0:00

All right,

0:07

we

0:07

are at the local studio here in Miami,

0:10

Florida, and joining me today

0:12

is the author of I Don't Have

0:14

Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. Great

0:16

title, man. Frank Turk,

0:18

pleasure to meet you. Dave, it is a pleasure. Great

0:20

being here with you. Thanks for coming to town. You've

0:23

come from Charlotte, North Carolina. Yes, sir. I

0:25

appreciate you making the trek. Let's start with the

0:27

title of this book. I Don't

0:29

Have Enough Faith

0:31

to Be an Atheist. I didn't

0:33

think of it. My co-author

0:35

did. So I should say you are technically the co-author

0:38

of this book. Tell me a little bit about your co-author. Well,

0:40

Dr. Norman Geisler, when

0:42

he died, he died in 2019, Dave, they

0:44

added up the number of books either wrote, co-wrote,

0:47

or updated. It was 129. The

0:51

man had written more books, not only

0:53

than most people have read, than most people have

0:55

seen, because who goes to the library anymore, right? This

0:58

guy was brilliant. And at one point, he

1:00

and I were traveling the country doing a talk

1:03

we called The 12 Points that Show Christianity

1:04

is True. And

1:06

he went through the fine-tuning argument

1:09

that the universe is fine-tuned so incomprehensibly.

1:13

And after he got done with this amazing

1:15

presentation, he finally said, in

1:18

light of this, I just don't have enough faith to

1:20

be an atheist. And I went, that needs

1:22

to be the title of the book. So it really was a throwaway

1:25

line. Yeah. And

1:27

so he said, well, let's write the book. So we

1:29

wrote the book based on the seminar we were doing.

1:31

We sent it to the publisher, and they said, we don't

1:33

like the title. I said,

1:36

you don't like the title? What do you think the title should be?

1:38

And they said, The Truth About Truth.

1:40

I said, sorry, that's a deal breaker. We're

1:43

going to another publisher. They said, OK, we'll stick

1:45

with the title. And thankfully, they did. And the book

1:47

came out in 2004. Tell

1:49

me a little bit about how you two linked up your

1:51

journeys to get to the book. And then we'll dive into,

1:54

obviously, the specifics of why

1:56

you don't have enough faith to be an atheist. I was

1:58

in the Navy, which stands for never again.

1:59

You can volunteer yourself for eight years.

2:03

But I came to faith by reading books

2:06

by a man by the name of Joshua McDowell. I

2:08

was brought up in New Jersey, so I was

2:10

Catholic, because as you know, in Jersey

2:12

it's the law. You're either Catholic or Jewish, right? I

2:15

went to Catholic high school, but I never knew who Jesus

2:17

was. And when I was

2:19

in the Navy, I met the son of a Methodist minister,

2:22

and I had so many questions for me. He said,

2:24

Frank, you just need to get Joshua McDowell

2:26

books. Evidence demands a verdict more than a

2:28

carpenter. So I read those books, and

2:31

I began to realize that Christianity

2:33

is indeed true. When I got out of

2:35

the Navy, I happened to meet Norman Geisler,

2:37

and he said, I'm starting a

2:40

seminary in Charlotte. Why don't you come down and

2:42

check it out? So we did, and six months

2:44

later we moved the whole family there. Did you consider yourself

2:46

a believer before that? Yes. Or

2:48

were you just sort of nominally Catholic or just secular Northeast?

2:51

I became a believer in the Navy by

2:53

reading these books and

2:54

then starting to go to church. And then when I met

2:56

Geisler, who I didn't know at the time, but

2:59

to use a dated reference, he was the Michael Jordan

3:01

of apologetics, what we call evidence

3:04

for the faith at the time. And

3:06

when I met him and looked him up, I said, if I want to get

3:08

into this field, this is the guy, right?

3:12

You know, it's like in philosophy, your friend Jordan Peterson,

3:14

if he was still at the University of Toronto,

3:17

and he was still teaching and you wanted to learn, that's

3:19

the guy, right? He was the Jordan

3:21

Peterson of Christian apologetics.

3:24

So the reason that I wanted to have you on

3:26

now, and my producer Phoenix has been mentioning you

3:28

for quite some time, is that there seems to be something interesting

3:30

happening

3:31

with the atheist movement, if we can

3:33

call it a movement. I mean, in essence, it

3:36

has basically fallen apart

3:39

from Sam Harris sort of disappearing off Twitter

3:41

and having a lot of political problems.

3:44

That whole Four Horsemen thing sort of disappeared,

3:46

the new atheist movement. I don't know if you've seen that

3:48

the president of the, I think,

3:50

atheists of America, David Silverman

3:53

has basically come out and said that the atheist

3:55

movement was a failure. This is just in the last

3:57

two or three weeks or so. I've seen other,

3:59

well,

3:59

known atheists like Skeptic, my friend Michael

4:02

Shermer, talk about how

4:04

there is a purpose and a need for religion.

4:07

People fill that up with something else. And of course, Jordan

4:09

Peterson talking about how people end up believing

4:11

whether they believe it or not. So

4:13

there's something interesting culturally

4:16

happening right now, which is sort of why I

4:18

wanted to bring you on. I wonder if you have any thoughts on

4:20

that, just sort of what's happening right now. I think that

4:22

the new atheist movement, Dave, was a

4:25

reaction to 9-11.

4:27

The new

4:30

atheists at the time were Christopher

4:32

Hitchens. I had a couple of opportunities to debate

4:34

him in the late 2000s. Also

4:38

Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris.

4:40

Even Dawkins, I don't know if you've seen it in the last couple of years.

