← Digital Social Hour
Digital Social Hour
I Was Charlie Kirk's Side When He Was Taken Out... | DSH #2065
01:00:13
| DSH #2065 Can faith, reason, and politics still survive in a culture built on outrage? In this Digital Social Hour episode, Sean Kelly sits down with Frank Turek from CrossExamined to discuss Charlie Kirk, Christian apologetics, college campuses, free speech, faith, Islam, Israel, media bias, social media outrage, entrepreneurship, family, inflation, politics, abortion, and the future of American culture. Frank reflects on his friendship with Charlie Kirk, what he taught him about Christian apologetics, and why he believes Charlie’s real strength was not just intelligence, but humility and a willingness to keep learning. The conversation moves into the biggest cultural debates happening on college campuses, including free speech, religion, immigration, assimilation, Israel, Islam, LGBTQ issues, gender, and why short clips often distort complex topics into outrage. Frank also explains why he believes faith should be defended with evidence, not emotion. He discusses the case f...
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- [00:00]
A
What I actually said at Charlie's funeral, memorial service, that Charlie Kirk is in heaven, not because he died for his savior. Charlie Kirk is in heaven because his savior died for Charlie Kirk. That's why you have gays for Gaza. Like, why would you have gays for Gaza? Right. If gays go to Gaza, they're going to be thrown off the building and be murdered. I got fired in the name of inclusion, tolerance and diversity, Sean, because.
- [00:29]
B
Okay, guys, we got Frank on the show today from Cross Examine Ministry. Fellow Jersey boy. What's up, man? How's it going?
- [00:36]
A
Great being with you. Forget about it. You know, I haven't. I haven't lived in Jersey since I was 18, but I still have a lot of Jersey in me.
- [00:44]
B
So did your life get way better when you moved out at 18?
- [00:47]
A
Yeah, I went to college and then I went in the Navy and then I moved everywhere and then I moved to Charlotte, attend seminary and we stayed here. We've been in Charlotte for 33 years. I've got kids that are probably older
- [00:58]
B
than you, so I'm 29.
- [01:01]
A
Yeah. Yeah. All my kids are older than you, man.
- [01:03]
B
Wow. Wow. Yeah, Jersey's interesting. I think it's good for families, but with the politics now, I don't think I'd move back there.
- [01:09]
A
You know, the taxes aren't good either.
- [01:12]
B
Oh, man. Second highest, I believe in the country.
- [01:14]
A
Something like that. But you're in, you're in Vegas, right?
- [01:18]
B
Yeah, no state tax here. I'm chilling over here.
- [01:20]
A
That's nice, man. You ain't chilling in Vegas. It's 110 degrees in the winter. Come on.
- [01:24]
B
Oh, man, the summer's out here. It's. It's starting to ramp up right now. I gotta get out of here. But dude, what's. What's the latest focus for you? I know you're doing a lot of stuff. What's the main focus these days?
- [01:34]
A
I've been going to a lot of college campuses. We just finished our last one, University of New Mexico, last week. This semester will start it up again in, in the fall. We tried to double up because of what happened to Charlie. Yeah, you know, try and pick up the slack a little bit. Of course, Charlie was a phenom, you know, we have a few hundred at our events. Charlie would have thousands, you know, just unbelievable guy. It's. I'm so sad that he's gone.
- [02:01]
B
Yeah, he was, he was a legend. Definitely one of my favorite interviews of all time when he came on and I film out all his events and just the he brought everyone together, you know, it was amazing. All types of people would go to Turning Point America Fest. All of of his campus tours, definitely one of a kind. Shout out to Charlie.
- [02:17]
A
You've been to AM Fest, Sean?
- [02:19]
B
Yeah, I film there every year. Some of my best episodes come out of there, man. He, like I said, he connects everyone. Like so many people show up there,
- [02:25]
A
you know, give up on it, cuz it's still attracting a lot of people. Despite Charlie being with. With Jesus right now.
- [02:32]
B
Yeah.
- [02:33]
A
You know, the last AM Fest was the biggest ever.
- [02:37]
B
It was insane. I was filming non stop four days straight. There was just so many good people there.
- [02:43]
A
I'm gonna come back many more events, many more college still going to colleges, you know, bringing in different people like me and others. And they're, they're still doing their pastor events, they're still doing their, I think, youth events this summer and they're still going to do amfest just before Christmas.
- [03:00]
B
So what campuses stand out to you from. Yeah, I'll definitely be there. What, what recent campuses stand out to you that you've been to?
- [03:08]
A
Oh, Charlie and I were supposed to go together to UC Berkeley. We call it UC Berserkley. But of course instead of Charlie going was me and Rob Schneider, the comedian and author. Yeah, so we went there. I, in the past, since Charlie, I've probably been to 20 to 25 campuses.
- [03:29]
B
Wow.
- [03:31]
A
Charlie would do even more than that though. He would, he was a machine man. He could knock out several in a week, you know, and he just loved being with kids. And all this nonsense about calling Charlie Kirk a fascist, you know, we know it's a common fascist tactic, Sean, to hand the microphone to your opponent while you sit there quietly so your opponent could express himself and interact. No, the guy that shot him was the fascist.
- [04:00]
B
Yeah.
- [04:00]
A
It's just awful how they try and tar people who are for free speech and just want to have a conversation.
- [04:07]
B
Absolutely. How old was Charlie when you met him?
- [04:10]
A
Charlie reached out to me in 2020. So he was 26? Yeah, 26. And we became friends and I was just trying to help him with what we call Christian apologetics, evidence for the faith. Because that's what I do on college campuses. And so he wanted me to mentor him. Now, I wasn't his only mentor. He was a sponge. He had a lot of mentors. But you know, it could be hard to mentor somebody smarter than you. But not with Charlie, because the few things I knew that he didn't know, he wanted to know. Because the only thing that exceeded his intellect was his humility.
- [04:46]
B
Right, right.
- [04:48]
A
He knew he could learn from other people, and so he did.
- [04:51]
B
Yeah. What were the things that you really taught him? I guess. Was this pertaining to Christianity?
- [04:57]
A
More the evidence for the faith, like evidence for God, evidence for the resurrection, evidence that the Bible's telling the truth. Dealing with the problem. If there's a good God, why is there evil? And then dealing with the hot button issues that everyone deals with in the culture. You know, sexuality, LGBTQ issues, obviously, the transgender issue has been big. We talked about Israel, you know, the easy stuff, you know, Islam. Right. All those things that our culture is talking about. We talked about.
- [05:32]
B
Yeah, yeah. Israel's such a hot topic right now. I don't even know start with that one. But spread of, Spread of Islam to the west, that's. That's a hot topic too. I'm sure you cover that on campuses. Right.
