Speaker 1: Life Audio, I gravitated towards atheism because I became interested
Speaker 1: in space, it became interested in science and all the
Speaker 1: things that kind of encompassed that. Just from the slogans
Speaker 1: and things that I were hearing about Christianity, I thought
Speaker 1: there was no good reason to believe it.
Speaker 2: He said, I didn't want it to be true. Tell
Speaker 2: me about that.
Speaker 1: I said, I can't believe in a God who could
Speaker 1: send me to an eternal punishment just because I have
Speaker 1: a little bit of trouble believing in it. Looking back
Speaker 1: at it, it came down to the fact that I
Speaker 1: just I wanted to be in control, and if it's
Speaker 1: actually true, then I'm not in control of anything. And
Speaker 1: I think in my mind, I just I wanted to
Speaker 1: keep that control over my life. That's where the gravity
Speaker 1: of the Gospel started to sink in. That's when I
Speaker 1: understood this isn't just about throwing my hands up and saying, Jesus,
Speaker 1: what's next. This is more I need to fully commit myself.
Speaker 1: I need to turn repent and fully commit myself to Jesus.
Speaker 2: Why would it commit? Did aggressive atheist become a follower
Speaker 2: of Jesus and then personally make and fund a stunning
Speaker 2: documentary laying out the evidence for God. This is a
Speaker 2: question that I have and I hope you do too
Speaker 2: now as well. For our guest today, Michael ray Lewis, Michael,
Speaker 2: good to see again, Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. Sean.
Speaker 2: Yes, So, I want to talk about this documentary, which
Speaker 2: I think is remarkable and I'm humbled to be a
Speaker 2: part of. One of the things I do in this
Speaker 2: channel is to try to bring resources to my audience
Speaker 2: to equip and motivate and challenge them, and you have
Speaker 2: done that one hundred percent with this documentary. But let's
Speaker 2: start with your story. Tell us the backstory, I guess,
Speaker 2: of how you became an atheist, and then down the
Speaker 2: road we'll get to what shifted.
Speaker 1: No, that sounds good. So in my home when I
Speaker 1: grew up with my family, all of my family said
Speaker 1: that they believed in God, and they all had Bibles
Speaker 1: under their beds, but we never talked about God, definitely
Speaker 1: never talked about Jesus, never read the Bible, and so
Speaker 1: over time as I got older, I was never given
Speaker 1: any good reason to believe it anyways, and so I
Speaker 1: gravitated towards atheism because I became interested in space, I
Speaker 1: became interested in science and all and all the things
Speaker 1: that kind of encompassed that, and just from the slogans
Speaker 1: and things that I were hearing about Christianity, I thought
Speaker 1: there was no good reason to believe it. And then
Speaker 1: on top of that, the only real interactions I had
Speaker 1: with Christians, or what I thought were Christians were the
Speaker 1: ones on the street corners yelling at me that I'm
Speaker 1: going to Hell. And that was not something I wanted
Speaker 1: to be a part of. And so I I think, you.
Speaker 2: Don't, you don't mean be a part of hell, you
Speaker 2: mean be part of a group that would yell at
Speaker 2: people in that fashion.
Speaker 1: Exactly, I didn't. I didn't want anything to do with
Speaker 1: those Christians, And so naturally I just adopted atheism. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was the best option out and I but over time,
Speaker 1: the more I kind of became committed to it, the
Speaker 1: more aggressive I became towards Christians, the more I would
Speaker 1: almost enjoy hitting them with hard questions or poking fun
Speaker 1: at their belief systems. I would watch documentaries making fun
Speaker 1: of Christianity. There was one by Bill Maher, I can't
Speaker 1: remember the title of it. Yes, that was it. I
Speaker 1: watched that, and I saw how he went around town
Speaker 1: and was just the Christians weren't able to give him
Speaker 1: any good answers, and he was just poking holes in
Speaker 1: their belief systems. And then the other documentary I watched
Speaker 1: was Zeitgeist, showing that Jesus wasn't an actual historical figure.
Speaker 1: He was just a myth that was copied by all
Speaker 1: these other ancient myths, and those were very persuasive to me,
Speaker 1: and I think I just took things at face value,
Speaker 1: and so as I became an atheist, I adopted that worldview.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until years later I ended up meeting
Speaker 1: my now wife and we got married, and she came
Speaker 1: to me, and just to kind of put this in perspective,
Speaker 1: she did grow up in the church. Oh, she was
Speaker 1: a believer as when she was younger, but she was
Speaker 1: pulled away by a lot of her friends, and of
Speaker 1: course I pulled her away when we started dating as well.
Speaker 1: But she comes home to me one day and she says,
Speaker 1: I feel like Jesus is calling me back. And I'm like, ah,
Speaker 1: that means I've got to deal with all this again.
Speaker 1: So I was like, all right, you know what I'll
Speaker 1: give it a second chance. I'll go to a church
Speaker 1: with you, and I remember we walked into the church.
Speaker 2: Oh hey, look, can I jump in right now? I
Speaker 2: feel like this is the part where you become a Christian.
Speaker 2: I want to know more about this atheism journey first.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely?
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: Were you How old were you when you would have
Speaker 2: kind of said, you know what, I think I'm an atheist?
Speaker 2: Like what stage were you in life?
Speaker 1: I would probably say early twenties. I would say twenties,
Speaker 1: early twenties. And it sounds like it was more of
Speaker 1: a default adoption than it was a thought reasoned entrance
Speaker 1: into here's why I an atheists, and the evidence lines
Speaker 1: up with it. At the time, I thought I was
Speaker 1: putting a lot of thought into it, But looking back
Speaker 1: at it today, no, it was not well thought out.
Speaker 1: It was more of an adopted belief system that I
Speaker 1: just I thought looked more appealing than anything else.
Speaker 2: Very interesting. Okay, So what did it look like when
Speaker 2: you said you got a little bit more aggressive in
Speaker 2: your beliefs where you're going into chat rooms where you're
Speaker 2: making videos. Were you looking for Christians to do this?
Speaker 2: What did that look like for you to be an
Speaker 2: evangelist for atheism.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't necessarily call myself an evangelist for atheism because
Speaker 1: I wasn't going on social media and debating people. But
Speaker 1: what I would do is that when I would have
Speaker 1: conversations with people, anytime I heard the word Christian, that
Speaker 1: was my cue. That was my cue to bring up
Speaker 1: something or like, I'm gonna have a conversation with this guy,
Speaker 1: and that's when I would try to debate them and
Speaker 1: try to pull coals in their belief systems. And so
Speaker 1: while I wasn't out there doing it actively, I was
Speaker 1: doing it within conversations that I was having. And I
Speaker 1: think that's part of when I say it wasn't completely
Speaker 1: well thought out. I mean, atheism in general wasn't like
Speaker 1: my main priority. I had other things in my life
Speaker 1: that were going on that were I would consider my priority.
Speaker 1: As far as filmmaking was a big part of it. Okay,
Speaker 1: because around this time, this is when I started making
Speaker 1: I grew up obsessed with horror films, and so as
Speaker 1: I got older and more into the film industry, that's
Speaker 1: what I wanted to do. I wanted to make films
Speaker 1: that could scare people, and so my priority in life,
Speaker 1: and that moment wasn't necessarily the atheism. It was more
Speaker 1: of the filmmaking and trying to figure out a way
Speaker 1: to put together films that could be stylistic way of
Speaker 1: scaring people. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted
Speaker 1: to create horror films.
Speaker 2: So there's such a different Christian take on horror films.
