Jeff Durbin (2:30)

Your heart so you will never be the same again. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of not knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Proverbs, chapter 1, verse 7. Compelling, powerful verse, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Apologia Radio. This is the gospel heard around the world. I'm Jeff the Combinator. That's Luke the Bear right there. What up and you can go get more@apologia studios.com that's a P O L O G I A apologiastudios.com Go get more all the past episodes. You can get sheologians, you can get cultists, you can get provoked, you can get Apologia Radio, everything. There's so much to get access to. It'll bless you guys. And so apologiestudios.com don't forget also to go there. Sign up for your Bonson U account. It is absolutely for free. Get trained top tier theological education from one of the giants of church history, Dr. Greg Bonson. It is a gift from the Bonson family through us to you. It is absolutely free. If you have not got your account and you guys aren't digesting that stuff, you are missing, missing out. So make sure you guys be sure to do that. Big shout out and thank you to everybody who is All Access with us. Go to apologiastudios.com Sign up for all Access when you do get all kinds of additional content like today after the show today we're going over there for an after show for Apologia Radio. You can join us over there. We're going to talk about apologetics, defending the Christian faith, how you do that with atheists like Sam Harris. We're going to talk about that today as well. Sam Harris, one of the horsemen of the, of the Apocalypse. The, the, the, the, the famous atheists over the last generation. You've got Dennett, you've got Dawkins, you've got Hitchens, you've got Harris. Those guys, Harris had our friend Douglas Wilson on his show just dropped actually this week. Two episodes, the full episode and then a shorter one. And so we're going to review some of that today. Anyways, we're going to talk about that in the after show today, including on the show today. So sign up for All Access. When you guys do, you get all kinds of additional content. You get all the full episodes of Collision. You get, you get Apologia Academy, you get tons of stuff over there as a big thank you to being a part of this ministry with us. People are coming to Christ all over the world through this ministry and you are a part of that mission with us. And so go sign up for All Access. And yes, you guys have been asking. The app right now is finished. We are uploading it to the, the, the platforms. So you guys will be able to get that soon. We did take some time to try to break the thing and looks like all is well right now. So I'll be announcing to everybody we when the app is available for you and All Access, you get the app. It's going to be so much easier and just so much easier to access everything. Hold your place. Great stuff. And so that's coming. Thank you to everybody who's been a part of this ministry with us since the very beginning. If you're not part of it now, join us apolog.com Sign up for Apologia Studios All Access be a part of this mission with us, everybody. So here we go. All right. So crazy stuff been happening over the last couple of months. It's sad too, because what happened with this government shutdown affected my family as well. Not that I am getting any money from the government, but my son is in the Air Force and he is over in England right now and he hasn't been paid for a long time.

Luke Bear (5:42)

Oh, I didn't think about that.

Jeff Durbin (5:43)

Yeah, he hasn't been paid. And so it's been rough going for a lot of the members of our military because of the government shutdown. You have, of course, all the crazy stuff happening with the airports and air traffic control and of course, course the SNAP benefits and people talking about starting riots and just breaking into stores and stealing stuff for themselves. And so it's been a wild couple of months, but I guess we are out of the woods, at least temporarily. Many people are like, oh good, finally done. It's only actually a couple of months that we're funded. And so it's just a wild thing. So I'll start with this. This is Senator Mike Johnson, speaker of the House, and this is Mike Johnson talking about what the Democrats wanted, what they wanted to pack into this thing.

Mike Johnson (6:31)

Today, Senate Democrats will have their eighth chance to end this mess by passing our clean, nonpartisan continuing resolution, the government funding bill that would end all of this immediately. Over three weeks ago, the House passed that bill and you all know the details of it. It is completely clean. There are no policy changes, no partisan riders, no gimmicks or tricks at all. All it does is keep the lights on at the current funding levels for a few extra weeks while we complete the normal appropriations process. Now compare that to the Democrats counter proposal. They're demanding $1.5 trillion in new spending paid for by American taxpayers. And I want you to be specific. I want us to be specific. I want you to note what that counter proposal includes because we've not yet gone into details of it because it's large and very absurd. But here's Some of the highlights of this. It would reverse common sense reforms that Republicans made in the working families tax cut that keep illegal aliens off taxpayer funded health care. This is a fact. Page 57, section 2141 of their counter proposal as we've been posting everywhere, and they would add the illegal aliens non citizens back to taxpayer funded benefits. It would cost taxpayers nearly $200 billion. They would also remove a very reasonable, reasonable and moderate modest work requirement that we put on able bodied young men with no dependents. As we've said, they should not be riding the wagon and taking Medicaid. That is intended for vulnerable populations, the elderly, disabled and young pregnant women for example. And not young able bodied men without dependents who are playing video games. We put that into the law because it's common sense. Their counter proposal would reverse that so taxpayers would be funding them again. They would make in their counter proposal permanent Covid era Obamacare subsidies without any income caps or any other reforms at all. They would make that permanent. That would cost taxpayers an estimated $358 billion. It would. They would repeal. They would repeal. They would take away the $50 billion that we put into the law to support rural hospitals. They would remove that and they would send a half a billion dollars to liberal news outlets by refunding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It would also restore up to $5 billion of American taxpayer funds for wasteful spending for international projects. Here's a couple of examples. This is in their legislation, their counter proposal on a CR to keep the lights open. This is what they want to do. They want to spend $24.6 million of your hard earned dollars as a taxpayer for climate resilience in Honduras. They want to spend 13.4 million for civic engagement in Zimbabwe. They want to send 3.9 million for LGBTQI democracy grants in the western Balkans. They want to spend 2.9 million of your dollars for desert locust risk reduction in the Horn of Africa and 2 million for organizing for feminist democratic principles in Africa. We are not doing that. These are unserious proposals from unserious people and they are playing games while real Americans are being harmed adversely by the shutdown.