4:42

Well, I heard you had a podcast not long ago where

4:44

you were talking about how Dawkins has basically

4:47

said that,

4:48

well, religion does have some

4:50

benefits to society. And I

4:52

think he's realizing too that in

4:55

Britain in particular, a tepid

4:58

secularism is not going to resist a

5:01

radical Islam. But Christianity

5:04

could be just from a pragmatic point

5:06

of view, from his point of view, can maybe blunt

5:09

radical Islam. So he's realizing there's some

5:11

pragmatic uses to religion.

5:15

But I think originally the new atheism

5:18

came out of

5:18

9-11. These fundamentalists,

5:21

you know the old saying that science will teach you how

5:23

to fly a plane, but

5:25

religion will teach you how to fly a plane into a building, that

5:27

kind of thing. And so they were really

5:30

adamant against any religion. And

5:34

they would put them all together. Islam, Christianity,

5:36

all these religions are just

5:39

basically looked at with disdain

5:41

at the time. And I think people are starting

5:44

to realize that's not really the way the world

5:46

works. That's not really true. These religions

5:48

are different, and they're different for good reasons.

5:50

Yeah, so

5:52

it's interesting because what you're describing as

5:54

the push, the Christian sort of

5:56

argument as the pushback against radical Islam, I

5:58

think what we have here.

5:59

is the pushback against woke is

6:02

that people and this is what David Silverman

6:04

from the American atheist was saying

6:06

he did not realize that woke is and

6:09

was going to become a call not

6:11

a region and I think that's sort of

6:13

what what brings us to this moment in America. Yes

6:16

and silver man was the president

6:18

american atheist in fact I debate with him probably

6:21

seven years ago. But

6:23

then he left that role even though

6:25

he's doing now I mean the whole movement maybe

6:27

has pretty much evaporated really.

6:29

Hitchens of course passed away

6:33

Dawkins is starting to realize there's utility

6:35

to religion from a pragmatic point

6:37

of view and I know it's gonna sound odd.

6:40

But I have a lot of respect for Richard Dawkins

6:42

because he has more courage than many american

6:45

pastors.

6:46

I mean Richard Dawkins has spoke against woke ism

6:48

Richard Dawkins has said I'm sorry there's only

6:51

two genders it's science right

6:53

and Richard Dawkins has talked about

6:55

the problems with radical Islam most pastors

6:57

are hiding under their desks on these issues they're

7:00

not coming out and talking about this so

7:03

to his credit Richard Dawkins has said some things

7:05

that I wish American pastors would say. So

7:07

what's going on there let's dive into that a little because

7:09

it's not just pastors I mean this is happening throughout

7:12

throughout Jewish synagogues it's happening through almost

7:14

every denomination of Christianity where

7:16

the rabbis the pastors there they're

7:18

choosing woke ism they're choosing equity

7:21

over religious teachings

7:23

right right well. Thinking

7:26

it was going to bring more people in I think well seems to

7:28

be doing the reverse yeah I don't know if I think

7:31

I think.

7:32

Christians have bought into the idea that politics

7:34

is sort of off the table for them

7:37

what they don't seem to realize is that.

7:40

First of all their ability to actually

7:42

be Christians and live the Christian faith

7:44

and preach the gospel so to speak is

7:47

determined to a certain extent by

7:49

what laws are made

7:50

right I mean here we take it for granted we have religious

7:53

freedom but as you pointed out and many others

7:55

it's evaporating right. So

7:58

for for no other reason.

7:59

and Christians ought to be involved in politics,

8:02

is to protect the very ability to

8:04

preach and live the gospel. The second reason

8:06

is, I always ask Christians this, or anybody

8:08

this, should Christians care how people are

8:10

treated? Everyone says, well, of course. Well,

8:13

should Christians care how people are treated by their government?

8:16

Well, yeah, that follows. Now

8:18

suddenly, you better care about politics.

8:21

You better care about the rules that are made because

8:23

if you care about people, you've gotta

8:25

care about what's going on. And thankfully,

8:28

you and others have been a champion

8:31

for saying this transgenderism issue,

8:33

particularly on children, should

8:35

be off limits and pastors even are

8:37

afraid to talk about it, Dave. Yeah. It's crazy.

8:41

I know it's crazy and I see it every

8:43

day. And that's why one of the things that's been interesting

8:45

for me as someone

8:46

who's not Christian, and certainly,

8:50

a certain set of Christians might have some issues with

8:52

my lifestyle and everything else, I have

8:54

found generally, especially evangelical Christians,

8:58

to be the most welcoming, decent people out there, which did

9:00

help me, I think, evolve in some

9:02

ways in my thinking. Yeah, you had a,

9:05

I just re-listened to it, it was four years

9:07

ago, that dialogue you had with my friend John Lennox

9:10

and Justin Briley. Yeah, yeah,

9:12

yeah. Lennox. That was a great event. If

9:14

every Christian was like John Lennox, the whole

9:17

world would be Christianized because you can't not

9:19

like John Lennox, right? He's a fun guy, smiling,

9:21

he's telling you this and jokey. He's

9:24

like your favorite uncle who has all these great stories.

9:27

And John is just one

9:29

of the guys I look up to in my field

9:31

of work because he is just so affable,

9:34

but yet so intelligent. He's a PhD in mathematics

9:36

and philosophy, he's amazing. So,

9:38

okay, so I just wanna return to the title for a moment. I

9:40

don't have enough faith to be an atheist. I think from

9:42

an American sort of broad cultural perspective,

9:44

most people, it's

9:46

not that they're atheists, but they just sort of don't

9:48

know what they believe. We have just sort of a set

9:50

of things that we kind of wake up to every day,

9:53

a culture war, a political fire. And

9:56

then that's kind of what they believe in, the thing

9:58

that's happening sort of every day.

