¶1Right, let's see if this is actually working. Uh, waiting to hear my own voice. >> Everything's peaked. >> That's not good. >> Working.
¶2There we go. Lovely. All right. So, hello everybody. Um, good to have you here.
¶3My hair's a little bit silly. Uh, I I just came back from holiday. Hey, sweetest girl online. Good to have you here. So, yeah, I just came back from holiday in uh Norfolk.
¶4That's where I was. if you're interested. And what my head's just going to be weird. Um, but I thought basically I I like I like doing this channel. I wasn't able to do anything last like it's been a while since I've done this.
¶5So, I thought I should be back. And while I was gone, I mean, obviously a whole thing happened. Basically, a guy called Joe Schmidt, who I have actually kind of responded to before. Uh, he used to be an atheist, but he was a very charitable atheist. uh he was one who would always kind of say, "Oh, you know, actually I think there's, you know, atheists are often very silly and they often make very bad arguments." You know, he's one of those types of people.
¶6And hey, Presto, he's no longer an atheist. He is a Catholic. Now, look, obviously I can start this whole video off making the important point that someone becoming a Catholic, it's not a good thing. Uh, obviously this Joe Schmid, he's still going to have to like just like as if he was an atheist, he's going to have to stand before God and explain why it is that he did not accept the offer of salvation. Because that's the thing, the offer of salvation is Jesus Christ died for your sins.
¶7If you're going to say that actually Jesus Christ's death was not enough and you need to supplement his death by doing something else to atone for your sins, you are rejecting the offer. And in a way, actually, he's arguably now worse off than if he was an atheist. Because while I don't think this is something atheists should place significant amounts of hope in, at least as an atheist, you can say, well, I didn't even realize that the whole religion thing was true. You still have to kind of deal with the fact of, well, considering how huge religion is as a part of the human experience, you should have had some intellectual curiosity to look into it. But you maybe have more of an excuse compared to this guy who's literally like, "Yeah, I've looked into it and I decided uh that, you know, never mind the gospel.
¶8I don't care about that. I'm just going to follow the Pope." Anyway, let's see. So, this is an incredibly long thing. It's from Pints of Aquinas. This is the clip.
¶9I I saw a a clip from this, so I might skip through this video a bit because I don't want to spend a whole 3 hours and 20 minutes looking at it. But, let's jump in. You have a popular agnostic [music] aine on divine happened. It's just baiting father Gregory Pine on divine simplicity and I'm pretty sure you won which pissed me off a little bit. >> Did I win?
¶10>> I didn't piss. >> I don't know if going Catholic is doubling down near rejecting Christ. That is a step in the right direction. even if you are Protestant. The the reason why it's doubling down is because at that point you're literally saying I think that Christianity is true or rather let me phrase I think that Jesus Christ was a real person and I'm more resolute in my belief that he didn't do what the Bible says he does.
¶11Like it it I would actually say for example becoming a Muslim for an atheist becoming a Muslim is actually an that person is kind of doubling down on rejecting Christ. an atheist becoming a Jew, that's certainly doubling down on rejecting Christ. Even though you could argue in some sense it's a step in the right direction. If it's a Muslim, you say, "Well, at least the Muslim believes Jesus is the Messiah. Well, at least the Jew believes that uh Moses was a legitimate prophet.
¶12At least the Catholic believes that Jesus was God." The problem is that actually they're still falling short of recognizing what Jesus Christ actually achieved on the cross and the significance of that for their hopes when it comes to their salvation. And based on that, it's almost like the fact they're stepping closer into that position means that they are making it more apparent that they're not interested in going the full way. That's my take. >> That I'm just joking. If I'm defending falsehood, I think I I think I lost.
¶13>> No, it was pretty wild. I would I don't know. It wasn't like a knock him down, drag him out kind of thing, but I remember Father Pine calling me and he's like cuz he saw a picture of you and you know, you look kind of young. And he's like, should I be debating this guy? I mean, he's like, I know I'm not one to talk cuz I look young, but this guy looks really young.
¶14I'm like, trust me, he's really smart. It's just So, anyway, you come on as an atheist agnostic and debate Father Pine. You did really well. And then a couple months ago, >> I didn't even mention, by the way, that so just as I was about to I saw a post from Paul Gia the atheist and he was saying like, oh, you know, it's crazy how much this Joe Schmid guy, by the way, his name is spelled Schmid without a T on the end. And that irritates me because I mean the name is Schmidt.
¶15Like Schmidt. That's the surname. The surname you have is Schmidt, not Schmid. But I'm gonna call him Schmid because that's how his name is sel spelled. Mr.
¶16Schmid stupid name Schmid. Anyway, so Schmid uh Apologia was saying, "Oh, Schmid is getting so much lovebombing from Christians and isn't this this just, you know, is kind of showing how Christianity is a cult or whatever." Anyway, I don't know. But like I was like looking at I was like man I'm like I'm so I'm so not of this world because all I'm seeing on Twitter is just true Christians just talking about how terrible this is. How horrible it is to see another person just getting suckered into a false religion. I mean we don't really care because again you know it was a it's a I mean ultimately I suppose it's a lateral move.
¶17Axiom saying yeah but what the Bible means is debatable. So I don't think it's the same at all. Like both Catholic and Protestant would argue their position is taught by the Bible. The problem there is that obviously Jews would argue that they have the most correct interpretation of the Old Testament. Muslims would argue that and you know it's a bit of a weird situation with the Muslims but because you know in some sense they do just end up saying well the whole thing's corrupt in which case they think they have reasons for thinking that.
¶18But they'll also say things like no actually in the gospel there are loads of indications that actually Jesus uh wasn't divine and he he was just you know a man. So people always have these arguments, which actually I think that's kind of what I mean when I say it's a problem, right? Because again, an atheist has the has a greater possibility of realizing the Bible is true and then like they're a blank slate as far as seeing what is evidently written in the Bible. Whereas someone who's going to say, "Oh, actually, you know, it's debatable and this is what I've decided it means. So, you know, that's what I'm committing to." That's kind of a worse situation.
¶19Uh again, and obviously no one would even deny that in the case of someone who's like, "Hey everyone, you know, I'm really convinced of the Bible, specifically the Old Testament, which I believe fully affirms Judaism." >> I get a call from our mutual friend Cameron Batuzi, and he's like, "Uh, so Joe Schmmed just converted to Catholicism." [laughter] So you and I have intentionally not talked about it. Even over lunch, we didn't talk about it. >> Okay, we're going to do some >> I want to get through this. with more recently over the last couple of years. >> So, we're going to see the first domino.
¶20Ready? First, actually, let's just look what we've got. Okay, so we've got the first domino, the problem of evil. I don't know if we need to talk about that because Okay, denom demonic phenomena testimony. Our Lady of Zun apparition telling family the miracle of calendar medically documented healing investigating Eucharistic miracles Adam Blly stigmata testing the Fatima apparition Padropio stigmata confession and return wrestling with the doctrine church teaching on homo something the divine hiddenness something answering the problem of something okay whatever we'll see how much of this is actually talking about uh Protestantism.
¶21I saw a clip from this podcast where I was talking about Protestantism. >> It was an argument for God's existence called the psychophysical harmony argument. So for the longest time I had been agnostic, right? I was initially atheist. Well, I was initially Catholic.
¶22We'll get back to that. I >> So I should say this. Sorry. Form's most beautiful. This is an interest.
¶23So basically what I would say is that someone who is a Catholic in an entirely non-intellectual way which is to say actually not meaningfully Catholic is actually quite easy to get saved. This is why, for example, you're seeing evangelical Christianity explode in Latin America because ultimately these are people who they've just been indoctrinated into Catholicism and it's actually very easy, trivially easy for people to just come along and say actually no, here's the true gospel and just point it out. So there is the fact that in these places where just everyone's Catholic, it's actually quite easy for Protestantism to have success because you can just say, "Okay, no, here's actually the serious gospel for people who are serious about hold it. You mean it's not just about a bunch of men in dresses swinging around in sense? Oh, sign me up." So that is true.
¶24The problem is I think that when someone intellectually is Catholic, I think they're then closing themselves off much more so to the gospel in a way where I think you can almost like for example I said before I don't see unfortunately Alex Okconor ever becoming a Christian. I think he could and it would be, you know, obviously a really powerful testimony if he did, but I think much more likely he's going to become a Catholic or an Anglican or, you know, some kind of mainline Protestant maybe, but he's not going to become a Christian. And I think the reason for that is because it's seems pretty obvious from how he presents himself that he's very invested in this intellectual like over in intellectualization of things and I think therefore the simplicity of the gospel is going to elude him. That's my concern. And the reason I bring that up is because actually while I'm saying these people who kind of have this intellectual philosophical, oh, I've read a whole load of books and blah blah blah and I'm really smart and I've concluded Catholicism is true.
¶25That's a problem. I think it's actually an extension of a problem that probably pre-existed them becoming Catholic. I think these people who have this idea of, oh no, I'm like really smart and I'm going to properly have this intellectual investigation in terms of discovering God. I think those people are already starting from such a dodgy foundation that them becoming uh a religion, you know, one of these false gospels that tries to kind of outsmart the source material. Uh Calvinism is another good example of this.
¶26Uh it it can kind of be predicted is my concern. You say, "I mean you're intellectual, too." Here's the thing though, not as much as you might think, right? Because at the end of the day, um, but you are kind of right. You are right. You're right in a really interesting way.
¶27So basically for me, um, that overintellectualizing was definitely a stumbling block I had to overcome. That is true. The thing is I think it's quite hard to overcome that stumbling block. So that's my only concern. That's why because I say it but I think that I am and I hate you know this is going to sound almost arrogant.
¶28I don't really mean to be arrogant. I just mean to be how it is. I think I'm unique in terms of like this is why people are surprised like that. I mean there's no there's no ambiguity here. When people find out I mean first of all people are surprised to find out I'm Christian in the first place.
