WEBVTT - The Scientific Evidence for God: A NEW Documentary 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:08.680 Life Audio, I gravitated towards atheism because I became interested 0:00:08.720 --> 0:00:12.520 in space, it became interested in science and all the 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:15.800 things that kind of encompassed that. Just from the slogans 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:19.000 and things that I were hearing about Christianity, I thought 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:20.280 there was no good reason to believe it. 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:22.760 He said, I didn't want it to be true. Tell 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:23.200 me about that. 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:26.200 I said, I can't believe in a God who could 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:29.560 send me to an eternal punishment just because I have 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:31.920 a little bit of trouble believing in it. Looking back 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:33.919 at it, it came down to the fact that I 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:36.839 just I wanted to be in control, and if it's 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:39.440 actually true, then I'm not in control of anything. And 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:41.640 I think in my mind, I just I wanted to 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:44.240 keep that control over my life. That's where the gravity 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:46.760 of the Gospel started to sink in. That's when I 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:51.240 understood this isn't just about throwing my hands up and saying, Jesus, 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:54.440 what's next. This is more I need to fully commit myself. 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:58.680 I need to turn repent and fully commit myself to Jesus. 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:02.880 Why would it commit? Did aggressive atheist become a follower 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:07.080 of Jesus and then personally make and fund a stunning 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:11.480 documentary laying out the evidence for God. This is a 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:14.080 question that I have and I hope you do too 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:19.080 now as well. For our guest today, Michael ray Lewis, Michael, 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:20.800 good to see again, Thanks for coming on. 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:22.320 Thank you for having me. Sean. 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:24.840 Yes, So, I want to talk about this documentary, which 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:27.600 I think is remarkable and I'm humbled to be a 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:29.720 part of. One of the things I do in this 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:32.920 channel is to try to bring resources to my audience 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:36.080 to equip and motivate and challenge them, and you have 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:40.319 done that one hundred percent with this documentary. But let's 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:43.600 start with your story. Tell us the backstory, I guess, 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:45.760 of how you became an atheist, and then down the 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:47.120 road we'll get to what shifted. 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:50.640 No, that sounds good. So in my home when I 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:53.480 grew up with my family, all of my family said 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:56.240 that they believed in God, and they all had Bibles 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:59.760 under their beds, but we never talked about God, definitely 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:03.040 never talked about Jesus, never read the Bible, and so 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.440 over time as I got older, I was never given 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:09.520 any good reason to believe it anyways, and so I 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:13.440 gravitated towards atheism because I became interested in space, I 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:16.720 became interested in science and all and all the things 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:20.839 that kind of encompassed that, and just from the slogans 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:25.760 and things that I were hearing about Christianity, I thought 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:27.799 there was no good reason to believe it. And then 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:29.919 on top of that, the only real interactions I had 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:32.760 with Christians, or what I thought were Christians were the 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:34.600 ones on the street corners yelling at me that I'm 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:39.000 going to Hell. And that was not something I wanted 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:43.040 to be a part of. And so I I think, you. 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:45.240 Don't, you don't mean be a part of hell, you 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:47.320 mean be part of a group that would yell at 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:48.760 people in that fashion. 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:51.760 Exactly, I didn't. I didn't want anything to do with 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:56.840 those Christians, And so naturally I just adopted atheism. I mean, 0:02:56.840 --> 0:03:00.960 it was the best option out and I but over time, 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:03.760 the more I kind of became committed to it, the 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:07.119 more aggressive I became towards Christians, the more I would 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:11.200 almost enjoy hitting them with hard questions or poking fun 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:15.880 at their belief systems. I would watch documentaries making fun 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:18.440 of Christianity. There was one by Bill Maher, I can't 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.800 remember the title of it. Yes, that was it. I 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:23.840 watched that, and I saw how he went around town 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:27.280 and was just the Christians weren't able to give him 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:29.079 any good answers, and he was just poking holes in 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:32.160 their belief systems. And then the other documentary I watched 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:36.680 was Zeitgeist, showing that Jesus wasn't an actual historical figure. 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:39.160 He was just a myth that was copied by all 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:43.120 these other ancient myths, and those were very persuasive to me, 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:46.040 and I think I just took things at face value, 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:52.640 and so as I became an atheist, I adopted that worldview. 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:56.360 And it wasn't until years later I ended up meeting 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:59.720 my now wife and we got married, and she came 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:02.480 to me, and just to kind of put this in perspective, 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:04.920 she did grow up in the church. Oh, she was 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:07.200 a believer as when she was younger, but she was 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:10.280 pulled away by a lot of her friends, and of 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:12.680 course I pulled her away when we started dating as well. 