9:59

at the moment, and I think that sort of leads people

10:02

to a degree of craziness. So how would you unfurl?

10:05

If you think that's a fair premise, how would you kind of

10:07

unfurl people out of that? Well,

10:09

I would, there's two questions that need to be

10:11

answered. Does God

10:14

exist, and if so, what

10:16

is he said? Those are the two big questions.

10:18

All right, let's do it. Right? Okay. Let's go. So

10:20

does God exist?

10:22

I think, when somebody asks me how do I know God

10:24

exists, I say I know God by his effects. If

10:27

there's a creation, and there is, this

10:29

universe at a beginning is even atheists are admitting,

10:32

then there has to be a creator. The creation

10:35

is the effect that causes the creator. Right,

10:37

so they might say it's the Big Bang, and it was just

10:39

a bunch of gases, and this, well, they wouldn't

10:41

say miracle, but they would say just this thing happened,

10:43

this causeless

10:45

thing happened. They will say that, but it seems

10:47

to me that if space, time, and matter had a beginning,

10:50

the only thing that could have caused that is something that transcends

10:53

space, time, and matter. In other words, the cause must

10:55

be spaceless, timeless, immaterial,

10:58

powerful to create the universe out of nothing, personal

11:02

in order to choose to create, because impersonal forces

11:04

don't make choices. Only a person

11:06

can make a choice to go from nothingness to a

11:09

state of creation. The cause would

11:11

also have to be intelligent to have a mind to make

11:13

a choice. So I always ask people, I say, when

11:16

you think about a spaceless, timeless, immaterial,

11:19

powerful, personal,

11:20

intelligent cause, who do you think of?

11:23

And most people say God, but then they'll say, well,

11:25

how do you know it's the Christian God? And the answer is we

11:27

don't know if it's the Christian God unless,

11:30

because this God could be Allah or some other

11:32

theistic God, right? Unless Jesus

11:35

rose from the dead.

11:36

And if you can discover that Jesus really did

11:38

rise from the dead, then we can say that the same

11:41

being that walked out of the tomb 1,990 years ago

11:45

is the same being whose divine

11:47

nature created the universe out of nothing.

11:50

So you've got to, you don't get all the way to

11:52

Jesus from one argument.

11:54

But if you can show that the universe

11:56

had a beginning

11:57

and had a beginner with those attributes,

11:59

and you can see that Jesus rose from the dead, then you can show

12:02

that Christianity is true. And that's just one of several arguments

12:04

for God. Yeah, feel free to make a couple

12:06

others. Okay. Why don't we go through a couple others? Yeah, the second

12:09

is the teleological or the design argument,

12:11

which

12:12

is so incredibly

12:15

difficult to explain from an atheistic perspective

12:17

that even Christopher Hitchens said, I don't know

12:19

how to explain this one, right? Yeah.

12:22

For example, the gravitational force,

12:24

if it were altered by more than one in 10

12:27

to the 40th power, that's one part in one

12:29

with 40 zeros following it, we wouldn't

12:31

exist.

12:33

And an illustration I like to give is this,

12:35

if you were to take the entire North American

12:38

continent from Central America all the way to

12:40

Greenland, stack it in dimes

12:42

to the moon, 238,000 miles, then

12:45

do that on a billion other

12:47

North American continents, take all

12:49

those dimes, put them in one pile, mark one

12:51

dime red, mix it in, blindfold

12:54

a friend, throw them on the pile, say, pick one dime,

12:56

the chances he would pick that one red dime is one

12:58

chance in 10 to the 40th power.

13:01

He's not going to pick that dime, right?

13:03

So the implication here is,

13:06

and this is just one of several factors about the

13:08

universe, change any one of them, we're not here, is

13:10

that what best explains that?

13:12

Chance, whatever that means, or design. I

13:16

mean, either this value was designed

13:18

or it wasn't.

13:19

And it seems, if we're going to be rational, we have

13:21

to say it's designed. And as I say, it's

13:24

just one of several. So that's one aspect

13:26

of the design argument. Then

13:28

when you get to biology and you see that in every

13:30

one of your 100 trillion cells, there's a software

13:33

program 3.5 billion letters long.

13:36

I mean, if we were to go out to the beach right here

13:39

right now, Dave, and we're

13:41

walking along Miami Beach and it says, John loves

13:43

Mary in the sand,

13:44

we wouldn't go, oh, the waves did that,

13:47

or crabs came out of the water and made

13:49

that message. No, we'd say that

13:51

that message had to come from a mind.

13:54

Well, what happens when we find a message that's

13:57

3.5 billion letters long in every one of our 100.

13:59

trillion cells. If John loves

14:02

Mary, requires a mind.

14:04

Doesn't a message 3.5 billion letters long

14:07

require a mind? Seems to me that's

14:09

an effect that needs a cause like God.

14:12

And then of course the third argument that we often

14:15

talk about, which is probably most germane to

14:17

the topics you talk about, is the moral

14:19

argument.

14:20

Because if there's no God, everything's just a

14:22

matter of opinion. There's no standard

14:24

beyond us, no transcendent standard

14:27

of righteousness that we're obligated to obey. Then

14:31

there's no difference between Mother Teresa and

14:33

Hitler from a moral perspective.

