It sounds that you're more than just a political Christian, and it sounds that they actually believe it. I came here to persuade you I'm you're not a Christian, I think you are a Christian. And I think Christianity is nonsense. Suppose it were true that atheism doesn't offer anything. So what?
SPEAKER_04Hi, I'm Glenn from Speak Life. We like to see all things through the lens of Jesus. I was there last year when Ayan Hersey Ali came out as a Christian. She then went on to write a much-read article for Unheard, Why I Am Now a Christian. This got many tongues wagging, including Richard Dawkins, who said this.
SPEAKER_05I adore I am. Um I'm I'm a great fan of hers. I think for her, Christianity is a bastion against something worse.
SPEAKER_04But they promised to get together and talk about it, and that's what happened at the dissident dialogues in New York last month. Freddie Sayers hosted, and he asked Aya to explain herself.
SPEAKER_03Just tell us the story how such a famous atheist, someone who had rejected religion, came to call herself a Christian.
SPEAKER_00So I want to say that I didn't, like many people who um come to faith, I didn't see big banging lights and I didn't have um any of those spectacular experiences that some people share. I wish I did, but I didn't.
SPEAKER_04I actually don't know many people who do have the bright shining lights. People talk about the road to Damascus experience, which the Apostle Paul had. Uh I tend to think most people have a road to a Mayus experience in which Christ sidles up to a couple on Easter Sunday and leads them slowly through a Bible study and then shares fellowship with them over a meal, and eventually their eyes are opened. I think that's the way most people come to faith. Not with the bright shining light. And I think that'll be important for Ayan's story, but also the stories of many coming after her if there's going to be a wave of adult converts. I don't think they'll necessarily come through a Damascus Road experience, but I think they will walk an Emmaus Road, and I think Ayan's story might be emblematic of that kind of journey.
SPEAKER_00I had uh a personal crisis. Um I lived for about a decade with intense depression and anxiety, self-loathing.
SPEAKER_04This is an amazing opening to Ayan's story. There was much criticism about her unheard article that seemed to foreground geopolitical issues like Islam and wokery and big powers like Iran and China. Uh, and yet here she is focusing right down on the personal, the intensely personal, and it's it's a very intimate moment. And look at Richard leaning in. I think Richard is expecting Ayan to tell a story about geopolitics and why we need to all shore ourselves up with a bit of cultural Christianity, and Ayan comes straight in with the intensely personal.
SPEAKER_00I hit rock bottom. I went to a place where I actually didn't want to live anymore, but wasn't brave enough to take my own life, and so I was self-medicating. I had over a long period of time seen um psychiatrists, other doctors. I was trying to understand my condition and trying to treat it with the help of pure evidence-based science. And in January, February of um last year, I saw one therapist who said perhaps it's something else that you have, and she described it as spiritual bankruptcy.
SPEAKER_04That's only 18 months ago. So she's uh she's a very young believer.
SPEAKER_00And that resonated with me, and having reached a place where I had absolutely nothing to lose, um I prayed, and I prayed it desperately, and for me that was a turning point. And what happened after that is a miracle in its own right. Um I feel connected to something higher and greater than myself. I feel um my zest for life is back. Um that experience um has filled me with humility, I have to say. And and it is something that's very subjective, it's extremely difficult to explain. I'm trying to work, you know, get into the details, the granular details of how I got there in a book, but that is a short um that's you know the shortest story that I can tell.
SPEAKER_04Interesting. I think that's the same for all of us. I think we don't really know what we've gone through if we've changed our mind about anything, let alone about God. I I think we are always looking back upon a miracle, and we don't really know what the logical steps are because it might not have been a syllogism that brought us to faith. It almost certainly wasn't. And so what we are looking back upon is a miracle. Like, how did the water turn into the white? I don't know. At what stage did it turn into? I I don't know. I'm reflecting back upon a miracle, and and that's what Ayan is doing, and I think it completely wrong foots Richard. She's come in with the intensely personal testimony. What's Richard gonna respond with?
SPEAKER_03Let's go to to Richard Dawkins' reaction because he Ayan, that that that's a a moving personal story, but to call herself a Christian is a bit different.
SPEAKER_05I mean, a Christian has to believe in something.
SPEAKER_04She's just talked about praying, she's gotten to rock bottom, she's talk talked about praying, opening herself up in supreme humility, and then feeling connected, connected to whatever is there and and and life and everything else. Um to say that that's not a belief. I of course that's a belief. That that's belief in practice. So John Calvin said that prayer is the first exercise of faith, actually. To pray is to exercise your belief, your belief that there's someone on the other end of the line listening to you. Um so absolutely, she is expressing her faith, but Richard is looking for something else. He he wants Christianity to be something else. What should Christianity be, Richard?
SPEAKER_05I mean, uh, any well, you go to church now, um, and you listen to the vicar, and uh do you kind of notice what a lot of nonsense he talks?
SPEAKER_04Wait, wait, have you seen his tie? I love his tie, it's the double helix. It's got all it's it's it's like a genome. He's he's kind of he's got DNA going down the the tie. And and so that's the kind of place he's coming from. Jordan Peterson now uh nowadays has these tailored uh jackets with kind of icons all over it. Richard Dawkins has gone for double helix on the tie. Do you notice what a lot of nonsense that Vickers talk, Ion?
SPEAKER_05I mean, do you really take it seriously? That Jesus is the Son of God, Jesus rose from the dead, Jesus was born of a virgin, and that's part of Christianity.
SPEAKER_04So I the change of gear is just so striking between the intensely personal I fell to my knees, I prayed out of existential despair, and I suddenly felt connected, and suddenly I was given my life back again. Yes, but can you tick off these items from the Creed? says Richard Dawkins. That's the important thing. Such an interesting clash between two ways of seeing the world. And actually, Freddie Sayers and Alex O'Connor reflected back on this conversation after it happened.
SPEAKER_02You were there as well at the event that they the uh where I am just spoke to Richard Dawkins, and Dawkins, and she gave a very moving account. It was almost comical the way that she sort of talks about her her incredible story of depression and suicidality and manages to crawl out of it by praying. And then Richard Dawkins has to go, yes, but do you believe in the virgin birth? Like, you know, that's that's the important thing. Like I that was that was that was very tough to respond to.
SPEAKER_04Pretty strange, but Ian said, I tough to respond to, says Freddie Sayers. Pretty strange, says Alex O'Connor. Now, neither of these are Christians or believers in God, as far as I'm aware. And and yet both of them look on at Richard Dawkins' response to Ayan and and they're like, This is weird. The Richard Dawkins response is weird. And even somebody like Alex O'Connor, who's made a name for himself in anti-theist YouTube, nevertheless looks on at Richard Dawkins' response to Ion and was like, This is this is weird. This is not really the right response to Ion's story. And I think that's significant. But Ayn said, I choose to believe it.
SPEAKER_02She said, I'm so moved by the personal aspect that I just choose to believe that what they're saying is true. A lot of people tell me that I have a God-shaped whole. It seems to me that maybe Ayan has a whole-shaped God, right? Like there's it's no surprise to me that this is what's happening. Of course, people are going to be sort of like depressed and nihilistic for a while after something like the technological revolution. Maybe also new atheism is partly responsible for that. I mean, for a while it's kind of cool, you know? Oh, there's no meaning, it's all just molecules and motions. Like, do you do you perceive your mother with that worldview?
SPEAKER_04Do you perceive your mother with that worldview? I I think that's a very funny play on obviously, do you kiss your mother with that mouth? Like if somebody uses certain words, you say, Do you kiss your mother with that mouth? Do you take that behavior into that realm of life? And does Richard Dawkins take the same rational, left-brained kind of logicality into every other aspect of his life, into his love relationships, into his relationships with his family and friends and everyday life? Does Richard Dawkins have a view of the world that is actually scalable and can be lived out at every level? Because it seems like Aion Hussey Ali is bringing something existential, something that actually makes sense of life, and that can lift you out of a pit. And Richard Dawkins is bringing a completely different kind of conceptuality, worldview to it. And it's it's a massive clash of kind of left brain, right brain going on here. Anyway, back to New York and the Aion and Richard Dawkins conversation.
SPEAKER_00So I think because you and I know you very well, we've been friends for a long time, and in fact, in some ways, I think of you as a mentor.
SPEAKER_04Notice how very personal she is. Richard says, Do you believe the Vecca when he talks about Jesus and the virgin birth and the resurrection? And Aion's coming back with, Richard, I know you. We're friends. We go way back. You're a mentor. I respect you. She's going to the intensely personal. It's fascinating.