Speaker 2: Some have a more concerned position you can never watch
Speaker 2: and you should never watch them. But there's people like
Speaker 2: Brian Goadawa who's a philosopher and a filmmaker. He made
Speaker 2: a film to End All Wars with Keefer Sutherland and
Speaker 2: excellent filmmaker, and in his book Hollywood world Views, he
Speaker 2: talks about how he really likes horror films in the
Speaker 2: sense that they're one of the genres that still has
Speaker 2: real right and wrong built into it. There's justice and injustice,
Speaker 2: there's such a thing as evil, and it challenges kind
Speaker 2: of the relativistic notion of our age. Did that ever
Speaker 2: cross your mind that I'm like an atheist but I
Speaker 2: like horror films that imply justice, right and wrong and
Speaker 2: evil that there might be good behind it or did
Speaker 2: that just never really occur to you?
Speaker 1: It never occurred to me because so growing up, when
Speaker 1: I was younger, I mean, we would do seances, and
Speaker 1: we would go to haunted houses, and we would do
Speaker 1: all the things that we love to scare each other.
Speaker 1: But I never actually believed any of them. I kind
Speaker 1: of kept my atheism. I thought it was all nonsense.
Speaker 1: There were no ghost these are just things that scared people.
Speaker 1: And so when it came to the filmmaking aspect of it,
Speaker 1: I didn't have that mindset of right and wrong and
Speaker 1: the concept of all of that. I just was obsessed
Speaker 1: with trying to create something, and horror films were the
Speaker 1: easiest thing to do as well. I mean you could
Speaker 1: do a horror film on a super low budget, and
Speaker 1: that's what I kind of gravitated towards. But so as
Speaker 1: I became well, we'll wait till I get to a believer,
Speaker 1: and you can ask more questions about.
Speaker 2: That, all right, get that? So I just have more
Speaker 2: questions an atheists doing seances. I mean, what, like, how
Speaker 2: did you do them? When did you do them? Was
Speaker 2: it just fun? Like, tell me about that. Was there
Speaker 2: a part of you that just had a little bit
Speaker 2: of a fear there might be supernatural realm or you
Speaker 2: literally thought it was all fairy tale.
Speaker 1: Oh No, When I was this all started, I would
Speaker 1: probably say when I was about nine years old. So
Speaker 1: it was terrifying at first, and there were some things
Speaker 1: that I saw and heard that scared the crap out me.
Speaker 1: And this was just with friends and family that would
Speaker 1: come over. They all knew how to do it, and
Speaker 1: I was just kind of part of the group. And
Speaker 1: as I got older though, and we started really kind
Speaker 1: of becoming obsessed with it, and we would do more seances,
Speaker 1: but it was more of like a family get together thing,
Speaker 1: like this is what we do when our families get together.
Speaker 1: We hang out, we drink, and then at the end
Speaker 1: of the night, it's time to do a seance. And
Speaker 1: so this was it was just one of the fun
Speaker 1: things that we do. Do that and then watch horror
Speaker 1: films that was part of it as well. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean towards the beginning, yeah, I was. I was terrified.
Speaker 1: Looking back, I kind of came up with logical responses
Speaker 1: to what happened and what I saw, But at the
Speaker 1: beginning I believed it all. I thought it was scary,
Speaker 1: And then as I got older and became an atheist
Speaker 1: and kind of gravitated towards atheism. I was like, well,
Speaker 1: that was nonsense, But I liked scaring people anyways, so
Speaker 1: I'm going to continue to do it through film. Looking back, now,
Speaker 1: do you think there were certain things within the seance
Speaker 1: that you're like, you know what, there was legitimate supernatural
Speaker 1: or demonic activity taking place and I should have seen
Speaker 1: that and should not have explained it away? Or do
Speaker 1: you view it differently? No, Today, looking back at it,
Speaker 1: some of it I could explain away. But there are
Speaker 1: other instances and things that I saw that absolutely like
Speaker 1: something was there, And even today as a Christian, I
Speaker 1: still don't understand how all of that works, as far
Speaker 1: as like the demonic realm and how all that actually operates.
Speaker 1: But some of the things I saw, Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: something was absolutely happening there, And today, looking back at it,
Speaker 1: it's I can't believe it didn't go worse than it did,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, it's I'm looking back, I think something
Speaker 1: was really happening.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you're lower twenties and you're an aggressive, committed atheist,
Speaker 2: but more committed to like making horror films and creative
Speaker 2: in your career. You weren't evangelists, but when opportunities came up,
Speaker 2: you went after Christians. So I just have one more
Speaker 2: question before we shift your transition. How did you go
Speaker 2: after Christians? I guess there's two questions, how did you
Speaker 2: go after Christians? Like? What things did you go after?
Speaker 2: And did you encounter any thoughtful Christians? What was the
Speaker 2: typical kind of response you would get from Christians when
Speaker 2: that happened.
Speaker 1: Well, I would hit them with the main big slogan questions.
Speaker 1: So I would hit you can't have a good God
Speaker 1: with the existence of evil. I would say evolution has
Speaker 1: disproven Christianity. I was saying, you can't prove that God exists.
Speaker 1: You can't have there's no scientific proof for God. And
Speaker 1: so I would say all the typical things that you
Speaker 1: would hear from an atheist. But as far as responses,
Speaker 1: I would either get people who would tell me, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to push anything on you, so it's
Speaker 1: okay just to kind of believe what you want to believe.
Speaker 1: I would run into those, or I would just get
Speaker 1: one run into ones that were defensive and would try
Speaker 1: to just dispute what I was saying, not give reasons
Speaker 1: for it, but just saying No, that's wrong. That's not
Speaker 1: how it is. God created the universe. Evolution is false
Speaker 1: and so but I never ran into anyone who was
Speaker 1: able to give me a good reason. Looking back on it,
Speaker 1: it's sad that no one was able to no one
Speaker 1: was equipped to respond to me. And later on in
Speaker 1: my atheism once a Lot, we'll continue that with my
Speaker 1: story in a minute. But yeah, I would say that
Speaker 1: there was not one person out there that was able
Speaker 1: to respond to any of the objections I had.
Speaker 2: That's just heartbreaking to me. I don't want to harp
Speaker 2: on this too much, but I do want viewers and
Speaker 2: listeners to know. This is the kind of stuff that
Speaker 2: like motivates me day and night. When I hear stories
Speaker 2: like this, and I don't turn around and try chied
Speaker 2: the church it's the Bride of Christ. People are busy,
Speaker 2: they have other things to do. I found that oftentimes
Speaker 2: people start caring about apologetics when a loved war one
Speaker 2: or themselves have questions. Maybe your questions and challenges in
Speaker 2: ways you don't know, made people go back and start
Speaker 2: studying apologetics. Who knows, but the heart of my ministry
Speaker 2: to try to wake people up and go no, you
Speaker 2: gotta be ready before somebody like Michael when he's twenty
Speaker 2: two year old comes knocking. Then you can respond differently.
Speaker 2: All right. With that said, let's come back to your story.