Jeff Durbin (9:52)

Yeah, there you go. So what in the world is happening? How do you get to that kind of place? Well, we want to argue of course, that, you know, people are, oh, theonomy bad, theonomy bad, you know, hashtag theonomy bad. Or something like God's law is oppressive or something like that. And this is, this is the result of abandoning God's law and a biblical order of government. And so according to the book of Romans 13, you see, the role of government is to be the servant of God. So government is good. We're not opposed to government. And that kind of order, of course, is ordained by God. But the government, according to Romans chapter 13, through inspiration by the apostle Paul, is instituted by God for a specific purpose, to be the servant of the true God, not of any just kind of God, but a genuine servant of the true and living God, the only God. And so it's. It's a. It's a scripture that tells us about the purpose of government, and it talks about the purpose of the government as. As protecting the righteous and punishing evildoers. And so the government has a sword, and that sword is supposed to punish the evil in society, and it's supposed to protect the righteous in society. And that's the role of government. And when you look at the Mosaic legislation, you look at God's law, you see a very, very small government, very small government. And of course, you have examples in Scripture of God even punishing the people of God when they say, no, we want a king like all the other nations. We want to be like them. And God's like, well, they've rejected me as king. And so, all right, I'll give him a king like the other nations. And what he's going to do, he's going to take your kids to war, and he's going to think that he's actually worthy of my tithe. He'll take 10% in taxation. Now, amazingly, think about that. In God's law, you have limited government. The role of government is to protect the righteous, to punish the evildoers. It's very small, has very limited capabilities and. And ways that it's supposed to actually be operating over the people of God. But in that instance, in that example in Scripture, 10% taxation, that the gall. The nerve of the government to think that it is worthy of the tithe, that it's worthy to take 10%, which is what you give to God under God's law. And the audacity of the government to think that they are worthy of 10% is punishment on a people. And where are we at today with taxation, with simple taxation, even for retail stuff that could be biblical and could be godly, could be done right. You have some places at 10% total of taxation just on goods. And then you have, of course, income tax where the government owns your labor, and what is it called when someone owns your labor? Slavery. And the government Owns your, your own production, your own labor, what you do with your hands, with your feet, with your mind, with your mouth. The government owns that and they tax that. They tax you as a person who works and they own your income and so they own your own labor. And so that's where we're at. And so people, you know, say, oh, the God's law is, you know, so oppressive. And everything else is like, oh really? So you don't want a limited government that has specific rules and restrictions to it, that's not allowed to turn tyrannical, that has, has, has the eye on justice and only justice shall you do. An eye on justice and equal weights and measures, an eye on protecting people and not showing favoritism in the courts. An eye on justice for victims, the upholding of victims rights in society. And so what do you do when you remove yourself from the foundation of scripture and the law, word of God? What happens to your society? This is what happens in society. And it's not like it happened all at once, right Luke? I mean, I can imagine, you know, in, in this great American experiment, we talk about 1776 and you finally get to a constitution and you have the Bill of Rights. You know, we weren't having conversations like this whether we're going to, we're going to take taxpayer money and we're going to fund gay stuff in foreign countries. What the world is going on. This is wild, wild stuff. And so there's a lot of ways that you can solve this. Of course you need to have a government that acknowledges the authority and lordship of Jesus Christ in the scriptures as ultimate. That's one way. You could also solve this by having people who are the representatives of the people who actually are submitted to Jesus Christ and take a basic profession of faith, test the Democrats here that want these wicked things and want to steal from people to get these wicked things. You know, sure, some of them may profess to believe in Jesus, but I think we could test that and be a little squinty eyed as, as we listen to them. But. So we need to engage with this. Luke, I'll let you jump in here if you want. Go ahead.

Luke Bear (14:56)

Yeah, I was just gonna say, you know, I've seen some comments here. This isn't even, we're not even getting in here, just pro Republican because I'm sure there's all kinds of fluff up in that piece from the Republicans as well, you know, and the whole point is it's for it to be small government. And so it just so happens that you know, the Democrats have a whole butt ton of. And that is a real measurement, but ton, a butt ton of fluff in there, that is complete hot garbage. But again, I'm sure the Republicans do as well. The point is none of that should be in there and we need to get back to small government.

Jeff Durbin (15:36)

Yeah, sure they do, sure they do. I mean, there's a lot of times, say you look at some people who are Republicans and they're no different than the leftists and the liberals and much of their ideology. And so if you're new to this, you're like, what are you arguing for the Republicans and you know, MAGA country and all that stuff? No, we're arguing as Christians, as theonomists, as people who respect and love and revere the law of God and say that this should be what guides us and our principles and what we do to create government. And it's powerful too, because you think about the founding of this nation. You've got the Federalist Papers and you've got all those different things that sort of came together to make this great thing, these great benefits and blessings. It's clear, very clear in all of that. We talk about what influenced them, the Huguenots, the Covenanters, British Common Law, all that stuff. What influenced them. You're looking at a people, when you think about the, the start of this nation, who are so influenced by the Christian worldview that they understand, understand, understood something. And that is something that I think we may even get to hear from Doug today in this thing with Sam Harris. And that is that never trust an American. Right? And, and what, what do they mean by that? Never trust an American? That is to say that all people are sinful. And so when they were, you know, forming a government, they understood, because they knew history, they knew their Bibles, that when who are also sinners, oftentimes that goes bad directions and doesn't go well for people. So tyranny comes because people are sinners and when they get power, they want more power and then they wield that power in wicked ways. And that's what we're dealing with right now. When you have a government that has its hands in every thing, everywhere and in every thing, the government running things and institutions and funding things that it has no right or respons to be involved in. And that's what we have to engage with and you think about how far we are from a just and peaceful society. When you look at the government today, I mean, we are talking about the government funding things and being involved in things that scripture gives them no place to be doing that. The government involved in education, that is not a government responsibility. And when you give the government control of education, you get what we deal with today. The indoctrination centers that are indoctrinating our children in an ungodly worldview and in opposition to Jesus Christ. And so that's the government education system. The government should not be involved in education. Tax dollars should not be going to fund that sort of a thing. Education should be private. Education, of course, we would argue should be Christian, but it should certainly not be something the government has its hands in. And then the government funding lgbtqia, whatever stuff, what in the world is going on? Taxpayer dollars going to fund gay stuff. It's insanity.

Luke Bear (18:30)

And they're going to make sure our military isn't paid until they get to fund that.

