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Ep 1143 | Wikipedia Co-Founder: Studying Hollywood Cults & Epstein Island Led Me to Christianity | Guest: Larry Sanger
01:02:19
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- [00:01]
Ally
Larry Sanger is the co founder of Wikipedia. He is also a philosopher, a lifelong skeptic and a long time agnostic. Recently he announced that he has converted to Christianity. I wanted to hear his testimony what led to him finally accepting that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. He has a really, really interesting story and it's amazing to look at how God used so many moments throughout his life to lead him to the cross. You're going to be really encouraged by this conversation. It's brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to good ranchers.com use code ally at checkout. That's good ranchers.com code ally. Larry, thanks so much for taking the time to join me. If you could tell everyone who you are and what you do.
- [01:01]
Larry Sanger
Well right now I am president of the Knowledge Standards foundation and we collect all of the free world, all free encyclopedias in the world. We do a number of other things. My claim to fame is I was co founder of Wikipedia. Now I'm ex founder I like to call myself because you know how it is. And this is another thing that the Knowledge Standards foundation is doing. This is 70,000 books on a 128 gigabyte hard drive. Basically the classics of Western civilization backed up in the palm of your hand. And that's just something that I've been, I've been trying to get out there. There needs to be many, many, many copies of all the public domain books, not just one or two on arXiv.org. this is one of my, one of my hobby horses.
- [01:58]
Ally
Yeah, amazing. Okay, I want to. Before we even get into your Christian testimony, I want to go all the way back. I want to hear your life story and how you got to the point of helping found Wikipedia and how your interest was sparked in all of this. So can you take me all the way back to your childhood and tell me what your upbringing was like?
- [02:18]
Larry Sanger
Sure. Well, I mean I was born and raised in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. That's my earliest church. Memories come from that. My dad was an elder. But I asked a lot of questions sort of constitutionally that's just how I am. And I for example I would ask, you know, well, if God has created everything, then what caused good God and that kind of thing. You know, the sort of basic questions that, that thoughtful kids will ask. And I was confirmed at age 12 and but around age 16 I had a class in philosophy at, in high school. They had such a thing and it was very interesting to me and, and I started thinking the following summer about the basic questions of philosophy. And I decided because I, I knew all these people who had messed up their lives. In fact, it seemed to me that practically everybody I knew had messed up their life in one way or another. Like my parents were divorced and my, you know, like my, my siblings, friends were like, some of them were seriously strung out on drugs and all kinds of things like that. And I had talked to these people, I knew certain things that they thought and I thought they'd made mistakes, you know, they were wrong about things. So I developed the very deep conviction, totally independent of religion, that it was very important to have the truth. And so, and I, ever since then I have thought of myself as a philosopher. Even before I went to college, I knew I wanted to be a philosophy professor, although I changed my mind about that. But, so I, I became a non believer in my teen years, A, an agnostic. I wasn't an atheist, I was a skeptic. But there's a difference, I think. I won't go into that, but the point is that, that I basically stopped caring very much about the possibility that God might exist. And then what happened? Well, while I was finishing my dissertation, Jimmy Wales gave me the job of starting an encyclopedia for bomis.com which was his website, and that became Nupedia, which became Wikipedia. So I named Wikipedia. I set many of the original policies, or at least articulated them and sort of led the community in the, and, and got it started on a lot of its habits, not all of its bad habits. Yeah, hopefully. But a lot of it's good habits anyway in the first 14 months of that first couple of years, if you include Nupedia. And so I'll just pause there.
- [06:01]
Ally
Yeah, sure, sure, yeah. That's all super fascinating that you were interested in philosophy. You describe yourself as kind of like a naturally inquisitive kid and you brought your philosophical questions to a pastor when you were a teenager. Correct.
- [06:19]
Larry Sanger
Right.
- [06:20]
Ally
And how did that go?
- [06:23]
Larry Sanger
I just called him up on the phone one time. I think probably maybe my mom or dad told me that I should do that. And I don't think it was the, the Lutheran pastor that I think it was another one from a different church. So he didn't know me and, and I might have sounded like a disrespectful, snot nosed kid. I'm not really sure to be quite honest, but I had sincere questions for sure and he could have engaged me in conversation about them. It's clear to me that he didn't want to talk the conversation was over within, I don't know, five or 10 minutes.
