Did Man Create God? Licona vs Yothment

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Did Man Create God? Licona vs Yothment

August 6, 2025

This episode is a 2006 debate between Dr. Michael Licona and Steve Yothment, the president of the Atlanta Freethought Society, on whether man created God. Yothment takes the positive side. He proposes that ancient gods like Thor are myths and that every religion claims their gods to be the real ones and the others false. This then clearly means some of these gods, if not all, have been invented by humans. He also focuses on Christianity, disputing the Bible as the infallible word of God. Citing scientific evidence that appears to contradict Genesis' report of the age of man and the fact that humans suffer despite Scripture's numerous claims that God protects and provides for his people, Yothment concludes that the Bible is the word of man and that God it conveys is a creation of its writers. Dr. Licona argues the opposite based on the contention that there is good evidence for the existence of God, both scientific and historical and that his opponent's arguments are invalid and easily refuted.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Risen Jesus podcast with Dr. Mike Licona. My name is Dr. Kurt Jairus, your host. Did man make God? According to Steve Yothment, during a 2006 debate with Mike Licona, the answer is yes.

Ancient gods are myths and since every religion's gods can't be real, when they all claim the others are false, some of them may be all are human creations. Dr. Licona disagrees and offers scientific and historical evidence for the existence of God. Join us today on the Risen Jesus podcast to listen to this discussion and see how Licona refutes the claims of the former president of the Atlanta free thinking society.

Hi, welcome. I'm going to introduce our two speakers on the affirmative side, supporting the idea that man did indeed create God. Is Mr. Steve Yothment? He's the president of the Atlanta Free Thought Society.

The Atlanta Free Thought Society is a group of people who follow and advocate free thought, which is a philosophy of people who based their ideas are reason and logic rather than tradition and authority. Steve Yothment is, I guess in his day job, he's an electrical engineer and we're making car radios for Panasonic. On our negative side, supporting the idea that man did not create God is Mr. Mike Licona.

He received his master's in the arts and religion from Liberty University. He is a PhD candidate in the New Testament at the University of Victoria in South Africa. He is the author of two books, the most recent being Paul Meats Muhammad, which was published this past month.

He presently serves as the director of the apologetics of the North American Missions Board with the Southern Baptist Convention. Again, thank you all for being here and please join us afterwards. I'm going to start off with having Mr. Yothment with his achievement of his favorites.

How's this working? I have the Atlanta Free Thought Society. I'd like to thank the Phi Kappa Literary Society and Danielle Ruby in particular for the opportunity to speak in this debate tonight. Well, let's start out.

Today is a Thursday. You may not know it, but Thursday was named after four. There was a North guy named Thor, and so Thursday was originally called Thor's Day.

I'm kind of pushing around with the Thursday. Now, the God Thor was called the God of Thunder because he had a hammer. He was the offspring of the mother, Earth, and he had a hammer, and whenever he swung his hammer and he hit something with it, it would make terrible noise.

And so when people heard thunder in the distance, they said, oh, that is Thor. That's the guy in the sky making that noise. But nowadays, we know that the noise in the sky is not coming from God.

There are atmospheric conditions that make that noise. I'm a pilot, so I know a little bit about whether I had to study weather in order to get my pilot's license. And I know that the reason we have thunder is that, well, there's a cold front that comes through and gets a big fumid air mass which causes clouds to form.

And the clouds form a conduction path from the charged ionosphere down to, or at least toward the surface. Then the base of the cloud, when it gets low enough, there's a discharge, an electrical discharge from the cloud to the ground. Some people say it's from the ground to the cloud.

I'm not sure about that part. But the discharge occurs, and then there's lightning, and there's thunder, and that's where lightning comes from. Well, when people figure it out, they didn't need a guy anymore to explain the noise of the thunder.

And so people kind of forgot about Thor. They didn't worship Thor anymore. Nobody talked about him.

In fact, the other reason that we know that there was a Thor, probably, or that we can think about Thor is because there's the name of Thursday, and it comes from Thor's name. Well, where did Thor come from? Somebody made a story about Thor. In fact, there was a poem.

It was called the poetic end up that described Thor and how he made the thunder. And so they made this poem, and the poem was made by a person. So in fact, it was a person who created Thor.

In that case, man created that God. Okay, let's move along. Later, or not later, there were the Greek gods, of course.

There was Zeus, he was kind of headed on, and Hercules, Aphrodite, but nobody worships those gods anymore. There were stories written about them, and I don't know if he's interested in those. People understand today that that was just mythology.

And so again, those gods were created by them. Man created those Greek gods. Well, today, we have many gods still, surprisingly.

Over in India, the main religion is Hinduism. And in Hinduism, there are three major gods. There's Shiva, Vishnu, and Krishna.

Just this past weekend, there was a big celebration across the world, celebrating the festival of Maha Sivaratri, which is a festival commemorating the time when Shiva supposedly protected the world and presented it, prevented it from being destroyed. For Hindus, the holy books called the Vedas are the main source of religious guidance. In Muslim countries, Islam is the common religion.

Their whole holy book is the Quran, and Muslims say that Allah is the only God, and the Congress is messenger. Jewish people follow the Torah, which are the first by books of the Christian Bible, and their guys, Jehovah. Christians, of course, follow the Christian God of the Bible.

And the whole Bible is the document that Christians use for understanding their God. Well, people usually just follow the religion of their parents. There's not a real search for truth.

For example, here in America, if your parents are Christian, probably here might be Christian. It's too bad that people don't search for the truth. So, let me ask you, which God is needing is the real one.

That's one of the things we want to discuss here. If there is a Creator God, then not all of the gods are in. Since each religion usually claims that it is the only true religion.

If you ask your Christian, you would probably say that Muslims do not follow the true religion. If you press a Muslim for his opinion, he would probably say that Christian is an end to hell. So, which God is needing is the real Creator.

Not all of them can be all powerful, only one. That means that there are many false gods and people, apparently, are serving and worshiping false gods. So, let's just put all of the false gods in one category.

And we can say that, okay, they're not real, they're just not real. Where did they come from? They were invented by people. People wrote documents about some supposed gods, and people believed that they started worshiping that god.

So, man created all of those false gods. So, I suspect that Mr. Glauber here is going to tell us about his god. His god is the Christian god.

And I think they'll probably agree that there's only one true god. So, that means that I need to talk about the Christian god. Like I said earlier, I think Christians get an understanding of their god from the Bible.

I just said a question at one time, and I studied the Bible for about 12 years, very intently. And after a lot of study, I've come to the conclusion that there are some problems with the Bible. And so, I wanted to share with you two of these problems.

First of all, in the book of Genesis, it explains the early history of man. God created Adam, and then Adam, when he was 135 years old, his wife gave birth to Seth. And then when Seth was 130 years old, his wife gave birth to Enoch.

