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- [00:29]
A
Hey, hey, friends. Greg Pokhl here, and thank you for joining us on the show. And I feel like I've been out of play here for a couple of weeks over the holidays. I think it's my first time back since the Christmas holidays. Now we've been doing shows regularly because we put a bunch in the can before we hit a vacation and time off. But it's been a while since I've been behind the microphone and I'm glad to be here chatting with you again. By the way, I have to let you know about a problem that we are having with realities. You just need to know this in advance. That's the reality. Student apologetics conferences, these six conferences that we've been doing every year for what, 10, 12 years now in different cities, boxing the compass around the country. Southern California, Seattle, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Dallas, Texas. And what's the other one? I said Seattle and Southern California. Dallas, Minneapolis. Okay, I'm missing one. But anyway, I'm trying to think which is the. Oh, wait, Atlanta, Georgia. That's right. It's the new one we added in the fall. Atlanta. Okay, so that's kind of around the country. Here's the problem. We keep selling out. I wish the churches were bigger, but we're in the in November, we're in the largest church in the state of Minnesota. Grace Church, eden Prairie, holds 4,100 people in their massive auditorium with all their balconies. And we sold 4,100 tickets. In November, we sold it out. And we sold out Seattle. The sellout in Minneapolis was 10 days before the event. The sellout in Seattle was four weeks before the event. Smaller venue four weeks before the event. Now we're looking at springtime. And we have Dallas coming up February 20th and 21st. We have Philly on March 13th and 14th. And we have LA, used to be in the fall. Now it's in the spring. April 24th and 25th. Right now, Dallas, Texas, if you haven't bought your ticket yet and this is five weeks out, you're not going to get in the main auditorium. That's all sold out. Indeed. We do have overflow for I don't know how many, but I know We've only got 212seats in overflow left. That means if you're thinking about doing Texas on February 20th and 21st, get on it. Realityapologetics.com that's where you can get your tickets. And we're going to sell this out. It's still five weeks out. We're going to sell this out. Probably this week. Now Philly's got 894. I think that's about half. It's a smaller venue, but that's two months out. Only 213 in Southern Cal. But that's April, the end of April. So we've got a lot of time there. But. And we have a larger venue. I think we've got about 3,000. I think it's going to be a Calvary Chapel. Downey. Now, I'm not talking a lot about, wow, what's in the conference, because most of you know that we put together an amazing group of speakers. Not only our stand to reason people, but in this case we got J. Warner Wallace, his last season with us after so many years being a regular part. Jason Jimenez is back, as he's been the last couple seasons. John Stonestreet is with us this time. Unique to John. For all six sessions he's with the Colson Institute and Breakpoint. But we're talking about worldviews. I think the theme is the story of reality, coincidentally, I think, because that's the title of my book. We're not trying to sell more books. We're trying to tell people about the nature of reality. So this is about worldview. So we got great speakers, we got a great topic, and it's a lot of fun. And that's why people keep coming back year after year and bringing their friends year after year until we fill up every venue and then we fill it up weeks and sometimes, you know, more than a month before the event itself. And so just saying, this is our attempt to pass the baton. Our view is the most important generation is always the next generation. The most important generation is always the next generation. We need to pass the baton. And that's what we're doing with these conferences. We're not a youth organization. We're a people organization. We're there for Christians, to train Christians to think more carefully. But our young people need to be trained, to be prepared and protected, prepared to speak, protected from bad ideas that are easy to be taken in by because they're appealing, attractive. And so we do these conferences now, six of them, and have been for so long to help your kids or your grandkids to be strengthened as ambassadors. But there are a lot of people who come to Christ at these events as well. Anyway, so there's the deal. Realityapologetics.com, when I say young people. We're shooting for middle schoolers and high schoolers now. We're not looking at any ideas. Anybody can come in Lots of the range comes from, but we're trying to get them as soon as we can. And these kids step up, they take notes like crazy. They ask Amy lots of questions, amazing questions for their age, one would think. And she's the ask the apologist person. She's got a booth at our events and she just answers questions for the entire conference. It's very taxing. She's got the hardest job, just about. So that's coming up. That's the problem. It's a good problem and it'll be a bad problem for you if you want a ticket and you don't sign up. Incidentally, if you can't make the Dallas event, that is the event that we live stream. So when you go to realityapologetics.com and kind of page through, scroll through the different locations, there'll be information about how you individually, you, your family, you, your Bible study, you, your church can participate in a live stream. The larger the group, the bigger the price. But it's still a bargain. And so I encourage you to think of that as an option. If you can't make any of the six that we do, people say, why