| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Grinder" |
| Date: |
21 Jan 2005 04:57:16 PM |
| Object: |
Jason Gastrich Interviews Dan Barker, November 2002 |
Jason Gastrich interviews Dan Barker
November 2002
Introduction 00:00:00
JG: Alright, how are you doing Dan?
DB: Just fine, thanks for the call.
JG: Good. Well I really appreciate the chance to talk with you and
discuss some things. I'm looking forward to just hearing about your
testimony, and your book, and asking you some questions about creation
and prophecy, and uh, just hearing what you have to say.
DB: Well good.
JG: Alright. Well, let's start off by... I really am interested in
hearing about your book, why you wrote it and what it's about. So, can
you tell us a little bit about it?
DB: Well, the book is called Losing Faith in Faith, From Preacher to
Atheist. It's a 1992 book, and it tells the story of my deconversion
from fundamentalist evangelical Christian minister to an atheist. I
preached the gospel for nineteen years. I was uh... I started preaching
in high school, that's why it stretched out so long. And I started
soul-winning in high school, carrying my Bible to school, and preaching
in parks and churches, and playing the piano, you know. There's all
these opportunities in Southern California for ministry, back in the
60s and 70s.
JG: Oh yeah.
DB: I was a missionary to Mexico for two years, as an evangelical
missionary. I was an associate minister in three different California
churches: Friend's Church, Assembly of God, and then an
interdenominational Christian church. And I was a cross-country
evangelist, living by faith-no real income, no address even, all our
stuff was in storage. I traveled from church to church, preaching the
gospel.
JG: Wow.
DB: And only living by love offerings [and] that kind of thing. And
then, then I became a Christian song writer. A Christian publisher
named Manna Music took one of my musicals and published it. And it
became, for them, a bestseller for a while. And I had a couple of
sequels. I started getting invited to do a lot of ministry as like a
guest composer, a guest conductor of music ministry. So I traveled the
country in all sorts of churches, preaching and singing and spreading
the gospel, mainly as a soul-winner, you know.
JG: Uh-huh.
DB: I viewed myself as a soldier in the army of Christ on the
frontlines. Come what may, I thought the world was going to end soon,
and Jesus was returning soon, and that we needed to get people born
again, confess their sins, and accept Jesus into their heart as their
personal savior, and all of that. And, you know, the Bible says, "by
their fruits you shall know them," and my ministry exhibited all of
those fruits of the spirit. Of course I was humble enough to say that
it wasn't me, that it was the Holy Spirit that was doing it. By you
know, you can evaluate a person's ministry based on factors like
that-in their sincerity. I was sincere. I believed. I was not a phony.
I lived the Christian life. I was a doer of the Word and not a hearer
only. I preached from every book of the Bible over many years. I
translated much of the New Testament from the Greek. I'm not a great
Greek scholar, but I can read it in the Greek with a good lexicon.
JG: Ok...
DB: So, I know a lot about Christianity.
JG: Uh-huh. So your book is basically a testimony of your past and your
deconversion?
DB: Yeah, and then why I changed my mind, and why I'm doing what I'm
doing today. And then, about half of the books is also some analysis
of, some investigations of the Bible: the discrepancies, some problems
in apologetics, and that kind of thing.
JG: So what, did you ever go to a Bible school or college?
DB: Yes, I went to Azusa Pacific University for four years. I got a
degree in religion.
JG: Oh, ok.
DB: And that's where I, uh...
JG: Yeah I'm familiar with Asuza.
DB: It was called Azusa Pacific *College* back then, but then when I
got my degree it was a university.
JG: Uh-huh.
DB: We had a good cross-section of, you know... A Bible college isn't
necessarily known for its scholarship, but it was a good Bible college,
....
JG: Yeah
DB: ... a Christian liberal arts university. You know, a little bit of
apologetics and Christian evidences, and that's were I took those years
of Greek study--it was New Testament Greek, not classical Greek. And
then I was ordained to the ministry by a church in central California.
JG: Which one was that?
DB: At the time it was called Standard Community Christian Center. It
was originally part of the Christian church, the Disciples of Christ,
but they became [an] independent charismatic church, if you know what
that is.
JG: I know charismatic. I can imagine what independent is I guess.
Denominations 00:04:52
DB: Well, because the church didn't tow the denominational line, they
decided to break off and become their own--and that happens all the
time. You can't name a church in Christianity that isn't a split off of
something, somewhere. That's just a part of the healthy part of the
Christian experience.
JG: Yeah. But usually also the differences can be very small, as far as
like sprinkling or immersion for baptism, or just issues like that.
DB: Well I know a guy--he's also a former Church of Christ minister,
Farrell Till--he said the Church of Christ had a split over whether or
not the communion cup should have a handle.
JG: Oh wow.
DB: They really did. And, I mean, people who believe the Bible really
seriously, they'll... It's got to be literal or not, and they're not
going to fellowship with other Christians who don't have the *exact*...
JG: Wow.
DB: It's a kind of intolerance that all religions have, not just
Christianity. Whenever you think you have the one true way, there's
this kind of ...
JG: Well it's interesting that God does give us the liberty to decide
on these little matters and not kill each other all in the same
specific camp, but kind of have our own churches where people can
worship and ...
DB: You know it's interesting that all of these churches, what are
there, twelve hundred denominations in the United States? They all will
claim that God has given to *them* the correct interpretation, and all
the others are a little bit off in some way. And as you've pointed out,
there's been a lot of intolerances and wars fought over this. Each one
of them will open the Bible and prove to you with their Bible, if they
interpret it their way, that they are right. And they can all do that.
JG: I know that would seemingly be something that would go to the side
of an atheist to show, hey if there's twelve hundred interpretations
and there's one God, one Holy Spirit, where's the rub? How can this be?
I guess from a Christian perspective, the would say, since the Fall and
since sin came into the world, the Devil and the powers of darkness,
such as demons and things, do tempt and cloud vision and, you know,
destroy the truth ...
DB: Yeah, everyone's vision but yours. Right?
JG: (Laughs.) Well, I guess everyone's vision but God's.
DB: Yeah, but everyone says they have God's, right? They all say it.
JG: Yeah, I can't say that I'm perfect and everything that I know is
perfect, but I think what we're talking about here is non-essentials.
The essential things of salvation are agreed upon by the vast majority
of the denominations. That's Christ [as] deity, dying on the cross for
our sins, the nature of God, the essentials for salvation.
DB: Well you're describing the essentials for evangelical churches.
There are a lot of middle or liberal churches that don't bind to those
essentials. But yeah, your describing a kind of evangelical
fundamentalist. Because you would be critical of liberal Christians
probably, who would say that a ... The ... Unification, not the
Unificationists, the Universalists who think there is no Hell and that
we're all going to be saved. You're obviously going to have to draw
your line somewhere. And everybody thinks they're drawing the line in
the right place. I used to think it. I used to think all these other
people has this proclivity to error, to being deceived in some way, but
not me. Not me, of course. I'm a part of the same human race that they
are, but somehow I was blessed. I was special. I was somehow a little
bit above all these other wrong-headed Christians. Or else I was lucky
enough to be born into the right family.
What is Sin? 00:08:25
JG: Well the core message of the Bible I think could probably be
understood by a first grader, second grader, it's really not that
difficult to see the plan that God has laid out for us in the Bible.
DB: I don't know, I wouldn't want to show it to my first grader. I
mean, it's a pretty *ugly* book when you look at it, and it's a real
demeaning book to human nature. (Crosstalk) And the whole concept of
salvation, the whole idea that there needs to be a salvation, is a real
insult to humanity. In other words, we are all deserving of damnation.
We're no good. We can't think. We can't figure it out. We all have to
bow like humble slaves before this master who tells us what is right
and wrong, who has expressed His grace to us how lucky we are that He
has died and given His free gift to us, so that we can avoid this
punishment that we all deserve. Now that really is an ultimate insult
that cuts to the core of what it means to be human, and it could be a
self-fulfilling prophecy. You raise kids to thank that, oh I'm a
sinner, I might go to Hell, that's horrible. And I'm no good, I need to
surrender. Well I mean, a lot of people grow up with this attitude that
they *are* no good, and that they are sinners, and they act it out.
JG: Uh-huh. Well I see what you're saying, and I think it's
interesting[.] Everything comes back to sin, and how ... I don't know,
of course you wouldn't believe in the original sin, but how that has
permeated things to the point where we need God's help, and we need His
salvation ...
DB: What do you mean sin? What is sin?
JG: Well, sin [you see] can mean different things to different people,
but sin is basically violating God's laws. Or, for argument's sake, we
could call sin, you know, murder, rape, bestiality, and we can name a
few sins just to say, ok these are things that are wrong.
DB: Is it a sin to do work on a Sabbath? God's law clearly says, that
anybody who does work on the Sabbath should be put to death. Is that a
sin?
JG: Well that scripture was a specific law for ... You see when you
read the Bible you obviously need to take it into context. Who is it
talking to, why is it saying what it's saying. I think you're quoting
Old Testament law that was given to the Jews, is that right?
DB: It's in, it's the Ten Commandments. Honor the Sabbath day to keep
it holy. The Sabbath days is part of the Ten Commandments that almost
every Christian church views as core to Christian theology.
JG: Ok, I believe it is important to take off a day during the week to
rest, but interestingly that is the one commandment that was not
repeated in the New Testament. Did you know that?
DB: Well ok, so then you're throwing out part of the Old Testament.
Christians feel free to pick and choose what they like and don't,
right?
JG: No no no, I'm not throwing out anything, but some of the Bible is
historical narrative, some of it is poetry, some of it is theology, and
the section you just grabbed, I believe, was a section that was a law
for the Jews.
DB: Well, all of the Ten Commandments were laws for the Jew, so ...
JG: Absolutely.
DB: So what I'm trying to say is, if a sin is violating God's law, then
a sin can be *anything*, even if humanity thinks it's something good.
JG: Uh-huh.
DB: This religion declares that their god says it's something wrong
then it's a sin. So then it's a relative thing. It's a circular
argument. I think there's no such thing as sin.
JG: Hmm.
DB: There are actions that some human beings, who are not completely
healthy, might commit that cause unnecessary harm. And so we have
systems of justice, and we might call them crimes, and which we have a
prison system to protect ourselves. But to call it sin is to strike at
the core of what it means to be a human being, and it is a deep insult
to humanity. There's no such thing as sin, and we don't need salvation.
JG: Well sin is in the dictionary. It's a term as used by millions of
people.
DB: Yeah, so is the word ghost. I mean there's a lot of words the
people use, but that doesn't mean that it points to a reality.
JG: Ok. Well, ghost is a word that, you know, we can read a dictionary
definition of ghost and I'm sure it would say something to the effect
of supernatural ... It could be an imagined, but sin is more of a
concrete definition of a trespass, or a wrongdoing. But you don't have
to admit that sin exists. What your definition of sin shows that
something exists that is wrong.
DB: I don't define sin. I throw the word out. We don't even need it. We
do have a ... We can as secular human beings can describe morality and
ethics based on what our human needs are, and not have to make it some
kind of a religious thing. In fact, millions of *good* Americans live
really good, charitable, happy, meaningful lives without this concept
of sin and salvation. But they are good people because they *respect*
humanity, and other life on this planet, by trying to avoid unnecessary
harm. Calling it a sin makes into something above our experience. It
makes it something non-human, and therefore very dangerous.
JG: Don't you think that it makes things kind of subjective if we don't
have a non-subjective authority, a supernatural authority from outside
our time-space dimension?