Sometimes it's translated Enoch. And then Enoch, when he was 90 years old, his wife gave birth to Canaan. And you can trace the genealogy all the way down to Jesus, supposedly, from the Bible.

There was a Bishop, Bishop James Usher in 1645, who wrote a book about this time life. And he decided that God created Adam, according to the biblical account, in the year 4000 for BC. That's about 6000 years ago.

Well, there's a problem with that. And that is that there is a problem with animals, from modern archaeology, anthropology, paleontology, and more recently in genetics, that indicates that man has been around for a lot more than 6000 years. In fact, right here at the University of Georgia, there is a department of anthropology.

And I'll bet you that they don't teach that man started 6000 years ago. So, what are you to say about that? I can't hear all the proofs, all the evidence. I mean, there are PhD students working in anthropology.

There's a lot to it. So I can't give you evidence of any case that this is so. However, there is lots of evidence.

And if you go to the Gatoran, you can look up things under, like, anthropology. Do a research on anthropology and start reading. A really interesting one is to do a weird research on mitral congregale E. Mitral congregale E. The mitral congregale E is the first woman in human race.

And it's a very interesting concept. Genetic studies indicate that there are variations in mitral congregale DNA and you trace the generations back. There are fewer variations of what you had to rewrite it on the area.

But anyway, science tells us that it just thinks so. That man is a lot older than 6000 years ago. And her estimates are that almost savings have been around for about 200,000 years.

So that's one of the first questions and problems that I have with the biblical record. However, if the Bible is going to be accurate, if it's really the entire word of God, then it needs to say that man is that old. Okay, secondly, the second problem that I see from the Bible is the supposed protection of God.

In Matthew 6, verse 25, we read, and I'm going to read a number of scripture verses here, so I'm going to take a look. Verse 25, take a look by for your life. What you shall eat or what you shall drink.

Nor yet for your body, what you shall wear. It's not much more than meat and your body more than clothing. Behold, the violence of the air, for they do not sow.

Neither do they reap nor are gathering the barns. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they do? Consider the lilies of the field how they grow.

They toil not, neither do they skim. And yet I say to you that even Solomon in all your glory is not already as one of these. Wherefore if God is so full of the rest of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the other, shall be not much more full of you.

Therefore take a thought saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink, or what shall we be full of it, for your heavenly Father knows that you can know these things. But save first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Well, there it is.

A common thing in the Bible is that you should seek after God and his righteousness. Then in return God will care for you, give to you what you need. In Philippians 4 verse 16 Paul says, only my God shall supply your need according to his riches and glory, like Christ Jesus.

In Hebrews 14 says, it says, the Lord is my help rule. I will not fear the mansion I'll do to you. In verse 8 or 5 verse 6 it says, cast all your care on him, for he cares for you.

In Psalm 91 verse 10 it says, there shall no people be full, neither shall we pray come near your brother, for he shall give his angels charge over you to gain you in all his ways. They shall never bear you up in their hands, lest you dash your foot against his stone. Note how these verses provide a lot of comfort to people who believe them.

But is that how reality really works? Back in the mid 14th century, 30% of Europe, 34 million people died from the bubonic plague, also known as the lack death. It was a horrible way to die. Large black spots would form on the victims' bodies, and the bacteria would eat away at the tissue until the person finally succumbed in agony.

And most of the people in Europe were Christians. The disease attacked the same center of life. 34 million people died in that situation.

In 1918 the rule by influenza pandemic struck America. 25% of Americans got the flu that year. 675,000 Americans died from it.

The funerals were limited to only 15 minutes long that year to limit the spread of the disease. On Palm Sunday back in 1994, a tornado struck the ocean Methodist Church in Piedmont, Alabama during the Sunday morning service. 20 people died in that church that morning, including the 40-year-old daughter of the pastor of the church.

Where was the nightly protection for these people? Again, in some time he wanted to say, there shall no people be falling, neither shall any plague come near your dwelling. People talk about the goodness of God, and how he cares for the little ones. Why did he not protect that innocent little 40-year-old girl from the tornado? For me, this is a good contradiction.

How caring is it to let 34 million people die? Or the 675,000 people? Or the 20 people in that church who were there to worship God? People say that the Bible is there to be an awful word of God. If it is, it must have accuracy in what it says. It must be truthful in what it says.

These two contradictions show that there is a problem. I conclude that the Bible is not in a valuable word of God. It apparently is the words of men.

And if it is the words of men that are God in the Bible is also a fabrication of men. Man created. Thank you.

Thank you, Steve. Good evening, everyone. It's great to be with you.

And I would like to applaud everyone of you for coming out here, especially if you're not part of the Phi Kappa Society, because it shows here you have an interest in these topics. Svetlana Aludu Yellow was Joseph Stalin's daughter, and was there when he took his last breath. She reported that Stalin sat up in his bed, shook his fist defiantly at the heavens, felt that motionless to his pillow and dive.

Now, since Stalin was an atheist, it's very curious, and we must ask why it is, that someone who had such, how he could carry such hatred toward a being in whom he didn't believe. And while we may never know the answer to such a question, this does not prohibit us from asking the foreign question, and that is, does the God Stalin hated exist? Now, Steve has just argued that God does not exist, but that he's rather a figment of man's imagination, a construct of his imagination, that man created God. I think that Steve has mistaken.

And so tonight I would like to make two major contingents and defend them. The first major contention is that there is good evidence for God's existence. And second, Steve's arguments fail to support the resolution that man created God.

Now, let's go ahead and look at my first major contention. Science, and that is, that there is good evidence for God's existence. The first thing I'd like to point out is that there is scientific evidence that points to an intelligent designer of the universe and life itself.

Before we get into this, I'd like to take a moment and just talk about how it is that we identify in something that has been designed, because we have to have criteria for that, if we're going to say there's a scientific. I'd like you to criteria that's commonly used within science today. That would be one, it's got to have a complexity that is extremely unlikely to have occurred by chance.

And second, it needs to have a pattern that we normally affiliate with a personal agent. And there are a number of sciences that employ these criteria now. So, for example, in archeology, the scientist is going to want to know, is that artifact that we have is that an arrowhead that was chipped away and made by someone, a personal agent, or was this just a chance formation of the rock that chipped off of somewhere? In forensics, the scientist wants to know if it was this person, did they die of natural causes, or were they murdered? And then when we get to something like the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, we want to see those things are these just arbitrary signals from space, or are they signals from an extraterrestrial? Remember the movie contact, and they had some kind of signal in there, and they looked at it and found that it was the form of the prime numbers between one or two and 101.

We call that prime numbers as any number that is divisible only by itself and one. Now, in contact, as you can imagine, a short sequence such as 2, 3, 5 wouldn't do. It's got to be a long sequence that would seem to be strong, indicating a pattern from a personal agent.