¶29But when people find out I am Christian, I think most people assume that I'll be some sort of, oh yeah, you know, I'm I'm a Catholic. I've read all of Aquinus or I'm an Anglican. Uh people don't expect me to say, oh no, actually I'm a evangelical Baptist who is much more likely to be comfortable in Joel Ostein's megaurch than in the holy church of St. Fatima or whatever. Like that's the situation.
¶30But I was initially um you know very skeptical of the psychophysical harmony argument when I came across it in um I think in college no maybe maybe the end of college the beginning of grad school. So you know I've been agnostic for quite some time. I thought that the evidence for and against God's existence was roughly counterbalanced. It was hard to tell one way or another which way the evidence pointed. And you know I had some I had lots of evidence against God's existence and the problem of evil and hiddenness and confusion and whatnot.
¶31But I had some arguments that I thought pointed towards God's existence like the contingency argument and certain arguments relating to consciousness. But really nothing tipped the scales particularly significantly. But then this paper came along published in Oxford studies and philosophy of religion by Brian Cutter. He's a philosopher at Notre Dame. I just say okay actually real quickly.
¶32So you don't think Catholicism is a reasonable interpretation of Christianity? It's just all that you is obviously false. Um, so I'm not going to obviously give like a full exogesis of exactly why I think Catholicism is obviously wrong. What I will say is I think with Catholicism in the Bible, Catholicism makes sense if you think that is a potentially legitimate way to interpret the Bible as you just say, well there's this number of proof texts and there's this number of proof texts and let's see which one balances out. And that's I think the only way Catholics can arrive at their position or even what they'll say is they'll kind of be like well you know maybe there's this many verses that are teaching faith alone and there's this many verses which are teaching that you need works um but because we have apostolic succession and we have the miracles and blah blah actually it's even or whatever like basically or they'll say actually it's more on our side.
¶33That seems to be in my experience more how Catholics talk about the Bible. The problem is when you say actually we need to read the Bible holistically and understand that we can't just look at contradicting proof texts. No, that the Bible needs to like if you've got adoption on the Bible, it can't be well you got some proof text here and some proof text here. No, everything has to be all on one side. Um and my the reason why I think falsism is obviously false is because it's actually quite easy.
¶34Most of the verses that Catholics bring up are quite trivially easy to explain from a free grace perspective whereas the free grace verses Catholics can't come up with an explanation for those at all. So that that's basically the issue. Obviously there are other things like um just when you look at how uh kind of the Bible talks about religion. Obviously there's this uh strong criticism of traditional religious authority which you see from Jesus where he's constantly criticizing the scribes. He's criticizing uh you know the the scribes who walk around in long robes.
¶35there's this um you know very obvious personal relationship angle which Catholicism goes completely against and by Dustin Kromit and he's a philosopher I think he's now working at like the insect institute or something like that some sort of effective altruist cause and it's this it's called like the argument from psychophysical harmony or something like that and they put it up on field papers and I read it I'm like oh man this seems pretty forceful >> so years ago a husband and a chilled for a life. >> Wait, hold on a minute. Daily Wire. Is this a Daily Wire show? Why is See, here's the thing.
¶36Why is the Daily Wire, which is, let's be honest, it's Jewish, why do they have so many Catholics? It's just interesting to me. >> So, the basic argument, >> yeah, >> I'm actually, see, I'm be honest, I'm interested in this, not even from a debunking Catholicism perspective, just in a like, what is the argument? >> We got the physical world around us, right? things made of matter and motion described by physical laws and whatnot.
¶37I claim that we can at least conceive of a world where it's just like our world down to every >> The screen's going to go blank for a second. I'm going to load up the transcript of this video in a separate window and just F for Protestant. See what comes up. >> Every last microfysical detail, right down to these subatomic particles, the way that they move, etc. but devoid of consciousness, devoid of this felt conscious experience of the world.
¶38So philosophers call this world um like a pea zombie world or a philosophical zombie world where you know you and I not really you and I are doppelgangers are walking around they're having a conversation like this where their mouths are moving you know their brain is firing in the same way all their synapses firing the exact same way but it's dark upside >> and this world is missing lots of goods right it's missing the goods of free and rational agency it's missing the goods of like meaningful relationships conscious experiences love of God and of each other. It's devoid of significant cultivation and manifestation of virtue and various other things. So consciousness seems to be intimately bound up with some of like the most profound goods. Okay. So like one question is why aren't we in a pzie world?
¶39Why is consciousness actually sprinkled around? Why is there something it's like this is literally so this actually sounds like exactly one of my main arguments for God. Um oh that produces a protestant. That's kind of interesting. Um but no.
¶40Yeah. So, basically, this seems to be the argument that basic this is literally the argument I've made. I didn't know that someone else had made this argument, but this is pretty much, if you see my five reasons I'm not an atheist video. Reason number four is about the apparent significance of consciousness to reality in terms of adding something to reality that there's not really any explanation from a naturalistic perspective why that would need to all be there to be in this brain state. I mean, after all, this is soggy gray matter.
¶41Why is there something it's like to be in this state? It's very strange. Okay, but things get even stranger because not only can we conceive of a world where things are physically just like they are in the actual world, but things are devoid of consciousness. There's nothing it's like. There's no felt sense of, you know, the smell of lilacs or the taste of chocolate.
¶42There's none of that in this world. In addition to being able to conceive of that world, I claim we can conceive of alternative worlds where the psychophysical mappings are different than they are in the actual world. So, what is a psychophysical mapping? It's just a description of which conscious states are associated with which physical states. Okay?
¶43So in the actual world, conscious states are associated with brains, right? Pain is associated with C fiber firing, which you know that happens when we get tissue damage and it causes us to engage in avoidance behavior and whatnot. We feel pleasure when we have fitness enhancing stimuli and that leads us to pursue the things which caused fitness-enhancing stimuli. Um, and more generally, you know, consciousness is associated with brains, but we can conceive of hordes of alternative ways of mapping >> conscious states, phenomenal states, as philosophers call them, with physical states, and boatloads of these are just not going to result in any intelligible or orderly or harmonious mental life. So, for instance, it might have been the case that all physical states were associated with just the felt sense of a patch of blue.
¶44>> Okay? So basically, you know, we're not we're not here just to uh you know, agree with our ourselves or whatever. It is interesting that his stated reason I actually do think this is a really compelling reason and it is it's ultimately the main reason why I became a theist. So this I mean maybe you could say this is promising that this guy's like, "Oh, this is the first thing that made me believe God exists." That's interesting. Now, the thing is I I just did, you know, I said I was going to do the control to see where he mentions Protestantism.
¶45The first mention of Protestantism in the video is one hour 35 minutes in. So, I think honestly just because we're not really here to spend a huge amount of time unpacking like why this you know like all of this stuff and when it comes to obviously all of these miracles and things like that obviously uh you know I think that there's a lot to be said there but again this is a 3-hour 20-minute video I think we should just jump to the first mention of Protestantism just to see what he says which is at 1 hour 35 minutes 49 seconds. So we'll just jump to 1 hour 35 minutes just to see. Okay, I know it's like oh I'm just playing devil's advocate. I I start watching just comes in.
¶46Okay, so let's take eucharistic miracles. So I'm I start watching all these videos watching these debates. I start participating in these debates online. I was like, "Oh, I'm just playing devil's advocate." I remember I debated like a on Facebook and I'll I put this in my um conversion video that people should definitely go and check out um this the hours long conversion video that it's out by now as people are watching it. Maria, we will link to it.
¶47>> Okay, sweet. Um, so I was basically examining these Eucharistic miracles. I went on I talked with Matthew Levana. I talked with um the skeptics of the Eucharistic miracles. I read the best skeptics, the best arguments for it.
¶48I watched videos on it. I started kind of engaging in debates and whatnot with like Protestant scientists on Facebook and whatnot. Like very extensive back and forth debates. Um, so I started just like thinking about these. Uh, and Matthew Levano was like, "Joe, you've been thinking about this stuff.
¶49Um, pick up Dr. Franco Saraphini's book, A Cardiologist Examines Jesus." I was like, "Okay, fine. I'll pick it up." Um, and so I pick it up and I read it and I'm like, as I'm going through it, I'm like, "Oh my gosh." [laughter] Oh no. And I remember I remember going through it and I was like, by the end I was like, "Oh no." Catholicism might be true. That's not good.
¶50That's not good. So like I can tell you some of the things that I sort of discovered when I was looking through that. So like he goes through five Eucharistic miracles. >> Laiano, Buenosiris, Tixla, Sakoka, Lenita, different continents, different time periods. Laniano goes back.
¶51So the >> So look, if you if you want to look into this yourself, I mean, I'm surprised someone's managed to write a whole book about this because I think it's pretty cut and dry. Basically, all of these miracles are just cases of people putting uh these wafers in water and then them turning red and kind of swelling up and I guess seeming as if they are like flesh. And this has been they've actually done tests where like scientists have done tests where they've just dropped anything on the ground put it in water and seen that that is a thing that can happen sometimes just because of certain bacteria that obviously I mean you know if it produces mold or whatever then it can kind of form that sort of spongy fleshlike texture to it and then of course if it is a particular type of bacteria or mold or whatever, then it can easily turn red. And that seems to be, as far as I can tell, I mean, you know, maybe he's going to say something shocking here. And, you know, admittedly, like I say, that seems too easy, but that's basically from what I've seen, the story for every single one of these so-called eukaristic miracles.
¶52Of course, there is also the possibility these eucharistic miracles are genuine and it is demonic. like that that's a reality of course because ultimately uh when you have I mean I mean let's be honest what are Catholics doing here? They're taking some bread and they're saying this is God that is quite overt idol worship and on top of that there's kind of this um quite satanic pagan aspect to it as well that they literally believe that they are consuming the flesh of God. It wouldn't surprise me at all that the demonic uh kind of powers that is inviting into a a space could then result in those demons actually producing an effect like that. you know, like it it kind of doesn't actually surprise me that um that when you've got a load of like men in dresses with incense like, you know, like the Hindus do and you know, basically what every single false pagan religion does, what the Babylonians probably doing too, getting a piece of bread, saying this is the flesh of God.