SPEAKER_00Um I would say you're coming at this from a place of there is nothing. And what has happened to me is I think I have accepted there is something.
SPEAKER_04That is such simple language to describe perhaps the most foundational posture you can take to the world. Do you think there is something? Do you think there is nothing? Richard Dawkins thinks there is nothing. Ayaan Hersy Ali has opened herself out to the possibility that there is something. And I think she's quite right to say that Richard has closed himself off to the possibility that there is more than what we can see, touch, taste, and feel. He's on record as saying things like this, which he says to Peter Bogosian in this conversation.
SPEAKER_05What would it take for you to believe in God? Well, I used to say uh it would be very simple. It would be uh, you know, the second coming of Jesus or or a great big, deep, booming, bass Paul Robeson voice, um uh saying, I am God and and and I created. But I was persuaded mostly by actually uh Steve Zarro, who's a who's a regular contributor to my website, RichardJorkins.net.
SPEAKER_04I know Steve Zarro. I've interacted with him on Twitter loads and loads. He he's a really fun guy.
SPEAKER_05Um he he more or less persuaded me that if you even if there was this booming voice and a second coming in clouds of glory, the more probable explanation is that it's a hallucination or a conjuring trick by David Copperfield or something. Um I mean he he he made the point that a supernatural explanation for anything is incoherent.
SPEAKER_04That that it just doesn't sort of it it it doesn't add up to an explanation for for anything. Um I mean a supernatural explanation for this world is the predominant explanation for this world around around the world and down through history. Four millennia, billions of people have shared it. Apparently it's all incoherent. It's all incoherent because it doesn't talk the language that Richard Dawkins talks. Peter Begosian comes back and sort of asks him the same question again.
SPEAKER_07What would what would persuade you?
SPEAKER_05Well, I'm starting to think nothing would. Uh which which is which in a way goes against the grain because I've always paid lip service to the view that a scientist should change his mind when evidence is forthcoming. The trouble is I can't think what that evidence would look like.
SPEAKER_04Isn't that fascinating? He's meant to pay lip service to the idea that evidence could persuade him, but he can't conceive of the kind of evidence that would reorient him in the world and and make him believe in gods. Richard Dawkins is completely cut off. He is exactly what Ayan says he is. He does not think that there is something more, and nothing will persuade him. He said he's on record of saying nothing could persuade him because of the orientation that he has in the world. Which reminds me very much of solipsism. Do you know what solipsism is? It's the belief that I and I alone am the only thing that exists in the universe. I have a radical doubt about whether there are other minds, I have radical doubt about whether there's an external world, it's just me. And if I take that posture with what is external to me, you can't argue me out of it. You literally can't, because whatever argument you're going to bring to me, I I could conclude that that's all just part of my perceptions anyway. Every argument you make against solipsism is an argument that I will experience within my own consciousness. But my own consciousness is everything, right? And so, of course, your arguments against solipsism are going to come to me within my own consciousness. It can all be explained by my own consciousness. I don't have to go outside my consciousness. And so the solipsist kind of draws a circle around what they are certain of. What they are certain of is their own mind, their own consciousness, their own thoughts. And everything that presents itself as being from outside their thoughts and their consciousness is doubted. And you can constantly, as a solipsist, just say, prove it! Prove that there's an external world. But every single proof that comes to you you can dismiss. You can dismiss it because every other disproof of your solipsism actually occurs within your own solipsistic mind. The same thing is true of a Richard Dawkins style of atheist. You can set yourself up inside a circle, and of course Richard Dawkins believes in mind and other minds and the external world. But there's this thing, this entity called God, and there is no way for God to break in and reveal himself. Richard Dawkins has said, even if God shows up in a big booming Paul Robeson voice, Richard Dawkins doesn't have to believe that because every way in which God would show up, he would show up in the world and present to his own perceptions and thoughts. And so Richard Dawkins has taken up a position like solipsism. I call it solidism, okay? The only thing that exists is matter, right? Matter in motion is all there is, it's just solid. Solidism. And you are a prisoner of that, and nothing will break you out of that if that is your posture to the world. Ayan is absolutely right to start where she starts. Richard, you assume that there is nothing. I have opened myself out to something, and it turns out there is something.
SPEAKER_00And when you accept that there is something, and there is a powerful um entity, for me, the the God that that turned me around.
SPEAKER_04The God that turned me around. I love that. God is deliverer, God is redeemer, God is savior. And in a sense, you're not really going to encounter such a God until you hit rock bottom. Jesus, his name means savior. And you're really not going to encounter the God who is savior until you recognize you need saving, you need delivering, you need redeeming. So no wonder Ayan at rock bottom opens herself out to something, praise, and she encounters the God of redemption, the God of deliverance, the God of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00What the Vicar is saying no longer sounds nonsensical, it makes a great deal of sense. And not only does it make a great deal of sense, it's also layered with the wisdom of millennia.
SPEAKER_04To call Christianity nonsense, you've just called the greatest intellectual movement in the history of the world nonsense. And and that's like that's like calling Beethoven's ninth a cacophony, right? If you if you listen to Beethoven's ninth, you think that's a cacophony. Um that says nothing about Beethoven, that says everything about you. If you can look at centuries of Christian intellectual endeavor and call it nonsense, it it honestly doesn't say very much about Christianity. It it says much more about you.
SPEAKER_00Like you, I did mock uh faith in general, and probably Christianity in particular, but I don't do that anymore. And and again, that is where the humility comes into it, is it doesn't seem in 2024 after I went through that experience, um I it doesn't seem nonsensical to me, and it doesn't I I I don't mock it.
SPEAKER_04It's about posture. Now it's a humble posture, now it's openness to something greater, now it's a recognition of need, and I need deliverance from outside myself. And what the vicar is saying hasn't changed. I've changed. It's our perceptions. What you pay attention to literally changes what you are able to see. That's what Elizabeth Oldfield said in that wonderful unheard conversation. Let's hear her say that because I think it it so explains what's going on with Ayan.
SPEAKER_03This is what Richard Dawkins was posing to Ayan Hirsiali a couple of weeks ago. It's the stumbling block that a lot of people just can't get beyond. Okay. Which is fine, even if it might make society better, it might make us as individuals more fulfilled and all the rest of it. If you have to believe a series of things which you know to be rationally not true, people don't want to do that.
SPEAKER_01So I don't think these are two separate things. I think in the practice of the rituals and the communities and the practices, those are modes of attention. They shape us. You have had Ian Gilchrist here all the time. There'll be lots of people here who know the work of Emiguilch who talks about the different modes of attention of our brain hemispheres. We live in a left hemispheric world. It has trained us to see certain things. The way you pay attention changes what you are able to see. Ritualized, communal, emotional, embodied forms of practice literally make it easier for you to see what is really there. I think God is really there. I think there is a logic of love in the universe that wants to meet us. But if you have to start with, I can't get on board with that, I don't know how to make sense of the metaphysics. But like Pascal, I'm just gonna go to church and see what happens. Those things actually come together into a beautiful union.
SPEAKER_04I think that's just so beautiful. So beautiful. And this is what Ayan and her husband Neil, they go to church, they learn a little more Sunday by Sunday as they listen to the vicar tell his story about Jesus and the virgin birth and the resurrection from the dead and all that kind of stuff. As they submit themselves to that, and as they take a posture of humility and of need and of openness, um, as they seek those sorts of things, it is not a case of switching your brain off so that you can just get a little bit of self-help. It is a case of paying attention to what is actually there, but being in a posture that is ready to receive it. The problem of the solipsist is not that they are clever or that they are stupid. The problem with the solipsist is their posture. Are they actually open to trust what is coming towards them? If the solipsist is loved by somebody outside of themselves that is trying to save them from their solipsism, at some point they will have to trust in the approach of another who has come to deliver them, and they need to be open. They need to have a posture of humility and prayer and openness and a sense of need that they need to be delivered and redeemed and saved. But if they take that posture, then that they are not throwing out their brains in order to receive the external world outside them. They are actually finally going to be rational. But they're going to be rational because they've taken the posture that is appropriate to beings in communion. And if that's what we are, if we are beings in communion, then uh we ought not to be atomized individuals in that solipsistic way, but we also ought not to be pure materialists and naturalists. We need to be Beings in communion who are open to the love that is coming to us from the outside. When Ayan opens herself to that, she's not being irrational. She is opening up the possibility for being rational for the first time. Because solipsism is not rational, and neither is solipsism. But it's all about posture. That's what Ayan is saying.