Now, with these criteria in mind, I'd like to know ahead and look at two examples of design in science, and that has to do with cosmic fine tuning and biological complexity. Let's look first at cosmic fine tuning. Now, during the past 40 years, scientists have discovered a number of variables in factors in the universe that they've changed, that they've varied just a little.

During the initial conditions, right up at the big head, that it changed just a little, we could not have a life permitting universe. Now, given an arbitrary big bang, you'd say, well, what's the chance that we would have a universe that would have these kind of initial conditions, well, Donald Page, who is an eminent cosmologist, not a cosmetologist, but a cosmologist, a physicist, and he won a Nobel Prize. He calculated that given an arbitrary big bang, the chances of having a life permitting universe is approximately 1 in 10 followed by 1240 zeroes, and that is a conservative estimate.

But it gets even worse. There's three physicists from Stanford and MIT, Dyson and Cleveland and Sussken, recently determined that it had to be more than these initial conditions, that the universe is so hostile to life, even as it is, that in order for life to exist in the universe, at some point, after the big bang, an external agent would have had to come into a particular region in which there would be life and create conditions that were absurd and incomprehensible in order for life to, for that region, to be a life permitting universe or region in the universe. This was so convincing to them that they said, well, we're just going to, aside from this agent, we're just going to have to look for some other kind of answer, because our scientific understanding of the universe is simply wrong.

Well, perhaps that's the case, but that doesn't rule out right now, that's not less concluding scientifically that the universe certainly appears, most certainly, to be the result of an intelligent designer who will, that it be the way it is, and designed it with life in mind. In fact, Paul Davies and prominent physicist, aneminate physicist, went from, and won a Templeton Prize. He went from promoting atheism to saying, there is, for me, I'm sorry, laws of physics seem themselves to be the product of its seemingly ingenious design to concluding there is, for me, powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all.

The evidence of design, the oppression of design is overwhelming. In the similar manner, Arnold Hensius, a Nobel-winning physicist, astrophysicist, who confirmed the Big Bang theory of Bell Labs scientist, he wrote, that not only do you have these delicate and balanced conditions that are exact, but he says in the absence of it, it's certainly, in probable accident, the observations of modern science seem to suggest that, underline, one might say, supernatural plan. Now, there's also design in biological complexity.

Francis Crick was the atheist biologist who helped map out DNA and won a Nobel Prize as a result. Crick stated, an honest man armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle. So many are the conditions which would have to be satisfying to get it going.

Crick, combined with Carl Sagan, wrote on this and they estimated that even given a four and a half billion-year-old Earth, that the chances that life would come to Earth by natural causes would be one in ten followed by two billion zeroes, a number which is so inconceivable that they call it astronomical, would be to make a wild understatement. Now, with that in mind, you say, well, how does Crick, the atheist, account for how life got unearthed? Well, he postulates a theory that says that aliens came from outer space, at least they couldn't make the lengthy trip. So they put bacteria on the spaceship, sent it to Earth, which mixed with our bacteria, their own primitive hostile Earth, and that's how we got life.

Possibly. However, given the scientific evidence we have for a cosmic fine-tuning, it seems more likely, I would think, that this fine tuner, who seemed to put one on one design universe with life in mind, would have been the one, perhaps, who placed life on Earth. Anthony Flue, who was regarded by many to be the most influential atheist philosopher of the past three decades, less than two years ago, abandoned his atheism, now being convinced by the evidence from molecular biology for an intelligent designer.

When asked why he abandoned atheism and now believes in God, he says that he had to go where the evidence leads. So it just wouldn't be an accurate statement to say that, in order to believe that God exists, you have to jettison, reason, rationality, you have to leave your mind at the doorsteps. Some of the greatest minds in the world today are theists based on the scientific evidence from cosmic fine-tuning and biological complexity.

And these strongly suggest that the universe in life itself were the products of a designer. The second evidence for God's existence, I believe, and there's many, many more, but I just don't have time to present all these tonight, as I know Steve would have many more arguments, too. Time limits us.

But I think the historic evidence points to the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead, a man who claimed to be divine. This is an area in which I've spent a considerable amount of studying. Gary Habermas is considered perhaps the foremost authority in the world in the historical evidence for the resurrection and where contemporary scholars stand on this.

Habermas says, identifies twelve historical facts that he says are strongly evidence and regarded as historical facts by the large majority of scholars who study the subject today, including skeptical ones. I don't have time to go over this. There's twelve, let me give you what I think are the three most important, and those are Jesus' death by crucifixion, his empty tomb, and the beliefs of a number of people, both friend and foe, that Jesus resurrected and had appeared to them.

Now, as a historian, I want to look and find the best explanation. The criteria of this story is some of the most important part. It's got to explain all of the historical facts and do so without pushing or straining, contorting them in order to make them fit.

To give you an example, here's a puzzle of winning the poo. Now, it'd be nice if every single historical hypothesis we had explained all the facts and had everything. Unfortunately, most of what we know of antiquity is fragmented.

So if we have something where a few pieces are missing, but yet it includes all of the historical facts, let's say each piece of the puzzle is a fact, and it does so without having to contort it. Well, that's what we're looking for for the best explanation. In contrast, with one that doesn't use all the pieces, you've got to force some of them to fit, and maybe you have a complex picture out here that may or may not work, I am speculative.

That's not the kind of historical theory we want. Now, with that in mind, let's just show you how this kind of works. Loosenation, let's say the disciples were having brief hallucinations after Jesus died, and so they hallucinated these appearances of Jesus, post-preservation appearances of Jesus.

Yes, it accounts for Jesus death by crucifixion, but not the empty tomb because they hallucinated the body who's still been in the tomb. It barely accounts for the appearances of the friends, but has to push or strain it, because even though some of them are reported as individual appearances, many of them are reported as group appearances, and you just don't have group hallucinations in terms of being collective where you're seeing the same thing. And it certainly doesn't account for the appearances of the Jesus enemies, because, well, they weren't grieving, they were glad Jesus was dead.

So it doesn't have good explanatory scope power. In order to explain it, you have to import a bunch of other naturalistic hypotheses such as someone stole the body. The group appearances are later of legend, and the foes were guilty.

So you've got four, and so therefore it lacks simplicity, which is another one of the criteria for historicity. Contrast that with the hypothesis that Jesus rose from the dead explains all the facts without straining any of them, and it's very simple, and so it has the best explanation. And if Jesus rose from the dead, it's claimed to be divine is true, God exists, and has revealed Himself to us.

Now, we've seen our two arguments from God's existence from science and history. Let's move on very quickly to my second major contention in this fact, and that is that Steve's arguments fail to support the resolution that man created God. I'd like to remind you all tonight that the resolution that Steve has accepted the responsibility to defend is that man created God.