¶53Let us consume the flesh of God. uh that then you know the the bread starts bleeding and maybe there's a statue of Mary and its eyes start crying blood and to be honest at that point I'm surprised you don't get full-on exorcist someone's head spinning around projectile vomiting a nun starts crawling on the ceiling and like screaming and dislocating her jaw sounds like you've already set up a pretty compelling horror movie kind of historioggraphy is a little bit like patchy for the first some hundreds of years it goes back to like roughly the seventh centure country. Um, but the providence of the relics here are very secure. >> Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, I mean the the thing with this is like if this was actually true.
¶54It's one of those things I I must admit I know I said like the whole overintellectualizing thing. I do think with some of this stuff it's it's just too easy. I remember one time I saw this video. This was like way back when I was an atheist and it was just like a video was like this will convince you God exists. And the video was just like a presentation of the kalan cosmological argument very basic everything begins to exist has course that was like literally the video was like 3 minutes long and like the first two minutes was presenting the kum cosmological argument and then at the end and this was like in a slideshow format and it said like how how do we know though which god is real and it's like well the answer is that there are miracles that prove which particular god is real and then it just shows like a picture of a palm tree or like a series of palm trees that have grown into a shape that spells our Allah.
¶55And I was like, "Okay, if it's if that's like what you actually think is evidence, then I don't know like do do you think that just scientists aren't aware of that or like that that's it just seems like I don't know to me like when you have these these kind of things, the question kind of is at that point it's almost I suppose like one of the issues here is that it gets gets rid of what I think is a reality which is the spiritual barrier to believing and this is why of course Jesus says that a foolish and adulterous generation requires a sign because ultimately if you're someone who and of course you know we see it with the story of Gideon as well he's like constantly a sign and then I mean he was saved but he has certainly a lot of unsavory characteristics to him but this idea of oh you know I need this sign the thing with that is that at that point someone could just come to believe because of they they do like a scientific investigation like oh yeah okay it's true which at that point so like why why doesn't everyone just believe then you know because the the thing is ultimately what I believe is that you do need to have a come to some sort of spiritual reckoning with your presuppositions in order to be saved right like I think that's pretty like in order to believe in God you're not just going to find some piece of undeniable scientific evidence for God existing because if that's the case then you never ever need to have any sort of personal growth journey and if that's the case why wouldn't God just come down to earth right now and say everyone hey everyone I exist no like I think the point it's pretty obvious from the fact that the evidence of God is not immediately available that you're supposed to come to some sort of journey but if the journey is just oh I did some tests on some bread in a lab and turns out it's blood I don't know it just seems seems kind of silly to me >> from like I think the 16th century onward. Um and we have like references and whatnot to it in like earlier middle middle ages and whatnot. Ethan Muse goes through this in his um post on Lana which is excellent and he you know he talked about that in your interview. But anyway um that one is insane. Like uh Dr.
¶56Eduardo Lenoli looks at it in the 1970s and then again in the 1980s. He's he determines through lots of different chemical tests that it's real human flesh that is there with no preservatives. He determines that the these little like blood globules, they're just like exposed to the air. This is the most like fragile biological material on the planet in these blood globules in the open air in like the Italian climate and they they've just like existed there and persisted for hundreds of years. He does tests on the blood type.
¶57They're both AB blood, rarest type in the world. Sorry, they're both like AB. Yeah, the rarest blood type in the world. This is insane. Like, and then the preservation, utterly unprecedented preservation.
¶58um with like especially if you don't use preservatives like if you cut out a human heart because it is myocardia. >> Yeah. Again, so obviously I'm not really going to do any of this just because obviously science isn't really my wheelhouse. The specifics of this is beyond me. Again, I'll point out that if this is actually a scientific thing, I don't know.
¶59Like do do your peer review. Like I know it's kind of a lazy thing to say, but it's kind of like ultimately if this is the case, if you're saying like this is no, this is just clear, undeniable scientific evidence, scientific proof that something supernatural is happening. It's kind of weird that science that most scientists are just completely don't care about it. I don't know. It just seems weird to me.
¶60If this is your argument, then like if this is actually a good argument, it should be an argument that you're investing a huge amount in, which by the way, I did watch a redeemed Zuma video. Uh even though, you know, I'm not a huge Redeemed Zuma fan, but I, you know, there just happened to be a video about the whole miracles thing. Well, I say it just happened. I think it was directly in response to this. And he was saying that apparently the Catholic Church, they don't even uh officially say that Catholics are obligated to believe in these miracles.
¶61like the Catholic Church doesn't present or doesn't put that much stock in these miracles even themselves which is a bit weird to me but again if these are actually as compelling as should be said this should really be the main thing it should like every single com like Catholics should just be constantly uh every single scientist saying hey you know there's undeniable scientific proof of the supernatural there's no possible naturalistic explanation and if there is no possible naturalistic explanation then those scientists should just be like, "Wow, you got me." But if there is a possible naturalistic explanation, well, then it's not a miracle. So, whatever. But what I'll say, of course, from my perspective, like I say, is I don't even need to deny that this is supernatural because it could easily be the supernatural. and it doesn't verify it as true which is of course the main thing the you know the elephant in the room that hangs over this guy's entire argumentation which is of course in the Bible in what Deuteronomy is it 13 let me check uh the other thing is I think Matthew 24 let's see if I'm right about either of those Um, so yeah, Deuteronomy 13, I was right verses 1 to3. It talks about how, you know, I mean, let me get the exact wording up just because, you know, this is worth being aware of lest you be led astray.
¶62So yeah, if there arise among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or a wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them. Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God proveth you to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. So what that's literally saying there is that God will sometimes give false preachers the power to do miracles in order to test whether your faith is sincere. So if you actually are a a believing Christian, you should be unmoved by miracles. Like I'm actually going to follow the Bible on this one and say that actually any miracle this guy could show me, I'm not going to believe.
¶63I'm not going to change my theology based on that because if this guy shows me a miracle that says, you know, written in the stars, hey, Michael, Rome 5:10, Catholicism is true. I'm going to be like, well, God's really testing me, but don't worry, you know. And the things people can say, oh, well, that means your beliefs are unfalsifiable. No, my beliefs aren't unfalsifiable. You could falsify my beliefs by showing that the word of God in the Bible teaches Catholicism, but that's the only thing you can do.
¶64You know, it's not unfalsifiable just because I think that your method you're trying to use to falsify my beliefs is never going to work. But yeah, and then obviously you see and I said, you know, Matthew 24, was I right about that? Yeah, Matthew 24:24. Oh, Matthew 24:24. I was kind of double right.
¶65Uh for there shall arise false Christs and false prophets and shall show great signs and wonders in so much that if it were possible they shall deceive the very elect. This is saying you know you got a similar thing here um Thessalonians 2:9 whose coming is after the work of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders. This is just, you know, it's so obvious. Like, it's actually a very clear message in the Bible that we're directly told false prophets, false religions, false gospels will be vindicated by signs, miracles, things like that. That's not a reason to believe them.
¶66Ultimately, you know, that that's that's I think all there is to say on that. Let's just jump ahead to again, like I say, I really don't want to spend more than one part talking about this, which of course I realize, you know, there's it's a long video and I only typically stream for an hour and a half. So, uh, an hour 45 next is where he mentions Protestants again. So, let's just see what he has to say. Oh, it's paused.
¶67Okay. Continents with different scientists on different occasions or maybe like there's some really weird kind of misidentification happening or something like that because I knew Matt I knew that if I granted Eucharistic miracles, >> it's game over. It's game over. A Catholic priest prays over some bread and it becomes suffering myioardial tissue. Am I just supposed to go along with my day?
¶68Am I supposed to go along with my day? No. And dude, like I imagine, imagine going back to the Reformation debates, right? And you're there and they're, you know, all the Protestants, they're like, "Uh, yeah, I know that this is like a completely novel view that has never popped up in 1500 years, but let's just deny that the mass is a propitiatory sacrifice and that, you know, this is, you know, a sacrificial um representation of of Christ's sacrifice as a propitiatory sacrifice." You know, they're all denying that even though it's been like the perennial teaching of the church for 1500 years, like just manifestly breaking away. But um, imagine that we went to those debates after we've internally debated with Luther or Kelvin.
¶69um church history, you know, we've pointed like, dude, read Ignatius, you know, it's like, what are you doing? Like, or like read John 6, like what are you doing? Um, we've engaged in these internal debates about church history in the Bible and whatnot. And I just we can't agree. And I'd say, dude, what would it take to convince you, Martin Luther, or Calvin, and I could we could imagine them jokingly saying, "Okay, here's what here's what would convince me of the Catholic view.
¶70Five different times on different continents. A priest prays over some bread and it turns into suffering myioardial tissue. Okay. Oh, and yeah, have that happen on different continents. Oh, and when they do blood tests, have it be AB blood on across multiple eucharistic miracles cuz that's the rarest blood type.
¶71Okay. Across multiple uchistic miracles, have it be AB blood. Oh, and yeah, >> this is absolutely absurd. He's lally just he's just pretending like why would they care about the blood type? This is not something like at the end of the day uh I mean in in this case I'm not going to lie like in some sense what would convince me that uh like that God turns into bread or that bread turns into God.
