← I Don't Have Enough FAITH to Be an ATHEIST
I Don't Have Enough FAITH to Be an ATHEIST
Why I Left Islam and Became a Christian - Apostate Prophet Shares His Powerful Testimony (Part 2)
01:16:21
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- [00:03]
A
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to show number two with the Apostate Prophet. As you know, Ridvan Adamir was a Muslim, then became an atheist, and after that became a Christian. And he has a great YouTube channel called Apostate Prophet. We covered a lot of the theological problems with Islam in the first program and we started at the very end to talk about how Ridvan became a Christian. I want to pick up the conversation there and then also talk about ways that we can reach out to Muslims and show them the truth of Christianity, then talk some about the conflict between Israel and Hamas. And also Ridvan the Apostate Prophet has on his YouTube channel. I'm looking at it right now. He's got a presentation, a 14 minute video called Islam has no Place in the West. Well, that's going to win him a lot of liberal support right there. So we're going to, we're going to talk about that. So here he is, ladies and gentlemen. He, he just woke up. He just woke up. So it's real nice of him to be on the program. We had this scheduled last week and you were up late last night doing some stuff on your phone, productive work. But then you overslept and I texted you and you said, oh, I forgot, I'll be there in a minute. Well, you can do this in your sleep, can't you? A.P.
- [01:33]
B
I try to, yes. But this is, this is how I operate. This is how I function, how I have been functioning for quite a while. So it works, it works out. But yeah, so I did go to sleep very late and was still doing stuff on my phone. And then I realized, okay, I probably need to fall asleep at some point. I did. And then I wake up to the message from you and thought, oh, okay, yeah, sure, I, I, I had that plan and I even had it on my calendar and I had it on my mind. So here I am.
- [02:03]
A
Well, look at you, man. No bed head. You're ready to go. Let's, let's talk about how you became a christian because for 10 years you were an atheist. After you left Islam, you got to listen to First Show. If you want to know that whole story, and you do, friends, go back to the first program we had last week. Tell us what brought you into Christianity. AP.
- [02:27]
B
So it is a very complicated and long process, right? It could be very easy to break down, but it also feels like it's very unfair because it was very long and very complicated and very difficult because as I also explained before, for the longest time, for many years, years, I actually had a Lot of respect for Christianity. And I have been good friends with David Wood for the longest time. We have known each other and have interacted with each other and confided in each other and all that for so many years. And that certainly had an impact on me. So his friendship, witnessing his testimony and all that, considering that he's a person who was at some point a psych. I mean, who is a diagnosed psychopath and who was by his own admission, a very terrible person and then who changed dramatically through Christianity, through Christ, was something very impressive to me because, yeah, I want to take these, These. These beginning few minutes to talk about David here. But when I first met David and had the plan to go and personally visit him and work together with him on a few projects, I kind of had a little bit of. Had a few concerns because I thought, okay, he's a diagnosed psychopath who has certain violent actions in his past and all that. I wonder how that is in person. So I was a little bit concerned about that. But then when I went to meet him in person and to work together, I realized very quickly that this person, David Wood, is a very transformed, fantastic person. And I don't like to say this when he's around because he's not very good with compliments, but I realized that he's a. He's a very, very. A very good person, a very selfless person. And that was. That had a great impact on me. I would. I would say that if there is one person that I can trust completely with my life in this world right now, it is probably David Wood. And so witnessing that and witnessing how Christ changed him so much was always very, very influential in my thinking and how I felt about things. Nevertheless, I was still an atheist. I did say to him and with him on live streams and on other occasions that I like Christianity, that I love Christianity, and that I wish it was true, but I just can't believe that it is true. But there was a time when, especially after the October 7th terrorist attack in 2023, that I started taking things a little bit more dramatically, a little bit more seriously. And I went to visit Israel with David Wood, actually, where we went to speak to people, to report on the situation. And around that time, I was very. I was still an atheist, but when I went to Israel, it was a very interesting experience. I had lots of interactions over there at that point, mostly with. With Jews, with religious Jews. And there was this one instance that I. That I talked about once I came back where we were at the Western Wall and we were just done with that day. We were leaving and there were these two men, these two ultra Orthodox Jewish men who were handing out pamphlets to secular Jews to invite them to practice and observe the Commandments. And they saw us and they wanted to hand us these pamphlets. I told them that we're not Jewish and they were curious as to who we are and what we're doing here, because we. We went there immediately after October 7th and there were barely any visitors, any tourists there. People were afraid to go there, basically. So we were there when. When most people weren't going there, and we had a conversation. We told them that we are here to report on the situation, to see things for ourselves and all that, and also to offer our support. Upon which one of those two men became very emotional and started tearing up and repeatedly, endlessly telling me, thank you, thank you so much, thank you so much. You're very good. You don't see him, but he sees you and all that. And he said a few more things and offered prayers that I do not remember. Whereas the other man right next to him also got kind of very emotional and confused and wanted to go get a pamphlet, but then didn't give me a pamphlet and all that. And I was really deeply influenced by that. Going to Jerusalem, being there at the Wall, being where Jesus walked, going to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, whose weight and value I didn't even realize at first because I was still an atheist.
- [07:52]
A
When was this, Ridvan? How long ago?
- [07:54]
B
This was last year, actually. February. No, January or February 2024. Okay, that's when that was so. And then seeing. Interacting with. With people over there and seeing how they are and how they are being targeted in the world. How I was raised in a home that was brutally, and that's an understatement, brutally and extremely anti Jewish, Learning from very early childhood that they are inhuman monsters that we have to fight one day and all that. But then seeing the contrast of how they actually are and the current sentiments in the world against them made me feel very strange. And I told David on the way back on the plane, I said, since we came to this place, I have really, something in me changed. I don't know. I can't just accept the whole idea of atheism as it is anymore. And I feel like there is something greater, something spiritual going on here in this world, because I can't explain how this place is so nice and these people are so fantastic, but they are the target of so much hate in the world right now. And it can't be because of the way they are. And so at that time, I kind of was internally pushed towards less atheism and more agnosticism. And I was really interested in Judaism, actually. So that's the funny thing. I was initially going toward Judaism. I got myself Jewish prayers and Jewish things, the Teflon, the thing that, you know, the wrap around your arm and your head and all that. And I was interested in practicing Judaism and conversion to Judaism and all that, and was very much fascinated with the idea that there is this Jewish spirit and that there might be something true about Judaism and that I might think about converting to it. This was a very interesting part.