SPEAKER_00It doesn't seem nonsensical to me, and it doesn't I I I don't mock it. I think I've been I've come down to my knees to say perhaps those people who've always had faith have something that we who lost faith um don't have. And and and people who have faith also, like the woman who told me, well, you you've reached, you you've tried everything and you've lost hope, you've lost faith. Um try it. Um pray. Um I think just in in that one word, there is so much wisdom and and um that it's I I am stuttering and I'm staggering to say I'm just trying to say no, it's not stupid. It's in fact it's clever and it's wise.
SPEAKER_04It's clever and it's wise, but the way towards it is not the way of the clever and the wise. In Matthew 11, verse 25, Jesus says, Father, I praise you, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and have revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. It is the good pleasure of the Father to hide knowledge of himself in the one place where the wise and learned won't look, in Jesus Christ. Because Jesus then goes on and says, No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. God hides all knowledge of himself in Christ because it's the one place where the wise and the learned refuse to come to. They refuse to come to the one whose name is Savior. But you can't you can't come in self-sufficiency to Jesus. You need to come like a little child who needs redemption, who needs help. But as soon as you come to him in that spirit, well, the next verse just says, Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I'm gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. That is what Ayan has found. How does Richard respond?
SPEAKER_05So you believe in some kind of higher power which is comforting you. Um and you react, you're obviously you're reacting from an Islamic past, and and um I know that from what you've written that part of what you feel is uh that Christianity is a bulwark against Islam, which is a quite separate thing from what you've been now saying. But uh but you you stand by that. I mean you you that's part of what what you're saying. And I accept that, and I I I support that.
SPEAKER_04It is part of what she's saying, and he thought that that was what she was going to bring, mainly. But she brought something so much better than that, and she brought something that's that's really wrong-footed, Richard, I think.
SPEAKER_05Um that's why I've called you a political Christian. But from what you've just said, it sounds as though you're more than just a political Christian. I mean, it sounds as though you actually believe it.
SPEAKER_04Um This conversation has converted Richard Dawkins. It's converted Richard Dawkins to believing that Ayan is serious about her Christianity, that she is genuinely a Christian, that she's not just a cultural Christian. And the reason why she has faith now is not geopolitics, but she has personally received Christ as saviour and is a Christian in that very traditional, very metaphysical, very mystical sense. And I think that's really shocked Richard Dawkins. I don't know if that's shocked you. Um I I think Ayan was dismissed for many months, and people kind of thought that the reason why she was a Christian was just as a bulwark against Islam and wokery and all the rest of it. I think that has been unfair the whole time. I think there's been enough in her writing and enough in her speaking since October of last year in which she has spoken very personally, actually, about the reasons for her Christian faith. And it and it hasn't just been a culture warrior thing. But it's taken this kind of face-to-face dialogue to actually convince Richard Dawkins that, yeah, no, it's not a culture war thing. It's the cry of a soul who has prayed and opened herself up to Jesus. Um and and so this this is progress, right? Richard Dawkins is converted. He he now believes that I unbelieves.
SPEAKER_03So, what is your response to those specific questions of Richard? When the vicar is saying that Jesus is the Son of God literally, not figuratively, yeah. How do you square that with your highly trained rational mind?
SPEAKER_00Well, it is again different planes of perception. So I I choose to accept Jesus Christ, the teachings of Jesus Christ, the story of Jesus Christ. I choose to accept that. So on the personal level, the rewards I get very subjective again, but mine and through choice.
SPEAKER_04Through choice, and that could just sound very, very arbitrary. It's just like, okay, I'll just flick on the belief thing. I'll I'll find that switch within myself wherever it is, and oh, there it is. Oh, I'm a believer now. Um, how is that possible? But as soon as you think about the solipsism issue, you recognize that that choice is actually a choice to trust, a choice to love, a choice to open yourself. It is actually a humble thing. It's a posture issue, and it is basically saying, look, the the love that is coming to me from outside, I'm going to trust that it's real and I'm going to lean into it. I'm going to surrender to that love. I choose I I was a solipsist. I choose now to believe that my wife, let's say, who's just desperately trying to get me out of my solipsism, is real and that her love is real, and that I can trust the word of her testimony that she is real, the external world is real, and my solipsism is false. I choose to believe that. And when you cast it in those terms, it's not the sort of choice where you just decide to tick a box on a census. It's the kind of choice where you submit to another person in love and depend upon them and lean into that relationship. It's that it's that kind of choice. And it's the sort of thing that all of us do. So if you're not a solipsist, you trust that the external world is real, even though there is no logical syllogism that can get you there, and there is no evidence that could persuade a solipsist out of their solipsism purely on an empirical basis. On trust, you need to choose to believe in an external world. It's the sort of choice that you already make if you're going to believe in truth. It's also the sort of choice that you make if you want to believe in goodness. I believe that humans have intrinsic moral value. And it's not based on what they can achieve, it's not based on their strengths, it's not based on their economic viability, it's it's just based on them intrinsically being human and intrinsically having value and worth and dignity. And I I just I just believe I choose to believe that humans have intrinsic dignity. That's a choice too. It's it's very much like the choice to believe in God. Or on beauty. I choose to believe that Beethoven's ninth is uh glorious, and it's glorious with a capital G, such that even if eight billion people disagreed with me, I guess they're wrong. And this is glorious, and this and there there is an objective and transcendent beauty, beauty with a capital B. And I j I just sh I choose to believe that. On the issue of truth, on the issue of goodness, on the issue of beauty, these are transcendentals, and when they come to us, if we submit to them as being transcendent, then that is very similar. It's entirely analogous to choosing to believe in God. It's like, yeah, the there's God. And in the same way that I surrender to truth and goodness and beauty, I surrender to God. Does that hopefully make sense? You you might not be a Christian, you might struggle with Ion's language here, but I hope that kind of makes sense of of where Christians are coming from, and I hope it gives you a vocabulary for thinking, hey, I could I could choose to believe in God. I could totally choose to take the posture of, I'm gonna pray and open myself out to a love that is expressing itself towards me in Jesus. And when I look at Jesus, I could totally choose to think, oh yeah, if he's not God, I don't know what God is. That's how it happened to me. I read through the gospels and I was like, well, if this guy's not God, then there's no such thing as God. But this this guy looks like the the goods. It's like what Lord Byron said. He said, if God's not like Jesus Christ, he ought to be. But the good news is, oh, he is, he's entirely and utterly like Jesus Christ. And you look at Jesus and you're like, well, he's tops, he's he's he is the goodness that defines all other goodness, and he's the beauty that defines all other beauty, he's the truth that defines all other truth. I get he I guess he's it. I guess he's ultimate, I guess he's tops, I guess he's lord. And bad luck, you're a Christian. That's that's what happened. It sneaks up on you like that, and at some stage you look at him and you you choose to believe, okay, I I believe you're Lord. That's the personal thing. And then Ayan's gonna talk about the cultural issue, because she does get onto the cultural issue, and the conversation does talk about geopolitics and all the rest of it.
SPEAKER_00Which is separate from where I think that aside from my personal experience, um the history of Western civilization is mainly Christian, and that the external forces, for instance, the spread of Islam nonviolently or violently, uh, and the challenge of Islam and the message of Islam to Western civilization can be counted and should be counted with the message of Western civilization, which is essentially Christian. And in that sense, I think there are more people who agree with me, but that is on the societal level. And then on the civilizational level, I think that every moral you you've used yourself, um Richard, the um phrase lately that there is moral Christianity and there is cultural Christianity. And when moral and cultural Christianity collides with moral and cultural Islam, or moral and cultural Confucianism, or cultural authoritarianism, um I think then perhaps we're on the same page about that might be a way of countering it.
SPEAKER_04Isn't that interesting? So so right at the heart of things, there's the personal level that she's been talking about, and then there's this sort of the social-societal level. You know, she's read Tom Holland's Dominion, she sees that the kind of the values that we take for granted in our society have a Christian basis to them, and she started to see the fruits of the kingdom, and that's that's another way in which she has tasted and seen some of the goodness of Christianity. There's the personal, there's the social. And then she sort of talks about the culture clash issues, the clash of civilization issues, which she figures she'll get some measure of agreement with, with Richard Dawkins. And isn't it interesting? I think we've all focused on that thing. We've all focused on the clash of civilization thing. And many people have pointed the finger at Ayan and just said, no, you're just a culture warrior. This is just a cynical ploy to claim Christianity so that you can beat up on the woke and the Muslims. Um, but that's not the way she's framing it here, and when she's given time to lay it out. It's personal, it's societal, and yes, there are culture clash issues that need to be addressed. But I think that ordering of things is important.
