The Charlie Kirk Show - Is Atheism Dead? LIVE from Freedom Night in America with Eric Metaxas

00:00:00.000 Happy Sunday.

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody.

00:00:01.000 My conversation with Eric Metaxas with his new book, Is Atheism Dead?

00:00:06.000 And then I take questions live from our event, Freedom Night in America, from Dream City Church in Phoenix, Arizona.

00:00:12.000 No advertisers in this episode.

00:00:14.000 So I'm only going to mention a couple things.

00:00:15.000 Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of you that are generously stepping up and supporting our program at charliekirk.com/slash support.

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00:00:28.000 Beverly from Oregon.

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00:00:44.000 Thank you.

00:00:44.000 Beverly from Bourbon, Illinois.

00:00:46.000 That's where the Bears used to train.

00:00:47.000 I don't know if they do that anymore.

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00:01:03.000 CharlieKirk.com/slash support is the way you can get behind our work.

00:01:08.000 Make sure you're coming to AmericaFest, everybody.

00:01:10.000 tpusa.com slash amf December 18, 19, 2021.

00:01:16.000 I'm going to keep on plugging it because I want to see you all there.

00:01:18.000 It is going to be the biggest event of the year.

00:01:21.000 You don't want to miss it.

00:01:23.000 Eric Metaxas is here.

00:01:25.000 Buckle up. 0.96

00:01:25.000 Here we go. 0.96

00:01:27.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:01:28.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:01:30.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:01:34.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:01:37.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:01:38.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:01:39.000 His spirit, his love of this country.

00:01:41.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.

00:01:48.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:01:56.000 That's why we are here.

00:02:00.000 Thank you, everybody.

00:02:01.000 Thank you.

00:02:02.000 Please sit down.

00:02:03.000 Great to see all of you.

00:02:04.000 It's been a couple weeks.

00:02:07.000 We've been having such success here at Freedom Night in America and Freedom Square, and we're growing it to Freedom Night in America, I should say.

00:02:14.000 We just had another one of these.

00:02:15.000 I want to share the success of how this event is growing.

00:02:18.000 A couple nights ago, we were in Loudoun County, Virginia, where I know some of you are booing because you know what happened recently, right?

00:02:27.000 And we brought Freedom Square, branded as Freedom Night in America to Loudoun County, Virginia, to Gary Hamrick's church at Cornerstone.

00:02:36.000 Eric, you know that church.

00:02:38.000 We had a packed house, 2,700 people there, and all inspired from what we've started here.

00:02:43.000 So this is growing all across the country in a very exciting way.

00:02:46.000 In the last couple days, I woke up this morning.

00:02:50.000 I asked Eric and my wife, I said, where am I exactly?

00:02:53.000 Yesterday we were in Burlington, Vermont.

00:02:56.000 And literally 24 hours ago, I was giving a speech in Burlington, Vermont.

00:02:59.000 Some of you go, what are you doing there?

00:03:01.000 Exactly.

00:03:02.000 We as Christians, conservatives, have to go places that we've never been before, especially the ones where we're not always in the predominant viewpoint.

00:03:11.000 You know what was amazing is that we had a packed room, standing room only, in Burlington, Vermont last night.

00:03:17.000 And you wouldn't even imagine it.

00:03:19.000 Burlington, Vermont.

00:03:21.000 And so we've been crisscrossing the country.

00:03:23.000 And we just, we're doing our campus tour right now.

00:03:26.000 University of Michigan, University of Minnesota.

00:03:28.000 We did Baylor University.

00:03:30.000 And then we're headed to, where are we going?

00:03:32.000 Oh, yeah, we're going to Boise State University, University of Oregon.

00:03:35.000 So pray for us next week.

00:03:37.000 We're going to need some help there.

00:03:39.000 And then we're going to Clemson, Alabama, then the University of Arizona coming up in a couple of weeks, I think in November or so.

00:03:47.000 So I want to share one really good optimistic message.

00:03:49.000 And then I want to get right into our special guest here tonight because we have an American gift.

00:03:54.000 We have a national treasure here tonight.

00:03:56.000 He's a friend of mine.

00:03:57.000 And I'm going to give him a very hard time throughout the entire evening, but it's out of love, Eric.

00:04:01.000 It's love, regardless of his pants selection, which is interesting, and you'll see why.

00:04:06.000 Yep.

00:04:08.000 And so, but Eric has wrote a very special book.

00:04:11.000 I've read Eric's books, unlike some of Eric's relatives, have actually read some of Eric's books.

00:04:18.000 And this is a special book that we're going to get into tonight.

00:04:22.000 And it's a full-on indictment of atheism and godless culture, which is something that has, I think, become kind of the predominant viewpoint on too many college campuses and high schools.

00:04:35.000 And Eric has done such a phenomenal job of going into that.

00:04:38.000 But I want to get to one really positive thing that I believe God gave me in the last month, which I was thinking about whether or not the ruling class and the people in charge, how are they feeling about the direction of the country?

00:04:38.000 So we're about to get into that.

00:04:53.000 And look, we don't do hopium here.

00:04:54.000 We've said this before.

00:04:55.000 Hope and opium mixed together feels good, but it's really bad for you.

00:04:59.000 And but I think the people in charge are starting to get demoralized.

00:05:04.000 And the people that have been punishing us and bullying us.

00:05:07.000 Now, the most important news item in the last six weeks that happened in America is not the wide open border.

00:05:13.000 It's not inflation.

00:05:14.000 It's not the supply chain crisis.

00:05:16.000 It's not what happened with the Taliban of us giving $85 billion of our own weapons to the enemies of America. 0.52

00:05:21.000 No, the most important story is to show who they really are actually afraid of.

00:05:26.000 The most important story is when the National School Board Association of America came out with a letter and sent that letter to the Biden White House.

00:05:34.000 And four days later, the Attorney General of the United States, Merrick Garland, issued a guidance letter saying that we're going to use the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

00:05:44.000 We are going to use the Patriot Act to go after moms and dads that are showing up to school board meetings across the country.

00:05:51.000 Now, everyone has a different reaction.

00:05:52.000 Some people applaud.

00:05:53.000 Some people leave the room.

00:05:54.000 Some people go and smash their phones because they're afraid they're being spied on.

00:05:57.000 Everyone has a different reaction when I say this, but the truthful reaction is that they are getting frustrated, they being the people in charge, the ruling class, that for whatever reason, after they implemented the current president, that Christians and people of faith, people who understand the founding documents, people who believe in God, that for whatever reason, the more they throw at us, the actually stronger we become.

00:06:25.000 And they can't quite understand that.

00:06:29.000 They thought that they could go on a campaign of shock and awe, of almost making us want to sue for peace, that after January 20th of this year, we'd say, okay, you know what?

00:06:39.000 Actually, let's go put Liz Cheney in charge of the conservative movement. 1.00

00:06:43.000 And instead, here's what happened: Moms and dads started showing up to school board meetings.

00:06:47.000 All of a sudden, we launched this event.

00:06:49.000 We started to see regular, everyday people rise up in numbers we've ever seen before.

00:06:54.000 That in the last 10 months, where we are right now, halfway through October, a little more than halfway through October, all of a sudden they're realizing that the conservative Christian movement, whatever you want to call it, that we are anti-fragile.

00:07:07.000 Now, what does that term mean?

00:07:09.000 Now, there's a great book that was written.

00:07:10.000 You know what that means, Eric.