- [10:05]
A
Your parents would have been excited about that, huh?
- [10:09]
B
They are already very excited. And they would have been extremely excited about that part. Yeah, that would have been. That would have been very interesting. Would have been very funny. But around that time, so I. I had a lot of. I had these sentiments of. Of the Jewish people and the state of Israel at that point, playing a very big role in my head. And to be very honest, actually at that point, I so much valued Jewishness and Jewish tradition and Jewish religion and all that that I thought, this is the most important thing that I want to focus on right now. And I tried to avoid, at any cost, exposure to Christian stuff because I didn't want to get confused. But at that time, I was asked at some point to read a passage from the Epistle to the Romans. And as I read it, I was very fascinated. And then I thought, wait a minute, I actually want to read the entire thing. I hadn't done that before. So I went to the very beginning and read the entire Epistle to the Romans. And the more I read, the more fascinated I was with it. The more I read, the more I thought, you know, I know about Christianity, I learned a lot about Christianity, but I haven't actually really understood Christianity until now or began to understand Christianity until now, because now I was sitting there and reading the writings of Paul. And Christianity was being explained to me in a very, very good way. The way nobody really seemed to explain it to me or nobody really got through to me because I was maybe a little bit stubborn. I don't know. Especially when I came to the passages or the chapters Romans 9 through 11, when it directly addressed the matter of Jews and the unbelieving Jews and unbelieving Israelites by descent and all that. And I suddenly there I came across how much love that the Apostle Paul felt for his fellow Jews, including for those who did not believe in Jesus. And how much he said he would if he could give up his own salvation to save his fellow Israelites. And then also further talks about how there is a partial blinding upon them, but it will come to pass that God will draft in all the Gentiles and eventually all Israel will be saved and all that. So that kind of opened up a whole new perspective for me and I started getting interested more in Christianity and reading more from the Bible.
- [13:01]
A
So to that point, had you read the Gospels, had you read the Gospel of John prior to going to Israel in January or February of 2024?
- [13:11]
B
I want to say yes, because there was a point in the past where I, I did not actually read them, but I might have listened to them, the audio version, audiobook, or watched a few things about them. But in all honesty, I had not really read the Gospels. So I had only listened to them at that point, loosely, but I hadn't really read them at that point. So I started reading them and started reading other things and started reading the Psalms more from which I read before as I was interested in Judaism more within a Christian mindset in mind around that time. I've always had a lot of love for certain Catholic traditions and Catholic practices, like the rosary, for example. At that point I kind of got interested in, without even believing, just sitting down and, and trying to understand what that is all about. And, and I thought this is actually very, this is actually very nice. You know, I was still sticking to my explorations of, of Judaism, but.
- [14:29]
A
I.
- [14:29]
B
Was more and more interested in Christianity. So at that point, my wife actually, she was. She converted to Christianity from Washington. It was her. So she was raised as what is called an evangelical Orthodox, which is a very rare group in America. And she became an atheist. And that's actually how we met initially. And she was an atheist at that point. But then she returned to Christianity. And while I was exploring Judaism, there was a kind of a conflict going on there. One day she asked me to go to church with her. And the funny thing is that she asked me if times to go to church with her. I said no, you know, maybe some other time, maybe next time. At one point I thought, I said to her, yeah, okay, I'll go. And my idea was at that point I will just say yes to do it once and then to be done with it. But then when I did, when I did go to church, I thought I was very moved.
- [15:29]
A
So what kind of church was it?
- [15:31]
B
It was an Orthodox church. And I did go there and I was very impressed and very moved in Earth and also a little bit confused. It was a little bit overwhelming at first.
- [15:43]
A
Was this a two or three hour service where you're standing?
- [15:46]
B
Most of the time it was like a one and a half or two hour service. Most of the time is standing, some of it is sitting. But it was very interesting because the thing was, I had until that point deeply studied and concerned myself with Judaism and with Jewish temples, practices and things like that. Then when I went to church, I suddenly see all the things that I learned from Judaism, from the Temple, I see them practiced in a different way in church, and I can suddenly draw all the connections from the processions and things like that of how, oh, this seems to come directly from Second Temple Judaism, that seems to come directly from Second Temple Judaism and all that. So my studies of Judaism actually helped me understand and appreciate how church is laid out and where church practices come from, where prayers and practices come from and all that. So that was a very interesting, I want to call it an initiation of sorts. Without even intending how much of David's.
- [17:05]
A
Arguments for Christianity, whether it's arguments for God, arguments for Jesus rising from the dead, arguments for the truth of the Bible, how much had that played a role in this? Because, you know, he did the same thing with Dabil Qureshi as, you know, years ago. How did that factor into this? AP.
- [17:24]
B
A lot, actually. As a matter of fact, before I made the step to convert, to declare myself a Christian, to declare that I do believe in Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I did sit down with David and ask him a few questions, but before that. So David did have a very, very big role, not just in his personal aspect and personal conversion and personal transformation, but also in the things that he relayed and the way he act, acted toward me and the way he generally acted around me and the way he argued things. He was always there to, to be very supportive of me. When people said, why are you hanging out with an, with an atheist instead of preaching to him, there's no benefit to it, he was like, it's okay, guys, everything is all right. So, and funny thing is, when I asked him later on and I, I said, I asked him, did you think or know that I would eventually become a Christian? He was like, oh, yeah, I was sure of it.
- [18:35]
A
For those of you who don't know who David is, go to apologetics roadshow on YouTube or just type in David Wood. David. And in fact, what we're going to do is put in the show notes David's own testimony. This had to be 12 to 15 years ago. And he recorded it on the subway of New York City. I'm sure you've seen that apartment. It's a pretty amazing testimony of his conversion to Christianity from an atheist who spent time in prison because he tried to murder his father when he was a young man and went off to prison, and then came out of prison, became a Christian, met up with Nabil Qureshi at Old Dominion University and was instrumental in bringing Nabil to faith. And how was it that you ever connected with David Wood? Was it after you got out of Islam? First of all, did any of his work or his videos do anything to help you leave Islam?
- [19:35]
B
Not to leave Islam? I basically did the whole leaving Islam thing on my own at that point. I hadn't been exposed to actually critiques of Islam. I thought I was alone in the world as somebody who's questioning Islam. This is also what I heard from so many other people who left. Left Islam that they thought they were alone, that they were the only ones, that they were insane.