Jeff Durbin (18:35)

Until they get to fund that stuff. It's just wild. It is. You know, I was thinking, I actually had a conversation with my son. I was like, at one point, as a man, and I was just, you know, asking the question, when you're working for somebody or some organization and you're working for weeks and weeks and weeks and you're not being paid for your labor, at what point is it a righteous thing to say, I can't work for you any longer. I gotta find another job? Right? And he was like, well, you go to jail for that. And I was like, see, that's the tyranny of the system, is like, I own you. I own your labor, I own your production, and so I'll own it, even not paying you a wage for your work. And so I'm gonna say, hey, God bless the members of the military in the United States of America who endure this kind of stuff, these kind of games that are played in Congress. And you continue to work, you continue to defend your nation despite even being paid. Because in any other category, in any other category, if, as private citizens, you and I, if we're working for an organization that said, yeah, I'm not paying you for the next two months, but please come back into work, all of us would say, I'm going to stay home. I'm going to stay home until you give me a paycheck, until you pay me for my labor that I did, I'm going to stay home. But somehow that doesn't work in the way the government runs things, is that you are demanded, you will work and continue to work, or you will be punished. And so it is. It is really just honestly such a terrible thing. And I feel so sorry for the members of our military, especially when you hear Senator Mike Johnson talk about the reason for the holdup. The reason for the hold up is we want to continue to do all these things that are not the responsibility of government. We want to pay for things that are not the responsibility of government. And this is something that should be addressed. And so again, you oftentimes will have Christians today who will argue against theonomy. Now theonomy is booming and growing and growing and growing. Praise God for that. And if you haven't studied it, I would encourage you to get Dr. Greg Bonson's book by this standard, and then also get his book Theonomy and Christian Ethics and, and do your homework in this area. But Christians, evangelical pastors even will criticize and say, we don't want theonomy. And so I look around and go, is this what you want?

Luke Bear (20:51)

Right?

Jeff Durbin (20:51)

Is this what you want? Yeah, go ahead, Luke.

Luke Bear (20:54)

No, I just. You're exactly right. It's just the. You. What is it? What Bronson says, like, there's, there's no. Against the myth of neutrality. It's either God's standard or some subjective man standard. And this objective man standard that we have sucks.

Jeff Durbin (21:10)

Right. So in God's law, just a couple things we throw out. And this is just to wet your appetite to get excited about it. You would have a small government, a limited government, a government that has restraints and it has a border around it. Okay. It has a role under God, it has to obey the word of God, the transcendent law of God, small government, focus on justice, focus on equal weights and measures, focus on no partiality, a focus upon making sure that you punish the evildoers in society. And so you also, interestingly, in the law of God, you ever notice something that's in the law of God or say absent from the law of God is long term prison systems. Like they're not there.

Luke Bear (21:46)

Yeah.

Jeff Durbin (21:47)

How much do we pay to fund prison systems, long term prison systems in America today? I haven't even looked at those numbers. I saw them a long time ago, but it's pretty insane. And it's also now a business. Prison systems are a business. And so look what we've turned it into. So you've got no long term prison systems. In scripture, you don't have people becoming second victims to a person's crime by having their, their own property and their own money taken away from them to pay for the criminal's crime. You have justice for the victims, victims rights upheld and protection of the Righteous. And you have essentially freedom. I mean, freedom. It's one of the things that people glory in with the American experiment. They're like, wow, there's so much freedom there because you have a representative government that represents the people. They're under authority. There's a transcendent law. You have Lex, Rex, all that stuff. And the people are essentially a republic controlling the nation with their representatives representing their things. And you also have restraints on government by having these different categories within government so that you can avoid tyranny. Great, great stuff from the Christian worldview. And what does it bring? Freedom. And that's what people would love about America. Go to America for freedom. And much of that freedom, much of that freedom in America was understood to be from specifically having the kind of government that we had that we do not have any longer. We do not have that government of the American experiment any longer. And proof of it is what just happened with the government shutdown. We don't have that government any longer. Our government is doing things that God's law forbids them to do. And so why is there tyranny? Well, abandon God's law and you go into tyranny. It's what God said, by the way, in his word. He said, all right, you know, they don't want me ruling over him. They want a king like the rest of the nations. So, fine, I'll give it to him. And here's what your life's going to look like. Now. You don't want to be ruled by God and his law? Great, you'll be ruled by man and his. And then what happens? Tyranny. He's going to control your life. He's going to control your kids. He's going to take your kids to war and he's going to take your money. And that's what government does. And look what they do with your money. Look what they're doing with your money. I mean, we work, they own our labor, they take money from us. And it goes to pay for the health care for people who are here that are not in covenant with this nation.

Luke Bear (24:11)

Right?

Jeff Durbin (24:12)

There's no justice in that. That's not fair. And so my argument is simply this. All of these programs, now, aside from the wicked, wicked ones, like the gay stuff, that's just so sinful and so evil and shame on you for that. But the other things we talk about, like the SNAP program and feeding people who are struggling, who are in difficult situations, first of all, I mean, everybody in the SNAP program knows this. And people who have been on Food stamps for ages have known that there are people in that system that are gaming the system, that are selling their food stamps and profiting, literally, literally profiting off of the government paying for their food and everything else. Then you also have the problem with the fact that you don't solve the problem in many of these people's lives by simply just giving them a credit card with money on it, saying, go buy Pepsi and Doritos. You're not solving the problem. The problem is a problem of work ethic. It's a sinfulness, it's a slothfulness, it's a laziness. It's a hard issue. It's not to say that there aren't people that come on hard times. Of course, of course, of course I've been on hard times. I have. I mean, early on in my marriage, I mean, it was a struggle to get food on the table every single day, every single day we were on. Really, really, really in the younger years of my marriage. And so I'm, you know, this is, this is a part of a sinful world. This is what happens. But you're not going to solve this problem by just handing people handouts and saying, well, we'll solve your problems, your life, pay for your rent, pay for your food in perpetuity. We'll keep doing it. The government can't solve that problem. It is only God who can change people's hearts. To not be slothful, to not be lazy, to want to work, to want to be productive. And at the same time, scripture doesn't give the government the role to do these programs, to say, hey, you know, care for the poor and take care of all their needs, take away from these people to feed their needs. Scripture gives that duty of benevolence to the people of God and to the church. So it's, it's like the government is trying to take the role of the church in benevolence, in caring for the poor. But in reality, it's the, it's, it's supposed to be not something that is compulsory. I'm making you do this. But it is generous spirit and heart of the people and the people of God that care for the poor and take, for, take care of people's needs. I mean, just an apology at church. And we're going to go to a commercial break here right now after this apology at church. What's the benefit of the church? I'll tell you, one of the greatest things that I've gotten to experience, we've gotten to experience over 16 years of ministry essentially, is seeing how the people of God care for the needs of the people of God. So Apologia Church, we have funded people to care for their, their mortgages, to care for their rent when they hit hard times, to put food on the table, to put food in the refrigerator. We've paid medical bills, we've paid for adoptions, we've paid, We've. We've taken care of people getting their cars for them. And that's the role of the church. The church cares for those needs. And so what I want to say is just before we go to commercial break, if the church would do its duty and caring for the needs of the people with benevolence, then the government would no longer be necessary. And so we have to, I think, have this, this sphere of the church that actually does the duty that God ordains them to do for the poor and for the needy. And when we do that, we're not going to need the government. And when we do it, we can do it more effectively than the government. Because when the Christian church comes into people's lives to care for their needs, they also give them Jesus, they also give them God's wisdom. They help to heal that stuff in society. You will not heal this stuff through the government simply saying, here, here. It's not going to. Because what's going to happen if he. What's that? What's the old saying? If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for the day. If you teach him how to fish, he'll eat for the rest of his life. It's the same thing with scripture, you know, it's not just the handout. The church is supposed to actually train and equip the world to love God, to love neighbor, and to get a job, get a job and be productive.