DB: That's the only way to be moral. In fact, making it non-subjective
or absolute is very very dangerous. If there is, supposedly, this
absolute morality, these principles that have to be absolutely followed
that were decreed by this god, then why is it that there are no two
Bible-believing ... Why is it that there are no two issues on which
Bible-believing Christians agree? Take any crucial social issue of the
day: abortion rights, the death penalty, or doctor-assisted suicide, or
gay rights, you name it. You go down through a dozen very important
things, you'll find *good* Christians who pray, who go to church, who
read the Bible, who seek God's guidance [and] you will find them
falling on different sides of those issues. There is no clear absolute
moral statement within the body of Christ. Which is one of the
evidences that the Christian morality really is non-existent. It still
boils down to your subjective feeling of what *you* think about
abortion, or what you think about gay rights. There's no verse in the
Bible that says thou shall not commit abortion. It's Christians
themselves making a subjective decision [about] what *they* think the
Bible ought to be saying.
JG: Well, when you say ... We need to differentiate between morality
and what the Bible says because there's always going to be immorality
in the world. Just because someone believes in God or reads the Bible,
it doesn't necessarily make them a moral person just by reading. But,
as far as abortion is concerned there's many many scriptures, and I
have some of those on my website at jcsm.org, and I talk about God is a
creator of life. He forms us in the womb. He's a giver and taker of
life. And those would go to show things about abortion, and even about
suicide as also.
Psalms 137 00:15:07
DB: Well sure, you can always find verses in the Bible to support
*your* opinion. There are Christians on the other side, and you know
it. There are *good* Christians on the other side who support abortion
rights, and they take the Bible and they look at other verses, and they
interpret it in another way. I mean some of them point out that the
Bible is very anti-child. That verse in Psalms where God said you
should be happy to take the little children and dash them against the
stones, which is very anti-life. There's all sorts of disrespect ...
JG: Do you know what context that was in?
DB: Yeah, that was Psalms 137, verse 9. That's where the Babylonians
are supposed to be put down, and the followers of God should be happy
to take the *little ones*, the little children, which you have to agree
those children are innocent, to be happy to take them and dash them
against the stones. It doesn't say that you should regrettably do it.
It says you should *be happy*, or blessed to take the children if these
infidel Babylonians and dash them against the rocks. You can go through
the entire Bible and find all sorts of horrible disrespect for human
life, for people who were supposedly worshipping the *wrong* religion.
They didn't follow the Jews' pet religion, and so they should be
exterminated, killed, wiped out, oh except you can save the young
virgin girls for yourself. The Bible says in Numbers, save the young
virgin girls and divide them up as part of the war booty. They even
called it war booty. Kill all of the women that have known men, kill
all of the men and boys, but save the young virgins for yourself as a
part of the prize. And thirty-two of the virgins go to the priests. It
really is a brutal book, and the God of that book is not somebody I
would respect very much if he had lived in my country.
JG: Well there's a couple of reasons why, in the Old Testament, God did
deliver enemies into the Israelites' hands. The first battle that the
Israelites fought, they were attacked by coming through another
person's land. And furthermore, there's two big reasons why God wanted
their line to remain pure, why He didn't want them to interbreed with
the other people, and why he plainly said, destroy these people, every
one of them. One reason is because Jesus was supposed to come through
the bloodline there, and the bigger reason is that the Nephalim, which
were the fallen angels, had come down and had sex with the women, which
you can see in Genesis 6, and you can see later, and they produced this
demonic, hybrid offspring. And now that's why God destroyed the Earth
with the flood, because they had all this demonic offspring. And when
God is saying in the Old Testament, destroy this whole entire people,
you have to understand that these people were contaminated. That's why
they said that Noah's line was pure. Noah had not intermingled with
these demons. We can see the demons doing it again because we see
giants in the Old Testament again, like with Goliath and stuff--he was
a Nephalim offspring. I'm sure you've studied that word, right?
DB: Yeah, I know what that is. The sons of God saw that the daughters
of men that they were fair. I know that, and ... But Jason, are you
telling me this with a straight face? I mean do you really sincerely
believe this stuff about the angels coming down and having sex with
human beings? (Crosstalk.) That was a, that's a myth. I mean that's
part of the Bible that is legendary and mythical. You don't *really*
believed that happened, do you?
JG: Well it's compounded again in Jude, and yes, absolutely ...
DB: You do. You actually believe that some angelic creatures came down
from Heaven and ... I mean, this is the twenty-first century, Jason.
You're an adult. You're talking about devils and angels and demons and
.... Think about what you're saying and how ludicrous this appears to an
intelligent person. That stuff did not happen. Those are myths that the
Israelites made up to try to explain, in their own bumbling way, what
the origins of the world was like. Besides that, the fallacy of your
argument: if the race was purified at Noah, the verse I just quoted to
you came *after* Noah, The Babylonians. And the race that supposedly
produced Jesus never was pure. In fact, your argument amounts to
racism. You shouldn't interbreed with these other races. We should have
one pure high Aryan race, or whatever you want to call race, Jewish
race, which is despicable. Who would have any honor to hold such a book
under their arm.
Faith and Doubt 00:19:09
JG: Uh-huh. Well, I think you really have to live in a box to not see
*any* supernatural activity in the world today. Which is predominantly
an atheistic viewpoint that there's nothing supernatural.
DB: For example?
JG: You have demon possessed people, you have psychic readers,
(Crosstalk.) you have people calling people from the dead. You have all
kinds of supernatural things in the world.
DB: When has that been proved or confirmed? I mean if those things
really happen, Jason, if you are right, every scientist, every medical
person in the world would jump at a chance to prove ... You could win
the Nobel Prize if you discovered a hitherto unknown force in the
universe. Anyone and everyone with even the smallest amount of
intelligence would be jumping on that to prove it. To show what science
and the world is really like. But you should know, just as much as I
do, that none of those anecdotes have ever been confirmed. As soon as
you scratch under the surface, you find exaggerations or outright
fraud, or misinterpretations of natural events. You don't find
supernatural miracles. And if you do find one, Jason, *you* should win
the Nobel Prize for proving it to the world.
JG: Well, I don't think ... There's a couple reasons why I think that's
a little flawed. One is I don't think there's Christians that are
really trying to win the Nobel Prize. And two, I think that a lot of
times scientists aren't present when miracles are done, when demons are
cast out.
DB: How convenient. They just don't happen to be there to see it.
JG: Yeah.
DB: Doesn't the Bible tell you ...
JG: These people aren't there to see a lot of things that they still
believe. I mean, even atheists have some faith in some things that they
haven't seen, haven't proven. They haven't met Einstein, they haven't
met Caesar, you know, they still believe in these people, these things.
DB: Yeah, but when an atheist likes me says that I accept this
historical existence of Einstein, I'm saying it conditionally. I'm not
saying it's the absolute truth. I'm saying I might be wrong. I'm not
standing and proclaiming that my belief in existence of Shakespeare is
somehow absolute truth. I'd be happy for you to prove me wrong. I just
saying, contingently based upon what we happen to know, and based on
our pretty proven methods of history, we can say with a *high* degree
of certainty that these people existed. That's quite different from
religious faith that claims 100% absolute certainty
JG: Hmm.
DB: When the whole idea of faith, itself, implies doubt.
JG: Hmm. Well, I think it's the faith that comes from reading, from
reading the Word.
DB: I've read the Word, as much as you have.
JG: I don't doubt that you have. Um, do you think that it takes blind
faith, or would you call it, I like to call it, informed faith, because
I don't feel like I just have a blind, empty faith. I feel like my
faith is based on the concepts in God's Word.
DB: But why faith in the first place? I mean, what good is the concept?
Why even put that word out in front of you to say we should have blind
faith or informed faith? Why not just say, use your mind, and use your
free mind to examine and decide *for yourself* whether you think this
is true or false? What does faith have ... Like when you use the word
faith, you're admitting that the assertions you are accepting by faith
cannot be accepted on their own merits. You need something *extra*. You
need something above and beyond the evidence to make it true. Anytime
someone uses the word faith, its a cop out. They're admitting defeat.
Faith is a kind of agnosticism because if you *knew* it was true, you
wouldn't need faith.
JG: Hmm. Well these are real humanistic principles: There is no sin,
you do not need to have faith. That's really the antithesis of what
God's Word is saying.
DB: Exactly. (Crosstalk.) Exactly, and I'm proud of that. I mean, that
a *good* thing is what I'm saying.
JG: Yeah, and you're free to accept that view but it's ... I just feel
that there's so much compelling evidence to the contrary that ...
DB: For example?
Genesis 17:19 00:22:48
JG: Well, you called them bumbling Jews and stuff, but these bumbling
Jews had these prophesies in the Old Testament that have been fulfilled
that really I would like to know what you think about them.
DB: Well give me one example then.
JG: Oh, ok, there's over sixty messianic prophesies
DB: Well give me one.
JG: One of them? Ok, how about, uh, Genesis 17:19, where ... See what
God did is he continually told the Jews where Jesus was going to come
from. And he would narrow down the bloodline, narrow narrow narrow
narrow, to say ok, it's going to come to the tribe of [Jesse?], the
tribe of David, Jacob, etcetera etcetera etcetera. In the New
Testament, we see his lineage, and that's exactly where he came from.
Numbers 24:17 ...
DB: Wait, wait a minute, I'm reading Genesis 17:19 right now.
JG: Ok, ok.
DB: God said, no, but your wife Sarah shall bear you a son and you
shall name him Isaac.
JG: Uh-huh.
DB: I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant
for his offspring after him.
JG: Ok.
DB: Where does that say anything about Jesus or the messiah? Where does
that say anything at all about Christianity. This is a covenant between
God and ... This is a covenant that these religious people wrote
between their God and themselves, right? Where's this messiah and Jesus
dying on the cross? Why is that a prophecy?
JG: Ok. Well if you want to see more about the cross and the messiah
....
DB: But I want to know why that verse is a prophecy. You (Crosstalk.)
that verse, and said it was an example of a prophecy. Why is it a
prophecy?
JG: That verse is a prophecy because it says that I will establish my
covenant with him, for an everlasting covenant, it wasn't just a
temporary covenant ...
DB: But what did he predict? What's the prophecy?
JG: He prophesized that ... See we can see over in Luke 3:34 where
Jesus came from: the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac. Jesus was the one
that fulfilled this prophecy by having an everlasting covenant with
God.
DB: Which is ... That's just saying that Jesus was a Jew. I mean
because all Jews can say they were from that line basically.
JG: Up until about 70 A.D. they could, and then after that it was
impossible to trace their line because they all were scattered all over
the place.
DB: But why do you think Genesis 17:19 is prophecy? Because the New
Testament writer thought it was? Where does it say, here is a prophecy,
the messiah will be born and his name will be Jesus. Where does it say
that in the Old Testament?
JG: Well, I don't know if it has the prophecy that you're looking for
in the Old Testament.
DB: It seems very, very vague. It seems like the kind of thing that a
New Testament writer would be digging around to try to say, aha, we can
make this verse fit our theology.
JG: Why would [?] do that?
DB: Because they had a religious agenda. These New Testament writers
*admitted* ... These things are written that you might believe, right?
They had an agenda to promote their theology over all these other
competing theologies, and even within Christianity (Crosstalk) these
New Testament writers. So they looked back to the Old Testament and
they found these "prophecies" that "predicted" what was going to
happen. But when you look at the actual prophecies themselves, scratch
beneath the surface, they're not really prophecies at all about
anything at all. Later Christian writers are rewriting history. Tell me
a real prophecy.
JG: Well there's hundreds of them and we'll talk about so more of them.
DB: Well give me another example then.