- [19:55]
A
This was when YouTube was in his infancy, though.
- [19:58]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was when you left. Yeah, yeah, correct. Long after I left, I decided to. When I was deciding to speak about Islam online, I was looking online, and I couldn't find much content. The content that I found was either not entirely accurate. Overall, it was lacking. The one person that I did encounter was David Wood, where I thought, okay, this guy offers correct, fair criticism of Islam without exaggerating it, without getting it wrong. So I was actually very impressed by that. And when I started my own YouTube channel, I did reach out to him one day and said, hey, I would like to have a conversation and a discussion with you. And he immediately got back and we did a little collaboration. And from then on, I think we just never stopped. We kept working together and interacting with each other and forming a friendship together. So. And then basically doing this together for years now. For now now, for so many years, people just know that David and I do stuff together, you know, and some.
- [21:08]
A
Of it is on your YouTube channel, and some of it is on his.
- [21:11]
B
Yeah, we go live on each other's channels together every. Every week, or we try to, at.
- [21:17]
A
Least now, as you know, David has had trouble with YouTube, demonetizing him, kicking him off the platform. He had to change his channel to a new channel. Have you had the same issue with YouTube being such a critic of Islam at this point?
- [21:37]
B
Very much so. I. I do have to say that I probably have an advantage, which is. I have an advantage that actually is a result of the stupidity of, of a sentiment that I really do not like in the west, which is David probably got targeted more because he's not a, you know, a person of color and he's, you know, he's a, he's a regular average American white guy who makes anti Islamic content. So he probably got targeted more firmly. Other people, like Robert Spencer probably got targeted more firmly because of that. I probably had an advantage because, because I at least seem different, look different and my name is different. So I probably did elude the, or evade the, the brutal hammer of censorship a little bit more than he did. But I still do face the same issues. Even so when I make videos, when I publish something, it is always initially demonetized and I have to challenge it to ask for a review. Sometimes it is accepted, sometimes it is not. So because of that, I would say many or most of the videos that I have that I've made that have very critical work in them were demonetized and I was basically robbed of getting the ad revenue that I'm supposed to get for the work that I put in. And I thought, I'll just do it anyway.
- [23:12]
A
So now how are you supported now? Is it, are you on Patreon? Are you like, how do, how do people support you if they want to, I'm on Patreon.
- [23:22]
B
But I also have, I, I usually have a donate link in my, on my channel and in the, in the description of the videos.
- [23:28]
A
So I see it.
- [23:29]
B
Okay, yeah, yeah. But I do try to still monetize things, to somehow at least get something, get something done to make it sustainable and it works out. I mean, I'm not in need of huge help. So it is stable and established and it's working. So with David, the thing is, you asked earlier about the impact of David. The funny thing is that for many years I heard David say something that I kind of ignored or downplayed or dismissed in my head. When he talked about the evidence for Christianity or responded to people who asked about a, who brought up a lack of evidence for Christianity, he did often bring up the, excuse me, the idea that the death and the resurrection and further miracles of Jesus were witnessed by multiple people, by hundreds of people, and that this is recorded generally. When I heard that, I kind of downplayed and dismissed it and thought to myself, I mean, we can't trust anything. These are just, you know, some people 2000 years ago writing something, who knows if they're telling the truth, who can trust them and all that. He would bring up that nearly all These people gave their lives and were brutally tortured and murdered for what they believed in and what they preached. And I thought, yeah, okay, these are just tales and we don't really know if it's true or not. So I generally dismissed these things. Then when I started reading the New Testament and became more curious in how the Apostle Paul actually describes things and what happened to the early disciples, the apostles, I realized quickly that what David was saying all along, over all these years, is directly found there in the text. And then it is found in the text, and you go outside of the text and fact check and verify the historicity of it all. And it turns out that it is very, very much verified that. And the writings of the Apostle Paul are verified to belong to him and to go back to him in those early days. It is very much verified that he did indeed interact with the disciples, primarily with Peter and with all the others, that the early Christians were aware of him and interacted with him and approved of his work and all that, that they leaned on him, that the things that he said about the. About Christ and his death and resurrection were corroborated by the early Christians. I did encounter the writings of early Christians like Clement and Ignatius and others who agree with him and affirm his message. And I did quickly realize that what David was saying all along, that the early Christians who were the disciples and the apostles of Jesus did witness his death, his crucifixion, his death, his reappearance, resurrection, his works, and his ascension. And that they did acknowledge and witness the miracles of the apostles, that hundreds of people were there as witnesses, and that this is a very, very difficult thing to deny. I also remembered that a few years ago, I myself sat down and interviewed Bart Ehrman twice actually. And my angle was actually to interview him about Jesus and to then talk about Islam, to refute Islamic talking points about Jesus. But I listened to him, you know, very, very attentively. And I know, and I know for a fact from Bart Ehrman, the great skeptic and critic of Christianity, that he acknowledges that hundreds of early Christians witnessed Jesus rising from the dead after. After he was clearly killed in a crucifixion. But he has different explanations for it. He thinks it could be explained with maybe a mass hallucination, maybe with something else. But he does very clearly affirm that these early accounts of Christians and the witnessing of Christ's death and resurrection are undeniable, that they are facts. And, you know, this is the historian that people go to as atheists, as agnostics, as critics of Christianity. So at that point I did realize that the evidence for Christianity seems to be quite strong. And I tried to analyze it and break it down and be critical and have my skeptical atheist mindset and put it to the test. But the conclusion that I came to after everything is the evidence for Christianity and for Christ is very strong. Until that point I thought that, that Jesus is simply a very good moral character and a very good teacher. But I was told by C.S. lewis that, that this is actually a very bad idea. Because if I want to say that he was a good moral teacher, but then also declare that he was basically making things up and lying, then how can I say he was a good moral teacher, right? And then I see the great value, the great beauty that his teachings brought into the world, the things that he did which were ahead of its time and environment by far. And then I see that the evidence for his miraculous life and for his death and resurrection are very strongly supported, even historically. And it did push me toward Christianity at that point. Even when I first declared that I do believe in Jesus, I wasn't actually sure if I am now a full fledged Christian, if you will. But I was kind of at a, at a turning point, no pun intended, but it's kind of nice. I was at a, at a nice point where I thought I really like this and I'm really, I'm really prone to, or, you know, I'm leaning toward believing that this is true because I love it. And I've also struggled for many years with my atheism. I told people for so many years when I was an atheist that I'm very, very happy with myself. I'm very happy with life. I'm very happy with the fact that there is, that there is no objective meaning to life, but that I can just work within that. I was lying because I was suffering. I was suffering so terribly. And I was trying to lie to myself and lie to others, to downplay and dismiss it and to explain that I can, through existentialist or absurdist philosophy, deal with the fact that there is no objective meaning to life, that I can simply work within that and just embrace the meaninglessness or create meaning within it in a Nietzschean way and all that. But none of that really worked out. I was depressed and I was on a path of self destruction, basically. Christianity, on the other hand, offered me a wonderful way to pick things up and to fix my life.