Speaker 2: So you said he became an atheist or identified really
Speaker 2: lower twenties. How old are you now you're married when
Speaker 2: you say your wife brings you to church? And how
Speaker 2: long had you been married at that stage? So she
Speaker 2: actually brought me to church just a little while before
Speaker 2: we got married. Okay, this was I get my story
Speaker 2: wrong sometimes, but it's actually it was actually a little
Speaker 2: bit before, because it was in twenty thirteen when she
Speaker 2: first came to me with that statement that she said,
Speaker 2: I feel like Jesus is calling me back. And I
Speaker 2: remember when she took me to the church. One of
Speaker 2: the things she wanted us to go to in the
Speaker 2: church was their marriage class, because this was getting ready
Speaker 2: for marriage. And I went to the glass and I
Speaker 2: was like sure, I mean, I'll see and I remember
Speaker 2: thinking I was like, oh, there's some good principles here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this stuff kind of makes sense. But we got married,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't really until after we were married when
Speaker 1: my journey officially started though, because when I was hitting
Speaker 1: her with the hard questions that I was hitting every
Speaker 1: other question with. She wasn't backing down. Even though she
Speaker 1: didn't know the answers. She still was adamant that it
Speaker 1: was true. And she even went to the extent of
Speaker 1: buying me a Bible, writing my name in it and
Speaker 1: giving it to me. And I remember, I opened the Bible,
Speaker 1: I looked through it on my six days in Genesis
Speaker 1: this is nonsense, closed the Bible and pushed it away.
Speaker 1: But there was one particular moment that really piqued my
Speaker 1: curiosity and got me to take a deeper look at
Speaker 1: all this Christian stuff. And it was a YouTube video
Speaker 1: that popped up on my feed by Hugh raw going
Speaker 1: over his perspective of the Creation days and that one video.
Speaker 1: After I finished it, I said, you know, maybe there
Speaker 1: is something to this, and so I kind of went
Speaker 1: and then I started looking through Genesis again in light
Speaker 1: of what he had had covered from his that interpretation
Speaker 1: or the Old Earth interpretation of scripture, and it all
Speaker 1: started to kind of line up, and I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: well then now I'm gonna I'm curious. So I kind
Speaker 1: of went from a state of like aggressiveness towards Christianity.
Speaker 1: I softened up, went to the church with my wife.
Speaker 1: But then I kind of I started to get really curious.
Speaker 2: Okay, let me jump me out. How old are you
Speaker 2: when this curious stage starts?
Speaker 1: I was twenty six, around twenty.
Speaker 2: Six, Okay, so about four years after saying you're an atheist.
Speaker 2: Live that out. Now your your tension has been gotten
Speaker 2: and you are curiously seeking more evidence, and you're married
Speaker 2: at this stage exactly, Okay, keep going yep, okay.
Speaker 1: And once I really started to become curious, that's when
Speaker 1: I started buying books.
Speaker 2: Ah, now you're investing money. Let's go.
Speaker 1: And keep in mind, prior to this, I had never
Speaker 1: finished a book my entire life. I went through high school.
Speaker 1: I would watch the movies of the books that they
Speaker 1: were reading, just kind of sly by to pass the tests,
Speaker 1: and I never I just didn't like to read. I
Speaker 1: liked film, I like cinema. I like movies. But I
Speaker 1: don't even know how many books I went through through
Speaker 1: this period. This was about a three year journey from
Speaker 1: the moment that she said that statement to the moment
Speaker 1: I gave my life to Christ and I read Timothy
Speaker 1: Keller's Reasons for God. I went through Hugh Ross's book
Speaker 1: Why the Universe Is the Way It is a matter
Speaker 1: of days. I went through you Guys's book more than
Speaker 1: a carpenter. There was just one after another, and I
Speaker 1: was I realized that there are a lot of good
Speaker 1: arguments out there, like there's a lot of evidence that
Speaker 1: shows that God exists. It was at the end of
Speaker 1: the three year journey, after I had kind of been
Speaker 1: looking into all of this. Then I started asking my
Speaker 1: wife questions about angels and demons and stuff in scripture,
Speaker 1: and she finally was like, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to answer the questions you're trying
Speaker 1: to ask me. But my mom has a friend in
Speaker 1: the family that you can go and have a conversation with.
Speaker 1: He's a theologian. I said, okay, great, So I wrote
Speaker 1: down five pages full of questions. I'm just ready to
Speaker 1: handle this guy. I walked in, Okay, I remember.
Speaker 2: So sorry, I'm really trying. So at this stage, it
Speaker 2: sounds like you believe God exists, you're leaning towards the
Speaker 2: Christian God, but there's theological and biblical barriers before you'd
Speaker 2: make that commitment. Am I understanding where you're at you're
Speaker 2: exactly right, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: And I had looked through other religions and belief systems
Speaker 1: at this point too. It was a lot of digging
Speaker 1: in during that three years. But once I walk in
Speaker 1: the door to talk with this theologian, I remember, I
Speaker 1: just went down the list and I was asking a
Speaker 1: question and a question. I remember specifically every question. He
Speaker 1: went to the scriptures and he was answering it using
Speaker 1: the scriptures. And at the end of the conversation, I
Speaker 1: went to the last question and he looked up at
Speaker 1: me and he said, so do you believe it?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 1: Thinking to myself, well I don't have any more objections
Speaker 1: at this point, and I said, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: But it didn't really sink in at that moment. It
Speaker 1: was actually the drive home. On the way home is
Speaker 1: when I really thought to myself, I actually think that
Speaker 1: this is true, So why why don't I just believe it?
Speaker 1: And that's when I realized it wasn't the evidence that
Speaker 1: was holding me back. It was the fact that I
Speaker 1: didn't want it to be true.
Speaker 2: Ooh.
Speaker 1: And when I realized that, I thought to myself, well,
Speaker 1: that's not a good reason. And so I said, all right, Jesus,
Speaker 1: what's next? And that was me giving my life to Christ.
Speaker 1: And I don't normally talk about this part of it
Speaker 1: because this is the experiential part, and I tend to
Speaker 1: lean more towards the evidential base for a belief. However,
Speaker 1: I did have an experience in that moment as well.
Speaker 1: It was almost like I had a fog over my mind,
Speaker 1: my entire life, and it was like the fog finally
Speaker 1: left and I could finally see reality for the way
Speaker 1: that it actually is, which is ironic because as an atheist,
Speaker 1: I always looked at Christians as being narrow minded. But
Speaker 1: I realized in that moment I was being narrowminded as
Speaker 1: an atheist, and I went from a state of believing
Speaker 1: that it's true to knowing that it's true. And from
Speaker 1: then on then my journey went to trying to help
Speaker 1: others see the evidence that convinced me that it was true.
Speaker 2: You know, if Christianity is true, then atheists are narrow
Speaker 2: minded because they only believe in material things or things
Speaker 2: that spawn out of or depend upon material things. So
Speaker 2: it seemed to me a Christian wouldn't be narrow mind,
Speaker 2: and a Christian would be gullible and just believe in
Speaker 2: things that aren't evidenced. So you can make a critique
Speaker 2: on either side, but you're right, the question is what
Speaker 2: is reality and where does the evidence point? Now, I
Speaker 2: got to lean into a couple of things you said.
Speaker 2: You said I didn't want it to be true. Tell
Speaker 2: me about that.
Speaker 1: So one of the biggest objections that I had, and
Speaker 1: I even expressed this to my wife, I said, I
Speaker 1: can't believe in a god who could send me to
Speaker 1: an eternal punishment just because I have a little bit
Speaker 1: of trouble believing in him. So that was one of
Speaker 1: my main objections. But my other reason for not wanting
Speaker 1: it to be true is because I didn't want to
Speaker 1: be held accountable to anybody. I want to be in
Speaker 1: control of my own life. I want to do what
Speaker 1: I want to do, and there's a lot of rules
Speaker 1: and things in my mind that you had to adopt
Speaker 1: when giving your life or becoming a Christian. And then
Speaker 1: he in the title itself like revulsed me. I didn't
Speaker 1: like the title Christian just because I knew what kind
Speaker 1: of baggage came with that. Yeah, But ultimately, I think
Speaker 1: looking back at it, it came down to the fact
Speaker 1: that I just I wanted to be in control, and
Speaker 1: if it's actually true, then I'm not in control of anything.
