SPEAKER_08

The Speak Life Podcast, sharing Jesus in everyday life.

SPEAKER_09

Fresh's Week is upon us, and up and down the country, first-year university students are attempting to embody our culture's most transcendent value: freedom. Released from the shackles of their family homes, students are attempting to discover their true selves, often at the bottom of a plastic cup filled with some kind of blue liquid that is mainly vodka. As they discover their true selves, many this week will be disappointed to learn that they are, just like the rest of us, desperately insecure bags of neuroses. It's just that they'll do it while dressed in togas and getting turned away from nightclubs with names like Tuxedo Paradiso, Sinferno, and The Grind Vortex. The idea that this is somehow an expression of freedom is hard to explain, but it's also hard to shake. I still remember my mother's parting words to me on my first day of Freshers Week, after a tearful hug, she said, and I'm not making this up, Glenn, just fly, Glenn, just fly. And because sarcasm is my love language, I responded, Yes, mum, but only because you are the wind beneath my wings. I realized that that was a terrible thing to say, and I am sorry, but please understand I was giddy with Fresher's anticipation. I could not wait to get out there and do what my mother had said. Fly. And so fly I did, I suppose, into every experience, and it felt like freedom for about thirty six hours. It felt like everything I had dreamt about, but soon I felt lost. I mean in Fresher's week you are physically lost, that's true, isn't it? You don't know where the library is, you don't know where the lecture theatres are. To be honest, three years later I wasn't much the wiser on those issues, but you're lost physically in a new place, but you're also lost existentially and emotionally and spiritually. You just don't know who you are. And then comes the advice that shipwrecks precious souls the world over. The advice is find yourself. Now think about that just for a second. You're lost and you're advised to find yourself. Can you spot the problem? I mean, finding a lost person is never that much help, is it? If you're lost and you find yourself, you will only find that you're lost, which is no great find. If you're lost, what do you need to find? You need to find home. And when you're home, you can just be yourself. Well, the good news of the Bible is that someone from home has come to find us. You know, in every story that Jesus tells, we are the lost ones, and he is the great seeker, and he comes to place us in our true environment, in in our rightful home, in the family of God. Jesus said, If the Son of the Father sets you free, you are free indeed. If you belong to this Son and are brought to this Father, then you are truly at home, and then you are free from need, free from insecurity, free from descending into that hall of mirrors called the search for identity. You're found. You're free. Now you can fly. It's the second of October.

SPEAKER_06

This is Glenn Scrivener, and this is the spa ha walking to the show.

SPEAKER_10

Hello, welcome to the live I'm a professional. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. There's nothing worse than getting all the way through something like that. I know and then fluffing it right in the end.

SPEAKER_09

I'm just too lazy to do it again. That'll do. To be honest, that's that was the best take. I needed to get my just right. Oh man. Yeah. It was all good. It was all good. Fresher's week, eh? Yeah. Freshers week. So for those for those not in the UK, uh freshers it like I know that in America, your first year of university, you're called a freshman. Yeah. Um but we don't we don't you really use the term fresher apart from your first week, really, don't we? No. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10

Don't they have other terms like so freshman, sophomore, junior, senior.

SPEAKER_09

Okay.

SPEAKER_10

Sophomore, is that your last is that your last year?

SPEAKER_09

Your sophomore is your second year. Right. Where's that word come from? And then senior. Americans, help us. Help us. Why why do you do what you do? Just making up words. Just freshman stuff. You know, I know this only because I've watched too many frat house comedies. It's the only reason. Like too many Will Ferrell and movies like that. Um so yeah, fresh is Fresh's week. And it is it is quite a uniquely UK thing. Because, like, for instance, in Australia, most people live at home when they go to university. Right. Okay. Because in Australia we actually like our parents. So what's that like? It's weird, isn't it? Um whereas in the UK, if you live down south, you go up north, and if you're up north, you you know you go to university down south. Um because you want to get away.

SPEAKER_10

If you live in Scotland, you stay there because you get paid for.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah. Because it's free. Yeah. But it's all about the free stuff, right? Yeah. Absolutely, it's about the free stuff. Freedom! So yeah, so there's this weird thing, this first week of university, which is known for being a drunken, debauched kind of vomit-strewn week. Um that really exacerbates the town versus gown divides in all these towns. Versus gown. Where yeah, like nobody wants their, you know, this population of fresh teenagers to be kind of, you know, throwing up along their streets. Yeah. Um certainly like it's fair. You're getting old, man. You're getting old. And every year they just get younger, don't they? They just get younger. Um I don't know, Freshers Week for me was a little bit like that, actually. After my mother said, Fly, Glenn, fly Glenn. Fly. I felt like I had yeah, justification for doing just that. Yeah. And and off I went.

SPEAKER_10

I can't you were asking me about Freshers Week. I can't really remember any specifics of Freshers Week. And that's not because I was so blindly drunk. Must have been a good one! No, I just I mean, I remember turning up because I I lived in a hall on a campus. I was at Nottingham University. Yes, far from your parents. Yeah, yes. Um, and that was, you know, I was in a hall, Willoughby Hall. Um but we all lived on like um corridors, so it was like four or five floors and then corridors. So there's about fourteen rooms on each corridor. So it wasn't like you know, some people live in a flat and there's like three or four other people and them in a contained space.

SPEAKER_09

Yes, with the one kitchen and you're leaving the passive aggressive notes. Yeah, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_10

Whereas we saved that for second and third year, yeah. Like just in houses. But actually, I said I think there's about fourteen rooms on each side of the corridor, so there's about thirty odd of you know, along this corridor. So you at the beginning you were kind of I remember the first few days actually hanging around with people and you think I never spent any more time with them after the first few days. You kind of then faction out, don't you? You divide it into the groups, you're like, I'm not sure this is gonna work.

SPEAKER_09

Yes. It's not me. If you're a student and you haven't yet, you know, found your your niche, don't worry. You've got uh there's a long way to go.

SPEAKER_10

But the main thing I remember is Freshers Fair. So the Fresh's Fair was the the kind of thing in the middle of a campus where you go in and there'll be all the different stands and stalls and whatnot, and it'd be different societies trying to get you to sign up and whatever. I think I think I went I joined I'm not sure I actually paid to join, I went to the scuba diving society, scuba sock. That was the first and only time. Yeah, I think I went along, and I'm not sure I ever went, I didn't do any diving, that's for sure. Um I did join the Christian Union. Okay. Um but basically the Freshers Fair was a good opportunity to pick up loads of free stuff. Yes. So Domino's Pizza had a stand. Of course they did. Um, giving out free slices of pizza. Shooting fish in a barrel. Absolutely. And I just went ro we went round a number of times. Just get your slice of pizza, go around the corner, eat your slice of pizza, back to the end of the queue.