So he gave a lot of arguments against the Bible and said different Greek religions were created, but you know those same arguments could have been given by Indians to beliefs that God created, like flu, and they walked away and never even interacted with the world. It could have been given by a lot of other religions and the Buddhists. It doesn't support his position that man created God.

In fact, I didn't hear a single argument from Steve tonight that would support the resolution that man created God. So for all practical purposes, this to me is over, and Steve is lost. What we do need to talk about, but I would like to talk about this.

This is fun stuff. So many things that you mentioned. You talked about the call it invented for a man.

So a man created God and Greek mythology. Well, sure, man created some of the false gods. We all agree with that.

But he's saying man created false gods, and so all are wrong. Well, I don't think so. I mean, we could say man created some discarded scientific theories that have been disproved.

Therefore, everything we know about science today is wrong. Of course not. We have to consider everything on its own merit individually.

He also said, talked about people who aren't into the adoptive parents, the religious other parents, sure this happens a whole lot. But that's the genetic fallacy to say that we believe something for the wrong reasons. Even if we believe something for the wrong reasons, that doesn't mean that what we believe is wrong.

We grow in our epistemological understanding and reasoning over time. And because of that, a lot of people are able to transcend their horizons. I know several people, friends myself, I know a Muslim who became a Christian last August.

I know an atheist who became a Christian. We know an atheist who became a deus. I know a Christian who became a Jew.

So people do transcend their horizons. We have to look at the evidence. He says two problems with the Bible.

Genesis, 6,000 years old. A lot of Christians today don't ascribe to that. That's young earth creation.

It's a very literal interpretation. And a lot of folks don't interpret that literally. We don't interpret the parables of Jesus literally.

I myself lean toward an old earth creation that would have dropped a 4.5 billion year old earth, the 1215 billion year old universe. I have no progress on the biblical account. Now, besides, there are also theistic evolutionists.

And then he talked about, oh, all of these things. God cares for you. All these verses.

And yet, this isn't the case. Listen, Jesus is the one in the south who said that if they hated me, they will hate you. They persecuted me.

They will persecute you. A lot of the Old Testament stuff you're talking about is poetic talk on how God loves and cares for his children. And we've got this through eternal life.

Thank you. Thank you. We'll now move into the question between the speakers.

How is this going to work? Sorry. Our purpose speaker is reopening. A lot of the question is from a co-op.

This will have a negative response. And this will have a negative response. And this will have a positive, a rebuttal question.

And in response to that, if he likes, and it will switch over to Mr. Lakota as in questions and go back and forth for 10 minutes. So, as you have been. All right.

Okay, so I get to ask you a question. This is fun. Well, I have a question of our Mr. Lakota.

It has to do with intelligent design. He made some arguments for intelligent design today, as you can see. And I'm really curious.

If intelligent design is so wonderful, and so many people believe it, and it's just, boy, really the way to go, why is it that they cannot teach intelligent design in public school classrooms? That's a great question, Stephen. It really is, and it's very fair. I went to a conference just a couple of weeks ago, who had three evolutionists and three of those who embraced intelligent design.

And Michael Ruse, who's a philosopher of science at large state. He's a staunch evolutionist. He's an agnostic.

He believes everything is through naturalistic processes. But he did physical commitment to metaphysical naturalism, which is we have to look at a naturalistic explanation. Nothing else will do.

And even though he has scientific criteria for an airplane design, they don't want to discuss that at least in a science classroom because of an ethical commitment to naturalism. Okay. And now I get to give a rebuttal to that, right? Okay.

Thanks very much. The reason that intelligent design is not taught in public school science classes is because it is not science. The National Science Foundation rejects intelligent design.

The vast majority of biologists reject intelligent design. Okay. You know, Christians love to put down evolution.

They don't like evolution. Well, I'm sorry. But evolution is a hallmark of biology.

It's a very important part of biology. And it explains so many things about how plants change over time, how species change over time, and all these kinds of things. This is the accepted methodology for how species change over time.

And among all the small scientists, now of course, yes, there are some Christian scientists of their small number who say, oh, no, it's an open design. But, you know, if you take a biology class here at the University of Georgia, I guarantee you they will not be teaching intelligent design. Thank you.

Okay, Steve, I questioned for you. I just wanted to keep the debate on the topic of man-creating of God. So let's say for a moment, my worldview on Christianity, we're going to talk life to C.S. Lewis with mere Christianity, so we're not going to be able to find doctrines within Christianity, such as esophology, or modes of activism, or Calvinism, and all that stuff.

Let's just say, I would live with a Theistic evolution. I don't live in the Theistic evolution, but it would do nothing to my face. I just have to interpret Genesis a little differently.

So let's just say that theistic evolution happened, and I'm not granting that because I don't believe it, but I don't believe who they are. Let's say it happened. How would that discredit Christianity for one? And how does that support your position that man created God? Because even if Christianity is true, the way I see it, it doesn't still be true.

Another form of theism could be true. And your responsibility is to show that man created God. So even if all of my friends fail, it still doesn't work.

You've got to be able to show that man created God. Please tell us how the argument that you're presenting here from science evolution, from the support chapter of God. Okay.

Well, in my original argument, I didn't say... Oh, okay. I guess I didn't mention intelligent design. Okay.

I mentioned what scientists accept as the time of a rich, or rich homo-safe concept then, or man. Okay. And that's pretty, pretty well established now.

And if you take the course on anthropology, that's what you're going to learn about. You're going to learn a lot of things, of course, besides that. But you're going to learn that homo-safeans, evolve from an earlier species.

And it goes back in time through homo-safe actors, and home paddles, and back through australopithecus, and all of the many different species. But anyway, the second standard of your question, you're asking how the existing evolution, could you rephrase that question? If, let's say, the Earth is more than 6,000 years old, which I would say it is, how does that support your position that man created God? That's a very interesting question. So, you're not a liberalist.

So you use the people that have lived for a lot more than 6,000 years. Is that what you're saying? Okay. The problem is that the Bible says that people have been around for only 6,000 years.

If you all know, and what it says, it says, Adam was 135 when he went his white paper to set up, and then set up 130. You can just go all the way down the line now. He said, wrong.

I think what you're saying is that it's wrong. And if it's wrong, if it's wrong, and Genesis, how do we know is right in John 3.16, or anywhere else? So, it's still a problem, as far as I can say. Thank you.

The problem I see with that, Steve, is that requiring 6,000 years, I don't think it requires that. Walt Kaiser, who was an expert in the group language and now is president of Board of Commons Seminary in Boston, said that the genealogies that we find in the Old Testament, and even in Matthew's Code, it was the difference is there are some that are now somewhere included in one matter, because they reported the most important, the most notable generations that they would have known about. By the way, Kaiser says, he says those genealogies could represent human history for as much as 100,000 years.

So, there's no reason for us to require 6,000 years. I would also say that you say, well, and Genesis is wrong, and you know, hardly trust the rest of people. I do believe that in the inspiration and erics in the Bible.