Speaker 1: And I think in my mind, I just I wanted
Speaker 1: to keep that control over my life. And so this
Speaker 1: isn't you just looking back at that moment you really realized, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm giving up control, like that was you had full
Speaker 1: awareness of that.
Speaker 2: In the moment.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because I realized, like, like, this is actually true.
Speaker 1: That means I need to give my loved Christ. And
Speaker 1: everything he claimed about himself is true. Everything he says
Speaker 1: about reality is true. And this whole time I was
Speaker 1: I was scared to relinquish that control. And I think
Speaker 1: afterwards though, when I did give my life to Christ,
Speaker 1: it was like this the freest feeling ever. It was
Speaker 1: not as though like releasing that control of my life.
Speaker 1: It was a freeing feeling. And then I just became
Speaker 1: extremely excited, extremely curious because now that I know all
Speaker 1: this is true, I want to know more about it.
Speaker 1: I want to know more about him. And that's when
Speaker 1: I really started to just dive into the scriptures and
Speaker 1: read and study and become more involved with the church
Speaker 1: and learn as much as I can, and study apologetics
Speaker 1: and try to be able to defend my faith and
Speaker 1: have conversations with people. And it was actually funny because
Speaker 1: when I gave my life to Christ, even though I
Speaker 1: had those conversations with Christians, that couldn't give me good responses.
Speaker 1: In my mind, this was just kind of the process
Speaker 1: everybody took. People followed the evidence, they gave their life
Speaker 1: to Jesus, and then they started their journey. But after
Speaker 1: giving my life to Christ and going to the church,
Speaker 1: I realized that ninety percent of believers that wasn't the case.
Speaker 1: They had grown up in the church. This is just
Speaker 1: kind of what they believed their entire life. They never
Speaker 1: seemed to really question it. I'm sure they had objections,
Speaker 1: but they never had the kind of doubts that I had.
Speaker 1: And so because of that, they had no idea what
Speaker 1: apologetics even was. They had no idea there was an
Speaker 1: entire ministry of defending the faith. And so I went
Speaker 1: to the pastor and I said, what, like, what can
Speaker 1: we do to kind of help this? And he said,
Speaker 1: why don't you start an apologetic study? And so then
Speaker 1: I started equipping people in the church and helping them
Speaker 1: to defend their faith, so.
Speaker 2: That when he became a real evangelist, by the way,
Speaker 2: as opposed to when you were an atheist, not being
Speaker 2: intentional about it. And good for your pastor, by the way.
Speaker 2: We could talk about people not being able to defend
Speaker 2: the faith, but your pastor understood, here's someone with a passion,
Speaker 2: here's somebody with an ability. I want to set them
Speaker 2: free and set them up for success. That's exactly the
Speaker 2: right response. So kudos to that pastor years this and
Speaker 2: sees this way to go keep it up. Good for you?
Speaker 1: Tell me funny? Oh, go ahead, Well, I was gonna
Speaker 1: say what's funny about that? That interaction with my pastor.
Speaker 1: When I first I was actually going to leave the
Speaker 1: church prior because our church didn't offer any kind of
Speaker 1: apologetic studies and I wanted to go and try to
Speaker 1: figure out like I wanted to join a class and
Speaker 1: learn more about it and be a part of a
Speaker 1: church that offered that. He was actually the one who
Speaker 1: pulled me into his office and said, look, we don't
Speaker 1: have anyone that can do it, but why don't you
Speaker 1: do it?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: I love it, And so it was actually he is
Speaker 1: the one who kind of started that whole process. So
Speaker 1: I just wanted to throw that in there.
Speaker 2: And by the way, you know we have you know,
Speaker 2: I teach in a master's and apologized program, and our
Speaker 2: graduates are always looking for ways to use apologetics. And
Speaker 2: one mistake people can make is they get so aggressive
Speaker 2: they just move into a church like everything needs to
Speaker 2: stop and just do apologetics. And I'm like, I love
Speaker 2: your passion, but that's not going to help the other
Speaker 2: mister as just say, well they don't do apologetics, I'm leaving,
Speaker 2: and I go, Okay. See, if there's an openness where
Speaker 2: you can serve the church, maybe when the pastor does
Speaker 2: a message, you're able to do some research if it's
Speaker 2: on like the Exodus or some other issue. Maybe you
Speaker 2: can be available to counsel when people have questions like
Speaker 2: this theologian answered your questions. Maybe you can sponsor a conference.
Speaker 2: Maybe you can set up a group like find a
Speaker 2: problem and meet it in a way that serves the church.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad your pastor responded that way. That's gold.
Speaker 2: Now that said, I want to tell me a little
Speaker 2: bit more about when you said you looked into other religions.
Speaker 2: What did that entail? Because I can imagine a skeptic
Speaker 2: saying Michael you had at least a Bible under your bed,
Speaker 2: not under your pillow growing up, given that there were seances,
Speaker 2: but under your bed growing up. You're in a Christian society,
Speaker 2: you're married to someone who's a Christian. There's such built
Speaker 2: in incentive to be a Christian as opposed to a
Speaker 2: member of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter day Saints,
Speaker 2: a Jehovah's Witness, a Muslim, New Age, you name it.
Speaker 2: What did that look like to consider other religions for you.
Speaker 1: Well, honestly, I was kind of hoping that one of
Speaker 1: the other religions were the one that were true really
Speaker 1: whenever I was looking because as an atheist, when I
Speaker 1: was looking at it, like, I really did not like Christianity.
Speaker 1: I didn't like Christians. I didn't want to adopt that title.
Speaker 1: And so but after watching that video, if you ross
Speaker 1: going over like just the reality, like there must be
Speaker 1: a God, that's when I was like, well, let's go
Speaker 1: see what everybody else says about it. But there's so
Speaker 1: many flaws in all of the other belief systems that
Speaker 1: it didn't take long for me to come back to
Speaker 1: Christianity because there were lots of things that just didn't
Speaker 1: didn't make sense. They didn't line up. There were lots
Speaker 1: of the people who started the belief systems, especially with
Speaker 1: like Jehovah, witnesses and the Latter day Saints, like none
Speaker 1: of that seemed to be true. But there was something
Speaker 1: different about Jesus. Jesus was so much more impactful than
Speaker 1: any of the other belief systems. And so that's where
Speaker 1: I kind of lean more towards Christianity and the scriptures
Speaker 1: themselves as well. Just how they really do line up
Speaker 1: with what we see in nature and the compatibility of it,
Speaker 1: I think is what really started to kind of gravitate
Speaker 1: me towards it. So I didn't spend a whole lot
Speaker 1: of time on other belief systems because it was pretty
Speaker 1: quick that I could find errors or flaws in them.
Speaker 2: Do you still have that five pages of questions or
Speaker 2: did you throw that out?
Speaker 1: I don't have it anymore.
Speaker 2: It's a good show to just walk through. Imagine you
Speaker 2: could remember a lot of them. Yeah, that'd be a
Speaker 2: cool relic to have. Like, I don't think you mentioned
Speaker 2: more than a carpenter earlier. I don't think my dad
Speaker 2: I haven't been able to find he wrote that over
Speaker 2: like a few hours on legal note pads in a
Speaker 2: McDonald's in Chicago, never dreaming it'd be like thirty million
Speaker 2: in print worldwide. I wish he just had that legal pad.