SPEAKER_00But on the personal level, yes, I choose to believe in God. And I think there we might say, let's agree to disagree.
SPEAKER_03I didn't hear that. She's saying let's agree to disagree on the details. I mean, like if I could. Quite right, Richard.
SPEAKER_04You are right, Richard. More than just details. Um, but I think what Ayan wants to do is to say we're not going to have the most fruitful conversation right now, Richard, on that personal issue because of the posture thing. Because you don't think there's something more. And you're on the record as saying, even if God showed up, you wouldn't believe. So it might not be the most fruitful conversation to have right now, Richard. But Richard's quite right to say these are not details. It's it's fundamental. Is Jesus the Son of God or not? Did he die on the cross? Did he rise again?
SPEAKER_05I mean. Um I wanted to say two different things. Uh let's take the moral thing first. Islam is a nasty religion. I think we agree about that. But Christianity is not all that nice either.
SPEAKER_04Interesting, at Easter, uh, Richard was on record as saying that Christianity is a fundamentally decent religion as opposed to Islam, which he did not think was fundamentally decent. But but now he's kind of switching around and he's he's saying neither are particularly decent. He would prefer Christianity, that's for sure. Um, but yes, Christianity is not particularly nice here. Fundamentally decent at Easter. Uh a month later, it's not nice either.
SPEAKER_05And when you think about Christianity, Christianity is obsessed with sin. St. Augustine said that we are all, we all inherit the sin of Adam. Well, of course he didn't exist, but so we inherit original sin. Original sin came down in the semen. Jesus was not conceived with semen, that's why he's clear of sin. His mother Mary had to be clear of sin as well, so she had to have an immaculate conception. This is all obvious nonsense. This is all theological bullsh.
SPEAKER_04And now, funnily enough, my first reaction when Richard said uh Christianity is obsessed with sin um was actually to come back and say, well, so what? Um Ayan has a much better comeback, and we'll we'll see her comeback in a second. But I mean, so what if Christianity actually takes seriously the human problem, the human condition, we are all in the same boat, we are all broken, nobody has this humanity thing licked. And it seems to me that someone who has written a book called The Selfish Gene should be quite well disposed to thinking about a doctrine called original sin. If even our genes are selfish, and if that is actually woven into how life on planet Earth got here, um then I would think that Richard should have a real openness to an Augustinian doctrine of original sin. It's also a very grounded doctrine, because we all know that physically, naturally, biologically, I'm born with all sorts of nonsense to me. I'm born with all sorts of predispositions to genetic conditions and diseases and there's gene deletions and and there's there's junk DNA all throughout me. Like I am born a real mixed bag. There's life in me and there's death in me, and there's so much that's perishing in me physically, and the doctrine of original sin is just grounded enough and holistic enough to say that, yeah, of course, and morally, there's also a lot of junk in me, and there's stuff that's perishing in me. There's goodness in me, right? And and there's also a lot that will thwart and twist that goodness, and mean that I misfire and self-sabotage at times and will be my own undoing. That is true of me genetically, it is also true of me morally, spiritually, let's say. That's the doctrine of original sin. We are all in the same boat, it's incredibly democratizing. And we are all holistic people, such that genetically I'm a real mixed bag, and also morally I'm a real mixed bag, and nobody has this sort of pristine pure centre to them. We are a mess and we are loved. See, that's the second half of the original sin doctrine. It's it's not just that there was Adam and we're all in Adam, it's that Adam was the pencil sketch of Christ, who was always going to become as saviour. He was always going to be the doctor for the sick, right? Mark chapter 2, verse 17, Jesus says it's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And Jesus says, look, we're we're all born sick physically, right? We're all perishing physically. We're also born sick morally and spiritually. We're all born perishing morally and spiritually, but we have a doctor, and his care is free at the point of access, and Jesus comes to the needy and he says, I will be your fullness. He comes to the hungry and he says, I'll be bread. He comes to the thirsty and he says, I'll give you living water, he comes to the sick and he says, I'll be the doctor, he comes to sinners and he says, I'm the savior. It's a beautiful doctrine when you don't divorce it from the gospel story. If it's just we're all born in Adam, then I guess that's a pretty hopeless story. But if there's an Adam and Christ story, which is what the Christian story is, then it actually shows us the brokenness, the need that everybody has. And when you take a step like Ion Hersey Ali and you open yourself up to a love that comes from beyond, and does not demand that you tidy yourself up first, does not demand that you clean yourself up for the bath, that does not demand that you get well before you see the doctor, but that simply says, come as you are, sick, unclean, sinful, and free at the point of access, you are delivered, you are redeemed, you are saved instantly in Jesus. It's actually a beautiful doctrine when you grasp it. You know, usually in these videos I wait until the end of the video and say, go and do three, two, one, but I think I'll do it right now. Um if you want to find out the good news that we are born in Adam, but that we can be reborn in Christ, come and do three, two, one. Okay? If you're a Christian, do three, two, one. If you're not a Christian, do three two one. It's my explanation of Christianity, okay? It's life according to Jesus, and he shows us that God is love, he shows us that the world is split, there's a two-ness to the world. In Adam we're taken down, in Christ we are raised up, and it shows us there's a real oneness that's on offer in Jesus. Love really is the answer. Go and do 321 at 321course.com, and I think you'll see that what Augustine was talking about is not the silly thing that Richard Dawkins is painting it as. Sometimes Augustine does talk in terms of the transmission of sin in some nauseating ways that a lot of Christians in the tradition have disagreed with. That's not the centerpiece. The centerpiece is Christ, the second Adam, who comes and meets us all in our brokenness and says to us all with our selfish genes, I am the healing you were made for. And that's actually where Ion gets to.
SPEAKER_00I find that Christianity is actually obsessed with love.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00And that the figure, the teachings of the teaching of Christ as I see it, and again, I'm a brand new Christian, but what I'm finding out, which is the opposite of growing up as a Muslim, the message of Islam, but the message of Christianity I get is that it's a message of love, it's a message of redemption. And it's a story of renewal and rebirth. And so Jesus dying and rising again for me symbolizes that story. And in a small way, I felt like I had died when I was reborn. And that story of redemption and um rebirth I think makes Christianity actually a very, very powerful story for the human condition and human existence and the pain of suffering, but also um internal the recognition of um what you call sin, perhaps the character defects that both good and evil are there, but that both good and evil are in us. I think those teachings in Christianity are far far more harmful and have led to I think the flourishing of Western civilization compared to say growing up as a Muslim when I was taught, that really the only way for you to be faithful is to fear, naked fear, and to have these sets of obligations which you basically obey. Um and that was very much about power, about um it was centered around hellfire and all of these um other things.
SPEAKER_04So Richard has said it's all about sin, and my name has said, Well, actually, it's all about love answering sin. Uh, what's Richard gonna think?
SPEAKER_05Well, I must say I've never met a vicar that I didn't like. I mean, they're always very, very nice people.
SPEAKER_04Um I've met a few.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. But but nevertheless, the stuff they believe is obvious nonsense. And and um you you have to take the whole package because I mean you talked about Jesus rising from the dead. You don't believe Jesus rose from the dead, surely.
SPEAKER_00Um I choose to believe that Jesus rose from the dead.
SPEAKER_05You choose to believe it.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and that is a matter of choice. And it's a matter, it's i i i think we it has to go back to is there something or is there nothing? Right, exactly.
SPEAKER_04It has to go back to your posture. If Jesus is Lord, what would be absurd is if he rotted in a Jerusalem tomb. If Jesus is Lord, then I choose to believe that he walked out of that tomb just as he predicted that he would. And I think every every Christian is like that. It's not again, it's not this arbitrary thing, where's where's the belief switch that I need to oh there it is. Oh I I turn on the belief switch. Now I'm a believer, and I force it out of myself. It's more like I look at Jesus and I think to myself, yeah, he took on death on Good Friday, and I know that death has won every other battle death has ever been engaged in. Death is the heavyweight champion of the world. It's never lost a battle. But I think in this case, death has met its match in Jesus. I think Jesus is Lord and not death, and I think I don't know the physics of it. I don't know how the blood that had stopped flowing started to flow again. I don't know how the one who had stopped breathing on the Friday starts breath I don't I don't know. But I do choose to believe that because if Jesus is who he says he is, then it would be remarkable if he didn't beat death, right? He the whole reason why the Son of God took flesh was to take our death on himself and punch a hole through the grave and come out the other side. And I choose to believe in that. But all of us choose to believe in things. We all choose to believe in the external world. We all choose to believe in other minds. We choose to believe in certain morals like human rights. We choose to believe in certain standards of beauty, and we listen to the music and we're swept up, and in that posture, we choose to believe in something more. We choose to believe that we are more than matter in motion. And all of us choose to believe that to some degree all the time. And it's just that a Christian has met the one who seems to be the embodiment of goodness and beauty and truth. And when he came up against death, we choose to believe that he won.