14:35

It's just your opinion against somebody else's

14:38

opinion. And so that argument I

14:40

think probably carries the most weight with people

14:42

today. Right, so is that

14:44

the one you think that maybe led us to so

14:46

much of the craziness today when we're debating,

14:49

as my friend Douglas Murray often says, things that we've

14:51

put to bed years ago and suddenly we're debating

14:54

whether boys or girls or girls or boys, it's

14:56

because we have sort of no moral

14:58

basis anymore at scale

15:01

in society. Yeah, it's a free

15:03

for all, but the very people that are arguing for that

15:05

are arguing as if there's

15:07

a moral right to do this, you notice,

15:10

because everybody's trying to impose a moral position.

15:12

The only question is who's moral position?

15:14

Now all laws legislate morality. The only question

15:16

is who's morality? And what I try

15:18

and say to people is, I don't wanna legislate

15:20

my morality. I don't wanna legislate your morality.

15:23

I wanna legislate the morality. The one Thomas Jefferson

15:25

said was self-evident. So

15:28

that self-evident morality upon which this

15:30

nation was found is the morality we ought to get back

15:32

to,

15:33

even though they were inconsistent with

15:35

it, obviously on slavery and other issues, they

15:37

were inconsistent. But they knew in their hearts,

15:40

in fact Jefferson and the founding fathers knew

15:42

that slavery was gonna be an issue,

15:44

that it wasn't morally right. They just couldn't figure out

15:46

how to get rid of it at the time. That's why I tell people all

15:48

the time, he was writing the documents to free the

15:50

slaves as he himself was a slave owner. That's

15:53

right. He was the man of his time, as incredible

15:55

as he was. What would you say to the line? One

15:58

of the things that I think shifted me on a lot of...

15:59

this. Jordan Peterson, you

16:02

know, when we toured together, it would come

16:04

up literally every single night.

16:06

People would say, please define God, explain

16:09

God, how did you become a believer? And

16:12

the short answer, he really didn't like

16:14

that question, not because he didn't think it was valuable,

16:16

but because it was just coming up all the

16:18

time. And he felt that there's so many other things

16:20

to talk about and everything else. But the

16:22

simplest version of it would be that

16:25

he behaves as if God exists.

16:27

That's what he would say. And I thought that that

16:30

was pretty solid, that that

16:32

was almost enough for most people.

16:34

Do you think that that's fair? Well, the

16:37

question is- That he can't sit there and tell you, okay, God

16:39

exists, but he will behave in

16:41

such a way that- Right. I think

16:43

Jordan takes more of a utilitarian

16:46

approach to God that whether

16:48

he exists or not, we better believe in him. Because

16:50

if we don't, it's going to be as Dostoyevsky said,

16:53

you know, if

16:55

there is no God, everything's permissible, right?

16:58

It's going to be chaos, as Nietzsche pointed out.

17:00

However, I think there's evidence

17:02

that God exists. And I think you can show beyond

17:05

a reasonable doubt, not beyond all doubt, I could

17:07

be wrong, right? But

17:09

I think that God does exist. And if Jesus

17:11

rose from the dead, and I think we can give evidence that he

17:13

did, then the Christian God is the true

17:15

God. So if that's

17:17

the case, who is God?

17:19

God

17:20

in the abstract is spaceless, timeless,

17:22

immaterial, powerful, personal, and intelligent.

17:25

In the flesh, he's Jesus. He

17:28

adds humanity to his deity, and he comes

17:31

to earth not to

17:33

give us some sort of new moral code,

17:36

but to be our substitute.

17:38

He is the one that lives the perfect life in

17:40

our place. So by trusting in him, we

17:43

can have our

17:44

moral transgressions forgiven,

17:46

and we can be given his righteousness. So

17:49

Christianity, contrary to what

17:51

many will say, is not a system that tries

17:53

to get you to live better. Christianity

17:56

is a system that tries to get you to accept

17:58

the substitute, and because

17:59

you do accept the substitute,

18:03

out of gratitude for what he's done for you, then

18:05

you will live a moral life.

18:07

It's a result, in other words. So

18:09

what would the role of...

18:12

In your perfect world, what would

18:14

the role of Christianity be in,

18:16

say, the United States?

18:18

Well, I believe in freedom of religion,

18:20

and I think God does too. Otherwise, he'd

18:22

be pestering us all the time, right?

18:25

He gives us enough freedom

18:26

in order to go our own way. So

18:29

I think we have freedom of religion, and I

18:31

would not want any

18:33

sort of theocratic government. But I think what

18:35

people confuse, Dave, on this issue is...

18:39

I'll bring up a name

18:41

from the past. Remember old Chris Matthews? Of

18:43

course. Before MSNBC

18:46

went completely insane. That's right. He was

18:48

kind of hanging on by a thread. That's right. He used to say, we

18:51

can't set up some sort of theocracy. And

18:54

I would say, Chris,

18:55

we're not talking about telling people where,

18:58

when, how, or if to worship. We're not telling

19:00

them they have to be a certain religion. That would be

19:02

establishing a religion. But we can't avoid

19:04

telling people how they ought to treat one another. And

19:06

that's legislating morality, and everybody's trying

19:09

to do that.

19:10

It's what the Wokesters are doing right now. That was your

19:12

point. Yes. Yes. That's what they're doing. The

19:14

only question is, who is morality? So I

19:16

think,

19:17

and I'll part with some of my Christian

19:20

friends here, this country

19:22

was not founded on Christianity.

19:24

It was founded on the moral law consistent

19:26

with Christianity.

19:27

When Jefferson says, we hold these truths to be

19:29

self-evident, that we're endowed by our Creator,

19:32

what he wanted to do was

19:35

have a new government

19:37

that wasn't completely relativistic

19:39

and have no God.

