Hard Questions About Christianity | Ep 36

This week I start by venting about how people change a hypothetical and then argue against the new version, and then I get stuck into a few of Christianity’s hardest objections with simple, entry-level frameworks you can actually test. 
• slavery in the Bible as contract servanthood vs chattel slavery 
• key context in Exodus around punishment, injury, and kidnapping 
• war and judgement in the Old Testament and the Canaanites 
• why God’s goodness can’t be separated from God’s knowledge and power
• “sweet smelling aroma” as ancient approval language not literal smell 
• the “one less god” line and why it’s word games 
• quick look at how some religions and mythologies develop over time 

Christ is King, Jesus loves you, and He's coming back soon!

Transcript

New Studio And A Quick Recap

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to episode 36 of the Ministry of Man pod. Now we're back in we're back in the in the new studes and I'm happy with it, bro. I'm happy with it. I watched it back after I filmed the last one. I'm like, yep, this is it. This is it. We're moving up in the world. We went from the soundproofing, we're in the new studes. We're flexing with some stuff. I've tried to make, you know, put some cool, interesting things in the shelves. I mean, they're just things that I have put already, but I'm happy with it, bro. So, anyway, recap.

When People Rewrite Your Hypothetical

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Couple things. So, today I am going to be talking about some of Christianity's more difficult questions to answer. But before I do that, just let me give just give me two minutes. Just two minutes to just vent on one thing. Because this has been grinding my gears like real bad, right? So last week I do an episode, one for the gals, one for the ladies. Because I did one for the boys, like, you know, a couple couple days earlier, right? No, the one I did for the boys was like how to better yourself, right? In the game of dating specific. It's like kind of more specifically for dating. How to be a more, you know, a better option, I guess. And I did the same thing, or tried to take the same angle for girls, okay? Because I know what guys like, I know what guys are like, and so I'm like, okay, so this is the the thing, right? And this is what I noticed. No one says anything about the guys. You tell a guy that they need to be better, they need to do good, whatever. That's just like, yeah. Like everyone agrees. Guys agree, girls agree, the girls especially agree agree. Uh but with the girls, that it seems like they try and change what it is that I'm saying. So I'll give you an example. The the situation was if you're a girl and you have no issues attracting a guy, you just have an issue keeping a guy, this is why your relationships might continue to fail. And obviously, I'm painting the picture that in this hypothetical, it's a made-up scenario, but in this hypothetical situation, I'm obviously talking to a girl that can get guys but gets broken up with all the time. And I gave an example of, you know, there's a guy that I know who's been had like seven or eight girlfriends that have all broken up with him, and so you would be like, Okay, obviously there's an issue with the guy. So that's the scenario I paint, right? And then I go, This is why your relationship might be ending. Give some things. And a girl messages me, she goes, Hey, I want to say something about your post. I was like, Alright, um, sure. And she was like, Yeah, because I think that there's more that goes into it than that. And I'm like, Yeah, well, okay, like first of all, obviously, like there's obviously gonna be so many different reasons as to why a relationship might not work, but you can't list all of that in a two-minute clip. Anyway, she she proceeds to tell me that you know I think that relationships might fail because the guys are abusive, and she she wrote a huge thing about you know, she's been in three long-term relationships, the guys were all three of them turned out to be really abusive guys, which first of all, like heart goes out to that girl. That's so bad. Like, that's a tragic story. Like, imagine having three relationships, and they and you get with three guys, and they are all bad guys, and they'll like secretly apparently there are you know, if we if we take her at her word, that they were like on face value, look like great guys in good social standing, like they were, I don't know, looked upon fun as like being good people in the community or whatever. And as time went on, like you know, the you're like behind closed doors, they were just not who they were presenting to be, which is obviously like a really tragic story, uh as I said. But it's also not the scenario that I put you've changed my scenario, you just like changed my scenario altogether completely, and then just said that I'm wrong about it, and so it's like yeah, like obviously like in the scenario that I'm paying that I painted, that there's nothing the guy's not doing any the guys are leaving, and so that implies that the girl doesn't have a problem with the guy, otherwise she would have left. So, like when the guy is like the scenario that the guy leaves is the same scenario that the girl doesn't want him to leave, which means that he's good, at least in her eyes, you know. So it's just so annoying when it's like yeah, if you change the hypothetical, then yeah, there are more that goes into why relationships don't work for you. It's like if you make the guy abusive in your hypothetical, then yeah, that's the reason that the that the relationship doesn't work, it's because the guy's abusive, because that's that's the scenario you're painting. Like what you can't you can't say I'm wrong about my scenario if you've changed the scenario altogether, if you've if you've just changed the characters and then be like, yeah, I disagree. I think this is actually the reason. Yeah, it is for your hypothetical, nobody man. So that's like that's my that's my thing that has been annoying me this week because it's like it's also hard to even explain that to a person because like she's just like messaged me and it's like with a huge two or three really long paragraphs that was quite traumatic. Like the girl sounded like she nearly lost her life, and so I'm not gonna come back and reply to her and just be like, Hey, you changed my hypothetical, like some of messages that you you kind of have to lead with emp empathy and be like, Man, that's tragic. And like, obviously, that is the natural response anyway. Like, when you hear stories like that, you're like, Oh damn, like that is that is rough. And so, um, but to her credit, she didn't sound bitter, she didn't sound like she hated men, and she didn't sound like you know, she'd she'd be like, men are evil or anything. It wasn't like that. Because there are a lot of people that are like that, that just and they there are a lot of people that get like that just from simply being broken up with. They're just like, Yeah, men are they broke my trust. It was like, yeah, they just broke up with you because it wasn't working, and you didn't know that they were going to break up with you. So then I guess your trust was broken, but it's not like you know, everyone's trust is broken when someone breaks up with them and they didn't want them to break up with them, and then they didn't know that that they were feeling that way. Like everyone's there isn't a single breakup that's happened where people's trust isn't broken. That's just how that's how breakup forms, it's how it happens. Anyway, so that was the thing. I'm