However, I think that according to a Chicago state kind of an ericsy, and in Article 13, or I can't get into, but you have to interpret things according to the genre. So, it was simple to show one day that the good Samaritan really didn't exist. It wasn't an historical person reported in the terrible of Jesus.

That would be a few other things that Jesus taught in the historical genre about the resurrection of Jesus or certain things that he said. So, I don't want to confuse God over there. Again, I don't think that the earth is old, but that does anything to challenge Christianity, and even more so that it doesn't support your position and not create a pain.

All right, I think it is time for a more question from each. However, we have to, for a time, say, talk to our fellow sittles. Well, I'll tell you what, could you ask a question first? I can't even think longer.

Oh, sure. Well, I just could come back to what I started glued into in the first question, and that is, would you state specifically, okay? Since you're affirmative, you have to defend the position that man created God. Now, I would like to know clearly, you know, what evidence you would show that.

And when you say man created God, it's not that there have been instances when humans created a God, a specific kind of, I mean, really, it could have been something like, they recognize the divine being and now they write terrors to try to describe that being. I would like to know what evidence you think there is to support atheism. And atheism believes that it says man created God.

Very good. Okay. Well, you know, this debate is actually stacked against me.

And he's writing this up. And he's correct. In the part that I presented, I didn't get it as okay.

There are many gods out there that are false. I think we can all agree to false gods, we're not real. And that's going to be like 99% of the person who man created that.

It's just that last, that last little one that's harder to deal with. Michael Kona is going to say that it's the Christian God district. So that's why I then provided some information about how man created the Christian God.

The way that he created the Christian God is that man made the Bible. I'm saying that the Bible is the words of men. There were men who sat down and wrote it.

And it was not invaluable, it was not perfect. I showed two examples of how it's not perfect. That is the education that is not inspired, it's not perfect.

And then, since man is the one that made the Bible God. You see it? So that means that man created that. Now, it really does not prove that there isn't still some other guy out there.

It's kind of like you've got a mouse under a rug and it's run here, and then you can use over there so you can put over there and hold their nose over here. It's an impossible task. But I got 99% over there.

So maybe I'll just have to leave it at that. How can you prove anything like this? How can you prove that God created man? He can't. But the way the debate has been worded is if your mind resolved man created God.

Well, that's a difficult thing to really prove. All I can do is provide some evidence for you that gets us a long way there, but as you can prove, and you really can't quite do it. Could you say no? Okay.

Okay. Let me see if I can figure out a question. Okay.

You said in your argument that the chance of a universe consistent was some number of content with many, many powers or whatever. It appears to me that the chance of a universe existing is one because we are back here in the universe. Okay.

Again, the universe didn't exist. We wouldn't be here to be even considering that the universe couldn't exist. And so the fact that we are here means the probability of the universe existing is one.

It seems to me because, like I said, if it didn't exist, we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be considered. What are your comments on that? Thank you.

I think you misunderstand how probability works. Because what we are looking at here is not the chances that the universe would be here but the chances that it would be a light permitting the universe. Well, let's suppose you adjust your statement to say, okay, well, the chances of the phenolite permitting the universe must be one or 100% because we'll look out.

And here we are. Well, let's look at things in hindsight. That would be like saying the chances that the universe would win the Super Bowl this year is one hundred percent because, well, they did.

Well, not even the most die-hard steeler than it was said that a few months ago. You have to look at things from the very beginning and that's why not on the page and others have looked and said, okay, given our return explosion of the big thing, we're going either way. Light permitting, light permitting, the chances of having a light permitting the universe is one in ten followed by gazillion zeros.

And as I mentioned, Bison Clayton's system says it gets even worse than that because the next correlation to introducing comprehensible and certain conditions that a region in the universe is required to have light in that region. All right. We're now going to move into the two-minute closing statements and then after that, we're going to have a four-year-old to ask questions.

So let's start with the two. Okay. Well, now this is interesting because I didn't even realize that there would be ten minutes in closing statements, but I'll be glad to get some closing statements.

I'll be fine. I recall seeing a TV concert recently, a woman and her child who were rescued by a postcard on their house top in New Orleans. The house was surrounded by water.

The helicopter let down the cable with a cage at the end, then the people signed into the cage and they were all placed up into the house after. After the rescue, the woman talked to reporters. She told them, praise Jesus, thank Peter Jesus that he sent somebody to rescue us.

Well, I don't think it was Jesus who rescued them. I think it was a postcard. Why did she not thank the postcard for rescuing them? Ladies and gentlemen, we need to get credit where credit is due.

Now, how about when people pray before a meal? They thank God for the food and they ask that it nourishes that well. Then they ask for God's blessing in the prayer. Why not thank the person who looked food on the table? Why not thank the person who went to the store to buy the food for the person who worked to get the money to buy the food? We need to give credit where credit is due.

Many of us watch the Olympics on our new high definition TV sets that's asking how to buy it. We could see what was happening on the other side of the earth lined in people. People have worked to design these new televisions.

Many have worked to make television less expensive so that they are affordable to the average person. We have so many blessings all around us, and I like to use the word blessings. We have medicine, you know, or of terrible diseases.

I think of penicillin and when it was invented. Where did antibiotics come from? Did God hand out the solution for bacterial infections to some fellow? And then he just mass produced it? No. People studied infections for many years before they discovered how they treated it.

It took a hard room of scientists to finally arrive at the solution. To quote Robert Ingersoll, these blessings did not fall from the skies. These scientists did not drop from the hot-spread hands of religious leaders.

They were not found in individuals or behind holders. Neither were they found using holy candles. They were not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer.

Nor did they come in answer to superstitious supplication. They are the results of freedom, the gifts of reason, observation, and experience. And for them all, man is indebted to man.

Let's give credit for accredited stew. Thank you very much. Thanks, Steve.

I've been enjoying our exchange this evening. I hope we cannot stay in touch. And again, I want to thank all of you for coming out this evening.

It's just been a delightful evening, and I'm more than happy to stay out here and have a discussion if you like. To recall in my opening speech, I said that I would make and defend two major contentions this evening. The first intention was that there is good evidence that God exists.

And the second major contention is that Steve's arguments fail to support the resolution that man has created God. Now, Steve said that, well, it appears that the debate was stacked against him. That's an admission that he just has no arguments to support his views.

And this still doesn't answer the evidence that I provided, that good evidence exists for God's existence. Now, the evidence I did provide, I said, first of all, you have biological complexity and cosmic fine tuning. Steve just responded in the Q&A that, well, IB is not taught in science classes because it's not science.

I contend with that. I answered that by saying, even evolutionary biologists today have lots of science admit that it is a metaphysical commitment to naturalistic evolution and act of faith to believe that we all came from non-life due to the biological complexity out there. So that is why we don't have it.