19:41

But he didn't want a government like they came from

19:44

England that said, you've got to be a member of the Church of England. He

19:46

wanted to have the best of both worlds, religious freedom,

19:49

but also moral absolutes to come from

19:51

God. So he said, we're going to

19:53

establish this on the moral

19:55

law that comes from God's nature. That moral

19:58

law, we know, comes from God's nature.

19:59

from the same God that wrote the Bible or

20:02

inspired the Bible, but you don't have

20:04

to be a Christian to know it. You don't have

20:06

to be a Christian to be a citizen here. This nation

20:10

is open to everyone. That's the kind of government I

20:12

think we ought to have. Is that the brilliance of the line

20:14

self-evident more than anything else? Because

20:16

that there – again, when I quote this line

20:18

about Douglas Murray that we're debating

20:21

things that shouldn't be debated anymore, it seems

20:23

to me we're in this odd spot right now where

20:25

culturally nothing is self-evident anymore.

20:27

There's nothing that's just settled. What

20:29

is settled anymore? Nothing. Was

20:32

JFK assassinated? Did we go to the moon? Are

20:34

boys girls? Etc. It

20:36

is crazy in that regard. I think part

20:38

of that is what happens,

20:40

to use a biblical phrase, that when you

20:42

suppress the truth long enough,

20:45

God gives you up to a depraved mind. To the

20:48

point where you don't even know there's a difference

20:50

between boys and girls. By the way, transgenderism

20:52

presupposes men and women. Because

20:55

if I'm a man and I think I'm a woman,

20:57

I have to have some idea what a man is and some idea what

20:59

a woman is to know I have this mismatch between

21:01

my psychology and my biology. If

21:04

there weren't fixed genders, I wouldn't be able to know

21:06

that. Also, if I'm going to try and make

21:08

the so-called transition, I have to have some idea

21:10

what a man is and some idea what a woman is in

21:13

order to make the transition. So on one hand, they're trying

21:15

to say, oh, gender is completely fluid. On the other hand, it

21:17

would be impossible. Transgenderism would be impossible

21:20

if there weren't fixed gender. It's interesting because one of

21:22

the things I've been talking about on the show is when it's

21:24

the same

21:24

argument, I've made it slightly different way, which is

21:26

that with kids, they're taking a young boy

21:29

who maybe likes the color pink or Barbie.

21:31

On one hand, they're telling you none of this matters. On

21:34

the other hand, they're saying, oh, he likes pink and Barbie,

21:36

thus he must be a girl. That's right. So it's the most

21:38

radically authoritarian while it's also saying

21:41

it's the most tolerant and diverse and everything else,

21:44

which I suppose that doesn't surprise you because

21:46

it's disconnected from. It

21:48

is.

21:51

When you

21:53

move away from God, even just

21:55

say a generic God, the God of

21:57

right and wrong, when you move away from that, God is the God

21:59

of right and wrong.

21:59

God's a gentleman. He

22:01

gives up on you. Eventually he says,

22:04

I know you don't want me, so I'm going to pull myself away.

22:06

God is not going to force you into his presence against

22:09

your will. And from a theological perspective, that's what hell

22:11

is. Hell is separation from God because

22:14

God will not force you into his presence against

22:16

your will. I always say, if

22:18

you don't want God now, you're not going to want him in eternity.

22:20

Why would he say, you're with me now

22:23

in eternity? No. He's going to pull

22:25

himself away. And the problem is, if

22:28

this is true, if Christianity is true, and I think it

22:31

is, then the worst place you can

22:33

be is separated from God because he

22:35

is the source of all love. He is

22:37

the source of all goodness. He is the standard.

22:39

I mean, you've been talking about this. You've been talking about there's got

22:41

to be some sort of transcendence

22:43

out there. There has to be something beyond

22:46

this. That's right. It's not just this. It's

22:48

just not just this. I know

22:51

that much. And maybe that's part of the reason, going

22:53

back to your original question, Dave, that the new atheism

22:55

doesn't,

22:57

or has faded away, because people know there's

22:59

something transcendent. We're not just

23:01

molecular machines. We're not just moist robots.

23:04

Yeah. Right? And if we are moist robots, why

23:06

should we believe atheism is true? We shouldn't believe our thoughts

23:08

because our thoughts are completely driven by the laws

23:10

of physics, according to them.

23:12

So materialism

23:15

is really self-defeating, and that's the main

23:17

atheistic view now. In fact, Thomas Nagel,

23:20

who I think John Lennox mentioned in your

23:22

dialogue with him, he's an NYU

23:24

professor, wrote a book about 12

23:27

years ago called Mind and Cosmos, where he said,

23:29

even though he's an atheist, he said, I'm

23:32

trying to remember the subtitle, he said something like,

23:34

why the neo-Darwinian

23:37

materialistic viewpoint of the world

23:39

is almost certainly false?

23:41

And he got so much pushback from his fellow

23:44

atheists because he's essentially saying, look,

23:46

I know there's something transcendent out there. I'm an atheist.

23:48

I don't know how to explain it. But

23:50

materialism isn't the answer. Materialism

23:53

makes us moist robots. Why should anyone

23:55

listen to me? Why should I listen to myself? It's

23:58

just not that fun. It's not that sellable.

23:59

I think that that's part of it also. There's no

24:02

imagination there. I got into, I don't know if you saw it,

24:04

but I got into a bit of a debate about belief, taking

24:06

the believer side with Bill Maher on

24:08

his podcast not too long ago. And

24:10

it just struck me as, oh, you

24:12

don't believe in anything sort

24:14

of magical. It's like, that's such a fundamental

24:17

part of being human. Whether we could

24:19

whittle this down into the firm belief in Christianity

24:21

or any other religion, the need

24:23

to believe is just innate to humans. You

24:26

will believe in something one way or another. Yeah, and you've

24:28

mentioned this, and Jordan Peterson

24:29

has mentioned this, everybody has some kind

24:32

of God. There's a hierarchy of values,

24:35

and there's something at the top of all

24:37

of our priority lists.