Luke Bear (28:21)

It shouldn't be hard to find a job right now.

Jeff Durbin (28:24)

You can, you can. Especially now in the age of the Internet, man, you can work, work, work and have access to the world with stuff. So we're gonna go to a quick commercial break. Be right back. We're gonna talk about Douglas Wilson, my friend, our friend on with Sam Harris, one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. We'll be right back. Back. This episode is brought to you by ion layer@ionlayer.com Go and check out the health benefits, the wellness benefits and longevity benefits of NAD treatments. NAD is nicknamed the Fountain of Youth for a reason. You have an abundance of this in your system when you're young. As you get older, it drops off and now we found a way to get NAD into our systems. They do it through IV treatments, but they're very expensive and it's also extremely painful and difficult. However, Ion Layer found a way to get a high dose of NAD into your system through a medical patch you wear on your arm. You wear it for about 14 hours, you get a high dose of NAD treatment into your system and no pain at all. And it is a fraction of the cost of what you would pay through for an IV treatment. In the coupon code, type in Apologia in all caps. They're going to hook you up with a great discount for an already amazingly cost effective product. And they bless Apologia Studios and help us to stay on the air and do all these programs with you. Don't forget. Also, Ion Layer has added a glutathione patch as well. Glutathione, the master antioxidant. Go check out the health benefits of glutathione. I'm doing this stuff anyways. It's blessed my life in tremendous ways. And so if you want to focus on your health, wellness and longevity, nothing better in my mind than ionlayer.com for your NAD and Glutathione treatments. Ionlayer.com don't forget to put Apologia in all caps in the coupon code. Welcome back everybody. So the issue of atheism, we've engaged that a bunch on apology. I hope everything we do blesses you and equips you so that you can reach the atheist next to you, the atheist that you love. Now this was, this was great. So Doug Wilson, if you haven't seen it, did a debate tour, a debate book with Christopher Hitchens. Yep, my favorite atheist in, in, in history actually. I really wish that I had gotten a chance to actually engage with Christopher Hitchens and just maybe sit down and have a meal with the guy. My favorite atheist. So Hitchens and Doug Wilson did a debate tour and a book and it turned into a movie. That movie is on YouTube. It's collision, the movie with Doug Wilson, Christopher Hitchens. If you haven't seen it, make sure you do. It'll bless you. It is such a great film done by our friend Darren Doan. And I just would encourage you to make time to watch that. It's really, really great. And now Doug has had the opportunity to talk to one of the other horsemen of the Apocalypse, Sam Harris. By the way, that's what they, they called themselves the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It was, it was Dennett Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris. And so now Harris had Douglas Wilson on to talk about Christian nationalism, and they talked about a wide variety of subjects. So I wanted to engage a bit with that. It's actually a lot of fun to listen to. And so the first thing we'll talk about here and engage a bit with is Harris questioning Doug on the issue of slavery and the Bible. Here we go.

Sam Harris (31:40)

Yeah. Except it would have been so easy had God or Jesus or anyone else in the Bible wanted to make it clear that slavery was an abomination. They simply could have said that. Right? I mean, on your account. They have the principal crimes, murder and theft and blasphemy and idolatry and homosexuality even have been specified and ruled out of Christian morality. But slavery hasn't literally only.

Jeff Durbin (32:16)

So let's talk about that for a second. What atheists will tend to do with the issue of slavery is blend categories. And what they will do is they'll find the word slave or slavery in Scripture, and then what they will do is they will utilize something that's in recent memory for people, and that is the chattel slavery that we had in the United States of America and in other nations had it as well, where we're talking about kidnapping a human being and enslaving a human being. And what they'll tend to do is conflate, and they'll bring that issue into what they see as slavery in the Bible or what God will allow for in Scripture. And they're not the same thing. And so that's the first problem. And so Sam Harris says, you know, be great if the Bible can actually come out and condemn as an abomination slavery. You know, it does it with homosexuality and all these other sins, but not with slavery. My response would be no, actually it does. If you're. If you're thinking in the proper categories, what you're trying to do is slavery is bringing into what scripture talks about as slavery. But Scripture says very clearly in Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy, chapter 24, verse 7, it says, if a man is found stealing one of his brothers of the people of Israel, and he treats him as a slave or sells him, then that thief shall die. You shall purge the evil from your midst. I wonder if that is the Bible calling slavery an abomination. I mean, you think. I mean, I wonder. I wonder if. I wonder if. I wonder how far we have to go to make sure that we're clearly communicating biblical morality on the issue of slavery. If the Bible says that if a person does it, they deserve to die. And you need to purge that kind of evil wickedness from your midst. Is that enough, I wonder, to say what God's feelings are and what his position is on the issue of slavery, that if you do it, you should die. And you need to make sure that you purge this kind of evil from your midst. Don't even let it rest among you. Get it out of your midst. If somebody would kidnap and enslave a person, they deserve to die. And do not let that evil into your community. I wonder, is that enough to repudiate the issue of slavery from a biblical perspective? I think it is. I really do. But here we go.