SPEAKER_00And I think you start with there is nothing. And yes, for years I agreed with you that there's nothing. But if you come round to the idea that there might be something much more powerful than we are, something that caused everything else, then something like Jesus rising out of the dead or these other miracles, Jesus being born out of a virgin for that higher power, it's not a big deal. But again, it's a matter of choice, and it is just different planes of perception. And I think here on this plane of perception, having been a former atheist, I don't think this is something we're going to resolve tonight or agree on. And so that is well, I think it's perhaps more interesting, even if you choose not to believe, to say, let's at least talk about the value of Christianity for today. For I look at these universities, the most illustrious universities of the West.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so now she's wanting to go on to the cultural issues and try to get some agreement because she recognizes that she has taken a leap of faith, which Richard Dawkins finds abhorrent and certainly could not, certainly on this evening, take himself. And so she let's let's try and get some agreement on the geopolitical stuff. Um, but actually, neither Freddie nor Richard want to get off the point of the metaphysical and the personal.
SPEAKER_00And you've all shared with me images of young women draped in kefirs, the symbol of Hamas, performing the Muslim prayer. And tell me if those kids are not morally and utterly lost. And queers for Palestine.
SPEAKER_04And so she talks about the moral lostness of people and queers for Palestine, and it's all kind of eating itself, wouldn't you say, Richard? And do we not share some blame for that? We who were part of the new atheism, have we not bequeathed to the world such an empty vision for life that the upcoming generation has been swept away by other ideologies?
SPEAKER_00So while you and I and Stephen Pink and all of those wonderful people were locked up in our ivory towers, let's ask ourselves what was happening on the ground? Because in the last six decades, we pretty much demonized Christianity and the teachings of Christianity out of the public space, out of school, out of universities. And a vacuum of command, and that vacuum is now being filled, as G.K. Chesterton said, not because people have come to reason, but because now they'll believe in anything.
SPEAKER_04So I think she's referencing the G.K. Chesterton quote when people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything. Right.
SPEAKER_00Can I and there are very awful forces today out there that are claiming the hearts and minds and souls of these young students. And when you say there is nothing, you offer them nothing.
SPEAKER_03We're getting into the bigger political cultural question. I just feel it's worth pressing one more time on this. What you said agree to disagree, and I understand, having read Richard's letter to you, that that literal belief is the bit that he can't get past. Are you saying that you don't literally believe those things? You talked about planes of reality. Is it that you see a beauty in those things and choose to suspend your rational judgment, or do you literally believe them?
SPEAKER_04She has already said, she has already answered that, so I'm not sure why why Freddie's uh asking you to say it again, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean I think there is something subjective and there's a choice, and there are things that you see and perceive that a different person cannot perceive.
SPEAKER_04Back to the Elizabeth Oldfield thing, back to the Ian McGillchrist thing, that the way you perceive things changes what you are able to see. We are not neutral observers who have all the facts at our disposal and we calmly and coolly collate all the data and then come to these assured findings of reason. That's not how anybody ticks. We pay attention to certain things, and as you pay attention to certain things, you have already used a value judgment. Because you've got to direct your attention to one thing and not another thing. There are billions of facts that we could pay attention to, and we perceive the world through a value structure, and we've got to prioritize things. And if from the outset you find all talk of faith to be nonsensical, guess what? You're not going to pay attention to what is actually there. In the same way that the solipsist is looking out at the world and seeing everything that everybody else sees, but they have a posture towards the world that prevents them receiving what is really there. They have a stance, they have a posture, they have an attitude to the world. And that is what is preventing them. And this is why Ayan keeps coming back to that personal subjective thing, not because faith is less than rational. Solipsism is less than rational. Solidcism is less than rational. She's coming she's coming back to the personal and the subjective because you can't actually see what is there when you have closed yourself personally off. The truth that is trying to love you.
SPEAKER_00Art, music. In fact, I think you do enjoy a great deal of Christian art and music. Um I will look at a painting by Pollack, and I will think my six-year-old must have spilled all the paint on the canvas and run around. And people are crazy enough to pay millions of dollars and hang it on walls. But I'm actually seeing people be moved to treasure staring at a Pollock. That is a plane of perception that is real, but it's also very, very difficult to measure. And it's the same the way you're moved by certain pieces of music. So the fact that I have faith and I choose to have faith because of what I've experienced is just as real for me as it is for the millions of people who believe. Um but for me, what is even more real is it's it's the story itself and the the wisdom in that story, the the morality that has come out, that has evolved out of that story, the internal debates of millennia long and everything that we inherited from it, it's just too casual to cast that aside. And when we've done it, I think we have caused ourselves a great deal of damage.
SPEAKER_04There's a self-authenticating truth. You open up the scriptures and you see this is wise. This feels like it has a depth to it, a profundity to it, this this has a kind of a shimmering, glorious weight to it that insists we take it seriously. And if God's word is going to be received by us as God's word, I guess the only way that we could conclude that it's God's word is if God Himself somehow speaks to us through it. If there is this self-authenticating voice, this ring of truth that comes to us, and maybe not in a big booming Paul Robson voice, but this ring of truth, this voice, this word, this truth comes to us, and in the same way, you look to the sun and you know that it's bright, you taste honey, you know that it's sweet, you see Jesus in the scriptures, you know that he's Lord, you read his word, and you know that it's God's. And on that moral level, on that mystical level, on that personal level, on that truth level, you go, alright, you got me. That's you know, if this isn't God, I don't know what God is, right? And and it has to be that way if God is God. And therefore it has to be an interplay between what is really out there and the subjective reception of it and the posture that we take towards a truth that is trying to confront us and trying to love us, trying to redeem us. But it's the interplay of the objective and the subjective. That's that's I think why Ion is constantly coming back to this issue. Do you choose to believe that Jesus rose again from the dead? No, I I choose it because I've taken this posture towards the Jackson Pollock painting, and have decided to give it a second look. And oh, now I see, right? I haven't looked at the Jackson Pollock and internally hated it, and then just decided to say, I really like that painting. And Ayan has not like opened up the scriptures and been as unmoved by them as ever, and just said, Oh, okay, I choose to think that's God's word, right? But she has chosen to put herself in the way of God's word, and Romans chapter ten, verse 17 says, Faith comes by hearing, hearing the word of Christ. She's put herself in the way of the word of Christ, and opened herself up into a posture such that she's ready to see what is really there, and to actually appreciate scripture, the way that uh an art critic might actually start to appreciate Jackson Pollock in a new way and actually thrill to it. Right? That's why she's talking about the subjective all this time, because it does matter how we are looking, because we are not simply neutral observers who are ready to assent to the resurrection if only we would be presented with sufficient evidence. It is about our posture, it is about our readiness to receive what's there.
SPEAKER_03Richard, having heard that story, that moving story from Ayan of clearly how her conversion has helped her, and also she's explained in beautiful words the the mode in which she believes it. Do you still say you are not a Christian? No, not at all.