Why Tackle The Hard Questions

SPEAKER_00 7:08

gonna jump into it now because I don't want to dilly-dally because this is some this is some real hot topic stuff, you know, answering some of Christianity's hardest questions. I want to go for the throat. And the reason I want to do this is because some things uh people think are really difficult questions to answer, but there's really simple answers for it. And by the way, I'll get in front of this now. This is just going to be more or less a like I'm only gonna touch on these topics. Some of these topics, there are entire books that you read to delve in deep to really get into the weeds of the arguments and to understand the arguments properly, and to go over like every well, what about this and what about that? So I'm just gonna give you basically like the bones of some of the these arguments. I'm also I mean, I'm limited with time as well. I want to get through maybe three or four, maybe more if I've got time, but also like you can like I've listened to let's say a three-hour podcast on just one of these topics and just going into certain things. So, like, I'm just gonna give a bit like the bones of it, but my recommendation is if that interests you, to go in and look at a little bit deeper into some of the people that have actually studied it. So uh, you know, I've read books on this stuff as well, but this podcast is supposed to be, I would say, more entry-level into some of these topics. Like, I want to make it somewhat palatable. I don't want to go in super deep because I want it to be somewhat entertaining as well. So, anyway, so I'm gonna kick it off. Like, so these are these these are some of the the things that I'm gonna go through. I'm gonna go through slavery, I'm gonna go through being born in the wrong country. Hopefully, maybe maybe I will I will do that, maybe I won't. Maybe like genocide in the Bible, maybe there's a few. Anyway,