- [07:16]
Ally
And what kind of questions were you asking him? Do you remember?
- [07:23]
Larry Sanger
They were typical skeptical objections. I can't remember exactly which ones, but you know, like the very one that I, that I mentioned before. Right. So if an explanation is needed for the universe, why isn't an explanation needed for God? I know the answer to that one now.
- [07:45]
Ally
Yeah, but you, but you didn't then. And the people that you went to in authority weren't really giving you an answer. And how did that, how did that make you feel? Because you describe in your article about your version. Yes. You were brushed off by multiple people by. Right. Was it by your parents first? That kind of made you believe that believing in God was irrational and that you can't ask questions?
- [08:12]
Larry Sanger
I wouldn't say they brushed me off. I even had long conversations with my brother in law who, what is one of the other people in my family, other than my dad, who'd actually gone to college and he helped a lot. This is my, my sister's husband. And, and he passed away, I guess eight years ago. He tried, so you can't blame him. And I did have some conversations with him, but I, I had increasingly sort of deep, thoughtful discussions or questions rather that could not be answered except by somebody with a requisite amount of philosophical or apologetic training. I mean, Even, even later, 10 years after that, I could have answered my own questions from a Christian point of view. So it was just the lack of knowledge that was the problem, I think.
- [09:22]
Ally
You went to Reed College. Their unofficial motto is Communism, atheism, free love. So you were surrounded by people obviously who also did not believe in God. You went on to Ohio State for graduate school, also surrounded by unbelievers. But you were approached by a Christian student when you were in grad school that kind of challenged your agnostic beliefs, right?
- [09:48]
Larry Sanger
Yeah, he actually did, now that you mention it. That's not in my essay. But I remember having some long discussions and I did like sort of, I was willing to talk about the possibility of all sorts of things. And I remember talking about cosmology with him, you know, and what the universe must be like if you know, it has a creator that exists outside of time, for example, because there's some. It very quickly gets very deep when you start asking questions like that. And I remember talking about him, about questions like that. But he, he wasn't really trying to evangelize me very hard. But he made an impression simply due to the kind of guy that he was. He was Very nice. He's very kind. And so. Yeah, and then. Well, he caught. He caught me. Well, I won't say what it was, but he caught me in a sin. And I didn't see much of him after that, which was disappointing. But you know, I didn't feel guilty. That's the thing. It didn't seem like a sin to me at the time.
- [11:15]
Ally
Yeah. He challenged you with a fine tuning argument. And that's. The laws of the universe are so precise that any small change would prevent it from supporting life. And so the argument that there must be an intentional creator and that really left an impression on you.
- [11:34]
Larry Sanger
Yes. So in this little story, basically what happened was a graduate student who was. Sorry, no, it wasn't a graduate student. He was a student in my class actually. He was just a very smart undergraduate. He came into the student assistant room and basically wanted to engage me in discussion about arguments for the existence of God because that would be what we were studying at that time. And it was very interesting the way that he expressed the. The fine tuning argument. Right. So the universe has got certain constants, scientific constants that such that if you change them in minute ways, then weird things happen or fail to happen. Like, you know, atoms don't form or you know. Yes, the universe is left in a soup of inner material or whatever. And so everything is fine tuned for the existence of life. And it doesn't that suggest a designer? And I didn't have an answer to him except to say, well, you know, it might have some other sort of explanation which just seems kind of lame. It still seems lame to me now. And I was, although I was stymied a little, I didn't feel like terribly embarrassed. But it left me emotional though. And I don't think it was because I was unable to answer. I mean, I'm unable to answer all sorts of problems in philosophy. Right. So it's not that it. I think it had to do with. With my awareness that I was. That I had just closed the door on something that might be more valuable than I was then willing to admit.