00:07:12.000 And this is new material for you because you don't listen to my podcast.

00:07:14.000 That's right.

00:07:15.000 And so, unlike this audience, they're hearing this for the second and third time, right?

00:07:20.000 And so, what's the opposite of being fragile?

00:07:23.000 Now, some people might say durable, tough.

00:07:25.000 No, there's another word that was created by an author by the name of Nassim Taleb, where he said there's something where there's a group, an organization that actually goes stronger the more you attack them.

00:07:35.000 And he coined the term anti-fragile.

00:07:37.000 He said, This is rare, but when an organization, a movement, a people, a group find themselves to have the mindset of being anti-fragile, there is nothing that can be thrown at them that will actually harm them.

00:07:49.000 It's actually a blessing.

00:07:50.000 It's a group of people that actually, they rejoice, as it says in Romans, in the suffering, in the persecution, or the stressors.

00:07:58.000 Now, when you think about it, this is the church at its best.

00:08:02.000 The church at its worst is a fragile institution.

00:08:04.000 The church at its worst is one that puts up the LGBT flag in June or the BLM flag to win approval of the world. 0.99

00:08:11.000 The church at its best is one that meets at 6 a.m. for a prayer meeting and then gets back together for Freedom Square that very night.

00:08:21.000 So what does it mean to be anti-fragile?

00:08:23.000 Two great examples.

00:08:24.000 The American revolutionaries and the people in Britain during the bombing campaign against the Nazis were anti-fragile.

00:08:31.000 The more they tried to throw at them, the more their resolve strengthened.

00:08:35.000 And the people in charge, the ruling class, Francis Collins who resigned, or Jon Stewart, who's saying, what is wrong with these people?

00:08:41.000 Why won't they go away?

00:08:42.000 They're starting to realize the 60, 70, 80 million faithful out there, the people that believe in God, the people that read their Bible, the people that love this country, that despite their best efforts of writing letters to the GOJ or getting the FBI involved, they're starting to get frustrated because we did the one thing that we as Christians are commanded not to do, which is engage in self-pity.

00:09:04.000 It's very tempting to all of a sudden want people to feel sorry for yourself.

00:09:08.000 Oh, they used Dominion machines.

00:09:10.000 They had ballots all over the place.

00:09:12.000 We weren't allowed to send the stories in the last election.

00:09:16.000 Let's just go home.

00:09:17.000 Instead, we did the opposite.

00:09:19.000 We're organizing, optimistic.

00:09:21.000 We're positive.

00:09:22.000 We're doing real things.

00:09:23.000 We're showing up in record numbers to the Scottsdale Unified School District, and we're doing something about what's actually happening in our local community.

00:09:31.000 And so I just want to say for tonight that the people in charge, they look at these gatherings and say, what's wrong with these people?

00:09:38.000 They say, why can't we get rid of them?

00:09:41.000 And here's the truth of it, is that we understand that we are now in a new era, a new chapter.

00:09:47.000 And that chapter is we understand the stakes of the game, that no matter what you throw at us, no matter how high the stakes are, we're going to keep on gathering, keep on praying, keep on fasting.

00:09:57.000 And we know that what we are up against is only going to be beat by the matter of the will.

00:10:04.000 And here's the question.

00:10:05.000 I'm going to ask you, this is the easiest question.

00:10:07.000 Who's going to win the future?

00:10:09.000 Jesus, that's right.

00:10:11.000 But who's going to win the future for the temporary kind of future of our wonderful nation that we're in?

00:10:16.000 As it says in Jeremiah 29, 7, the theme verse of our gathering, which is to demand the welfare, the peace of the nation that you are in because your welfare is tied to your nation's welfare.

00:10:26.000 Is it the side that gets offended when you use the wrong gender?

00:10:31.000 Or is it the side that's willing to get fired after 30 years at a job because they don't want to take a vaccine?

00:10:37.000 Which side is going to win?

00:10:42.000 I'm going to leave you with two final thoughts and then we'll bring Eric up and we'll have some fun, which is number one, which is there's some good things happening.

00:10:50.000 Delta Airlines and Southwest Airlines has now announced they are retracting the vaccine mandate.

00:10:58.000 Big deal.

00:11:01.000 And I know we're going to get a lot of questions here tonight.

00:11:04.000 I want to say we stand by you if you're being scheduled for termination.

00:11:08.000 You are the most courageous people in the world.

00:11:10.000 For those of you that listen to our podcast and radio show, I had to correct one of my friends, Jack Pasebic.

00:11:16.000 He said, oh, people aren't fighting.

00:11:17.000 That's not true.

00:11:18.000 I see people that are willing to give up everything right now.

00:11:21.000 It might not be on the nightly news.

00:11:23.000 It might not be what you see.

00:11:24.000 I see people say, you know what?

00:11:26.000 You could take my career away.

00:11:27.000 The head coach of the Washington State University football team, God bless this man.

00:11:32.000 Did you see this story?

00:11:33.000 Millions of dollars a year.

00:11:35.000 He said, you know what?

00:11:36.000 I don't care.

00:11:37.000 I'm not going to take the vaccine.

00:11:38.000 And this is not even about the vaccine.

00:11:39.000 It's about how you can force me to do something against my will.

00:11:42.000 And I'm telling you, everybody, that the tide is changing.

00:11:46.000 The sea is turning in our direction.

00:11:48.000 And it takes courage.

00:11:49.000 Takes boldness for us to do that.

00:11:51.000 As it says in Joshua 1-9, be strong and courageous.

00:11:55.000 Okay, one announcement.

00:11:57.000 I want to put it up on screen for something very special.

00:11:59.000 We'd love to have a strong Freedom Square presence at our upcoming event, America Fest, December 18, 19, 2021, at the Phoenix Convention Center.

00:12:11.000 And I wanted to show you some of the speakers that we have here.

00:12:13.000 Look at that.

00:12:14.000 We got Tucker Carlson coming, Kaylee McEnamy, Ted Cruz, Jesse Waters, Candace Owens, Jim Jordan, Donald Trump Jr., Madison Cawthorne, Kimberly Guilfoyle, and many others.

00:12:24.000 If you guys use promo code Freedom Square, okay, promo, I think that's what we had it right.

00:12:30.000 Promo code FreedomSquare at tpusa.com/slash AmericaFest.

00:12:34.000 It's right down the street at the Phoenix Convention Center.

00:12:37.000 We're going to be giving Dream City Church a free partnership and sponsorship for that because we want to continue to tell the people that are going to come to that.

00:12:44.000 Hey, there's a great church in the valley to go to.

00:12:46.000 So we are expecting anywhere between 10 to 15,000 people there and discounted tickets for everyone there at tpusa.com/slash AmericaFest.

00:12:57.000 One last housekeeping item.

00:12:59.000 When we are done with the program tonight, Eric will be signing books outside.

00:13:04.000 The books are for any, if you give a donation of any size outside of Turning Point USA, $1 or $100, you guys get a signed book from Eric Metaxas.

00:13:12.000 I also have felt bad that I always have to dash after these things.

00:13:15.000 I'm going to be outside to take pictures with you guys for a little while just to say hi after this because you guys have been so faithful and you've been taking this gathering so seriously.

00:13:24.000 And so we're going to be doing that after we're done here.

00:13:28.000 So I want to tell you about Eric Metaxas.

00:13:30.000 Eric Metaxas wrote one of the most important books, not this book, the book on Bonhoeffer, is one of the most important books I think published in the last 100 years.