don't you do more? Why don't you do more in our city? Because these are big deals and it's hard to get good talent that commits for six events in a row. And we can do that with our own team, obviously. But it's also very taxing. It's a big production, it's a lot of energy and effort and we've got a limited team. So at this point, there's no expectation we're expanding beyond the six. But this is why the live streaming is so important. It allows you to participate. All right, that done, I have my daughter eva, she's the 18 year old has just started spring term in her second semester at the local community college. She's going to be going away to school in Minnesota come the fall, but we still got her for another year or six months or so close to home. And she had her first class yesterday and this one was online as it turned out, which is fine. She doesn't have to drive. But she was given an assignment that she was complaining about and I'm glad she was complaining because she saw right through it. Now, I wish you could see this picture, but you can't. I mean, if you're live streaming, I guess I can hold it up here. And incidentally, if you are live streaming, you can give me a call if you want. 855-243-9975. And if you're not live streaming, this is some other time. And you want to call during the time of our show, 4 to 6 on Tuesdays Pacific Time. 855-243-9975. And callers are calling in right now, so you can join the queue if you'd like. But this is called, this circle is called the intersectionality wheel of privilege. All right, so here's what I want you to imagine in your mind. A big pizza with about, I don't know, pizza slices. It's really big. And so they're sectioned out in slices, this diagram. And there are actually each slice has a title. Like one would be skin color, another one's body size, another one's age, another one's education, housing, religion, marriage, physical ability, etc. So those are the titles of the slice. And the slices have three sections. So you have an outside tire on this pizza. Then you have a more inner side circle. These are concentric circles. And then you have an interior circle. And each slice has something different on each segment of the three segments of the slice. Regarding the category that each slice is characterized as. So for example, under skin color you could be. This is the outside of the circle. So this would be the tire, so to speak, going around the pizza. Mixing my metaphors. Skin color visibly black, brown, indigenous, Asian. Now when you move towards the center, white. And they have the same thing for all of these categories. Let's see, I'm trying to just transportation, little to no access. That's the outside, the middle circle. So that's a category in each of these slices. But for the transportation it says public transit. And in the middle it says driver. Okay, now what you don't know is what these concentric circles are titled. Remember, this is the intersectionality wheel of privilege. And what my daughter was supposed to do is mark each one of these individual categories, which of the three possibilities there are in each category, from the outside of the rim to the inside center. And remember, this is intersectionality wheel of privilege. So this, just so you know, is critical theory stuff. And critical theory, the foundation of it. The basic, one of the basic concepts of critical theory is the. Social binary. And social binary means in society you have two categories of people. And those two categories are the oppressed or the oppressor. The oppressed or the oppressor. I mean, this is the way critical theory, leftist type woke thinkers think of culture. There's only two categories. You're either part of the oppressed or you're one of the oppressors. There's no in between. There's no non oppressed that aren't oppressors. And intersectionality on this view means that there are various categories of oppression and victimization. And you line up differently given your category. So you could be a woman who is oppressed and you could be black who is oppressed. But you are also wealthy, which is power. But you still turn out to be kind of an oppressed person even though you're wealthy because you're black and you're female and maybe you're gay. Well, that's another intersection of oppression. So I've talked and written about critical theory. I've talked about it here before. And a few years back when it was a big deal and we had Black Lives Matter and it was all in the news, I wrote some things about it. You can find that critical theory, the title of the piece is Critical Theory. Civil Rights Upside Down, I think is the title of it. 2020 or 2021 is when I wrote that, a solid ground. But my daughter is asked to position herself and mark these places that apply to her. And she said, hey, you know, I fit in mostly in this one category. And it's the center category. Now, I didn't give you the titles of all three of those concentric circles, but the inside circle is Power. The middle circle, the little larger donut, so to speak, is Erased. And the outside is marginalized. So the further you go from power, the more you become either erased or marginalized. Actually, I got the terminology. I think their terminology is mixed up. They say you're either powerful, then you're not so powerful, so you're marginalized, or you've got the least amount of power. You should be called Erased. I don't know who made this up, but if some woke PhD, I guarantee you the name is down at the bottom here. But two people. I got to get my magnifying glass to look at the fine print. Adapted from Sylvia Duckworth, Canadian Council for Refugees and Olino Nankiewski, Ph.D. of course, only a Ph.D. would come up with this kind of nonsense. So this is the way those WOKE folk look at the world. And apparently the way my