- [14:11]
Ally
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- [15:39]
Larry Sanger
Yeah. Well, because I. I had the relatively idiosyncratic, you know, commitment to Ayn Rand's ethics, sort of. I wasn't totally committed to it, but according to Ayn Rand, the author of the Fountainhead, our moral obligations all stem from our self interest. So if, if we ought to do something, if it is right for us to do something, you can explain that in terms of what is good for you in your enlightened, as it's called, your enlightened self interest. All right. And I thought that that was probably right. I remember defending that throughout graduate school. And then, you know, I got married in 2001 after I got my Ph.D. and had my first child at 2006. And, and I just occasionally thought, isn't it interesting that I would die for these people? I mean, of course I would die for these people, but father wouldn't. It's not a good father if he wouldn't. I certainly felt like I would. But then I thought, if I'm willing to die for them, then doesn't that mean that I'm. I would be doing something not in my own self interest? Of course.
- [17:04]
Ally
Right?
- [17:04]
Larry Sanger
Yeah, it's obvious to me now.
- [17:07]
Ally
Yeah.
- [17:07]
Larry Sanger
But at the time, because I myself had sort of accepted an error, the same sort of thing that I was wanting to avoid earlier. Um, I. It was hard for me to come to that realization.
- [17:23]
Ally
You also talk about watching the atheistic movement, if you want to call it a movement, become increasingly bombastic and radicalized. I would say these are kind of like my words becoming like their own kind of dogmatic religion. And you contrasted that to how you saw the behavior of Christians, Even Christians on social media.
- [17:51]
Larry Sanger
That's right. Well, I mean, I grew up talking to atheists. I went to high school and in college and graduate school talking to people who didn't believe in the existence of God. And they used arguments, they actually tried to engage in a reasonably respectful conversation. And then the new atheists came along and they, they started acting, as you say, quite dogmatic in their declarations. And by that time I actually knew. I taught the arguments for the existence of God. I knew at least what weight they carried from practically anybody's point of view. I mean, most philosophers don't think that they entail that God exists. They don't think they're that strong. Some do, but they're willing to concede that there's quite a bit to argue about there. But people like Dawkins and Sam Harris were just unable to articulate the skeptical point of view in any sophisticated way at all. And yet they were extremely dogmatic and insulting, off putting. And I compared that to the behavior of Christians.
- [19:29]
Ally
Yeah.
- [19:29]
Larry Sanger
And now this has nothing to do with the merits of the arguments, but it, it does make one reflect on the worldview of that that you're buying into if you are a skeptic yourself.
- [19:45]
Ally
Right, right.
- [19:46]
Larry Sanger
Like at the very least, if you're going to be a non believer, don't be like them. Okay. I mean.
- [19:52]
Ally
Yeah. So I'm curious, had Dawkins had any impact on your thinking up to that point? I mean, he had had, you know, he has influence on a lot of non believers. World theater at all? Not at all.
- [20:06]
Larry Sanger
I didn't even, I never was acquainted with anything that he said or did. If anybody had an influence in that direction, it would have been Ayn Rand.
- [20:19]
Ally
Yeah.
- [20:19]
Larry Sanger
You know, and things that she wrote in the 1960s and 70s. An essay by Mark Twain.
- [20:27]
Ally
What, what was that essay? Did it say?
- [20:31]
Larry Sanger
I, I, I can't even remember. I, the last time I saw it was when I was a teenager. But he wrote an essay. He was, he was an atheist, or at least an agnostic, I can't remember, but Nietzsche and a few others. And of course that the biggest influences were like personal influences, people that I knew, my professors, you know, who could actually do a better job than any of those people at articulating why they are not Christians.
- [21:04]
Ally
Right.
- [21:05]
Larry Sanger
Even, even better than, than another one that I remember reading, Bertrand Russell, like Bertrand Dressel, when he was a lightweight. When he's writing about this stuff, they're much, much better atheists, so.
- [21:17]
Ally
And even before you were a Christian, long before you were a Christian, you did expose your two boys to the Bible simply because you knew that it was very influential. Right. That's also, I would say, pretty unique for an agnostic.
- [21:34]
Larry Sanger
Is it? I. I'm not sure about that, but.