Slavery In The Bible Explained

SPEAKER_00 9:10

let's kick it off with slavery because this one, people have this idea that the Bible condones slavery, isn't, and they say it in a way that the Bible supports it and it advocates for it, which is it's not it's not true, and it's also not necessarily untrue because it doesn't uh sp it doesn't specify that it's wrong, and it gives a framework of how slavery should be conducted. And so it doesn't say slavery's good necessarily, but it also doesn't condemn it. So but it reads as it assumes that slavery is fine because it doesn't condemn it. And obviously, the Bible doesn't have an issue with condemning things, and so you would uh, you know, a person that's critiquing the Bible would say, well, that is something that should be condemned and would be condemned if it thought that it was evil and that it was bad, which is a good, which is a good point to make, but I'll show you why it isn't condemned, because it's not the same as what people think that it that modern-day slavery would be. So there's a difference between slave, servant, and bond servant. And those three words are almost universal or like interchangeable throughout a lot of the passages in the Bible. So what slavery looked like when it was being outlined in the Old Testament was like a contract that you would enter into. So let's say, for example, someone wants to buy a house. They're they're a man, they've got a family, they need a house. Let's say they've they've either got kicked out of their last village or you know, excommunicated. Maybe someone attacked them and they lost their house or whatever, they need a new house. They don't have any means or anything to pay for it. And so what they would do is they'll go, okay, you can have my son be your slave, right? In in exchange for this. And they go, okay. And so they they they basically sign an agreement. Now, the reason that the that laws are set up in the Bible about slavery, how it happens, is because in those days, the like if you were to condemn slavery, they wouldn't have been able to survive. Like, they needed a bargaining chip, and it's like, no, no, no, you're not allowed to do that. It's like, well, how do I live? It's like, well, you just have to have to figure that out. You but you're not allowed to do any sort of like bargaining. And so it's like you kind of it's it wasn't actually appropriate to outright condemn it at the time that these things were being outlined. Not to mention, by the way, which it the reason that slavery ended was because of the Bible. So we'll just put that out there as well. The reason that slavery, like the the first people to ever end and abolish slavery, did it as Christians because the Bible says that we're all one in Christ, there is no slave nor free, uh, all men are created equal. And so those were the kind that's the kind of language that the New Testament of the Bible uses, and that was why slavery got abolished because of the push from Christian ethics. Needless to say, the the Old Testament slavery we're looking at is more like a bond servant. So they they would enter into this contract, which would be a limited time, right? So the Hebrews, the Israelites, they would uh they would have a seven-year contract. So they would they would sign on after seven years, they get released. So even that in itself is a huge difference between any other form of slavery that people think of. So like you wouldn't think that slavery in the US or some of these people that uh that literally are 24-hour slaves, they're like, Yeah, you've served your time, you can just go free. It's like, no, that that's like they don't go free, they live and die a slave. That's like the more modern version of it. So when people say slavery in the Bible, it it's a lot different to people's idea of what slavery is. So uh now there is one instance in the Bible that it outlines where they don't get released after seven years. So this is if someone from a foreign nation comes in, and this is, I suppose, probably more of the harsher criticism against it. So this is in regards to let's say uh a foreigner, they come into the land and they wanna they want to enter into one of these agreements. Well, that God wants to keep the Israelite people as a as a nation. What that what God doesn't want to do is have foreign people become citizens of the land and dwell within the land. So if you if you've read the Old Testament, you would know that like a punishment on the on the Israelites is that foreigners will invade your land and then they'll rule in your land, and you won't be able to, you won't be in control anymore. That'll be foreigners. So if they did this idea of getting released after seven years, how easy would it be for foreigners to come in, do seven years, and then okay, now we're living amongst this this Israelite tribe as citizens. It's like well, you can't you can't really do that anymore. Because basically what would end up happening is it would dilute the the nation of Israel that God was trying to preserve to the coming of Christ. And so God had a promise to keep. He had a promise to keep that he was going to preserve them for an amount of time, basically. So it was also a deterrent as well for these other people to come, knowing that they're not going to get released. So if you were to enter into an agreement, it's like, okay, well, just so you know, like that there is no, like this is you can't cancel your contract. This is locked in for life if you're coming in. Um, and so you know, people didn't have to go to Israel, by the way, because like some people were fled their country or fled their tribe or their nation. They didn't have to go to Israel, and that's a deterrent as well. It's like, well, don't if you're gonna flee your your country, don't go to Israel because the only option you've got there is to be a permanent slave forever. I mean, unless they're fretful for their life and they're like, fine, I'll I'll do that. Because in addition to that, they get clothed, they get fed, they get housed, so they get being provided for. And if you're you know fleeing from a nation or you're in exile, or you