SPEAKER_05I I I came here prepared to persuade you, Alain, you're not a Christian. I think you are a Christian. And I think Christianity is nonsense. You you you have to be, I mean, you you are you you appear to be a theist. You appear to believe in in some kind of humapam. Now, I think that the the hypothesis of theism is the most exciting scientific hypothesis that could possibly hold. And the idea that the universe was actually created by a supernatural intelligence is a dramatic, important idea. If it were true, it would completely change everything we know. We'd be living in a totally different different universe. Now that's a big thing. It's um I'm sorry, but it's bigger than personal comfort and nice stories and things. The idea that the universe has lurking beneath it an intelligence, a supernatural intelligence that invented the laws of physics, that invented mathematics. I mean, that is a stupendous idea, if it's true. And to me, that simply dwarfs all talk of nobility and morality and um and comfort and that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_04No, but Richard, you are the solipsist, and Ian is coming to you like somebody who loves the solipsist and just wishes they would believe in the external world. And the solipsist just keeps on saying, Look, if there really was an external world, I'm sure it would be able to break in. And I would I would, you know, but all I ever have is my own thoughts. All I ever have is my own consciousness, all I ever have is my own perceptions. If only the the external world was there, I'm ready to receive it. And I was like, you know, it's there. I'm I'm I'm telling you about it. You are surrounded by it. It's not that God is there and you just need to look through this telescope in that dire Oh, there he is. Oh, tucked away behind Jupiter there. Like, it's it's not like that. It's like in him you live and move and have your being, Richard. Everything you're bumping up against is the goodness, the truth, the beauty of the God in whose universe you live, right? And the idea that the laws of the universe would be different if there was indeed a lawgiver is just such patent nonsense. I mean, just think about it. The laws of the universe would be different if there was a lawgiver. What? Surely the laws of the universe actually suggest a lawgiver. And even if you had exhaustive knowledge of every single law in the cosmos, that does not eradicate the need for the lawgiver. That says nothing about the existence or otherwise of a lawgiver. Alex O'Connor pressed Richard Dawkins on this point on his podcast and ran rings around him, and Richard Dawkins did not understand Alex's point within the podcast, and he clearly hasn't understood it here. Let's go back to Alex, who is an atheist, and let's see how Alex understands that exhaustive understanding of laws does not get rid of the need for a law giver. Um Alex does a brilliant job.
SPEAKER_02The story that we tell is something like we discover all of these laws, and so this gives us an idea that science is moving in a direction, and that eventually w we we may well discover the origin of the laws themselves. But th that seems to me like a separate question. And the way I want to explain this is by sort of borrowing and adapting uh, as I say, something C. S. Lewis said. Um Lewis talks about the relationship between Hamlet and Shakespeare a fair bit, or the character in a book and and his author. I mean, I I can ask, you know, why did uh why did Sherlock Holmes move into Baker Street? And you can either say, Well, it's because uh, you know, he he was looking for a roommate or something like that. Or you could say, it's because Arthur Conan Doyle wanted him to. And both of those seem to be true in a different resolution of thought. Now what I'm imagining here is us discovering Hamlet by Shakespeare on the table in front of us, and immediately, crudely, you look at it and say, Well, that must have been designed, you know, that must have an author. And I don't just do the William Haley thing, you know, it's complex. What I say is, Well, look, Professor Dawkins, I I've I've done some research onto this little book, and I've discovered that it obeys certain laws. You know, I I've noticed that at the end of certain sentences there are these little dots. And if there's a big dot, it use it usually means that it's the end of a sentence. And there are two different kinds of each letter. There's a big A and a little A. And if it's the beginning of a sentence, it's a new one. Also, we've discovered this thing called iambic pentameter. You know, it it seems that the way these sentences are constructed seem to follow this law, this law of literacy. And I said to you, Now where did this book come from? And you say, I still think there was an author of this book. I still think someone created it. And I said, But look at all the progress that we've made, just by describing it in terms of these things that we're calling laws of literature. I've discovered all of these laws of literature, iambic pantameter and sentence construction and grammar and all of this stuff. Surely one day these laws of literacy will will go on to explain the origin of the laws of the literacy, or the origin of the text itself. Surely that would surely that would be where this is going. But of course, I'm making a category error if I do that. And is there not a a fear that we're doing that when we say that science will one day explain the origin of the very thing that science is about?
SPEAKER_04Brilliant analogy. You can spend all your time on the laws of literature and ignore the author. And wouldn't it be real short-sightedness to spend your time figuring out the laws of iambic pentameter and then saying, therefore, because we have the laws of iambic pentameter, there cannot be a Shakespeare. That would be folly. And it would be a category error. So, Richard Dawkins, do you recognize that in the scientific domain you are looking at the laws like they are the laws of iambic pentameter? While Ion Hersyle E is saying no, there is a Shakespeare, and all your great knowledge of the laws of literature do not obviate the need for an author, right?
SPEAKER_05I take confidence from the f as I said before, from Darwin's success, because everything that you said about full stops and capital letters at the beginning of the of the sentence and iablic pentameters and things, you could have said that about life, and people did say that about life, and it we we notice that living things are remarkably well designed, that birds are beautifully designed to fly and and fish are beautifully designed to to swim and so on. Um the complexity is all there, the the detail of the of the of the design is is incredibly we've got lots of laws of literature. And it would have seemed to be a little bit more than a lot of things. So we don't need Shakespeare. I suspect this is why it took so long for Darwin to come on the scene, actually, because it just seems so obvious that he just doesn't get it. Sure. Uh b but behind it. Darwin solved that. There isn't an author. I mean it's it's natural selection does the trick.
SPEAKER_04A. Natural selection is not about the origin of life. It assumes the origin of life. It's about the origin of speciation, right? That's A. B. Even if you got the laws of the origin of life, you haven't gotten rid of the need for an author of life. Just as if you explained exhaustively all the laws of literature that gave you Hamlet, you have not yet gotten rid of Shakespeare.
SPEAKER_05It's j so where is the where is the analogy with Hamlet or Sherlock Holmes left?
SPEAKER_02I suppose the analogy would be that um what Darwin did was was close the question on the complexity of life. But he didn't close the question on where life came from, as we've already agreed. I suppose what I'm putting forward is that maybe laws of physics, laws of biology, laws of science are not the kind of thing that can explain the origin of the laws of physics, the origin of the laws of biology, that kind of stuff. Where maybe it's sort of uh operating on a on a Well it could be. I mean we we haven't got there yet, but uh but all all all I said was that we haven't got there yet.
SPEAKER_04But there is using scientific domains and scientific questions to get to issues of origins and meanings and morals and purpose. Science is brilliant at answering how questions and what questions. It is not really built for the why questions and the the origins questions and the meaning questions and the purpose questions. And you don't get to all those questions by just asking more and more scientific questions. Okay, these are different domains, and there's a category error going on in Richard Dawkins' thinking, and even when it's laid out so brilliantly by Alex O'Connor, he still doesn't get it. Even if you got to the end and you got the grand unified theory of everything, and the scientist kind of puts the chalk down on the board and we all clap and we say, There it is, the the grand unified theory of everything. That is like understanding the rules of literature and then imagining that there's no Shakespeare. And the crazy thing is that Richard Dawkins wants to take the rational high ground. That's the crazy thing. It is sub-rational. You can be incredibly intelligent as Richard Dawkins is incredibly intelligent, you can be incredibly good as a scientist, as Richard Dawkins is incredibly good as a scientist, and you can still miss everything about the nature of reality, and you can still be sub-rational when it comes to the meaning of life. And that that's what we see here in spades.
SPEAKER_03Are you not moved at all to she mentioned planes of reality? Um is it for you entirely black and white whether those kind of stories are true or not? It feels like Ian is saying that she chooses to believe them because she accesses a some kind of greater truth via them and is less interested in the details. You're not softened at all on that?
SPEAKER_05Well, I'm softened by a personal story, um, and I'm softened by beautiful music. I mean, I've I'm you know, I'm softened by um St. Matthew Passion, and not not not just the music itself, but the story behind it. It's a it's a it's a very moving story. Wait a minute.
SPEAKER_04I thought it was a I thought it was disgusting, I thought it was gross. I thought the idea of Jesus bearing our sins on the cross was a terrible now he's saying, well, Johann Sebastian Bach, the the music of it and the story behind the St. Matthew's Passion, which is that Jesus the second Adam comes and takes our sins on himself and is crucified for our sins, dies in our place and rises up again. That is the story behind St. Matthew's Passion, and it's a beautiful story. Of course it's a It's a beautiful story. It's a story we've been telling for two thousand years. It's built civilizations. Of course, it is a beautiful story. You can cast it as a grotesque story with a sneer if you like. But when you listen to it in its true setting, as Johann Sebastian Bach composes his music to the glory of God, you actually finally are in a place to receive that story in a way that will make sense to you. And Richard Dawkins can hear that music and it can move him. Why can't beauty be a way into believing in God? Or why can't goodness be a way into believing in God? Which is what Aion is gesturing towards. Why doesn't the beauty do it? Why doesn't the goodness do it? Why does why does it always have to be truth? And why does the truth that is meant to lead you to God, why does that have to be the sort of scientific truth that can never actually lead you to the Creator? Why should it be like that?
SPEAKER_05And I'm moved by it in the same way as I'm moved by great fiction. It is fiction. And and one, of course, can be moved by fiction. I think Ayan has described me as the most Christian person she knows. And and Yes. And that may be true in certain senses, in a cultural sense. And when you say Christianity is a religion of love, um Jesus, I think, was a very, very great character, a very loving character. The bad things about Christianity actually stem mostly from what came afterwards, and Paul um and the and the other well Christian apologists who came after him.