24:39

So what would you say, so you mentioned

24:41

you've debated Christopher Hitchens on this. When you

24:43

look at someone like Hitch, or you look at,

24:45

say, Carl Sagan or even Albert Einstein,

24:48

the people that were sort of, I don't know that Einstein

24:50

was fully not, he thought that God didn't play dice

24:52

with the universe, was the famous line. But when

24:54

you look at the people that were sort of not religious

24:57

per se,

24:58

somewhat separated from belief, but clearly lived

25:01

good, inquisitive, interesting lives, didn't

25:04

do harm as far as I can tell, something like that, what

25:06

would you say about that sort of character,

25:09

that person? Well, I certainly have

25:11

always said, and I said this to Hitch in several times,

25:13

when I said,

25:15

Christopher, I'm not saying that since you're an

25:17

atheist, you can't do good things. I'm

25:19

not saying you don't know what right and wrong is. Everybody

25:22

does. What I'm saying is you can't justify what

25:24

right and wrong is.

25:28

You can know it and you can do

25:30

it, but you can't justify why it's good.

25:32

If there's no God, it's just your opinion. I

25:35

sometimes give an analogy, I notice

25:37

there's a lot of speed limit signs around here in Miami.

25:40

Have you seen these people? Yes. We have a lot of

25:42

different cultures here. It's a real thing. And there's cameras

25:45

everywhere. Anyway, you can go outside and see

25:47

speed limit, 35 miles an hour,

25:49

and you can obey that speed

25:51

limit sign while you deny there's a traffic

25:54

authority. But there would be no

25:56

speed limit sign unless there was a traffic authority.

25:58

The same thing is true.

25:59

with God. You can know that

26:02

say murder's wrong and deny there's a

26:04

God. And you can

26:06

not murder,

26:07

do good things, and deny there's a God.

26:10

But it wouldn't be wrong to murder

26:11

from an objective point of view unless there was a God.

26:14

So... And what would Hitch's answer have

26:17

been on that? Or what was it? Well,

26:19

Hitch was so rhetorically gifted

26:21

he would never directly answer a question. And

26:24

here's...

26:26

Look, I don't try and judge my own debates,

26:28

but I will say this.

26:30

The first debate I ever had other

26:32

than with my wife, which I lose repeatedly,

26:35

but the first debate I ever had was against

26:37

Christopher Hitchens. And

26:41

during the debate, literally,

26:43

Dave, I was sitting there going, I

26:45

like this guy. I didn't even

26:47

know what he was talking about because he was all over the map,

26:49

but just his accent and his wit.

26:51

Great

26:54

way about it. Yes, he was just fabulous.

26:56

And I'm kind of daydreaming going, I really like

26:58

this guy.

27:00

And I think people in the audience, when they're watching

27:02

the debate, they're doing the same thing. But if you

27:04

look at the transcript of the debate

27:07

and you're reading it, you're going, what's

27:09

he talking about? This has nothing to do with even

27:11

the topic. The

27:14

first debate was called, does God exist? So

27:16

I got up and I tried to give some of the arguments

27:18

we already mentioned. You know

27:19

what he got up and started doing? He started

27:22

talking about how Mother Teresa was a bad

27:24

person. And I

27:26

was just baffled. What does this have to do with whether or not

27:28

God exists? Mother Teresa may have been good

27:30

or bad. That's not the point. What about God?

27:34

And he just never engaged on those issues.

27:36

Unfortunately, he's not here, so we can't

27:38

fully rehash it. But would you say that the flaw,

27:41

if he and some of these other people I mentioned

27:44

lived roughly decent lives and everything else, would

27:46

you say that the flaw is more functional in that

27:48

it just can't scale? What

27:50

do you mean by that? So it can

27:52

work for sort of very individual

27:55

people. I have no doubt that you believe that an individual

27:57

atheist could live a perfectly moral and good

27:59

None of us. Yeah, yeah. Within

28:02

the constructs of being a human being, you could live

28:05

a fairly moral and decent life and

28:07

everything else, but that it just sort of can't scale

28:09

over time. It just doesn't give you enough for generations

28:12

to pass on to live in some sort of

28:14

functional way. I

28:16

know it's going to sound... And I think that's sort of why this American

28:18

atheist thing collapsed in my movement as carves.

28:22

Sure. a

28:24

moral life.

28:26

I think the purpose of life is to know God and make

28:28

him known. And if you do

28:30

do that, you will live a moral life. In other words,

28:32

it's a result. It is not

28:34

the cause because we're

28:37

all fallen. And if God is

28:39

God, which means he's infinitely

28:42

just,

28:43

I've been unjust in my life

28:45

even today, just coming over here. How

28:47

many people did I cut off because I was late? Right?

28:51

Okay. I'm unjust every day. And

28:53

if God is infinitely

28:54

just, at the judgment, I'm in trouble.

28:56

And so I need somebody to cover my

28:59

sin, somebody to pay for my sin,

29:01

an unpopular word in today's culture,

29:03

but

29:04

it's

29:05

transgression against God or other

29:08

people.

29:09

I've done that. I do it all the time.

29:11

So I need somebody to cover my sin.

29:14

That's why Jesus came. The Son of Man did

29:16

not come to be served, but to serve and to

29:18

give his life as a ransom for many.