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:15.400 But she comes home to me one day and she says, 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:19.360 I feel like Jesus is calling me back. And I'm like, ah, 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:21.520 that means I've got to deal with all this again. 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:23.640 So I was like, all right, you know what I'll 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:25.520 give it a second chance. I'll go to a church 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:27.960 with you, and I remember we walked into the church. 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:30.440 Oh hey, look, can I jump in right now? I 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:33.120 feel like this is the part where you become a Christian. 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:36.640 I want to know more about this atheism journey first. 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:37.600 Oh yeah, absolutely? 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:37.760 No. 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:40.159 Were you How old were you when you would have 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:42.320 kind of said, you know what, I think I'm an atheist? 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:43.640 Like what stage were you in life? 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:51.719 I would probably say early twenties. I would say twenties, 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:54.159 early twenties. And it sounds like it was more of 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:58.719 a default adoption than it was a thought reasoned entrance 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:01.480 into here's why I an atheists, and the evidence lines 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:05.240 up with it. At the time, I thought I was 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:08.440 putting a lot of thought into it, But looking back 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:11.600 at it today, no, it was not well thought out. 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:14.480 It was more of an adopted belief system that I 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:17.640 just I thought looked more appealing than anything else. 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:20.880 Very interesting. Okay, So what did it look like when 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:23.440 you said you got a little bit more aggressive in 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:25.720 your beliefs where you're going into chat rooms where you're 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:29.039 making videos. Were you looking for Christians to do this? 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:31.560 What did that look like for you to be an 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:33.919 evangelist for atheism. 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.279 I wouldn't necessarily call myself an evangelist for atheism because 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:40.520 I wasn't going on social media and debating people. But 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:42.039 what I would do is that when I would have 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:46.159 conversations with people, anytime I heard the word Christian, that 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:48.360 was my cue. That was my cue to bring up 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:50.560 something or like, I'm gonna have a conversation with this guy, 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:52.520 and that's when I would try to debate them and 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:55.039 try to pull coals in their belief systems. And so 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:59.440 while I wasn't out there doing it actively, I was 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:02.359 doing it within conversations that I was having. And I 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.520 think that's part of when I say it wasn't completely 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:09.680 well thought out. I mean, atheism in general wasn't like 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:12.560 my main priority. I had other things in my life 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:15.839 that were going on that were I would consider my priority. 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:18.680 As far as filmmaking was a big part of it. Okay, 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:21.840 because around this time, this is when I started making 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:26.159 I grew up obsessed with horror films, and so as 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:29.120 I got older and more into the film industry, that's 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:31.000 what I wanted to do. I wanted to make films 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:35.960 that could scare people, and so my priority in life, 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:39.800 and that moment wasn't necessarily the atheism. It was more 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:43.000 of the filmmaking and trying to figure out a way 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:47.080 to put together films that could be stylistic way of 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:48.839 scaring people. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:50.200 to create horror films. 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:54.920 So there's such a different Christian take on horror films. 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:58.159 Some have a more concerned position you can never watch 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:00.719 and you should never watch them. But there's people like 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:05.000 Brian Goadawa who's a philosopher and a filmmaker. He made 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:07.880 a film to End All Wars with Keefer Sutherland and 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:11.480 excellent filmmaker, and in his book Hollywood world Views, he 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:15.680 talks about how he really likes horror films in the 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:18.560 sense that they're one of the genres that still has 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:23.600 real right and wrong built into it. There's justice and injustice, 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:27.480 there's such a thing as evil, and it challenges kind 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:31.200 of the relativistic notion of our age. Did that ever 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:33.640 cross your mind that I'm like an atheist but I 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:37.640 like horror films that imply justice, right and wrong and 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:40.080 evil that there might be good behind it or did 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:41.480 that just never really occur to you? 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:45.640 It never occurred to me because so growing up, when 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:49.480 I was younger, I mean, we would do seances, and 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:52.360 we would go to haunted houses, and we would do 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:55.200 all the things that we love to scare each other. 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:58.360 But I never actually believed any of them. I kind 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:00.600 of kept my atheism. I thought it was all nonsense. 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:03.040 There were no ghost these are just things that scared people. 