SPEAKER_09

And you thought you were fooling them, but they just didn't care. We were in a cake desperately to wipe the pizza sauce off your face.

SPEAKER_10

I was in a catered hool, I didn't need any of it. Free spatula! We've got a spatula, it's amazing. Phoning home. Mum, you'll never believe.

SPEAKER_09

So grown up in a spatula. So I I met my wife the first uh in Fresh's Week. Really? So yeah, that was the first time ever I saw your face. And um she had a she had a a green towel around her head. She seems to have a green towel around her head the entire time. Like she'd go to lectures, like having washed her hair and putting a green towel kind of.

SPEAKER_10

Was it love at first sight?

SPEAKER_09

For me.

SPEAKER_10

Yeah. Yeah. What did she think of you?

SPEAKER_09

Weird. No, I I know exactly what she thought. She thought I was really, really weird. And she couldn't like yeah, yeah. She um uh I think the first time You're a good judge of character then, is she?

SPEAKER_10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09

Actually, the way we met is I had a uh an album. I had I had the Muppet Show album.

SPEAKER_10

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_09

But I didn't have an LP player. I didn't I had nowhere to play it. But she had the LP player. So it that should have been to be. It's a sign. It should have been. And like she was like, Well, why why do you want to listen to the Muppet Show? And I said, because I really love the the tune mana. And like put it on, like, what do you think? And like she just thought I was weird.

SPEAKER_10

And she might have had a why, Glenn, why?

SPEAKER_09

She thought I was weird for a very long time afterwards. And I think she's coming around to me slowly. It's been a very slow burn. But the other Fresh is week thing, I met a girl, and this is like because this is the speak life, you know, live cast, I think I think our listeners they they will understand this joke, but I wouldn't tell this ordinarily. But um I met a girl, and I'd never heard of this name before, but that was sort of Scandinavian. I said, What's your name? She said, My name's Hades. And quick as a flash, quick as a flash, I said, if there were two of you, it'd be hell. Dear. Right? And then she said, Why would it be hell?

SPEAKER_06

No.

SPEAKER_09

I said, Well, you know, because Hades, she said, What's Hades? I said, Can I introduce to you the biblical doctrine of hell?

SPEAKER_10

And this is Glenn, he's a laughing minute.

SPEAKER_09

She didn't know what Hades was.

SPEAKER_10

Oh my word.

SPEAKER_09

I thought I must have been like the 50th person to say this joke to her. Yeah, yeah. I know you get this all the time, but if there were two of you, it'd be hell. Why? Because of Hades. What's Hades? Uh we didn't speak again. No three years. In the next three years, unfortunately. Wow. But that was Freshers Week, and apparently Freshers Weeks are getting less boozy. That's that's the big news story at the moment. That um I I heard somebody say that forty percent of Freshers won't even drink in Freshers' Week. Um, which sounds extraordinary.

SPEAKER_10

It was seems it just seems a crazy statistic, given my experience of what university was like.

SPEAKER_09

I mean the other sixty percent are really trying to make up for the forty percent. I'm sure they are.

SPEAKER_10

Yeah. But I would have said, you know, the idea of not drinking at university or when I was there, it was a you were you were a very, very small percentage uh of people who would not drink at all. Yes. Um and most people's attitude was uh, you know, we used we used to go out and stuff and and people would say, you know, the next day, oh did you have a good time? And people would say, Oh, I wasn't very good time because you know I didn't get drunk, and that was the attitude, you know, unless you got absolutely basically paralytic.

SPEAKER_09

Yes. Yeah, must have been a good night.

SPEAKER_10

Yeah, yeah. I say, can you remember it? No, therefore it must have been good.

SPEAKER_09

But actually there's more and more people and and and partly this is you know, I went to university back in the 1900s, but last millennium. Uh we didn't have to pay anything. So that's a different you know, attitude to everything. You can drink away three years.

SPEAKER_10

Can't afford to drink anymore, is that what it is?

SPEAKER_09

Yeah, and and you know, it is I mean the millennials uh uh I think you know the millennials, Paul. The young the young folk, they are they are you know generation sensible. And so like less sexually active, less um getting drunk all the time.

SPEAKER_10

So but but isn't it funny though that like isn't it funny that the the generation before, you know, when it's like lots of drinking, much more say active, people are like, oh dear, it's not very good, is it? And now we've got this generation, people are going, it's a bit weird, isn't it?

SPEAKER_09

Weird.

SPEAKER_10

I mean they're not drinking, they're not Yeah, they're just wrong.

SPEAKER_09

Whatever they do, they're just wrong. And we'll see a little bit more about confirmation bias as we go on in the show. But um but it is true, you know, I uh I there's a girl who's just uh starting at Brighton University, uh who I know well, who lives in Eastbourne, and um and I actually it's a real opportunity for her to get into Christian things because she doesn't want to um she doesn't want to just go to clubs and get drunk and she feels like like a third wheel and because of medication that she's on she can't really drink. Right. And so actually going on to the Christian Union is a massive drive.

SPEAKER_10

Forced through stuff. Because the thing is that it wasn't even because I remember like people you couldn't even join a sports club and just go and you know, so I remember like particularly the rugby club, the rugby society. Oh yeah. Like the initiations and that kind of stuff was just horrific. Yeah, like and I I remember my wife's university, one of the guys, you know, coming back like head shaved and pretty much naked and you know, uh you you know, if you just wanted to go and play rugby, well you couldn't really just go and play rugby. You know you have to be part of the culture.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah, and actually, yeah, what would it look like to be a Christian witness in that situation and how do you, you know, just coke for me and difficult, difficult. But I think there are all sorts of opportunities that universities are taking or Christian unions are taking advantage of more and more that they're saying Freshers Week is a brilliant time to actually reach out because you know, people don't have lectures to go to, and not that students often go to lectures beyond beyond Freshers Week. I certainly didn't. But um but it is a great opportunity, and you know, I'm up to Cambridge tomorrow night to s to speak to their freshers. Yeah. And uh yeah, and I'm basically going to be doing that monologue, basically, and just tacking on a bit of uh Luke 15. I'll I'll find a bit of Bible to tack on to my monologue. Start with a gags, top tips. Build from there. So yeah, doing a little bit of uh Luke 15. That's you know, maybe you're like the younger son who goes to the far country and this is your idea of freedom. Or maybe you're like the older brother, which at Cambridge University is, you know, that that's another temptation to be the one who works hard in the field and proves yourself and gets respect. You know, that's um but actually neither of those are really gonna give you the freedom, the name, the satisfaction that you're looking for. Come home, join the joy. You know, that's basically the feast. Yeah. Come to the feast. That's basically the message. Sweet. Um great to see so many people uh listening in. Christopher Dempsey says, that sounds like any Saturday night in Scunthorpe. Wow. That's really uh that's really flying a flag for Scunthorpe. Uh we're we're there. We are there. We'll come, we'll come. Does Scunthorpe have uh clubs that are called things like Sinferno and Grind Vortex? I don't know. Probably. Probably is it bad that I thought up those names for for clubs?