Speaker 2: That would be incredible, But he doesn't. Nonetheless, so okay,
Speaker 2: you don't have that. But I imagine you can remember
Speaker 2: what quite a few of those questions were, and I'm
Speaker 2: guessing one of them is about hell that you kind
Speaker 2: of referenced earlier. So how would you answer the idea
Speaker 2: that a loving God could send somebody to hell for
Speaker 2: just not believing in him?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was Honestly, I think that's probably the main
Speaker 1: one for a lot of people. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people look at Christianity and people out there trying
Speaker 1: to tell them about Jesus, and they say, look, I mean,
Speaker 1: if God loved me, he's not gonna send me to
Speaker 1: an eternal punishment. I'm not a bad guy. I'm all right,
Speaker 1: And just because I have a little bit of trouble
Speaker 1: believing it, that's nonsense. But what I realized looking back
Speaker 1: at my objection there is that I didn't fully understand
Speaker 1: the gospel. I mean, I had heard the repent and
Speaker 1: believe language all the time, but it didn't really kind
Speaker 1: of it didn't really sink in. I knew what the
Speaker 1: gospel was, but I didn't know I didn't understand it properly.
Speaker 1: And the reality is that God isn't sending us anywhere.
Speaker 1: We are already destined for there, and Jesus is standing
Speaker 1: right in front of you with his hand wide open,
Speaker 1: and all you have to do is take his hand.
Speaker 1: And rather than us taking his hand, we push it away,
Speaker 1: turn our back and go a different direction. And so
Speaker 1: it's not as though it has to do with just
Speaker 1: a little bit of trouble belief in him. It's the
Speaker 1: fact that the evidence is clear if you'll take a
Speaker 1: second look at it, if you'll dig deep enough. Because
Speaker 1: I didn't dig deep enough before. I would base my
Speaker 1: entire worldview on slogans that I had heard. But if
Speaker 1: you take a second look and you really dig into
Speaker 1: the evidence, it really is evident. It's evident that God exists,
Speaker 1: and it's evident that there's this disconnect with us right
Speaker 1: where we're separated from Him, and He's built a bridge
Speaker 1: through Jesus and he's standing right there and all you
Speaker 1: have to do is take his hand. It's as simple
Speaker 1: as that, and yet we don't want to We push
Speaker 1: it away and we want to go our own direction.
Speaker 2: I'm glad that you focused on this being such a
Speaker 2: big issue. I would encourage people as strongly as I can.
Speaker 2: There's an article by Clay Jones, who's written books on
Speaker 2: the problem of evil. He has book coming out soon
Speaker 2: on suffering, and he talks about he did a deep
Speaker 2: dive on human nature in the twentieth century, how flawed
Speaker 2: and broken and inclined all of us are towards evil.
Speaker 2: It's not a few deranged individuals, but he walks through
Speaker 2: and says when people have the pressure and the opportunity
Speaker 2: we do as a whole, evil things curvege and doing
Speaker 2: right is actually more the exception. It's an article called
Speaker 2: we don't take human evil seriously enough. I cannot more
Speaker 2: strongly recommend people to read that, because we can't understand
Speaker 2: hell until we have an accurate understanding of the holiness
Speaker 2: of God and also human depravity. If we think God's
Speaker 2: sends us to hell because we got the wrong answer
Speaker 2: on a test, we completely misunderstand God's character and don't
Speaker 2: have an accurate understanding of our own sinfulness. So let
Speaker 2: me ask you this. You didn't want Christianity to be true.
Speaker 2: You recognize you didn't want to give over your life.
Speaker 2: You were intellectually convinced that it was true. What did
Speaker 2: it take for you to be like, Okay, I'm a sinner,
Speaker 2: I need to repent invite christ in Like, what did
Speaker 2: it take? And was that just that same day or
Speaker 2: when did that happen? As compared to the conversation with
Speaker 2: this theologian.
Speaker 1: You know, this is actually where I'm really curious about
Speaker 1: my conversion and the process of it, because on that
Speaker 1: car ride, that realization, in that moment, it was realizing
Speaker 1: that I didn't want to give my life to Jesus
Speaker 1: because I that it wasn't based on the evidence. It's
Speaker 1: that realization that was what made me kind of throw
Speaker 1: my hands up and said, all right, Jesus, what's next.
Speaker 1: But when I came home that night and I had
Speaker 1: my wife was sitting there and she's like kind of
Speaker 1: anticipating what's happening, and I basically was like, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: a believer. I believe it's true. And it was immediately
Speaker 1: after that. I can't remember if it was her or
Speaker 1: someone else, but I think that's where the gravity of
Speaker 1: the gospel started to sink in. And that's when I
Speaker 1: understood this isn't just about throwing my hands up and saying, Jesus,
Speaker 1: what's next. This is more I need to fully commit
Speaker 1: myself to to Jesus. I need to turn repent and
Speaker 1: fully commit myself to Jesus. And so it was a
Speaker 1: gradual kind of process, and so I can't I always
Speaker 1: wonder like, was my conversion that day on the car
Speaker 1: ride home or was my conversion the day of the
Speaker 1: understanding and realizing and grasping the gospel, Because experientially it
Speaker 1: was that car ride, but it was. But maybe that's
Speaker 1: when he was doing something in my heart that really
Speaker 1: turned the light on for me and helped me to
Speaker 1: really start to be able to absorb the gospel and
Speaker 1: soften my heart in a way that it really sunk
Speaker 1: in for the first time.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: The good news is we don't have to perfectly answer
Speaker 2: that question. My story is obviously different than yours. Grown
Speaker 2: up in a Christian home with an apologist evangelist father,
Speaker 2: learning this stuff, you know, as early as it was,
Speaker 2: but having moments of like praying the prayer at camp,
Speaker 2: moments of God's grace I like, did I really become
Speaker 2: a believer in college when I really understood the depth
Speaker 2: of my own need for God and not a believer before? Like,
Speaker 2: I have a hard time believing that. I think it's
Speaker 2: in age appropriate ways. It made sense to me at
Speaker 2: different times. But whether or not I can solve that.
Speaker 2: I like the fact that you're saying, you know what,
Speaker 2: even though I'm a believer, I still have some questions.
Speaker 2: I don't have it all figured out. That's totally okay
Speaker 2: to do. I want people to see that that now.
Speaker 2: It's not like, oh, I got it all figured out
Speaker 2: and I believe in God. No. Sometimes, when I studied
Speaker 2: my work on the Apostles, I walked away more confident,
Speaker 2: but also with more questions I didn't even know existed.
Speaker 2: But I'm okay living with those questions because I have
Speaker 2: a deeper confidence that it's true and I know God
Speaker 2: is okay with my questions. Do you have doubts now
Speaker 2: that you're a believer? Do you have questions? And how?
Speaker 2: If so, how do you process them? Or do you
Speaker 2: just have the gift of faith which some of my
Speaker 2: friends have.
Speaker 1: No, I still have doubts all the time. And what's
Speaker 1: amazing though, is That's why I love Christianity because it's like,
Speaker 1: no matter what doubt you come up with, all you
Speaker 1: got to do is just lay it all out because
Speaker 1: each individual doubt that you have, it all depends on
Speaker 1: what its impact is on the cumulative case of Christianity
Speaker 1: because there are so many good reasons, there are so
Speaker 1: many good arguments, there's so much evidence out there that
Speaker 1: those doubts that you have, most of them, we will
Speaker 1: be able to find answers to some of them. You won't,
Speaker 1: like you were saying, some of these questions that we have,
Speaker 1: we will just never know until we're with him. But
Speaker 1: it's to lean into the doubts and try to investigate
Speaker 1: them and then try to decide is this particular doubt
Speaker 1: something that blows the case? Is this is is this
Speaker 1: something that tears down all of those other arguments? And
Speaker 1: I would say absolutely not. There there's just there's just
Speaker 1: too much. There really is too much. And I always
Speaker 1: tell this when I'm talking to non believers as well,
Speaker 1: because they'll start asking me about other belief systems in
Speaker 1: other world views, and I'm like, just search, like I'm
Speaker 1: confident that if you're genuinely seeking truth, you're going to
Speaker 1: come to Christianity because it really is the best explanation.