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:06.080 And so when it came to the filmmaking aspect of it, 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:10.120 I didn't have that mindset of right and wrong and 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:13.080 the concept of all of that. I just was obsessed 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:16.440 with trying to create something, and horror films were the 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:18.360 easiest thing to do as well. I mean you could 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:20.920 do a horror film on a super low budget, and 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:27.520 that's what I kind of gravitated towards. But so as 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:29.239 I became well, we'll wait till I get to a believer, 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:30.560 and you can ask more questions about. 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:32.000 That, all right, get that? So I just have more 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:36.160 questions an atheists doing seances. I mean, what, like, how 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:38.120 did you do them? When did you do them? Was 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:41.480 it just fun? Like, tell me about that. Was there 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:43.400 a part of you that just had a little bit 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:46.320 of a fear there might be supernatural realm or you 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:47.840 literally thought it was all fairy tale. 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:51.680 Oh No, When I was this all started, I would 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:53.960 probably say when I was about nine years old. So 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:57.360 it was terrifying at first, and there were some things 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:00.240 that I saw and heard that scared the crap out me. 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:03.920 And this was just with friends and family that would 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:06.760 come over. They all knew how to do it, and 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:09.079 I was just kind of part of the group. And 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:12.679 as I got older though, and we started really kind 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:15.200 of becoming obsessed with it, and we would do more seances, 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:17.240 but it was more of like a family get together thing, 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:19.680 like this is what we do when our families get together. 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:23.360 We hang out, we drink, and then at the end 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:25.680 of the night, it's time to do a seance. And 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:27.640 so this was it was just one of the fun 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:29.360 things that we do. Do that and then watch horror 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:32.680 films that was part of it as well. But yeah, 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:35.200 I mean towards the beginning, yeah, I was. I was terrified. 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:39.760 Looking back, I kind of came up with logical responses 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:43.680 to what happened and what I saw, But at the 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:46.319 beginning I believed it all. I thought it was scary, 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:48.520 And then as I got older and became an atheist 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:50.760 and kind of gravitated towards atheism. I was like, well, 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:53.200 that was nonsense, But I liked scaring people anyways, so 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:56.800 I'm going to continue to do it through film. Looking back, now, 0:09:57.080 --> 0:09:59.840 do you think there were certain things within the seance 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:04.120 that you're like, you know what, there was legitimate supernatural 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:07.880 or demonic activity taking place and I should have seen 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:10.640 that and should not have explained it away? Or do 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:14.400 you view it differently? No, Today, looking back at it, 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:17.400 some of it I could explain away. But there are 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:21.280 other instances and things that I saw that absolutely like 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:25.559 something was there, And even today as a Christian, I 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:28.240 still don't understand how all of that works, as far 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:32.079 as like the demonic realm and how all that actually operates. 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:37.080 But some of the things I saw, Yeah, I think 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:41.559 something was absolutely happening there, And today, looking back at it, 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:46.719 it's I can't believe it didn't go worse than it did, 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:50.360 and so yeah, it's I'm looking back, I think something 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:51.160 was really happening. 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:56.480 Okay, so you're lower twenties and you're an aggressive, committed atheist, 0:10:56.559 --> 0:11:00.000 but more committed to like making horror films and creative 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:03.240 in your career. You weren't evangelists, but when opportunities came up, 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:05.920 you went after Christians. So I just have one more 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:09.160 question before we shift your transition. How did you go 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:12.200 after Christians? I guess there's two questions, how did you 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:14.920 go after Christians? Like? What things did you go after? 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:18.600 And did you encounter any thoughtful Christians? What was the 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:22.160 typical kind of response you would get from Christians when 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:22.840 that happened. 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:26.680 Well, I would hit them with the main big slogan questions. 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:28.880 So I would hit you can't have a good God 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:32.719 with the existence of evil. I would say evolution has 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:37.800 disproven Christianity. I was saying, you can't prove that God exists. 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:41.400 You can't have there's no scientific proof for God. And 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:43.360 so I would say all the typical things that you 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:46.280 would hear from an atheist. But as far as responses, 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:48.600 I would either get people who would tell me, well, 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:52.160 I'm not going to push anything on you, so it's 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:54.240 okay just to kind of believe what you want to believe. 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:57.000 I would run into those, or I would just get 0:11:57.000 --> 0:11:59.640 one run into ones that were defensive and would try 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:03.360 to just dispute what I was saying, not give reasons 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:06.400 for it, but just saying No, that's wrong. That's not 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:10.880 how it is. God created the universe. Evolution is false 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:14.599 and so but I never ran into anyone who was 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:18.760 able to give me a good reason. Looking back on it, 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:22.160 it's sad that no one was able to no one 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:27.000 was equipped to respond to me. And later on in 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:30.240 my atheism once a Lot, we'll continue that with my 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:32.760 story in a minute. But yeah, I would say that 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:34.560 there was not one person out there that was able 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:36.240 to respond to any of the objections I had. 