keep

935
01:05:31,120 --> 01:05:35,000
Speaker 1: me from going astray in the way I thought about policy.

936
01:05:35,600 --> 01:05:37,880
Speaker 1: May I just say, since we are coming to the end,

937
01:05:38,200 --> 01:05:46,240
Speaker 1: that your whole way of asking me questions and talking

938
01:05:46,240 --> 01:05:50,680
Speaker 1: about this, knowing that I am someone who has quite

939
01:05:50,760 --> 01:05:58,040
Speaker 1: different Christianity than you have, I've really enjoyed. You have

940
01:05:58,120 --> 01:06:04,640
Speaker 1: been wholly sympathetic without pretending that we agree with each

941
01:06:04,640 --> 01:06:07,240
Speaker 1: other on these things. And I will say you have

942
01:06:07,320 --> 01:06:09,360
Speaker 1: drawn me out in a way that very few people

943
01:06:09,400 --> 01:06:12,200
Speaker 1: have done in the past, and I have more or

944
01:06:12,280 --> 01:06:16,520
Speaker 1: less enjoyed it. Occasionally I've gotten a little answery about

945
01:06:16,520 --> 01:06:19,120
Speaker 1: whether I was saying things right, but it's been quite

946
01:06:19,160 --> 01:06:19,800
Speaker 1: an experience.

947
01:06:20,320 --> 01:06:22,440
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you for saying that. I'm really touched and

948
01:06:22,480 --> 01:06:26,320
Speaker 2: honored you would say that thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. I'm

949
01:06:26,320 --> 01:06:28,120
Speaker 2: not sure where I expected it to go, but this

950
01:06:28,200 --> 01:06:30,880
Speaker 2: is not where I expected to go, and really appreciate

951
01:06:30,920 --> 01:06:33,919
Speaker 2: you entertaining just some of my questions and a little

952
01:06:33,920 --> 01:06:35,680
Speaker 2: bit of pushback here and there, And I would say

953
01:06:36,200 --> 01:06:39,320
Speaker 2: before I forget off the record, none of this stuff.

954
01:06:39,320 --> 01:06:42,120
Speaker 2: If you want to just continue the conversation in any

955
01:06:42,160 --> 01:06:43,880
Speaker 2: way on zoom or I don't know where you live,

956
01:06:43,920 --> 01:06:45,320
Speaker 2: you don't have to say it out loud. I would

957
01:06:45,360 --> 01:06:47,880
Speaker 2: do that in a heartbeat. These conversations are what I

958
01:06:48,000 --> 01:06:51,600
Speaker 2: enjoy as much as anything, so that opportunity is out

959
01:06:51,640 --> 01:06:54,360
Speaker 2: there anytime, I would carve it out and enjoy it.

960
01:06:54,800 --> 01:06:56,800
Speaker 2: And I do want to. I want to commend your book.

961
01:06:56,920 --> 01:07:00,919
Speaker 2: I thoroughly enjoyed it. Obviously as an evangelist an apologist,

962
01:07:01,000 --> 01:07:03,840
Speaker 2: I would end it a little differently and invite people

963
01:07:03,920 --> 01:07:07,520
Speaker 2: to repent and believe in Jesus. But that's just where

964
01:07:07,560 --> 01:07:10,479
Speaker 2: we differ at this stage. But it's easy to read.

965
01:07:11,200 --> 01:07:16,560
Speaker 2: It's clear your premise of taking religion seriously. That's what

966
01:07:16,600 --> 01:07:19,240
Speaker 2: you say you're arguing for, and you argue for it

967
01:07:19,240 --> 01:07:21,360
Speaker 2: in a way that I think respects the reader and

968
01:07:21,480 --> 01:07:24,920
Speaker 2: invites them to reflect in a non preachy way. I

969
01:07:24,960 --> 01:07:27,560
Speaker 2: think it's an excellent book. I'm glad you wrote it,

970
01:07:27,600 --> 01:07:30,240
Speaker 2: and if you write anything else in this lane, definitely

971
01:07:30,280 --> 01:07:33,160
Speaker 2: send it to me. I'd love to continue that conversation

972
01:07:33,640 --> 01:07:35,680
Speaker 2: as well. And for people, watch them before you click

973
01:07:35,680 --> 01:07:37,960
Speaker 2: away and make sure you hit subscribe. And by the way,

974
01:07:37,960 --> 01:07:40,680
Speaker 2: a ton of you who watch these videos are not subscribed,

975
01:07:40,760 --> 01:07:43,960
Speaker 2: so subscribe, hit that notification button. And if you want

976
01:07:43,960 --> 01:07:46,920
Speaker 2: to study apologetics, which is really what we talked about

977
01:07:46,960 --> 01:07:49,560
Speaker 2: today and Charles Murray talks about in his book, we'd

978
01:07:49,560 --> 01:07:52,400
Speaker 2: love to have you join us at Biola University online

979
01:07:52,520 --> 01:07:55,240
Speaker 2: and in person our master's degree. If you're not ready

980
01:07:55,240 --> 01:07:58,240
Speaker 2: for Masters, we now have a new certificate program with

981
01:07:58,320 --> 01:08:02,320
Speaker 2: some of the leading lectures, leading lecture from leading apologists

982
01:08:02,320 --> 01:08:05,720
Speaker 2: in the world. Big discount below, so make sure you

983
01:08:05,800 --> 01:08:08,280
Speaker 2: check that out. Charles Murray, thanks for your time and

984
01:08:08,360 --> 01:08:11,080
Speaker 2: for a wonderful conversation. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

985
01:08:11,720 --> 01:08:12,080
Speaker 1: Thank you.

986
01:08:12,400 --> 01:08:15,120
Speaker 2: Hey friends, if you enjoyed this show, please hit that

987
01:08:15,200 --> 01:08:18,160
Speaker 2: follow button on your podcast app. Most of you tuning

988
01:08:18,200 --> 01:08:20,559
Speaker 2: in haven't done this yet and it makes a huge

989
01:08:20,560 --> 01:08:23,320
Speaker 2: difference in helping us reach and equip more people and

990
01:08:23,360 --> 01:08:27,759
Speaker 2: build community. And please consider leaving a podcast review. Every

991
01:08:27,960 --> 01:08:31,080
Speaker 2: review helps. Thanks for listening to the Sean McDowell Show

992
01:08:31,200 --> 01:08:35,040
Speaker 2: brought to you by Talbot School of Theology at Biola University,

993
01:08:35,080 --> 01:08:38,360
Speaker 2: where we have on campus and online programs and apologetic

994
01:08:38,439 --> 01:08:41,719
Speaker 2: spiritual information, marriage and family, Bible, and so much more.

995
01:08:41,800 --> 01:08:44,799
Speaker 2: We would love to train you to more effectively, live, teach,

996
01:08:44,880 --> 01:08:47,679
Speaker 2: and defend the Christian faith today, and we will see

997
01:08:47,760 --> 01:08:49,599
Speaker 2: you when the next episode drops