- [31:26]
A
What was the tipping point ap that? Where you said, okay, intellectually I understand this is true, but now I'm going to go from just believing that it's true to trusting in Jesus and what he did on the cross. So I'm looking for grace now, not just an intellectual assent that this is true. What was the tipping point and when did that happen?
- [31:52]
B
That's the funny thing. I felt very good about it at that point. I did rely too much. It's actually a little bit different. I did rely too much on my, on my skepticism at my, my, the, the intellectual side and had this mindset firmly set that I have to be 100% sure that something is true in order to take a step toward it. That's how I, that's what I told myself after I left Islam. Basically. That's how I, that's what I told myself over the many years as an atheist. I thought I have to have 100% undeniable evidence and proof, certain proof in order to make a step towards something.
- [32:40]
A
But you didn't have 100% proof atheism was true, did you?
- [32:43]
B
I mean, I didn't.
- [32:44]
A
How could you?
- [32:44]
B
So I didn't, I didn't. That's the funny thing. Yeah, but, so at that point I didn't know what to do. I sat down with David, I sat down with a. Yeah, I sat down with David and I said to him, look, listen, I have an issue. I really like Christianity. I really think that I want to be a Christian. I think it's a fantastic way to go. I love Jesus. I would love to give myself and my life to him. The issue is something is preventing me. I have this feeling that If I'm not 100% sure that it is true, I don't want to make a step toward it. I'm afraid so. He sat down with me and listened to me for the whole thing. This was much longer than I just explained. But he then said to me in a way that I cannot possibly replicate, he brought up one essay that I actually forgot what it's called, but the Will to Believe. I believe. I think, yeah, he brought up that and basically said to me, imagine that you are in a random place, you are lost, you don't know where you are, you can't see where you are going. You don't know if you are supposed to take the, if you are supposed to go left or go right, but you have to get away from that point somehow you feel better about one direction than about the other direction. Would it make sense for you to simply stay there and to just remain there forever because you don't know which step is the Right. Way to go. And I thought, yeah, it wouldn't make sense. I would just die there. So we talked about that, and that kind of gave me the thought. It's actually very absurd and very stupid for me to think that I have to have 100% personal proof that something is true in order to take a step toward it. I don't act in that way with anything in life.
- [35:02]
A
That's right.
- [35:03]
B
But I somehow think that I have to act that way when it comes to faith, because that's basically what the culture teaches me. After that realization, after that realization, I went to church again. I was very much of the idea that I want to go this path, but I did go to a monk that I met there, and I had a conversation again about skepticism. He sat down with me and basically taught me in five minutes or less that he turned my whole world upside down. I don't know. He told me, he basically taught me right there and then that my aspiration to be 100% sure of something is a meaningless effort. That is, he said this in the kindest way possible. That is all about arrogance. And that will leave me with nothing in the end, because in the end I will simply die and have achieved nothing. Because nobody will ever be 100% sure that there is something that is true besides the faith in God. I will simply live my entire life thinking, oh, yeah, I just have to be 100% sure and will just die like that, trying to be 100 sure of so. Of things, and it will lead to nothing at all. Whereas I could for once try and have some humility and listen.
- [36:26]
A
You know, it's interesting about what he said is I think you can be 100% sure that he was 100% right about that. Right. Like if you put. If you put the bar too high, you can't get out of bed in the morning. If. If that is. And no pun intended, but you almost didn't today. But you can't get out of bed in the morning if you have to be 100% sure about everything in life. That's just not the way life goes.
- [36:57]
B
That's true.
- [36:58]
A
So we're 100% sure that you can't be 100% sure. And I think part of the ambiguity, there is always ambiguity, is what gives us the freedom if we don't want God to turn and go our own way. I think there's enough evidence to believe if you want to believe, and enough ambiguity for you to say, I'm gonna ignore God because I don't want him And I think that's intended by God. I don't think he wants us this side of the decision to know him, his existence with 100% certainty there. There's got to be some free will there, some freedom there to say, I'm going to bet it's not true and go my own way, because otherwise, otherwise you really don't have that freedom.
- [37:46]
B
Yeah. So I had two conversations about this. Eventually I went to the priest in the church and I told, I told him, at this point I'm very leaning towards simply trying out and being, and being a Christian and just letting go of my ego and my concerns about proof and evidence. So I went to the priest and I said to him, look, I really like this. I really like the idea of being a Christian. I want to be a Christian, but I have this skepticism that is just plaguing me. And he said to me, it's very funny. He is Greek and he knows that I'm of Turkish origin. He immediately went to the food and to cultural elements. He said to me, when you come into the church and you decide to go ahead. No, he said, when you come into the church, you get a whiff of a very good kebab. When you continue going to the church, you get in line to get a bite of that kebab. At that point you can still decide whether you want to eventually eat it or not. It's up to you. Nobody's forcing you. And I thought, that's very funny, but it's also very interesting and it actually gives me confidence because I don't have to. I'm not sure what I'm afraid of. I'm not sure what exactly I'm afraid of that's completely right. I don't have to now commit myself to something that I'm not entirely sure is right. I feel very good about it. And I see that the alternative of spending my life in philosophical atheism has been nothing but suffering. And I even acknowledged that openly and said that I think that the suffering is simply part of life and suffering is good and I just have to deal with it and all that. It has been nothing but suffering and self destruction and actual ignorance, relying on my own mind thinking that I can simply resolve things on my own. And I thought, I am convinced that there is very good solid evidence for Christianity and I also am convinced that it's a much better life than whatever I have been living with. My striving for freedom and for ultimate happiness and liberty and all that. It didn't work out there. Is nothing out there as much as I want to explore. So I'll just make the step. So I did make the step and I started being, I started acknowledging for the first time. I do believe that Jesus is God. I do believe that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, that he is the Son of God, that he is God. I read the Nicene Creed, I recited it. I started reading things from the beginning. And the priest asked me to get a study Bible or he gave me one and said, I would like you to read the Gospel of John from beginning to end. And so I did. And by the time I was done, I was very much a Christian. I would have to say. And you know, along that path, because these are concerns or questions that people may have or that I had at that point, along that path. And even to an extent, to a smaller extent today, along that path, I wasn't entirely sure if I believe or not. I wasn't entirely sure if I am fully convinced or not, if I can say fully, yes, I do with certainty believe that there is a God. I do with certainty believe that Christianity is true and that Jesus is God. But I leaned toward believing that and I wanted to try it out and I wanted to go that way because that's what I told myself. I told myself I don't have to fully commit myself to something if I'm not fully sure of it. That was my biggest concern over the years. I can try it out. There is nothing wrong with that. I can go toward it if I feel like it seems true and it seems good. It seems better than what I have. And I did commit myself to it. I did commit myself to trying it out. And I did quickly realize that whether Christianity is true or not, it is most definitely, by far better than my supposed pathetic skeptic atheist life that I was trying to live and fulfill.