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:38.920 That's just heartbreaking to me. I don't want to harp 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:41.280 on this too much, but I do want viewers and 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:43.080 listeners to know. This is the kind of stuff that 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:46.439 like motivates me day and night. When I hear stories 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.640 like this, and I don't turn around and try chied 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:53.520 the church it's the Bride of Christ. People are busy, 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:56.520 they have other things to do. I found that oftentimes 0:12:56.559 --> 0:13:00.400 people start caring about apologetics when a loved war one 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:05.520 or themselves have questions. Maybe your questions and challenges in 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:07.839 ways you don't know, made people go back and start 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:11.640 studying apologetics. Who knows, but the heart of my ministry 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:13.320 to try to wake people up and go no, you 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:17.240 gotta be ready before somebody like Michael when he's twenty 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:21.079 two year old comes knocking. Then you can respond differently. 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:24.640 All right. With that said, let's come back to your story. 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:27.080 So you said he became an atheist or identified really 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:31.560 lower twenties. How old are you now you're married when 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:34.679 you say your wife brings you to church? And how 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:38.280 long had you been married at that stage? So she 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:41.480 actually brought me to church just a little while before 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:44.920 we got married. Okay, this was I get my story 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:46.960 wrong sometimes, but it's actually it was actually a little 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:50.200 bit before, because it was in twenty thirteen when she 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:53.280 first came to me with that statement that she said, 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:57.160 I feel like Jesus is calling me back. And I 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:59.280 remember when she took me to the church. One of 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:00.920 the things she wanted us to go to in the 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:04.280 church was their marriage class, because this was getting ready 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:07.600 for marriage. And I went to the glass and I 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:09.400 was like sure, I mean, I'll see and I remember 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:11.160 thinking I was like, oh, there's some good principles here. 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:15.760 Yeah, this stuff kind of makes sense. But we got married, 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:19.240 and it wasn't really until after we were married when 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:23.600 my journey officially started though, because when I was hitting 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:25.720 her with the hard questions that I was hitting every 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:30.080 other question with. She wasn't backing down. Even though she 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:32.960 didn't know the answers. She still was adamant that it 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:35.400 was true. And she even went to the extent of 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:38.040 buying me a Bible, writing my name in it and 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:41.120 giving it to me. And I remember, I opened the Bible, 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:43.360 I looked through it on my six days in Genesis 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:45.720 this is nonsense, closed the Bible and pushed it away. 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:50.760 But there was one particular moment that really piqued my 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:55.040 curiosity and got me to take a deeper look at 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:57.760 all this Christian stuff. And it was a YouTube video 0:14:57.760 --> 0:15:01.440 that popped up on my feed by Hugh raw going 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:05.520 over his perspective of the Creation days and that one video. 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:09.240 After I finished it, I said, you know, maybe there 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:12.040 is something to this, and so I kind of went 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:15.200 and then I started looking through Genesis again in light 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:18.920 of what he had had covered from his that interpretation 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:23.240 or the Old Earth interpretation of scripture, and it all 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:25.200 started to kind of line up, and I'm like, Okay, 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:27.640 well then now I'm gonna I'm curious. So I kind 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:30.720 of went from a state of like aggressiveness towards Christianity. 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:33.320 I softened up, went to the church with my wife. 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:35.880 But then I kind of I started to get really curious. 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:38.000 Okay, let me jump me out. How old are you 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:40.479 when this curious stage starts? 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:45.400 I was twenty six, around twenty. 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:48.120 Six, Okay, so about four years after saying you're an atheist. 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:50.800 Live that out. Now your your tension has been gotten 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:54.920 and you are curiously seeking more evidence, and you're married 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:58.760 at this stage exactly, Okay, keep going yep, okay. 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:02.320 And once I really started to become curious, that's when 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:03.360 I started buying books. 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:05.880 Ah, now you're investing money. Let's go. 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:10.160 And keep in mind, prior to this, I had never 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:13.680 finished a book my entire life. I went through high school. 