SPEAKER_10

Pretty bad, yeah.

SPEAKER_09

I was quite I was quite pleased with Tuxedo Paradise, so.

SPEAKER_10

Anyway. Man. Anyway, we says and James, you said John the Baptist was weird for fasting and Jesus was weird for feasting.

SPEAKER_09

That's so true. You can't win. You can't win. What's and how did Jesus put that poetically? He says, um, I sang a you you sang a dirge and we did not mourn. You played the tune and we did not dance. That's that that whole thing.

SPEAKER_10

But there's a there's a bit of truth to that in the um in the context of university as Christian. So I think we've maybe talked about this before about if you go and you are very kind of I'm not gonna get involved in this, I'm not gonna get involved in that, or you know, like you say, I'm not gonna drink, or maybe I'll just have, you know, you're okay, I'm not gonna drink, that's a good example, okay? And people kind of a bit people do respect you for it, I found. Yes. But you're always gonna get that kind of weird thing going on. But then of course, if you do drink, like if you, you know, you have a drink, not not getting drunk, people go, Right. Are you having a drink? Yep. Like, terrible, terrible Christians. Like, well hang on a second, like you know, so Yeah.

SPEAKER_09

Which is the whole John the Baptist Jesus thing, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Jesus came fasting and you said he has a demon, and I came eating and drinking, and you say, I am a glutton and a friend of sinners. Oh no. Isn't that great? Jesus always owns the kind of the the label that he's called. You want to call me a friend of sinners? You just watch. Alrighty. Wait and see. Yeah, yeah, he's always doing that.

SPEAKER_10

Turns out Christopher Dempsey's not actually been to Scunthorpe.

SPEAKER_09

He doesn't know. Wouldn't no, never been there. Uh we've got CCTV footage uh and uh Andy, why don't you play for us now?

SPEAKER_10

Is this the beginning of a speak life trip to Scunthorpe?

SPEAKER_09

So if you want to come, sign up at the The Mission to Scunthorpe. Do we have any listeners from Scunthorpe? Do, do make yourself known. Um Say it proud. Go on, come out of the closet. Um Brilliant! So uh that's that's Fresh's week. I think we've covered it done. That's Fresh's week. Yeah. Brilliant. So but do but do be praying for tomorrow night uh at Cambridge, yeah, speaking to a whole bunch of students. And it's usually one of their biggest meetings of the year. And uh here's an opportunity for for people to come home and join the join the joy.

SPEAKER_10

And worth praying as well just for Christian students going off to university because you know they've got to find new churches and actually that can be really tough, like finding a place that you think you're gonna sell into. Sometimes some places have got big Christian unions, some places haven't got very big ones.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10

And it's easy for people to sit through the cracks and just fall off the radar and you know, so it can make or break people, can't it? In some ways.

SPEAKER_09

So worth praying for absolutely, absolutely. Well, uh last night uh we released a new video. Um so I hope that you're all you've all liked our page on on uh Facebook and uh have subscribed on YouTube. Uh last night's video was called What Would Make You Change Your Mind? And uh really it was uh an examination of a great episode of Unbelievable that was out uh very recently, where Hamet Mater, the friendly atheist, took on Sean McDowell, the Christian apologist. Um it was it was the two things that the other side gets wrong. So they both they both had to come up with two things that that so the So atheists are always getting Christians wrong in these two ways, and then Christians are always getting atheists wrong in those two ways. And actually those two points were were really brilliant, but I I kinda yeah, in watching it, I thought there was this overall theme of how open are we to changing our mind, really. Um and I think, having watched the video and thought about it some more, I think my conclusion is not very.

SPEAKER_10

Yeah. No, I would agree. Yeah, I would agree with that. Yeah and I I think as we say, I think in the the video, um the reality is that that's not just one side or the other. Part of the discussion was, you know, Heyman felt you know, or you're the Christians or the the the theists, they're much more entrenched. You know, whereas if we uh an atheist of Richard Dawkins, as he gives the example, present them with the evidence that'll change their minds, and actually we see Heyman himself later on talking about even he doesn't feel he would change his mind.

SPEAKER_09

No.

SPEAKER_10

So both sides, you know, both sides are as bad as each other in that sense.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah, well I mean Sean McDowell came across as the most open to change. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10

Actually. That's true, but then also we did talk about how um you know, he says, doesn't he, if if I saw the bones someone brought the bones of Jesus, and you know, this is this is it was definitely the bones of Jesus, I have to get my faith. But we talked about even then Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the head and heart thing, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. You know, the head kind of says, Yeah, oh yeah, that's the rational thing, but the heart would still find that tricky.

SPEAKER_09

So should we have a look at uh uh an opening clip from this video and then we'll discuss some more? What would make you change your mind? Convince you that you are wrong about something. If you're really committed to one side, how do you come to the conclusion that you might need to switch?

SPEAKER_03

Have you noticed that our caps have actually got little pictures of skulls on them? I don't hands. Are we the baddies?

SPEAKER_09

And what about on the biggest question of all, the question of God? What would persuade you to switch from one side to the other? That was one question among many debated on the excellent program Unbelievable by Hammond Mater, the friendly atheist, and Sean McDowell, a Christian apologist. Here's the host of Unbelievable, Justin Riley, putting the question.

SPEAKER_08

Do you feel like you're open to believing if you had, I don't know, the right kind of evidence in front of you, that sort of thing?

SPEAKER_07

Yes, and I think every atheist would say the exact same thing. Of course we're open to it, that's the whole point. This isn't a dogmatic belief. That's the other side.

SPEAKER_08

Yes.

SPEAKER_07

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_08

Well of course I'm open to hearing it.

SPEAKER_07

And by the way, I I'm not just saying that to to get a laugh, but I have heard Christians ask the similar question. Sure. You know, if I showed you evidence that you were wrong about your beliefs, would you change it? And they will say, no. No, I believe this stuff is a hundred percent true. Whenever the evidence runs. Nothing will change my mind.

SPEAKER_09

Would you of course Heyman Mater would change his beliefs, not like those dogmatic Christians. Well, let's see how Sean McDowell answered the same question, put to him right at the end of the debate.