- [42:39]
A
And when you say better, you're assuming a standard. And that standard would be what?
- [42:45]
B
The funny thing is, while I was going at that point for the standard being human well being and happiness, I was going with the ancient Greek idea of eudaimonia, of striving for a state of human well being and happiness. Whatever is best for the human, whatever makes him feel fulfillment, whatever makes him feel best. And the thing is, I didn't find that at all in my atheism. And yet I was insisting that this is that my atheism is the path to God. And I turn toward Christianity and it is worlds apart and significantly better, simply judged by that standard, judged by other standards of standing on Something that is firm, not built on sand. Right? Christianity is by far better than whatever atheism that my skepticism has offered me, which over the years I became convinced due to the culture probably is. Is much better. At first, I was embarrassed to even say that I'm a Christian or that I believe in Christianity, because while I didn't want to admit it, it was basically the culture that taught me that atheism and secularism and skepticism is better than belief. Over time, I quickly came to believe and acknowledge and accept that living a Christian life is much more fulfilling than whatever I have. It's much more. It gives me more security, it gives me more structure, it gives me more happiness. Every possible standard that I could have thought of in the past. Christianity is significantly better than whatever I tried.
- [44:39]
A
I want to go back to your point that you had regarding the monk. I think if I, if I'm understanding, excuse me, I'm understanding that. Right. Was he essentially telling you that you think atheism is true because you have a lot of pride that you don't want to be duped again? In other words, you were duped by Islam, and so I'm not going to be duped again. I'm not going to be fooled again. To quote the who, I'm not going to be. I'm not going to be fooled again. So I'm just going to be an atheist. And then you're not realizing that atheism is a worldview too, that needs to be supported by evidence, and you didn't have 100% evidence for that either. So no matter what position you take, you could be in a position of being duped, right? Was. And I understand that for many people, when people say that I'm an atheist, I'm my own man or my own woman, it can possibly be a statement of pride that I want to be seen as the ultimate rebel, that I want to be seen as my own person, that I want to do my own thing when I want to do it, with whom I want to do it. Nobody's going to tell me what to do. No God, no deity, no philosophy. I have my own way. And that is really a statement of pride. Agree?
- [46:04]
B
Yes. The funny thing is that is, it's also kind of considered counterculture, which is why it appears cool, but it's not counterculture at all at this point. It's just. It's just going directly with the trend, with the culture. That's what it is. Because that, that is. That is what. What the current pop culture has basically normalized so you're not, you're not rebelling against anything. The contrary, you're just, you're rebelling against what is not the easiest thing to do in the world, which is just to say, oh, I don't believe in anything. I don't believe in God, I don't believe in religion. I don't have to do anything. I'll just go with whatever I believe, with whatever I think. And you're right. You're very, very right on that point. I did think. That's actually exactly how I thought. I thought I was duped by Islam. I was fooled by it. I will not be fooled again. Which is why I have to be 100% sure that something is true in order to, before I make a step toward it, which is why it took me so long to take a step. And I didn't realize that that was pure arrogance because at that point, at that very same point, I even made a video years ago explaining to people why I don't believe in God and why I'm an atheist. In that video, I explained that, that when you think about it, we humans don't know anything. We make assumptions, but we are essentially ignorant and stupid and we rely on new evidence all the time and we still don't know what's at the bottom of, of most of the, the, the, the ocean that we have. So we don't exactly know how our brain functions. So we are ignorant. How can we trust our, ourselves in figuring out what everything is for? And I, and as funny as it is, I did think about it, but I didn't fully grasp that. That is actually very ironic because on the one hand I say we can't trust our own minds. We can't trust human knowledge, we can't really trust humans. So we shouldn't just believe in something just because some of us do believe in it. But on the other hand, I was also thinking, I want to trust my own brain and my own mind and be sure that something is certainly true before I make a step toward it.
- [48:30]
A
Yeah, we are using our minds to be skeptical. So to say I can't trust anything. I can't trust my mind, I can't trust this. I can't trust that you're using your mind to do so.
- [48:43]
B
What if my mind is fooling me into thinking that, yeah, this is that, that, that the religion is false, that I'm, that I know best. What if my mind is fooling me?
- [48:53]
A
When in reality you have to look at the evidence and come to a conclusion based on the Best available evidence you have, what's the inference to the best explanation? You might not be a hundred percent sure, but you're reasoning to the best explanation given the evidence that you have. That's all any of us can do.
- [49:14]
B
Yeah.