- [21:37]
Ally
Maybe, I don't know. I. Maybe it's because when I think of agnostics and atheists, most that I've had an interaction with, and maybe this is not. Maybe this is not a fair assessment. They seem pretty antagonistic towards Scripture.
- [21:50]
Larry Sanger
You could be right. You could be right. It's. I do think that a lot of, like, people who are into classical homeschooling might want to assign readings from the Bible, even if they're non believers. So it's kind of like that, I guess. And, you know, I had a Christian upbringing myself, and I said no, they really would be totally ignorant of some culturally important things if they hadn't read like, at least like, a couple of gospels and, you know, Genesis and the first, you know, first 25 chapters of Exodus and maybe a few other things, Psalms. So we went over stuff like that.
- [22:34]
Ally
And you continue to write about philosophy, and you write that your own philosophical writings kind of left you unsettled, like your own philosophical writing started challenging your beliefs. Can you explain that?
- [22:53]
Larry Sanger
Yeah, I wrote a series of essays that sort of dismantled some of the reasons that I had for disbelief. So to explain this, I have to explain. When I was a graduate student, I formulated what I called a no concept view. That's not just me. I think other people call it that too. But the no concept view is similar to the positivist view, which says basically, we have no concept of God at all. There isn't any content to the concept. My take on it was what God is essentially is the creator of the universe and a spirit. And he created the universe essentially with a thought. But we have no experience of thoughts bringing things into existence directly. It's always through the, you know, the medium of, you know, our bodies or whatever, at least our brains. And so we have no conception of that. Okay, so then I think it was 2017 or something, I wrote an essay, sort of riffing off of what had been in the air at the time. You know, imagine that there were sufficiently advanced AI that the singularity happened. Things just started exploding. Technology became wildly powerful beyond what. What we know now. I mean, like, that our technology today looks like magic, would look like magic to people of a thousand years ago. But imagine that there were supercharged development of technology over a period of millions of years, you know, billion Years, Right. From a continuous development. Well, isn't it possible that we would find the levers, as it were, that would, that would bring a moon into being? You know, once, once all the, the space equipment were made, et cetera, and eventually maybe, you know, galaxies and universes and, and isn't it possible that there are brain interfaces now? Isn't it possible that such apparatus might be controlled with a thought? So I thought, well, then I guess it would be. It's conceivable to bring. Of course there's, there's a response to this argument. I'm not going to get into it. But, but the point is the bare idea of a thought bringing creation into existence. I thought of a way to talk about that coherently and that was enough to. I didn't conclude that the universe is therefore a simulation, which was Elon Musk's conclusion, which he, he drew after that. Actually, no, I think that that is merely evidence that it's possible that a creator exists.
- [26:34]
Ally
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- [27:05]
Larry Sanger
It.
- [27:05]
Ally
We've got a freezer full of good ranchers. Me always. And it is awesome. We probably use the ground beef the most just because it's so versatile. It tastes really good. It's a way to make sure that our kids get protein and to make sure that we're getting our protein. It's always free of additives and everything is actually raised, harvested right here in the USA. If you go to goodranchers.com today, you can snag a deal where they will add a bag of meat, any kind of meat that you want to your order every month for the next year. Plus, when you use my code ALI, you get $25 off good ranchers.com code ALI. You also dealt with the issue of why be moral and the problem of evil, which of course, these are things that have been debated for a long time and they're always questions that I have for my atheist friends that I haven't ever gotten a good answer on. That's not to say that no atheist has an answer for it, but those that I've talked to of, you know, even the one that you, that you articulated, why sacrifice yourself for a child? He can give you nothing in return. Why sacrifice yourself for a loved one? Why do things that are not in your direct self interest just because they are the right thing to do? Most atheists I know would say that being kind or being charitable with expecting nothing in return is a good thing, that that is a sign of virtue. But they can't tell me why or why beauty exists, why there are these like intangible realities that have nothing to do with the perpetuation of the species or survival of the fittest. And so tell me how, how you articulated that before you were a Christian. What conclusion did you come to about why it's important to be good or be moral?