SPEAKER_03So you you cannot allow the possibility that I am has access to truth that you yourself have not seen.
SPEAKER_05It is a scientific hypothesis that there is a supernatural creator. And um I don't see how you can get to that from uh feelings of personal comfort or feelings of political um necessity. Uh you have to get to that from from thinking.
SPEAKER_04It's gotta come from thinking, apparently. Not from goodness, not from beauty, it's gotta come from truth and a certain kind of truth, certain kind of left brain thinking, she's giving the context in which you can think about these things finally for the first time.
SPEAKER_00And that brings us to consciousness. So, first of all, the hypothesis itself, um, which even if you don't allow for self-religion aside, the hypothesis of where did all this come from and how did it begin, again, there is um no consensus on that.
SPEAKER_04So Richard has said, you know, we need thinking. What kind of thinking Christianity can you give me, Ayan? First, she mentions consciousness, but then she goes to the origins of the cosmos and and she mentions this stuff.
SPEAKER_00There is no consensus on what consciousness is and um what all that entails.
SPEAKER_04Consciousness is an interesting one, and we won't spend a lot of time on it here. But in one sense, the solipsist is more rational than the solid system. The solipsist just thinks that their own mind and rationality is the only thing in existence. The solid cyst that just thinks matter in motion is the only thing, actually you start to lose your mind. Because if our thinking is just psychology, which boils down to biology, which boils down to chemistry, which boils down to physics, and we're just billiard balls clacking together, what is consciousness anymore? And that is the hard problem of consciousness. If you're gonna begin as a solid system, if you're gonna begin from matter in motion, how do you ever get to the idea of consciousness in the first place? And so Ayan is is trying to wake him up to look, your left brain thinking here leads to some real dead ends. It leads to some dead ends when it comes to the origins of the universe. It also leads to some dead ends when it comes to consciousness. Will you think about that? She kind of she gives him this. We'll skip over the ways in which she she does that. But she has a go at giving him some thoughts that he can lay hold of. You say you need thinking. Great, let's start with thinking. Think about thinking, because thinking is not a material activity. That which is closest to you, Richard Dawkins, is immaterial. And even as they have this conversation, they are expressing thoughts to one another, using logic and language and rhetoric and reason and emotion, and what do you notice about all these things? They are thoroughly immaterial. So, okay, you want thinking, Richard? Think about thinking. And Ayan goes and talks about consciousness for a little bit. So Ayan talks about consciousness a lot, you can watch that in the video, but then Richard Dawkins comes back with this.
SPEAKER_05Suppose it were true that atheism doesn't offer anything. Suppose it doesn't offer anything. So what? Why should it offer anything? Why should the universe offer you anything?
SPEAKER_04That's interesting. Why should the universe offer you anything? Hold that thought because later on, Richard Dawkins is going to say that rational secular humanism will deliver all your moral and existential needs. And all we need to do is pay attention to enlightenment humanism, rational secular humanism, that from a godless point of view, the universe will apparently be able to deliver the kind of the moral frameworks that we need for life in the 21st century. He's going to say that later. Right now, he's saying, well, why should the universe offer you anything? Why do you think the universe is like this? Right? He are he argues like a nihilist here, he's going to argue like a humanist later. Pick one, Richard. Pick one. But before Ian answers that question, why should the universe offer you anything? Freddy is going to insert just a little question that I think is kind of the highlight of the whole video. Let's see what Freddie asks.
SPEAKER_03What is the scientific explanation for you being moved to tears by Sir Matthew's passion? Well, it's neurology.
SPEAKER_04Well, it's neurology, isn't it? Peter Krieft, the Catholic philosopher, offers at one point um 20 arguments for God's existence, and I think it's number 17 or 18. He says, uh the music of Johann Sebastian Bach exists, therefore God exists. You either see this argument or you don't. And clearly Richard Dawkins doesn't see this argument or the validity of it. When he's asked, What's going on when you listen to St. Matthew's Passion? Neurology. Seriously, neurology. It's like neurons are firing in the brain. There is electrical activity that will show up on an MRI scanner, and that is that is an exhaustive description, that is a comprehensive description, that is a satisfying description of the awe that I feel in the presence of beauty. Seriously? So the universe apparently offers you nothing. Johann Sebastian Bach thought he was offering you something to the glory of God's. Apparently, he's just offering you some synapses firing in your brain. It is such a barren vision. It's such a barren vision here. Later on, Richard Dawkins is going to tell you that, oh no, don't worry, secular humanism has got everything you need when it comes to meaning, significance, purpose, and morality. It's got everything you need, but actually, the universe offers you nothing, and Johann Sebastian Bach offers you neuronal firings. How's Iane gonna answer this?
SPEAKER_00I think the question you ask now is very interesting. Why should atheism offer you anything? There is no reason why atheism should offer anything, but something else. Faith offers something, something valuable and tangible and good. So why should atheism mock that and knock it down? No, it's not a mouth. Is it not possible to have this coexistence where there is a place for reason?
SPEAKER_04Did Richard Dawkins just say I don't want to mock it?
SPEAKER_00Why should atheism mock that and knock it down? No, it's not a good idea. Is it not possible?
SPEAKER_04I don't want to mock it. He definitely has wanted to mock it. Was it like the reason rally in 2012 when he said that we ought to mock Christianity? Mock them, ridicule them. He's been doing a pretty good job of mocking it throughout this hour of conversation.
SPEAKER_00To have this coexistence where there is a place for reason and there is a place for faith and for subjectivity. Just like we agree to have a separation between religion and politics, I think it is absolutely possible to have, and Christianity allows for that, a separation of science and um you know, the material world, the temporal world versus the world of faith. And these things when when they complement each other I think lead to a much more powerful outcome than when you again I find I find the differences between us a little cosmetic and a little artificial because there are so many things I agree with that you are saying. It's just that the um the attitude that atheists take that if you do not see the world the way they see it, and if you don't live according to reason, you must be an idiot. You must be unintelligent, you must be stupid. No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_04I think that that No, but it is nonsense. No, no, no, but never it's nonsense. It's theological baby. No, no, no, no, no. You're not an idiot.
SPEAKER_00Just smacks of Okay.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Okay, no let's not go there. I I I don't want to say that. Um what I do want to say is this um faith offers you something, obviously. That's very, very, very clear. But it doesn't make it true. It doesn't make the existence claim of Christianity true. Um there is a difference from saying that that um being in a certain psychological place is consoling and comforting and offers you a meaningful life uh meaning of life and and gives you a purpose in life, all those things which are wonderful. And I have them too. They're a bit different, but I too have a purpose in life. I have a meaning in life.
SPEAKER_04Those neuronal firings. Gotta love those neuronal firings.
SPEAKER_05Just simply because something gives you a meaning and a purpose in life, it doesn't make the ex existential claims true. And Christianity, like any other religion, makes claims about the world, about the universe, which are either true or not true. And I may be wrong and you may be maybe right. They may they may be true, but the mere fact that they're comforting doesn't make them true. That's an important point.
SPEAKER_00But I agree with you on that point.
SPEAKER_04Round and round we go. And at points, Richard Dawkins says that there's a very austere universe that, you know, facts don't care about your feelings. Morality, well, there's no good and evil in the in the universe at rock bottom. Beauty, it's all about neuronal firings at the end. Comfort, meaning, significance, these are all just psychological states. The universe is this is this brute fact that doesn't give you any of that stuff. And so Ayan Hersy Ali is saying, look, if that's your vision, then there's no wonder that people are going to all kinds of other ideologies to get their meaning from. And th those places might not be the healthiest places for society, Richard. What's your answer to people who are looking for morality and goodness and beauty and truth and significance and story and faith, and they're going to all the wrong places. What are you going to give them instead, Richard? Here's what Richard says.
SPEAKER_03Enlightenment humanism doesn't seem to have resisted that advance very successfully. Well, let's press it harder then.
SPEAKER_04It is both historically and logically the outcome of Christianity. Historically, that is simply the case that secular humanism has grown up from Christian soil. Logically, it is the case because you cannot have a sacred value for the human without something like the Christian story, in which God the human takes our flesh and raises it up to the highest, most transcendent level. As T. S. Eliot has said, words to the effect of, without everything that the Bible has given to us as regards the human, what we are left with is just a mischievous little animal, right? Um where do you get your human values from? Historically, they have come to us from Christianity. Logically, I don't see how you derive them from anywhere else. But Richard continues, he he he really believes that we just need to press harder with the secular humanist thing.