daughter's teacher in this class looks at things and therefore requires this as the very first exercise that her students have to do in guess what class. I know what you're thinking. Gender theory, social construction, women's rights. My daughter didn't take those kind of classes. Not Eva. No, this is a Spanish class. She took a class to learn Spanish and this is her first assignment. You know what's really ironic about that is Spanish is a language that is gendered. They have male forms and female forms of words that otherwise are unrelated to gender. You can have a migo and a miga, O and a, because a migo is a friend who is a guy and a miga is a friend who's a girl. But you got a bunch of other words that have a and O endings. They're feminized or masculinized in terms of their grammar, but they have no reference to sex at all. So here's a person teaching Spanish, which is a gendered language, talking about this kind of stuff. And it has nothing to do with the topic. It is just what indoctrination. That is it. Now, I talked with my daughter. Now, I mentioned she was appropriately upset because she didn't want to deal with. She knows what this is. Now, she can't articulate it to the degree that I can, obviously, but she can see this coming a mile away. What the heck is this stuff? This is this woke stuff. Why does this matter? And she's thinking about ways where she would end up if she were to do this exercise and mark where she's at. This is going to define her on the spectrum of power. Either she's part of the powerful oppressors or part of the marginalized or erased victims. That's the way this works. So I had a. I mean, what's the point of this? What's the point of this in a Spanish class, a language class where you're supposed to lead Spanish? Well, because Spanish people are marginalized. Really? Spanish speakers in South America or in Spain are marginalized or erased because they speak Spanish. No, please, not even. Anyway, I'm just saying. Now they talk about this and all their characterizations here in terms of American culture. And by the way, guess what they have. What do you imagine they would have in terms of the breakdown on the power spectrum? The intersectionality wheel of privilege? How many religions do they have? Here they have one religion, and under the religion slice of the piece, the power religion is Christianity. And then how they characterize it, the erased are those who celebrate Christian holidays. So they're not really Christians, but they kind of get the benefit. The privilege of what? Celebrating a Christian holiday? How's that a privilege? And then the ones that are on the outside, the furthest from power are everyone else. In other words, Christianity is in a position of power in this culture, and every other religion is way out on the extreme. And the only way you're halfway to the extreme you get a little bit is if you're pretending at Christianity a little bit by celebrating Christianity Holidays, please. So what's the point of this? And I know the point. The point is to categorize people. And if you're mostly on the inner circle here and you have, you know, your mental health is stable, you're a Christian religion, your wealth is rich, your age is adult, your housing status as homeowner, your transportation status as a driver, as opposed to public transit. Transit or no access at all, you walk or, you know, these are the categories of all of those kinds of. Then you are in the powerful center. And of course, the people are in power are the ones responsible for all the oppression being experienced by those groups that are on the outside of the wheel. So the point here is to figure out how big of an oppressor you are or how big of a victim of the oppressors you are. That's the whole point. And it's meant to make you feel bad if you're in the middle and maybe be repentant. That's what woke is. A person who is woke isn't somebody that has no power. It's most woke people are in the power position according to this characterization, and feel bad about it. You know, when you see these kinds of demonstrations and stuff in Black Lives Matter, remember all that a few years ago? Who were the ones that were campaigning most? Rich white college students. That's who are the ones who are out there doing all. Not the people who are supposedly oppressed, but nevertheless. Okay, so you got all these people now feeling bad white guilt, and they're doing what they can to harass other people to feel bad along with them for marginalizing and erasing the people in these other categories. And so what? So it's to make one group of people feel bad and guilty and, you know, beat their heart, beat their chests, mea culpa, mea culpa. And then the rest. How does this affect the rest of these? I'll tell you how it affects them. They're the ones who get to feel sorry for themselves because according to this, they're victims. And you know, when you're a victim, that means you're victimized by someone. The victim isn't the bad person. The bad person is the victimizer. And so the victimizer has to feel bad. Or we can feel bad towards them for having all of these things that are slices of the pie in the power section that we don't have on the outside of the pie wheel, so to speak, because we're victims. And so we can be mad at them and we could want what they have that we don't have that they took from us because they're people in power. I think there's a biblical word to describe that. It's called coveting. What good does this do? Do people have privilege? Sure. Lots of people have privilege. And I don't know what good it does. Paul the apostle, was he privileged? Yeah, he was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He was taught by Gamaliel. He had respect in his culture. What did he consider all of those things to be? Nothing