Sam Harris (34:32)

Here's Doug, other person. And forcing them to be your farm equipment is part of the.

Jeff Durbin (34:42)

Culture.

Douglas Wilson (34:43)

Part of the culture back then? Yeah.

Sam Harris (34:45)

There are many things that are part of the culture that Christianity disavowed, and this was not one of them. So it seems to me that if we're being honest, what has happened in your case, and the reason why you're grateful that we don't have to relitigate this and the slavery, the chattel slavery is behind us, is that you have received some instruction from a larger moral conversation, a secular moral conversation, the larger moral progress of Western philosophy.

Jeff Durbin (35:18)

Which didn't come from atheism or agnosticism. So you see, what Harris does here is he flips the script. He's like, well, no, actually you've gotten instruction from the secularists here. And so you're adopting the morality of the secularists. And I'm thinking to myself, what? No, it was the Christian church and the Christian worldview that had that pillar inside of it, the image of God, and the other pillar inside of it that says that we all come from the same parents, every one of us. And so everyone's in the image of God, everyone are brothers and sisters in Adam and Eve. And so we have that very different from the atheist perspective that says that all of us are this, the random results of evolutionary processes, and all of us are cosmic accidents, and there's no ultimate above us, no justice ahead of us. So, no, Christianity didn't borrow from the secular worldview or the atheistic worldview. Far, far from it. As a matter of fact, Harris and the atheists in the west today were influenced by the Christian worldview. I mean, I could tell you right now, when they were arguing against the slave trade in England and all that beautiful, glorious story behind us there, they were using scripture to do so. They were using the word of God. And isn't it interesting that the abolitionists in these United States were doing the same thing. They were quoting scripture. And by the way, one of the scriptures that the abolitionists were arguing with against the slave trade in America is they were using Deuteronomy that says specifically purge the evil from your midst. You deserve to die for this kind of slavery. And so no, Christianity and Christians don't, don't borrow from atheism to get our morality on the issue of slavery. It's, it's the other way around. Harris is influenced by the Christian church.

Luke Bear (37:04)

Did you notice? Sorry. The little shot he took at Christianity too, Just real subtle. I think he said something like talking about slavery, like, which Christianity didn't denounce or something like that and just kept moving. It's like, now you're rewriting history.

Jeff Durbin (37:17)

Right, exactly. Which is typical of atheist argumentation. This is what we get all the time.

Sam Harris (37:22)

Just the growth of humanism and other notions of, of human rights that are not best found or even on this particular point even possible to find in the Bible.

Jeff Durbin (37:38)

What, What? See, this is one of the things you have to push back on, and I know Doug's going to do so here. You have to push back on those kind of statements coming from atheists. You know, like, we are the purveyors of human rights. It's like you literally believe your system teaches that human beings came from bacteria and then fish and then downstream from that African apes. And then we get to philosophers. That's what you believe about humans. And you believe that that process wasn't governed, it wasn't purposed by anybody or anything. It is the random result of mutations over time that got us here. And there's no difference between a rock in this cosmos and a human being in terms of the nature of the thing. It is just the random result of evolutionary processes that did not have it in mind. And you think that you can get human rights from that. Human rights don't come from that system. They don't. And so this is another one of those examples of atheists just co opting the Christian worldview, borrowing from God in order to make their argumentation. Because I'll tell you the truth, I've read this, I've read the atheist philosophers on morality and it is a dark read, let me tell you right now. I have read so much of the atheist philosophers talking about the issue of morality. And let me tell you, you have to take a shower to get the ick off of you afterwards because it is just this bleak, dark. There's no good, there's no evil, there's no morality. Yeah, we're just animals. And, and all of us, you know, we're not even making our own decisions. We're just the result of these biochemical responses. There's no free will. You're not making the choices. Like there's not a you inside of you making choices. You're just the result of the chemical processes going on in your mind. It is a bleak and dark worldview, and you are not getting human rights from that.

Douglas Wilson (39:39)

Well, actually, Ross Douth, that tried to press me on the same. On the same point. And with regard to. With regard to slavery in the modern world, the movement toward the abolition of the slave trade and the movement against the whole enterprise, which, as Thomas Soul has pointed out, slavery was ubiquitous in the world. And there's one civilization that recoiled from it at a certain point, and that was West. The West. That was one of the prime movers in that was one of my heroes, William Wilberforce, a member of Parliament, an ardent evangelical, part of the Clapham sect. That was an abolitionist sect that was.

Sam Harris (40:25)

Many abolitionists were religious, clearly. But what I'm arguing is that if the theological case is better made in defense of the slaveholders, which I think it quite obviously is, and you seem to agree, then, and we should just be honest, that what is informing the morality of the abolitionist is a wider conversation, an extra biblical conversation that is a conversation that does not find its cash value in judgments of good and evil in the Bible, where you. I know this because I know if we're going to talk about the foundations of morality, you're going to say that an atheist like myself has to make it up, whereas a Christian can just find it all in the Bible. But my point is, you're not finding this in the Bible.

Douglas Wilson (41:11)

Well, I think I am. And here's why. I don't want to go to the outside, unbelieving, secular world for a great advance in human morality. Like, I tell you what, let's not have slaves anymore. I believe that there are good reasons for seeing that Paul, particularly Paul, was playing the long game in his fight against slavery. What he was doing is subverting a pervasive institution. And he subverted it in a number of ways. So, for example, he said, masters, treat your slaves as a fellow human being. Remember, you have a master in heaven. So he flattened the relationship. In the Roman Empire, a slave was simply an animated tool. There were no rights at all. And Paul prohibited that. And he said, in Christ, there's neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. So he laid that down in Corinthians. He said, if you're a slave and you have an opportunity for freedom, take it. This is obviously to be preferred. And probably the central text that I'd point to is the Letter of Philemon where Paul says, I'm returning Onesimus to you. I was tempted to keep him so that he could be your servant to me on your behalf, but I didn't want to do anything apart from your will. But it's very clear that Paul wanted Philemon to set Onesimus free. And an early bishop of Ephesus was a man named, was a man named Onesimus. And I believe that Philemon fulfilled Paul's wish. And you see all kinds of things within the book of Philemon that indicate the long term logic of the Gospel is subversive of the slave trade. But what you're right about is that it's not a quick fix. So it's possible for a slave owner to be a good Christian and have a Christian slave and treat him right. That's possible. Which ardent abolitionists denied. So I would affirm the slave owners in the south had the better part of the argument there.