00:13:39.000 It is the premier biography and the premier story of a man that stood for truth when it was difficult.

00:13:46.000 His book on miracles is phenomenal.

00:13:48.000 His recent autobiography, Fish Out of Water, is incredible.

00:13:51.000 I consider him a dear friend.

00:13:53.000 And this book, Is Atheism Dead, is one of the most thorough, one of the most detailed pieces of literature done on the idea of how ludicrous it is to believe in atheism.

00:14:05.000 It's good for children.

00:14:06.000 It's good for anyone struggling with your faith.

00:14:08.000 So please join me in welcoming an amazing friend of mine, Eric Metaxas, everybody.

00:14:15.000 What is this?

00:14:16.000 What is this?

00:14:18.000 Who are these people?

00:14:19.000 God bless you.

00:14:21.000 Wow.

00:14:23.000 Oh, God bless you.

00:14:25.000 Charlie, I was going to make a lot of nasty jokes about you, but then I realized you brought your wife. 1.00

00:14:30.000 I can't do that with her.

00:14:31.000 You see the pants, everybody?

00:14:32.000 What does he think?

00:14:34.000 I'm dressed, I was told to dress like Tony Curtis and some like it hot.

00:14:38.000 And that's.

00:14:39.000 He looks like he's going to the Kentucky Derby or something.

00:14:42.000 He doesn't like that.

00:14:43.000 It wouldn't kill you to put on a tie.

00:14:46.000 You know, I understand.

00:14:47.000 It's a big effort, though.

00:14:48.000 You're busy.

00:14:49.000 It's a big lift.

00:14:50.000 Is atheism dead, Eric Metaxas?

00:14:52.000 This chair, I'm not just shorter than you.

00:14:54.000 This chair is like 40 inches lower than your chair.

00:14:57.000 Have you noticed this?

00:14:59.000 It's a power dynamic.

00:15:00.000 There you go.

00:15:02.000 Thank you very much.

00:15:03.000 Thank you.

00:15:04.000 You've been a great audience.

00:15:05.000 Good night.

00:15:07.000 We're taking this on the road.

00:15:09.000 Eric, why'd you write this book?

00:15:11.000 Why?

00:15:14.000 At the beginning of COVID, I just got the idea for this book.

00:15:19.000 And it really breaks down this way.

00:15:23.000 I want to say I'm a spirit-filled believer.

00:15:27.000 I believe the Holy Spirit is alive today.

00:15:33.000 And I believe in Bigfoot.

00:15:36.000 And I believe he's going to come to faith before the week is.

00:15:39.000 No.

00:15:39.000 But I'm a spirit-filled believer.

00:15:41.000 And sometimes I don't blow smoke.

00:15:44.000 I don't say that the Lord said this, the Lord said that.

00:15:47.000 There have been times that the Lord has guided me clearly and directed me.

00:15:52.000 And with this book, it wasn't anything like an audible voice or wasn't anything mystical, but it seemed really clear to me right at the beginning of COVID that like the idea for the book came to me.

00:16:03.000 And it was framed around this.

00:16:06.000 I met two people, and it was because I had met these people that I thought I've got to write this book.

00:16:12.000 The two people I'm talking about, I met a guy, a scientist named James Tor.

00:16:18.000 He's probably the top nanoscientist on planet Earth, literally, right?

00:16:24.000 He's such a super genius.

00:16:27.000 And I met him through some friends at a church in Houston, and he starts talking to me about the concept of abiogenesis.

00:16:36.000 Now, does anybody here know what that means?

00:16:39.000 If you know what that means, get out, because I don't want to talk to people that know about this stuff, because then you may catch me in an error.

00:16:46.000 But what he talked about, this is kind of fascinating, right?

00:16:50.000 We all argue about evolution and we have these big conversations about that.

00:16:55.000 But you know what no one ever talks about, ever?

00:16:59.000 It's like, okay, if you say to a scientist, where did life come from?

00:17:05.000 They say, well, life appeared on planet Earth 4 billion years ago.

00:17:09.000 The simplest life is a single cell and it appeared, you know, in the prebiotic soup, it appeared 4 billion years ago, okay? 0.84

00:17:18.000 And then from that, it evolved into whatever.

00:17:20.000 And he said, well, forget about the evolution and stuff.

00:17:21.000 Let's forget about that.

00:17:23.000 You're telling me life appeared on planet Earth 4 billion years ago.

00:17:27.000 All scientists know this.

00:17:31.000 But if you ask them, how did that happen?

00:17:37.000 Crickets.

00:17:40.000 In 1952, there was a famous experiment, which it was probably like in your textbook in eighth grade or 11th grade.

00:17:48.000 You had to get this on the test.

00:17:50.000 And it said that Miller and Uri did an experiment at the University of Chicago, and they put some chemicals together that they said was probably on the early Earth from like 19, I'm sorry, in 1952, they did this, figuring out what was on the early Earth 4 billion years ago, and they ran some electricity through it, kind of like lightning, and they figured that might have been the thing that sparked life.

00:18:11.000 And when they did that, they got amino acids.

00:18:15.000 Now, you don't need to be a genius to understand that amino acids are light years away from like a cell, right?

00:18:25.000 It's like saying we got plastic.

00:18:27.000 So we're like, any day now, we'll figure out how to make a flat screen TV.

00:18:30.000 Look, plastic, look, look, look.

00:18:33.000 But they really were so excited about it that they declared, and the whole scientific community declared, we're on our way.

00:18:41.000 And it's only a matter of time before we get the next step and the next step and the next step and the next step.

00:18:46.000 Well, Jim Tour said to me, Eric, I know as much about this as anybody on the planet.

00:18:53.000 You can't fool me.

00:18:54.000 I'm like Mr. Nano scientist, okay?

00:18:57.000 He said, in 70 years, they have not moved the ball forward a millimeter.

00:19:05.000 They have no idea.

00:19:07.000 And think of the irony: the more science you know, the more you know that you know nothing.

00:19:15.000 In other words, the assumption is the more science you know, the more you figure stuff out.

00:19:20.000 But in this case, the more science progressed over 70 years, the more they understood we know nothing about how life came into being.

00:19:32.000 But if you ask somebody, they say, oh, no, no, no, we're working on it.

00:19:35.000 Yeah, you're working on it, and you'll be working on it for 70,000 years because you can't get.

00:19:40.000 The one thing that we know about a cell today is that a single cell, the simplest cell, is like infinitely complex.

00:19:47.000 In 1952, they didn't quite know that, right?

00:19:50.000 So, when he told me this, I thought, no one ever talks about this.

00:19:55.000 Never.

00:19:56.000 Like, the most incredible thing.

00:19:57.000 Like, what wouldn't you think the basic science question would be like, hey, how did life appear on Earth?

00:20:01.000 Because you read any article today and they say, we found water on an exoplanet 40 billion light years away.

00:20:09.000 And if there's water any second, there's going to be life.

00:20:12.000 No, that's complete nonsense.

00:20:16.000 So I thought about that and I thought about all these other arguments for science that I happen to know, but I thought this one is really extraordinary.

00:20:24.000 And then I realized I met another guy in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

00:20:27.000 Skip Heitzig's church is there.

00:20:29.000 And he said, You got to meet this guy, an archaeologist, Stephen Collins.

00:20:33.000 He's discovered biblical sodom. 0.89

00:20:36.000 And I said, What?

00:20:38.000 What are you talking about?