compared to knowing Christ. Now that's a Christian perspective. Well, that might be something to other people who don't know Christ and are wallowing in what, poverty? Well, all these people are not wallowing in their marginalization. Just because you don't have a car doesn't mean you're a victim. Just because you don't own a house and you rent doesn't mean you're a victim. Just because you are disabled in some way, which, by the way, it does say here, invisibly disabled is the middle ring. And the outside ring says visibly disabled. This is regarding physical ability. Why would anybody consider that marginalized? Oh, I guess you can't do some things if you're disabled. I get it. But it's so interesting. I thought the word disabled was out of fashion. You're not even supposed to say disabled. You're supposed to say differently abled or something like that. I don't know what the common term is now, but this is not helpful for anything. All it does is make some people feel bad for circumstance they have no control over and have nothing whatsoever to do with their character. All these people on the inside, the power thing, oh, this person's salaried, he's a citizen, he's able bodied, he's an adult, he's white, he's cisgendered, he's a Christian. What's wrong with any of that? But what about this poor? No religion or any other religion than Christianity. Mentally vulnerable, visibly disabled. You poor victim. This is helpful. So I had a conversation with my daughter. About how to deal with this. Now I said, look, you're a grown up, you can do whatever you want, but I suggest you do not participate. And I'll tell you what you can tell your teacher. Tell her I'm not going to do this assignment. Why not? And here's what you say. You say this is a power play. Your power play. You are in position of power, professor, and you are using your power to oppress and marginalize me for my answers. Now notice what I'm doing here is I'm using the language and the tools and the concepts of critical theory against the critical theory people, which look, it's sauce for the goose, it's sauce for the gander. Why not? What's wrong with that? That's fair. We're just trying to be consistent, which these people never are. Okay? And so I said, eva, this is what you tell her. I'm not going to do this because this is a power play that you're using as a person in power to oppress me and marginalize me for my answers. And by the way, in this particular case, that is true. I don't think it is the case that these so called intersections here are intersections of abuse and oppression. I think these are just details of people's lives that may be difficult or hard and may not be, and may in some cases be oppressive or the consequence of oppression, but not taken as a social whole. And that's the way critical theory folks do it. This is the way the world is built. Oppressors and those oppressed, victims and victimizers. And by the way, what this wheel and this assignment, I guarantee you this is my speculation. I haven't thought, I haven't talked to the professor, not even sure I will. I don't want to hover necessarily. I want my daughter to fight her own battles. But I know why they're doing this. Because they are trying to make those people who are privileged feel bad. And this teacher can do that effectively because she is in the middle. She's sitting in the power seat in that classroom. I don't care what color she is. I don't care what, and I don't even know if it's a she, what color or sex or gender or preference or disability or whatever is characteristic of this individual. This individual is doing this as an exercise of power over those whom she has power over her students, who she can punish if she wants by open ridicule or by giving bad grades when the bad grade isn't earned. And by the way, both of those happen. So I happen to know this kind of exercise is in fact for the purpose of oppressing and marginalizing people because of the answers they give, not because of their the station that one imagines they have in society according to these different categories. So I said, honey, you just tell her that I'm going to have to practice with her. But now when she says to the teacher, this is oppressive and marginalizing me, the teacher might say, why do you think this is oppressive? Now here's the right answer. Because it feels oppressive to me. Because that's how critical theory works. This is called the viewpoint epistemology, or what do they call lived experience? Lived experience means that on this view, if you feel it, it's a fact, it doesn't even have to match up with anything else. You're the one who's living your oppressive victim life. Oppressed victim life. So you're the one who's in the best situation to know whether you're oppressed or not. So the victim gets to speak, and the victimizers don't get a place at the table. So play by their rules, honey. Just tell them, I know that this is oppressive because it feels oppressive to me. Now, what's she going to say? I keep saying she. I'm presuming this teacher is a she, but I don't know. In any event, I don't know if the issue of pronouns have come up. But I asked Eva, I said, okay, what are you going to say if they ask you what your preferred pronouns are? Now she's thinking for a minute, she wants to get this right, so I'm going to have to have a review on this because she thinks I'll say I'm a child of God or something like that. That's okay. I'm fine with that. But I think she gave me the answer that she thought I was digging for. I said, no, that's not what you say, honey, because you're female, right? So you might say, well, she or her or whatever. And I said, the minute you do that, you're acknowledging that the pronouns that you just mentioned are what you prefer. But when you say, here's my preferred pronoun, now, you're