He says, well, that's why we don't have it in classes. He said, well, there are the National Academy of Science says, that's not science. It shouldn't be in the classroom.

Well, as a whole, yes, but that again is because I believe the majority of scientists today within that community are committed to metaphysical naturalism if you ask any of them, they would tell you so. But there is a list out that you can see. It's published on the Internet of more than 500 scientists with doctors from the American National Academy of Science, some from the Russian Academy of Science and other prestigious scientific institutions who say that they have problems with naturalistic evolution.

And that is not a gift. So I don't think that just saying that it's not science because a number of human committed to metaphysical naturalism, I don't think that works. I gave scientific criteria already used in science and used those criteria within molecular biology and astrophysics to show that there is indeed scientific reasons for believing that there is an intelligent designer of the universe and life itself.

Then my second evidence was the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, he claimed to be divine. He presented three historical facts for which there is strong historical data and which the vast majority of Jesus' stories, including skeptical ones, grant them as facts. Then I showed how historians look for the best explanation to weigh the hypotheses and we're looking for which one includes all the facts and does it with that strain and for simplicity and how the resurrection of Jesus is by far the best explanation for the historical data.

In fact, folks, I've been in the process now already in my dissertation. I'm looking over virtually everything written on the resurrection by scholars since 1985. And it's amazing the kind of stuff that you see in the scholar who can see the evidence is that good.

Now they may not grant that Jesus rose from the dead, but they do grant all of the facts behind it. And they do grant that the resurrection really does come out in most cases to be the best explanation. Why do most, or many, I would say most, they won't, but why do many skeptical historians reject the resurrection? Well, there's a number of different reasons, but it really boils down to that kind of physical commitment again.

You see, for Steve, he's a negative expert. And so to say that these things didn't happen, that evolution, the origin of man, have to hire naturalistic evolution, he has to take them. Because as Avi Planica, a philosopher at Notre Dame says, for the atheist, evolution is the only game in town.

No matter how fantastic the odds are against it occurring by natural puzzles, he has to accept that there's no other option. The thesis on the other hand is not bound to say that these things cannot happen. And look at the years, you can look at things objectively using scientific criteria and say, getting or may.

It did happen that way or it didn't happen that way. Without sort of a metaphysical bias, it's not to say that I don't have a metaphysical bias. I would be lying to say that I did not, I do.

But as a historian, I try my best to come out of my horizon to try and send that at times. It's impossible for anyone to do that, but we try the best we can and work with the data that we have. So I think that the evidence for the resurrection is really good.

And it shows that not only does God exist, but that he has actually revealed himself to mankind in Jesus Christ. And that more than the conclusion that God, man created God or that God exists, I think we can go further than that and say that he's revealed himself in Jesus Christ and that Christianity is true. And I just want to encourage all of you in here tonight that if you've never really given Christianity some serious thought, I would encourage you to do so because if Jesus really grows from the dead, then that confirms his claim to be divine.

And he said that God loves us all. He really cares for us. The Creator of the universe actually cares for us.

And that gets me excited and keeps me going every day. Thank you very much for coming out this evening. He's a loving God.

He cares for us and yet we have tsunamis and tornadoes and all the rest of it. Isn't it much more consistent with the idea that man created God that you would have this very imperfect description of a very imperfect God? You sat in your closing speech that God loves us and yet we got all of the evidence that he doesn't. Great.

Thanks for raising that point. I would say that we both have problems with the existence of evil pain and suffering in the world. I'm sure I want to skirt it and just sweep it down to the carpet.

I wonder why God allows all the evil in the world. I would say that this is not evidence for atheism, but aside from that, I would say that because the D is could often the same argument. But my worldview says that the reason that we have evil pain and suffering in the world is because the fall of man due to sin.

It also tells the evil pain in the world also tells us that something is definitely wrong with this world as it is. But we can see that what's going on is in the places where there's the most suffering, there's the greatest number of people who are really looking up for help from God and comfort from him. So if the Christian view is correct and eternity is in balance, then I would think God would be justified, morally justified to do, for all the punches and do what it takes to get evil to look at him.

I also say that there is a soul in the Odyssey here that says that this develops character in us, the pain and suffering. But even worse, there is evil worse against you, the atheist. And I want to show you how this is... If God does not exist, then there's no objective basis for saying that something is evil.

It's just a matter of the game. If you like saying, well, I know these earthquakes and tsunamis and fandons and fires, and all these people die in everything in cancer and little ones dying. And I'd love to have this debate with you, but I think you can... Say, well, why do you think that that... On what basis are you saying that's wrong? Well, it's just my opinion.

You see, if God does not exist, then morality is just simply a matter of opinion. There's no reason why Hitler couldn't even choose this wrong because it was an opinion that it was okay to do that. Our opinion is different.

But let me show you why evil actually proves God's existence. You see, and those in the fighting campers, society, literary society, are likely on formal logic. It's a hypothetical syllogism with most holies.

If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist. If the objective moral values do not exist, then there is no basis for calling something of genderly evil. Evil exists, as you mentioned.

Therefore, objective moral values exist. If objective moral values exist, it follows logically and inescapably that God exists. So, while the problem of evil certainly does come to the question something about character of God, it actually demonstrates the existence of God because if God does not exist, you have no basis for saying something as evil.

Just my opinion that you didn't answer my question. All right, thank you. As a member of the fact that there is society, I agree that we do like logic.

I'd like to ask you how your hypothetical syllogism would stand if somebody were to say that objective basis for evil do not exist and that all evil is based on subjectivity. It seems that that would completely destroy the life. You're right.

It would destroy the syllogism, but I wouldn't need it. Because as soon as you say that it's just not based on any objective thing, it's all a matter of opinion. Your argument against, his argument against the existence of God makes those evil collapses.

Because now he has no basis to say something as evil. All I'm saying is, well, some things happen to me and others and I don't like it. So, God doesn't exist.

I don't like, let me just minimize this. You want to know what I'm saying. I don't like saying, I don't like for a nine to five.

They're saying God doesn't exist. That's what it boils down to. That's not to say that the earthquakes and things like that.

I'm not trying to visualize, but I'm trying to show how that logic works. If God doesn't exist, then everything's a matter of opinion. In some cultures, we love our enemies and others, we eat them.

Who's to decide between the two cultures who's writing in wrongs? Can't say that when people are into the Jews as wrong. Unless you have an objective morality that transcends the two cultures for which they would do in between the two. All right.

Some other questions from Mr. Yeithman? Are these one? You argue against one religion or belief in one specific God, but what if you believe that all the gods are just one supreme full earth? And because there's so many common archetypes in all the religions, there's so many things that people are, say, God is benevolent, and nice to people that are more opposed. So, what would you argue against that? Well, first thing you have for your argument, it's a really nebulous thing when they're talking about something like that. You're a welcome to have whatever beliefs you want.