¶72Uh I guess the answer would be if you could convince me that a completely different religion other than the Bible like if if completely different religious text other than the Bible is true then that would change my mind. Like if you kind of convinced me that Hinduism is true and then you sort of repackaged Catholicism as a kind of incorporation of Christ into a Hindu view of things, it's like well you know Hinduism is kind of just a crazy religion, right? I mean they do all sorts of weird things. They worship cows and I like okay well I suppose in that context something weird like believing that you consume I mean there's literally a a tribe like a Hindu tribe in India where they practice ritualistic cannibalism uh not so they practice cannibalism of people who dead they don't kill people for the sake of cannibalizing them but they cannibalize their relatives that's like a thing so I I could believe that but if you're going to ask me what could convince me that the god who abhor idolatry who uh very clearly rejects this idea of um sorry I was about to say something where was it um oh oh sorry yeah in in Isaiah right where he literally says he just talks about how stupid it is and foolish to take like okay I actually think this is in my view one of the strongest verses against the um against the idea of transubstantiation. Uh yeah, here it is.
¶73Uh King James version. Boom. Okay. Wait, that did not work. Okay, I apologize.
¶74I Okay, here we go. How do I Wait. Okay, whatever. I'm vaguely annoyed. Okay, so verse 15, uh, of Isaiah.
¶75So it's Isaiah 44 verse1 15 actually. Okay, we'll go back. Wait. Um, so verse 13, I think we can start with. The carpenter stretcheth out his rule.
¶76He markketh it out with a line. He fitth it with plains, and he markketh it out with the compass, and maketh it maketh it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man, that it may remain in the house. He heth him down cedars, and taketh the cyprress and the oak, which he strengthenth for himself among the trees of the forest. He planteth an ash, and the rain doth nourish it. Then shall it be for a man to burn.
¶77For he will take thereof, and warm himself. Yay, he kindleth it, and baketh bread. Yay, he make a god, and worshipeth it. He make it a graven image and fallleth down here too. He burneth parts thereof in the fire.
¶78With parts thereof he eat eateth flesh. He roasteth roast and is satisfied satisfied. Yay, he warmth himself and saith, Aha, I am warm. I have seen the fire. And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image.
¶79He fleth down unto it, and worshipeth it, and prayth unto it, and saith, deliver me, for thou art my God. Here's the thing. What is and this is what you want to look for in the Bible. What is the logic that's being presented there? Not just the actual words, but what is the underlying logic?
¶80The underlying logic there is that it is so absurd. It is so insulting to take something that is ordinarily just used casually. Some wood that you might use to make something like a uh you know a chair or whatever. And then you might take some wood and you might just throw it on the fire and burn it. And you'll use it for all of these mundane day-to-day uses.
¶81And then you take that same substance, that wood, and you turn it into something, and you say, "This thing is my god." That is what's being criticized here. The idea of taking just these regular things we use in day-to-day life. But we could say the exact same thing. You could take the exact same thing and put a Catholic there. A Catholic bakes a loaf of bread or gets, you know, maybe some flour.
¶82You know, maybe they don't maybe they don't divide up the bread, but they get the constituent ingredients of some bread. So a Catholic gets some flour with one part of it, you know, he makes some cake and he eats it. Another part of it he he makes some bread and then he forgets about it and goes moldy. He does all of these things with some flour, you know. Another part of it he makes some pasta.
¶83And then another part of that flour he bakes into, you know, obviously Catholics, they don't typically use an actual loaf of bread, but you know, bakes into a communion wafer. And he says, "You are my God." That's what's being criticized specifically that it's not just like, "Oh, idolatry is bad because you're worshiping the wrong gods or whatever." That's not the criticism. The criticism specifically is the absurdity, the idiocy, the insanity of taking this thing that you could do anything with that could have been anything that you might not pay any regard to at all and because of the form in which it's presented to you, because of the context in which it's presented to you, you say, "This is my God." That's the problem. And that's what I mean when I say, could you possibly ever convince me that bread turns into Jesus? That bread turns into God.
¶84Could you ever convince me to bow down to some bread and say you are my God? No. Not unless you convince me that Isaiah isn't part of the Bible. It's not even like that's the thing. And people talk about interpretation.
¶85It's not even about interpretation. There's not really any room for interpretation here. I don't think I can say like because that's the thing I could say if I wanted to kind of give credence to the idea of oh you know my ideas are falsifiable I could say well if a Catholic could walk me through the Bible and explain to me how it is consistent with itself while saying that you know bread turns to God turns into God in the flesh then I would believe but obviously that's never going to happen there's no possibility of that happening and I'll just say right out the gate, you know, he mentions John 6. I do not understand, and this is the problem. I do not understand how anyone reads that and doesn't just immediately say, "Oh, it's a metaphor." Like, obviously, it's a metaphor.
¶86Obviously, it's a metaphor. He's literally saying, "You my body." And oh, by the way, another reason why the um why it can't possibly be true is because Jesus obeyed the Old Testament law. You know, we all know this, right? Like Jesus obeyed the Old Testament law. That's the whole point.
¶87He came to fulfill the Old Testament law and part of that is that you've made it. The Old Testament law says that you are not to drink blood. You're not to consume blood. Now, that's not, you know, we can enjoy a nice uh black pudding as uh Christians now because obviously there was a whole story where the you know, ceremonial laws regarding diet were taken away, all that kind of stuff. And of course, there's the fact that uh we could do it even if it was a sin because, well, we're saved by faith alone.
¶88Obviously, we shouldn't be cavalier about just sinning anyway. But if you did eat a a black sausage, even if that was a sin, you uh you still wouldn't uh you know, you'd still be saved, which is good because again, um under the the Old Testament law, uh it it was would have been more strict. Anyway, so I I bring that up to say Jesus says of the wine, "This is my blood at the last supper." and he gives it to the disciples. If you think when he was doing that, it wasn't just a symbolic representation of him sacrificing his blood for them, you know, shedding his blood for them and then, you know, the fact they're consuming it represents the fact it's for them. If you think that wasn't symbolic, then you think that Jesus actually gave blood to his disciples to drink, even though that's a direct contravention of the Old Testament law, which says that you are not to consume blood.
¶89So that just I I don't understand how anyone can deal like you're literally saying that Jesus broke law. But again, the metaphor here is so obvious. The metaphor is that Jesus Christ is giving up his body on the cross to save us. And there's all sorts of times in the Bible where food is a metaphor is a prefiguration of salvation. Obviously, you have the Passover lamb.
¶90Obviously, you have I mean, you have levan as a representation of purity and indeed the lack thereof. You have um mana which comes down from heaven. you have all all these things. So, I just don't understand how anyone could think. It just doesn't make any sense, honestly.
¶91Like, that's the other problem. It's sort of like asking me if someone said, "Oh, it's raining buckets outside." What What would you have to say to me to convince me that they literally mean that the clouds are filled with actual buckets and the buckets are being thrown down? I don't know. I I have no frame of reference for what you could like how I could become convinced that a statement that is clearly metaphorical is actually literal. >> Yeah.
¶92Make the blood type match the sudarium of ovado in the shroud of turin. Make that happen too. Oh, and put in some put in some human blood as well. Some uh human hemoglobin and that as well. Put put that in.
¶93We would think that they're joking because that's like an unrealistic demand. Like Yeah, you guys. Okay. You're you're only going to become convinced when it happens like multiple times across multiple different continents. >> Okay.
¶94here. So, I think we're satisfied with that. What's next? Next mention of Prostantism. Okay.
¶9514719. Here we go. >> Blinded laboratory tests find that like, yeah, priest prays over some bread and it turns into suffering myioardial tissue. Um, and it's like, yeah, it's like the rarest baby blood type across multiple eucharistic miracles and it happens to match the shroud in the ovo. Like, that's your demand, Martin Luther Calvin.
¶96That's what it's going to take to to to believe. You're joking, right? He's going to become full douche Catholic suit root is, isn't he? Yeah. Um I mean it'll be interesting to see like how he ends up evolving as kind of someone in in the space or whatever if that makes sense because obviously you know we all know Trent, you know, we all know the the usual suspects when it comes to Catholics Catholic apologetics.
¶97It will be interesting to see whether a few years from now I'll be reacting to his, you know, top 10 reasons we're saved by works or whatever video. Well, Matt, it happened. It happened. [laughter] It happened. Their view has been refuted.
¶98God has refuted Protestantism. >> So, okay. Yeah, he's getting really intense. So, this is actually the clip I saw. God has refuted Protestantism.
¶99Uh, again, it just doesn't get off the ground as an argument. It's it's it's nothing. It's literally it's nothing. And by the way, I think people I like I've heard people point out that this doesn't even and I don't care about this, but I've heard people doesn't even necessarily prove um, you know, like the Lutherans could maybe still be right or whatever, but okay. >> Will you read the book?
¶100[laughter] >> So, no. At this point, >> you closed the book. >> Yeah. Are you sleeping at this? >> All right.
¶101Anything else about Protestantism? Maybe that's like it. Maybe that's the video done. Okay. Wait.
¶102Um. Okay. Wait. 157. I'm just going to go for one minute 1 hour 57 minutes cuz just to see >> presents it in a very reserved kind of way.
¶103The way he puts it in the book, it's not um like flashy or anything like that. He's obviously not here to sell things in his in his interviews about demonic phenomena. He's like, "I'm just here to warn you guys. like I I care about your souls, you know. Um I'm here to warn you like he's not flashy, ostentatious, he's not doing this for money or at least at the very least it's what's screaming to me.
¶104Like >> just as much as I know that like >> my friend is not doing something for money when I talk with him. >> I just had that kind of moral sense just a moral sense talking with him and I almost felt like morally opposed to just saying I know that you're a liar because I intuit it something about hell. >> Yeah, >> it sounds ridiculous. So then that caused so much cognitive dissonance. I was like I was I called Cameron afterwards.
¶105I'm pacing around my room. I'm like Cameron, what am I supposed to do? Uh I've got so many objections to Catholicism. It can't be true. But like this stigmatist case and of course this is like you know a victim like this is a victim's soul really.
¶106Uh if this is true, this is like redemptive participatory vicarious uh suffering being united to Christ's passion. >> Uh most Protestants don't believe that. It's like distinctively Catholic doctrine. Like this is for instance what like I mean what like Sean Luke has a problem with like lots of things regarding Fatima because >> wait what I I literally have no idea. Sorry, what is this talking about?