SPEAKER_05

You know, psychologically, if something Horrible happen to my wife or my kids. I mean, I think I'd be fooling myself if that didn't, if I didn't say that might make me doubt and question God. I don't know if that would make me give up my belief, but that might make me doubt. Look, the reality is I doubt my faith all the time. I live in doubt. I doubt everything. It's the way I'm wired. If I didn't doubt, I wouldn't write books and do research. It's just the way I'm put together. So I do doubt things. I think what would cause me to give up my faith is if I thought, number one, the resurrection was explained away. The heart of the Christian faith is the resurrection. And I find the evidence for that compelling. So if they found the body of Jesus, I would give up my faith.

SPEAKER_08

And Paul said he would as well.

SPEAKER_09

1 Corinthians 15, 14, he would. To be honest, Sean does not sound that dogmatic. He sounds pretty open. But what about Haymans? Is he saying that people like Sean are more dogmatic than some of the new atheists?

SPEAKER_05

I guess my question would be is are you saying our side's more dogmatic than like Dawkins is? Because yes, Dawkins and Dennett seems about as dogmatic as you can get.

SPEAKER_07

I think you're wrong.

SPEAKER_05

Tell me why. I'm interested to hear.

SPEAKER_07

I I think Dawkins would say the same thing I just answered you, not to speak for him, but to say, no, show me the evidence. I think he gets more attention and he the people want to hear what he has to say a lot more. So he comes across in a lot of ways that I don't necessarily it's not the way I would answer a lot of questions. So I think it's kind of easy to perceive him to be dogmatic, but I think if you ask him straight up, look, we have proof God exists, we have proof Jesus is that is the route to get there and stuff, he would he would hear it.

SPEAKER_10

Well it's funny that Heyman should say that, because just a few days prior to this event, Richard Dawkins was asked what would falsify his atheism. Here's what he said.

SPEAKER_04

Well, what it would take to convince me of anything supernatural. I find it very hard. I used to think it'd be easy.

SPEAKER_00

Well, that's a start, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04

I used I used to think that, but but I I mean I've seen so many good conjuring tricks and and and where where where you absolutely swear blind it's supernatural. Um and yet we we know it's a trick. Um I suppose if if if Jesus came down in the chariot from a cloud, that would do it for me, but um I want that piece of video excerpted and put on YouTube for this. Um I I still think actually a more plausible explanation than anything supernatural is natural we don't yet understand. And so a a a trick wrought by an alien civilization that we don't know about yet or something is actually as implausible as it is, it is more plausible than the laws of physics have been violated, which is what we're kind of talking about when we talk about.

SPEAKER_09

So Heyman said, We don't have a dogmatic belief, that's the other side. Yep. And then he said, Of course, you know, Dawkins would say he's very open, and of course, Dawkins says, look, even if God descends in a chariot, which is interesting that you know that's that's the God that Richard Dawkins doesn't believe in. He's this like super being who is like the Loch Ness monster, he lives, you know, far away. He's mainly undetectable. Sometimes he might show up to true believers, but that's that's the kind of God that he thinks, you know, God is. God's like the Loch Ness monster, and it's just Christians happen to think that he exists, and he's a rational person who's, you know, looked into the matter, and of course the Loch Ness monster doesn't exist. But anyway, so that's the kind of gods that he thinks is there. But such even if such a God shows up, he's like, Well, can't be God, because we know God doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_10

Well, uh he's interesting, isn't he, because he says, and we like even when he uses the example of um country drinks, he just says, Well, we just know they're they're not real. Right. But of course I mean there is actually of course we do know that, but at what point do you doubt that? Like saying, you know, and surely there's so many things that you can say, well we if you start saying well we just know this is not real or we know that's I mean you're just excluding anything straight away. Right. Well we just know.

SPEAKER_09

Right. You're like, well, yeah, yeah, yeah. And actually and then like when evidence is presented to your senses, you then say, Ah, but we can doubt our senses. And you're like, oh, okay, that's I understand why a rationalist might doubt their senses. Like the Greeks were brilliant at that. They they kind of retreated into the mind in order to figure out the world. So Aristotle just thought very deeply about biology. He didn't actually do any biological tests. So this this is why because Aristotle thought very deeply about the world, and because he didn't trust his senses, because your senses can lie to you, and there are optical illusions, and so let's let's retreat into the mind because rationality is like has this mathematical perfection to it. So he thought really, really deeply about the nature of reality, and he said that bees must have four legs. Because it it just seemed natural to him the bees must fit into thicks this kind of taxonomy, and and therefore, because they're in that category, they must be the same as these other animals that have four legs. And so he wrote down like bees have four legs, and it was taught for a thousand years. Nobody thought to count the legs. Maybe you look at a bee. Maybe look at a bee. You know, nobody thought to do that because they're all rationalists. And you just wonder, like, what are they doing? They they're counting on the bees' legs, going, one, two, three, four, three, four. Oh yeah, four, four legs. Um ra so the Greek mind is very much about retreating from the sense sense your your sensory perceptions, because your sensory perceptions can lie, but rationality is iron, right? And so that's the kind of world they come up with. So they're always doubting their senses. But actually, the scientific method is based on saying, okay, I don't care what you think in here. Let's do the test. Let's count how many legs the bees have. Let's actually do the experiments and try and falsify our beliefs. And so it's actually all about experimental data. That's what the scientific method is based on. And then Richard Dawkins is is has asked, okay, if if the experiment and the results come in, are you actually going to reconfigure your beliefs?

SPEAKER_10

Sure.

SPEAKER_09

No. No.

SPEAKER_10

Yeah, he won't let the data change what he already has has agreed on in his mind.

SPEAKER_09

No. No. And that's what we're all like.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09

Actually. Yeah, absolutely. That's what we're all like. You know, there's a good example. Andy might remember this. Andy Andy's in the corner running the show here. But uh we we once did uh a sunrise scene. Like we we were filming a video and we wanted to go to the beach to film sunrise. And so we got there like at ridiculous o'clock in the morning. It was like four in the morning or something, um, so that we could beat the sun. And we set up the the the camera, and uh we didn't have a timer, so I had to be there like clicking it every 30 seconds to do the time lapse, right? So every 30 seconds I'm pressing it, every 30 seconds I'm pressing it, and like an hour later, there's this massive ball of gold that emerges from the sea completely out of shot. I've only had like four hours' sleep, I'm getting up, I've set this whole thing up, Andy's gone somewhere else to take the you know a shot from another angle, and there I am taking my shots, and this massive ball of golden light is emerging from the sea out of shot, and my first thought is that can't be the sun.

unknown

Literally.