00:20:39.000 I mean, I read the papers.

00:20:40.000 I never read about anybody discovering biblical sodom.

00:20:43.000 1700 BC, like they found this.

00:20:46.000 Now, without going on even longer, the bottom line is I looked into this and it is nothing less than astonishing.

00:20:55.000 It is open and shut.

00:20:57.000 He discovered biblical sodom. 0.81

00:21:00.000 This is something that happens in the first couple of pages of the Bible.

00:21:05.000 Okay.

00:21:06.000 And I thought, nobody knows about this.

00:21:08.000 This is one of the most extraordinary archaeological finds ever.

00:21:12.000 So at the beginning of COVID, I thought of these two people that I'd met and I thought about how nobody that I know, including intelligent Christians, has heard of either of these things. 0.90

00:21:22.000 So I said, I really need to write a book where I put that information in there because Christians need to know the details.

00:21:29.000 Like this is very exciting information, very exciting, open and shut.

00:21:35.000 But there's all this other information that, like the fine-tuned universe and other stuff.

00:21:40.000 And so I said, you know, I'm just going to put this all in a book.

00:21:44.000 And then at the end, I'll write about atheism.

00:21:47.000 And the reason I thought of the title is because in 1966, you'll remember Time Magazine had this famous cover article that said, Is God Dead?

00:21:58.000 Because everybody thought, well, science is proving God doesn't exist.

00:22:01.000 Well, the great irony is that all these years later, the real question is, is atheism dead?

00:22:08.000 Because science, not just what I refer to, but scientific evidence so dramatically points to the existence of God.

00:22:16.000 I said, every believer needs to know this information.

00:22:20.000 So that's the long answer to why I wrote the book.

00:22:23.000 If you prefer the short answer, I can give that later.

00:22:26.000 And Eric, you know, I visit college campuses a lot.

00:22:29.000 And I'd say in Vermont, half the room were probably atheists last night.

00:22:34.000 And it's fashionable.

00:22:35.000 So some people would say, Eric, there is no proof that there is a God.

00:22:39.000 Therefore, I'm an atheist.

00:22:41.000 You embarked on this book to show, hold on a second, it takes more faith to be an atheist than to be a Christian.

00:22:50.000 Okay, that is like the understatement of the millennium.

00:22:53.000 It takes, I mean, I've heard people say that Frank Turek has said that.

00:22:57.000 Trust me, once you read just what's in this book, I mean, there's way more, but it has become, to my mind, if you read just this, you realize that real atheism is preposterous. 0.99

00:23:14.000 And I don't just mean people who don't believe in God or idiots or they're wrong. 0.99

00:23:17.000 No, no, no. 1.00

00:23:18.000 50 years ago, it was tenable.

00:23:20.000 It was something you could say, I've come to the conclusion, whatever.

00:23:24.000 It could make sense.

00:23:25.000 It could be, we would say it's wrong.

00:23:28.000 But 50 years ago, you could say, all right, well, you're an atheist.

00:23:34.000 Today, based on this information, I would say it is not possible to be an intellectually satisfied atheist.

00:23:42.000 If you want to be an agnostic, I will take my hat off to you. 1.00

00:23:45.000 That's one thing.

00:23:46.000 But to say that I know there's no God based on several things, I simply don't think it's possible.

00:23:53.000 And I think people are going to get angry.

00:23:55.000 And a guy called up, I had the honor of guest hosting Charlie's radio show today because he sleeps late.

00:24:03.000 And hey, he's young.

00:24:06.000 He'll learn.

00:24:07.000 He'll learn.

00:24:08.000 And no, but seriously, he let me guest host the show.

00:24:10.000 And so a guy called up, I did Collins, and he said, I'm an atheist, whatever.

00:24:16.000 And he said, you don't give any hard evidence of God.

00:24:21.000 And I said, this is what happens, I think, when you talk to atheists. 0.99

00:24:25.000 They don't really even understand.

00:24:27.000 I'm not trying to be mean, but when you say hard evidence, that's exactly what is in this book.

00:24:32.000 When you talk about the fine-tuned universe, it's kind of like saying to somebody, Proven Adam exists.

00:24:36.000 And you say, well, what do you mean, proven Adam exists?

00:24:38.000 They go, I want hard evidence.

00:24:39.000 Don't just give me theory.

00:24:41.000 And you'd be like, well, we really can't see Adams.

00:24:44.000 They tend to be kind of small.

00:24:46.000 And theory is the only way we can, you know.

00:24:49.000 So when you start talking about this stuff, I think what we find is that people who want to know the truth can have a conversation and can look at it.

00:24:58.000 But they're always going to be people to them, it is like a sports team.

00:25:03.000 They say, I'm an atheist.

00:25:05.000 And no matter what you say, they're just going to make fun of you.

00:25:08.000 I think.

00:25:08.000 So, Eric, in writing this book, and I've learned a lot by just skimming through it so far.

00:25:13.000 What was something you learned in researching this book?

00:25:15.000 Because you're a lifelong Christian.

00:25:17.000 You have an amazing testimony.

00:25:18.000 But what did you learn all of a sudden diving into this that just kind of in a spark notes version that you think most Christians should also know?

00:25:26.000 Yeah.

00:25:27.000 Well, this is true.

00:25:30.000 When I write almost all my books, I learned something.

00:25:33.000 In other words, I'm not like a lifelong scholar that just decides to take my great knowledge and put it in a book.

00:25:38.000 Trust me, I'm not.

00:25:40.000 I get interested in a subject.

00:25:41.000 I know just enough to begin, but I always learn stuff that I'm kind of shocked at.

00:25:46.000 In this book, I learned many things that completely shocked me. 0.93

00:25:53.000 The most astonishing, this is like so ridiculous. 0.70

00:25:57.000 Well, there's two things. 0.77

00:25:59.000 I'll give you the simple one first.

00:26:01.000 Some of you know, if I said to you, who are the most famous atheists of the 20th century?

00:26:06.000 And I don't mean Madeline Murray O'Hare, I don't mean like angry screwballs, okay?

00:26:12.000 No offense.

00:26:14.000 But I mean, I'm talking about like intellectually rigorous atheists.

00:26:20.000 You'd have to say Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, okay?

00:26:25.000 The frogs, the frogs.

00:26:26.000 They're always atheists. 0.97

00:26:27.000 Can I say frogs?

00:26:29.000 Frogs. 0.80

00:26:30.000 That was a joke, really.

00:26:31.000 That was just me.

00:26:32.000 That was trying to trigger a few people of French extraction here.

00:26:37.000 But in all seriousness, these were great minds and they believed that there was no God.

00:26:44.000 They took atheism very seriously.

00:26:47.000 They weren't flippant.

00:26:49.000 When you look at Christopher Hitchens, you look at Dawkins, they're tremendously flippant.

00:26:54.000 They're intellectually dishonest.

00:26:56.000 It really is ultimately offensive. 0.99

00:26:59.000 When I read their stuff, I thought, this is ridiculous. 0.88

00:27:01.000 Like nobody should take them seriously.

00:27:03.000 They just wanted to sell books.

00:27:05.000 But I was reading about Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, both of whom they didn't agree on everything, but they were French existentialists who believed we're living in a world without God.

00:27:18.000 And we have to figure out how we can create a morality without God.

00:27:22.000 And basically, it's impossible.

00:27:23.000 But they were really struggling.

00:27:27.000 Both of those men, one in 1960 and the other in 1980, came to faith in God.