already affirming the system and just telling them you're part in the system. I said, if somebody asks you, what are your preferred pronouns, here's what you say. You say, I do not have any preferred pronouns. I have a sex, I'm a female, full stop. I don't have preferred pronouns. I have a sex, I'm female. And it was interesting when Amy and I were talking about this this morning, she said what she would have added is, I don't tell others how to characterize me when I'm not even there. That's good, Amy. I don't tell others how they have to characterize me when I'm not even there. Do you see how abusive this is, how oppressive this is, how manipulative all of this stuff is. So what ends up happening with this kind of stuff, and it happens all the time, is these kind of people complaining about a certain type of world. Their antidote is to recreate the same world with them in charge instead of somebody else in charge. You know the phrase we're speaking truth to power? We're the marginalized, we're the erased, we're the victims. You have the power. So we're speaking truth to your power. Well, I'm going to tell you something. It's been a long time ago that the power shifted and now the left is the one in power. And characteristically, and this is quantifiable, I'll tell you why in just a moment. And what are they doing? They're using the same kind of things, but they're trying to make it sound like they're taking the moral high road to victimize those who used to, they think, victimize others now that the power gradient has shifted and. Oh, goodness, goodness. And so the antidote, of course, is social justice. Right. That's all part of the system, the social binary, the viewpoint, epistemology and social justice. But what is social justice on their view? What does it turn out to be? It's revenge. We're going to give you what we think you gave us. It's paybacks. Paybacks. So how do I know that the power gradient has shifted? Well, it's as simple. Just ask a simple question. If I were having a discussion with the professor, I would say, when in our culture, what are the kinds of institutions, the gatekeepers of culture that have the most influence? Now, we think about it for a while and maybe some people may not be understanding the question. So what are these institutions of culture that have the biggest influence on culture? And when I say gatekeepers, I'm saying these are the ones who let the ideas in and out, who give the ideas play in the public discussion. Well, let's see, who has the press. Yep, the press. They have the media and the press. They have a huge influence on setting the tone for the discussion. Right. Okay, let's see, who else? Well, the academy. Yeah, University system. They're educating our kids. They're telling our kids what's true and what isn't true, how to believe, how to be a good citizen, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, there's. That's right, there's the. I guess the government is an example too. Yeah, they pass laws and they punish lawbreakers and they, you know, try to set standards and all that. Okay, so the government and you watch Movies? Oh yeah, all the time. Oh, Hollywood. So Hollywood is a gatekeeper. They are communicating through their means. So you've got the press, you've got the Academy, you've got the government, you've got Hollywood. You might say the family is a possibility as a gatekeeper of the ideas of the culture. And I think that's true, although it's hard to characterize the principal influence there. In any event, they are an influencer. But I just want you to think about the press, the Academy, the government and Hollywood, characteristically, what ideas do they give play to and what ideas do they silence leftist ideas. They communicate and they silence more conservative ideas as an impulse. I mean, I'm not telling tales out of school. You all know this. The press, the legacy press. Now there's a new press that's been emerging that's not so victimized by that kind of thinking, the government. But now we have a new government that's emerging that's taking up a little bit of the other side. But there's tons of people that are still part of the swamp. Hollywood, obviously, the Academy, obviously. So it turns out that the ones who have the power now is the left, the members of the left. And they should be right there at the center of the power grid. And by the way, it is not Christians. Christians as such, in virtue of their Christianity. What is their power? They're the most vilified group in the country. Who is worse than a Christian according to the broader culture? These people, you know, the ones who make wheels like this? No, and who, what group is the most supported as a group? I'll tell you. Trans and LGBT type. Although that's kind of a redundancy because the T stands for trans, but that's who. There's a whole month of the calendar dedicated to celebrating them and anybody who stands up visibly against them gets completely vilified in public by the press, by the Academy, by Hollywood and in some cases by the government. Even the government is participating, or was until this year, last year, I should say, with, you know, rainbow flags flying from embassies all around the world. That's not happening anymore. So I mean, please. This is so self serving. And I'm very interested to see how my daughter is going to manage this. But I hope she raises an issue at least politely, but just firmly. I'm not going to participate and then play critical theory against the teacher who's requiring this intersectionality wheel of privilege project and say this is. I'm not going to participate because this is a power play meant to oppress and marginalize me for my answers. All right, okay, let's take a quick break and then I'll get to your calls here on Standard Reason. Stay with us.