Sam Harris (43:36)

So presumably you'd find it hard to argue against your descendants in your Presbyterian utopia who decide to bring back the practice of slavery by recourse to biblical reasoning.

Douglas Wilson (43:52)

Yeah, we'd have to have an argument, but I can assure you we would have one.

Sam Harris (43:58)

But it's an argument you would probably lose. Lose if you had recourse to only the Bible.

Douglas Wilson (44:03)

Well, I don't know. Basically, I've recently written a commentary on the Book of Philemon and it's astonishing how subversive Paul was with regard to the whole institution.

Jeff Durbin (44:18)

And so quickly what I would say here is. What are you talking about when you say slavery, Sam? That's what I would say. What do you mean when you say slavery? Because you mentioned chattel slavery. And one of the things I would say, you're saying we could bring it back. We could bring it back. God condemns that with the death penalty and says, purge that evil from your midst. So you see the conflating of categories. And he said, you wouldn't have an argument with these guys. They want to bring it back. So throughout human history, slavery has existed, has existed in almost every single culture, globally. It exists today. You've got, you know, forms of slavery today like sex trafficking, which is the kind, of, which is the kind of slavery that you would, you would give the death penalty for the kidnapping of a human being, the enslaving of a human being that deserves the death penalty. You also have various other forms of slavery today, like debt slavery that still exists today. Many of, of of the people in our nation are still under that kind of slavery. That is where your labor, your production is actually owned by somebody else. So for example, if you get yourselves into debt, debt to some degree, where you are in real trouble and you can't just pay off the note at that time, what do the courts do? I mean, if there's there that we talk about, like bankruptcy laws today, okay, that's, that's a unique thing to our nation when you think about other nations and history itself, where somebody got themselves in a real financial pickle and they owe money and they owe it all over the place. They couldn't just go like Michael Scott, I declare bankruptcy. You know, it's. That doesn't work. That doesn't work. You have real people that said, no, I gave you money, I loaned you money for this business, I paid for this. You owe me. And again, you couldn't just say, I declare bankruptcy. You could not do that. And so what do you do? And those in those, in those systems, they say, you got to find someone that pays us back. So I own your labor, I own your labor and your production until you pay back the notes, right? That's a form of slavery. But that ain't the chattel slavery that we had in the United States of America. That's a form of slavery. We have that today. People, the, the, the court will come to you and the judge will say, you owe creditor A, B, C and D. You owe them all. And here's the total. You owe all these people here. And so you will pay these people back. And so what do they do? They garnish your wages. And so before you even get your paycheck, what takes place? By order of the court, your labor is now owned and your production is now owned by your creditors. And so what's that called when someone owns your labor and production? It's called slavery. It's a form of slavery. And so there are various types of slavery. And in history, sometimes there were forms of slavery that were literally used for ready, the preservation of human life. You could either die or you could pay it back by working it off. And you even had situations, it may have been as simple as this in some circumstances where you had a guy who was a great business owner, let's say in the marketplace, he owns like five different parts of the market. He owns just, he just, he produces great stuff his business is doing well for years at a time, and all of a sudden, now a recession hits or something hits, right? Something bad happens, happens. And now he's not making any money anymore, and now he's completely busted and he's broke, and he owes notes to people all over the place. Well, he's got a wife and he's got a kid. He's got kids. What's he going to do? Oftentimes you would have the ability if someone says, you know, this guy is a fantastic business owner, and an arrangement is made where you are, I am going to own your production, and I'm. You're going to work for me, and you're going to be a servant, a slave of me to pay back this amount. I will pay your creditors, but you will work for me. I will own your labor and your production until you pay all this back. You will help my businesses. An arrangement like that, as simple as that, is technically slavery. It's technically slavery, but this guy and his family and his kids are going to be okay now. And the debt is now paid off. And I am now the servant of a very good master. A very good master. He owns my production. I'm paying all this back. I'm working for him. I'm serving him, and I owe this guy. He's my master. I'm the slave. Sometimes the arrangement looks like. Looks like that. But what Harris does here is he's conflating what the Bible would talk about when it talks about slavery and how the Bible will address issues of slavery in different circumstances. He's conflating that with chattel slavery, kidnapping, and enslaving human beings. And I think that that needs to be defined ahead of time. And you also have to ask this overarching question, question, Sam Harris, what are you doing complaining about what one human being does to another human being? You're acting like it matters. You're like, there's acting, there's some moral infraction, like somebody has really goofed it morally. And in Sam Harris's universe, his postulated universe, what one Christian does to another does not matter because there are no ultimates above Sam Harris or in atheism at all. And that needs to be engaged with.

Luke Bear (49:36)

I will say that this is the nicest I've ever heard.

Jeff Durbin (49:38)

Sam Harris, he is a little sweetheart in this.

Mike Johnson (49:41)

I will say.

Luke Bear (49:42)

He's usually a big jerk.

Jeff Durbin (49:43)

Yeah, he's. He's. He's calmed down a bit. He's calmed down a bit. And let's do this for fun, actually. How much time we have?

Sam Harris (49:49)

30. 30.

Jeff Durbin (49:49)

Let's go ahead and go to a commercial break because I want to do a little bit more here. We're going to talk about whether or not atheism can even say something is even beautiful or lovely or true. And next part, Harris is going to ask Douglas Wilson what's wrong with atheism. And so we're going to do a quick commercial break. When we come back, we're going to engage a little bit more guys. I hope you guys are enjoying this. Be right back.