SPEAKER_05It may be true historically that uh rational secular humanism grew out of Christianity in the sense that historically that's where it came from. But you could say it's a reaction against Christianity rather than having um being in concert with Christianity.
SPEAKER_00But even as a reaction against Christianity, the things that the advances that we have made are rooted in that story. And my objection to throwing the baby out with the bathwater is that if you create this disconnect so that young people do not, they don't, they haven't been told of those debates, they're reading works that tell them that everything that the white male Christian left behind is exploitative, it's destructive, it has to be replaced with something else, it's settled colonial, whatever. It's been cut off from the roots of that civilization. And I think part of the reason why that vacuum came about and it was possible was because of this casting aside of Christianity and this attitude within atheism that if you say reason, everybody will suddenly start becoming, you know, reasonable and think reasonably. And in that sense, that's been a mistake. G.K. Chesterton was right.
SPEAKER_04But here Freddie is gonna press the point again.
SPEAKER_03But how do you respond to Ayan's charge there? It feels like what a grave charge that that atheism movement, that dismantling, has left a whole generation inadequately equipped to deal with the forces that are coming at them.
SPEAKER_05We have secular humanism, we have rationality, we have moral philosophy. Moral philosophy is is how we is how we decide which bits of Christianity we like and which bits we don't, which bits of the Bible we take as being moral and which ones we don't. We cherry pick. And the the basis for our cherry-picking is modern secular moral philosophy, which is uh a well-established philosophical discipline. Uh, and um it's on that basis that that we decide what what is moral and what is not. We decide in favor of feminism, of of um all the things that that we value today, which do not come from Christianity, they come in spite of Christianity, in spite of all religions.
SPEAKER_04Modern rational secular humanism. He's just basically saying, let's leave aside all the Christian stories, and just scientifically we will determine that feminism is the moral practice, really, but the universe apparently has no evil or good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. Whence cometh your feminism? And what if your science proved something that went against feminism? What if there's a scientific movement for misogyny? And you might say, well, there could never be scientific misogyny. Well, there was scientific racism of the the early 20th century, and that was a movement. And there are always these movements of people coming up with very non-humanistic ideals and saying that they come directly from science. And if we just followed Richard Dawkins' science, I don't think we'd we would have a particularly humanistic ethic. In December 2011, Richard Dawkins wrote for The New Statesman about the tyranny of the discontinuous mind, and he says, as a biologist, I just see everything morphs into everything else. And he says to the discontinuous mind, the people who think that there's an on and off switch, an entity is either a person or it is not. The discontinuous mind cannot grasp the idea of half a person or three-quarters of a person. So biologically, you can have three-quarters of a person. Legally, morally, three-fifths of a human being is a moral outrage. But scientifically, you can derive three-fifths of a human being, can't you, Richard Dawkins? Where do you get your resistance to scientific racism from? Or in 2014, somebody tweeted at Richard Dawkins, I honestly don't know what I would do if I were pregnant with a kid with Down syndrome. It's a real ethical dilemma. Richard Dawkins came back and said, abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice. An Irish radio presenter called him on that particular statement, and I think it's really instructive.
SPEAKER_07Why is it immoral not to abort it?
SPEAKER_05Well, uh, that was probably putting it a bit too strongly, but um given that uh the um the amount of suffering in the world uh probably does not go down, probably does go up uh compared to having another child who doesn't have Down syndrome, then that's what I meant.
SPEAKER_07Okay.
SPEAKER_05And I want to stress over and over again that people, I was of course not suggesting that people already have a Down syndrome child, don't love it, shouldn't love it, and as I am absolutely I don't I don't know, I didn't take that, I didn't take that from a child. I'm sure you didn't, but many people did, and I think that was the reason for it got controversial.
SPEAKER_07Well, what I'm interested in is how do you know that it increases the amount of suffering in the world to bring in a child with Down syndrome into the world?
SPEAKER_05I don't know it for certain. It seems to me to be plausible that if if a child is has uh any kind of dis of disability, um then uh you probably would increase the amount of happiness in the world more by having an another child instead.
SPEAKER_07Do you think? But you have no reason for knowing that.
SPEAKER_05I have no direct evidence. No, you don't know.
SPEAKER_07Just you know you're such a scientific logical person that I thought that you could possibly have some logical uh backup to it.
SPEAKER_04So your moral structure is just going to be utilitarianism and you're just going to maximize happiness and minimize pain. But therefore, if your goal is to minimize suffering, then you're going to minimize sufferers. If you're going to exclude pain, you're going to exclude those who are feeling pain. And that is an incredibly dystopian vision, because you don't have the sanctity of the human. You cannot believe in the intrinsic worth of a human, because some are a quarter human, some are a half human, some are three-fifths of a human. And if that human is suffering, then suddenly their life is not worth the same as the the the lives of other people. Where is your humanism coming from? It's not from secularism. It's not from enlightenment values per se, it's from the Christian story. So Richard Dawkins says, so what if atheism gives you nothing, the universe is as the universe is, there is at bottom no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference, as Richard Dawkins has famously said. So there is no goodness in the universe, there is no beauty that doesn't just boil down to neuronal firings at the end of the day. The only kind of truth is scientific truth. And then later on, Ion Hersiali says to him, But if you feed people a diet of that, no wonder they're gonna get thirsty for meaning and they're gonna go to all the wrong places in order to get their sense of goodness and beauty and truth and meaning and significance and purpose and cause and and they're gonna march under any number of very dystopian banners, and what are you gonna give them instead? And Richard Dawkins says a number of times, he says, Enlightenment humanism, we're gonna give them. We're gonna give them rational secular humanism. And Aion Hershey Ali points out, look, that humanism has been given to us by Christianity. There is nothing in this universe that gives you humanistic ideals, Richard. You've just told us that the universe runs on blind, pitiless indifference. And if the only kind of truth is scientific truth, then what is wrong with scientific racism? It's scientific, right? You know? And if and if you say, oh no, but the science isn't quite good enough on that science Well, if somebody developed a scientific racism that had really good science, should we go with it? And if not, why not? On your presuppositions, you want to bring in enlightenment humanism, you want to bring in rational secular humanism, we need to go harder on rational secular humanism in a universe in which facts don't care about your feelings. It doesn't work. And listen, the argument is not. Well the universe must be this austere place of matter in motion, and some faith heads need to escape from reality in order to dream up morals and beauty and goodness and purpose. No, it's that Richard, you're a solid sister surrounded by a world that is charged with the grandeur of God, as Gerald Manley Hopkins said, a very bright guy who is also a priest. The world is charged with the grandeur of God, and you are living in a universe thrumming with the glory of God. And Ayan's pleas for you to see reality from a personal standpoint, from a dependent standpoint, from an integrated standpoint, in which goodness as well as beauty, as well as truth kind of synthesize together. Her plea for you to look at things from a humble standpoint, from a standpoint of need, and from a standpoint of trust, in which we trust that which is external coming towards us in love. We we surrender to that movement of love. That is not a subjective flight from the truth. That is the way the truth comes to you, because the truth is a person. And he comes to us in our need. He comes as a redeemer, as a rescuer, as a savior, as a lover, as a doctor for the sick. And in that posture of dependence, we can receive Christ and suddenly and for the first time become rational. This is not about a flight from rationality. These are about the conditions in which we can finally be rational. It's a fascinating conversation. I highly commend it to you. It's on the Dissident Dialogues channel, and it's called Theological B Richard Dawkins challenges Ayan Hersey Ali's newfound Christianity. And once again, if you want a Christianity 101 that gets to the heart of things, go and do 3-2-1. Do it. Pass it on to your friends, because there's nothing more important than inhabiting that story in which love comes to you from beyond to reorient you and to show you the truth for the first time. And we will keep watching as people like Ion Hersiali and Alex O'Connor and Freddie Sayers even are exploring things, and we will pray for Richard Dawkins to see what is really there. Let's finish with what Elizabeth Oldfield said on Unheard the other day, because I think that's my prayer for Richard Dawkins. It's my prayer for all you that we would see the God who is really there. God bless.
SPEAKER_01The way you pay attention changes what you are able to see. Ritualized, communal, emotional, embodied forms of practice literally make it easier for you to see what is really there. I think God is really there. I think there is a logic of love in the universe that wants to meet us. But if you have to start with, I can't get on board with that, I don't know how to make sense of the metaphysics. But like Pascal, I'm just gonna go to church and see what happens. Those things actually come together into a beautiful union.