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A
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A
All right friends, that was a long open comment opening kind of commentary, but I I just had a lot to say about this craziness. Incidentally, the intersectionality wheel of privilege is online. You can look it up yourself if you want by I think. Is that how you found it? Amy and Amy's putting a link in the show notes and you'll see what I got here. Okay, but look at you have no idea how many people take this deadly seriously. This is woke culture. This is critical theory manifest in lots of different ways how they see the world. This is a worldview it's not a Christian worldview, though, and it's not a true worldview, because there's no good reason to believe that this is exactly the way culture works. This paradigm, this social binary, is actually an outgrowth of Marxist thinking now, not applied to the bourgeoisie and the proletariat and the workers and basically the industrial aristocracy, but now applied to a whole range of issues. Okay, let's go to your calls. I'm glad to see so many in the queue. And just remember, those of you waiting, I'm so glad to see that we do two shows here together. So after the first hour is done, I'll get to you guys in the second hour. Whoever I don't get first, let's go to Michael in Kentucky. Michael, welcome to the show. Glad you called.
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Hello, Greg. How are you?
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Good, good. Fired up.
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Fantastic. Real quick, this is only my second time on here. I'm curious, how many questions am I allowed? Because I know you're on a tight schedule.
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Well, the idea is you pretty much focus on one thing, and there may be little angles to the thing that we could talk about, but we want to stay pretty much on one thing. If I didn't have flashing lights in front of me, four of them, we could talk for a while, but. Pardon me. Oh, Amy says all your questions are kind of connected, so let's just run. Let's run the table.
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Oh, okay. All right. Just a sec.
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Sure.
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All right, Greg, whenever you're ready.
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I'm ready.
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All right. I, I sorry. You're one of. You're one of my favorites.
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Oh, thank you. That's sweet of you. Thank you.
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Yeah.
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All right.
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How can. How can there be just one religion? And how can we be so sure Christianity is the right one?