SPEAKER_09

Because I know the sun is gonna be there. I know that. I don't know what that thing is.

SPEAKER_10

It's definitely not gonna be the sun. No, no.

SPEAKER_09

Literally, I don't know how for how many seconds my brain was rationalizing this. But for but for let's let's say for three and a half seconds, I was thinking maybe it's a ship. Maybe it's Armageddon, maybe it's a nuclear device exploding. But what it cannot ever be is it can't be the sun because I know the sun will be there. Right. And like, and so what is repentance. And so what was it? And it was an alien playing a trick on me. See? And that's what Richard Dawkins would say, because we know the sun must be there, and so whatever that is, that that's gotta be an alien. Yeah, and that's more plausible than me getting it wrong. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And so like, but what what is repentance? Repentance is saying, I'm wrong, I'm an idiot, oops, this entire project has been, you know, misaligned, and then you change the camera.

SPEAKER_10

And is that why we find it so hard to change? Because there is that admitting you're wrong. I mean, there was that famous TED talk, wasn't there? The lady who says, What does it feel like to be wrong? and yeah, everyone's like, Oh, you know, it feels really rubbish to be wrong or whatnot. But actually said it feels exactly the same as right. Because when you're wrong, you don't necessarily know you're wrong.

SPEAKER_09

Everyone was going like that. She says, No, that's the answer to a different question. That's the answer to the question. When you know you're to know when you know you're wrong.

SPEAKER_10

And actually that that's the thing I think we're we all kind of we we shy away from, isn't it? You know, that's why we hold to our positions. Right. Um, I mean it it is you almost feel like to to concede something is to is to back down and to lose face. Right. You know. Right.

SPEAKER_09

Right. And so you know, and so the technical term for that these days is confirmation bias, you know, and so you're you're always getting loads of information coming at you, and your brain is sifting it, but it's not sifting it neutrally, you know. And so anything that confirms what you already believe, you put an incredible amount of store by that evidence. And anything that disconfirms your belief is like, ah, but I'm su I'm sure if you, you know, if you did a more thorough s you know study, I'm sure if the sample size was bigger, you know, and I'm I'm sure if you had a more peer-reviewed study somewhere it would contradict that. And so, you know, it's that that thing. If if you want something to be true, you ask, can I believe it? And the evidence bar, you know, the bar for evidence is really low. If you don't want something to be true, you ask, must I believe it? And you set the evidence bar hugely high. But that's just the way everyone is. It's not it's not just Richard Dawkins.

SPEAKER_10

No, absolutely. That is absolutely the case.

SPEAKER_09

But what's ironic about Dawkins et al. is that their picture of humanity is that that's what we have become.

SPEAKER_10

We have evolved to this state where we can now simply assess the data pure pure reason. Right. You know, unbiased away from anything that might interfere with that assessment.

SPEAKER_09

Our minds are like barcode readers and we just, you know, read the data blip blip blip and just, you know, kind of assemble our beliefs just purely from the facts. Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts. Which is just such uh I mean, no no wonder the new atheists are are kind of um done down for being religious fundamentalists. Because it's it's actually it's actually a really dogmatic position that that's just kind of like, well, we now we have arrived. We are the bright ones, we are the enlightened ones.

SPEAKER_10

Um we we've talked about it before, haven't we? Even just with the stupidest examples of the football managers. Yes. You know, the football managers who have exactly the same data in front of them about you know the penalty that was given. Right. And the one it was never a penalty, and the other one says it was definitely a penalty, even though they watched exactly the same footage, and it's because one wants it to be true and the other one doesn't want it to be true. And you know, that is such a stupid and trivial example, yeah. But it's such an everyday thing, you know. Oh, it was never a foul ref. Oh, it's totally a foul red card, should have been off.

SPEAKER_09

I see, and the Bible's just been talking about this from the garden. From the garden. You know, Adam and Eve make a mistake, the Lord shows up, and they say, Fair cop, you got me go. No. No, this woman you put here, you know, and this snake that you put here, and it's like the man blames the woman, the woman blames the snake, and then the snake doesn't have a leg to stand on.

SPEAKER_10

Hey, boom. Hades.

SPEAKER_09

Hades! For those just joining us, you'll have to go back and figure out the Hades reference.

SPEAKER_10

That reminds me of, you know, the the buck passing thing reminds me of. Did I tell you about my favourite part of Exodus is when Moses comes down and sees the golden calf and he asks Aaron what happened? He says, I don't know. I just threw this gold into fire, and it this calf just came out.

SPEAKER_09

Out came this idol.

SPEAKER_10

How did that happen?

SPEAKER_09

That's my explanation for blogging. When people ask, how did you get into blogging? I say, I just clicked a few buttons at WordPress and out came this blog. Pretty much is how it happened. But yeah, yeah, that's what we're like. We don't take responsibility, and it's always somebody else's fault, and we play the blame game, and it's self-justification, which is why when I'm driving down the motorway, everyone who drives faster than me is a maniac, and everyone who drives slower than me is an idiot. Yeah, absolutely. But I drive just right, yeah. Yeah. So it's it's just the way we are, and like theologians have put lots of different names to this. So part of original sin is that we share in this Adam-like nature. We don't come into the world as these blank slates who are just calmly assessing the data. We come into the world as part of Adam's family, part of and and as part of Adam's family, and and then we're always trying to justify ourselves. So original sin is about this, the bondage of the will, just a massive deal around the the Reformation. Certainly, Luther versus Erasmus, he was saying, no, the will is bound. And what he meant was not that we don't do what we want to do. Luther was like, No, that's exactly what we always do. We always just do what we want to do, and we're just slaves to our desires, slaves to our our hearts and and all that sort of stuff. So, like the Bible's been talking about this for millennia, and actually there's now much more of a scientific vocabulary around it in terms of confirmation bias and um oh what's the um I don't know the technical term for it, but you know, you know, like buyer's remorse. Um you know, you you you buy something and then the fear of missing out is another big one. Um and uh and they like they do studies, they do studies of couples, and they ask they ask the couples like how much housework do you do? And um, you know, and the and the woman typically says, I do a lot of housework, like 80%, and and the man says, I do a lot of housework, like 40%. But what's interesting is when you get them both in a in a separate room, it always adds up to much more than a hundred percent. You know, it's always and we're always, you know, and and maybe in this this next clip we'll have a look at uh at how some of the um how some of the vocabulary we use uh uh around uh our own opinions has developed. And it starts off with one of my favorite clips um about this whole issue. Uh it's from The Man with Two Brains, where um Steve Martin's wife is dead, um, and he's being kind of seduced by Kathleen Turner. And Kathleen Turner is bad news, and he doesn't he shouldn't get together with her. And so he asks his dead wife whether he should pursue this relationship with Dolores, and the results are pretty funny.