know, your nation wants to kill you and you've fled, well, then that's that's actually not a bad deal. Like you can you'd be like, yeah, sure. Like I'd rather that than what my people were gonna do, which was kill me. So so there's there's one aspect or or idea to look at it, is that it's just simply not the same. Like when people like if oh man, there is a book. Actually, if you want to go deeper into this, there is a book called Is God a Moral Monster? And it's written by Paul Copan, and he has this letter in there that someone wrote that was a slave, and I read this letter, and I don't know, you know that feeling you get when you're a little kid, and you see something that is like traumatic that you shouldn't have seen. So this is like things like that. You get this like sick kind of feeling. I got that feeling as a fully grown adult reading this letter of like this person's account of what they experienced in slavery, in Chatel slavery. This is in the US, right? It is night and day different between what the slavery looked like in the Bible to what the slavery was like in the US, like the worst of it. So I'll go through some of the let's say um objections that's that some people have for this, right? One of the things that you'll hear is that they go, you can beat your slave within an inch of their life, and if they survive, then that's fine. You're allowed to do that. First of all, no, you can't. You're not just allowed to do that. Like, people read that verse and as like a prescription. Yeah, this is just something you're allowed to do. Like, they read it as if it's like, oh, okay, we've got our slave, let's uh let's read the manual. Oh, it says here, uh, it says we can just beat the absolute piss out of our slave, and as long as they live for a day or two, then we're sweet. It's like, let me tell you how many reasons why that is the stupidest, and like for and just ungracious way to read it, like it's almost it's it's almost like uh it's well it's just a complete mischaracterization of the the scripture. So I'll read you the verse as to why people think it. And if you read it in isolation, you can see why someone might take that belief. But if you read the whole chapter of the Bible, then you'll also realize why that's the stupidest way to interpret that verse. So this is what the verse says it's in Exodus 20. It goes, When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money. Right? So people read that and they go, Oh well, look, it says it right there. If if you strike the slave and uh the slave survives a day or two, then he's not to be revenged because he was your money anyway. So, first of all, the context of that chapter, if you're reading the whole chapter, it's giving you laws about slavery, and this particular section is specifically talking about revenge. So, like, what what revenge are you allowed to take? It says you um he's not to be avenged, for example. So the so it's talking about it, it gives you examples of if someone's not your slave, if you strike someone and and they die, well then you're you're to die as well, unless it was like out of impulse or so let's say that they mean if it was premeditated, basically. If there was a premeditated attack on someone, you killed them, then you are to die as well. If it was like you guys got into a fight, and it was like manslaughter, I guess it's the difference between manslaughter and homicide. That's kind of how that without that language, that's kind of what they were getting at. And so these are the kinds of things that would happen. It's like, and in in this scenario, instead of being killed, you would be you you would be allowed, you would have to go and live in these these other cities. So they had these like cities that were set up where if you were exiled, you could go and live in these like criminal cities, basically, where you're just not part of society anymore. You go to uh you can still live, like, and you still can live your life, but you're just not allowed back in. So it's not like a prison, but it's kind of like a maybe like a prison city, I guess that's how I understand it. Could be could be more to it than that, but um, but it's specifically in regards to revenge now. What does happen though is that the slave goes free. So if it's a there's verse that says if you knock out a tooth or if you damage their eye permanently, then the slave goes free. Now, obviously, it's not going to go through and list uh every single ailment that's allowed. So it's like, oh, it says if I knock a tooth out or if I knock the eye out, then that means they go free. But I could chop their hands off and their feet off, and there would be no problem there. Because it doesn't say it's technically in the thing. It's like, no, obviously, if you're doing permanent damage, irreparable damage to your slave, then you don't get killed for it, but they go free. That's what it's saying. It's it's specifically talking in what the punishment is if that happens. Now, the slave goes, the slave still has rights, basically. And in addition to that, it's not something you would want to do because it says when it says the slave is your money, it's meaning like it's he's your work. So like you've entered into a trade deal, and it's a you don't want your you want to look after your slave because you he's working for you. He's doing like you've traded stuff for him. You don't just get it for free. Because there's also laws, if you kidnap someone and sell them, then you also get put to death as well. So you can guarantee that the people that are that are entered into these. Things they are they're voluntarily entering in. They're not just like you can't steal people, you can't kidnap people, and you can't sell them into slavery. It's just very heavily mischaracterized as to like what people are talking about. Now, so yeah, so obviously, like the the Bible was one of the only places, if not the only place, that had and gave rights to slaves to begin with. So if you like no other no other country or no other nation is giving rights to slaves, and definitely not in in the modern era of of slavery. It's just not the same, even remotely.