00:27:35.000 Now, let me tell you, when I read that, sometimes I discover something.

00:27:38.000 I think this can't be right.

00:27:40.000 Like, this can't be right.

00:27:41.000 And I never heard it either on the show.

00:27:42.000 Eric said it.

00:27:43.000 What did I do?

00:27:44.000 You looked it up.

00:27:45.000 You turned right to the page almost miraculously.

00:27:48.000 But there may be some Baptists that don't believe in the Holy Spirit.

00:27:51.000 You don't want to lose them.

00:27:52.000 You don't want to lose these people.

00:27:54.000 They could be cessationists in the room.

00:27:56.000 They could be here.

00:27:59.000 And I opened up to the page again.

00:28:01.000 Open right to the page.

00:28:01.000 But the reason I say this is that this is kind of my larger thesis of my life, and it's the thesis of the book.

00:28:08.000 We live in a world.

00:28:09.000 You know this.

00:28:10.000 It's true politically.

00:28:11.000 It's true with theology.

00:28:14.000 Most people in the secular media, in the academy, all over, they're pushing a narrative that is basically not true.

00:28:26.000 And so you discover these things and you think, how is it possible?

00:28:29.000 I went to a good college.

00:28:31.000 I read a lot of books.

00:28:32.000 I never heard this.

00:28:34.000 This is big news.

00:28:35.000 If the two biggest atheists of the 20th century came to faith.

00:28:39.000 And so I said, I'm going to put it in the book and it's going to blow people's minds.

00:28:44.000 The other thing that I learned, this is so weird, I almost don't want to bring it up because people are going to, I don't have time to explain it.

00:28:51.000 But when I was writing about biblical Sodom, the details are astonishing, like they're astonishing.

00:28:58.000 So I said, I want to write about other famous biblical archaeological finds.

00:29:03.000 So I started to do my research.

00:29:05.000 I was familiar with some of them.

00:29:06.000 I've read about this over the years, but there were a few that I hadn't, and I learned about them.

00:29:10.000 Some of them are really funny stories.

00:29:12.000 And I think it's important for us to communicate in a way that's appealing and to tell the stories of how these things were discovered is some of them are hilarious stories.

00:29:21.000 So if you just read like the paragraph on why it's important, it's boring and you won't remember it, but they're crazy stories.

00:29:26.000 But so I'm doing kind of general research.

00:29:29.000 And this is what?

00:29:30.000 A year ago, I stumble on something and I said, this has to be, this can't be right.

00:29:36.000 This cannot be right.

00:29:39.000 In Nazareth, they discovered a gigantic church that had been destroyed by the Muslims in the 8th century, built over another church that had been built maybe in the 4th century.

00:29:58.000 And under that was a first century dwelling.

00:30:04.000 And it seems without a doubt, because I've looked into this to be the home of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

00:30:14.000 Now, when I read that, I thought this is not possible.

00:30:17.000 This is like discovering, you know, Santa's workshop at the North Pole.

00:30:20.000 Like, I don't know.

00:30:23.000 But I say this because I really looked into it.

00:30:28.000 And that and other things, you know, I look into them carefully.

00:30:32.000 I believe that things right now are so dark in this country that God is revealing these things for this time.

00:30:44.000 He's blowing people's minds.

00:30:46.000 It's like he said, okay, when you get really, really sophisticated and full of yourselves, when you know more science than you think you're God, I'm going to allow you to use that science to discover me.

00:31:01.000 And it's going to blow your mind.

00:31:03.000 And that's exactly what I believe is happening with archaeology and with science and with discovering this stuff about Albert Camus and all this stuff.

00:31:12.000 God is giving it to us to give us real hope in our time.

00:31:17.000 In the book, it goes through scientific proofs that there is God.

00:31:22.000 Let's talk societally, Eric.

00:31:24.000 How does atheism make the world a worse place to live?

00:31:28.000 I mean, so we talk about the verse of which has really inspired this gathering that we've been doing for a couple of months now, Jeremiah 29, 7.

00:31:36.000 Demand the welfare of the nation and the city of which I've sent you in because your welfare is tied to the nation's welfare.

00:31:42.000 What does atheism do to a country?

00:31:43.000 What does it do to a people?

00:31:45.000 Yeah, it's actually funny because I've been struggling for days to write an op-ed that answers this question.

00:31:51.000 I'm really bad at writing op-eds.

00:31:56.000 Part of what I write about at the end of the book, I say, okay, let's look at the record of atheism, right?

00:32:01.000 There is no question.

00:32:03.000 I wrote a book called If You Can Keep It, where I show what I only learned recently, right?

00:32:08.000 That there is zero question that faith and virtue are central to self-government and liberty.

00:32:19.000 So, you know, if you want to be a libertarian or whatever you want to be, all I'm telling you is that every single one of the founders knew that without a virtuous population, generally speaking, you cannot have self-government.

00:32:36.000 And they knew that practically speaking, you cannot have a sufficiently virtuous population unless there is faith.

00:32:44.000 They knew that.

00:32:45.000 Now, you can know that like a sociologist.

00:32:47.000 You don't need to believe in the faith.

00:32:48.000 Franklin's theology was a little screwy, and Jefferson's theology was a little screwy.

00:32:54.000 Nonetheless, they both knew that without a religious and moral populace, and they all mentioned this, it's not just the famous Adams quote, you cannot have self-government.

00:33:04.000 People govern themselves and they're free.

00:33:07.000 And they don't need somebody to govern them with a gun.

00:33:09.000 You don't need a bureaucracy, a deep state, a tyrant.

00:33:13.000 You govern yourself.

00:33:15.000 Well, the opposite of that, of course, is that when you find states that they don't believe in freedom, what is the first thing that they want to crush, that they must crush, that they find more threatening than anything?

00:33:29.000 And that is people of faith.

00:33:31.000 Because people of faith are, and I'll coin this term, you can use it, anti-fragile. 1.00

00:33:38.000 I just coined that term tonight and I said, Charlie, go ahead and use it.

00:33:42.000 I don't care.

00:33:42.000 Where'd you get that from, Eric?

00:33:44.000 What Ronald Reagan said, if you don't care, you know, who gets credit, you can accomplish a lot.

00:33:49.000 So if you want to take that term anti-fragile, you go ahead.

00:33:52.000 Hey, hey, Eric, is atheism dead?

00:33:55.000 So, well, the answer to that is yes and no, right?

00:33:59.000 Because that's the issue is that I would say practically speaking, based on just the evidence in the book, and it's not like there's anything magical about the book, but I've just kind of amassed some scientific stuff that I think it's going to blow your mind.

00:34:12.000 You're going to say, wow, I'm really glad I know this.

00:34:17.000 I think based on that and based on my discussion of atheism at the end and what atheism tends to, because you said what happens in a culture, what happens always happens the same.

00:34:29.000 An atheist does not ultimately believe in anything. 0.99

00:34:34.000 They don't believe in meaning.

00:34:36.000 Now, if you talk to an atheist, they pretend that they argue about that.

00:34:40.000 Sam Harris and the others, they try to concoct some way. 0.82

00:34:42.000 It's nonsense.

00:34:43.000 If there is no God, there's no good, there's no evil, there's no transcendence, there's no love, there's no good.

00:34:48.000 Therefore, there's only power.

00:34:50.000 And therefore, you are not a special creature creating God's image who the government should protect.

00:34:57.000 You're nothing.