SPEAKER_01

Rebecca. Just give me a summary.

SPEAKER_00

Just any kind of sign. I'll keep on the lookout for it. Meanwhile, I'll just put you in the closet.

SPEAKER_10

Thanks. Put you in the closet.

SPEAKER_09

And that's that's everybody, really. Yeah. Yeah. That is totally everybody. And especially when matters of the heart are at stake.

SPEAKER_10

And yeah, I mean we go on to talk about the Jonathan Heidt right uh elephant thing, isn't it? The the elephant and the rider, where you know, the we're we are like uh an elephant a six-ton elephant with a rider on top, and the rational brain is is the rider at the top there, and the uh the emotions are the elephant. And we like to think we're the ones in charge, we're the rational ones, and we can control where we're going. But of course, it actually it's the six-ton elephant that really has ultimate control over where we're going, and actually that's the same with us, just like our emotions will override our rational, logical thinking.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_10

Um, you know, it's not to say, I don't think we say in the video, it's not to say that we can't turn on the reins and pull one way or the other. Um but we're so driven by the emotions of stuff.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah. And in Jonathan Haidt's book, uh The Righteous Mind, which is a terrific read, but um he he sort of says, you know, let's let's uh look at the human personality. Are we more like uh judges or defence lawyers? Like what like what what's our brain how does our brain function in our life? Is it more like a judge that's trying to assess uh each side of every argument and come up with the truth? Or uh are our brains basically the defence lawyers for our egos? That basically, you know, our entire job is to defend our ego no matter what. Yeah. Like which rings true.

SPEAKER_10

Like, you know, why are you being so defensive? Don't go on the defensive. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_09

Or he gives the this other illustration of um we're we're not like um these truth-seeking reporters who are trying to be journalists just after the truth. Uh we're much more like the press secretary. Like, imagine the president's pr press secretary. What's what's on it? Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Yeah. Imagine having her job.

SPEAKER_10

I I She's earning her money.

SPEAKER_09

You could not pay that woman enough. Because think about her job. What is her job? Her job is to defend everything that comes out of Donald Trump's mouth. Isn't that amazing that there's such a person who's tasked with that, you know?

SPEAKER_10

You can never admit.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah, you can never admit that yeah. You can never say, ah, fair enough. You're probably right. Donald will be out later for an apology.

SPEAKER_10

It's yeah, and it's but as I say it's everyone, I mean I've recently I've hit a real I've hit a low point in my life that I've and the car on the way to work started listening to radio for. Okay, that's the level I've hit now.

SPEAKER_09

From two?

SPEAKER_10

From two. Ah, so you're already on the slide. You were already on the slide. You're only on the morning though, you can't listen on the way back, it's not worth it at that time of day. But it's always like some political thing in the morning, and they're always talking to a politician, Theresa May today, Philip Hammond yesterday, and all kinds of people. And they ask them questions, and you sit there and you think you've not answered that question. And they never even admit to the possibility that something might be slightly off, that they could have got that wrong. I know.

SPEAKER_09

Wouldn't it be so refreshing though if they did?

SPEAKER_10

Yeah, we really stuffed that up.

SPEAKER_09

That's a good question. Yeah. Yeah. We haven't done any of the costing on this. Sorry.

SPEAKER_10

So yeah, even just a simple no. Yes or yes or no. Yeah. Yeah. But you you can't you can't say face. Like you have to say face the whole time. Yeah, yeah. But it all comes over as so fake, you know. Yeah. It's just empty words in the end. I know.

SPEAKER_09

I know, and and and okay, let me I've I've said something negative about Donald Trump. Let's you know, maybe part of the appeal of Donald Trump is that he's this guy who just like doesn't care. Yeah. He doesn't care what you think. Um doesn't mean he doesn't lie, but he just doesn't care what you think. You know. And he doesn't care about your accusations of his l him lying either. You know, but he'll just he'll just say it. Yep. So I mean an another bit of sort of technical language that Jonathan Haidt speaks of is uh the difference between argumentation theory and argumentative theory. So Jonathan Haidt will say, It used to be the case, we used to think, that the way humanity ascended towards truth was by argumentation. And I'll state my case and you'll state your case, and hmm, synthesis, antithesis, ah, here we go, you know, like thesis, antithesis, synthesis, and we'll just type keep ascending to truth through these argumentations. But he said that's totally getting overtaken um in all the scientific literature by argumentative theory.

SPEAKER_10

Right.

SPEAKER_09

So with argumentative theory, I don't care what's right. I'm just gonna win.

SPEAKER_10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09

Right.

SPEAKER_10

So it's more about is this going back to some of the stuff we talked about before about it's really about who shouts louder and who's who's bigger and stronger can overpower the other side.

SPEAKER_09

Right. And i and when I'm in an argument, like do I say something like, is truth my goal or is winning my goal? Right? Most of the time it's winning, isn't it? And actually a lot of uh you know, obvious obviously these scientists are kind of working from a uh purely Darwinian kind of paradigm, in which case actually winning is everything. But truth can take behindmost. Who cares about truth if I've got to survive, I've got to mate, I've got to reproduce my DNA, I'm not really after truth, I'm just after winning. So if if all our minds and all our social interactions are the process of just trying to win over multiple generations, why would we ever think that actually our brains are fit to just look for the truth?

SPEAKER_10

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_09

You know? So yeah, so Jonathan Haidt is a is a great friend um of of Christians, actually, because I I think he is I think he's just pointing to some really ancient wisdom from the scriptures, the bondage of the will. You know, and and like in in the history of the church, Anselm said actually the way we know things. Is it's faith seeking understanding.

SPEAKER_10

Right.

SPEAKER_09

So it's faith. You know, I've already got a creed in my head. Yeah. I already believe in Jesus. I trust in him, but I'm seeking to unpack that and account for well, what about this and what about that? And so it's it's I've already got axioms, I've already got presuppositions, and then off I go into the world. And he's just being honest about that. That's the way we are. It's not that it's understanding that leads to faith, it's faith-seeking understanding. Um what you mentioned in the in the video, Thomas Cranmer, you like one way of summarizing Crammer is what the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies.