¶107>> I >> they were doing like penences and like vicarious reparatory participatory redemptive suffering um uniting uniting it to Christ. >> Okay. I I don't care. This this seems like a nothing. I don't know.
¶108like I feel like the the context here is crazy. So, um yeah, I don't understand this. I'm just going to skip to the next bit. Okay. 20543.
¶10920543. This looks like it's going to be distressing. Can't wait to hear about when you prayed your first rosary. >> When I hear about a seeker or a Protestant praying their first rosary, I'm like, "All right, set the timer. It's not long." >> No.
¶110No. Our lady will get you. Our the beautiful Theotocos does not uh neglect her children. >> Oh, goodness me. [sighs] >> He's going to have to give an account of this.
¶111Like that. That's the thing. He's gonna stand before the real God and God's gonna ask him, "Hey, when Jesus Christ, God incarnate, died on the cross for your sins and said it was done and then Paul came along and wrote the Bible or rather wrote, you know, the those epistles laying out Christian doctrine and he was really clear to him who does not work but believes his faith is count as ever count as righteousness said we are saved you know it's not of our works we're justified but by grace so that no man can boast I feel like I I butchered that a bit but you know anyway when when he he's going to be asked you know when all this was said why did you instead put your trust in praying a rosary and believing that Mary, a human sinner, was going to save you. Why did you put your trust in this? And this is this is the problem.
¶112And in a way, you know, I don't have, you know, if this guy doesn't repent, I don't have any sympathy for him. He's he's making this choice. He's putting his faith in I think I I'd be perfectly willing to believe demonic stuff, you know, when he's talking about like this blood thing. I mean, I almost want to say that it's true because then I could be resolute in saying it's demonic, but I at best this is pseudocience. At worst, it's demonic.
¶113Either way, it's not something you should putting your faith in. And that's the problem. You know, this guy's not going to have an excuse because Oh, whatever. Anyway, let's just >> So, um, >> all right. >> She loves us so much.
¶114She'll she'll bring you around. She'll bring you around. >> Okay. >> So, yeah. Um, let's go back to So, >> and by [snorts] the way, I will say this.
¶115Obviously, if you are a Protestant, which is a, you know, if you're an evangelical Christian and you are even thinking of praying the rosary, well, I I suppose it's not that surprising you're likely to get saved because what person who is saved or sorry, misspoke there dramatically and that was just 100% misspeaking. You know, you've always got to worry about like people say, "Oh, Freudian slip blah blah people misspeak." Anyway, um it's not that surprising you you would then become a Catholic because what saved person would even think to do a rosary and if you did pray a rosary, why would you like obviously you can look at in 1 Corinthians 8 where it talks about you don't want to become a stumbling block to someone else. Yeah. And this is something I always bring up because I remember one time I went to an Anglican church and there was a someone who had been a Catholic but they converted to Anglicanism but they still did the sign of the cross and they mentioned like in in this sermon that they still do the sign of the cross because they're like I think doing the sign of the cross is fine. Now obviously I get the Anglicans are lukewarm.
¶116And they're not really going to um yeah, I mean call him lukewarm. Frank is a bit of a compliment, but they're not going to have too much of an issue with this, but obviously there's an important reason why you shouldn't do the sign of the cross. It's not that the sign of the cross is any sort of particular miraculous power. Like I could do the sign like I'm happy to do the sign of the cross right now, but the thing is I'm doing it in a context where I'm making it absolutely clear that I'm doing it to show it has no power. And to be fair, someone could pray the rosary uh with the intention of showing it has no power.
¶117Like if you're an evangelical and you want to say, "Oh, you think that me praying the rosary is going to cause me to become Catholic? No, it's not. All right, I'll pray the rosary right now just to show that it's not going to do that." You could do that and that wouldn't necessarily be uh as harmful of a thing to do, but obviously then they're just going to say, "Well, you didn't do it with the right intentions." But that's the problem, right? You are and you know to get what I'm saying with the sign of the cross. So basically for those who don't know, 1 Corinthians 8 is basically saying that non-Christian customs, things that have significance to non-Christians, ultimately have no power.
¶118They have no actual significance. And in the specific case is talking about meat sacrificed to idols. sacrificing meat to an idol, taking some food, whatever it is, and saying, "I dedicate this to Zeus, that doesn't do anything." And Paul is saying, "Based on that, we can eat that food because it's there's it hasn't been contaminated any sort of way." Um, and by the way, you can eat communion wafers and things like that, too. But the problem is what you want to watch out for, and this is the point Paul makes, is that if a pagan sees you eating food that has been sacrificed idols, they might think, "Okay, so idolatry is fine." You like they they might not realize that the logic is that those idols have no power and therefore that there's, you know, no corruption has befallen that food. They might instead think, "Oh, wait.
¶119So, you know, the idols do do have power because obviously, you know, I'm a pagan. I think the idols have power." And Christians accept that power. Christians are are willing to embrace the power of idolatry and they don't see a problem with it. And that's the basic issue. And that's how you know the logic I use when it comes to something like the sign of the cross.
¶120If I do that and then someone sees me and actually I spoke about this before regarding uh having fish and chips on Fridays. Uh ultimately that is that is kind of an English tradition but it I think has its origins in Catholicism where you weren't supposed to eat obviously we all know this you don't eat meat on Fridays so you're allowed to eat fish instead. This is this is in reality kind of overzealous but it shows I think how much you need to be considering these things. If you always eat fish on Friday, people might start to think, "Oh, so this guy respects the authority of the Catholic Church." You you have to be aware that people might look at the things you're doing. And unless these are people who you regularly speak to who know what your stance is, they are going to think they're going to draw false conclusions about your faith and about the gospel.
¶121And that could be something that ultimately prevents that person getting saved. So, you need to watch out for this. And this is why I say you wouldn't pray the rosary in a sincere way if you're a saved Christian. I don't think um or or rather you shouldn't. Of course, you can do anything as a saved Christian in terms of your works, but uh you know I I don't see any reason why a Christian would because what you're basically doing there is you're showing that you respect Catholicism.
¶122And when you show that you respect Catholicism, people are going to say, "Oh, so Catholics are Christians, so I don't need to evangelize to Catholics." you're you're sending a bad message and that's the problem. So, it doesn't surprise me that someone who prays the rosary is likely to become a Catholic because they've already shown that they have the wrong attitude in that regard in the first place. Eucharistic miracles, Adam Blie. >> Yes. >> Uh now I'm really struggling like the cognitive dissonance is on full throttle.
¶123Yeah. >> Okay. So, I've got complete cognitive dissonance at this point. Catholicism may be true, but I've got all these psychological barriers and all these rational barriers as well. Um, I just can't accept it.
¶124Um, but yeah, theism at this point is looking like, yeah, 80% probable. I'm really starting to lean towards theism. Um, Christianity maybe 50% probable, something like that. Um, [sighs] and yeah, Catholicism after the Adam Bllye and the um, Eucharistic miracles, maybe we're at like somewhere between 2 and 5% or something like that. I mean, I don't know exactly where.
¶125These are just really rough ballpark numbers. I mean, I don't think we have like super precise credences up here, you know, >> um, or confidence levels. So what came next? Well, we've got the assumption. We got the rosary being commended.
¶126All this stuff. We have the children doing all these reparatory acts of penance where they're uniting their sacrifices to Christ's passion to bring about to be meritorious causes of grace. This is utterly [laughter] suffused with Catholic vindication, which is why Protestants have to go in for the demonic explanation because otherwise God's a liar. God is a liar. Mary is >> sorry.
¶127Wait, hold on a minute. So, not only that, but like God would be a liar if you refuse to believe his word in the Bible where he literally says that false prophets, false religions will be vindicated with miracles. This guy's kind of got like a bit of a crazy vibe to him. Like he comes across sort of like weirdly angry. >> Isn't the immaculate conception?
¶128The Pope isn't the Holy Father. He doesn't have jurisdiction to do that. No, you shouldn't be praying the rosary, etc. And the rosary is meditating all these false things. >> Mhm.
¶129>> So like, oh, and of course, like Mary's obtaining conversions to Catholicism. They give they give requests to her, and she's explicitly granting requests to convert people to Catholicism. So we have the mother of God appearing to Catholic shepherd children, granting requests to convert people to Catholicism, saying basically vindicating, authenticating, confirming the immaculate conception, the rosary, the papacy, etc. God has disproven Protestantism. Now, of course, you might go in for a demonic phenomena, but of course, I think that that doesn't work for a million reasons that Ethan goes through in his debate with Shawn Luke.
¶130Um, >> well, I mean, that's the obvious explanation, so I'd like to hear Well, it's not necessarily the obvious explanation. I mean again I if this is a reason enough to believe in Catholicism why doesn't it convince secular scientists? Like that's the problem. I know people say well Michael you don't put any stock in secular science. Here's the reason.
¶131The reason why I don't care what convince secular scientists is because like I say, my theology, my walk of Christ, the reason why I believe in the gospel is because of a spiritual encounter with the Bible, which yes, to some extent, although I don't like to overstate this because it might present in some people's minds a barrier to them, does involve a degree of intellectual looking into But again, I think in my case, that's because of specifically where I'm coming from. But more so, it's about spiritual barrier. And ultimately, you know, if you were to ask me, why do I think that scientists are not necessarily very likely to get saved? I mean, I don't know whether they're more or less like the average person. The reality is, I mean, broad is the path that leads to destruction.
¶132But why do I think that scientists certainly don't seem to be any more likely to get saved than the average person? Well, the answer is going to be that because of where they're coming from, they have this very naturalistic approach. They have this idea that they can use their human reasoning, their human intelligence in order to understand things. A scientist is going to be absolutely appalled by what first Corinthians I think 1 and two although I think maybe he returns back to it in chapter I think it's actually one first Corinthians one then he returns back to it in chapter 3. uh where Paul talks about how God has basically mocked human wisdom.