Speaker 1: And so if you're open and honest with yourself and
Speaker 1: genuine with yourself, then I'm confident you're going to land
Speaker 1: where you need to land.
Speaker 2: Amen to that. And by the way, I encourage people
Speaker 2: all the time with this. When you hear an objection,
Speaker 2: ask how central is this?
Speaker 1: Is it?
Speaker 2: First tier, second, third, fourth? So something like contradictions the Bible.
Speaker 2: If there were a genuine contradiction, I would not chuck
Speaker 2: my faith. It makes me have to rethink what I
Speaker 2: believe about inerrancy and maybe canonicity. I mean, it would
Speaker 2: raise important questions. I'm not undermining that or what's meant
Speaker 2: by it being the word of God, but that would
Speaker 2: not overturn my faith. If I believe evolution in terms
Speaker 2: of common descent, not this purely materialistic story, We're true,
Speaker 2: I would not give up my faith. That would make
Speaker 2: me rethink, Okay, did I understand Genesis correctly? And why
Speaker 2: did God set up the world this way? What do
Speaker 2: we do with the fall? Historical atom like? Those are
Speaker 2: all very important questions. What would make me give up
Speaker 2: my faith is something like finding a better explanation for
Speaker 2: the resurrection of Jesus. And this is what Michaelacona has
Speaker 2: said many times, is like, if Jesus has risen from
Speaker 2: the grave, it's game set match. That is the root
Speaker 2: of my faith and I keep it there. So when
Speaker 2: people hear questions, the first thought I always say is
Speaker 2: just realize you're not the first one who's had this question.
Speaker 2: I guarantee you somebody's thought about it and written at
Speaker 2: least a response. You could investigate and see if it's
Speaker 2: reasonable or not. But second, ask how central is this question? Now?
Speaker 2: One last question before we shift, Oh, you know what,
Speaker 2: I have a couple for you. Is there any other
Speaker 2: big question from that five page list that you went
Speaker 2: to the Theologian that you had answered that you want
Speaker 2: to put out there because you suspect maybe somebody else
Speaker 2: is wrestling with that question. Or was Hell really just
Speaker 2: the big one you want.
Speaker 1: To focus on? Hell was the big one? The other
Speaker 1: ones were trying to understand what the scriptures actually said.
Speaker 1: So I had a lot of questions about the like
Speaker 1: LGBTQ community and Jesus's response to all of that. I
Speaker 1: had questions about angels and demons and how does all
Speaker 1: that make sense. I had questions about the miracles in
Speaker 1: scripture and the crazy stuff that happens in there that
Speaker 1: just seems impossible, and so those were the main ones
Speaker 1: that I would bring up. I can't remember because it
Speaker 1: was such a weird experience. I remember asking the questions
Speaker 1: and looking back at it today, it's almost like, if
Speaker 1: it makes any sense, it's crazy today thinking about it,
Speaker 1: But looking back at it today, it was almost like
Speaker 1: it was Jesus sitting there answer the questions for me.
Speaker 1: Like I remember the mind I was in. The mindset
Speaker 1: I was in was kind of like really curious, and
Speaker 1: I was just trying to listen to what he was saying.
Speaker 1: When at the beginning of it, I was ready to
Speaker 1: go in more skeptical, but something was moving in me
Speaker 1: while he was answering the questions. And so even looking
Speaker 1: back at it today, I can't remember exactly what all
Speaker 1: the questions were. I just remember that that it was.
Speaker 1: It was all the questions that I had written down,
Speaker 1: and towards the end of it that that one moment
Speaker 1: is what I remember him looking up at me and
Speaker 1: asking me if I believe that it's true. That was
Speaker 1: the one that really stuck.
Speaker 2: Out with me. That's that's amazing. I love that moment
Speaker 2: for you and that you're able to freely ask those questions. Again,
Speaker 2: good for that theologian and for the pastor responding the
Speaker 2: way that he did, which you're you're a conversion. Seems
Speaker 2: to match a larger shift in the conversation about God.
Speaker 2: So from the new atheist, which in many ways you're
Speaker 2: an evangelist, but you see to buy some of their arguments,
Speaker 2: advanced their arguments in the attitude in which many of
Speaker 2: the new atheists seem to propagate their ideas. And now
Speaker 2: not only are the new atheists dead, like that movement
Speaker 2: is long gone, it's like every few weeks we hear
Speaker 2: a new story of somebody discovering God. The latest book
Speaker 2: I got is Taking Religion Seriously by Harvard trained intellectual
Speaker 2: I think in his eighties, Charles Murray. I'm not quite
Speaker 2: sure he's in the Christian faith or not. I couldn't
Speaker 2: totally tell, but he's awfully close to it. Do you
Speaker 2: think the God conversation is shifting? And how do you
Speaker 2: see your journey kind of in light of that?
Speaker 1: I think I think it is, and I think I'm
Speaker 1: kind of right in the middle of it since becoming
Speaker 1: a believer, because when I first started having conversations with
Speaker 1: non believers, it was a little bit more felt more
Speaker 1: like a debate. But today when I have conversations with people,
Speaker 1: ninety percent of the people I have conversations with are
Speaker 1: really open to telling me their worldviews having conversations with
Speaker 1: you about it. They seem to be genuinely interested in
Speaker 1: hearing what you have to say. And so, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't I couldn't explain what's going on, but I do
Speaker 1: start to see some kind of shift with and that's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons, honestly, why I wanted to release
Speaker 1: the movie is as quickly as I'm doing it, because
Speaker 1: something's happening right now, and I think it's a really
Speaker 1: good time when people are really starting to take a
Speaker 1: second look and starting to be curious about this. I
Speaker 1: think it's just a perfect time for something like that
Speaker 1: to be released.
Speaker 2: Well, this is a perfect segue to talk about the documentary.
Speaker 2: And by the way, I think it was three years
Speaker 2: ago you came to my house and interviewed me, and
Speaker 2: then maybe I don't know, a year eighteen months ago
Speaker 2: you came back to southern California, and we went to
Speaker 2: the beach to get a little bit of b roll
Speaker 2: to kind of tell the story of the film. But
Speaker 2: I want people to know a couple of things. Number One,
Speaker 2: you didn't pay me or any of the other contributors
Speaker 2: anything for being in the film. I want to confirm,
Speaker 2: is that right? You didn't pay anybody anything. People volunteered
Speaker 2: their time.
Speaker 1: Everyone volunteered. I actually, when I first decided I was
Speaker 1: gonna make it, I didn't know what I was getting
Speaker 1: myself into, because I was My idea was like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go find a bunch of people who used to
Speaker 1: be atheist and give their testimony of how they came
Speaker 1: to faith through the evidence. But I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna My wife said, whyn't you just try to
Speaker 1: send emails out to people? And so I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I start grabbing the books off myself. Sent one to
Speaker 1: Frank Turik, sent one to Hugh Ross, sent one to you.
Speaker 1: And I would just send all these emails back and
Speaker 1: then one after another they would respond and say yes, yes.
Speaker 1: And so I put plenting tickets on a credit card
Speaker 1: and I went and flew and got interviews. But yeah,
Speaker 1: no one charged me for anything. The only thing I
Speaker 1: had to pay for was the flights. But it was
Speaker 1: really amazing, especially when I went to go interview Hugh Ross,
Speaker 1: because he was that main one that kind of transitioned
Speaker 1: everything for me, I bet, and so that was just
Speaker 1: an amazing experience to be able to see in the
Speaker 1: person and interview him and all of you guys and
Speaker 1: basically ask all the hard questions I had as an
Speaker 1: atheist because originally I had no script or story. Originally
Speaker 1: I just knew that I was able to get the interviews.