- [29:08]
Larry Sanger
Yeah, well, I'll tell you, the line that you just outlined there is not the one that I took in this essay that I wrote. I think it's called why be moral on LarrySanger.org if you want to look at it. It's a pretty long essay. Um, and, and, but it was important to, to my, to my conversion in a certain way. I actually disagree with the notion that in order to make sense of our moral obligations we have to depend on an existent God. I think that we natural, we naturally have certain desires. They are built in desires all organisms do. And what we ought to do, what is meant by normative language, evaluative and prescriptive language, in other words, saying what is good or what we ought to do is ultimately explainable in terms of life. So basically, without going into the details we ought to do, and in fact, if we're well functioning, we want to do things that are good for our lives and for the lives of things, you know, people and animals and living things around us. I thought that this was a natural, a naturalistic theory of ethics and I explained it in detail. But philosophers who hear this will recognize that it's a version of natural law ethics. And when I started thinking again about the arguments for the existence of God, the way it worked in was this. If, if God is, or if there is a creator who designed the universe and designed our human nature, and if basically we are made happy by following certain moral rules or make more likely to be happy when we do, let's put it that way, that actually is evidence of the goodness of God. So I don't say that God is necessary in order to explain morality. I say that the fact that human nature pushes us in the direction of goodness and that the designer seems to require that of us, if there is a designer. So given that assumption, right, that would imply that the designer is good. So the conclusion of the argument for morality in my hands is not that God exists, it's that if there is a God, then God is purely good.
- [32:42]
Ally
Okay, I got it. And so coming to that conclusion and writing that essay, you write in your most recent essay that you started to move from this kind of, you know, coolness towards Christianity to a warmness towards Christianity as you realized, okay, connecting these ideas about morality to Christianity and what the Bible says actually makes sense. Can you talk about how the Jeffrey Epstein scandal plays into your testimony? Very interestingly.
- [33:17]
Larry Sanger
Right. So a friend of mine was opening my eyes to the existence of various, call them elite pedophile rings. Epstein was not the only one. You can look up the Nexium case or Sir Jimmy Saville or Mark Benowit, and I think is his name in Belgium. Is it. Anyway, I might get. Might have the names wrong there, but. But the point is. And then there's. There's like pedo wood, which is what we call the prevalence of pedophilia in Hollywood. It's very weird that a lot of the people who are involved, or at least accused of being involved in such activities have occult beliefs. And my friend said it worked with such people, knew them personally. And he confirmed that. He said that's why they use all of these symbols, you know, like the old one eye, which people were obsessing about about five years ago, remember? And people still notice that, but they used to do that all the time. I think they avoid it now. But generally speaking, a lot of movie posters would show up with this one. That's an occult symbol. So that's what he said. I don't know if I totally believe it, but it was interesting. It got me thinking. And at the very least, I said, due to this, you know, the fact that these people are able to get away with horrific crimes, Just look at how Epstein has been dealt with. It cannot be denied that justice has not been done. There's a lot of guilty people walking around free right now. Okay, how is that possible in our society? I said, well, our society must be governed. Like judges, for example, must be beholden. Somehow or other. I don't know how exactly have ideas, of course, by powerful people. Right. And are such powerful people occultists? And this is what my friend was saying. So he's pushing these books about the occult on me. Not, not the actual, you know, Aleister Crowley or whatever on, on me, but he was, you know, things that were written about the occult. And I, even that kind of weirded me out because I said, look, if I, if I actually thought there was a reason to investigate this stuff because they, I don't know, it's like an important part of a culture because our culture is like ruled by people who believe this, then doesn't that mean that if they're going to go to all these risks and these moral horrors as part of their beliefs, that's a, you know, putting a lot on the line for something that you actually think is a lie. So if it were true though, then that would at least mean that the spirit world is true, like demons exist, whatever, that they could appeal to ascended masters and whatever. Well then doesn't that mean that it's possible that God exists? That's one thought that I had. But another is I didn't want to read those books that my friend was pushing at me. I looked at a few of them a little bit and looked at a few videos and it's like I just kept getting creeped out essentially. It's a little more to it than that. But yeah, I didn't want to get into it, didn't want to open any portals, you know, so to speak. But one thing I learned is that, you know, like if you look at Masonic symbol symbology, it's, it's based on a lot of, of Old Testament like temple symbology. It, and, and the notion is what, what occultists like to do is to invert biblical symbols. So in other words pervert them, twist them. And so that led me to think maybe I should read the Bible. If I want to understand them, at least it'd be safe to read that and actually try to understand it. And then maybe I would be, I don't know, in the clear to read some of the occult stuff if I wanted to. Never wanted to after that though.