- [05:43]
A
Charlie was very clear on that topic. He knew that Islam is really not compatible with the United States Constitution. Because while we have freedom of religion according to the United States Constitution, that amendment does not give one religion the freedom to usurp the freedoms of every other religion, which is what Sharia law wants to do. Sharia law is not compatible with freedom of religion or freedom of speech or freedom of press or freedom of the assembly. Those are freedoms that are protected by our First Amendment. And Sharia law takes those freedoms away. And so it's not a self defeating amendment. And I think some people are starting to realize this. Even J.D. vance has talked about, like Charlie would talk about. He would say that immigration without assimilation is an invasion. You can't have people coming into this country who want to take away freedom of religion to. We can't have them coming here if they don't assimilate to our values. Otherwise eventually we won't have freedom of religion or freedom of speech or freedom of the press or freedom of assembly or freedom of petition. There won't be the Sean Kelly show. It'll just rule it out. Geez, you know, I mean, I've been to some pretty closed countries in recent years. I've been to Saudi Arabia. There's no First Baptist Church of Riyadh. I've been to Tehran. There's no Sean Kelly show in Tehran. They don't allow it. Right. I've been to Egypt. If you want to start a church in Egypt or an organization maybe that is overtly Christian or conservative, you might have trouble there because legally they'll rule it out. And so we don't realize how many freedoms we have in this country. We just sort of take it for granted. But if Christians or conservatives don't stay involved or get involved in politics, eventually those freedoms are going to go away.
- [07:37]
B
Yeah, it's. I believe Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world right now, right?
- [07:43]
A
Probably is. It really depends, I guess, on how you count. But a lot of that is through forced conversions, as you know, because. And this has been going on for 1400 years. This is nothing new. This is not Islamophobia. This is called reading a history book, by the way, just for clarity. Islamophobia is a bogus term. Why? Because Islam's not a race. Islam is an ideology. And there are Muslims from every ethnic group out there, every racial group out there. So when you say you're against Islam, it doesn't mean you're against necessarily people. It means you're against an ideology that may interfere with freedoms that God has given us and our Constitution recognizes. So Islamophobia is a bogus term getting you to equate Islam with race. Race has no ideology. It's. Islam has an ideology that wants to impose on you and everybody else. In fact, Islam means submission. That's what the word means. And so it doesn't mean every Muslim wants to do this. It just means that officially and experientially, when Muslims become a majority, typically most freedoms go away. You don't have the kind of freedoms we have in America in Iran or Saudi Arabia or Egypt even, or even Turkey, which is more of a secular Muslim country. You don't have the same freedoms. And so we just have to be honest about that. As uncomfortable it may be to talk about, we've got to be honest about it.
- [09:11]
B
Right? You've probably talked to thousands of Muslims. Do you find that the ones in America think a little differently than other countries, though?
- [09:18]
A
It really depends. There are different kinds of Muslims. There are Sufis, which are a minority. They're mystical. There are Shia, which are like the Iranians. They're a little bit more hostile, as you know. And then there are Sunnis and 80% of Muslims are Sunnis. But there are hostile strains of Sunni Islam too. And as you know, they kind of attack one another quite frequently. Jihad is not just carried out against Christians and Jews or non believers. It's often carried out against other Muslims with whom they disagree. So I think when many Muslims come to America and they experience the freedoms we have here, they rightfully do assimilate, but many don't. In fact, Governor Abbott in Texas is having to deal with a Community that is trying to be Islam only.
- [10:09]
B
Wow.
- [10:09]
A
They're trying to create a Muslim community which is against certain laws. In Texas, you can't discriminate on the basis of religion by saying you can't buy a home in this community. So he's trying to stand against what they want to do there. Because Islam, their ideology is world domination. They want to take over the world and set up the caliphate. Again. Again, doesn't mean every Muslim believes this, but this is what a significant minority, if not more than a minority, believe.
- [10:40]
B
You mentioned Iran. Where are you at with the whole war at the moment? I think there's a ceasefire now, but I haven't been following it too actively.
- [10:48]
A
I'm not sure that ceasefire is going to hold because Iran keeps rejecting every deal we try and give them. I find it suspect to even try and negotiate with a group that wants to annihilate any non Muslim. I don't know how you negotiate with people that have in their own documents that America is the great Satan, Israel is the little Satan, and Jihad is the way forward. In fact, I ask anybody that is asking questions about the Hamas Israel dispute, I always ask this question, Sean, have you read the Hamas charter? Only one person I've asked that question of has said yes.
- [11:29]
B
Wow.
- [11:30]
A
Because when you read the Hamas charter, you see that in the Hamas charter they express the desire to wipe out the Jews. Genocide is part of their stated goal, to wipe out the Jews. Israel keeps getting blamed for genocide. But when Hamas itself states it's their goal to wipe out the Jews in particular, in fact, in that document, they say all these two state solution conferences are a vain waste of time. They don't want a two state solution, they want a one state solution. No Israel. All the Jews get pushed into the sea and they take over the land completely. So the group that wants to actually commit genocide is stated to be Hamas, which in Hebrew, by the way, means violence. That's what the word means in Hebrew, Hamas. And they're funded by the Iranians, as are Hezbollah, as are the Houthis in Yemen, and they've been threatening and killing Americans and other Westerners for 47 years. Now. Whether you think this is a good idea or not, I personally think it's a good idea to prevent a country that has its stated goal to annihilate Israel, to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon. Because some people in Shia Islam believe they can bring forth the caliphate and and expedite the end times by creating a global conflict to bring in the 12th Iman. So if they get a nuke, they'll probably use it.
- [13:03]
B
Wow.
- [13:03]
A
So as. As. As difficult as it is to engage in hostility, sometimes war is the least worst choice. Right. You can't allow a group that has this ideology, this religious ideology to annihilate Israel to get a nuke, because if they do, they will use it, probably. We can't take that chance. And so for 47 years, this group, this country has been threatening and killing Westerners, including Americans. So at some point, some president gonna have to make the decision, we've gotta use military force to prevent this. And President Trump decided to do it. How it's gonna turn out, I don't know, but it's probably the least worst choice.
- [13:46]
B
Yeah, according to polls. I don't know if you believe these polls, obviously that's a whole nother topic. But the younger generation seems to be supporting Palestine over Israel, especially Gen Z. Millennials. Have you seen that?
- [13:57]
A
Yes. And I would then ask them, where are you getting your information from? Because the propaganda coming out of Palestine or coming out of, out of Hamas is working, but it's propaganda because, I mean, a little history lesson for people that don't know about it here in this country. A lot of people say we're here illegitimately. It was the Native Americans that had the land. Right. It's their land. But notice when you go to the area of Israel, we know the Israelites were in the land from the time of Joshua on. That's 1406 BC and Palestine has never been a country. Palestine was a term given to the area by Hadrian, the Roman emperor, in 135 A.D. and he's playing off the Philistines at the time Israel's enemy. And he called the land Palestine because he didn't want the Jews to come back to it. Palestine has never been a state, and. And yet the people over there think that the Palestinians have right to the land when the Jews were there 2,000 years before Islam ever began.