Did Jesus Exist? 00:26:02
JG: First are you admitting that you believe that there was a man named
Jesus? And the apostles, they all exist?
DB: I am saying that I admit that there was an early Christian humanity
who may or may not have been based on a man named Jesus, and it's
irrelevant. If he was ... If there was a Jesus, which there may have
been, he certainly was *not* the son of God, and he certainly was not a
perfect teacher, or a very admirable teacher either. But I do agree
that there was an early Christian community because you have to explain
the existence of those Christian writings. And not just Christian
writings, but other religious sect writings. So, yeah.
JG: Ok, ok. And I think it's also well-known that the apostles, all of
them except for one or two who were exiled, died terrible deaths for
what they believed.
DB: No, that's not well-known. How do you know that?
JG: Uh, talks of the Book of Martyrs. It's just tradition.
DB: Tradition? You know these books were written like in the 2nd and
3rd and 4th centuries after Christianity, pretending to know how these
disciples lived. There's a paradox here, think about it.
JG: Uh-huh.
DB: Jesus, if he lived, died around the year 30 ... 28, 29 or 30, cause
he was born in the year 4 B.C. So, if he lived, he would have died
around the year 30. His disciples would have been what?
JG: I think 32 is actually that date I've come up with.
DB: Well it can't be that late. It's probably around the year 30. So,
the disciples would have been what, in their mid-20s or 30s or so? The
average life expectancy in Rome, in Roman times in that part of the
country was about 45 years old. So if these guys were all martyred in
their lives for preaching Christianity, how did any of them live long
enough to write the gospels in the years 80 and 90?
JG: How do you know that's the life expectancy in Rome at that time?
DB: Because I have a friend, Richard Carrier, who is an expert on early
Roman history and I asked him *specifically*, what were the expected...
What was the life expectancy of human beings in that time? And he gave
me an actuarial chart that shows what it would have been. So, these ...
If any of them had lived past the year *60*, that would have been
really good luck, but you're saying they were all martyred, right?
JG: All of them except for (Crosstalk.)
DB: So we know that the gospels were written in the year 70, 80s and
90s, and maybe even later. So you're imagining that these disciples who
all died horrible deaths, somehow lived into their 90s to write these
gospels. There's a contradiction there, and obviously whoever wrote the
gospels, many of them didn't even know Jesus and were not part of that
original following.
JG: Why do you think the gospels were written at such a late date?
DB: Well, because there was an early Christian church. They didn't call
themselves Christians right away, but there was an early church, a
Jewish sect that thought they had a messiah. And, as the second and
third generations came along they were trying to preserve their
histories and they wrote and edited and re-wrote and borrowed and
redacted, and they started getting into fights and controversies, and
so they were starting to write down *my gospels* says this is what
happened, and *mine* says this is what happened. And you can see why
the gospels all contradict each other. Because they're all writing kind
of shooting from the hip, basically.
Acts 9:7 00:29:05
JG: I really... I don't see any meaningful contradictions in the
gospels at all.
DB: Oh you don't? That's what I used to preach, Jason. But, uh, in my
book I detail many many many contradictions that have never been
answered. And why would there not be contradictions? Were these writers
exempt? Were these special people in some way? Human beings today make
mistakes. Why were they exempt from making mistakes back in those days?
They made lots of them.
JG: I guess the common theory is that if God could make the universe,
then God could write a book, or write these people... write a book
through these people.
DB: Yeah right.
JG: Do you want to give me an example of a contradiction or two that's
from the New Testament gospels?
DB: Sure I will. Well I have about forty really good ones, but let's
say Acts 7:9 and Acts 9, uh ... You know, did Paul's men hear a voice.
Is that ... Acts 9:7
JG: Acts 9:7 ...
DB: Lookup Acts 9:7. Not in the NIV by the way. Are you using the NIV?
JG: I usually use the New King James or the King James.
DB: Yeah, the NIV is rally bad. I mean, the NIV should pay a fine.
They've mistranslated a whole bunch of the Bible. Acts 9:7, here's my
NSRV, [it] says: The men who were traveling with Paul stood speechless
because they heard the voice but saw no one. Right? And then, Acts, is
it 22:9? See if my memory is any good. [In] Acts 22:9, Paul is telling
the story: Now those who were with me saw the light but did *not* hear
the voice of the one who was speaking ... speaking to me. Uh, so Act
9:7 says that they heard the voice, but Paul says nope, you got it
wrong Luke, they did hear the voice. And there's another verse later in
Acts, and I can't remember exact ... Actually that story is told three
times. That's just one little example of many many contradictions in
the Bible. And people try to say, well, it means they heard and didn't
understand. I wrote an entire column about that, and there ... To this
date, there are no quick answers to contradictions like that. I know
you think you can provide one, so we should give you a chance to.
JG: Ok, Acts 9:7 and Acts 22:9 ... I just got a chance to look them up
here. Acts 22:9 ... Ok, so where' talking about ... These scriptures
are talking about the voice that Paul heard when he was on the road to
Damascus?
DB: Exactly.
JG: Ok. And one verse in Acts ...
DB: The men, the men who were traveling *heard* the voice, but saw no
one. But in 22:9, they *did not* hear the voice.
JG: Hmm.
DB: So I mean, that's ... Obviously you have to admit, at least at face
value, that's a contradiction, right? The heard the voice, they did not
hear the voice.
JG: Well the first thing that came to my mind, and I need to
investigate this passage more before I can give you an *official*
statement, but um, the logical thing is that, at first, Paul thought
that these people did not hear the voice, and then later on, after
confirmation, he realized that they did. Or vice-versa, I'm sorry if
I've gotten the scriptures mixed up. This is the first time I've
investigated this claim.
DB: Yeah, well you should take more time than this. You shouldn't wing
it on the air. But obviously one of them is wrong then. Because Luke
says they *did not* hear the voice, and Paul said they did. So one of
them ... However you explain it, somebody is wrong, somewhere.
JG: (Crosstalk.) you're saying that one of these accounts is from Paul,
and one of accounts is from Luke? They're two different accounts?
DB: Well yeah, because see Luke ... Well, actually Luke wrote the book
of Acts, right? And he's in his own voice in chapter 9, but in chapter
22 he's quoting Paul.
JG: (Comprehending.) Umm.
DB: So, and these are Paul's words supposedly. We can supposedly assume
that Luke knew Paul enough to quote him correctly. Maybe Luke got the
quote wrong, in which case, you have a different kind of imperfection
in the Bible.
JG: Hmm.
DB: But see, that's just one. In my book I detail dozens and dozens of
maybe more important ones than these, to show that these were just
guys. I mean they were people just doing their best, and *of course*
they were going to make mistakes. Of course ... You get a bunch of
people today to try to write a book, they're going to goof somewhere.
What are we? Attributing superhuman abilities to these gospel writers?
They're just telling it in their own words, and of course they're going
to blow it. We can't give them 100% credibility.
JG: Well yeah, I'd like to check out your book. It sounds pretty
interesting if it documents these types of things. I've been meaning to
put together a refute of something called the Skeptic's Annotated
Bible.
DB: Oh yeah, I know that guy. He's out of Idaho, uh, yeah, Idaho.
JG: Yeah he has a large site about different Bible problems or
contradictions, and I've read some of them. But I think it would be a
great ministry tool if I could take the time. It would probably take
many hours.
DB: Well it would be, Jason, if you could do that.
Inerrancy 00:33:42
DB: But let me ask you something.
JG: Uh-hmm.
DB: Why do you think, a priori, that all of these contradictions can be
explained? Are you committed to something that you can't possibly have
*known* before the fact? You're taking a doctrinal position, or an
ideological position that the Bible *must not* discrepant. Therefore,
it cannot be, therefore I *will* find answers. Is that your attitude?
Or are you going to the Bible with an open mind, thinking I'm going to
find what I find, even if I *don't like* what I find?
JG: Well I suppose it's for the same reason that I created my internet
forum. An atheist found me on the internet in April, and um, I started
talking to him about Christ. He invited me to [the] Reggie Finley show,
so I talked on there about atheism and Christianity, prophecy,
creation, all different issues, then I went into their forum for a
while and started talking to them. And actually, I got mistreated quite
a bit, cursed at and things, so I said, you know, I'm going to make my
own forum, and I'm going to invite everybody over here. I'm going to
moderate. People are going to be treated right. And um ...
DB: Ok, well that's good. I support that. I think we need more forums
like yours, and more people like you, but my question was: Why do you
think, a priori, that the Bible must not and can not have any
contradictions? Where did you *get* that idea?
JG: I know, I'm getting to that. I was also ... I create a forum with
this thought in mind that ... (Coughs.) Excuse me. ... that there were
answers to these questions. And, if there weren't, then I would
discover that also. Um, I posted over 1500 messages on this forum, and
*all these atheists*, I mean there's a hundred members in there right
now, they posted things that are seemingly, you know, unanswerable. And
all it does is take maybe a half an hour of time, sometimes it takes
thirty seconds, two minutes of time, sometimes it takes a couple of
hours, but, there *are* answers, and it's ground that has been
traveled. And um ... Yeah, if I come across just a stumper that I can't
answer, then I guess that would put into question the Word of God.
DB: But it wouldn't question your faith. There are millions of good
Christians who accept the fact that the Bible has contradictions, but
it doesn't hurt their faith in God. They realize that it was written by
*human beings*, and so they dig through it to find the gems. They're
not committed, in advance, to inerrancy. You know what I mean?
JG: Uh-hmm.
DB: It's like fundamentalist mindset has to be black and white. There's
a lot of good who Christians who don't care (Laughs.) as much as you,
maybe. I'm just wondering why you would think, in advance, that the
Bible must not have contradictions in it. I used to think the same
thing, and it's funny how when you put on a different pair of glasses
that you say, oh, I see where I was wrong. I was looking ... I was
coming at it with this attitude that was unwarranted in the first
place.
JG: Well, the biggest authenticator of scripture to me, even above my
own experience, which is, would have to be prophecy.
DB: Well you gave me a rally bad example. Give me a better one then.
Zechariah 12:1-3 00:36:38
JG: Ok, I mean, I'm sorry if that was a bad example. I got hundreds,
literally, right here at my fingertips.
DB: Well give me another example of a *clear* prophecy. You know, that
predicted the future.
JG: Ok this ... I have a lot of messianic ones, but let's step aside
from the messianic ones. On particular one that I think is pretty
interesting is, um ... (To self.) Let me see here, which one is this?
Let me just make sure that I get this scripture right. It talks about
how Israel will be a cup of trembling for the nations around it, and
the whole world will be gathered up trying to figure out what to do
with this country. And um, it sounds exactly like Israel is right now.
And before 1948, this would sound like a ridiculous prophecy. Israel
didn't even have a country. And now the whole, literally the whole
world, is discussing this country that's as big as San Diego county,
um, night and day.
DB: Yeah, but at the time that verse was written, you haven't found the
verse have you, at the time it was written Israel *was* a nation. And
it was a ... Those words were describing that particular nation at that
particular time. Does the prophecy say anything about 1948?
JG: No, it doesn't say anything about 1948.
DB: Why not? Didn't God know the date? Why can't you be ... Why can't
prophecies be *specific*? Why couldn't ... I mean, it would really
impress me if that prophecy said, Israel will be dispersed into the
nations and for two thousand years, and on the year *1948*, they will
come back and establish a new nation, and at that time the Egyptians
are this, and the, you know ... You know what I'm saying? If it was
clear ...
JG: Yes, absolutely.