SPEAKER_10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09

And it's that and the mind comes last, you know. And it's just it's just the truth, you know. Like like if you if you spend a a decent amount of money on a purchase, um, and someone comes and says, Oh, you wasted your money on that, didn't you? Actually, we're we're far more likely to say, Oh no, it was a good purchase, it was wise, I you know, and we'll we'll defend ourselves because it's but it's always a post hoc. It's always after the fact that we kind of defend ourselves and we justify it. So I think all the scientific stuff these days is kind of like aligning with this these ancient truths. Um I've been watching a really interesting uh TED talk by Donald Hoffman. Uh Donald Hoffman, um uh he kind of talks about how do we see reality as it is? And Hoffman kind of he's run all these experiments on a purely Darwinian model, and he he kind of says, you like, imagine these different societies in which you know one society can can try to win. Survive, one society can try to seek for the truth and what the reality of the situation is. And he says, in hundreds of thousands of these um mathematical models, it's always the survival one that wins. It's all it's always argumentative theory that wins over argumentation. It's just we're not that rational. So it's just so it's just ironic when new atheists, there's all sorts of different atheisms, and um n not every atheism at all like falls for this kind of view, but the new atheism totally does. It's like it's like Hammond Mater saying, no, we're not dogmatic, that's the other side.

SPEAKER_10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09

All the while, nothing would convince him that he's wrong.

SPEAKER_10

And fair play, we say at the end of the video as well. Yeah, you know, we're we we fall just for that, we fall for that just as much as anyone.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah. We do. And but but then I just sort of say, well, okay okay, we've got a disagreement about God. So new atheists and Christians have a disagreement about God. Alright, fine, we can carry on that debate as well. But we've also got a disagreement about humans. And I just think I just think it's demonstrably true that the new atheists get humans wrong.

SPEAKER_10

Yeah, that is yeah, that is something which you can you can assess, that you can you can look at and see.

SPEAKER_09

I think so. I think so. Well we had some we had some comments on the video uh last night, and I thought it'd be just be good to to have a look at some of them. Um we had uh uh a few comments from Richard Suttles, um who's been inter interacting uh really well, and I've learned I've learnt lots from uh interacting with Richard over the last week or so. Um and he says, uh on screenshot number one, uh he says, I agree that atheists can be just as dogmatic as any religious person. Some key metrics for dogmatism within the atheist camp, that all religion must be eliminated. That's sort of dogma one. Dogma two, that people can completely remove their own biases and achieve pure reason. Uh admittedly, some religious people also think this is possible. And then dogma three, that religious people suffer from a mimetic virus, whilst atheists have had that virus removed, either from other atheists or just by thinking it through, or that atheists are just immune to it because of their strong critical thinking skills. So just real candor there from Richard, who himself identifies as an atheist, um, but I don't think you'd identify as a new atheist. Would you, Richard? Um you could you could maybe leave a leave a comment, but um um it sounds it sounds to me like um you wouldn't want to I I identify, certainly with the anthropology that we've been talking about, that uh Heyman and and uh Richard Dawkins uh subscribe to. So that that's and and that's really refreshing. I I think we could you know do the same with uh some of the dogmatisms of of Christians, and and I think Christians also we get our anthropology wrong too at times, especially we we can carry on as though people are just rational decision-making individuals who they just need to make a choice for Jesus. You know. Um which is a really enlightenment thing, and I th I think evangelicalism falls into this massively.

SPEAKER_10

Well, and haven't you got into a few um scrapes of scrapes with kind of Christian apologists who are very much of the opinion like we're just gonna pr we get the evidence for the resurrection. Right. Here's why the resurrection can be believed, right? Here's why you know this happened, we can be sure, etcetera, etcetera. Right. Um as if that is the thing that will take people across the line. Yeah, yeah. Um and I think it was you who were saying you know, interestingly, like so we we do apologetics now for the resurrection, you know, so we say, you know, here's the reasons the resurrection can be believed, you know.

SPEAKER_09

Evidence for the resurrection.

SPEAKER_10

Whereas someone like Paul in Acts 17. Yeah, his his apologetic for believing in Christ is the resurrection. The resurrection. He doesn't feel the need to be like That is his evidence. Yeah, he says the resurrection, there you go, Jesus rose from the dead. Yeah, yeah. So it's like we've stepped another step back from that, right, if not a few.

SPEAKER_09

Right. Um I think yeah, I think particularly with evangelicalism, and that's that's my tribe, um, is that yeah, there's there's an idea that the gospel uh is an idea that just needs to be spread, and as long as you have that idea in your head, um you're cool, you're golden. And and where we are more resistant to church and structure and institution and liturgy and an embodied life of discipleship and that sort of thing. It's w uh our our temptation is always just to say, oh well, the gospel is an idea that is to be you know communicated person to person. Um and that that's that's obviously caricaturing, but I think that is I think that is a danger. Um and it starts to sound very much like the Enlightenment philosophy um that the new atheists also have.

SPEAKER_10

Um And the thing that strikes me, like in peop people I know who've come to church recently, who who aren't necessarily Christians but have come to church, the thing that's always struck them most has always been like, oh, people were so welcoming, and it was more to do with the way people were living their lives and the way they engaged them. Right. Rather than I've very rarely heard someone just say immediately oh well they said something in the talk and that was immediately the thing that's you know. I mean that that does happen.

SPEAKER_09

Right.

SPEAKER_10

But more often than not, it was coming into that community and going, Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_09

It wasn't the idea that changed them, and then they've got this new dogma. Because that would be as though we are all just riders, you know, we chatter away as riders and the rider our riders are making our decisions for us. Yeah. And I think what actually herds our elephants in a in a similar direction is community. It's embodied church life, it's going the way of Jesus, it's you know, and so you know, we finished the video um last night, you know, with Paul suggesting, you know, why why don't you commit yourself to a year of prayer and a year of throwing yourself into church life and and and all those sorts of things. Um So Richard Um in his next comment, he actually comments on that. Uh he says, uh as for Paul's advice on the metrics for being uh for really being open-minded, that is, prayer, community, immersion in scripture and narratives, this is how all groups work. And he says, We had three LDS visitors, that's Mormons, in our home last week, including the bishop for the local ward. He said, I promise you, if you read the Book of Mormon and truly pray about it and spend time with us as part of our community, and if you do this diligently and sincerely every day, you will come to see our faith as truth. And I said, You're absolutely right we would. But that would also be the case for Jehovah's Witnesses or Scientology or even the new atheism. Groups are all about keeping their ideals alive, and humans are great for making that happen because we are all naturally adept at social learning. We are even better at that than rational thinking, so true. So open mindedness might remain elusive for all of us. We might all improve our critical thinking skills through awareness and research and listening to people with disconfirming views, but we might also have to concede that our own worldview might not be the pure objective truth. And this applies to me just as much as you. I think that's just so true. And and again, I th I think this is kind of the Protestant danger. The Protestant danger, I think we have rightly said that the church can err, and therefore we need the gospel to judge the church. You know, the church always needs to be living by the gospel. But then the danger that we divorce the gospel from the church, and so we just have this idea, and we're just communicating ideas. Um whereas I think we need the community together with the truth, so that our truth is communally inhabited and understood, and our communities are are living by that truth. Um that's that's what I said to Richard on the on the next um picture. Dude, do you want to say something?