¶133Basically shown that all of the human wisdom is nothing. I mean, you know, I can't remember exactly how he phrased it, but uh pretty much says God's foolishness is wiser than man's wisdom. The the the stupidity of God is more intelligent than the most intelligent person in the world. It's pretty obvious Cathol sorry Catholic I mean Catholics do but um scientists are going to have a big barrier to that because they have so much stock in man's wisdom and specifically uh science and natural science as something that relies heavily on human senses and things like that so that that's simple right but here's the thing I'm saying that as someone who recognizes that Christianity and becoming Christian is about a spiritual journey this guy is saying that his standard is have there been a sufficient number of sc of of like miracles in the material world that are empirically verifiable. So my question would be, well then if it's just about are these miracles empirically verifiable, why don't scientists believe them?
¶134And if you're going to say that like it's because of some sort of like barrier or something, well then you're admitting that the miracles themselves, like just the the natural science of it isn't actually compelling. I don't know. It just seems silly. All right. And if I mean you know like just like let's step back you know like [laughter] a demon is introducing into the rosary a Marian devotion something which is like christoentric oh my Jesus forgive us our sins save us from the fires of hell lead all souls to heaven especially those most in need of thy mercy.
¶135Yeah. >> Sounds like demons to me. Sound totally sounds like demons, right? >> And of course, you know, like >> Christ is saying I mean, you know, there's just a million reasons why I think just a demonic explanation doesn't work. And espec, you know, unfortunately, yeah, I said this before.
¶136I've never quite understood in the Bible when Jesus says, "Can Satan cast out Satan?" uh a house standing against itself or a house against itself can't stand. And the reason why I say I've never understood it is because well actually there's pretty obviously such a thing as a false flag. And it does actually make complete sense that the devil would present and I mean Paul talks about this you know even Lucifer presents as an angel of of light. Basically, it makes sense that the devil would have the appearance of being righteous and being, you know, a Christian. Like, and obviously the Bible talks about false prophets all the time.
¶137I I don't think you can realistically deny that these false prophets are going to say things that sound Christian. Obviously, they are. They wouldn't be very good false prophets if they didn't say things that sound Christian. Um, you know, this is the issue, right? This guy is saying, "Well, uh, the if there's statements made about, oh, we want people to be saved, Jesus Christ, we love you, Jesus." Um, if they're saying things like this, that means that they can't possibly be uh, demonic because demons wouldn't say things like that.
¶138Well, I think they probably would if they were trying to manipulate people into accepting a false gospel. Now again, obviously I understand that Jesus did say, "Well, Satan can't cast out Satan." It's worth noting, of course, that these Catholics, they're not actually casting out any sort of demons. But no, yeah, obviously the reason why they're doing this is to manipulate people and so that a guy like this can use this exact reasoning. when you bring in all the miraculous evidence. Now, >> you had heard of Fatima and lurids in these different apparitions while you were an atheist or an agnostic.
¶139I guess you just didn't pay them much heed. >> No, I mean, in fact, I I responded to Trent Horn at one point when he brought up Fatima because I have a lot of responses to Trent Horn. I even have a response to Tren Horn playlist. >> Come on. >> Yeah.
¶140So, >> Oh, that's great. >> Yeah. So, I go into that playlist in one of my videos. They talk about Fatima and I'm just like, well, you know, maybe they just like stared at the sun and I don't know, had some weird phenomenology effects or something which is just like >> utterly intention with all the evidence. So, I don't know.
¶141I just sort of waved it away. >> Anything at the time seemed more plausible than the mother of God. >> Yeah. Oh, exactly. Exactly.
¶142Um, but we can get back to like alternative explanations for the miraculous evidence later, but like now I'm starting to think like and just like given my background, given my upbringing, I'm like if I grant Fatima >> Yeah. Eucharistic miracles. >> Eucharistic miracles. Adam blind, you know, like all this stuff, the exorcisms and whatnot. And if and then if I grant this, then it seems like it's going to be over.
¶143So then that was bothering me. I didn't grant it yet. >> How did you deal with hell and homosexuality? >> Not going to risk that. Um, so I was basically like, okay, listen, I got to be Christian.
¶144I told Ethan Muse that like on that on that interview, that that 4-hour thing. I was like, I got to be Christian. What do I do now? [laughter] And so Ethan and I just talked through like Joe like what what would you have to say as a Protestant to all this stuff. So like God is going out of his way to manifestly vindicate distinctively Catholic doctrines where it's like you look at the Protestant miracles and it's like healings or a felt sense of presence.
¶145It's not like man manifestly vindicating particular Catholic doctrines. the immaculate conception like lures. She said, "Mary, I am the immaculate conception." And then God just concentrates the most insane medically documented healing miracles, like the most insane unprecedented string of miracles associated with that apparition specifically. And they're all different sorts of like crazy phenomena with Bernardet Subaru there as well. So like, okay, we've got the mother of God appearing to people.
¶146We've got like Catholic priests praying over bread and it's turning into suffering myioardial tissue. And we've got like Padre Peio being united to Christ's passion in a kind of vicarious participatory redemptive suffering that a lot of the Protestants don't believe in. We've got like >> At any point during this examination, did you think to yourself, well, maybe there's other miracles of note from other religions that might cancel these ones out somehow? >> Yeah. I mean, I was thinking like maybe there were.
¶147I hadn't heard of any and Ethan had like looked into a lot of them and I I also like I mean like a lot of them are also just just totally naturalistically explicable like people will talk about like the Hindu milk miracle where it's like capillary action or you know various other things like that. Um and I we can get into potentially alternative explanations to the miraculous data later but at this point I was like I got to be Christian but what am I supposed to do? And I don't know, it almost it really just did seem like God was going out of his way to manifestly vindicate distinctively Catholic doctrines where like the intention behind the miracles was to promulgate a specific message with specific content like I >> Okay, so I suppose I need to point something out right now. I think this is the best time to do it. One, there is no evidence in the Bible.
¶148So, aside from the fact that we've already seen blatantly from the Bible that God will explicitly have miracles that vindicate false religions in order to test your faith. That's just the thing. You can say, "Oh, I don't like that." I first of all, you haven't got an excuse not like it, right? All you have to do is stand true to the word of God. So, saying, "Oh, I don't like that." is is kind of dumb.
¶149It's like, no, I I just wanted to disbelieve in uh the gospel and I don't like that God gave me an excuse not to. Well, why did you want to disbelieve in the gospel in the first place? Anyway, so you've got that. Uh second of all, there's the fact that there's no evidence anywhere in the Bible, anywhere in well, I mean, I even hear people talk about church history. I don't really care about that.
¶150But certainly nowhere in the Bible is there any evidence that miracles are being used or or should be the test for whether what someone's saying is legitimate in now I do realize obviously that there are obviously prophets and of course Jesus Christ and the apostles they do miracles but nowhere is the argument made Well, you know that what we are preaching specifically is correct because we're doing miracles. Aside from and the one exception here, of course, is that uh Jesus Christ like the Messiah is specifically predicted to do miracles. So, in that context, it's vindicating him because it's saying he'll do miracles. Hello there. We are the Eggman.
¶151Good to have you here. Yes, praise. Praise Jesus indeed. Anyway, so obviously, you know, if there's a prediction of a miracle, then doing a miracle provides some sort of indication. But when you look at Paul when he's writing, I mean, sis, he kind of dismisses miracles obviously when he's talking to uh the Corinthians and he's saying like, hey, you know, okay, you guys have miracles, but you know what's more important than that is charity.
¶152But there's also the um he doesn't say at any point, hey, if you want to know who's right, just look at who's doing the most miracles. You know, if you want to know if uh I'm right or some false preacher is right, just see who's done the most miracles. There there's no argument for that at all from any Yeah. Because obviously I do realize when you talk about like Jesus in the early apostolic period uh you know which is to say literally the book of Acts, you have more miracles being done uh kind of to I think probably give Christianity a bit of a a foot in the door with people because it's like well if they they're seeing these miracles they have to recognize there's something crazy happening but even then it's it's never like well these miracles alone are what proves it. And you look at Stephen, for example, I mean, he's he's preaching the gospel.
¶153There's always this preaching of the gospel. And that that's I think a huge thing. You know, this guy is using a standard that there's no indication is a standard Christians should actually have. You should not be basing your faith on what I mean. If you're going to claim to start with the Bible, you should not be basing your faith on who has the most miracles.
¶154But the other thing I want to point out here, this is really worth stressing. There is a miracle that confirms distinctly Protestant doctrine, and that is the Bible. You know, and I've spoken about this before. While the main reason I'm a theist was or rather the main reason that convinced me to become a theist in the first place was um the consciousness issue. The actual nowadays main reason I'm a theist.
¶155The main reason I think theism is true is because of the miraculous theological coherence of the Bible. That's why I said and I 100% believe that I believe the Bible is miraculously theologically coherent. Now, what you'll notice there is necessarily, if I'm saying it's miraculously theologically coherent, there must be one singular coherent theology, right? Like the Bible can't be miraculously theologically coherent if it could justify all sorts of different religious opinions. No, the Bible is miraculously theologically coherent because from beginning to end, the whole thing is about Jesus Christ dying for our sins and us being saved by faith alone.
¶156That is what makes the Bible miraculously theologically coherent. that there is no human explanation for why it has this clear gospel message throughout it. The point is that only works if Protestantism is true. Which is why I have said before if someone convinced me Catholicism is the correct interpretation of the Bible, I would stop believing the Bible because I wouldn't have any reason to believe the Bible. The main reason I have to believe the Bible, of course, is that it is theologically coherent.
¶157But if Catholicism is correct, the Bible isn't theologically coherent. It's all over the place. It's saying all sorts of things that contradict Catholicism. So yeah, that that's basically the issue. And that's why actually I would say there is a miracle that confirms Protestantism is indeed in my view the miracle that is primarily why I think Christianity and even the existence of God at all is true.