We live in America, so believe here, and believe, you have any individual who can believe the same truth, as long as they're not doing something legal in the process. So you can certainly believe as you choose, and that's kind of a cool thing. And to some degree, I don't have an argument against that.

But I do like thinking logically, as logical as I can, and I like to use gruesome. And I don't see any really solid proof that there is any God that exists. So I just have to leave it there.

In there, man. Okay, so my question is going to be, well, I'm sorry. I'm not going to be afraid of this, but I'm sorry.

My father is not a Christian. He basically was at rock bottom of his life. He had a notion that he heard from policy, and he was down in the South Dakota, and he went down there.

He got there. There were no tickets. So he left and went back to his car.

When he got back to his car, man, ground by the arm, and told him that, you know, what if he was in for a ticket? And he said, yes, it was. So he took him back to the Georgia Dome, found out of this man standing there, and said that, you know, the scout at the ground by the arm said, you have an extra sequence, and he said, actually I do. I was in front of mine, he'd show up.

So I was a person I was going to take to. But after the thing from it, he turned the bank to back, and man was gone. I was wearing a wear machine credit.

For stores like this, for, you know, people that actually have stories about their lives that, you know, you think only God is playing. It's working with credit. It's great to do.

Well, it sounds like this gentleman who met your dad who took him on the arm and took him over to the other fellow who he had attended, he knew that your dad was looking for a ticket, or that he didn't have, and that's probably why he went back to the car. I suppose, perhaps. And he was a helpful person.

And I don't think your fellow man is a wonderful thing. So that was a good thing that he did. Now you say, when your father turned down, he was gone.

Does that mean that he disappeared into the crowd, or do you think that he was gone? Was that the case? I don't know. I don't think about that, because that doesn't count as pretty often. I think that that profits my father to a progressive person, and I don't think it's climate.

It's not the chance, as we've talked about, the chance of us like, what are the chances at that concert, at that thing that he was surprised for? Yeah. What are the chances of that? How do you get credit? You know, people have all kinds of unusual experiences, and many things on them, you can't explain. You can conjecture that all this was named, perhaps.

But it's conjecture. There's nothing really solid that you can say. It was just that.

And I just think that that was not a very helpful person. All right. How about the other person who went in here? No question.

You can't mention me. I'm sorry. You speak here or ask me a question? I'm sorry.

I'm going to remain in the world. Okay. I'm speech.

You're supposed to. You can't mention me. That people give credit to God and have a good night in the lives.

And you're saying, get credit, and credit is due with getting the rest of the post office and credit to the post office. But in the same respect, isn't that still getting credit to the credit is due because although God is coming out of heaven himself to the rest of the world, he puts you in a place that the post office has a place to see you and then to also rest in you. So instead of backing down himself, he's using other people as a daily voice service.

I already bet. I understand what you're saying. But how do you know that it was really kind of behind it? It's all kind of nebulous.

The point of my clothing is that so many times I think people credit God for something that's really a person. And I think we just need to be careful that we give credit to people. So many things around us that we have are the result of some person doing something for us.

For example, the reason you're able to be here in college is because your parents paid for their tuition. And we ought to be very thankful to parents who do that. And medicine.

And I don't know. I drove in a car here other than five miles. And I did use them twice about the car right now.

There have been people who have developed cars and made them reliable and safe. And so I really think that we should be thankful that there are people who help us like that. And I think that relying on other people is a really neat thing.

And we can rely on other people for things. And that could be a great thing. Thank you more importantly.

But that we need to recognize who really did it for us. If it was a person, then give that a person credit. All right.

We have time to start with more questions that I asked our speakers to have limited time of their answer just so we can get as many questions as possible. So we have a question for Mr. Lincoln has. Up there in the structure, yes.

Thanks. This is a mutual photo. It marks one other day in statistical probabilities.

We did any objective group for ADOT. And if not, why would ADOT threaten us with help or organization or just even insist that we welcome them? And they here know objective group. Thank you.

That's a good question. I think he has given us objective group. He said statistics.

But intelligent design. Remember, there's two criteria. It's not only that it's extremely unlikely to have occurred by natural causes.

But the second is that it exhibits a pattern we normally affiliate with in personal ways here. I showed how that is present within biological complex being a positive fine tool. So using the objective criteria is the science to identify the science.

You can see that in those two areas. I also pointed out historic evidence for the resurrection of Jesus and that would likely be objective group, I think, or evidence for the existence of God in a specific way. So I disagree with the second thing he said that ADOT would refuse to give subjective proof and then turn around and then damn someone forever for not believing in something when no objective proof was available.

I just don't see that as the case. I think we'll do have objective proof. All right.

I'm ready. I got a question for Steve. You keep mentioning that credit must be given to where it's due and when somebody does something nice to be a credit to the person I've gotten, well, people didn't create in the universe, so we get credit for them.

We're the universe. One who created the universe. It was obviously something out of person.

So how can we, you know, the answer is we don't know. And you just leave them there. Okay.

That sounds like a burning answer. That sounds like a funny answer, but let me tell you something. It's a great answer.

Because it's the truth. How do you know that there was a guy that we've been afraid of tonight? So we just don't know that. We have to say, we don't know.

And I don't know. I think it's a billion. It's a billion.

I'm sorry. Could you close again? The question was, if we give credit to our credit is due and we give credit to people and they do something nice, people didn't create the universe, so we can do credit for it for the Christian family. Okay.

Great. I was doing it. Well, as a Christian, I give credit to God and God of the Christian family, because I believe that, again, the scientific evidence of points to an intelligent designer, which that is, doesn't necessarily confirm the Christian family.

It's just simply consistent with it. Because the evidence of an intelligent designer would also be consistent with God of the Qur'an and the God of Judaism and some other religions. It's consistent with that.

I think it's the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus that shows that the intelligent design of the universe has revealed itself precisely to Jesus Christ. So that's who I do the credit for. Or to the creation of the universe in life.

All right. Is the portal that I have, you know? It is for my, in my hypothesis, the syllogism that most poems, it requires that in order for objective morality, you insist that God must exist. When I say objective, what I mean by that is that something is morally right or wrong, irrespective of what others think.

So it is more than a matter of opinion. It's more than a matter of survival or quality of life. There is something, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. But there is something in there, so I'm going to do that right. I'm going to do this.

I'm going to do this, and I'm going to use it right now, because I'm going to do that right now, and I'm going to do that right now. So, if not exist, so there are no laws written in stone anywhere, there is no ultimate command or something where it is a character morality is based, and we're all chance products of naturalistic biological evolution. Now, given that, why would something be wrong? Why would the murder or rape or killing the old things for the thought of the slavery? Why would those things be wrong? I'm talking about the jacket.

But why is that wrong? Why is it wrong to infringe with others? It seems like it's a matter of opinion. You're opinion. I'm not.