- [15:14]
B
Right, Right.
- [15:15]
A
And yet over here, they think the people who are here first have the right to the land. Over there, they think the people that came second have the right to the land. It's inverted, but I always ask again, the people that have an interest in this and people who should have an interest in it should at least read what Hamas says they want to do. And what did they do on October 7th, 2023 was horrific.
- [15:40]
B
Yeah, we'll. We'll link that in the video if anyone wants to actually read it. How long is it?
- [15:45]
A
Oh, it's just, I'd say 10 pages.
- [15:47]
B
Oh, it's pretty.
- [15:48]
A
Yeah. You can find it. You can find it online?
- [15:50]
B
Yeah.
- [15:50]
A
Wow.
- [15:51]
B
I'm surprised more people don't talk about that. I actually haven't even heard of that
- [15:54]
A
Mousetrotter comes from about 1988.
- [15:57]
B
Yeah. I'd say a lot of my generation's consuming their news on social media these days compared to traditional, like, especially Twitter. I feel like for politics is hot and there's a lot of misinformation there. Right.
- [16:08]
A
Can we mention one thing that might be helpful here related to that? Sean?
- [16:13]
B
Yeah.
- [16:15]
A
There's something in logic called a hasty generalization, which means you get one piece of information and you apply that piece of information to an entire group. Like, for example, this was going on in Minnesota a few months ago when there's some video that came out that ICE was engaged in shooting someone. I don't know if you remember this.
- [16:38]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [16:39]
A
And so immediately some people on the Internet took that one clip and said, all ICE agents want to kill immigrants from one clip. And we don't even know the context of that clip. You know, the guy had a gun. Did he have a gun? You know, was it self defense? What was it? Even if those ICE agents acted immorally, it is illegitimate to take that one instance and apply it to an entire group. When I grew up, we used to call that prejudice. You know, you've got one instance and you apply it to the entire group. And this works, by the way, both ways. Politically, it's not a political statement. It's a logical statement. Do you know that in. In the past few years, there's been a lot of shootings carried out by trans people?
- [17:25]
B
I did know that, yeah.
- [17:26]
A
In fact, Charlie Kirk, you know, the guy was involved with in a trans relationship. There was a month, a month before that, August of 2025, there was a school in Minnesota where a trans person shot up some kids and killed a lot of people. And there was one prior to that in Nashville. There's been one in Canada since. And. But would it be logical and fair if we said all people who identify as trans are like the shooter, the shooters? No, you don't take an individual instance and apply it to an entire group. In logic, it's called a hasty generalization. And that's the problem with getting your news from one source, from one clip and trying to apply it to everyone. That's not the way this works. In order to figure out whether, say, trans people are violent, you would need really good survey data at a 95% confidence level. In order to ascribe characteristics to a particular group.
- [18:28]
B
Right.
- [18:28]
A
And when they do take those surveys, per capita the most violent people are the trans people. But there's still a very small minority of the trans people that do this. So it's still unfair to say all trans people are violent. Yet we tend to do that when we get our news from the Internet. We forget about hasty generalization.
- [18:51]
B
Yeah, it's a good point. Because a lot of people only watch a couple creators and maybe they're caught in an echo chamber. Right. Maybe they'll only watch Tucker Carlson or Candace and then that's how they get all their information, you know, and the
- [19:02]
A
algorithm just feeds the echo chamber.
- [19:04]
B
Yeah, well, it feeds, feeds drama and division. I've noticed, you know that.
- [19:09]
A
Because the clicks keep coming, John.
- [19:11]
B
Yeah.
- [19:11]
A
Which means the monetization keeps going up.
- [19:14]
B
Right. So they want to be saying not controversial things to get more views, which equates to more money. Right? Yeah. So it's a tricky time these days because you got as creators you kind of have to play into a little bit, but you don't want to sell yourself out too. Right, Said.
- [19:28]
A
Well said. You, you want to be provocative enough so you have an audience, but not misleading in being provocative.
- [19:36]
B
Yeah, correct. For sure. But you've been doing these college tours before social media, right? You've been doing this for a while.
- [19:43]
A
We started college events as early as like 2004. Really? Before social media. It's just social media has made it easier to get out the information to people, especially the short clips. Like our cross examined YouTube channel has about 3, 400 videos on it. Wow. Most of them are Q and A clips. Like someone asks a question, I give an answer in a couple of minutes. But then we have the entire presentation up there as well.
- [20:11]
B
Yeah, yeah. But I mean the fact that you were doing it before social media, that, that means a lot. I feel like because you're not doing it just for clicks and views, you're actually trying to help people. Right.
- [20:19]
A
That, that's our goal. Yeah. And look, if social media went away, we'd still be doing it. But I, I found it interesting. I mean, think about the times we live in. Sean, the mentor that, that mentored me, his name was Norman Geisler. By the time he died, he had written like 129 books. I mean, can you imagine that?
- [20:37]
B
That's crazy.
- [20:38]
A
The guy has written more books than most people have seen. You know who goes to the library anymore, right?
- [20:43]
B
No.
- [20:43]
A
Anyway, with one video we could reach 10 times as many People that he reached in his entire life.
- [20:52]
B
Wow.
- [20:52]
A
I mean, think about it. I mean, we have some videos that have, you know, 12 million views, 14 million views. You can't speak to 14 million people in your life. Not physically.
- [21:01]
B
Right, Yep.
- [21:03]
A
You know, so we live in a, in a, in such a technological age that you can reach a lot of people in a short period of time. Of course, you can mislead a lot of people in a short period of time too. So that's the problem, you know, that's
- [21:19]
B
why you go to these campuses, because a lot of these people are misled, in my opinion.
- [21:23]
A
You know, I agree. Exactly.
- [21:25]
B
Yeah, man, I went to Rutgers in Jersey and super. Yeah, yeah, I've been there.
- [21:30]
A
And I'm going back next semester to Rutgers.
- [21:33]
B
Oh, really?
- [21:33]
A
Yeah.
- [21:34]
B
How was it over there? Because when I was there, man, I felt like a lot of brainwashing was going on like 10 years ago.
- [21:38]
A
Oh, there's plenty of it. But I'll tell you, we get a good crowd at the schools in the north because if you go to a Bible belt school, it's like, ho hum. Oh yeah, okay, another Christian giving a presentation. We've got. They're a dime a dozen. You go to the north, you don't get that. Right. So we'll get 400, 500 kids showing up or with the community showing up at Rutgers.