00:34:58.000 You're nothing. 1.00

00:35:00.000 And so if I can crush you or murder you for the good of the state or for the good of me and my party, why shouldn't I do it? 0.99

00:35:10.000 Now, unfortunately, that is a simple truth. 0.99

00:35:13.000 And atheists never deal with that. 1.00

00:35:15.000 So I deal with that in the book because I said, look, you can say all you want, but you've got to deal with your history.

00:35:21.000 Atheist regimes have been unspeakably brutal, unspeakably brutal, and that's just history. 0.92

00:35:29.000 But the question whether atheism is dead, so I would say intellectually it is, but there are going to be people who have this tribal affinity who say, I'm an atheist.

00:35:41.000 And, you know.

00:35:42.000 Let's talk about just not the, there's an even worse part of this, which is trying to become God yourself.

00:35:50.000 And we've seen this in the last 18 months.

00:35:52.000 The best example of this is Mr. Fauci, who should be in jail, by the way.

00:35:58.000 He should be put in prison for what he's done to our country.

00:36:01.000 And Eric, when you don't believe in God, is there a tendency to then want to become God?

00:36:10.000 There's no doubt about it.

00:36:11.000 That's the whole point, right?

00:36:12.000 Is that if you look, you can go to the first pages, the first chapters of Genesis.

00:36:19.000 And of course, you know this.

00:36:22.000 What is the first temptation?

00:36:24.000 This is as basic as it gets.

00:36:27.000 Human nature.

00:36:29.000 We either submit to worship the God who invented the universe.

00:36:34.000 And by the way, even in reading this book, you'll be in awe.

00:36:38.000 Like we think, wow, God's amazing.

00:36:40.000 When you understand a fraction of what he did in creating this world, it is so astonishing.

00:36:49.000 It's so breathtaking.

00:36:50.000 It's almost frightening when you realize who he is and what he did in creating this world.

00:36:55.000 And so we have a choice either to submit to reality and worship him or to do exactly what Satan did and say, no, thank you.

00:37:05.000 I would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven.

00:37:09.000 And even if you don't do that explicitly, on some level, you're doing it.

00:37:13.000 And so that's exactly what the serpent says in Eden.

00:37:17.000 He says, you will be as gods.

00:37:19.000 It's always the temptation.

00:37:21.000 And it's actually very sad because no matter what happens, we will never be as gods.

00:37:27.000 There's only one God.

00:37:28.000 But the irony is, if we submit to God, we do become like God, don't we?

00:37:37.000 We become more and more like him, and we will become more and more like him in eternity.

00:37:43.000 So this is the great irony.

00:37:45.000 Satan says, here's the cheap plastic neon, you know, juke joint version.

00:37:53.000 How would you like to have a good time?

00:37:55.000 And God says, how would you like to have eternal joy?

00:37:59.000 That's ultimately the choice.

00:38:02.000 And somebody who says, I want to be God, I want to use technology or power or transhumanism. 0.53

00:38:08.000 I mean, look, we know that anybody who doesn't believe in the biblical order believes everything's malleable.

00:38:14.000 Okay.

00:38:14.000 They think that a frog can evolve into a giraffe, which can evolve into a whale, and you can evolve into a raccoon or a monkey.

00:38:25.000 And it's all malleable, right?

00:38:27.000 Therefore, therefore, it only follows that we can manage our own evolution upward into something godlike.

00:38:39.000 And that's what transhumanism is.

00:38:42.000 They think there's no reason I shouldn't live forever.

00:38:44.000 There's no reason I shouldn't be able to destroy disease.

00:38:47.000 So a lot of them actually believe this.

00:38:50.000 And I think they're going to be in for a rough lifetime.

00:38:52.000 So one of the reasons why some people say they become atheists is the biggest challenge Christians have in evangelism, which is the pain problem.

00:39:03.000 How do you explain pain away in the world?

00:39:06.000 Natural disasters, famine, starvation.

00:39:09.000 Do you get into that in the book and you talk about that?

00:39:11.000 Because that's a tactic that's used by Dawkins and Hitchens.

00:39:14.000 I don't.

00:39:15.000 And the reason I don't, I actually took a strange tack in this book.

00:39:18.000 I said to myself, why do I need to get into that stuff?

00:39:20.000 Like, all I'm trying to explain is that atheism is utterly impossible.

00:39:25.000 Okay.

00:39:26.000 It's like multiplying by zero.

00:39:27.000 Let me explain it to you.

00:39:28.000 You get it?

00:39:29.000 I'm done.

00:39:30.000 I don't need to get into that.

00:39:32.000 In other words, I think sometimes we allow ourselves to get all tangled up and we're effectively casting pearls before swine, having an argument with some atheist who isn't really interested in the truth.

00:39:43.000 They just want to have an argument.

00:39:45.000 The pain problem, let me answer that really simply.

00:39:48.000 It's called a mystery. 0.89

00:39:50.000 There are a lot of foolish evangelical questions who think I can just pull some index cards out of my pocket and I've got the answers to all these things. 1.00

00:39:57.000 Anybody who has an easy answer to pain and suffering and death and evil is foolish. 0.99

00:40:05.000 We understand that part of that is not something we can understand on this side of the veil. 0.98

00:40:11.000 We should be honest about that.

00:40:13.000 It doesn't mean we have nothing to say.

00:40:15.000 I mean, I've written about this in other books, but in this book, I didn't get into that just because I thought I am not playing the game of I'm going to prove God.

00:40:27.000 I'm just going to put some things in a book that are going to make it obvious that there is literally zero chance that the world and the universe and you and me arose randomly.

00:40:38.000 There is zero question that some intelligent creator made us.

00:40:44.000 And when you look at atheism, it is incontrovertible that it is preposterous on a number of levels.

00:40:53.000 And that's, I set a low bar for myself in writing this book.

00:40:56.000 The question is: is atheism dead?

00:40:59.000 I didn't say, can I convince everybody that God exists?

00:41:02.000 So I want to get to some questions here in a minute.

00:41:04.000 But, Eric, unfortunately, America is becoming less religious and more people are identifying with this viewpoint.

00:41:11.000 Is there something attractive of wanting to believe that there is no God?

00:41:15.000 Does it give people a license to do it?

00:41:17.000 Well, of course.

00:41:17.000 But this is what's so funny: you have people like Hitchens and Dawkins.

00:41:21.000 And honestly, I lost any modicum of respect I had for them.

00:41:24.000 When you start reading, it's kind of like when Freud wrote Moses and monotheism.

00:41:29.000 You know, you have these people that they've got their field that they're really brilliant in, and then they decide, like, hey, I'm a genius.

00:41:35.000 I'll write about something else. 0.99

00:41:37.000 And they show that they're foolish in that field. 0.98

00:41:40.000 When Dawkins and Hitchens write about this stuff, a fourth grader could refute it. 0.99

00:41:46.000 They're just very clever and very nasty in debate.

00:41:51.000 But honestly, they don't have much of a point.

00:41:55.000 And I think what they do is they appeal to the reason I bring them up is because you get the impression.

00:42:01.000 There's a quote in the book from Hitchens.

00:42:04.000 I mean, the irony of this is like you want to horse laugh, like it's so crazy.

00:42:09.000 He says, he finds the idea of a God watching every move I make just offensive, right?

00:42:16.000 And you think to yourself, okay, so like you're really in love with the idea of being free, so there's no God watching you.

00:42:22.000 But in every atheist state in the world, you have all the technology available.