29:21

This is the only religion in the

29:23

world, Dave, that actually

29:25

is built on grace rather than works.

29:29

In other words, you don't earn

29:31

favor with God. He

29:33

just gives it to you. And

29:35

then because he's given it to you, then

29:39

you live a life out

29:41

of gratitude to him that will

29:43

live in a moral way. You will live in a moral

29:46

way. So connected to that, how

29:48

much of what you think is happening sort of culturally

29:50

in America right now and really all over the world. As

29:52

you may know, I just spent about 12 days

29:55

in Israel and went to all

29:57

of the holy sites and went to the church of Holy Sepulchre

29:59

and went to the...

29:59

And you did some college work there,

30:02

didn't you, in the Negev semester

30:04

there? Yeah, that was 20-something years

30:06

ago, a long time ago. But

30:09

one of the things that struck me was that

30:11

the story, it was very clear, especially being in

30:13

Jerusalem for about five days, that

30:16

they're digging down and excavating and

30:18

uncovering history and then they're also building up.

30:20

I mean, the city is just absolutely flourishing. It

30:22

was amazing. But what I kept thinking was people

30:24

don't know history and because they don't know history,

30:27

they can't even connect

30:28

any of the philosophic underpinnings.

30:31

So we just sort of all walk around spinning

30:34

all day long and we need to know history

30:37

to know some of this stuff. Oh, absolutely.

30:39

And from, we go to Israel every

30:41

year, we bring a group to Israel. In fact,

30:44

Elisuchron, who is the archaeologist

30:46

who discovered the pool of Siloam and excavated

30:49

most of the... Well, we went down there, it's being excavated

30:51

right now. Yeah, well, he excavated it back in 2004 and

30:54

that church there, believe it or not, didn't

30:56

want him to continue the excavation. And

30:58

somehow they just got approval last year to finish

31:00

it. And so Elie, who

31:02

was the guy who originally discovered it, is normally our

31:04

tour guide when we go. We're going to go

31:06

in November again. And he discovered that. He also

31:09

discovered what might be...

31:13

This is an amazing discovery if it's true. I've

31:15

seen it myself. He thinks...

31:18

He has found a standing stone in

31:20

the city of David,

31:22

which goes all the way back potentially

31:24

to Melchizedek. Now, this is Abraham's

31:27

time. So this is 2000 BC.

31:30

And

31:31

that's right there in the city of David. This is a thousand

31:34

years before David.

31:36

So he's an amazing

31:38

archaeologist and there's no question

31:41

this was the Jewish homeland

31:42

long before anybody

31:45

else ever got there, other

31:47

than the Canaanites who were there prior to them.

31:50

So this whole political argument, I think, is

31:52

just overcome by archaeology. When

31:55

you're down there and you... So we did the walk through

31:57

the city of David and they're excavating it now.

31:59

go basically from the pool all the way up

32:02

to what would have been the temple. L.A. excavated

32:04

that too. Right. So when

32:06

you're there and you're with the archaeologists and

32:09

all that, are most of the archaeologists believers or

32:11

are they more

32:12

purely people of faith? L.A. is certainly a believer

32:14

in Yahweh.

32:15

He's an Orthodox Jewish believer.

32:20

I don't know, I can't speak for the others, I just know L.A.

32:22

personally.

32:24

But there are Americans, as you know, that go over

32:26

there quite a bit that do excavate. Guys like

32:28

Scott Stripling, who just discovered one of

32:30

the oldest

32:32

inscriptions ever found in Israel up

32:35

in Shechem, which is Mount

32:37

Ebal

32:38

next to Mount Gerizim.

32:40

He thinks he's found that near Joshua's

32:43

altar. So this would be, say, 1400 B.C. or 1200 B.C., somewhere

32:45

in there.

32:49

He's a Christian and he excavates quite

32:51

a bit over there. There are several other

32:53

guys. But as you know, Israel

32:56

is, every time

32:58

you stick a spade in the ground, there's

33:01

another discovery. There's ten different

33:03

layers of something. That's right. A layer cake. They

33:05

described it to us on our walk of the City of David

33:08

as a tiramisu. Basically,

33:09

you're just going through and there's just another layer

33:11

and another layer of ash and they can just,

33:13

it's incredible. So

33:15

as a Christian, would you say that Christianity

33:18

then, in essence,

33:20

is sort of part two or just the continuation

33:23

of the story that the Jewish Bible

33:25

came out of, that that sort

33:27

of didn't end purely

33:29

with the ending of the Old Testament? Right. The

33:32

Old Testament prefigures Jesus and predicts

33:34

Jesus.

33:35

One of the most astounding prophecies

33:38

in the Old Testament, of course, is Isaiah 53, the suffering

33:40

servant passage written 700 years before

33:43

Christ came. It talks about this

33:45

servant taking our iniquities

33:48

on himself, that he is the lamb

33:50

that goes to the slaughter.

33:52

And so when you see that written 700 years

33:54

before he came, you go, wow,

33:57

there's something to this and there's other problems. So you think that was

33:59

like a nut?

33:59

or what would they in a video game?

34:02

It's like, what do they call it in a video game? Like the secret

34:04

thing in a video game? They give you an Easter egg.

34:06

Oh, it's an Easter egg. Yeah, we found it. There it

34:08

is. And then they know that it's there. So

34:11

how do you combine those two things? Obviously, Jews

34:13

still exist. Sure. Israel still exists.

34:16

Of course, yeah. And there's a future for Israel

34:18

as well.