- [22:02]
B
Wow.
- [22:02]
A
Right. And we were up in way upper Michigan in February, like as far north as you can go, a town called Houghton. And we had 800 people show up in a blizzard just because. Well, first of all, there's nothing else to do. But secondly, they don't get that kind of, of, they don't get people coming into town to present. Right. So hey, this is a special event, let's go. Right.
- [22:28]
B
Yeah. And what percentage of your crowd, if you had to guess, is atheist versus Christian versus other religions?
- [22:33]
A
Oh, I'd probably say 70 to 80% are Christians.
- [22:39]
B
Oh, wow.
- [22:39]
A
And I would say that 20 to 30% are either other faith or atheist.
- [22:45]
B
Okay, that's, that's more Christians than I thought.
- [22:47]
A
Yeah, I, I would say because we had people from the community. It's not just, it's not just students. Yeah, students show up, but there's also people that, you know, just follow us that live near there and they come. Yeah, it's kind of like Charlie's with Charlie's events too. I mean, you know, there are 70 year old people in the audience. Right. It's not, it's not, it's not all, it's not all Students.
- [23:09]
B
Yeah. And you take an evidence based approach, which I like. I'm. I'm actually agnostic, but I'm all about evidence. So I need to look more into your work about this and maybe you'll convince me to speak. Switch over. You know, I actually grew up Christian too, in Bridgewater. In Bridgewater? Yeah. I went to some Asian church, but it was a Christian church.
- [23:26]
A
What's the. When you say you're agnostic, what does that mean? Like, are you agnostic about God or agnostic. Agnostic about Jesus or like, where are you?
- [23:34]
B
I believe in a creator. I just don't know exactly how. I guess I'm more like into sim. I. I believe in numbers. I'm big into simulation theory actually. Huh. Yeah.
- [23:44]
A
Do you think we're in a simulation of some sort?
- [23:47]
B
Yeah, I mean, a lot can be explained with numbers. Do you agree with that?
- [23:51]
A
Well, since this is a universe put together by God, in my view. And you can describe reality by mathematics. Yes. Which. A atheist by the name of Eugene Vigner in 1961 wrote a paper called the Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics. And basically what he was saying, as an atheist, I can't explain why I could write numbers on a chalkboard and those numbers describe what's happening out in the universe and why can I know that? And he was afraid of the answer, because it seems the answer is this universe was set up and is sustained by a mind. And that's why things are mathematically describable.
- [24:36]
B
Okay.
- [24:37]
A
That was his conclusion. Well, it wasn't his conclusion that God exists, but it was his. It is my conclusion. And others who are saying that mathematics is another piece of evidence that this universe was put together and is sustained by a mind.
- [24:53]
B
Interesting. Yeah, that kind of goes along with simulation theory, right?
- [24:58]
A
Oh, how do you describe simulation theory? Like, what would you say that is?
- [25:04]
B
I guess everything is kind of not everything, but a lot of the universe is predetermined. There's Fibonacci sequence appearing pretty often in nature. So that proves that stuff is created. I don't know how to perfectly explain it, I guess, but I'm just drawn to it.
- [25:21]
A
It's. I think that the precision of the universe, the fine tuning of the universe, points back to a mind who not only created the universe, but sustains. Sustains it. And this goes back to Aristotle who said that, if you notice. I'm not quoting him, I'm paraphrasing him. If you notice that nature goes in a direction, like for example, why does an acorn, if it's properly nourished always go in the direction of becoming an oak tree. Why doesn't it become an elm tree or a birch tree or a seahorse, Right? Well, because it's programmed to become an oak tree, right? Yeah. Well, who programmed it? And is an acorn in the ground conscious thinking, how do I become an oak tree? No, the acorn is not sentient at all. Yet it reliably goes in the direction of becoming an oak tree if it doesn't have a mind of its own. And of course it doesn't. Yet it reliably goes in a direction. Aristotle's point is, and Aquinas followed him up on this, is that there must be an external mind directing that acorn to. To an end. That external mind is what Aristotle called the unmoved mover. In other words, he was not saying that there's a cause way back when. That's another argument. He's. He was saying there's a cause. Right now, every second the universe exists, it's being directed by a mind. And so if this mind stopped directing things, we would go out of existence. If it stopped directing materials, if it stopped directing the elements on the periodic table, if it stopped directing the four known forces, strong and weak nuclear forces, gravity and electromagnetism, we would go out of existence. Now, from a biblical perspective, the Bible talks about, in him, we live and move and have our being, and Christ holds all things together. The writer of Hebrews says God sustains all things by his powerful word. In other words, according to this theory, God is to the universe what a band is to music. So a band creates music and sustains it every single second. If the band stops playing, the music's out of existence. What God does is he creates the universe, the laws that govern it, and he sustains the universe and the laws that govern it every single second.
- [27:46]
B
Wow.
- [27:47]
A
That's. That's what's called the unmoved mover. This is sometimes called final causality, and it's one of Aquinas's five ways to argue for God. It was his fifth way, actually. And this doesn't require any scripture or any. It just requires observation of what goes on around us.
- [28:06]
B
Yeah, that.
- [28:06]
A
There's got to be a mind out there that created and sustains all these things.
- [28:11]
B
That makes sense. You said the acorn's not sentient. What about plants and mushrooms? They're looking into the mycelium network right now how mushrooms can communicate. They're saying trees can even communicate with each other. Do you believe that? That, like that could be sentient beings.
- [28:25]
A
I haven't looked into that, but it's given me a new. A newfound respect for cutting down a tree. Right? Like, hey, stop. What are you doing?
- [28:35]
B
Yeah, look into that, man. Mycelium network. These mushrooms, the roots go, like, deep in the ground, and apparently a lot of them connect and they're speaking with each other. Same with trees.
- [28:44]
A
Hey. Well, how would they detect trees? Communication between mushrooms. How would they know that?
- [28:48]
B
That's what scientists are trying to figure out, but I guess they're saying if there's predators in the area, they're able to communicate that if they need water supply, the trees are able to communicate that as well. Something like that. It's pretty impressive. But I don't know, I. I think animals have a soul, you know?
- [29:04]
A
Well, the scriptures actually talk about that.
- [29:06]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [29:08]
A
Ecclesiastes talks about that.
- [29:09]
B
What did they say about it, if
- [29:11]
A
I'm remembering correctly, that the spirit of. Of a animal goes into the ground and the spirit of man goes to God. I'd have to look it up to get the right. The right reference. I think it's Ecclesiastes. It could be a proverb, but. Okay, I will look it up and give it to you. Exactly.
- [29:33]
B
Interesting. Yes, I. I do believe that. And I guess the next level would be vegetation, but that's. That's a stretch for a lot of people.