- [49:15]
A
I want to add one other thing that it's just sort of hit me recently because I thought you were very eloquent talking about the evidence of Christianity and particularly of the Resurrection. I often get this objection, ap, you know, well, can you give me any non Christian sources? And now I'm starting to say this. The entire Bible is a non Christian source. They're all Jews. None of these people started as Christians. They're all Jews. Now if you go to Clement of Alexandria or Clement of Rome or Ignatius, yeah, they're Christian sources. But the people that wrote the New Testament documents are all Jews. And they had no motivation to invent this story about a man claiming to be God. That's blasphemy to invent a resurrection that would get them kicked out of the synagogue and beaten, tortured and killed. So it's not just that we have great evidence that, you know, hundreds of people saw this and several people wrote it down. It's that there's no motivation to invent this. These people are Jews. And by creating this new worldview, this new religion, they actually, from a temporal perspective, hurt themselves dramatically. And so we like to say that the New Testament writers did not create the resurrection. The Resurrection created the New Testament writers. You know, we wouldn't even have these documents written by Jews in the first century unless this dramatic event took place. And if that dramatic event took place, everything else falls into place. You know, the Old Testament is true because on Jesus's authority promises the New Testament. And so if Jesus has predicted and accomplishes his own resurrection from the dead, then game over. Christianity is true. What we would say mere Christianity.
- [51:00]
B
And that's the funny thing. I know I say funny thing a lot, but so, you know, when I thought about that in the past, I thought, what motivation could these people have? I did think, you know, there's something, there's something romantic and something nice and something heroic about, about being revolutionary and introducing something that you want to give your life for and all that. But the thing is, it's not quite as simple because it's not something that they just believe in, that they want to do in society. It is something miraculous that they hold to, that they believe in, that they see that they have witnessed foremost the Apostle Paul, directly approved of and elevated by the disciples, whom Christ himself chose and appointed. He records all the things. He himself was a Jewish Pharisee. He himself was a man of authority. He didn't have any need at all to give up his position and to give up his safety and his life for any of this. But he believed with certainty, like so many others around him. And he, even so, he brings up the 500 people who witnessed the death and resurrection. He brings this up not just as a fleeting random point. He actually does bring this up as, Correct me if I'm wrong there, Frank, as a testimony, as a witness, as saying it is true, this many people have witnessed it.
- [52:39]
A
Oh sure, yeah. It would have been completely self defeating for him to suggest to the Corinthian Church that 500 people saw the resurrected Jesus because he goes on to say that some of you still are alive. Right. They would have known he was a liar if in fact that had never happened. So when he states that, that's got to be common knowledge among the people. Otherwise it's similar to what Luke does in Acts, chapter 6, verse 7. He says many of the priests became obedient to the faith, meaning Pharisee priests. If that was not the case at the time, Luke would have completely demolished his own credibility by suggesting such a big event took place when it really didn't. So yes, even though that's only recorded in one place, it would be a self defeating statement for Paul to make that claim if it never really happened, that those 500 people never saw him.
- [53:34]
B
Yeah, so yeah, he directly appeals to them. And, and the thing is, when I, when I, when I thought about these sources in the past, I thought, yeah, okay, you know, we don't know who wrote them. We don't know, you know, somebody might have, you know, people lie and things like that. But then, then when you break down and try to analyze the, the historical validity and the, and authenticity of it. Bart Ehrman agrees, as I said. But Histor, historically, it is, it is, it is agreed that we are very fairly certain that, that these accounts do indeed go back to the Apostle Paul himself, that he indeed did write these things and that the early Christians and those around him are very much, you know, witnesses to that and very much know that and affirm that as well. So we are historically very much sure that it was actually him writing these things to the churches and to other fellow Christians. So there is no real reason to doubt this at all. Unless you want to go. For now, I just want to find a reason to somehow think that it is not true. But the evidence suggests that it is true. So the best explanation suggests that it is true. The best explanation leads you to think to know for a fact that he did record that he did witness that he was fully convinced that Christianity is true, that Jesus died and was resurrected, that he interacted with so many others, which is recorded, who also witnessed it, who also know it, the apostles, the disciples, they believed Jesus to be God. They believed that he was killed and resurrected and they gave their lives for it. It is historically undeniable and historically recorded that this was not just a revolutionary act by these people to simply change the system and to do something heroic and romantic. They actually did firmly believe that their faith, Christianity is true. They were tortured for it. They didn't give it up. They were killed for it. They saw each other get killed and they still continued with it because they firmly believed it to be true. So it's not something that they just wanted to. It's not like an idea that they wanted to implement in the world. That felt romantic. It was the truth to them and they did not budge from it.
- [55:57]
A
Yeah, they were witnesses. Despite being tortured, they were witnesses of it. I can already tell. This conversation has been so interesting. We're not going to get to everything we said at the top of the program. We're going to have to have AP back for a second third show. But I do want to delve into some tips for helping Muslims see the truth. But before I do, I want to mention as we come up to the end of the year, if you're listening to this, before the end of the year, we do have a $300,000 matching gift to cross examined. That's been done because as you know, since Charlie's murder, when we go to a college campus, we now need to take train security with us. So our, our cost for college events has tripled from $5,000 to $15,000. So as you come up to the end of the year, if you feel led to give to cross examine, go to our website, crossexamine.org, click on on click on donate there. You can give via credit card. You can send us a check. The address is there. You can do e check PayPal. There's a lot of different ways and 100% of your donations go to to ministry, 0% to buildings. We all work out of our homes. We're completely virtual. So your money will be well spent on ministry. Thank you so much for supporting us. We already have 15 colleges scheduled for the spring. I'm going to be, I'm gonna have a jet strapped to My back most of the time. But we have to do it now because hearts are still tender as they should be since Charlie's murder. In fact, AP was at the memorial service with us. We saw each other there. You, you went all the way to Phoenix for that? Before we talk about evangelism for a few minutes on this ap, what was your impression of that service? What's your thoughts on the Charlie Kirk situation? Tell us what you're thinking.
- [57:48]
B
It's a very heavy thing. I didn't actually know Charlie, who that long. I only met him two months before he was murdered.
- [57:57]
A
You have a great show. We'll put in the show notes. You and him were talking about Islam for at least 40 minutes, but, sir. Yeah, go ahead.
- [58:05]
B
Yeah, he, he contacted me one day and, and I was very surprised by it, and he invited me on a show to talk with him. Then I briefly mentioned to him that I'm going to be at the, at the Turning Point event and that I would love to also personally meet him. And I didn't even say anything else. And then I get, and then I get a message from Andrew, the producer, who says, hey, Charlie wants you on stage. And also on a podcast episode, I'm like, what? So Charlie, just from that interaction, wanted to put me on stage and to give a speech in front of all those wonderful people. And I wasn't given anything at all. He just said he just wants me to speak, that's it. And just trusted me with that. And I did go there and gave.