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A
All right, well, obviously those are two different questions, so let's take them individually. How can you be sure there's only one true religion? Actually, you can't be sure that there is one true religion. All right? But you can be sure that they all can't be true. So this is a refinement here. How can we know that there really is only one true religion? Well, what we can do is by looking closely at the claims. Remember, when you talk about religion, we're talking about a web of beliefs or ideas that all fit together in a particular way to describe ultimate reality. That's what the purpose of religion is. If you look at all of the religions that we know about, they all mean to be telling us something true about the world. The way the world is made up and this is why I wrote a book, maybe you're familiar with it, called the Story of Reality. Well, every religion means to tell a story of reality. This is what the religions are meant to do. Now people don't think of it that way nowadays, post enlightenment and especially 20th and 21st century people don't think of religion like that at all. They don't think about religion being true or false. False. They think about religion in a very utilitarian way. In other words, what do I get out of it? Now this idea is stated very crisply by Karl Marx, who is the founder of communism. And he said religion is the opiate of the people. And notice that when he says religion is the opiate of the people, he is saying that as an atheist, meaning no religion is true, okay? It is just something man made to make us feel better. That's his point and that's the way people think about religion now in their casual reflections on it. This is why when people say, when Christians say, well, Christianity is true, they think this is way out of line. I mean, this is such bad manners. That isn't the way you talk about religion, but it is the way the religions talk about themselves. Every religion holds that its view about reality is accurate and this is what they're trying to communicate, right? Okay, so the first point is, let's be clear on what religion is. It's a claim about the way the world is, all right? And it may be that they're all false. And say Karl Marx, the atheist is true, is correct, his view is correct, the rest are false. So it may be that no religion is true, but that would be the atheist view. But if some religion is true, they can't all be true. And the reason they can't all be true is because they hold beliefs about the world that are contradictory of each other. So just take Judaism and Christianity. Christians think that Jesus is the Messiah as a matter of fact. I mean that is, as you know, vital and central. Modern day Jews or modern day Judaism, I should say, denies that. No, Jesus is not the Messiah. Now either Jesus, pardon me, I'm sorry, either Jesus is the Messiah or he's not the Messiah, either A or not a, but not both and not neither. So if the Christians are right on this very important point, the Jews are wrong on this very important point. In other words, very important to each of that theological system. If the Jews are right on this point, then the Christians are wrong. But under no circumstance can they both be right. So here's what I've done so far. With your question, how can we know that really is one true religion? Okay, that's kind of where we're starting, right? If there is a true religion and that Christianity is it, I think, is the way you put it. So we're just starting. Okay, well, what is religion to begin with? We got to get clear on our terms. Well, this is a claim about the way the world is. Well, it could be that. It can't be that all of these contradictory claims are true, but it could be that none of them are true. All right, so the idea that there is one true religion is not odd. All right. Or that there's one true worldview. I'm getting some strange feedback here in my headset. Can you hear that? Amy, can you hear that?
- [48:20]
C
I don't hear anything.
- [48:21]
A
Oh, are you on speakerphone?
- [48:25]
C
Oh, yes. I am bothering you? Do you want me to take that off?
- [48:28]
A
Yeah, I think it's bothering everybody.
- [48:31]
C
Sorry about that.
- [48:31]
A
Yeah, that's right. Okay. Yeah, that's better. So when we approach this question, a lot of people will say, well, how could it be that one religion is true? Well, if you think about it, it's very sensible that one religion could be true. In other words, one person or one religious viewpoint could have a very accurate take on reality when it comes to these very important issues. What's odd about that? And you know, the reason why people say this? I'm not saying this is your motivation, but here's why. And it's because this is the way I characterize it. They think of religion not like insulin, but like ice cream.
- [49:15]
C
Yeah, that is the point. Because I don't. I'll be honest with you, Greg. I don't like. I'm a Christian. I've been one my whole life. But I don't like that there's only one way to God. I wish there was more ways.
- [49:28]
A
Sure.
- [49:29]
C
So that more could be saved. But can I ask you, when you said earlier that we can't know that there's one true religion, I say this with as much respect and love as I possibly can. How can that be? If Jesus says in John 14:6, no one comes to the Father except through me, wouldn't that mean that there's only one true religion? Is that what you mean?
- [49:47]
A
Yes, that's exactly what it means. Now, either Jesus was right or he's wrong. Could be he's wrong. And maybe a Buddha says the real answer to life is dealing with desire and mortifying desire, and finally in multiple reincarnations, disappearing into nirvana or something like that. Now, that may be what happens. Maybe the Hindu take is right, maybe the Islamic take is correct. But there's nothing odd with saying that you have a correct take on reality. If you're talking about religion like an insulin kind of thing, like medicine, as a parallel. And not an ice cream kind of thing. But since the Enlightenment, people think of religion like ice cream. And now it sounds like you're saying, how can there be one perfect flavor? That's nonsense. You might like chocolate, he might like vanilla, somebody else butter pecan, somebody Neapolitan. Who's to say there's no right or wrong about this? There are just different preferences. So in that sense, just like there can't be any right flavor, there's only one flavor that's the right flavor. There can't be only one religion that's the right religion. But that's only if religion is the opiate of the people. It's only if atheism is true and all religion is. It's just something to make you feel good. But you see now, the truth of the matter is atheism, you can't avoid it. The world is some way. Now, maybe nobody knows the way the world really is. That's certainly possible. And all religions maybe have some things about them that are touching on reality, that are true, but taken as a whole, they don't describe the world. I think Christianity does. I wrote the book the Story of Reality to help people see what that story entails from beginning to end, how the world began, how it ends, and everything important that happens in between. So I'm making the case, and as apologists, we make the case that the Christian story of, of reality is accurate. Now, we could be wrong. That's why you have apologetics, to give the reasons why we think it's. But it doesn't make. If somebody is saying how could one religion really be the true religion? They are not understanding the claims that religions make about themselves. They are presuming that all religions are. Are a utilitarian exercise in feeling better. And you're doing the best that you can in the circumstances that you were given. I don't know if you know about this, but in September, excuse me, I had a. I was part of a discussion across the table for five hours that was trimmed down to three and a half hours about meaning and significance. And the guy across the table from me, not the host but one of the participants, was Alex o', Connor, who was arguably the best known atheist in the world right now.