- [38:21]
Ally
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- [39:35]
Larry Sanger
So.
- [39:36]
Ally
You started reading the Bible, really digging into the Bible. December of 2019, you said that you used a 90 day study plan on the YouVersion app and you really liked the ESV Study Bible. We have that in common. I started reading the ESV Study Bible when someone gave it to me as a gift when I was in college and I've tried several other study Bibles since then and that is my go to. But tell me about that experience.
- [40:04]
Larry Sanger
So yes, well, it wasn't the only Bible commentary that I use, but I used it quite a bit. And in fact my current two year plan, I'm just finishing up reading the entire thing. So I at first I thought I was just going to read it a little bit at bedtime and then it became sort of an obsession. For 100 days I was reading everything carefully. Sometimes twice I was looking up answers to all my questions to, you know, understand what it meant. I actually was trying to understand what the things on the page meant. And I'm, you know, I'm trained in reading old texts. One of my areas of concentration was early modern philosophy. So I'm pretty good at it. So I knew of course to like, when to look up concepts in an encyclopedia, when to look up definitions in like a Bible dictionary, when to look at maps, when to just look at a general commentary. Because something, even though the words are good English, I just understand why would they say that? And in the process of doing this, I actually acquainted myself with theology because you can't understand the philosophy if you don't understand the concepts that it contains. And you can't understand biblical concepts unless you understand theology or at least you acquaint yourself with theology as you come to understand them. So somebody who knows the Bible very, very, very well knows a lot of theology for sure. And the thing is I, despite having a PhD in philosophy, which is sort of an adjacent Field. I had no idea that people who did theology and analyzed biblical concepts, et cetera, did anything that was worth doing, that it was interesting, that it was coherent, had no idea that at all. And it is, as it turns out, if you actually study that stuff, it makes sense. There's a reason why very, very smart people, some of the smartest people in history, in fact, have been Christians, Newton, you know, Thomas, Aquinas, St. Augustine. These are very, very smart people. And a lot of other people, too, a lot of scientists, even in this center, in. Well, even today, sure, yeah, but so.
- [43:11]
Ally
And when you read through the Bible for the first time, did it strike you immediately that this seems true? No, no, it didn't.
- [43:22]
Larry Sanger
No. It took time. I mean, in other words, you know, I resisted the idea. I mean, I was a fairly confirmed non believer. Again, I wasn't an atheist, but it wasn't a live proposition for me, you see, so it took a lot. One thing that I did, though, even in, I think, the months before I started reading the Bible, I started rethinking some of the traditional arguments for the existence of God a little bit, which might have been one of the reasons why I picked up the Bible, but the two processes went hand in hand. So in other words, I actually had to persuade myself that there were better versions of the arguments for the existence of God and that they work together in a certain way, which I simply hadn't understood before, which I'm writing about in a book now. I had to sort of like teach myself these things or be led to them one way or another, and before I could really take what the Bible said seriously. But I will say this, the Bible, one of the things, a good example of this, the, of how the Bible sheds light on philosophical arguments, like in a way that I hadn't really appreciated before. So in Exodus, chapter three, God, he introduces his name. He says, I am that I am what? That's a name that isn't even good grammar. I, I said to myself. So I, but I looked up the Hebrew, not that I knew Hebrew, but, you know, there's interlinear tools which are pretty easy to use. And, and, and everything is explained. It's very nicely laid out on BibleHub.org and I looked at commentaries and, well, it turns out that there are very good reasons why he would introduce himself that way. He was saying, as theologians generally say, that he is that which exists. Existence is part of his essence. As philosophers would say, he is in fact, that which must exist unlike everything else, the existence of everything else. In the universe is conditioned upon his existence. That actually is all contained within his saying that this is his identity. Because the notion of a name in Hebrew and I think the ancient world, to a great extent, it said what you were right. This is why kings renamed their vassals, right? Gave them new names to say, this is what you're going to be to me. Right? This is why Abraham Abram was renamed the father of a nation. Abraham.