DB: ... and specific instead of having to dig back through and try to
find some verse that you think is a prophecy of today and try to make
it fit. It's very fuzzy, it's very fudgy. I'm not convinced by this
kind of fuzziness. I *would be* convinced by, and I would happily
change my mind, if you would come up with something clear and strong.
Do you know what I'm saying?
JG: Uh-hmm.
DB: I mean anybody could ... I could say that about America. America is
going to have trouble with its enemies someday. Is that a prophecy?
JG: Well, I understand where you're going and your problem with this,
and I think in large, it's the same kind of problem I heard from the
atheists when I was on Reggie's show, and it's just that you don't like
God's plan. You don't like the way it's laid out.
DB: Wait a minute ...
JG: You don't like the way the prophecies are laid out.
DB: Why are you saying that? Now you're engaging in ad hominem. You're
trying to second-guess my psychology. What if I did, in fact, like
God's plan, but still was intellectually honest enough to say that I
think the Bible is contradictory. I mean, that's really unfair to
accuse somebody of having ulterior motives when I have told you and
everybody that I want to follow the truth wherever it leads. Even if I
don't like God's plan I would still follow it if it's the truth. I
don't, I'm not stupid.
JG: Well He's given you prophecies, and you don't like how they're
worded.
DB: Well, I don't see them as prophecies. It's *you* who's telling me
that it's a prophecy, but I don't see the Bible itself telling me this
is a prophecy. It's you later Christians coming along, reinterpreting
what you think was a prophecy. I would like to seen an actual ... In
fact, there is plenty of evidence of failed prophecies in the Bible.
JG: If you take these in context, these prophecies are talking about
future events.
DB: Yeah, but when?
JG: It's obviously not about something that's happening at the time
DB: Isn't it true though that that prophecy you just mentioned *was*
actually fulfilled *during* that nation's time?
JG: No.
DB: I mean the Israelites were already having troubles with their
neighbors. They were already being beset at that time.
JG: Well, Zechariah 12:1, 2 and 3 was the one that I was talking about,
and I think verse 3 is the telling verse because it says, Jerusalem
shall be a very heavy stone for all people. And, um, we can see that
right now.
DB: But wait, what page is that on? Wait a minute. I mean, it's one
thing to blithely throw out the prophecies around. Zechariah what?
JG: Zechariah 12, verses 1 through 3.
DB: Alright, now who's seeking, is Zechariah?
JG: Uh-hmm.
DB: Oh, the word of the Lord considering Israel. Thus says the LORD,
who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth ... Now that's what
he thinks, right? ... and formed the human spirit within: See, I am
*about* to make Jerusalem a cup ... In other words, right now, today. I
am about to make Jerusalem a cup of reeling for all the surrounding
peoples; it will be against Judah ... Is there a nation of Judah right
now? ... also in the siege against Jerusalem. Today is there a nation
of Judah? No there isn't. On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy
stone for all the peoples; all who lift it shall grievously hurt
themselves. And all the nations of the earth shall come together
against it. Where in the world does this talk about 1948? Where does it
talk about any of the nations *today* that are attacking Israel. This
was these people back then bewailing their own predicament.
JG: Ok.
DB: And he says he misses Judah. So there's a failed ... There's and
evidence that that is not a prophecy about today, and yet you think it
is for some reason.
JG: Well, it doesn't have to say 1948. The reason why I said that is
because it wouldn't make any sense, I said before Israel became a
nation. Because it's obviously a nation in this. And just because it
says the word Judah, doesn't, isn't ... Judah is still a place, it
could still be considered a place in Israel.
DB: It's people. It will be against ... Of all the surrounding people,
it will be against Judah also, in this siege against Jerusalem. So then
he's talking about some thing that's supposed to be happening right
then. This is not a prophecy about the future. Do you see what happens
in the Christian mindset when you find something that you think *might*
apply to your special case? You make it apply and you say, look it
there are *six hundred* prophecies about the messiah, or whatever. But
when you scratch beneath the surface and look at each of these, you
don't find it. I used to preach verses. I used to preach just like
you're preaching right now, and I used to feel so confident about it.
But scratch beneath the surface and you start seeing the theological
bias. It happens in all religions. It's happening to you right now.
Ezekiel 38-39 00:42:24
JG: Now how about Ezekiel 38 and 39? Do you think those have come to
pass, or do you think that's ... Because what you're going ... It's
typical atheistic rhetoric, what you're giving me, and that is, this
stuff does not apply to me, and um, this stuff is untrue.
DB: Rhetoric? Rhetoric is probably not the right word. I'm trying to
examine it and see what it actually says. What's the verse in Ezekiel?
JG: Ezekiel 38 and 39. Those two chapters have been termed a Magog
invasion, because it's referring to an invasion that has not happened.
Um, where Russia and Turkey, (Dan laughs.) and a few of the other
surrounding Muslim nations will gang up against Israel.
DB: So you think today's current events are fulfillments of *that*
prophecy?
JG: I don't think that this has happened *yet*, but I think that the
nations are starting to line up in a way that this will happen.
DB: Oh, so then you don't have any evidence that this prophecy, if it
is a prophecy, has actually been fulfilled yet do you?
JG: No, no, I just said (Crosstalk.) it hasn't been fulfilled yet.
DB: So you're prophesying that this prophecy will be fulfilled?
JG: Well, all I'm saying ... I'm asking *you*, it's a question to you.
Has this been fulfilled *yet*? Because the other one, you said, was a
specific prophecy for that time. It did not apply to us, it had been
fulfilled. So I wanted to know what you *swing* on this one was.
DB: Well, let me find the prophecy first. Where is the actual, where's
the actual verse of prophecy in here?
JG: Uh, verse ... It just describes the, uh ... I'm looking at it right
now. It describes the battle here.
DB: I am against you ... I will turn you around and put hooks into your
jaws ...
JG: It's referring how Magog, or Russia, will be drawn into this
battle.
DB: They will put hooks in their jaws, they will lead you out with the
army. The horses? They're going to have horses?
JG: Well ...
DB: Is Russia going to attack with horses and horsemen? Clothed in full
armor? With shields and bucklers and swords? Is that going to come to
pass?
JG: You know what, you had Old Testament writers, (Dan laughs.)
hundreds of years ago writing things ...
DB: Well don't you see my point?
JG: The same thing with Revelation. You have human beings who have
never seen or heard a helicopter or a tank or any of these things,
trying to describe these things. I mean, read further. Maybe when
you're off the phone you can read 38 and 39, because it clearly talks
about a nuclear battle, and nuclear fallout that happens where they
cannot be around the area for seven months--just as long as it would
take for the nuclear materials to, um, have their half-lifes so that it
doesn't damage people anymore.
DB: I thought the word was NU-KLEE-ER, not NUKE-U-LAR.
JG: I ... NUKE-U ...
DB: NU-KLEE-ER.
JG: Isn't that what I said?
DB: I thought you said NUKE-U-LAR, but that's alright.
JG: NUKE-LEE-ER.
DB: Well ok, let's um ... This doesn't look like a prophecy about
today, but maybe if your prophecy comes true, that this prophecy will
someday be fulfilled, then I will have to change my mind.
Prophecy and Free Will 00:45:04
DB: But let me raise a more serious problem here.
JG: Hmm.
DB: You're saying that there is a god that knows the future, and that
this god is a personal being with free will who can make decisions,
right?
JG: Hmm ... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, we're getting away from the question,
but let's go ahead. Go ahead and tell me ...
DB: Well, you're talking about prophecy, right?
JG: I was talking about a specific prophecy, but let's talk about what
you're saying. Go ahead.
DB: Well, if this god exists ...
JG: Uh-huh.
DB: ... and if he knows the future, like you pretend he knows here, ...
JG: Right.
DB: ... that means that the set of future facts is fixed. It cannot be
changed. If God knows it in advance, then the future is fixed and
unchangeable. Otherwise, God would be omniscient, He would be able to
predict the future.
JG: Um-huh.
DB: If the future is fixed, then that sets some limits on God's power,
and also, how can a personal being with free will have any ability to
make any *decisions* if the future is already fixed. God Himself cannot
even make any decisions, because He can't do what He knows that He's
not going to do. Therefore, if this kind of god exists,
philosophically, this god is not a personal *free* being. He's more
like a robot or something.
JG: I think you jump from God knowing the future to the point where you
asserted that God controls the actions, all the actions of human
beings.
DB: No, I'm talking about God's own actions, not human beings.
JG: Ok.
DB: I'm talking about God ... If God knows what he's going to do ...
JG: Ok.
DB: ... tomorrow at twelve noon, right?
JG: Uh-huh.
DB: Then God can't change in the meantime what he's going to do between
now and then. He knows it.
JG: Well, I think there's an instance in Jonah, where God had told
Jonah to tell Nineveh that Nineveh is going to be wiped out because of
their sin. And then Nineveh decided to repent with weeping and fasting,
and God decided to exercise his perfect mercy on them.
DB: Yeah, but that was clearly conditional. That was a supposed
conditional prophecy. I'm talking about these prophecies that are
supposedly clear prophecies of something that *will* happen.
JG: I don't know if that was conditional. In Jonah there's only four
chapters, but um, as far as I could tell, it was God telling them
judgment will come on you. And some people have said that looks like
God has changed his mind, or changed. How could this happen with a
changeless god? But in reality, He decided to use his perfect mercy
instead of his judgment.
DB: So, before He exercised his mercy, did He have one idea of what the
future would be like, but after He exercised his mercy, He changed His
mind and had a different idea of what the future would be like? In
other words, was he *not* omniscient to begin with? Was the set of
future facts changeable or fixed? [Do] you know what I'm saying? If
it's changeable, then God doesn't know the future.
JG: Why is that?
DB: Because He doesn't know how the ball is going to bounce. He doesn't
*know*--He's like you and me, right?
JG: Um-huh.
DB: So if God doesn't know the future, the He can't prophesy anything,
because anything can happen between now and then. Do you see the
philosophical problem here? He's either a free being that can make
decisions openly, or else He knows a fixed future that cannot be
changed. He can't have it both ways. He might be omniscient, in which
case He's not omnipotent. Or he might be prescient, in which case He's
not a free being, and He's not worthy of my worship if He's like a
robot or a computer program or something.
JG: Ok, I see what you're saying, I think. And um, I think that the rub
is just because God doesn't step in and do the things that you do think
He should do if He were to exist. That doesn't necessarily mean that
He's not there, or not powerful or couldn't do something.
DB: I'm not saying that at all. That wasn't my point. My point was that
*if* your definition is right, the something's got to give. You have a
mutually incompatible definition of a god: one who knows the future,
and yet is also a free personal being. I'm not telling Him what to do.
If there's a God, He can do what He wants to. But I'm just saying that
you have a problem with an incompatibility in your definition of what
God is like. According to you, Ezekiel 38 tells, predicts a future
which *will* happen, right?
JG: Uh-huh. Right.
DB: And there's no way that you or I, or even God can change that.
JG: Um-huh.
DB: Right? It's predicting something. And if God can't change that,
then God has limits on his power and on his freedom.
JG: Ok.
DB: Therefore, He is something less than the being that you claim to
worship.
JG: Ok, well yeah, the argument that you're using is much more tied
into what I said than you realize, because it's the same kind of
argument that atheists have used before to say, if God can't lie, if
God can't steal, if God can't do evil. If He can't do these things,
then we're not worshipping an omnipotent god. But um, it's just I think
how much this argument stems from a lack of understanding.
DB: I'm not saying that either, but ... I've heard atheists say that,
and I disagree with it. Because if there is a god, He has a nature,
right? And He would want to act in accordance with his nature, so I'm
not saying that.
JG: Right.