- [58:55]
A
My speech and, and he, that's the way Charlie was. He wouldn't tell you what to say. He would just give you time and do whatever you want to do. Go.
- [59:02]
B
And he said, he said wonderful words to me. It crushed me when he, when he was, when he was murdered because he was so encouraging privately, personally, publicly as well, asked me to do things. He said that he, that he thinks the whole Islam situation is a very important one.
- [59:21]
A
Yes, it is.
- [59:22]
B
That people don't focus on enough. He said it's actually the most important issue that people should be focusing on. He said it's very close to his heart and he loves what I do. He said to me, I haven't mentioned this very much publicly because I felt it's an issue of self praise and pride and all that. But it's what he said to me and it has been weighing on me forever since he died. But he said to me, I have been looking for you for many years and finally I have found you and I would like to work with you and help you and continue this together. And I think we have a lot of stuff to do and we can get something done. We have to focus on this very, very important thing. He said more very, very good, very, very nice words that I just, out of the fear of arrogance, don't want to repeat. But, you know, getting that, getting all that from him, feeling very good about that and developing this, this, this love and admiration for him for a very brief time, and then seeing him get brutally murdered was just. It was crushing to me. He gave me the motivation that I lacked, that I needed now again, that I wanted to pick up and, and, and work with. So, I don't know. I still feel very. It still feels very difficult talking about it, but. Sorry, what was your question?
- [61:07]
A
No, the memorial service and.
- [61:09]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah, the. The memorial service was. It was extraordinary. It was. I had never been to a, To a service like that, and I, I didn't really know what to think of. Of, of such a service, of such things, but when I went there, it was. It was amazing. It was very moving, very overwhelming, and I love that I actually began to like contemporary Christian music because of that and interacted with so many wonderful people there, including you and many others who were, who were there. So it is an unforgettable service.
- [61:47]
A
I saw you with Mike Jones and with Elisa Childers and, And Mike Winger. Mike Winger, Yeah, they were all there. And yeah, it was. A lot of Christians from all over the country obviously showed up for that for good reason. Charlie was very unique in that he made apologetics mainstream, that he knew he wasn't just a person that was concerned about the church itself. He was concerned about the whole country and how to reach the whole country for Christ. And he realized that politics, while it's not our most important duty, helps us do our most important duty. And as you know, coming from countries that don't have religious freedom, politics can hamper the gospel, can prevent people from proselytizing, from evangelizing, and from worshiping. And somehow Christians in this country don't seem to get that. We just take it for granted that we're going to have religious freedom. That's not to. That's not the case, especially if Islam takes over. Wherever Islam takes over, submission takes place, and religious freedom goes away. That's why in our next show, we need to talk about that particular angle. What would happen if Islam did take over America or Europe or certain places? And I want to hear your points on that. But we've got a. We've got to Go here shortly. But I do want to just ask a question or two, if I could, AP about evangelizing Muslims. If there's one thing I've learned talking to you, talking to Nabil prior to his death, talking to Abdu Murray, who also was a Muslim for growing up. It took Abdu nine years to become a Christian. It took Nabil several years. It took you several years. This is not a. This is not a street evangelism kind of thing. You talk to person once and they convert. That's very rare. Our friend Greg Kokel talks about evangelism being more gardening than harvesting. So what would your advice be to a Christian who knows a Muslim? How do you move them from Islam to Christ? Give us some insights?
- [64:10]
B
Well, I would say that people need to become aware that there are lots of. That there are a lot of misconceptions about what Muslims believe and misconceptions by Muslims about what Christians believe.
- [64:26]
A
Yes.
- [64:27]
B
So Muslims claim to believe that, or Muslims do believe that their God, Allah, is the God of the Bible, that he revealed what they call the Torah into the Gospel as the Quran says it, and that these scriptures were at some point possibly corrupted by Jews and Christians. Of course, that's where the Islamic dilemma comes in and where we, where we argue that the Quran itself never explicitly says that the Jews and Christians actually corrupted the text of their Bible, corrupted the texts of their scriptures. And it actually very clearly affirms that the. That these scriptures are correct, that they are still accurate, that they are as revealed by God himself in the hands of the Jews and Christians for them to follow. And we talked about this the last episode. But the Islamic dilemma, this is what the Islamic dilemma is called. And David Wood is very. Is fantastic on this. And I hope that he finally finishes his book on this topic, which I would recommend checking out, and also his videos on that. But I would, I would say familiarize, familiarize yourself with this argument, which is indestructible, irrefutable, undefeatable. It does point out that according to the Quran itself, because the Quran came out of a climate and environment of ignorance, that the scriptures revealed to the Jews and Christians are completely authentic and true as they are, and the Jews and Christians ought to follow them. And if you follow the Gospel, however, the Gospels, if you follow the Bible, you will very clearly see that Jesus is God, that Jesus is Lord, that he's our Lord and Savior, that he's the Son of God, that Islam is false, basically, that Christianity is true, and that there is no way for Islam to be true at all, that it is completely false. Familiarize yourself with this argument and argue it. That would be my number one suggestion. The number two suggestion would be, and I think this is something to work on on a much larger scale. Muslims have a lot of misunderstandings about Christianity. For example, they think they don't exactly know what the Bible is because they learned from Islam that a scripture is supposed to be a book that is word for word, verbatim revealed by law to humans and dictated and followed. They think that the Bible is supposed to be the same thing. So when they find out that the Bible is a vast collection of texts inspired by God but written down by people, they feel a little bit weirded out because they think, oh, wait a minute, so it's not the word of God. So it was written by people. It is supposed to be written by people. So it needs to be explained that this is the actual history of scripture, right? That the Quran is actually out of the ordinary. That it is. That it is Islam that invents a new way of scripture and imposes it as the standard upon the rest of all religions and expects them to be just like it.
- [67:42]
A
But that feeds into the Islamic dilemma, because if they believe that, then they have to say that every word of the Quran is true. And the problem is, is that on one hand the Quran says the Bible says true. On the other hand, it disagrees with the Bible. So that makes. That puts them in an awful dilemma, because the Quran says Jesus did not die and therefore did not rise from the dead, but the Bible says he did. And so how can the Quran say the Bible is from Allah too, as well as the Quran? That's the problem. That's the Islamic dilemma. So when they come with that, that stance that not a word can be changed or abrogated, that's true of the Quran and the Bible. It just puts them in a horrible dilemma they can't get out of.