Sponsor Representative (50:13)

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Jeff Durbin (50:42)

Welcome back, everybody. So atheism and beauty. So I think it was last week I got to see this video. I think I'd seen it before, but, man, it just hit me really hard after watching it just last week. And so I shared the video on my Facebook, actually, and I said, atheism is so, so stupid. And I think most of the people understood what I was aiming at when I said that. But somebody came on was like, I don't get, like, the video with the post. Like, what's the post have to do with the video? Atheism is so, so stupid. And what I was really aiming at is that if you believe atheism, you really, really believe it. You adopt it. You say, I'm gonna be serious about this. If you accept what atheism says about our origins, if you accept what atheism says about the nature of humanity, if you accept what atheism says about the world, then there is no truth, no ultimate truth. There is no beauty. There's no meaning. Nothing is lovely. Nothing is true. Nothing is ultimate. There's no demands. There's no imminent morality. There's none of that. It's just what is. And by the way, this is not misrepresenting atheism. It is not misrepresenting atheism. If you listen to the atheists like Harris and Dennett and Hitch and Dawkins in their honest moments in their books, they will admit to this. They will admit to this. But they don't want to live like that. They don't live like that. Now, this is the key thing. They don't live like it, but they'll admit to it. It is what their system is and what it believes, what it teaches. And what I want to say is a guy like Sam Harris is an image bearer of God. He's living in God's world and he can't escape it. And so he's talking about moral infractions and failures and the badness of slavery and all those things. But system doesn't comport with what he's saying. It doesn't work. And not only that, Sam Harris seems like a sweet and gentle guy. Now that's good. And one of the things that I would challenge him with is that your system has no basis for beauty.

Luke Bear (52:45)

Right?

Jeff Durbin (52:45)

Nothing is lovely or true. And this came out actually, by the way, if you get a chance to do this after the show today, go and watch a debate with my hero, Dr. James White, and our hero, Dr. James White, AND Dan Barker, the president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation. And in the debate, it was on, I think that debate is on the existence of God. So if you look it up, Dan Barker, James White, existence of God debate. And somewhere in that debate, Dan Barker is pressed by Pastor James on the issue of his music. Because Dan Barker plays beautiful music. He's a, he's a wonderful musician and he's a pianist. And so he, you know, plays beautiful piano music. And so James confronts him on, or challenges him on a point like, when you die, Dan, is your music still going to be beautiful? And Dan didn't even know what to do with that. Right? Because according to the atheist worldview, nothing is objectively beautiful. Nothing is ultimately lovely or beautiful. It's just noise. And yeah, I like. Dan goes, well, I like it, right? And it's just totally this thing. But is there such a thing as objective beauty? And in the Christian worldview, the answer is yes. Yes, something is objectively beautiful. Something is messy, something is ugly. Something is, is, is up here in, in, in terms of what is actually beautiful and has structure to it and amazes you and, and, and causes awe. And I want to just play this because it is just, it's just incredible to me. Here is a girl. Her name is Emma.

Luke Bear (54:18)

Emma.

Jeff Durbin (54:19)

And she is singing a song called Voila. And this is really cool and this is long. So I don't know how much we're going to play of it, but I mean, maybe the whole thing, I don't know. But Emma here, what people, a lot of people haven't seen and, and because they see just this clip according to the guy that introduces her, the composer, she's 15 years old here. 15 years old. She's Dutch. She's Dutch, not French.

Luke Bear (54:48)

Isn't that weird?

Jeff Durbin (54:49)

Yes, she's Dutch, 15 years old, and she has a disease where she has to be fed through a tube through her stomach. And so she can't eat food. She has to be fed at 15 years old through her stomach, right into her stomach. And so not knowing that and seeing her show this girl. Wow, this is unbelievable. But then knowing that, it's like, oh, man. What? What? Beauty from ashes in a fallen world. Okay, anyway, I'm just going to let you experience this and I would really strongly encourage you, right, to like, take a breath and really take a moment in terms of like thinking about atheism and thinking about the Christian worldview. And is anything actually beautiful? Is there something that's really lovely? Is it possible in atheism? And so here we go.

Luke Bear (56:58)

Sweet.

Jeff Durbin (57:24)

Sam, sa.

Luke Bear (59:58)

It.

Jeff Durbin (60:29)

Wow.

Luke Bear (60:29)

Awesome.

Jeff Durbin (60:29)

That was insane. So there's so many different layers to this discussion. There's the, there's the ethical issues, there's the morality, there's the science, and there's the order of the universe, there's the principle of induction, the uniformity in nature, laws of logic, laws of arithmetic, all that stuff. And then you get to like these profound questions of, okay, I'll adopt your atheism. And all of us are just the descendants of bacteria in a universe that doesn't care. There's no purpose, there's no meaning. There's. Nothing is lovely. Nothing is ultimately beautiful. There's no purposeful structure. It's just what is. So what is that?

Luke Bear (61:17)

What?

Jeff Durbin (61:18)

Noise. Just noise? No. No human soul can hear something like that and say, that's just noise. It is not just noise. What a powerful thing. And atheism can't touch, just can't even touch it. Atheism is so, so undeniably stupid. It is a worldview of just bleakness and darkness and purposelessness and meaninglessness. It is all of that, all of it. And so it's important for us as Christians to make sure that we engaging on the issue of atheism. You don't let the atheists get away with the kinds of complaints and the kind of claims that someone like Sam Harris actually makes. And so I'm going to just. We're going to do an after show in just a moment here. And so if you're not All Access, go sign up for All Access. Be a part of this ministry with us, go watch the after show, sign up and be a part of this with us. And so I'm just going to play the first part here, though. However, I'm going to play the first part of the question Sam Harris poses to Wilson, and then we're going to engage with it a bit on the after show. Here it is.

Sam Harris (62:29)

You might be surprised to hear we've talked about this a little bit, but I guess I'd like you to just take a clean swing at it. What is wrong with atheism in your.

Luke Bear (62:39)

You.

Douglas Wilson (62:41)

Okay. I believe that atheism collapses upon itself. I don't think it's sustainable because if I belong to an apologetics school of thought called presuppositionalism, okay? And so what I try to do is ask what kind of universe do I think I'm in? And is my behavior currently consistent with that universe? Okay? So if I believe that there is no God and that what's going on around me is this concatenation of atoms, you know, cascading down through history, and basically time and chance happened to them all. And this is just. The Cosmos is 10 tons of confetti dumped into an F5 tornado. It's like Heraclitus. Everything is chaos. Then I, a small piece of that chaos, cannot know anything, including that it's chaos. Like, the fish doesn't know that it's wet. So if there is no God, what kind of cosmos would that necessitate? And if I'm living in that kind of cosmos, then how is it possible for me to know that I'm living in that kind of cosmos? So for me, it's an epistemological question. How do I know what I know? How do I know that I'm knowing? And am I actually a knowing being? So if you spill the milk on the kitchen floor and you want to know how it got there, you don't ask the milk. It doesn't know. It's the accident.