DB: I know enough about theology and the Bible to know that this god
that Christians worship has a *particular* nature that He *usually*
acts in accordance with. Not always, but ...
JG: That doesn't mean that he's not omnipotent, it just means that He's
not doing the things that *you*, or someone else, would see as a
complete, powerful, all-powerful god.
DB: Well, (Laughs.) then it's not just omnipotence, but it's *freedom*.
If, if ... In order for you to make a decision ... Let's say you're
going to make a choice about who know what. Let's say you're going to
have coffee or tea, or you're going to chose a mate, or whatever. In
order to have freedom, or the illusion of freedom, you have to have at
least more than one option available to you, each of which could be
freely chosen or rejected, and there has to be a period of time during
which there's an uncertainty during which you could change your mind,
right?
JG: Yeah, all humanly speaking you're correct, I think.
DB: Yeah, and so that's the definition of free will and freedom.
JG: Um-huh.
DB: If there is a god who is a person, and person requires this freedom
to make decisions, then this also applies to God. He also has to have
the freedom during a period of uncertainty to be able to change His
mind and to exercise mercy or justice or to change ... Do you know what
I mean? Otherwise, He's not a *free* being, right?
JG: Hmm.
DB: He has to have that period of potential, but ...
JG: I think God has just bound Himself to the promises he has made to
us. If you want to say that that makes him less omnipotent than some
other god, then maybe you could say that.
DB: I'm not saying omnipotent, I'm saying less of a person, less of a
free person. As a personality, He's more like a robot than ... He might
be totally omnipotent, but He's not the kind of person that I would
find admirable to worship as a person. He's more like this force of a
huge computer program or something. Do you know what I'm saying? He's
not a being, He's not a *personal* being if He knows the future. He
can't be because he has no freedom, no choice, no period of potential
to change His mind and be and to be merciful or warm or friendly. Do
you know what I mean? He's not like you and me. He's some sort of a
weird creature up there whose running things in a colder kind of
impersonal way, and that's the kind of creature that I could *not*
worship or respect.
JG: But on a human level, it's possible to know the future and then, I
mean, to an extent, and still be loving, or ... Isn't it?
DB: Well, none of us know the future. We get lucky a lot.
JG: Yeah, I just mean like I'm going to go to (Laughs.) work today, or
I'm going to do this, or I'm going to do that, or my kid's going to do
this tonight ...
DB: Yeah, but on the way to work you still have the option, you
probably wouldn't exercise it, but you could still change your mind and
go somewhere else, right?
JG: Yeah.
DB: That's what makes you free
JG: Um-huh.
DB: But if you *did not* have that option, you wouldn't be free. Your
hands would drive to work no matter what. You wouldn't be, you wouldn't
have free will. You wouldn't ...
JG: I suppose it would give me, it's given me *even more* of a respect
for God, realizing now, that he has laid down his omnipotence in order
to give humans comfort by promising them things.
DB: So He's not omnipotent, you just said?
JG: Well He's surely omnipotent, but his type of omnipotence is
different from the type of omnipotence that want Him to be, apparently.
DB: I don't want Him to be anything. I'm just trying to make sense of
this Bible. I don't *want* God to be anything at all. If He exists, He
can be whatever he wants to be. I mean, that's not up to me to decide.
I'm trying to decide whether or not I think He, first of all, exists at
all, and secondly, even if He did, if He is worthy of my admiration.
Because I have the free will to choose, don't I?
JG: Right.
DB: I don't have to like Him do I? But I don't have to respect Him. You
know, I could denounce Him if I choose. That's part of my freedom,
right? And so it's *my* choice whether or not I find this kind of a
being worthy of my respect. And I find Him *unworthy* of my respect. I
mean, what's wrong with me exercising my judgment, based on moral
intellectual principles, to say such a thing?
JG: Ok.
Evolution of the Species 00:53:53
JG: Well let's ... Do you want to talk about creation for a minute?
Origins?
DB: Oh yeah, what about it?
JG: Uh, I'm curious, just how do you think that we all got ... How do
you think that we got here?
DB: Well, you can answer that question a hundred ways. My mother and
dad fell in love and (Jason laughs.) they produced a baby.
JG: Yeah, you know what I mean. I mean like (Laughs.) I mean like
biogenesis, you know, the study of origins. How do you think life came
into being?
DB: Well, life is life, I mean life is ... I guess the most common
definition of life is an organism that is self-contained and
self-replicating, and cares about its own survival. So we wouldn't call
a crystal alive, even though it is organized and complex. I mean we
wouldn't call a crystal living. It vibrates too, but ... Science shows
us very clearly that biological life on this planet came about through
the natural process of evolution, and it's continuing now. In fact,
many if not most Bible-believing Christians believe the *fact* of
evolution. They don't see any conflict with, between evolution and
their faith because they see evolution as one of the tools that their
God used to create the world. Who's to say that God could not use
evolution, in other words. Are you going to ties His hands and say that
He can't produce life by having it evolve?
JG: Yeah, there's a couple ... Let me respond to that. In order to
prove something scientifically, it has to be observed. So, uh, when we
get into origins ...
DB: That's not true Jason.
JG: No it *is* true.
DB: No it's not. You can observe indirectly as well, and you can prove
things ... I mean, all history would be worthless then because nobody's
....
JG: There's different kinds of ... There's forensic science, for
instance, and I think that's what we use when we're trying to determine
the age and the origin of the universe. It's like when you go to a
crime scene and you see different things, you try and put together
evidence and an argument for what happened. Then there's no human being
alive today that existed, I mean, that witnessed either creation or
evolution, so we're all trying to figure out how it happened, what
happened.
DB: But, uh, that's not exactly true. We are witnessing evolution all
the time, on the micro scale and the macro scale, we are seeing it
happen before our eyes.
JG: I don't believe in anything above the species level.
DB: Well, who made that line? Who drew that arbitrary line through the
world?
JG: I'm sure that God drew the line on where species can evolve.
DB: You're sure of that, huh? What about hybrids then, between species?
You know, I mean (Laughs.)
JG: Yeah, with human intervention too, things can be done, but you
obviously cannot use human intervention when you're talking about
origins because no humans were around.
DB: Well exactly, but we still *know* from science ... I mean,
evolution is a fact of science, there is no doubt about ...
JG: Absolutely. Microevolution is a fact of science.
DB: So is macroevolution among species. That is fact.
JG: Right.
DB: There are all sorts of species that are extinct. There are all
sorts of variations within species that we see happening in the wild,
documented day to day, variations ...
JG: I agree, I agree. The primrose plant is one example, and it's been
proven to produce a different species on its own.
DB: So what's the problem then? I mean, there's no real ...
JG: The problem is because we have never seen anything go from, say,
ape to man, and we don't have this fossil bed of intermediate fossils
that prove that this happened.
DB: On the contrary, we certainly do. We have all sorts of fossil
evidence of species descending from ancestors. No one claims that
anything went from an ape to man. What evolution claims is that humans
and the other apes all came from a common ancestor. Just like you or
your brothers and sisters came from a common ancestor. You didn't come
from each other, right? And yet you're different from each other, and
yet you came from an ancestor that who's slightly different from you.
And that's just one of the facts of biological life. We all evolved
from common ancestors, and if you go back far enough, we come from
*one* common ancestor.
JG: Yeah, it's interesting how people have even admitted to that, even
evolutionists, it's called the ... I forget what they, the Eve theory
or something, how some evolutions do believe that we all came from one
person, [or] two people.
DB: Well, no they don't. You're talking about the Mitochondrial Eve?
JG: Right, right, right.
DB: Well no, no one claims ... I mean, what they claim is that there
*was* one ancestral woman who ended up becoming the mother of all the
descendants who exist today. But there were other *humans*, there were
other mothers, there were other ... She wasn't the only one.
JG: Right.
DB: It's like if you have a family with four sons in it, or four
daughters, and only one of them has a child, and the other one doesn't,
and the other one had children that don't survive into the future.
That's what the mitochondrial, or the other types of ... There's
different kinds of *Eves*. It depends on how far back you want to go.
It wasn't a single woman and a single man who suddenly popped out of
nowhere, they were descendants from *ancestors*.
JG: Right, yeah.
What's the Problem? 00:58:48
DB: And besides that, what's the problem? Why is this a problem? When
millions of good, Bible-believing Christians accept the fact of
evolution, at all levels?
JG: Ok, well the problem is that ... Well, just let me ... I've got to
quote Darwin first, and then I'll tell you what the problem is. I love
to quote that when he said, um, in the 1800s, that there must be an
enormous fossil bed found with intermediate fossils or my theories
really don't hold much water. Um, and that has not been found. People
have looked for years and years and years and they haven't found this
huge fossil existence to prove that there was all this changing. And
that's where people started saying, ok, then there was really *fast*
jumps. People just jumped from one to the next, you know, in this big
leap, evolutionary leap, and it's just kind of ridiculous, you know?
DB: Ok, but I'm still asking you, what's the problem? True or false,
what are we dealing with here?
JG: Ok.
DB: Suppose evolution is false. What is your basic overriding point
here? Suppose I say, oh, golly gee, we were all wrong about evolution
JG: Uh-huh.
DB: Well then, what?
JG: Then, the problem is, if you're wrong about evolution, then there's
no problem. But if, um, the preaching of evolution and the ... It being
in public schools, and not giving creation equal time, and ...
DB: What do you mean not giving ... There are many Christians who
believe evolution is part of creation.
JG: That's not the issue.
DB: Then what is ...
JG: I'm talking about public schools and the teaching of each theory.
DB: You mean Genesis, is what you're talking about?
JG: Uh, yeah. Intelligent design ...
DB: You're viewing this as a contest between scientific evolution and
the Book of Genesis?
JG: Um, Intelligent design and the creation account in Genesis I think
are very compelling.
DB: Well, no one's telling parents that they can't teach that to their
kids, if that's their particular mythology that they want to follow.
The Book of Genesis is a *story*. It's not science.
JG: And when I read millions and millions of years in my text book,
that is a story also.
DB: Well yeah, but it's a story that has radio carbon testing, and has
strata of ... It has comparative anatomy, and it has comparative
genetics. It makes predictions about what we will find. It has the
fossil record ...
JG: I'm not saying to get rid of science. I think science and the Bible
go hand in hand. I think they ... I'm not saying that at all. But when
you talk about dating methods, when you don't count into things like a
universal flood with cataclysmic activity and volcanoes ...
DB: Because the Bible said it happened, right? You're really talking
about the Bible.
JG: Uh ...
DB: You're putting the Bible against modern science, and you think the
Bible should have an equal voice in the classroom, in the science
classroom, right? Is that what you're saying?
JG: No, I'm saying that evolution ... Well, what I was saying about the
flood that it really throws off dating methods. And you probably know
as well as I do that people use radio carbon dating and they can get
ten different dates for the same fossil. It really not a reliable
source of dates.
DB: Ok, but don't you see what I'm asking you? I'm asking you, so what,
let's throw all that out and then just say, what are you saying? Are
you saying the Book of Genesis is *scientific*? Is that what you are
saying, and should be taught in the science classroom?
JG: I'm saying the Book of Genesis is a legitimate account of our
origins and the best and closest thing we have to the truth.
DB: Ok, if that's true, then what scientific experiments, or tests, or
methodologies are being conducted to demonstrate the hypothesis that
the Book of Genesis is scientific. Where is the science in Creation
Science? What journals are accepting articles of publication *proving*
through empirical methods that the, you know that, uh, Eve came out of
Adam's body, and so on. Where is the science in Christian Science? Tell
me that.