- [68:32]
B
Therefore, Islam is false. Yeah, I want to. When we have, you know, when we do this again and we have more time, I want to go into. Go into multiple, like eight or nine different points on which Muslims have misconceptions about Christianity.
- [68:46]
A
The next.
- [68:47]
B
Explain them and, and lay them out. Because I think that this is something that needs to be addressed and most people do not do, because you kind of have to. I feel like it takes having internal knowledge of how Muslims think and feel to then understand and refute these things. And I kind of want to help lay those out. So we want to, we want to do that extensively. But Basically my recommendation would be to familiarize yourself with, with the faults and the contradictions of Islam itself. And my go to argument is for that is actually that the Quran says in chapter 9 verse 30, since I familiarize myself with Jews so much, it says in chapter 9 verse 30 and the Jews say Ezra is the son of Allah and the Christians say the Messiah is the son of Allah. It says these are, you know, words that they have taken from those who disbelieve before them. May Allah destroy them them. How deluded they are. The funny thing is that little beginning and the Jews say Ezra is the son of Allah is confusing to every single person out there. Nobody has any idea what that is about. When you bring it up to Muslims and even to Muslim scholars, they are baffled by this as well and they are trying to find an explanation to it. The Quran does claim that Jews have this obscure belief that nobody has ever heard of, that Uzair Ezra is the son of God. That they similarly, like Christians believe that Ezra, the prophet, the scribe is God and the son of God. I'm not exactly. Nobody is exactly sure how this came into existence. There is a strong suggestion that Muhammad was surrounded by Jews in Medina, who lived in Medina before he arrived there and that they were actually pranking him or trolling him and that he bought this and thought that they actually have genuinely such a belief. And so it was included into the Quran. Some people say that it might just talk about an obscure sect of Jews in Arabia, but then this is directly refuted, first off by the Quran's own language when it says the Jews, but secondly by the historical Islamic narratives, by the Hadith which report Muhammad as explaining that on the Day of Judgment, every group of believers, every group of religious people will be called forth by Allah and will be asked what they used to believe in. The Christians will be called forth. They will be asked, what did you used to believe in? They will say, we used to believe in Jesus, the son of God. And it will be said to them, you are liars, go to hell. And then the Jews will be called forth and they will be asked, what did you used to believe in? And the Jews will say, we used to believe in Ezra, the son of God, upon which Allah will call them liars and send them to hell. So a weird claim and complete falsehood, complete nonsense somehow made itself into the quran in chapter nine, verse 30. And Muslims struggle every day to explain when you bring it up to them, what that is about and which by the way, to run with that correct.
- [71:56]
A
Me if I'm wrong AP But Surah 9 is the latest of the surahs. Even the suras are not arranged by chronology, they're more arranged by length, except for the first one. And so Surah 9 is the latest surah written and it's the most violent. Slay the, you know, slay the Jews and the Christians and ambush them wherever you find that kind of thing is, is found in first source 8 and 9.
- [72:21]
B
Yeah.
- [72:21]
A
And so. Well, there's so much more to talk about. Go ahead.
- [72:25]
B
My favorite verse to go to is actually, despite it being not as explicitly violent, the most violent long lasting in that chapter is so chapter 9, verse 29. Because this is an overarching generalized command by Allah himself to go out and to fight all those. It says fight those who do not believe in Allah or in his Prophet and who do not accept what Allah, this Prophet have, you know, have forbidden or you know, his rules and all that. So it says fight them until they are subject, subjugate it and pay the jizya protection money. This is a direct command in the quran in chapter nine, verse 29, at the very end of Muhammad's life to go out and fight all Jews and Christians and others and to subjugate them and to make them pay protection money and humiliate them if they don't convert to Islam, which is how Islam spread for centuries, by conquering non Muslims, subjugating them, imposing protection mafia like protection money upon them and brutally humiliating conditions upon them and then basically psychologically converting them to Islam and all that. So it is a constant, never ending command to fight and humiliate the disbelievers. And it continues to this day in one way or another.
- [73:49]
A
Outside of that. It's a religion of peace, ladies and gentlemen. No, we talked about this in the first session, but we got to have AP back. We've got to talk more about evangelists, we got to talk more about the Hamas Israel conflict. Oh yeah, and we also want to talk about, as you mentioned, that Islam has no place in the west and the ways that maybe Muslims misinterpret Christianity, maybe ways that Christians misinterpret Islam so we can have a better interaction when we do meet one another. And friends, also don't forget the question, if Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? And that's true for you can ask that of Muslims or anybody who's not a Christian and see what they say. Because quite frequently it's not a head problem, it's a hard problem. They don't want it to be true, especially at, right now, at the Christmas New Year season when you have opportunities to have dinner with people you don't normally see, family dinners, that kind of thing. Those are questions you can use. If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? So check out APostate Prophet on YouTube also, you can donate to him apostateprophet.com forward/donate. Don't also forget about our matching gift, as I mentioned earlier. $300,000 to the end of the year. Where else can they go to find you? AP? Is it apostate prophet? Apostateprophet.com as well?
- [75:07]
B
Yes. Apostateprophet.com YouTube Apostate Providence on X. Apostate Prophet.
- [75:12]
A
Okay, check him out. He's, he's putting a mark on his head. Apostate Prophet. There. You're not pulling any punches here, are you?
- [75:20]
B
I'm not.
- [75:22]
A
Well, we thank you for your courage and your insight, Ridvan, and we're praying for you and we're going to have you on again because this stuff is, is too important, as Charlie Kirk himself said.
- [75:33]
B
Yes.
- [75:34]
A
And, and we have to reach out to Muslims, but also be very, be very cautious of having Islam take, take away our freedoms as well. So those are a couple of things we love people we're going to have to be truthful about. So we love all people, but that doesn't mean we love all ideas. Ideas can be very restrictive, as you know, and deadly. All right, friends, thank you so much. Thank the Apostate Prophet. Thank you, Ridvan.
- [76:06]
B
Thank you, Frank. It was a great honor and pleasure.
- [76:08]
A
It's a great honor for me as well. We'll, we'll schedule a new time for show number three. All right, friends, great being with you this new year. God bless you. We'll see you here next time.