God Commanding War And Judgement

SPEAKER_00 22:45

So another this brings me probably into yeah, this would be a good one to go next for number two, is God commanding war or genocide on a certain people, right? People bring this up a lot with the Amalekites, where God's like, kill everyone, kill even the animals, like everyone. Let's take the Canaanites, for example. God commanded the Israelites to wipe out the Canaanites. Canaanites, what you might not know about the Canaanites is that they worshipped a deity called Moloch. And what they would do is they would sacrifice babies to Moloch, and for 400 years they did this. And they didn't just sacrifice babies, they burnt them alive on the molten hot arms of this brass furnace in the shape of Moloch. This is how they would do it. It was so bad and so severe for the mothers that they would have to beat the drums louder to drown out the screams of the babies. Okay. So, yeah. Yeah, God sends the Israelites in to say, yeah, you're not you're not just gonna keep doing this. We're gonna wipe you out. After 400 years of doing that, by that point, they're beyond redemption. So here's the thing. You don't know what the world would look like if God didn't command the Israelites to wipe out the Amalekites or the Canaanites. You don't know what it would look like if it was done any differently. An accusation that Christians will get is that like, oh, you you pick and choose, you know, which verses that you like and what you don't like. And you would you try to ignore the genocide, you try to ignore all this stuff. And it's like, no, you pick and choose actually. Because my Bible says, it's as okay, let's take it all in then. Let's let's accept everything wholesale. The that God said to wipe this nation out, genocide, whatever you want to call it. If you like, so if we're gonna accept that, if we're gonna accept that all it is, you can't then leave out the fact that God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all good. You have to have all of them together. You you can't pick and choose either. And so, with knowing that, knowing that God knows everything, he knows every single scenario and every decision to get the best outcome for the future. He's all powerful, so he could have done things any different way if he wanted to, and he's all good. So we know that whatever decision he made is going to be the best decision for the best outcome in all possible future scenarios. You don't know that if the Amalekites don't get wiped out, that everyone else gets wiped out, and we have an entire world that's got no one left in it that's righteous, like it was in the days of Noah before God actually flooded the earth because he said, You guys are beyond repair. There's only one righteous among you that it was Noah. So what? God goes, okay, we don't wipe out the Amalekites, we don't, we do it, we do it a different way, and then we end up in a world that was exactly the same as it was before God flooded it to begin with. So what would what would have been the point of God flooding the earth in that case? No. How about if we're going to accept that that happened, we also have to accept that it was the best decision to make because any other decision would have had a worse outcome, which you don't know. You've lived on the earth for 20 years, 40 years, 70 years, who knows? You've got that much knowledge. You've got that much knowledge, tiny little bit of what you know. You have no idea what would what the world would look like in any other scenario had things been done differently. But you know who does know that? God, the God of everything, the God of the universe. Like, how much pride and arrogance do you need to have that you think you know better than God? Well, I wouldn't have done that. Well, I think that's bad. Like, to judge God that just created everything and knows everything and is all powerful, can do absolutely everything, you're gonna sit there and be like, I think I could have done a better job with my 10 to 15 years of knowledge as an adult. You know, obviously, I'm not gonna count the first 10 years of your life. Like, where do you get off? Like thinking that it's like you know better. Okay, so my my question then would be to those people tell me, let's say God doesn't do it. Tell me what the world looks like. Explain to me in in detail what the world looks like if God doesn't wipe out the Amalekites and He doesn't kill the Canaanites. Tell me that. If you can answer that question and and and you you've got proof, we can verify it, then yeah, I I'd be happy to say that that what God did them was evil. If you if you think that you can explain, and it's a better way, by the way, if you can if you can actually show me that it's better that God didn't do it that and the world would be better if that didn't happen, then yeah, I think I might come around. I might think I might actually believe and think that yeah, God's bad. But if you can't do that, then I'm just gonna go ahead and continue to believe that he's good. Because why would I doubt that? So that's what I have to say about that.