00:42:28.000 Thank you, Google and other people, watching people and every Move they make.

00:42:34.000 So, like, where's the utopia?

00:42:35.000 Where's the atheist utopia? 0.93

00:42:37.000 Your atheist utopia ends in something infinitely worse than whatever you imagine. 0.99

00:42:43.000 This mean policeman god watching you is is doing, but they do present it as though hey, there's no god, i'm free.

00:42:51.000 Anyone like Sart, Camus and others.

00:42:54.000 I mentioned the poet Dylan Thomas, I mentioned Woody Allen, I mentioned Inmar Brickman.

00:42:58.000 There are people who don't believe there's a god, but you can see that they are troubled by it.

00:43:04.000 In other words, they've really looked at it.

00:43:06.000 Anybody who kicks up his heels and says hey, there's no god, so I can party and can sleep with my grad student awesome, like nobody.

00:43:13.000 You know, that is so shallow and childish, it's self-refuting, and so I honestly think the atheist movement is filled with those kind of people. 1.00

00:43:22.000 They're kind of angry, uh.

00:43:24.000 They want some kind of an identity.

00:43:26.000 They think that you know we're moralists uh, and and I think we, we just have to be honest that in America you can, you can be that way, but don't expect me to respect your philosophy.

00:43:37.000 And I I want to just say for the young people out there and the people you know the, the parents that have students that are going to be going to college soon.

00:43:45.000 On some college campuses not all of them the Atheists evangelize with more fervor than Christians do on those campuses.

00:43:52.000 And so Eric, what do you think the reason for that is?

00:43:55.000 It seems that atheists are not comfortable being alone, and this is always. 1.00

00:44:00.000 I've always tried to challenge them.

00:44:01.000 I say, if there's no, if you don't believe in an eternal life or a creator, you only got so much time left, like you, better live it up, right.

00:44:09.000 Trying to convince people for that?

00:44:09.000 What are you doing?

00:44:11.000 By the way, just a reminder, I got a couple of these.

00:44:13.000 You could steal these Eric, because you don't.

00:44:14.000 You're big on that, right?

00:44:16.000 Um is, without god, there would be no atheists.

00:44:20.000 Remember that.

00:44:21.000 So, and you got to think about that for a second without god, there would be no atheists.

00:44:25.000 I'm pretty sure that's Cs Lewis or Chesterton.

00:44:27.000 That's Chesterton.

00:44:28.000 You can't fool me, go ahead, it's.

00:44:31.000 It was actually my UBER driver, Eric.

00:44:33.000 Okay, that's so I.

00:44:37.000 I watched the video where you got that from the guy who gets his joke from the UBER driver.

00:44:42.000 That was the the, the guy who just passed away, you know.

00:44:42.000 That was Chris.

00:44:46.000 You know, i'm talking about Norm Mcdonald.

00:44:48.000 Oh yeah yeah, from Snow, he told a story.

00:44:51.000 Okay, never mind, let's continue.

00:44:53.000 Um, i'm looking up the chapter.

00:44:55.000 That answers the question you're asking me, but keep going.

00:44:59.000 The most important question when it comes to dealing with an atheist and we all know we all have atheists in our lives which is, do you hope you're wrong?

00:45:05.000 It's the most important question yeah, which is, if you ask someone who believes in atheism, do you hope you're wrong?

00:45:11.000 Because if you're dealing with an honest person, no atheist actually hopes to believe in nothing.

00:45:18.000 You, you actually want to believe.

00:45:19.000 There is no love, there is no justice, there is no eternal life, and so if an atheist says, you know what I do hope i'm wrong, then you're dealing with an honest broker. 0.97

00:45:28.000 But if someone says, you know what, I want to be right more than what could possibly be good, then that that right.

00:45:34.000 There is a completely different conversation that you're having at a very fundamental level.

00:45:38.000 Even every single atheist should want to be proven wrong, every single.

00:45:43.000 I don't know where I I heard that, but I know it's not original with you um, but seriously no, but the point is that that's exactly true.

00:45:52.000 But the other thing and you just asked me this question and I want to answer this it's in the book.

00:45:56.000 I couldn't find it, but if you believe there's no god okay, it follows logically, and this is the problem.

00:46:05.000 People don't want to deal with this.

00:46:06.000 They just want to say there's no god and I can do what I want.

00:46:09.000 No no, no.

00:46:10.000 If there is no god, there is absolutely no measure of good or evil.

00:46:18.000 There's literally no meaning in the universe.

00:46:20.000 Yes you, your life is no different than the life of a gnat, And if that's true, that life is utterly meaningless.

00:46:31.000 The bleakness of that is numbing if you can face it, which most of them don't even begin to face it.

00:46:37.000 But if you believed it, why would you spend a minute trying to convince someone else that it's true?

00:46:46.000 We are all just like candle flames.

00:46:48.000 We're going to go out in a moment.

00:46:50.000 Who cares about anything?

00:46:52.000 Why do you feel compulsion to share what you think is true with strangers?

00:46:57.000 It makes no sense that an atheist would be evangelistic for atheism.

00:47:02.000 It makes absolutely no sense.

00:47:03.000 It's self-refuting.

00:47:05.000 Kind of proves that for them, it's just like, you know, it's their sports team.

00:47:08.000 They want to get you on their team.

00:47:10.000 They want you to, you know, to join their club, basically.

00:47:14.000 And I believe a lot of the issues young people are facing right now can be attributed to the hypersecular, atheistic type temptation that's out there.

00:47:23.000 And when you believe there's no reason for existence, you don't believe there's no God, there will be other kind of troubles that go alongside with that.

00:47:30.000 Let's get a couple lines for questions and let's give it up for Eric, by the way.

00:47:34.000 He's done such a great job with this book.

00:47:36.000 Thank you.

00:47:40.000 And students get priority, as always.

00:47:43.000 And we're going to go for 20 minutes, 25, because then we're going to be keeping Eric up.

00:47:48.000 I'm happy to do this as long as I can remain conscious.

00:47:52.000 And I do want to say, if you don't mind, I only will take questions from people who've been vaccinated.

00:47:57.000 Yeah.

00:48:00.000 Yeah.

00:48:01.000 Yeah, please.

00:48:02.000 Please.

00:48:04.000 Okay, I'm thinking about the children.

00:48:06.000 I want us all to be vaccinated, if you don't mind, yeah.

00:48:10.000 And I prefer true or false questions also.

00:48:14.000 Want to keep it moving, you know?

00:48:16.000 All right, we'll start over here.

00:48:18.000 Yeah.

00:48:21.000 Hi.

00:48:22.000 So for a long time, there's been this thought that religion and politics should be separate.

00:48:28.000 And we have operated under the assumption as a society that we should strive to have a pluralistic, can't say that word, political sphere, which has gradually just served to push Christianity out and move secular humanism in instead.

00:48:44.000 So do you see pluralism starting to crumble under its own weight?

00:48:48.000 And what should we as Christians do about that?

00:48:52.000 I'm sorry, could you repeat that?

00:48:56.000 That one, I write about that in my book, If You Can Keep It.

00:49:00.000 And I literally answered that question in a speech 24 hours ago in Wichita, Kansas.

00:49:08.000 So he was in Burlington.

00:49:09.000 I was in Wichita.

00:49:10.000 And that's the Wichita group.

00:49:16.000 But it's simple.

00:49:19.000 The founders knew that faith was central to everything we believe in.