- [29:41]
A
Yeah, of course. The real question, though, is why does any of this exist? Why do we exist? Why does the universe exist? Right.
- [29:47]
B
I asked myself that a lot, actually.
- [29:49]
A
Yeah, yeah. No, I. Look, I grew up like you because I grew up in New Jersey and I was Catholic. And as you know, in New Jersey, being Catholic, it's the law. Right? You're either Catholic, you're Jewish, or a skeptic. You don't know. And I always believed in God, Sean, because I knew there had to be a first cause. But I just didn't know who Jesus was. And it wasn't until I got into the Navy that I met the son of a Methodist minister that he told me I needed to get certain books written by Josh McDowell. Evidence demands a verdict more than a carpenter. So I read those books and I realized that Christianity was true from the evidence that Jesus came into this world, added humanity to his deity, lived the perfect life in our place, and then died on the cross to take our punishment upon himself. Because God is infinitely just. And so he has to punish sin, which. But he doesn't want to punish us, so he punishes himself. So he remains just and then by trusting in him, we're not only forgiven, but given his righteousness. That's kind of the story of the Bible. In one word, it's redemption that God comes and saves us from our inequity, from what we've done wrong and we've all done wrong.
- [30:57]
B
Yeah.
- [30:57]
A
So what I actually said at Charlie's funeral, memorial service that Charlie Kirk is in heaven not because he died for his Savior. Charlie Kirk is in heaven because his Savior died for Charlie Kirk. Because look, there's only two things you can get in the afterlife. You can either get justice or you can get grace. I don't want justice from an infinitely just being. If I got justice, I would be toast. So I want grace, I want forgiveness, and that's what Christ does.
- [31:26]
B
So justice or grace? Are you talking about heaven and hell?
- [31:29]
A
Well, yeah, basically hell is a place of justice where heaven is a place of grace. Right, Heaven. You don't earn heaven, it's just given to you. Because Jesus earned it for us. That's why he had to come. Come.
- [31:43]
B
Interesting. Yeah. When I was younger, I used to really fear death. But as I've gotten older, seen people around me pass away, I think I've accepted it more, you know, inevitable.
- [31:53]
A
The question is, where are we going to go afterwards, if anywhere?
- [31:55]
B
Right, Question.
- [31:59]
A
Okay, here's, here's Ecclesiastes 3, 21. I found it. It says, who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth. And the reason Ecclesiastes is saying that is because Ecclesiastes is a book written by Solomon, which basically is pointing out that life is meaningless if there is no God. There's no ultimate meaning. I mean, if there is no God, we just all go to heat death, we just all go into the ground. It doesn't really matter ultimately, whether you live as a missionary or a murderer.
- [32:30]
B
Right.
- [32:31]
A
It ultimately doesn't matter. It might matter now temporarily, but. But not ultimately because we're all going to go into the dirt. So Ecclesiastes is asking, we don't even. Does the Spirit go to be with God or does it just go into the ground? Sometimes the book of Revelation and the book of Isaiah are used to argue that animals are part of God's future renewed creation. Like, you know, the lion will lie down with the lamb kind of thing. Yeah, well, that would imply that in heaven that animals actually exist. So a lot of people ask me, do you think that pets go to heaven? And I said, well, dogs do.
- [33:06]
B
Okay.
- [33:07]
A
Cats don't they're clearly demonic.
- [33:11]
B
They say cats can see into the spirit realm. I don't know if that's right.
- [33:15]
A
That's right. Now people go, hey, you're dissing on cats? No, no, no, I love cats. They taste like chicken. All right. No, no, no.
- [33:23]
B
There's something with cats, man. If you put them in a hospital, they'll go into the person's room before. Right. Before they die. They know they're about to die. Yeah, yeah.
- [33:31]
A
I mean, they're totally different. And, you know, a dog thinks you're God, a cat thinks he's God, right?
- [33:41]
B
Yeah. Dogs are the best. Yeah. Dogs are a game changer. Getting dog changed my life, man. They just are there for you no matter what kind of day you're having. Right.
- [33:50]
A
And I think dogs are. Sean, if you think about it, dogs demonstrate the grace of God. What do I mean by that? Is that you could have yelled at the dog in the morning, and when you come home, the dog has forgotten all about it and just loves you wagging his tail, going, hey, it's you again. It's you again. Wow, wow, wow. You know, he's just forgiving all the time, Right?
- [34:11]
B
Yeah.
- [34:11]
A
So. So dogs. Dogs demonstrate the grace of God better than people do many times. Right?
- [34:17]
B
Yeah. Shout out to dogs, man.
- [34:18]
A
That's right.
- [34:20]
B
Yeah. I'll have to read those texts you mentioned. I'm curious now.
- [34:25]
A
Well, Genesis 1 and Genesis 6 and 7 are often cited because animals are described as having the breath of life. And of course they are. They're made by God. Animals, just like we are. We're made by God.
- [34:42]
B
So I meant the books that said they changed your opinion on believing in Jesus. You mentioned those earlier.
- [34:47]
A
Oh, well, I've written a book called I Don't have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. If you give me your address later, I'll send you one because.
- [34:53]
B
Copy. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I've been atheist. That. That was some dark times in college. Super depressed. I don't think I'd ever go back to that.
- [35:01]
A
What were you majoring in, by the way?
- [35:03]
B
I tried to do marketing, but I couldn't get into business school at Ruckers because they make you pass pre Cal, which is random, but I couldn't pass that class, so I was in arts and sciences. It was miserable.
- [35:14]
A
And then what was your career path after that?
- [35:17]
B
Dropped out sophomore year. Started a business, survived off that, paid myself 50k a year, and then got into podc about 3 years ago, and it kind of took off from there.
- [35:28]
A
Good. So for three years. If you pass the three year mark, chances are you're going to make it.
- [35:33]
B
Three year mark. What is up?
- [35:35]
A
Well, most businesses fail. 80 to 90% of businesses fail in the first three years.
- [35:40]
B
Oh, wow.
- [35:40]
A
If you get past the first three years, chances are you're going to be all right.
- [35:45]
B
Yeah, it's tough. I actually don't recommend it to most people. I mean, entrepreneurship is one of the toughest professions.
- [35:51]
A
I'd say you take all the risk.
- [35:54]
B
Yeah.
- [35:54]
A
And then people can't understand it when you're the boss and you have to make all these hard decisions and why aren't you paying them more? Man, I'm taking all the risk.