Speaker 1: So I flew out and just made the list of
Speaker 1: all my hard questions, knew the apologists that would answer
Speaker 1: each one better, and then I would just hit all
Speaker 1: the questions all down the list.
Speaker 2: Now, by the way, this is not a paid interview
Speaker 2: or advertisement at all. I recently had John Stonestree on
Speaker 2: to talk about the Truth Rising documentary that folks in
Speaker 2: the Family and the Culson Center put together. One of
Speaker 2: the things I want to do in this channel is
Speaker 2: just bring resources to my audience, believer or not, that
Speaker 2: I think are good quality resources they should take advantage of.
Speaker 2: And this is one of them. Now you said you
Speaker 2: put it on a credit card, Part of me goes, Wow,
Speaker 2: what an act of faith. The other part of me goes,
Speaker 2: are you crazy and losing your mind? And did your
Speaker 2: wife sign up with this? Because there's a balance between
Speaker 2: faith and between foolishness, right, yeah, So tell me a
Speaker 2: little bit about making that decision, Like the first time
Speaker 2: you're like, Okay, I'm actually putting this on my credit
Speaker 2: card and I don't even know how I'm gonna pay
Speaker 2: for this. What was that process?
Speaker 1: Like, I mean it was I think it was more
Speaker 1: excitement the fact that I actually got the interviews. To
Speaker 1: be honest, it was like, all right, this is going
Speaker 1: to happen. This is going to make the movie even
Speaker 1: better than it was going to be, So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go ahead and make the trip. But I think, honestly,
Speaker 1: I think it was just it was not the smartest decision,
Speaker 1: but it definitely did pan out. Shortly after that, I
Speaker 1: had created the donation page and tried to ask for
Speaker 1: donations to kind of help me fund this movie, and
Speaker 1: there was one a couple of particular donors actually knew
Speaker 1: me as an atheist before, and they ended up investing
Speaker 1: like seventy thousand dollars, which helped me pay that back
Speaker 1: helped me continue to do the rest of the interviews,
Speaker 1: and so it was kind of crazy and amazing how
Speaker 1: everything kind of fell together. I even noticed too, as
Speaker 1: I hired people out of state to kind of help
Speaker 1: come and film on set. It didn't plan this out
Speaker 1: at all, but virtually all of them ended up being Christians,
Speaker 1: and it was not expected. There was only one atheist
Speaker 1: in the entire production crew, and he was one of
Speaker 1: the VFX artists on the film, still working on him.
Speaker 2: So that's a cool film for him to work on,
Speaker 2: by the way, and have to see this stuff and
Speaker 2: wrestle with it. So let's stop for saying I want
Speaker 2: people to see the trailer because I want to see
Speaker 2: the quality behind this. I'm not going to promote something
Speaker 2: here that I don't think is not only goods substance,
Speaker 2: but also good quality, and this trailer captures it.
Speaker 5: Any person who is truly a thinking person needs to
Speaker 5: ask themselves the question why is there something rather than nothing?
Speaker 3: Scientists believe there's an intelligible answer to that, meaning there
Speaker 3: is a reason for the way things are. What's that reason?
Speaker 1: Why do I exist? Why do you exist?
Speaker 2: Why does the universe exist?
Speaker 6: Physicists have discovered.
Speaker 5: Fundamental constants and parameters and characteristics that define the universe
Speaker 5: have to assume exacting, precise values.
Speaker 1: If you were to change any one of them, there
Speaker 1: would either be no universe or no universe that could
Speaker 1: support life.
Speaker 6: Our galaxy, our star, our planetary system, the Earth, the moon,
Speaker 6: whatever size scale you choose to look, you see an
Speaker 6: overwhelming experimental and observational case that there is a being
Speaker 6: out there fine tuning, intervening.
Speaker 5: Immersing myself in the study of biochemical systems, I became
Speaker 5: deeply impressed with the ingenuity and the elegance in the
Speaker 5: sophistication of those systems.
Speaker 6: The living cell is chock full of minister machines that
Speaker 6: doesn't just rival, but it vastly exceeds our own high
Speaker 6: tech digital technology.
Speaker 5: And there must be a creator that's behind life itself.
Speaker 4: If some kind of a god existed, he would want
Speaker 4: to reveal himself, at least in some way. We would
Speaker 4: have to look at all of the different ways people
Speaker 4: have understood him to do that.
Speaker 2: I want to know, is there any evidence backing any
Speaker 2: one of them up as uniquely being true.
Speaker 3: This guy shows up on the scene and does something remarkable,
Speaker 3: whatever it is he did split history and on the
Speaker 3: pages of the Qur'an, on the pages of Bha law,
Speaker 3: Sacre writes, on the pages of Buddhism, Hinduism, Krishna age.
Speaker 1: These romans were skilled in crucifixion.
Speaker 2: They knew how to make sure that.
Speaker 1: Someone was completely dead.
Speaker 3: Many of Jesus' disciples had experiences that Jesus had risen
Speaker 3: from the dead.
Speaker 1: What did the game Well, they were beaten, tortured, persecuted,
Speaker 1: beheaded stone quick and waiting for their lives. We really
Speaker 1: have to put our beliefs to the fire.
Speaker 3: The reason we believe that God is true is because
Speaker 3: he's the best explanation for the way things are.
Speaker 4: There are truths that can be known, and I want
Speaker 4: to know what they are, all.
Speaker 2: Right, Michael, This comes out December thirteenth. In the minute,
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell people how to find it, but honestly,
Speaker 2: I hope it's okay if I push you here. How
Speaker 2: much did it cost to make a film like this
Speaker 2: and did you personally lose money on this? If so,
Speaker 2: how much.
Speaker 1: We raised and spent about one hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 1: on the production, and that is extremely low for films
Speaker 1: of this quality. The only reason I was able to
Speaker 1: do it is because all of that budget went to
Speaker 1: the visual effects, so the three D effects, It went
Speaker 1: to the music composition, and it went to all the
Speaker 1: travel costs and expenses for getting flights and places to stay.
Speaker 1: And then I was edited most of it myself. When
Speaker 1: we went to film, I would be the main guy
Speaker 1: behind the camera, but also asking in the interview questions
Speaker 1: as well, and then I rehire like a friend or
Speaker 1: someone on the side to operate the other cameras. And
Speaker 1: out of that, about thirty thousand of it came out
Speaker 1: of my pocket in making it, which is crazy if
Speaker 1: if you look at any other film production, extremely low
Speaker 1: for the budget that we had. But I was able
Speaker 1: to make it work and something wonderful came out of it.
Speaker 2: So okay, So December thirteenth, this comes out. If people
Speaker 2: want to look at the website, it's Universe Designed dot com,
Speaker 2: not Theuniverse Design dot Com. But we'll link below Universe
Speaker 2: Designed dot Com and it's going to come out on Apple, Fandango.
Speaker 2: That's Apple, TV, Amazon, Google kind of the main carriers online,
Speaker 2: not theaters. But you sent me a link to watch it,
Speaker 2: I'm going to go buy it myself or at least
Speaker 2: rent it, because I'm assuming that some of the funds
Speaker 2: will go back to you for your expenses. Here if
Speaker 2: your expenses are covered from this, and I hope people
Speaker 2: will watch it to at least cover your expenses. But
Speaker 2: if you get money beyond that, what would you do
Speaker 2: with it?