Sam Harris (64:33)

Okay. But in that account, you seem not to be making contact with what it's actually like to be an atheist. Right? An atheist is a person like yourself, who is conscious, who recognizes from the moment of birth forward or thereabouts, that there's a range of experience on offer in this condition. And some of these experiences are very pleasant and some are very unpleasant. And once language comes online, we have a common understanding of the world that is both more fundamental and wider reaching than anything in the Bible. In fact, it's only by virtue of having learned language in the first place. That you can ever pick up a Bible and read it and get anything out of it.

Luke Bear (65:19)

It.

Sam Harris (65:20)

And from an atheist point of view, it's impressive. If that is a work of omniscience, it's impressive how much is not in that book. And when you think of how perfect a book could be if it were written by an omniscient being and compare that book of your imagination to what actually exists as scripture, the discordance there is also impressive, which is all claims.

Jeff Durbin (65:46)

Just mere claims, one after another. It's just mere claims. And just briefly, I will say that, you know, if you talk about, you know, consciousness and becoming aware of the fact that there are certain experiences in this world that are pleasant and certain experiences in this world that are unpleasant, the distinction between the two, ethically speaking, meaningless. It's totally meaningless. Because if atheism is true, whether something is pleasant or not is utterly meaningless in terms of determining something as moral. Some people like to inflict pain. They enjoy it. That's. That's their happiness. That's their. That's their. That's their sweet spot. That's. Their place of freedom, is to inflict harm and inflict pain. To which the atheist says, well, we don't like playing pain. What you're talking about is a nervous system. And what's the nervous system got to do with commanding my desires? Your nervous system isn't in charge of my desires. I like inflicting harm and pain. And so what's your complaint against that person? Person. And you can't be arbitrary about it, right? Because that's all you have in atheism is arbitrary, subjective decrees that change over time. They do. Morality with atheism just changes over time. There's no ultimate goal, immorality. And so what one bag of biological stuff does to another in this godless universe is absolutely morally irrelevant. And you don't need Jeff Durbin, the Christian, to tell you that. Just read the atheist ethicists talking about what I'm talking about. They will confirm term. Well, ultimately, yes, what you're saying is true, but we need to live together. Okay? That's, that's not a basis for morality. Like, we need to live together. So, so why don't we, just as Doug has said before, kerosene, the whole anthill. Why not burn the whole house down, right? Who's gonna. I mean, what's the complaint against that? Why not destroy the whole thing? There's a lot of misery in the human experience. Why don't we just burn the whole thing down? Or Is there a moral charge against a person who wants to do that? Are you saying that's not good? On what basis? By what standard? So we're going to talk a little bit more about this quickly in the after show. So if you guys are not All Access, you yet partner with us. Go sign up for All Access. Join us in the after show and very excited, by the way, about next year 2026. We have great plans for you guys who've been with us for so long, partners in this ministry. We have new programs coming out, we have new stuff going out. We're going to reboot Apology Radio, some great stuff. And so please partner with us, help us to make those goals and to do those things to have more of an impact on the world with the gospel. Luke, what do we have to tell everyone about?

Luke Bear (68:10)

Well, first we want to of course, think Amtech blades. Bill Rapier, super awesome brother, amazing.

Sam Harris (68:18)

Long.

Luke Bear (68:19)

Time Navy SEAL operator. He makes some amazing blades. We got those battle axes there. You can go to amtechblades.com and put apology in the coupon code and get 5% off your order and he will give 5% to an abortion now to help us save babies. Speaking of an abortion now you can get our tracks@ashop.ApologiesStudios.com we got them in Spanish and English. We got all these other tracks. We got swag, we got coffee and I mentioned it last week and we're gonna have a bunch of stuff up for Black Friday. They get it in time for Christmas so be watch for that. We'll have a special Black Friday sale and I'm excited for that stuff. So be looking for that. And I want to mention of course also Dominion wealth. You saw the ad at the beginning. Super grateful for Josiah Stowe. You can go to Reform Money and check them out and sign up for a free evaluation.

Jeff Durbin (69:11)

Also everybody, just an update before we end the show today on End Abortion now you can go to endabortionnow.com sign your church up to go and save lives out at the mills. And tens of thousands of babies have been saved as a result of this ministry and the churches that have been trained for free. We want nothing from the churches at all. Just get the training, get the free resources, go and save babies. Tens of thousands of lives have been saved. So thank you to everybody who's been a part of an abortion now with us. But we have a a very busy year already planned for next year. A very busy year. We have bills of abolition we're working with in multiple states across the United States of America. I just got back from Georgia, meeting with about 150 pastors, leaders and Christians in Georgia to get connected to the team we already have there. We have a bill of abolition happening. It's going to be heard. We are, it's the plan is in January, so be in prayer for that bill. And if you're in Georgia, please come and join us. I'm going to give you updates as we get closer. But if you could, if you could, don't just pray for Apollo, for end abortion now. Don't just show up, Please give financially. We need to make our budget and our goal for 2026. And so if you could go to endabortionnow.com please give there. Please give generously if you can. We have a lot ahead of us. God is advancing this in incredible ways, truly. We have states all over the country. We even have other countries now contacting us to bring an abortion out to their country so that the Christian church can start saving babies in places like Italy and Spain. We've already done it in Germany and in Ireland and in other nations. And so please join us. We need your help financially to get there. And so please, if you can, give and give generously@endabortionnow.com we are so grateful for your giving and your faithfulness. And thank you so much for being a part of this ministry with us. So we're gonna end it right here. We're gonna go over to Apologia studios, do the after show. Thank you again to everybody who's all access with us. That's Luke the Bear.

Luke Bear (70:57)

Peace out, guys.

Jeff Durbin (70:58)

I'm the ninja. We'll catch you next week right here on Apologia Radio.