- [36:01]
B
What do you mean relatable? So relatable when you first started, was
- [36:05]
A
it successful at first, what I'm doing now? Yeah, Well, I kind of transitioned into this because after the Navy, a year after I got out of the Navy, I came to seminary here in Charlotte. And for 18 years I was doing corporate training for companies. Like I would do sales training, leadership training, team building, because I had kind of a background in teaching in the Navy. And so in order for me to put myself through seminary, I had to have a job because I had a wife and three sons. And so I was doing corporate work as my own kind of training person for 18 years before I started doing what I'm doing now full time. So I was, I was, I was 49 years old. I'm 64 now. It was 15 years ago that I transitioned from doing corporate training to what I'm doing now. So it was kind of a long tail. I was doing both for a while and then when I was too politically incorrect for the corporate world because I got fired for writing a book called Correct, Not Politically Correct, even though it was never brought up at work. I got fired in the name of inclusion, tolerance and diversity, Sean, Because I was not included or not tolerated for holding a diverse view. And so I knew I couldn't really work in corporate America anymore. So I went full time doing this. So our ministry is that it's 501c3. It's totally funded by donations.
- [37:38]
B
Nice.
- [37:38]
A
So it took a little while, but it's going well now and praise God for that.
- [37:44]
B
So did you feel fulfilled when you were living that corporate lifestyle? Did you feel like you were on the right path?
- [37:49]
A
Well, I was doing both at the times. I enjoyed the corporate training gig. It was very well paying, let me put it that way. And I enjoyed teaching people, I enjoyed engaging with people, but I knew I wasn't Going to do that forever. I was transitioning into being an author, being a speaker, doing what I do now on college campuses and. And eventually doing podcasts and TV and all that. So it was a transition. But, I mean, I liked it. I liked it when I was doing it, but it wasn't going to fulfill me forever. In fact, I had to leave the job I was in because I felt such a calling that I wanted to go to seminary. So when we moved from the D.C. area to Charlotte in 1993, we didn't have a job when we moved down here. And my wife was brave enough for us to move here with three kids and no job to go to seminary because there was no Internet, Sean. You couldn't take courses online. That's how old I am, man. You know, so there was. There was no Internet.
- [38:48]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [38:49]
A
Go sit in a classroom.
- [38:51]
B
It's all I've known my whole life. Internet.
- [38:53]
A
Yeah. Well, that's why you're good at it. You're a digital native.
- [38:56]
B
Yeah. Each generation has their own problems, though. I feel like with mine, the reason I asked about. Did you feel fulfilled? I feel like a lot of Gen Z millennials struggle with that. I get asked it almost every day. You know, these guys are trying to find fulfillment in life.
- [39:10]
A
That's why Charlie was so good when he said, the purpose of life is to know God through Jesus and to make him known. And what you ought to also do is start a family, get married and start a family. Bring more people into this world and nourish them, nurture them.
- [39:28]
B
Right.
- [39:29]
A
I mean, once you have a family, you start finding certainly meaning in bringing a baby into the world. And our culture has, of course, been at war against the family and has been war against so many things. In fact, I just finished a new book that comes out in September with a colleague. It's called the War on Reality, where people are trying to create their own realities, whether it's through gender, whether it's through economics, whether it's through saying that you don't need the family anymore, or. I mean, people are trying to create their own realities, and reality always wins. Right. Reality. Reality is unchanging.
- [40:12]
B
Yeah.
- [40:13]
A
It's wise to acknowledge that you don't set the rules of life. The author of Reality does. But we try and buck up against those rules. And when we do, we hurt ourselves and we hurt others. And that's why we're miserable, because we're not following the design of the designer. I know you rarely read a car manual when you buy a new car. But the folks that wrote the car manual know how the car needs to be operated and maintained in order for it to function properly. They give you that manual for a reason. Right. The designer knows how it should be used. But if you say, I'm not going to pay any attention to the designer, I'm going to take my car in the ocean. Right. You're going to destroy that thing.
- [41:01]
B
Yeah.
- [41:02]
A
And so we have to do the same thing in the sense that we need to look to our designer to figure out how to live life and how to live it well. I mean, what is the purpose of life if there is no God? There isn't a purpose.
- [41:11]
B
Absolutely. Yeah. There's a lot of attacks on the family unit. The main one I see from my generation is the financial aspect of it. It's really expensive. Now, obviously there's like the feminist movement and the whole attack on ideology, too, but financially it's really hard, I think, these days.
- [41:27]
A
I think you're correct. And part of the reason for that is inflation has always been known, at least technically, to be an inflation of the money supply. And when you inflate the money supply and you put more dollars out there, everything starts costing more because you have more dollars chasing fewer products. And one of the things that has created this difficulty we're in now is the COVID spending, where we, like, I don't know, doubled or tripled the size of government. We just started printing money that in unavoidably drives prices up and it makes it very difficult to find a home and afford a home. Not only that, but when you have such rigorous environmental rules which restrict home building, and then when you have illegal immigration which drives the demand for homes up, you've got the perfect storm of inflation, restricted housing and more people looking for the same housing. Is it any wonder why people who are in your generation have difficulty buying homes because they're like, you know, 750,000amillion dollars and interest rates are 5 or 6%. You're like, I can't afford that. I get it.
- [42:47]
B
Yeah.
- [42:47]
A
But it's really the fault of the generation before us because they've overspent, they've kept the border open, they've restricted housing too much, and, you know, you. You restrict the supply, the. The demand stays the same or the demand goes up with more people, price goes up. That's just the way it works.
- [43:07]
B
Yeah. I just had Michael Saylor on. He's a billionaire. He's basically saying inflation is about 7% a year. So if you do the math on that, Goes away quick if you're just keeping it in the bank.
- [43:17]
A
Yeah, absolutely. And you, you, you've got to find a way to have it grow faster than 7% or you're losing money every
- [43:23]
B
year, which most people are not doing.
- [43:25]
A
I know. Well, so most people are living on credit cards. 60% of American people live paycheck to paycheck. You're never going to get out of it, Sean. You're never going to get out. You know how this was told to me years ago. This is why I've never had credit card debt. Thank God.
- [43:41]
B
Dave Ramsey would love you saying that.
- [43:43]
A
Oh, yeah, no, no, like say, say you got a thousand dollar credit card bill and you pay off $900 that month. You know what they charge interest on the whole thousand bucks.
- [43:52]
B
Oh, really?
- [43:53]
A
Yeah, because you have not paid it off yet. And then it compounds and like the interest rate on those cards, like some of them, it's like 17%, man, you can't get out of that.
- [44:03]
B
Yeah, that's a lot. I think Trump tried to reduce it to 10%. I don't know if that passed. But yeah, some of them are even higher than 17. I think they're in the 20s.
- [44:12]
A
It's crazy. And the problem is you buy stuff that depreciates and you're paying more interest in order to get the thing. So it's doubly bad. The value of the thing is going down, but the cost that you have to pay is going up. It's like the worst combination. About the only place that doesn't apply is housing. Normally housing goes up, right? So your, your assets appreciating while you're paying it off, cars, other stuff. Now it goes down. Yeah, so I've been told. Never buy a depreciating asset on credit because you're paying too much for the thing to begin with. And, and it's going in opposite directions, values going down, you're paying more for it.