- [52:58]
C
Yeah, I've heard of him. And yeah. I'll be honest with you. I know what you're talking about. I haven't seen all of it, but I saw clips of it in other YouTube.
- [53:05]
A
Yeah, okay, good. Well, there was a question that Steven Bartlett, the host, asked of Alex o' Connor towards the end, and he said, if somebody were to come up to you, Alex, and say, I'm not feeling any meaning or purpose in my life, what counsel or advice would you give him? And, you know, it was almost as if, this isn't disparaging, this is just what happened. It's understandable. It was almost as if Alex is saying, what are you asking me about that? I'm an atheist. You know, there is no meaning or purpose in life except for what you give it. Now, he didn't use exactly those words, but that's his view. And so what he said, I don't know. I guess I'd tell him to go to church. Now, why would he tell him to go to church? He doesn't believe in God. Because going to church makes some people feel like they have meaning and significance even though they don't.
- [54:05]
C
Well, maybe that's truly amazing.
- [54:09]
A
Then he goes on. Or maybe he said three things. Go to church or take drugs. There was some conversation about mushrooms, you know, magic psilocybin or whatever it is, you know. Yeah, take drugs or maybe read a book on philosophy, Philosophy of mind, whatever is his point. And I missed an opportunity to what I call narrate the argument by stepping back and pointing out what just happened. But as I thought about it afterwards, I wish I would have said, by the way, just to pause here a little bit, folks. And you know, Alex, I just want people to see what just happened. You were asked by Stephen Bartlett the question that is the question of our show here, meaning and significance. And when he asked you, how would you help somebody? You said, I have no answer because I'm an atheist. Atheism gives no answer to that. I just want to be clear. That's what happened. I'd missed the opportunity, but I think it was pretty clear to people he had nothing to say. And again, it wasn't because he's lost. It's his view. His view is as an atheist, nihilistic nothingism. There is no morality. There's no meaning. There's no significance in an absolute, objective sense only. Only whatever meaning or significance we give to it in the moment. And so take drugs, go to church.
- [55:40]
C
Greg, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I just want to make sure I understood you correctly. Are you saying that are atheism and nihilism. Are you saying they're the same thing?
- [55:51]
A
No, they're not the same thing, but one entails the other. Nihilism is nothingism, that is, that there is no meaning or purpose or anything. I'm looking at a clock. We're almost out of time. But at least we've touched on the first aspect of your question. And you can call back another time. We could explore this further because there's more, but I wanted to lay the foundation. Okay. My point about atheism is that it entails nothingism. If there is no God and there is only the physical material world, molecules in motion, there are sentient creatures that can make decisions that may be temporally satisfying to them, but ultimately there is no transcendent meaning or purpose or value or anything like that. It all boils down to nothingism, also known as nihilism. All right, so that's the best I could do. It was a great question. We had a great conversation, and I'm glad that you gave me an opportunity to clarify foundational issues upon which the rest of your questions will have to build. And we'll save that for another opportunity. But I appreciate the call. Thank you so much. And that's it for the show, friends. That went fast. Thank you for your calls. I got callers on board. Stay with us. We'll carry you over to the next hour. Greg Kokel here for Stand a Reason. Give him heaven. Bye. Bye now.
- [57:28]
C
Sam.