JG: Well, science, in order to prove something scientifically it must
be observed. So as soon as you use the word millions and million of
years, that puts you on the same level as Genesis, because we're
talking forensic type science that cannot be observed. We're talking
religion, is what we're talking.
DB: But we do, we do observe millions of years of rock strata going
back and back and back. The further back you go, the simpler the
fossils become. The further back these rocks go ... Even if the dating
is wrong, there's still a progression of time.
JG: Well that progression was seen at the eruption of Mount St. Helens.
It laid strata just like the Grand Canyon and, I mean, you've got to
believe if someone walked up there, had never seen the place, didn't
know what was going on, looked at that strata, they would say that took
millions of years to happen. It took it, it happened in minutes.
DB: I was just at the Grand Canyon. Mound St. Helens just put up ash,
basically. Did it put up these different ...
JG: No, it layed down strata. It caused a significant mudflow and ran
into the lake, and you can see the strata if you go there or see a
video.
DB: Well of course you can find strata, but I mean they don't find the
same levels in ... Do they find, like higher up in the strata, do they
find complex fossils, but the deeper they go, do they find simpler and
simpler fossils until they get back to the trilobites and even before
that. Is that what they find? This is really good evidence that tests
the hypothesis of evolution. Where is the evidence that tests the
hypothesis of Genesis? That's what I'm asking.
JG: Well, you're ... it's kind of, it's just one of those kind of bait
and switch things. Yes, we can prove microevolution, *so*
macroevolution above the species level, must have happened, and no one
has observed that to happen yet.
DB: Yes they have. Because, do you know why? Scientists don't even
agree on how to define what a species is.
JG: Ok.
DB: There are no hard lines between species. Some scientists say these
two things are species, different species, but other scientists say,
wait a minute, no they're not, they can't interbreed. You don't know
where to draw the lines between species either. And when a population
has been isolated *long* enough, so that they can't or won't breed with
each other, we call that a species. I think the Bible calls them kinds,
but ...
JG: Uh-huh.
DB: We do see changes all the time. Even today we see the changes
between different, what we would call a species. Like the finches on
the Galapagos, we see basic anatomical beak size changes over, you
know, after a period of drought or, let's say, a heavy rain. These
things *do* happen.
Scientific Confirmation 01:04:51
DB: But still, we're getting off the point. If Genesis is true, in any
kind of scientific way, then where is the scientific confirmation for
the Book of Genesis?
JG: The scientific confirmation? I think I answered this question
already.
DB: Mount St. Helens, huh?
JG: No, no, no, my answer was that it's on level ground with this
quote/unquote science that is taught when you say the words millions
and millions of years. It's just stuff that can't be proven, it's
theory, it's religion really.
DB: So what you're saying is that actual evolutionary science is *not*
good science and has no confirmation, therefore the Book of Genesis,
which is also *not* good science and doesn't have this confirmation,
should be allowed to stand at this equal, low level? Where is your
proof of Genesis is what I'm asking. Why should it even be considered
as a scientific truth? Do you hear what I'm saying?
JG: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, and that's one way to put it. And even putting it
the way you did, which was a little callous, it still goes to show that
both theories are on level ground, and that's all I'm saying, that both
theories should be taught.
DB: So you're saying that evolution is bad, and Genesis is just as bad?
That's what you're basically saying.
JG: I'm saying that the evolution of species ... I don't like to say
evolution because evolution happens with the micro level, and even in
the species level sometimes, but the evolution of species, from micro
to man, has not been proven and cannot be proven.
DB: I disagree with you. The evolution of species from micro to man, to
humans, has been proven by just about any possible way. Comparative
genetics is one way to show it. There are microbes that contain the
exact same sequences of genetic material in their genes that we have
within ours. We can show common ancestry as you branch off. It's like
proving two people are cousins. How would you do that? You would do
that by showing similarities in their looks, and then looking at who
their parents were and then ... They're not the same people. And the
same thing happens ... If you would study evolution. Look at some of
the good books. What was the last pro-evolution that you read? It's
wonderful science. It's exciting science because it's teaching us
something, not more than I believe that God created the Earth, it's
teaching us something real about the world we live in. And it's much
better than those sermons I used to preach about sin an salvation
JG: Naw, it's just all based on false assumptions.
DB: Says who?
JG: It's philosophy, it's theory.
DB: Says who?
JG: It's based on dating methods that can't be proven.
DB: Says who?
JG: It's based on things that people weren't around to observe. It's
just not science.
DB: Jason, where is the scientific journal that demonstrates these
dating methods are unreliable? Point me to something that the
scientific community now says, yep, we have to throw out these dating
methods. What are you quoting when you make that statement?
JG: Well I can give you some websites and you can check it out.
DB: Websites? You don't have it though, you don't know it right now?
JG: Oh yeah, you can go to Doctor Dino.com, Answers in Genesis.
DB: But I'm asking the scientific, I'm not asking the pro-religious
ones. Where is the scientific community admitting that these dating
methods are faulty? Where are they saying that?
JG: Well, I mean I could find you that by the end of the hour. People,
scientific people *know*, anybody who is honest will know,
paleontologists generally admit this, that they get multiple dates when
they try and date things, and they just pick, they choose, they guess
which one. They say, well it was found here about this time and ...
DB: What paleontologist is saying that?
JG: Yeah, I'll have to get you these people's names if you ...
DB: It sounds to me suspiciously like you're passing on Creation
Science dogma rather than real science here. Of course there are
differences, and one of the strengths of science is that it allows for
the differences of opinion. Yes, the dates can vary by maybe as much as
centuries, but relative dates ... You can still use dating methods even
if they vary by a few centuries, when you're talking about millions of
years you get [a] really close degree of accuracy. And of course the
relative dates are all going to be the same. We know this happend
first, then this happened next. And it depends what you're dating. Are
you dating the wood in the campfire, or are you dating the rocks next
to the campfire, there's all sorts of variables. Scientists aren't
*stupid*, they're not being led by some blind evolutionary mindset.
JG: But they are biased though. And they are controlled, in their brain
from first grade onward to believe that we evolved in millions and
millions of years. And they surely don't get any promotions when they
step up and say, yeah, I believe that God created everything. They
surely don't get any accolades for that.
DB: Ok, so you're saying it's wrong for a person to be brain-washed
that we evolved for millions of years from childhood, but it's not
wrong for a child in Sunday school to be brain-washed that we were
created by the Book of Genesis. What makes believers exempt from error
in the same way that you think scientists are full of error? What makes
you so special in your own understanding and your own biases? Cause you
just happened to want to pick the right religion and you don't like the
implications of evolution? Why? Are you talking scientifically here, or
are you more of an ideologue who wants to make a rhetorical point? You
have no scientific evidence *for* creation. What creationists do is
they spend all their time bashing evolution.
JG: That's not true. Maybe in the 1800s or something, but ...
DB: Even today. Read Henry Morris. Read Duane Gish.
JG: I've read [some of] them, I have their books on the shelf right
here.
DB: Well *read* them. The Fossils Say No! What they're pretending is if
you could somehow demolish evolution, that would make creationism win
by default, without having to actually provide a case for creationism.
The come to creationism a priori. They come to it as true, regardless,
and the way they think they can win the fight is by destroying
evolution. Suppose they did. Suppose they destroyed evolution
completely. They can't, but suppose they did. Now, where's their case?
Where's *their* science for their Book of Genesis? They have nothing.
And you have to admit there is nothing. There's no experiments, there's
no observational records, there's no data that's being kept. All you
have is a belief of something that was taught to you in Sunday school.
JG: Well one instance of some proof for the Biblical accounts, and all
they can do is try and prove, or argue, that the Biblical accounts
happened. One is ... Usually atheists or evolutionist will agree that
there were worldwide, um, small localized floods all over the world.
That's how they'll describe sea shells up on the highest mountains and
such, and a worldwide flood describes that perfectly too. It's an
elementary example, but it's just as much science as it is, as saying
there's a bunch of small floods over millions of years.
DB: Well yeah, of course their were localized floods. My own American
Indians had their own flood myths.
JG: Yeah, it's pretty interesting that the Chinese had a flood story
that they took away ... You know the Chinese have been known as an
exclusive culture, all by themselves up there for a long time, and
their very characters ... I read a book called The Discovery of
Genesis, and it showed how the events of the Garden of Eden and the
flood were actually in their Chinese characters
DB: Well that's not surprising. You find all sorts of similarities
among human cultures because of the way our human nature values certain
things. And we've all had similar experiences, so it's not surprising
that you'll find different religions that have different echoes of
similar themes.
JG: Yeah, but the word tempter, for instance, showed a person in a
garden behind these two trees, uh, just the ... like the imagery that
was used to communicate these words ... The word boat, about Noah and a
little boat object and the people in it, it's just, it's too obvious
that it relates directly back from the flood.
DB: It's too obvious? Just like those prophecies you quoted me are *too
obvious.* When actually, when you scratch beneath the surface ... I'm
not ruling out what you're saying, but let's look at it. Let's ... You
know, I used to preach the gospel with such conviction, and then I
would go scratch beneath the surface and it was painful to realize,
oops, I'm exaggerating here. Oops, I'm telling everybody else that
they're deceived, but what about myself?
JG: I strive pretty hard to stick as closely as I can to the Bible. I
mean, I have heard lots of people exaggerate, or even add to the Bible,
or apply it incorrectly, but I think it's wise to stay as closely as I
can, and take little small steps out from it.
DB: But that's what everybody says.
Genesis 1-2 01:13:13
DB: In the Bible, I mean, in the Book of Genesis, you're talking about
the trees in the Garden of Eden ...
JG: Uh-hmm.
DB: In Genesis chapter one, the trees were created *before* humans, but
in Genesis chapter two, the trees were created *after* humans. There's
two different creation stories in the Book of Genesis, and those very
trees that Eve was supposedly standing behind, or the serpent ... And
besides, it wasn't a serpent. Genesis does not say it was a serpent. If
you're going to stick with the Book of Genesis, uh, excuse me, it
*does* say it's a serpent. It doesn't say that it's the devil.
JG: Hmm.
DB: It says that it's the *nachash*, if you know the Hebrew word. And
so the Book of Genesis has these two contradictory creation stories,
that cannot be reconciled and yet we're supposed to pretend that this
is allowed to stand as a scientific account of the origin of [Man.]
JG: It's funny that you mention that. I just got that question in my
forum yesterday, and I'm going to get to that. I have the answer to it,
but I just need to do a little more research to go ahead and put it
right.
DB: Yeah, and you think in advance that there must be an answer to
this, right? Don't you see how you are committed *in advance*? With
your kind of thinking ... I'm trying to be ad hominem here, but I used
to be like you. But the way I used to think, I was actually *blind* to
the possibility that the Bible had contradictions. Because I *would
not* allow myself to see what was before my very eyes. The Bible is
discrepant and contradictory, and yet if you go into it with the
mindset that there *must* be an answer, and I'll get back to you and
find it for you, well then of course you're going to find *something*.
I mean, we could all find ...
JG: Absolutely. Absolutely, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the
answers I find are contrived, or they're wrong. I believe, since the
prophecies I've seen in the Bible, since the experiences in my life,
and God's power and the human body and creation and just *so many*
phenomenal things ...
DB: But you keep saying the prophecies, but you haven't given me a good
example of a prophecy yet. You keep saying this, but you don't fess up.
You don't actually give us the meat that we're asking for.
Daniel 9:24-26 01:15:13
JG: Probably the most incredible prophecy in the Bible is ... And I was
trying to get to this one eventually, and [we] might as well tackle it
now, is the one in Daniel, when he predicts the exact day that Jesus
will walk into Jerusalem. Have you, are you familiar with that one?