- [44:54]
B
That makes sense. You go to a lot of campuses, you got kids. What's your take on paying for college and getting into debt with student loans?
- [45:03]
A
I'm with my friend Charlie Kirk on that. I think most of college is a scam. Not all of it. I mean, if you want to be a engineer, an attorney, professions like that, you need a college degree. But so many of these degrees, Sean, as you well know, gender studies, right. You know, lesbian studies, you know, these things are not preparing you for the real world. And you're racking up all this debt and you're underwater as soon as you get into the workforce 50%. First of all, only 59% of people graduate. 50% of people are working in a field that is not congruent with their major. And I think the stat is also about 50% of the jobs they get don't require a college degree.
- [45:56]
B
Wow.
- [45:58]
A
So, you know, I only see it
- [46:00]
B
getting worse with AI because now even lawyers, their jobs are on the line. I know a lot of people that are using AI for their legal stuff. And you could actually make the argument that college isn't worth it for most professions with AI now.
- [46:12]
A
No, I agree with you. If somebody is a hard worker and willing to learn, there are companies out there just waiting for you. You just got to be a hard worker, a self starter, Somebody that doesn't need to be told what to do, is ready to commit. And you don't need a college degree. I mean, Charlie didn't have a college degree. That's why it wasn't so messed up, right?
- [46:32]
B
A lot of the smartest people didn't. Yeah, it's so crazy because when I was deciding on college, they, they were bully people that went to Votech to like learn a blue collar skill. And now that seems to be more safe than a college degree.
- [46:45]
A
You know, not only that, but if you learn a skill, you're never going to be unemployed. And like plumbers, right? We're always going to need plumbers. And let me submit to you, a plumber does something more important than most other professions. Right? Without plumbing, this place would be a disaster. Right. You know, I'd rather give me a plumber any day than a gender study major. Right? At least you could do something. You can get this crap out of my house. You know, I need that. We need people working in plumbers, electricians, we need, we need people working in, in, in food service. We need farmers, we need, I mean we need all this stuff. This is like essential for life. We need people, we need janitors. Janitors are more important than gender studies majors.
- [47:37]
B
I can't believe that's still a major. Gender studies? Oh my God.
- [47:39]
A
Oh yeah, it's all over. You know, anything with studies on, on the end of it. Be careful, okay?
- [47:45]
B
How can you spend four years studying gender? It blows my mind. Like, I'd love to see some of those textbooks.
- [47:51]
A
It's woke ideology, Sean. And it radicalizes people to think that certain groups of people are oppressors and other groups of people are oppressed and it doesn't matter what their personal behavior is. It's kind of a new form of racism. So, for example, if you're a white, heterosexual, Christian man who is a citizen, you're automatically an oppressor. You could behave wonderfully. You could be the. You could be a saint in real life. But according to critical theory, you're going to be considered an oppressor and you shouldn't be heard. Somebody on the other end, a person of color, lgbtq, someone who is not a Christian, someone who is an immigrant, is automatically considered oppressed. And this is, by the way, why you get strange bedfellows politically. It's why you have gays for Gaza. Like, why would you have gays for Gaza? Right. If gays go to Gaza, they're going to be thrown off the building and be murdered. Why do you have groups like that on college campuses, Gays for Gaza? Because the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And anybody considered oppressed, automatically, they seem to affiliate with one another, at least temporarily, and they have common cause. The problem is, again, if the gays go to Gaza, they're going to be executed. So it really is an odd system. It's completely against the Bible and it's completely against Martin Luther King who said, let's not judge people on the color of their skin, but the content of their character. Now we're judging people on the color of their skin rather than the content of their character.
- [49:35]
B
Right.
- [49:35]
A
Which is.
- [49:38]
B
Yeah, that's what DEI was basically. Right, Right.
- [49:41]
A
DEI stands for. Didn't earn it, by the way.
- [49:44]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [49:45]
A
And. And it's not fair to the people it's supposed to help.
- [49:48]
B
No, it was actually used against me when I was applying to college because I'm Asian, so it actually worked. Not in my favor.
- [49:57]
A
Oh, yeah. Because we have too many Asians in college. So Harvard and other schools discriminated against Asians first, then white second in order to get more minorities into Harvard.
- [50:09]
B
Right. Crazy.
- [50:10]
A
It's actually reverse discrimination against you because Asians test out as a group higher than any other group.
- [50:19]
B
So. Yeah. Yeah, I'm half white, half Asian, so I actually just said I'm white when I applied. Because if I. Basically, if I said I was Asian and I applied to Rutgers, I don't think I would have got in. Oh, yeah, it's not bad. Yeah. Because I think the average Asian GPA was way higher than what I had. I had 3.2, so I wouldn't have gotten in. Probably.
- [50:39]
A
Yeah, It's. It's. That's not. Look, we're never going to be colorblind, but we should be color neutral. Right. Your color doesn't matter. Your character matters.
- [50:49]
B
Absolutely.
- [50:49]
A
This is merit based. And so it's tragic that we think we're going to defeat old racism by introducing new racism. That's, that's not the way forward.
- [51:02]
B
Yeah. Racism always felt like a low IQ kind of debate to me. You know, when people use that card.
- [51:09]
A
Yeah, yeah. They use it quite a bit too tragically.
- [51:13]
B
Yeah.
- [51:13]
A
And by the way, it's not helpful. In fact, Thomas Sowell made this point. You know, Thomas Sowell is. I don't look up Thomas Sowell. He's 95 years old now, brilliant black man. Not that it matters that he's black, but he was brought up in Harlem, just so you know. And Thomas Sowell said that he taught at Cornell, I think, and University of Chicago and Stanford, some of the biggest, most well known colleges and universities in the country. And he said there were kids who were admitted to Cornell that didn't have the capacity to handle the curriculum there and they flunked out. Where if they went to a school a notch or two down, they would have been superstars. So affirmative action actually hurt them.
- [51:56]
B
Wow.
- [51:57]
A
Because they got into a school they weren't qualified to be in. Not only that, but the people, whether they knew it or not, were subconsciously viewing this person as, oh, this is the diversity hire. Even though the kid may have earned it himself. They thought, oh, you're here just because they, they, they gave it to you because you're a minority. How is that fair to that person who actually earned it? Because they had good scores. Right. It's not.
- [52:25]
B
Yeah.
- [52:26]
A
So it actually has the opposite effect. You think, oh, this is going to help minorities. No, it's going to hurt them because people are going to look at them and go, oh, you're just diversity hire.