SPEAKER_10

Yeah, I was just I was just thinking like you know, the idea of living the gospel. Yeah. Which actually on a lot of kind of uh Protestant understanding is quite a str would be a really weird thing to say. Mm-hmm. Because you'd be like, what do you mean living this this doctrine you know? Because what do you mean living two ways to live out? You know, like that would be kind of what people would speak. You you speak the gospel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um yeah, it's interesting to trying to get your head around that, isn't it, and trying to think how it's the danger is that we fall foul of stuff like that.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah. And I think it's I think it's important to distinguish and to say the root is the gospel and the fruit is this kind of life and this kind of community. Um but a root and a fruit shouldn't be severed either, you know, and we we need to keep them together. Um so I responded to Richard uh yes, communities of faith are vital for upholding that faith. Practice and belief must go together. Perhaps this is why Jordan Peterson's stealing a lot of Sam Harris's audience. Peterson insists that the truth be embodied. It's got to be because it's got to be because the word became flesh. So the truth must be communally inhabited. But what I challenge the cults with, and because he he mentions cults and he mentions JWs and Mormons and Scientologists, I think there is a challenge to them. Uh we we've got to insist that those communities be truth-based. The Mormons and the JWs will keep out books from beyond their community. Scientologists likewise don't like lights shone throughout their community. At that point, it's not a community of truth. We've got to have both. So if if the objection is um you know, uh any community can rationalize any truth. So if you just if you just inhabit like a Mormon church for a year, you just become a Mormon. Become a Mormon, yeah, sure. Um my pushback on that would just be actually the the trouble with Mormonism is that they are not open to truth. Um, you know, they they won't read the literature that you give to them. They they you know, they they it all is kept within the community, so that the community shields them from the truth rather than helps them to investigate the truth. I think that's that's the problem with the cults. Um, yes, we need communities of faith, um, communities that live by the truth, but they also need to be investigating that truth. Um And then uh Richard said this. He said, uh sorry for being the multi-post guy, but this video you guys just made is probably one of my favorite Christian clips of all time. Wahe! Win. Win Um Judos to both of you for embracing scientific literature that points out our inherent irrationality. I understand many Christians also agree we have that stain, but so often we see Christian apologists fighting the new atheism mantra of we're the purely rational ones, with no, we're the purely rational ones. It's amazing that actually humans aren't rational is a third narrative that many believers and non-believers reject first and foremost before they return to arguing with each other over which worldview is based on reason. And I don't know how to articulate those emojis, but you've you've got to see them. They're good, they're good. On a final note, Pastor Tim Keller, who I'm a big fan of, said last year in a debate with Jonathan Haidt, a debate in which they both chose not to debate, uh, Keller said that if the science is correct about our inherent irrationality, then Christianity would provide the best explanation for that. I would say so too. As Pastor Keller explained, because I understand our human nature, I know for a fact that atheists and people of other religions can behave better than me. This was a powerful statement that many Christians struggle with. It is counterintuitive. But if we are inherently irrational, then the best explanation for our existence will include the observation of uh observations of our demonstrably inconsistent thoughts and actions. I totally agree. And uh and something that we're gonna get into next week, actually, because we're gonna return to the Heyman Mata Sean McDowell video, uh, on the subject of morality. And I think it's it's just so true that I can say to an atheist, Oh, you can be far more moral than me. Um and you can be far more consistent, like rationally, th than I am. But it's because I do think that there's a that there's a standard that judges both me and my my atheist friend. Um so but but actually, yeah, it is powerful. It's a powerful move to say, Well, of course you can be better better than me. Of course you can be more thoughtful than me. Um But let's look at why that might be the case. And a Christianity that includes our own messed upness and our own bondage of the will and and original sin. Um I think that's a powerful way forward that hopefully avoids some of the new atheist versus Christian evidentialist quagma. Anyway, that's a hope. That's a hope. Um that'll do for now, I think. Um we can we can have a look at some other comments uh next week. But uh but next week, what what what are we gonna look at, uh Paul?

SPEAKER_10

Uh what are we looking at next week? What in uh terms the video Yeah the morality video? Yeah, so we are we're returning, as you said, to um Heymant and Sean. Although a lot of it actually we're focusing back to a previous uh discussion Heymant had on Unbelievable with Leah Leah or Leah Leah. Um a number of years ago, probably about six years ago.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah, twenty twelve.

SPEAKER_10

Yeah, like that. So um about morality um and where do morals where where does Heymant in particular, I suppose, ground his morals.

SPEAKER_09

Yes. Um we're thinking of calling the video Where Do You Get Your Trousers From?

SPEAKER_10

Which if you watch next week you'll understand why uh we've gone down that road of where do you get your trousers from?

SPEAKER_09

So where yeah, I've got what are you talking about? I've got trousers. My trousers are fine. No, but where do you get your trousers? Only only you and I know what we're laughing at. But anyway, you'll see. All will be revealed. And uh so do uh do keep praying for us. So right now I'm gonna get in a car and go up to Cambridge and uh I'm preaching tonight uh in Cambridgeshire and then tomorrow night uh for the Christian or for the Christian Union there. Um and you're you're speaking on Friday, is that right?

SPEAKER_10

Friday and Sunday, yep. So I've got I'm speaking at uh a youth group in Crowborough in my hometown on Friday nights on Genesis sixteen, God Who Sees Me. And then I'm speaking uh at the church in Eastbourne Sunday morning on Exodus eleven and twelve. Brilliant. So it's been that which has been a lot of fun actually. Yeah, and getting the plagues. Yeah. Yeah. Or just the last plague. Just the last plague, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_09

And uh and I will this time next week I will be up in uh Newcastle. Uh yeah, helping them uh with uh a mission. So Jesmond Parish Church is reaching out to Newcastle. I'm gonna be interviewing Tim Farron and uh Warren Furman and a few other people.

SPEAKER_10

Do you know who Warren Furman is? Ace from Gladiators. Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_09

I don't know why he didn't just call himself Warren on the show.

SPEAKER_10

But he was just hawk and Warren. Warren.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'll be talking to him and uh it should be good and reaching out with the good news. So uh yeah. Great. Good. Sounds fun. Sounds fun, hope you will survive Freshers Week.

SPEAKER_10

Gonna get a free spatula.

SPEAKER_09

That's right. Yeah. Survivors, we reconvene here on Tuesday. So see you then.

SPEAKER_10

Bye. Take care. See ya.