34:19

And it's amazing when you think about it. As

34:21

you know, Dave, there's no country in the history of the world

34:25

that left its homeland for nearly 2000 years, came

34:28

back to it speaking the same language. How

34:31

does that happen? And in

34:33

Isaiah, I think it's Isaiah 11, he says he's gonna

34:35

bring the nation into the land

34:37

a second time.

34:39

1948, it happened.

34:41

So, and

34:44

you've pointed out, those have pointed out,

34:47

think about how much land

34:50

Arabs have in the Middle East.

34:53

We've got New Jersey for the Jews. And 20%

34:56

of them are Arab

34:58

citizens that have full voting rights. So

35:01

I'm having a hard time figuring

35:03

out

35:04

why certain people

35:06

there don't want the Jews to have a homeland. In

35:08

fact, my friend Michael Brown has put it this way, or

35:11

maybe somebody, maybe

35:13

attributed Dr. Brown, he says this,

35:16

if the Palestinians, or if the

35:19

Israelites laid down their

35:21

weapons, there would be no more Israel.

35:24

If the Palestinians laid down their weapons,

35:26

there'd be no more war. I think Olda Meir might

35:29

have said that. Yeah, maybe. Some years ago.

35:31

So we only have about five minutes left, so this went

35:33

by very quickly. How can we wrap this

35:35

all up in a way that gives

35:38

the average person who's watching my show,

35:40

I think my show, one of the things that I'm very proud of

35:42

is I think we have a nice cross-section of

35:44

sort of atheists and believers

35:46

and people of all different walks of life. What

35:48

would be the main thing that you think would sort of

35:50

unite them in all of this, whether they're fully a believer

35:53

or fully a Christian, or they come more from

35:55

the secular world, or whatever it may be? Well, I guess

35:57

the one question I would ask people, and I do this on

35:59

college campus.

35:59

because I speak on a lot of college campuses,

36:02

and then we have open mic. The question I always ask, you

36:04

don't get people. You don't get shouted off the college campuses

36:07

with all this radical stuff you're speaking of. Well, because

36:09

I'm going, giving the evidence that Christianity's true,

36:12

I'm not necessarily given a political

36:15

message,

36:16

although I talk about politics all

36:18

the time, but it's not the focus of what I'm doing. My

36:20

friend Charlie Kirk, and I'm sure you and others,

36:22

you'll get shouted down. I've been

36:25

shouted down with Charlie Kirk, yeah. Yeah, and

36:28

so

36:29

you guys will take more heat because of the angle

36:31

you're coming from. It's probably gonna happen

36:33

soon to me, but anyway, on

36:35

a college campus, if someone gets up to the microphone

36:38

and expresses any hostility at all, and normally

36:40

stop and ask just one question, I'll say, if Christianity

36:42

were true, would you become a Christian?

36:44

And Dave, I've had atheist stand at that microphone

36:47

in front of hundreds of people and say, no. Say,

36:50

no, wait, wait, wait. I thought you claimed to be reasonable

36:52

and rational. How is it reasonable? You wouldn't believe

36:54

something if it were true. Well, it's not about reason.

36:57

It's not about the mind. It's about the heart.

36:59

They don't want it to be true.

37:01

They don't want there to be a God. Why?

37:03

Because they wanna be God of their own lives. They're

37:05

not on a truth quest or on a happiness quest,

37:08

and they're just gonna do whatever they think is gonna make them

37:10

happy. And here's the problem. You can

37:12

make yourself happy over the short term, doing

37:15

a lot of fun but selfish things.

37:17

However, over the long term, it's a disaster.

37:20

And most of us that have passed 40

37:23

begin to realize this. Here we go. I

37:25

just can't live for myself all the time. If I do that,

37:27

I'm never gonna have a good relationship. I'm never gonna

37:30

find what really is right about

37:32

life. There's gonna be trouble. And

37:34

what I say to people is, look, if

37:36

you want true contentment, you gotta go straight

37:38

through truth, and Jesus is the truth.

37:41

Check it out. The problem is most

37:43

people are looking for God like a criminal's looking

37:45

for a cop,

37:46

right? They wanna go their own way.

37:48

And so God is a gentleman. He lets people go

37:51

their own way. But I think he gives this,

37:53

let me sum it up this way. He gives

37:55

us enough evidence to know that he exists, and

37:57

he gives us enough evidence to know how he wants

37:59

it.

37:59

wants us to live,

38:01

but not so much that we can't be free

38:03

and go our own way if we don't want to.

38:06

And that's what a gentleman does, right? That

38:08

kind of sounds like the message of America, if I'm

38:10

not mistaken. Yeah. Well, the

38:12

founders knew, Dave. I mean,

38:15

this three-branch

38:18

system

38:19

where the legislature is supposed to be the

38:21

superior branch,

38:23

they don't exercise that

38:25

very well. But the founders knew that

38:28

human beings are inherently selfish.

38:32

As Madison

38:35

said, if men were angels, no government would

38:37

be necessary,

38:38

right? They knew that we needed checks

38:40

and balances because of the fallen

38:43

human heart. Yet the left now,

38:45

they think people are inherently good. That's

38:48

the fundamental, in my view, the fundamental problem

38:50

with leftism. They think people are inherently

38:52

good, and

38:54

they don't need incentives to stay

38:56

in line. They're just going to do the right thing.

38:59

No, they're not. We're imperfect people. We

39:01

can't create a perfect system. That's right. That's

39:03

right. Frank, I wish we had more time. I really

39:05

do. It was a pleasure. Thank you. God bless you. Thank you for

39:07

having me on. Right on. Thank you.

39:09

Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to The Rubin Report. Don't

39:12

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