- [46:45]
Ally
Right, right.
- [46:46]
Larry Sanger
God named himself, saying, I am that which exists necessarily, essentially. And the experience of like coming to grips with that exegetical question just made the whole argument from contingency much more alive. And I said, okay, well, I, I don't believe that it follows from the fact that there, the assertion that there is a necessarily existent being, that that's God. It doesn't follow, not immediately. You have to say a lot of other things. But isn't it interesting, right, that the Bible says God says that he is the necessary being and that that's the conclusion of like the most bedrock argument that natural theology offers, Natural theology being the philosophy of religion and the study of the arguments for the existence of God.
- [47:48]
Ally
And can you tell me how you got to. Because after you read through the Bible, you continue still to this day to continue to read through the Bible, you concluded at some point after this that God does exist. You believed that Jesus is the son of God according to what you read in scripture, but you didn't yet believe that Jesus died for your sins. So can you take us from your, your philosophical journey from understanding that God exists to understanding the Christian claim that Jesus is God and that he died for our sins and is our way of salvation.
- [48:31]
Larry Sanger
So it's interesting. It is a very long and gradual process. And I mean, in the spring of 2020, I. I would have said I have a provisional Christian belief. It's like I'm inclined to believe. It seems prob. That. That sort of thing. And I, I was able to articulate right around the time when I started, you know, when I was willing to admit to myself that God exists, that I was more inclined to believe that that than not. The first time I prayed, taking myself to be sincerely, really praying to God, it was like the end of February. And right about the same time I wrote an essay which you can find on, on my blog, which is a theory of divine sacrifice or something like that, which is about the whole question, why did Jesus have to die on the cross? And how could that somehow save us? You know, what does that have to do with like, forgiving our Sins and things like that. I'm not going to get into like theories about that which are interesting, but I was able to articulate and understand the theories to a certain extent at that time. Could do a better job now but, but I didn't feel it, you know, I. It's one thing to, it's one thing to feel like you have a, a grasp on the concepts and it's quite another to actually believe what it's saying. But I don't know when it was. But at some point I, well, I guess you could just say I increasingly felt convicted, as the word is, of my sins by God, by the Holy Spirit, and I increasingly felt the need of a savior. See, this bothered me because I thought, isn't this kind of back, isn't it reversed? I. It is. Most people seem to come to the faith by first saying as they say they need a savior and therefore they surrender their will to God. I didn't feel like I needed a savior precisely. It was only after I actually was better convinced that God exists, that Jesus was a real person. Really helped to read the Case for Christ. That's great book that I was able to like start taking that part really seriously and caring about it. And now I really care about it.
- [51:54]
Ally
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- [53:08]
Larry Sanger
No, I don't I'm not sure that I can say that I can say the moment when I started believing in God and like trusting in God. But to say that I am a Christian and entailed all kinds of other things that. That I had to sort of work through. And most of it had to do with, you know, problems associated with my being a skeptic. A methodological skeptic is the word. So, you know, like I was saying when I was young, I thought it was really important to have the truth, and therefore it was necessary to have really good reasons to believe whatever you believe, and you have to understand your beliefs. And, well, Christianity involves all kinds of things I didn't understand and all kinds of things I couldn't justify. And you might say, well, you have to take a leap of faith. Well, that's not what faith is. Faith is not the acceptance of things for no good reasons. Faith is simply the loyalty to God. I think I had that, but it took me time before I actually developed the conviction that the Bible is inerrant, which is what I think now. But it was probably sometime in 2020 or 2021, maybe 2021, when I actually developed that. I was still struggling with the whole idea of inerrancy in the first few years. So if there's a lesson for people who are similarly situated, it would be that it's okay. If it's a process at least. Yeah, it's okay for me, I hope.