DB: Yeah I know all about that. Tell me the verse again.
JG: I believe it's Daniel 9:24-26.
DB: And does he mention Jesus?
JG: He mentions the messiah, the king.
DB: Ok, now what, does he say the exact day, is it a Tuesday, is it a
March 3rd or something? Where does he say the day?
JG: Well, he gives a mathematical prophecy, and uh, I can read it for
you. Do you want me to read it?
DB: I have it right here. Twenty-four through what?
JG: If you want to get the whole thing, you'd probably need to start
with twenty through twenty-six. But when you, if you really just want
to get the skinny for the date, you can read it here, it says: Know
therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to
restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince, or Messiah
the King, there shall be seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks: the street
shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times. And
after the sixty-two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for
himself: and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the
city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, or a
diaspora, and till the end of the war desolations are determined.
DB: Well, that sure looks, that looks kind of bad. I mean, sixty-two
weeks? We're only talking about a few years
JG: Well, that the idiom, the Jewish idiom, like we have for a week,
it's an idiom for a week of years.
DB: Oh really, where does it say that? How do you prove that?
JG: Um, I just talked to some Jewish people. It's a tradition.
DB: Where, but how do they demonstrate that that's a week of years?
Where is that demonstrated? This says [?] year ...
JG: Demonstrated when you realize that it predicts to the exact *day*
that Jesus came into Jerusalem, then you, then it, work backwards from
there I suppose.
DB: Seventy weeks are decreed. So, seventy years? It says weeks but it
means years? So the Bible doesn't mean what it says, and somehow
somebody thinks these weeks are, translate into years? Besides, your
people just finished the transgression, put and end to sin. That hasn't
happened. Bring everlasting righteousness ...
JG: You're right.
DB: ... the most holy place therefore ...
JG: You're right.
DB: ... the time ...
JG: You're right. The key here is to notice that after the sixty-two
weeks, Messiah shall be cut off, not for himself. Now that's referring
to when Jesus died, of course. And then there's a week of time in there
that's an interval that hasn't happened yet. Um, so what have you known
about this prophecy? Have you studied it?
DB: Well, I've read it, I read it briefly, but I have no evidence at
all that these weeks refer to years. None at all. I mean, it seems like
an after the fact interpretation, just the fact that some modern Jews
might say that. I would like to know, why didn't they say here, why
didn't they use the word years, which they use in other cases, and why
didn't they use the name *Jesus*? Why didn't they say that this would
be the Messiah named *Jesus*, to rebuild Jerusalem and all that? Why is
it such a vague thing, um, you know ...
JG: The Messiah the King. I really, I don't think anybody else would
ever have that title. (Crosstalk.) ... pretty common idiom. Like the
word century, we just know the word century means, what, a hundred.
It's not that uncommon to people reading this text at the time. And it
talks about the, from the going forth of the command to restore and
build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, so obviously we have to know
when this command happpened. And we can see this command in Nehemiah
2:1-18. King Artaxerxes says, and it came to pass in the month of
Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, etcetera, etcetera, it
goes on to say ...
DB: But he says, he uses the word year there, not weeks.
JG: That's right, that's right.
DB: But what about all these week, why don't they say years here in
Daniel? Why is he using weeks in Daniel? To me this sounds very
suspect. It sounds like somebody has gone back through the Bible and
said, oh, let's make these weeks into years, and then we can come out
kind of close to what we want our Messiah to be born. With no actual
talk about Bethlehem or being born of a virgin or any of those things
....
JG: Well those things are mentioned in different passages of the Bible.
All these things are mentioned.
DB: Well those were false prophecies, you have to know that. Isaiah
7:14 was a false prophecy, about the virgin, and it was a
mistranslation of the Greek Septuagint. (Crosstalk.) You've studied the
Bible enough to know that Matthew was working from a mistranslation,
and that Isaiah wasn't even talking about the virgin, a virgin woman at
all, he was talking about a young woman.
JG: Yeah, I've read those arguments and ...
DB: Well, their *good* arguments, they're correct arguments. It's only
Matthew who got it wrong. Whoever wrote the Book of Matthew [was]
pretty sloppy in his scholarship. He thought he had hit on something.
He wasn't even using the original sources. He was using a Greek
translation, and he trusted a Greek translation which turned out to
have mistakes in it. Certainly you're not saying that the Septuagint
was [a] divinely inspired translation of the Word of God, otherwise it
wouldn't have those mistakes in it. And yet, Matthew was working from a
*flawed* book.
JG: Well, I want to send you to this web site and have you check it out
because I've just documented ... We've kind of skipped around, and we
only did about a quarter of my research on this prophecy. But um, I
want you to see how it indicates the exact day, March 14th 445 B.C.,
that the decree was given, and then the exact day where Jesus came into
Jerusalem and proclaimed himself as Messiah, and let people worship
him. There's really, there's only one day when he really let people
worship, and proclaimed to be [the] Messiah. That was Palm Sunday,
right before he died.
DB: Where does it say that in Daniel 9, that Jesus will enter Jerusalem
and be the Messiah? I don't see that anywhere. A anointed prince, seven
weeks, sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off, have nothing,
and the troops of the prince who has come shall destroy the city. So in
other words, Jesus' disciples destroyed Jerusalem? The troops of the
prince shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, [its end shall come
with a flood] ... So is this part, is this prophesying that Jesus'
disciples destroy Jerusalem? If this is Jesus.
JG: Uh-hmm.
DB: So that looks like a failed prophecy to me right there. Desolation?
There hasn't been any desolation after, there wasn't any of that. He
shall make a strong covenant with many for one week? And for half of
the week ... So in other words, he's living on. This messiah is living
on *past* that point. Because when Jesus entered Jerusalem, wasn't that
Palm Sunday, the week before he died?
JG: Right.
DB: But now this is talking about the half of the week, and another one
week after that, are these years now or weeks now, what are they?
JG: The prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the
sanctuary. I was looking up the last thing you said about the people of
the prince destroying the city, and it just sounds like you're trying
to analyze this with a bias already.
DB: Bias? I'm trying to look at the words and see what they say. I'm
trying to analyze it with a *non-*bias. I'm trying to actually look at
it. You said weeks not years, right?
JG: Right.
DB: But *after* this messiah supposedly comes in on Palm Sunday, he
will make a strong covenant for one week, right? So is that one week or
is that a week of years, which one is that?
JG: See, actually what that's talking about ... Which verse are you in?
DB: Twenty-seven. He shall make a strong covenant with many for one
week, and for half of the week he shall make sacrifice and offering
cease
JG: See I didn't even mention verse twenty-seven. When you're getting
on to that, you're getting on to a totally different time period.
DB: But it's he, it's saying he. Look it, an anointed one shall come,
and the troops of the prince, [the] end shall come with a flood, he
shall make a strong covenant ... Read it in context, Jason, and see
what this whole thing's talking about.
JG: Ok, well let me read it real slowly. Twenty-six. And after
sixty-two weeks Messiah be cut off (which is an idiom for death), but
not for himself (he died for everybody else): and the people of the
prince who *is to* come (he's not the prince to come, he's the ...)
DB: Wait a minute, how do you know that? That's the prince before, the
verse before that is talking about. Rebuild ...
JG: No, he already came and he died, he's not going to be the prince to
come. (Crosstalk.) The people of the prince to come, who is the
Antichrist.
DB: He is the prince who is to come from the time that this prophecy
was supposedly written, right?
JG: No. No, no. And the people of the prince who is to come shall
destroy the city and the sanctuary, and we know that that Romans
destroyed it, right? The end of it shall be with a flood, the diaspora,
that's when the Jews were scattered all over the world. Until the end
of the war desolations are determined. Now on to twenty-seven, then he
shall confirm the covenant with many for one week. And we have an
interval in there, and this is what we're in right now, the Church
Interval, and this correlates exactly with Revelation. And you shall
confirm a covenant with many for one week, which is seven years. I'm
sure you probably real, have read this in Revelation. The Antichrist
has a covenant for seven years, but in the middle of the week, um in
the middle, you know, a three and a half year period ...
DB: Yeah, but I don't make a jump between one prince and another. I
don't see that in the text. It looks to me like creative rewriting or
reinterpreting of what you think, you know, in all these weeks and all
that, um ...
JG: Okay, alright.
DB: It doesn't look convincing to me, I mean, and I'm, I was a
preacher, an ordained minister and I've translated a lot of this. And
it looks to me like whoever wrote the New Testament is saying, ah, well
let's try to make some of these things happen here. And besides, this
stuff, this stuff and the end, you have no idea if it's a prophecy
that's going to happen or not. A anointed prince, it doesn't say the
Son of God, it doesn't say that he's a deity, it just says an anointed
prince.
JG: Uh-hmm.
DB: I mean anybody could be anointed. (Crosstalk.) Anybody can be
anointed, I mean, Elijah and Moses were anointed.
JG: The Hebrewism is *mashiyach nagiyd*, and that's Messiah the Prince,
Messiah the King, it wasn't just a title used for other people.
DB: But it doesn't mean deity. It doesn't mean a Son of God. Why
doesn't he say, God will have a son named Jesus born in Bethlehem, and
his mother will be named Mary. Do you know what I mean? Why couldn't it
be a prophecy that's really clear to convince? Why all this fuzziness?
JG: I don't know.
DB: Well, exactly. You're offering to me evidence that there's a
fulfilled prophecy, but when we look at the prophecy itself, we don't
really see what you claim ... You're overlaying it, your Christian
theology, on top of this, as if you think this prophecy was somehow
fulfilled.
JG: And I just think you're laying a skeptical bias over this also and
....
DB: Well, I'm proud of that. Skepticism is the way to truth. Skepticism
is the way to learn if something is true or false. It's better to be
skeptical and doubtful than to just be blinded into accepting what
theology has handed to you.
JG: Hmm.
DB: I'm proud of the skepticism, I admit it. Criticism is really the
best and only way to learn what's true or false, because you can strip
off error that way.
JG: I mean it's just like, you're looking at a Ford Festiva and going,
no, it's not a Festiva, it's a Ford Festiva. And you're wrong, it's
just, it's not a Festiva, it's a Ford Festiva. And, I mean, all it is
is semantics, really. And if you want to risk your eternal *life* on a
word that you're not too sure might go one way or the other, it just
seems like a foolish thing to do.
DB: Yes, yes I do, Jason. I'm not afraid of risking my eternal life. I
don't buy this threat, uh, mentality that a lot of Christians have that
you better believe or your going to be punished. And it doesn't scare
me one ...
JG: And this isn't my mentality, I mean it's not my words, I'm not
telling you something I made up, you know.
DB: Well, it doesn't bother me. It's like Christians use that all the
time, you know, you're going to risk your eternal life if you don't
think the way I do. Fine. If there's a God who wants to send me to Hell
for thinking for myself, then let Him do it. Let Him prove what a macho
man he is and send me to Hell. Will that make me worship Him anymore?
Will that make me have any more respect for the integrity of the
supposed word of this? No it won't. I'm proud of the skepticism. I'm
happy to be a critic. I'm glad that somebody should denounce, and put
this very God under the microscope. Don't you see what I'm saying?
JG: You can just see how though a prophecy that says over four hundred
years in advance predicts something to the exact *day*, you reject just
because the wording isn't adequate for you?
DB: Well, I don't see it as a prophecy. I see the word weeks here. And
yes, you're right, I reject it because I don't see it as adequate.
Besides if it were, that would be one thing that most, you know, I
mean, that would be one of the proofs of a foreknowing god, right?
JG: Uh-hmm.