¶158And that is the existence of the Bible. >> Now in Eucharistic miracles, it's simulating the exact onlogical change that only Catholics believe in. transubstantiation and it seems to be only happening in a Catholic context as well. Like where are your Orthodox Eucharistic miracles? You don't have them or at the very least we don't hear of them.
¶159And what you know what is or like Protestant things like we don't have those either. So Mary's appearing to people. She's granting requests like saintly intercession. Like if you're Protestant, you don't believe in saintly intercession. Again like God has refuted you.
¶160He's gone out of his way time and time again to grant miracle upon miracle as a result of saintly intercession. >> By the way, I will say this. This is another thing which again I saw from Redeem Zuma which is that a lot of this just because Catholics care about miracles a lot more Protestants don't. So ultimately, you know, when when this happens to Catholics, they're going to be much more serious about documenting it. Whereas a lot of other people are just going to be like, "Oh, that was a cool miracle." I think that's the other thing.
¶161Like actually Protestants, Christians in general, I think kind of expect miracles. Like actually I've had miraculous I've had one [sighs] tentatively I would say miraculous thing happen in my life. It feels pretty miraculous. I've had one miraculous thing happen in my life but actually I don't really make a big deal about it. I mentioned it a few times.
¶162I don't make a huge deal about it just because so I I'll tell you the story and this is this is basically it. It's kind of weird because it's actually a negative miracle basically. You know, I mentioned this a few times, only a handful of times, but I'll mention it now just in case you're curious. One time I decided to stay home from church because I had some work I really needed to get done. So, I was working and then the next day I went back to check on what I had done and all of the work that I was doing when I should have been at church was missing.
¶163I I couldn't find it. And I don't really have any sort of like natural explanation for that. Like I can't think why it would be cuz obviously I mean it doesn't make any sense because even if the computer crashed or I exit without saving it would still have a um a you know like auto save or something like that. And I spent a while looking because I was annoyed. I was like you know what the I was supposed to be working on that anyway.
¶164So that's the story. I think that is actually I mean yeah maybe it's not like something worth celebrating because it's uh you know not not a nice miracle. It's a example of when I did something immoral by staying home from work on the Sabbath day to do work which is literally the exact opposite to what you're supposed to do. But it did feel I mean I mean obviously I think it's pretty miraculous that that happened. I don't think there's really much of a scientific explanation for it, but I don't really talk about it for one reason, which is well, that's kind of what I expect.
¶165You know, I actually do expect to find that God is going to do that kind of stuff in my life and that when things are going well or when I'm doing kind of the right thing and renewing the man, the spirit, God's going to move things in my favor. When I'm not doing what I should be doing, I should expect that things are not going to be going well. I I expect it. So, we're just not going to talk about and that's just me as one person. I'm sure there are many other people who have that going on.
¶166So, yeah, I do think we don't talk about it. Partially because we don't, you know, it's not as much of a focus for us, but also because even when it does happen, well, actually, I think that the level of faith we have, we kind of expect it. You know, I think ultimately the, you know, a medical healing miracle where someone just gets completely cured of cancer. Actually, I think it's not going to be celebrated to an extreme degree a lot of the time. Because if you truly have faith, you're of course, you know, God's my God's my buddy.
¶167God's my guy. He He He's batting for me. Why would I expect anything else? That was the miracle of Kanda seeking saintly intercession. That was all the uh like Lord's healings.
¶168It's all the like lots of these different Fatima healings. It's the miracle um like the Zetune healings etc. It's the canonization healing miracles like God is literally just manifestly vindicating this practice >> saintly intercession >> which according to at least some Protestants is either idolatrous or worship or in some other way illicit. God has told you that you're wrong. So conform your intellect to that.
¶169So I don't know. I just think when I look at the miraculous evidence and I look at the broader pattern, when I look aware of lots of difficulties for various accommodationist models, for various demonic models um >> and uh Ethan was just like really hounding me on like yeah, Matthew 16 and like uh church history and like the early monoiscopacy and various reasons why like Protestantism probably is not it. Uh, and like all the the the Catholic vindicatory implications and like it would almost seem like betrayal if like the thing that's convincing me of Christianity is like distinctively Catholic miracles to then not become Catholic. Matthew 16. Is that literally just the Peter thing?
¶170Yeah. Okay, that's it. Yeah. Okay. Obviously that's It's so ridiculous to think like that to read Matthew 16, obviously Matthew 16:18 is the main thing, and think, so yeah, what this is saying is that we're going to have uh Peter is going to be in the bishop of Rome, and that means that the bishop of Rome is going to automatically be the successor and he's going to have this infallibility where when speaking like all of literally, and this is something, you know, it's whenever Catholics interpret the Bible, they take a random verse and they just run with it and invent this whole other thing.
¶171You can also see this with how you know there's that verse where it says uh you know such and such person will be saved. Yeah. As through fire. Now obviously we can talk about what that actually means. It's actually quite clear what that actually means.
¶172But Catholics take that verse and they've invented the entire doctrine of purgatory. It's just like yeah you know you'll be saved as free fire. That means that there's this limbo between heaven and hell where unbaptized babies go and lots of other people go there and also you can buy other people's surplus righteousness in order to get time out of heaven and also if people pray for you sorry get out of purgatory and if people pray for you more that gets you out of poetry like all that extra stuff is made up it's so funny like Catholics literally just reading like it's literally like Islam literally the way that obviously with Islam You have the Quran. Muslims believe in the Quran first. And then they would take random verses from the Bible and say, "Oh, this is proving this thing in the Quran." And they invent the rest of it like Muslims do when they pretend that the the helper in oh, I can't remember exactly where it is.
¶173I apologize. But, you know, I think it's John 16, but I could be wrong. Anyway, they say that the helper described there is actually Muhammad. There's no evidence for that whatsoever, but they just make it up. They're just like, "Oh, okay, cool.
¶174Just invent all this other stuff." That's literally exactly what Catholics are doing. Their Quran is their church religion's teaching. So, their church says Mary was perpetually a virgin. And then they go back through the Bible and see if there's any evidence. I mean, in that case, I don't think they even can, but you know, they go say, "Oh, you know, that's literally how they literally treat the Bible the same way Muslims do.
¶175They have the actual thing they believe, whether it's the Quran or whether it's the Catholic Church teaching and then the Bible, all they do is just find whatever verse they can and then just invent loads of stuff around it. >> Um, so then I don't know, it was the last remnants, the last fight, the last battle, the last like 30 to 60 minutes of that conversation. So after the conversation, I was like, "Okay, I've got to be Christian. I'm leaning towards Catholicism." And then the next day I was like I was sort of basically snapped into my senses and I was like, "Okay, there aren't plausible alternative explanations of the data. I've got to become Catholic." So then uh looked up when the next confession time was >> and made a decade long confession confession because it means like someone was returning to God, you know.
¶176>> Yeah. Yeah. >> So >> gee whiz, what was the phenomenological experience of having your sins forgiven and walking out and going about your day like? >> I mean, I don't know. It was it's just a new beginning.
¶177It was beautiful. It was peaceful, you know. >> It was like a a sense of kind of comfort and peace. >> Yeah. The comfort and peace of knowing that if you commit a mortal sin and then don't get to confession in time, you'll go to hell.
¶178This must be so comforting, so peaceful. >> Um knowing that I'm a child of God and that God loves me and that he's forgiven me of all my my decade of debauchery and decadence and >> depravity. How wonderful. But he hasn't, right? You're not a child of God.
¶179You're like his renter. You you you've leased salvation from God contingent on you keeping up your end of the bargain. That's not And again, it's so weird. I had a kid recently and it's just like having a kid and I remember like I saw this post from like Honorado Diamante. I always get his name wrong, but I think that's his name.
¶180um where he literally said like having a child is such a good way to understand God and to understand God's love because I know that there is nothing my son could ever do that would make him not my son. There's nothing my son could ever do that could make me stop loving him. And when I realize that God look now looks at me the way that I look at my son that is incredible. But it's a little bit like how Muslims again it's fine back to the Muslim thing but they can't get their head around the idea of God as a father. Like God as a loving father doesn't make any sense to them because their God doesn't do anything for them.
¶181But it's kind of the same issue with Catholics. What what do they actually I mean it's no surprise they call their priest their father, right? Because for them being a father is pretty meaningless. It doesn't really carry much weight with it. So it's just like you say, "Hey, bro, right?
¶182Like go God's your father." But I mean, he doesn't actually like it's actually all on your end, right? You're the one who has to keep going to confession. You're the one who has to keep doing the sacraments. You're the one who has to stop doing the mortal sins. That's not that's not a relationship.
¶183That's not father to son or father to daughter. Like I say, that's that's rent to tenant. You have rented your salvation from God. And you just need to keep holding up your end bargain. How is that peaceful?
¶184How is that beautiful? How is that? It just doesn't again like it doesn't make any sense. >> And merciful is God that it's that simple. >> It is that simple.
¶185>> Just that's it. Just go in [snorts] there. Come out. Done. In a way, I would imagine it might have been easier to kind of become a Protestant or an Orthodox just to go through some big ritual to make it feel appropriate to what you're going through internally.
¶186Do you know what I mean? >> And not that it wasn't a big deal confessing 10 years of sin, but yeah. >> Wait, what are you saying? How is Protestantism more of a ritual than confession? That doesn't really make any sense.
¶187>> It was difficult to do. >> Yeah. Back back in union with the church. >> Yeah. and then back into the sacramental life of the church.
¶188>> Did you just start going to >> So, was this guy like raised Catholic in the first place? That's kind of weird. Like that seems like a significant detail. >> Holy mass or >> Yeah, started going to mass. Started, you know, I mean, it was right before Lent, which was great.