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm I'm all in. At this point, I plan
Speaker 1: to continue to make films that will direct people to apologetics,
Speaker 1: and so my hope is that it will make enough
Speaker 1: to make another film, maybe a bigger film, maybe a
Speaker 1: bigger budget. I have so many ideas. So one of
Speaker 1: the biggest critiques I have with Christian films is that
Speaker 1: a lot of them are trying to be a little
Speaker 1: bit more gentle in the approach on the film. So,
Speaker 1: for example, a lot of them may not mention the
Speaker 1: deity of Jesus, or a lot of them may not
Speaker 1: mention the gospel message. And so those are one of
Speaker 1: the two things I wanted to be very explicit about
Speaker 1: in this particular film, because while those films have a
Speaker 1: purpose and serve a purpose, there need to also be
Speaker 1: the films out there that are very explicit so that
Speaker 1: when people are genuinely open to hearing it, They're getting
Speaker 1: delivered the gospel message, and so I want to continue.
Speaker 1: But on top of that, like I said before, the
Speaker 1: Christians I interacted with had no idea what Apologetics even was,
Speaker 1: and so I want to try to bring that awareness
Speaker 1: to Look, there's good arguments for the existence of God,
Speaker 1: there's good evidence out there, there's a ton of great
Speaker 1: resources out there. This film in particular, my hope is
Speaker 1: that it'll become more of like an evangelistic tool, so
Speaker 1: that when you're out on the streets having conversations with people,
Speaker 1: maybe you only have five minutes with them, but you
Speaker 1: could direct them to watch a film, and the film
Speaker 1: will hopefully direct you to the website. And the website
Speaker 1: I've created a resource tab that has all of the
Speaker 1: scholars in the film their ministries, and the hope is
Speaker 1: to direct people to Apologetics and challenge them to do
Speaker 1: the research themselves and dig deeper into all of this.
Speaker 1: But yeah, whatever funds if the film makes, that's going
Speaker 1: to go towards another project. I've got lots of ideas.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I want to cover exactly what
Speaker 1: they are yet, because I haven't decided on the one.
Speaker 1: But that's the hope is that it'll make enough money
Speaker 1: that I can continue to make these films.
Speaker 2: Well, you don't have to release that here. As much
Speaker 2: as I love to make breaking news, the most important
Speaker 2: thing now is that we get this film out, We
Speaker 2: get your expenses covered, and maybe we get some more
Speaker 2: of a budget, maybe even a significant one, to set
Speaker 2: you up to make more make more films like this,
Speaker 2: and we need it, by the way, So kudos to
Speaker 2: you have for taking a risk an act of faith
Speaker 2: to build this. I can imagine people use it like
Speaker 2: I'm gonna watch it with my thirteen year old son.
Speaker 2: I want him to see it. I can imagine youth
Speaker 2: groups using it. I used to teach a Bible class
Speaker 2: high school for years. I would have used it in
Speaker 2: my high school class. I can imagine church groups using it.
Speaker 2: How do you think people can best use this film
Speaker 2: the way that you made it.
Speaker 1: I think watching it with friends and family that are
Speaker 1: not believers is a great idea. I think watching it
Speaker 1: with friends and family that are believers but don't know
Speaker 1: anything about apologetics, I think it'd be a great opportunity
Speaker 1: to go to your pastor and say, hey, can we
Speaker 1: do a movie night and screen this movie. I'll even
Speaker 1: have an option on the website shortly to where we
Speaker 1: can do church screenings. I think anything you can do
Speaker 1: to get this in front of people that you've been
Speaker 1: eying to have conversations with and you need something to
Speaker 1: start the conversation, I think this is a great resource
Speaker 1: to do that good for you. And it's not the
Speaker 1: kind of thing Christians can be embarrassed about. The quality
Speaker 1: is top notch. And you interview tell us just quickly
Speaker 1: the full cast of people that you interview, so you're
Speaker 1: on there, believe it or not. We have Hugh Ross,
Speaker 1: I got Steven Meyer, Mike Mike Lacona, Alisa Childers, Alan Parr,
Speaker 1: fuzz Rana also from Reasons to Believe. Let's see here.
Speaker 1: Who am I missing? Tons of other great people. The
Speaker 1: top of my head, it's gone blank as many times
Speaker 1: as I've edited this film.
Speaker 2: No worries.
Speaker 1: So Hugh Ross. Frank Turrek is in there as well.
Speaker 2: Oh course he's the one who like contacted some of us.
Speaker 1: Really had to have him in there, and so it's
Speaker 1: just it's crazy the people that I was able to
Speaker 1: get in and these were all the people that impacted me.
Speaker 1: I mean all of you guys impacted me. The books
Speaker 1: that you guys wrote or are what really started to
Speaker 1: I was able to absorb and sink in and answer
Speaker 1: all the questions that I had. And it's just it's
Speaker 1: mind blowing to me. When I talked to someone and
Speaker 1: they don't know about this ministry, they don't know about
Speaker 1: apologetics inpreiated, I can't comprehend it. And so that's why
Speaker 1: when I was trying, because once I gave my life
Speaker 1: to Christ and like I said before, I was making
Speaker 1: horror films before this, and then I was struggled, can
Speaker 1: you make a Christian horror film? And then I was
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what kind of film could I make?
Speaker 1: And that's what my wife came to me. She's like,
Speaker 1: you need to do a documentary on the evidence that
Speaker 1: convinced you it was true. And so that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: I want to help people to become aware of that fact,
Speaker 1: become aware of apologetics and the resources that are out there.
Speaker 2: Well, Michael, I haven't met your wife. I'm not even
Speaker 2: sure I've seen a picture of her, but she sounds
Speaker 2: like an iron in your life, bringing you to think
Speaker 2: about Jesus, encouraging you to take a risk with your
Speaker 2: resources and hers to build the kingdom. Keep going, my friend,
Speaker 2: I can't make movies like this, I don't know how.
Speaker 2: But I can write books, I can do interviews, I
Speaker 2: can do speaking some of the other stuff teaching that
Speaker 2: I do. But that's why I would argue in the
Speaker 2: Kingdom of God, we have different gifts that we can
Speaker 2: bring to the table. And so, folks, if you're watching this,
Speaker 2: rent the video, buy the video, go to universedesign dot
Speaker 2: com and just support what Michael is doing. What a
Speaker 2: great opportunity to reach folks for the kingdom and equip believers.
Speaker 2: And while you're at it, make sure you hit subscribe.
Speaker 2: Quite a few of you who watch this video are
Speaker 2: not even subscribed and you haven't hit those notification buttons,
Speaker 2: So make sure you hit that. And if you're like,
Speaker 2: you know what, I really do want to go deeper,
Speaker 2: I'm motivated. We would love to have you in our
Speaker 2: apologetics program and our master's program, top rated online and
Speaker 2: in person. I teach a handful of those classes myself
Speaker 2: Informations Blow. We actually have a master's in science and
Speaker 2: religion alongside our apologetics program, which fits this theme. A
Speaker 2: lot of people don't know about that. And one more
Speaker 2: thing is we also have a certificate program. We made
Speaker 2: it twenty years ago and just updated at Michael with
Speaker 2: some of the top scholars in the world giving lectures.
Speaker 2: We have assignments where you can just work through and
Speaker 2: learn apologetics if you're not ready for Masters, but then
Speaker 2: when it's done, we can funnel that into the Masters
Speaker 2: as I think maybe one or two credits something of
Speaker 2: that gat. So with that said, great stuff, Michael, thanks
Speaker 2: for coming on. Really enjoyed this conversation.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me Sean.
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