DB: And so, and yet the whole world hasn't come to this conclusion.
Obviously this is a Jewish, uh, Israelite ... Daniel was making a
prophecy for his own time
JG: Hmm.
DB: And he didn't say years, and he didn't say Jesus, the Son of God,
he didn't say Messiah, so in my book this is a very ... It's not even a
prophecy, but if it is, it's a very *weak* one and not very convincing.
Especially when you have New Testament writers coming along, with the
*freedom* to write what they want, right? And like in the Book of
Revelation [to] say, oh, well let's tie Daniel and our views together.
Of course the writers of the Book of Revelation were familiar with the
Old Testament, there were some real scholars back then. So, uh, what I
would like to see ...
JG: Some of them were, some of them were fishermen too, you know, they
weren't ...
DB: Yeah, well exactly, I mean they were all trained though in some
kind of training. But I'd like to see confirmation of these things
happening.
Sin Revisited 01:28:16
JG: What do you think about the concepts of, just for argument's sake,
I know you said their was no sin, or sin doesn't exist. But, um, sin,
let's take the Biblical definition for a moment. What do you think
about universal sin? It seems to me that since there are no pockets,
there are no time periods, there's no places on the Earth since the
beginning of history, recorded history, that have been exempt from sin,
from murder, lying, stealing, cheating, you know, sin like that, that
would go to prove that there was some kind of unseen unpower that
tempting people and causing these people to do these sins.
DB: (Laughs/Sighs.) Well, that's a, that is a religious bent on human
nature, to posit some kind of a force to explain human nature. All
species, not just humans, but all species, are engaged in a struggle
for survival, all of them are. When you see a cat playing with a mouse
before it kills it, that's sin or not? You wouldn't call that sin, you
would just call it part of the cat's human nature, right?
JG: Uh-hmm.
DB: You wouldn't say that the cat was *willfully* sinning against its
cat creator, or something. It's just, it's doing something by instinct
which is harmful, and we might even say unnecessarily harmful to this
mouse who also has the desire to live, right?
JG: Right.
DB: We see that, we see, you know, callousness and cruelty in nature
and we are a part of nature, and part of our human nature, and our
survival, has been to *combat* these other natural forces, and that's
how we evolved with these instincts to combat. So, of course, human
nature is going to have testosterone-exaggerated aggression, of course
it's going to have those things, and of course there will be human
beings who act more in their own self-interest than the interest of the
group at large. And religious people might call that a sin, and those
of us who are secular, naturalist, would say, it's too bad that we're
saddled with this nature that we've got, but we couldn't pick it. We
couldn't choose it. If we do wish to continue to be rational, moral
creatures, then we need to find a way to *improve* the situation.
Certainly the Bible and Christianity hasn't helped, if anything it's
made it worse.
JG: So you're saying it's not a person's fault, it's genetic?
DB: Well yeah, it is genetics, but it's also the person's fault,
because if you commit an action within society, you are the one
responsible for those actions, of course. I mean, if you went crazy for
some reason, and came and started attacking me for who knows what
reason, say you were a religious fanatic and you wanted to bomb my
house ...
JG: Ok. Which I would never do.
DB: Of course not. You one of, you have the true religion, right? Of
course not. But if you were to be that way, then I, by nature, would
want to protect myself and my family and I would exercise at least a
minimal amount of force necessary to stop you. And I would hope that we
could make laws, and have systems of self-censor or justice or of
enforcement to protect myself from, my interests from your interests.
And I don't call that sin.
JG: Uh-hmm.
DB: I would say that it's too bad that there's something ... You know,
I mean a lot of criminals are actually ill. I mean there's an actual
*mental* illness that make ... A sociopath is actually mentally ill. A
sociopath doesn't feel the pain of others, and we can point to the
actual physical, chemical, natural causes of these things. Still, we
should put them in jail or put them in a mental hospital, we need to
protect the rest of us, put we shouldn't paint human beings with some
kind of a tainted brush that we have some demonic or evil on us in some
way. Otherwise, how do we improve? What hope is there unless we can
work around that?
JG: Yeah, but why would conviction evolve? You know, you do something
wrong and you feel bad about it. If we're just concerned about our own
well-being and living and success and reproducing, why would want or
need or have conviction evolve?
DB: Well see, now you're asking a good naturalistic question, and
that's a healthy question. Social biologists are asking questions like
this all the time. It makes sense that, if we, as natural human beings,
value our own individuality and by extension, our own species, we put
value on it because of ... Because what is value? Value is something
that you want, and we want our lives to continue. Therefore, it's
obvious to see that with your own family members, your brothers, your
sisters, your children, they have so much of the same genetic material
that you do, by protecting your own family members, well, [?] my
goodness we have this instinct within us to protect our genetic, our
genetic investment in the future. Our cousins are a little further
away, but they're still a part of our species. Our next door neighbors
are much further away genetically, but they're still part of our
*species*. So that instinct to protect our genetics and our close
genetics can be extended to the rest of the world as well. And, uh,
feelings are feelings. They didn't come from *outside* the human race,
whatever they are.
JG: Ok, I just thought I needed to ask you about that one.
DB: Well there's natural answers, or at least potential natural
answers, to the questions without a knee jerk religious answer [?].
JG: That's very true. I've found that for every spiritual or religious
answer there is to something, there's always an earthly or normal
answer also.
What is a Spirit? 01:33:38
DB: What do you mean spiritual? What does that word mean?
JG: Oh, for instance, atheists hate to hear the argument that God did
it. They want to hear proof, they want scientific proof. But um, for
every ... God put the moon in the sky, God makes the ...
DB: But you used the word spirit, spiritual. What does that word mean?
Spiritual.
JG: What does spiritual mean?
DB: Yeah, the word itself. What are you talking about when you use the
word spirit and spiritual?
JG: It's related to God and the spirit.
DB: But what does spirit mean? What is it?
JG: Uh, spirit would be something ... There's the Holy Spirit, that's
part of the Trinity.
DB: But what is the Holy *Spirit*? What is the *thing* that you are
describing?
JG: Uh, the spirit is just part of ... Yeah, that's a good question.
It's not easy to describe the spirit since we don't see the spirit. Um,
from the God's word I guess we know about the spirit. The same thing
with God.
DB: But what do we know *about*, what is it that we are knowing *about*
when you use the word spirit? What is the *thing* that goes to that
label?
JG: Well when I say spirit, there's all kind of spirits, there would be
evil spirits, there would be good spirits ...
DB: What do you mean spirits? What, what is it? You mean it's like a
little gremlin with black hair? What are you talking about when you use
the word *spirit*?
JG: Well, there's the spirits, the angels that fell from Heaven that
are now spirits because we can't see them. Um, that would be one
spirit.
DB: But you're not defining what ... You're giving me examples of
spirits, but I'm asking you a definition *of the word* spirit and
spiritual, not examples.
JG: If I had to define the word spirit, I would just say, something
that cannot be seen that, um, where there are good or bad, whether they
be good or bad, um, basically someone to that effect.
DB: (Laughs.) So it's something that cannot be seen? Some*thing*? Do
you mean a physical thing? You use the word thing.
JG: Thing or entity maybe.
DB: Entity? Ok, an entity of what? You know, like a basketball, or an
ice cream cone? You know what, when you use the word spirit, I used to
preach that word all the time, but you know what? The word spirit has
no definition, except in terms of what it's not, it's intangible, it's
non-corporeal. The word spirit has never been defined, and yet you're
using an undefined word that *even you* admit has no comprehensible
definition. You're using it to a natural person like me as if it makes
any kind of sense. I reject that word. That word has no meaningful
reference in the real world to me. So if you use it in an argument, it
is, you have a non-argument, unless you define the word spirit in a
coherent way.
Voice of God 01:36:06
JG: Well I can tell that you've come across this before and, um, what
we're doing here ... Same thing with trying to describe God, you know,
God is clearly above our thoughts and our minds.
DB: Says who?
JG: So all we can do is describe God. (Dan laughs.) You can't
necessarily define God, but we can describe Him. You can compare Him to
things that we know. Um, does that make sense?
DB: No, it doesn't make sense at all. I mean, why do you say that He's
above? Why don't you say He's below? I mean, where do you *get* these
definitions?
JG: It's from the Bible.
DB: Yeah, and why is the Bible true? Because God wrote it, right? You
see, it's a circular argument. What if I say, I don't trust the Bible?
What if I say that? Using my own mind, I look at it, I study it, I read
the original language. What if say, they can't define this word and so
I'm not going to hold it in much regard. I'll look at it and there
might be something in it, but don't you see the circularity of your
thinking? You *think* there actually is a God because the Bible tells
you there is a God, and you know the Bible is God's word because God
wrote the Bible. It's a circular thing. You're wanting to believe
something that you just want to believe.
JG: Well there's more reasons that I believe besides what you just
mentioned.
DB: Like prophecies, for instance?
JG: Prophecies. There's experiential knowledge, um ...
DB: Experiential knowledge?
JG: Yeah.
DB: What, you mean you know God personally?
JG: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
DB: Has He talked to you?
JG: Yeah, yeah.
DB: He does? Is he like a baritone or a tenor, or what?
JG: (Laughs.)
DB: He talks *to you*, personally?
JG: Yeah, I ask God questions and He gives me directions, He gives me
answers.
DB: Well what does His voice sound like?
JG: Um, I feel, I, since you mocked other points and things, (Laughs.)
I don't think this is going anywhere besides ...
DB: Of course it is, I'm ...
JG: ... where you're going to mock it.
DB: I'm not mocking it. Don't be so sensitive, we're trying to get at
truth here. If ... Anybody who says that God tells them something ...
You know, God tells people all sorts of things, right? And people say
they talk to God, or they talk to the Virgin Mary, or they talk to
Napoleon, or Elvis Presley ... How do *you* know that you are not
equally deceived by this idea that God is talking to you?
JG: I guess it kind of sounds like a conscience. Like before I was
trying to get to the point where your conscience couldn't have just
evolved, that conscience is put into the heart and mind by God, and now
that's basically that's what His voice sounds like. It sounds like my
conscience. I ask from God, should I do this? And then God tells me, no
or yes, or maybe, or this or that.
DB: Does he use English? Like he would use the word no, n-o, and yes,
y-e-s?
JG: Yeah when I speak to God, He uses English.
DB: Oh he does? So you know he speaks English. So you're actually
*hearing a voice*? Is it a high-pitched voice or a low-pitched voice,
or what?
JG: It's not an audible voice, it's just my conscience, it's just in my
mind.
DB: So it's like when your mind is thinking a thought?
JG: Sort of.
DB: Like you're having a dream or something? So how do you know the
difference between this, supposed voice of God, and just some other
creative thoughts in your own mind that you're making up? Don't you
agree that a lot of Christians, and a lot of religious people, just
make up what they think God is telling them? How do you know that
you're special and you're not just making it up?
JG: Well, to answer your first question, um, how do I know this is
God's voice? I know that it's His voice because it corresponds with His
Word. Now if God tells me, if I think God tells me to go murder someone
or something then I can look in His Word and go, no, this isn't it
because God says don't kill here.
DB: So if God tells you to dash, happy to be dashing babies against the
stones, then that *isn't* His voice, right?
JG: That was a specific command for the Israelites, remember.
DB: But you said you would confirm it with God's Word. If God told ...
JG: In context.
DB: If God told *them* to be happy to kill innocent children, and then
if God told *you* to be happy to kill innocent children, you could use
the Bible to confirm that that was indeed God's voice, according to
your logic.
JG: If I was an Israelite several thousand years ago, then, yes.
DB: So, so we sh | |