What “Sweet Smelling Aroma” Means

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Next one sweet smelling aroma. I had someone tell me once this, right? With animal sacrifice in the Old Testament, it says it's like a sweet smelling aroma to God. And this person that was that was telling me about this, they were disgusted by it because they're like, God thinks that animal sacrifice, killing animals, is a sweet smelling aroma. So he's questioning God's character, because he's like, that's sick that you would that you would find that to be a sweet smelling aroma. Like God has human nostrils and he can smell things that that's what he means by that. That's obviously, first of all, it's obviously silly. Second of all, there's an important thing to make note in the Old Testament as well, in the book of Hosea 6, verse 6, it says, God, God says, For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. So it's like God, God would prefer love over burnt offerings. So that's one thing to point out. The main point I want to make though is what someone means when they say something in if you're translating a language that's thousands of years old into a new language. So take this for example. On a cologne bottle, you you sometimes see it say parfum, it will say auto parfum or auto toilette. Now, ignore the pronunciation because I don't speak French. But auto toilette, if you translate that as a word-for-word translation, what you're gonna get is it's gonna say water from toilet. Now, if you speak English and you live in Australia, you'll know that a toilet is something that you urinate and defecate in. Having water from the toilet, like let's say, obviously, we know that that's not what it is, right? We know that that's not what that is, not water from the toilet. In 2,000 years' time, someone could look at that and translate it and be like, oh my goodness, they used to use water from the toilet as like their spray or something that they would use. So that's because where the the French meaning and the French word for toilette, which we use for toilet, means something completely different to how we use it. Toilette in France, it's it means like bathroom. To you would you would do your toilet is to like go in to freshen up, basically, to get clean. That's how that word is used. So us reading it, it wouldn't be the best translation for us to say, if you want to get the word-for-word translation, you would go, okay, it it really says water from toilet, but a better translation would be maybe bathroom water or fresh freshening, freshening up water or something like that. Like it would be a different meaning, it would sound completely different. And so when you read something like sweet smelling aroma, you know, okay, well, I know that God's not actually meaning that that he his nostrils can smell it, and he's like, Oh, it's a good smell, I like that smell. No, it means that it's it's an acceptable offering, it's it's not gonna be rejected, it's it's approved by God, it's acceptable to God to do its purpose, like why people sacrifice things to begin with. There was a purpose behind it. It wasn't just because God liked the burning animals. So, first of all, that that yeah, I don't even know why I spoke about that. It's so silly that I kind of feel silly even having to explain that, but whatever. That's what you get that one for free. Let's move on.

Many Gods And The Ricky Argument

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Uh, this one is is a common one that people think is a good one, but it's really not. Like, there's so many other gods. How can you really know? How can you really know when there's so many other gods? Okay, what I might do. You you might have heard this. Ricky Gervais says this a lot. He's like, You there's you know, a thousand different gods. You don't believe in 999 of those gods. I just don't believe in one more than you. So that sounds really clever, and obviously, because like Ricky Gervais is a comedian, that's what they do, they're witty, they can make things sound clever, and it's like it's rhetoric and it helps to push something forward. But when you actually break it down, you realize that that is it's just it's really dumb and it's really stupid. And if you actually thought about it a little bit longer, you would realize that. Like, it's the same as saying, like, let's say a married person goes up to a bachelor and they go, We're basically the same, you and I. It's like, what do you mean? It's like, well, there's a thousand women that you're not married to, I'm just not married, not not married, to one less. And it's like, no, but that changes everything, it changes everything. Like, all it takes is one before the whole scenario is completely different. It's like, yeah, okay, so yeah, you don't believe in a bunch of gods, but there's a difference between being a theist and a non-theist. So a theist, it's just like like saying that as a as a Christian, like, oh, you do I just don't believe in one less. It's like that it you go from being a non uh a theist to a non-theist, which is that you just don't believe that any god existed, which means that there's a completely dis like completely different explanation for how everything got here. The whole fabric of your entire reality rests upon whether you believe that God exists or not, or that multiple gods exist. Like even a polytheist or a monotheist or whatever it is, being an atheist or a non-theist, it changes the whole structure of the world that you think that you live in. So it's just it's just a silly, it's just like basically like word games, basically, but it has it has no substance in it. The other thing is when people go, oh, there's so many gods, like how can you possibly ever know? Like there's just so many. You can you can't even really know. And usually when people say that, they don't they don't ask that question, they just throw that out there and just be like, no one can ever know. We can just never know. And it's like, no, we actually can know though, because you can look at all of those individually, and people have done that, and I've done that. So it's like we'll start with an easy one, for example. Like, we can take Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard published 250 works of fiction, not just any fiction, science fiction and fantasy. And he started Scientology in the 1950s. So, yeah, I think we can I think we can pretty safely rely on the fact that he's made it up. What do you mean? Like we can know. Some of these things we can know. So that's one of them, obviously. I mean, we can go back a bit further. I'll give you a uh one that's maybe a little bit more a bit of a harder one. So like you look at ancient Greek history and you look at the god, like gods like Zeus and Apollos, Aphrodite, you know, all the ones, right? So when you look at ancient Greek thought, what they were always trying to figure out for a very long time was what's the meaning of life? How is this all working? And so they came up with this uh this idea of the fate, like it's just fate, and it's kind of like a shapeless stream, they would call it a shapeless stream, and it's kind of like things just move in motion and whatever happens, happens. Like there's no real way to know, right? So that's kind of what they believe for a long time until they there was no structure in that. And like it's kind of it's everything's just kind of arbitrary. So there's no nothing's really governing anything because you can't even really believe you can't believe anything, because it's like there's no solid foundation, nothing's happening for a reason, I guess. There's no reason, which means there's no meaning. So they weren't happy with that. If there's no reason as to why anything's happening, then there's no meaning to anything. So because they weren't happy with that, that they developed gods, and so they assigned gods to certain things. So Zeus, uh, of you know, thunder. They had, I suppose, a god of the sun, like Apollo was the god of the sun. They had Poseidon, the god of the water, you know. So they have all these things. And as time progressed, they started to develop more and more for different things. So let's say things that weren't so that weren't just substance, but were things that happened, like love, god of love, or like Aries, the god of war. You know, they would have all like different things that would happen in life, I suppose. And that the reason that they developed these was was to help better understand why things happen. Oh, okay. So we know why war happens now. Ares is involved in that. We know why love happens, Eros is involved in that, or you know, we know why there even is a sun and why there's water, you know, there's someone in involved in it. And this is also explains why they would try and sacrifice things to appease the gods and try and gain favor. And um, but apparently these gods would kind of had a mind of their own anyway, and they kind of just like did whatever they want, they had their own emotions, and they would either feel like doing something or they wouldn't feel like doing something, and so it didn't really solve the problem that they were aiming for anyway. But you can't really solve the problem they're aiming for because the only real answer is is God. So, because you have to have an intelligent mind, intelligent being, and uh there has to be like a plan, like obviously, like Christianity gives you all of that. But anyway, you can look into it as to why or how these things kind of developed, and you can go, okay, well, I can kind of see where they went, and obviously, like they didn't last that long because like what that's why Greek mythology is a thing of the past, is because there was no substance in it to begin with. They were trying to figure things out and they were playing with these ideas, and then they really did believe them. A lot of people really believed them, but it was also it lacked substance because how it was birthed. It wasn't birthed in in a manner that was obviously could stand the test of time because it didn't, because no one believes in Greek mythology anymore. By the way, a lot of Christians actually do believe in Greek mythology. When when someone like Jesus, uh sorry, when someone like Ricky Gervais says, you know, you just don't believe in all these, you know, 900 or 1,000 gods, 999 gods, whatever. A lot of Christians do actually believe that they're they're real and they're just demons. So that's another thing. Is that someone could answer that question and go, no, I do believe in them. I just don't believe that they're good. I think that they're demons or that they're evil entities or evil deities, and that the only good one is Yahweh, is God. So that is also another response you can take. You can be like, Oh, I just don't believe in one letter. No, no, no, I believe in a mole. I believe in a mole, gods with a lowercase g. Bro, okay. I