¶189Um, and uh I definitely made that like a special end, you know. Um, and yeah, just started then praying the rosary every day. And I mean even before then when I was like you know inching closer and closer I started maybe praying like a decade of the rosary a day on Ethan's advice which is like something that I would advise like all everyone who's listening to this like dude a decade takes two to three minutes. The stakes are massive. Pray a decade of the rosary every day.
¶190Just like >> don't do it. Don't do it. Don't like don't make bed fellows with Satan on a hunch, right? Like don't be like well you know I'll pray uh I'll do the Islam prayers five times a day and I'll pray the rosary and I'll start doing like uh Hindu mantra chantric whatever it's called you know like tantric I'll do like the the tantric meditation and I'll align my my yogis or whatever to the spirit and I'll, you know, wear the Mormon magic underwear and maybe I'll throw in like an animal sacrifice. I mean, who knows?
¶191You know, maybe even a child sacrifice every now and then. You got to cover the pagan base, too. I mean, those those those Aztecs, maybe they know what they were talking about. Maybe you got to cut out a living heart. Just got to hedge your bets.
¶192No, stupid. Don't don't commit to a ritual on the off chance. Well, again, don't commit to a ritual on the assumption that maybe committing to that ritual will convince you. Because if not, I mean, I hate to say Homer Simpson was right when he said, "What if we pick the wrong religion every single time you go to church, we're just making God madder and madder?" But the reality is, well, let me be clear. If you pray the rosary because you're just like, "Well, you know, I'll just do it anyway." God's not going to like that.
¶193God's not I mean, aside like that shows you don't actually have trust in him. You don't actually have faith in him. If you're saying, "Well, you know, I know the Bible. I know the Bible says I'm saved by faith alone through grace alone. I I know the Bible says all these things and this is God's word, but let me see if praying the rosary changed things." That's a terrible thing to do.
¶194Just It's horrible, horrible, horrible strategy. >> Do it every single day. Two to three minutes >> and grace will flood your life. And do it like on >> by the way, read the Bible every single day. Like that's actually good advice.
¶195I don't mean read the Bible as like some kind of Protestant ritual. I mean read the Bible to find out the truth of Christianity. Just read the Bible every day. That's what you should be doing and see what the Bible says. >> Honestly, with sincerity, you can even meditate on a mystery or something like that.
¶196>> Yeah, I like that. do it with sincerity. So that's the other thing. It's like, oh wow. Hey everyone, do this whole thing.
¶197Um, what do you think of a Catholic who rejects their their tenants but likes praying rosary? Maybe in an OCD way. So I understand that people don't sit here and kind of watch the whole stream. So I'm going to grant maybe didn't see this but basically I spoke a little bit earlier about 1 Corinthians chapter 8 where basically the upshot of it is in so many words that there are things that don't have any intrinsic spiritual power and they might have secular benefits but you need to be careful I would say one about so first things first is doing that in front of other people because that could lead other people astray but the Other thing is you're going to want to like in that context I would just say well actually you probably should just be doing something else like okay here's the thing for example I do mindfulness meditation and that's because I think it has secular benefits I even think that yoga as it is now in the west isn't really like oftentimes not really a religious thing it's basically just stretching right and I think that you don't really need to worry about going to a yoga class if the yoga class is just stretching. Now, if the yoga person starts like bringing all the overtly spiritual stuff into it, then that's when you got a bit more of a problem.
¶198But all I would really say is actually in that context, it's not really harmful uh because you're not doing it think it has any spiritual power. Yeah, that's no problem. Um but yeah, basically it doesn't have any spiritual power. it's not directly harmful, but there's also a thing of like you probably should replace it with something else, you know, and that that's basically yeah, basically my stance in that regard. Um, but even if you don't believe, if you're Protestant right now, please like pause this >> and commit to praying a decade of the rosary every single day.
¶199>> Well, I think they've got to overcome prayers to the saints before they do that. >> Right. But that's why we went through all the evidence that prayers to the saints is efficacious and God has basically put a stamp of approval on it. Although I would say, fair enough. Although I would say that just praying the first half of the Hail Mary, the angelic psalter, that's how the rosary used to be, right?
¶200The half the first. So like you could start with that. >> Yeah. I always like to stoop to conquer. >> Yeah.
¶201>> To to mention those words that the angel said to Mary which turned hell up. >> I mean, you know, Yeah. I mean, you know, a Protestant can also do is um listen, if you have objections to saintly intercession. I mean, again, like I think that God is sort of Yeah. You shouldn't, but um the second thing is just that um listen, God knows your heart.
¶202He knows your intentions, right? So, just pray beforehand. >> Mhm. >> God, if this is against your will, I'm sorry. Please forgive me.
¶203And then pray it. God knows that you're just trying to seek him, right? >> That was Dr. Han. He did that.
¶204Scott, >> really? Yeah. >> Yeah. And then afterwards you can be like, "God, if that was idol if that was idolatry or if that was against your will, I apologize and you know my heart and you know I love you." >> So just just say that and it'll be fine. So that's what I would recommend.
¶205>> Yeah. Very. >> I will say this and I'm sorry, but I do think if you have the slightest bit of doubt, like if you're thinking yourself Catholicism might be true, I'm sorry, but I just don't think you're saved. Uh I don't think there's any hope for you. Like ultimately I don't really think that you can actually say like pray and say God am I supposed to become Catholic and then be like hey God uh you know I'm sorry if that upset you.
¶206Yeah I think it might upset him that you're basically saying that his sacrifice on the cross wasn't enough and that you might need to supplement it by doing all these Catholic rituals. Like it's it's as absurd as saying, "Hey, um, God, I'm just praying. Should I become a Muslim and sorry by the way if this upsets you? Hey God, should I become a Hindu? Sorry by the way if this upsets you." Like it it's just an absolutely absurd thing to suggest that you should pray for a direct a religion that directly contradicts the gospel.
¶207Hey, should I believe this? By the way, S. No. But and that's the thing. Obviously, you shouldn't be praying like there there are things that you can pray about that you might struggle with.
¶208So, obviously there's like secondary issues, uh social issues, something like that. Um, you know, obviously, uh, I mean, if if you're gay, then you should definitely sp like if you're a gay person who feels that your samesex attraction is not sinful and you you don't think like you're like, "Oh, no. This this is fine." Well, then you should certainly pray about that and, you know, see if if you're led one way or the other. Again, I'm not gay. I I can't say with confidence, but yeah, basically that that's something obviously that there are more minor things.
¶209Uh maybe like what church should you be going to, you know? I mean, obviously there's loads of things to pray about. the idea like that's the thing considering all the things there are to pray about. If you are at a point where you're literally praying like hey God just wondering is this whole gospel thing even actually true? I think it might.
¶210And here's the thing obviously there's kind of you can have your your doubts that you're earnestly expressing like oh lord you know I saw this and it was really challenging me. Um but that sort of a mind towards you're asking for go you know it's the Lord I believe help my unbelief. You're asking him to bring you back on track. If you're saying actually no, I'm seriously considering that this entire Christianity thing might be a complete nonsense and a completely different religion might be true. I would say at that point I I don't really know if if you are actually saved because it's kind of like how can you have recognized that truth but not believe it?
¶211And people say oh in that case no assurance of salvation. No I mean because that's the point. you're not assured of salvation. If if you don't if you are not assured of salvation, there's no assurance of salvation. There's assurance of salvation if you're assured of salvation.
¶212You know, for example, I know that I'm assured of salvation because I'm assured of salvation. I I know that it's impossible for me to go to hell. And I also know that I'm never going to sit down and pray and say, "Oh Lord, do you want me to become Catholic?" Because that wouldn't make any sense. How can I go from being like, "No, of course I'm saved by faith alone. there's nothing I could possibly do to lose my salvation and then be like, "Oh, but actually, wait, let me just check.
¶213God, is it actually the case that this completely different religion that says I can't can lose my salvation is the true?" Well, at the very last minute, we lost connection, but um anyway, I basically I'll be off now and I'm going to try to do this. I basically I recently and this is actually you know what actually I suppose I should end with this, right? Speaking of things I've been praying about, a prayer that I've been saying regularly for the past few months has been so again most of you probably know I have another channel. I have in the past called it my main channel and I've um recently elected to stop calling it that because uh well basically what I've been praying about with frequency is and you know to I think it's been something that's entered my prayers ever since I've started doing this channel which was obviously well um I think it was back in April 2025 I first started streaming on this channel uh which is Lord should I make this my main focus on YouTube because you know like that's the crazy thing, right? It's really weird and obviously we're talking like back even when I just had the focus on the trans issue on my main channel to spend a whole lot of time talking about you know there's this like silly nonsense like trans thing and then come on to this channel where I'm actually talking about serious stuff that will affect your eternal destiny and I'm like oh this is just a side thing you know just on the on the side I talk about this it didn't make any like it's always knowing that I've been aware of that seeming contradiction and yeah, I've been praying all the time uh more so recently uh especially because that channel actually before I even you know I've kind of moved away from the trans topic but one of the reasons why I moved away from the trans topic is because the trans topic videos were not getting very many views and I was like one of the prayers I kept saying was basically you know is this happening?
¶214because that's not where I'm supposed to be putting my focus. And anyway, the upshot is that I've become increasingly convinced that this channel is where I should be putting most of my focus. And with that said, I'm going to um continue uh yeah, I'm going to try to be consistent about streaming twice a week because I used to stream twice a week and I fell off that habitually. It's just kind of I mean, you know, it's it's just a a thing of well, I've got a baby. It's quite difficult, right?
¶215Anyway, but I'm trying to make sure that even with that being the case, I still have some consistency when it comes to stuff like this. Anyway, so with that said, you should actually see me next like this coming Friday, which is a relatively short gap. That's because I was away yesterday and I'm going to be busy on Saturday uh at a at a church Bible study on Saturday. Praise God. All right, everyone.
¶216I'll see you all later. Thank you so much for being here and um yeah, look forward to seeing you in a few days.