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:16.200 I would watch the movies of the books that they 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:18.720 were reading, just kind of sly by to pass the tests, 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:22.720 and I never I just didn't like to read. I 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:26.680 liked film, I like cinema. I like movies. But I 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:29.200 don't even know how many books I went through through 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:32.720 this period. This was about a three year journey from 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:35.560 the moment that she said that statement to the moment 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:37.800 I gave my life to Christ and I read Timothy 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:41.040 Keller's Reasons for God. I went through Hugh Ross's book 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:43.480 Why the Universe Is the Way It is a matter 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:48.120 of days. I went through you Guys's book more than 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:51.640 a carpenter. There was just one after another, and I 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:54.600 was I realized that there are a lot of good 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:57.440 arguments out there, like there's a lot of evidence that 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:01.240 shows that God exists. It was at the end of 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:03.120 the three year journey, after I had kind of been 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:06.600 looking into all of this. Then I started asking my 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:10.000 wife questions about angels and demons and stuff in scripture, 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:12.399 and she finally was like, you know, I don't know. 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:14.120 I don't know how to answer the questions you're trying 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:16.639 to ask me. But my mom has a friend in 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:18.479 the family that you can go and have a conversation with. 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:21.600 He's a theologian. I said, okay, great, So I wrote 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:24.399 down five pages full of questions. I'm just ready to 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:28.000 handle this guy. I walked in, Okay, I remember. 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:31.159 So sorry, I'm really trying. So at this stage, it 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:35.080 sounds like you believe God exists, you're leaning towards the 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:39.680 Christian God, but there's theological and biblical barriers before you'd 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:42.400 make that commitment. Am I understanding where you're at you're 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:44.080 exactly right, okay, yeah. 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:47.600 And I had looked through other religions and belief systems 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:50.200 at this point too. It was a lot of digging 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:53.439 in during that three years. But once I walk in 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:56.520 the door to talk with this theologian, I remember, I 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:58.480 just went down the list and I was asking a 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:02.960 question and a question. I remember specifically every question. He 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:05.840 went to the scriptures and he was answering it using 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:09.399 the scriptures. And at the end of the conversation, I 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:13.080 went to the last question and he looked up at 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:14.560 me and he said, so do you believe it? 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:15.879 Wow? 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:19.280 Thinking to myself, well I don't have any more objections 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:23.240 at this point, and I said, yeah, I think so. 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:26.240 But it didn't really sink in at that moment. It 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:29.760 was actually the drive home. On the way home is 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:32.919 when I really thought to myself, I actually think that 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:37.320 this is true, So why why don't I just believe it? 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.520 And that's when I realized it wasn't the evidence that 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:43.840 was holding me back. It was the fact that I 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:44.960 didn't want it to be true. 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:46.320 Ooh. 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:49.040 And when I realized that, I thought to myself, well, 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:51.879 that's not a good reason. And so I said, all right, Jesus, 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:54.840 what's next? And that was me giving my life to Christ. 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:58.040 And I don't normally talk about this part of it 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:01.119 because this is the experiential part, and I tend to 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:07.040 lean more towards the evidential base for a belief. However, 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:09.240 I did have an experience in that moment as well. 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:14.560 It was almost like I had a fog over my mind, 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:17.720 my entire life, and it was like the fog finally 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:20.640 left and I could finally see reality for the way 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:24.080 that it actually is, which is ironic because as an atheist, 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:27.399 I always looked at Christians as being narrow minded. But 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:30.480 I realized in that moment I was being narrowminded as 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:35.200 an atheist, and I went from a state of believing 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:39.560 that it's true to knowing that it's true. And from 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:43.879 then on then my journey went to trying to help 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:49.119 others see the evidence that convinced me that it was true. 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:52.280 You know, if Christianity is true, then atheists are narrow 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:56.399 minded because they only believe in material things or things 0:19:56.480 --> 0:20:01.359 that spawn out of or depend upon material things. So 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:03.240 it seemed to me a Christian wouldn't be narrow mind, 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:05.919 and a Christian would be gullible and just believe in 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:09.400 things that aren't evidenced. So you can make a critique 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:11.560 on either side, but you're right, the question is what 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:14.840 is reality and where does the evidence point? Now, I 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:16.359 got to lean into a couple of things you said. 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:20.400 You said I didn't want it to be true. Tell 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:20.960 me about that. 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:26.199 So one of the biggest objections that I had, and 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:29.320 I even expressed this to my wife, I said, I 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:32.840 can't believe in a god who could send me to 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:36.800 an eternal punishment just because I have a little bit 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:39.760 of trouble believing in him. So that was one of 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:42.800 my main objections. But my other reason for not wanting 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:44.600 it to be true is because I didn't want to 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:47.119 be held accountable to anybody. I want to be in 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:48.520