I'm the same with you. I'm the same with you. I'm the same with you.

Okay. I appreciate that. My only point is, if God has not existed really, we can have morals.

I'm not at all insinuating that peace is very moral. I think they're very moral. I don't want to speak, but I'm sure he's very moral.

I had some of these friends. They're very moral. A lot of integrity.

I'm not saying that peace is very moral. I'm not saying they can't recognize morality. He said the reason they do it and see things is really wrong is because it's been placed there.

And errandly by God in a conscience and without God's existence, there's no basis for concept and gently wrong. All right. In the left.

Okay. Mr. Lacon, we know that you were an atheist. The question is, when did you become a Christian? I was not an atheist.

You were born without religion, sir. That meant you. Well, when I became a Christian at age 10, and I did at that point because I was looking for a way to have it.

I heard the gospel and how I could get there, and that's when I became a Christian at age 10. My epistemological processes have developed a little since then, and in graduate school I went through a period of intense questioning of my faith, almost just in my faith. And as a result of making digging into the evidence, and I decided after looking at the evidence, I would stay with Christianity.

Others have changed to Christianity from other people. Other people of other world would be confused and switched. I was one who stayed with, and I can say, as a doctor will work, I'm trying to transcend Horizon and get into the minds of skeptics during the time people within the last year.

And I thought, I could take this or do this, because I was trying to get into the head and get out of my own horizon. But then, as I'm sitting there, I'm going to start looking at the evidence for the resurrection. Well, that makes me laugh at the Christian.

Could you create a good, long guide? Hi, is there a question? Someone recognized the evidence differently. Thank you. Hi.

I'm going to try and sign both the resurrection and the resurrection. If you're districting a button, after Christ's death, there's someone I might make a correction. Well, from 12 men who were involved, 11 of which died through some deaths.

He knew, killed, executed, because of their age of Christ. Now, I'm here to view, all they had to say was, hey, Christ's integration with that. Christ's even had to be one of those.

And the Christ can be saved. A number of those 12 died by spearing, precipitation, stoning, burning, and whatever. But here's the problem I have.

If it was a lie, it's one thing to die for something, believing that it's true. I know people die all the time, different provisions for that. There's no thing to die for a lie, knowing it's a lie.

The question I have for you, sir, is, do you believe those men all swell, especially if it's in the first few, if they hadn't experienced anything from their faith? Do you think they died knowing what their meaning was a lie? I didn't know you could. I'm sorry, I had to say. The last part of the question was, do I think that they believe the lie, or do I think that they believe the lie when they died? Correct.

Now, assuming that you don't believe Christ's integration with that, that is correct. There's too many others for that to be. However, so my question is, the reason I kind of chose between these, because these guys would have to die.

Not just for Abraham's death, but they had to die. This is a hoax. They had to die.

They would have to die. He's kind of just knowing it was a lie. Searchable.

How do we even know that these clothes may exist? Okay. I don't think they'll know. All right.

Say it again. I know the Bible records. It says, well, yeah, they were wonderful people.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't think they'll ever know.

I don't think they'll ever know. I don't think they'll ever know. I don't think they'll ever know.

I have been exposed to people who are religiously zealous. And I'll tell you, when someone is religiously zealous, it is amazing that they wanted to fight and understand, for example, some of them like Paul, going all over the place according to the bookmarks. And just being so zealous and teaching is hard out, and being so committed to just being, I can understand that.

And, you know, they very well even the 12 were very committed to their faith and their beliefs also. But as far as I'm concerned, the account that they actually saw him, Jesus, after he rose from the dead, I just go, I don't believe. I don't think he did rise from the dead.

I think that this was just a story that somebody wrote and it became the Bible. Then the disciples ever exist. There's so much evidence for it, but Paula Frederick's an esceptical scholar at Boston University says in her book on why Jesus said, and remembers the skeptics, he said, the disciples conviction that they had seen the risen Christ is the storeable bedrock, thanks known, passed down.

So I don't know if anyone who is a credible scholar in the existence of Jesus or the disciples out there, not saying Steve does, he was just making a statement. How do we know they existed? But we do know because there is very good evidence for it. Regarding being a fanatic, that groups who are into fanaticism, they can believe anything, well, that might work for the apostles.

But it wouldn't explain the empty tomb, which we have great historical evidence for, and it wouldn't explain why non-fanatics of Christianity, like Paul, who was out killing Christians. He was out trying to destroy the church. It wouldn't at all explain his conversion because he saw the risen Jesus or the skeptic James.

I think he only has had one more question. In the very back, he can speak up for us, and I thought the other question was, how do you build your partner? Now, what then is your willing to hack it and do you have a better understanding? First, I'm a biopsy. Guys are all powerful.

Why are they evil? If you want to quote Matthew, you can hear the sound. But I'm here to finish the first joke. I'm here to propose that he could create the book of Revelation, for the situation, were even for sufficient thought and Christianity does have an answer to the answer to the answer to the answer to the answer.

That's all good. Why is there a need for my world? Can we see the good, strong answer. Christianity says that that is good and yet the theology has made it commonized in what Christians said.

But I wonder if you really did, accurately, what it does is that it's a response to Christianity itself. My argument was specifically that if God was good, I was wrong. talking about a contradiction in life, okay, the verses that I indicated showed that God supposedly cares for his people, and that there is an employee from Matthew 6 that if people see that for God and do his will, that God will care for them and give them what they mean.

That was, that was, basically. And then there were the other verses that I, I mentioned, for which Mr. O'Connor said, well, it's just an interpretation of something like this. I thought I presented the case separately.

They all had things to follow up. You seem to say that the Bible is man's word. I agree with you, but I also agree that it's God's word.

You keep on saying that man or creative is God. Sometimes like, you know, for the Bible, that's good, for the rejection, her life, he was always a rejection, she would have to choose. But then my question is, if man didn't mean God, why would man ever be a God that holds comfort for our legal actions? Why would he really recognize this? Why would he or be a God that demands coolings while we think about that pulls us or spreads us with value and help for the sin that is going to get us in? If I were to protect God, I wouldn't want that kind of God.

If I were God, I wanted to kind of God that kind of harmonizes with my drugs. I would have God that will never open it up with you, right? And I would have God that never wants to punish you for why it isn't what you call a sin. So watch me.

Make sure that you don't always get what you want to say. Obviously, there's a lot going on in life. Stay on the subject.

That's what we might want back if you have time to our hall, but our hall is going to cross from the chat where we're going to be debating. We're just talking to stress, demanding our truth. How do you convince us? I want to think of coming to our speakers.

I think these are a big round of applause. Thanks for joining us today. If you'd like to learn more about the work and ministry of Dr. Mike Lacona, visit RisenJesus.com where you can find authentic answers to genuine questions about the reliability of the gospels and the resurrection of Jesus.

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