- [52:33]
B
Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad Trump put an end to dei. How have you felt about Trump's second term so far? Are you liking it policy wise?
- [52:40]
A
Yes. I cringe at a lot of things Trump says, you know, I mean, because he's, he's just obnoxious so many times.
- [52:49]
B
Yeah.
- [52:50]
A
But yeah, I voted him for his policies because I think his policies generally are far better than the left, at least from a natural law perspective, from a biblical perspective. And I think policies are going to outlast personalities every time. Personalities come and go. Policies can affect generations.
- [53:09]
B
Yeah.
- [53:09]
A
So policies are important. And I think policies of the conservatives are mirroring the truth better than the Democrats are. And also this. Sean, Charlie and I talked about this quite a bit during the campaign. When you're voting for President, you're not voting for one person. You're voting for 5,000 people to go to Washington in an administration and implement an agenda.
- [53:35]
B
Right.
- [53:37]
A
Because there are so many political appointees that adjoin the president or accompany the president that you're not really voting for one person. You're voting for an entire administration. And I think overall this administration has done pretty well. They've got some good people in good places. Not that you might agree with all of them, but it even got, I mean, rfk, who's been a Democrat his whole life in at HHS Health and Human Services. And I think he's bringing a new perspective that needs to be brought there because medicine has become politicized and it shouldn't be politicized. Vaccines. Right, Covid, all that stuff. And RFK is trying to get to the bottom of it, I think.
- [54:18]
B
Yeah, he's made some good changes. Shout out to rfk. Do you want to see more Christianity involved with politics? I know that's a kind of controversial thing with the whole Christian nationalism movement, but do you like that?
- [54:28]
A
Depends on what you mean by that. I don't think we, we. We want to make Christianity mandatory. You can't do that anyway. But if you mean that we want principles consistent with Christianity, moral principles. Yes, because all laws legislate morality. Right. The only question is whose morality? And I don't want to legislate my morality. I don't want to legislate your morality. I want to legislate the morality. The one Thomas Jefferson said was self evident. The one the apostle Paul said, the Gentiles are not of the law, of the law written on their hearts. So everyone's trying to impose a moral point of view. The only question is, what is the right moral point of view? This idea that you can't legislate morality is bogus. That's all you can legislate. The problem is you can legislate also immorality.
- [55:13]
B
Give an example of that.
- [55:15]
A
Well, in my view, legislating the idea that young children can be transitioned is an immoral law. We should not be mutilating the healthy sex organs of small children. Yet the Democrats in many cases want that option. I think that's immoral. I also think it's immoral to murder babies in the womb because they're human beings in the womb. And I always ask people, what's that from day one?
- [55:42]
B
Or do you have a. I think
- [55:44]
A
from the moment of conception, they're human beings. I mean, that's true across. It's not just Human beings, every new creature is that creature from the moment of conception. They have their own DNA, their own blood type, their own gender, from the moment of conception.
- [55:59]
B
Got it.
- [56:00]
A
Now, politically, if we can't convince people of that, can we put laws in place that might allow abortion for a certain period of time and restrict it after that? Well, yes, I'd rather save some babies than none.
- [56:15]
B
Right.
- [56:16]
A
But my goal is that abortion ought to be outlawed in every case, except if it's going to kill the mother, life of the mother. And that happens in rare cases like a fallopian tube pregnancy where the baby's not going to survive anyway. And in that case, your intent is not to kill the baby, your intent is to save the mother.
- [56:33]
B
Yep.
- [56:34]
A
But this idea that we use abortion for birth control, which is what 96% of all abortions are, maybe 97%, is horrific. Why are we tearing babies apart in the womb? Because you don't want to have a child. Really? Since when is solving your problem. Since when does that mean killing your own children? I don't see any scenario where killing your own children justifies the problem you're trying to fix. But that's. That's what we think.
- [57:04]
B
I saw some crazy stat that I believe one third of my generation was killed from abortions. Something crazy like that.
- [57:10]
A
Yeah, more than that, probably. I don't know if. Did you see Brandon Gill, I think he's a Texas congressman. A couple of weeks ago, it was on X, it went very viral where he's at a. He's at a hearing and there's a pro abortion person at the table, and he's asking her, what type of abortion do you prefer? And he started to describe what an abortion is. Do you prefer this method where we cut the baby up and then put a vacuum in there and suck all the parts out? And then he went on to another method and another method, and she was just cringing.
- [57:44]
B
Geez.
- [57:45]
A
Because she couldn't handle the truth that that's what abortion is. She didn't want to talk about it, Sean. She's like, let's move on to something else. Yeah, but that's what the truth is. The truth is you are literally pulling body parts out of a woman when you do an abortion, especially after a certain period. Yeah.
- [58:03]
B
And they have a lot of shame about it, but they don't want to acknowledge it, right?
- [58:07]
A
No, but if they. If people are watching, listening right now, had an abortion, there's. There's forgiveness from Jesus. Jesus can forgive all of our sins. That's why he came because we can't make up for that. Only he can. He takes our punishment upon himself. That's what Christianity is about.
- [58:24]
B
Right.
- [58:25]
A
So there's forgiveness. Turn to Jesus for that.
- [58:28]
B
How do you know if he's forgiven you? Is it a feeling based thing?
- [58:33]
A
Well, no, it's not just a feeling because feelings come and go. It's based on evidence that he did come, he did die, he did rise from the dead, and he did say that anyone who trusts in him will be forgiven and given his righteousness. So even when I don't feel like it, it's still true.
- [58:53]
B
Wow.
- [58:53]
A
Right. And I think there's a. There's, there's good evidence that all that happened.
- [58:59]
B
Yeah, I can't wait to look into that, man. Well, Frank. Yeah, please. I'll definitely read that. Anything else you want to close off with? Any events you got coming up or some. Anything fun coming up for you?
- [59:10]
A
Well, let's see. We're going to have a number of events in the fall. During the summer, I sometimes go to churches and speak and all that's on our website, crossexamined.org, cross examined with a D on the end of it. We do two podcasts a week. It's called the I Don't have Enough Faith to be an Atheist podcast. We do a TV show. All this they can see on our, on our website and our YouTube channel and our Instagram page so they can keep track of the calendar when I'm out speaking. But we just finished our final college this semester. We're going to start them off again in either late August, early September.
- [59:53]
B
Nice.
- [59:53]
A
But a lot of times I'm at a. I'm at a college or I'm at a church over the summer or a youth group or that kind of thing. So.
- [60:02]
B
Yeah, we'll link your stuff below. Thanks for your time today, man.
- [60:04]
A
Hey, Sean, thanks for having me on.
- [60:06]
B
Yeah, thanks for watching all the way to the end, guys. Please hit like and subscribe. It helps us grow the show and helps us get bigger guests. Thank you so much.