- [55:09]
Ally
Yeah. And have you been able to find a church because you write about this? Still having a lot of questions and trying to find a place that can take your questions?
- [55:24]
Larry Sanger
Well, yeah. So I've read a lot of books about theology, basically several dozen in the last five years. And so it isn't a lack of knowledge, it is the lack of certainty that I don't want. There are certain things that I like. I know I'm not going to be praying to Mary. Got pretty good reasons not to do that. Pretty sure. And there's a number of other things of that sort that are. That would point me down one path versus another denominationally. But I feel like I need to make up my mind about more of the basic principles. And it takes a long time for me to make up my mind about things because, like I say, I still have this sort of methodological skepticism. It's really not just a. Not just a principle I accepted and can easily discard. It's sort of like part of who I am. And I know that for the same reason, you know, if I were to go to like, I've thought of, you know, Independent Baptist Church or maybe the Anglican Church of North America, maybe the Orthodoxy. If I can put aside my, you know, my, well, resistance to praying to saints and so forth. I know that I would like, ask questions, and I know myself, I'm very persistent, not necessarily that I would like, annoy people with my questions, but if they're trying to engage me, I'm not going to be able to go along. So it's kind of hard. You know, one, one thing that some people, not everybody, by the way, but one thing that some people insist on is that if you're going to join a church, then you have to submit yourself to an authority. Well, the only authority at this point that I really want to submit myself to is that of Scripture, God. And I think I'm getting closer to the point where I can, I can submit myself to, to people without disrupting. See, that's what I don't want to do. I don't want to disrupt the proceedings. I don't want to be a bad influence, you know, because I easily could be so. But I'm prioritizing, you know, study of the distinctives of the, of the issues on which Christians divide.
- [58:23]
Ally
Well, I'm confident that God is going to use you to be one of those people that can answer people's questions. And I just love hearing people's testimonies and all of the different parts of the constellation of someone's story that in retrospect they can see. But in the moment, it's hard to see how God is piecing things together. But I believe that he's going to use this testimony for his glory, which is always what he does. But also, there are a lot of very smart, questioning young people who want a place to go to ask good questions. And you are someone who has asked questions over and over and over again. And rather than just like sit in your questions, you have sought the answer to them. And I just, I really believe that that, that, that discipline and that curiosity that you've had your entire life is going to affect the lives of other skeptics and questioners and new believers. And so I'm just very grateful for that.
- [59:26]
Larry Sanger
Well, I hope God uses me that way, I guess, if that's what I'm good for.
- [59:33]
Ally
Yeah, me too. Me too. Where can people find you and support you, follow you, all that good stuff.
- [59:41]
Larry Sanger
Well, my blog is LarrySanger.org that's where the essay that we've been talking about, we've been asking questions based up off of.
- [59:50]
Ally
It's.
- [59:51]
Larry Sanger
It's the latest thing. A, A skeptic. What is it called? A skeptic turns to Christianity.
- [60:01]
Ally
Yes.
- [60:01]
Larry Sanger
Anyway, something like that. And, and there's also. I'm on x.com, but I don't actually do much there except share my stuff. I'm one of the advisors of Bitchute now and so I'm putting my videos there. My latest video is a video version of the same testimony. And yeah, there's a Bible study that has started a lot of Bible geeks. Our gathering. We. I mean, it's gone from like 30 people to like 120 in the last couple of days. So you're welcome to join us if you're into like brainy Bible study.
- [60:53]
Ally
Awesome. And where's that?
- [60:56]
Larry Sanger
That is on Telegram and there is a link down at the bottom of the testimony. There is a. I've talked about moving to a signal group. You can join both if you like, but for now we're sticking to Telegram.
- [61:14]
Ally
Okay, very good. Well, Larry, I really appreciate you taking the time to share and I do encourage people to follow you and to read your stuff. So thank you so much for sure.
- [61:26]
Larry Sanger
Thanks. Thanks for having me on.