Part Two Plans And Book Recos

SPEAKER_00 40:08

did not realize how long I've been speaking for, and I've gone well past the time. I haven't touched on the problem of evil, I haven't even touched on what else? Hypocrites in the church, I haven't touched on being born in the wrong country, because obviously, like there's people that go, well, you're only a Christian because you were born in a Christian nation, and what about the people that weren't? And so there's there's another difficult question or or a harder question. So I might have to do a part two. That's what I might. I think I'll do a part two next week to go into the problem of evil. Maybe I'll look up some other ones, and in that time, if you have any other ones that you want me to look at or or talk about, let me know. But again, these are the bare bones. I'm not a writer, I'm a reader. I read things, I can repeat things, I can remember and retain things, and then tell people in an easier way so you don't have to read an entire book on it. But if you wanted me to go a little bit deeper on anything, or if you want me to clarify on anything, let me know. Please reach out. Uh, and also, yeah, if there's a if you've got really hard questions and you're like, okay, what about this? What about that? Tell me. Uh and yeah, I'll I'll look into it if I know about it. And aside from that, but yeah, I'll do a I'll do a part to it. Oh yeah, so if you want any of the source information as well, so obviously um here hang on. So this is the book. That is that is one of the books that I was talking about. So that's it's more specifically making sense of the old testament. This is another book called Stealing called Stealing from God. This is by Frank Turek, and this is a super easy read. Frank Turek's like level one apologetics. So he's he's good to read. Anyway, I'm gonna wrap it up there. So remember Christ is King, Jesus loves ya, and he's coming back soon. So get to know him now. Get to know him now. Thank you. Alright, peace.