00:49:27.000 There's no way around that.

00:49:29.000 But they also knew that for many reasons, faith must be free.

00:49:34.000 It cannot be coerced.

00:49:36.000 So the government cannot establish a religion.

00:49:39.000 Now, they were thinking it's going to be Congregationalism or the Church of England or Baptist or whatever.

00:49:45.000 But the basic concept is true.

00:49:48.000 This is why those of us who have faith need to exercise our faith like crazy.

00:49:56.000 We need to live out our faith in every single sphere of existence.

00:50:01.000 When somebody tells you, shut up about that, you say, excuse me, I'm an American.

00:50:06.000 And in America, I can be a Satanist. 0.98

00:50:09.000 I can be an atheist.

00:50:10.000 I can be a Christian.

00:50:11.000 I can be anything I want.

00:50:13.000 And not just on Sunday mornings, but 24-7, I can live it out in every place that I go. 0.99

00:50:23.000 And the idea that that's going to make people who aren't Christians feel marginalized is garbage. 1.00

00:50:28.000 That's absolute nonsense. 0.99

00:50:30.000 It's like, you know, if I believe in quantum physics, I'm going to be triggering people who don't believe in quantum physics.

00:50:36.000 We can play that game all day long.

00:50:38.000 People are playing a game when they say that.

00:50:41.000 The Constitution is clear.

00:50:43.000 Our history is clear.

00:50:45.000 If people are like, you know, beating up Jews in the streets, I would be the first one as a Christian to say we shouldn't do that. 0.51

00:50:54.000 But when people bring that up, it's complete nonsense.

00:50:56.000 I mean, I think we really have to push back against that.

00:50:59.000 So thank you.

00:51:00.000 Yeah, and I'll just add to that slightly, which is the problem is that we as Christians, we've abdicated our role as counselor to the king.

00:51:09.000 And so we have allowed secular humanism to fill the void of where the church always should be.

00:51:15.000 And so, you know, all throughout the Old Testament, Esther, Nehemiah, Mordecai, Jeremiah, Joseph, and many others, Daniel, were counselors to secular government for God's purpose.

00:51:27.000 So pluralism, or a government that acknowledges the laws of nature and nature is God, that acknowledges the blessings of liberty to secure the blessings of liberty, but does not have people that actually believe in blessings or liberty, then it will fold upon itself.

00:51:43.000 And this goes to show because too many churches, not this church, which is a phenomenal church and is an exception to the rule, obviously, and have just decided to kind of not play in that arena.

00:51:56.000 And John Adams said it best where he said the Constitution was written solely for a moral and religious people.

00:52:02.000 It's wholly inadequate for the people of any other. 0.98

00:52:04.000 And this kind of goes to kind of one of the things Eric and I were talking about, which around atheism, which is the more secular society becomes, the less free it becomes.

00:52:14.000 And I'm going to cite this one.

00:52:16.000 This comes from Dennis Prager.

00:52:17.000 You're welcome, Eric.

00:52:19.000 Thanks.

00:52:20.000 Which is, unless you're Plato, you're stealing from somebody at all times, right?

00:52:25.000 Plato or Moses or Paul is religion makes America a better place. 0.90

00:52:32.000 Any country that you go in that's more religious is better, and I'll prove it to you. 0.99

00:52:37.000 And if anyone has a different answer to this question, they're lying.

00:52:40.000 And I don't say that lightly, which is if you go, if you're in a dark alley in New York City at 2 o'clock in the morning and five men are approaching you and you have a choice, those five men either came from Bible study or from the bar, which would you choose?

00:52:54.000 Every American would choose Bible study.

00:52:57.000 Even the atheist would choose Bible study. 0.87

00:53:01.000 And if they say the bar, they're lying.

00:53:03.000 Actually, they would.

00:53:04.000 They are lying.

00:53:04.000 Because they know deep down, those five people were actually reading the Bible.

00:53:08.000 They'd be far less likely to do something they should not do.

00:53:13.000 And so, look, it's very simple.

00:53:15.000 Atheism, if a society becomes atheistic, the government gets bigger.

00:53:19.000 Every single country, this is the case.

00:53:22.000 When you destroy the church, the government gets bigger and freedom and liberty goes away because liberty and freedom is impossible for a citizenry that does not have virtue and does not have faith as a center.

00:53:32.000 Eric said that exact same thing.

00:53:34.000 And I'll just say this a little bit differently, which for young people out there, this might resonate even more.

00:53:41.000 You'll live in a generation that is less happy and that is a more dangerous society and is a less pleasant place to live.

00:53:51.000 That religion makes us more decent to one another and atheism makes us less trustful of one another.

00:53:57.000 It makes private charity go away.

00:53:59.000 The idea of sacrificing for your neighbor.

00:54:01.000 And so happy to go through that.

00:54:03.000 But the reason why a lot of people are saying, well, pluralism might be a mistake is because pluralism can only work if Christians take their rightful role in impacting that pluralistic secular government.

00:54:15.000 So thanks for being here tonight.

00:54:17.000 And so to say that Christians have a profound obligation to live out our faith in every sphere.

00:54:26.000 And if you don't do that, we will be filled with bad secular ideas, just as Charlie said.

00:54:33.000 And it is shame on the church that we bought the lie that we're not supposed to be involved in politics.

00:54:38.000 That is preposterous.

00:54:39.000 William Wilberforce was a politician who abolished the slave trade because of his Christian faith.

00:54:45.000 Now, do we think that the blacks in the holes of those slave ships wished that he had kept his politics or his religion out of politics?

00:54:53.000 We all know it's preposterous. 0.69

00:54:54.000 Live out your faith.

00:54:57.000 That's the coolest outfit I've seen, Eric.

00:55:00.000 I know.

00:55:02.000 Hello there.

00:55:04.000 Hi, I'm Tyrrell Che.

00:55:06.000 I am seven years old.

00:55:08.000 I am in second grade.

00:55:11.000 I just saw Hamilton.

00:55:13.000 I just saw Hamilton.

00:55:15.000 I wanted to know who your favorite founding father was.

00:55:19.000 I wanted to know who your favorite character was.

00:55:22.000 In what?

00:55:23.000 I didn't hear that.

00:55:24.000 Hamilton.

00:55:26.000 In Hamilton.

00:55:27.000 Yeah.

00:55:28.000 King George III. 0.99

00:55:33.000 I'm a sucker for gay stereotypes. 1.00

00:55:38.000 My favorite character in Hamilton? 0.97

00:55:41.000 Aaron Burr was fine.

00:55:43.000 Hamilton was obviously great.

00:55:45.000 I actually, I just know the story of Hamilton.

00:55:47.000 I've actually never seen the play.

00:55:48.000 I know that.

00:55:48.000 And also Wench number two.

00:55:51.000 Huh?

00:55:52.000 I just, she was really a standout.

00:55:56.000 He said something he shouldn't have said.

00:55:58.000 Okay, next question.

00:56:02.000 First of all, Eric, I really enjoyed your biography on Diedrich Bonhoeffer.

00:56:06.000 It was brilliantly written.

00:56:07.000 But my question to both of you guys, it stems from the unfortunate reality that both of my parents are either agnostic or atheist.

00:56:14.000 They're the type of atheists that Charlie was mentioning, the ones that hope they're wrong.

00:56:17.000 They do love the fact that I have my faith, but they're really well versed.

00:56:22.000 They've studied the Quran, the Bible, the Book of Mormon, et cetera, every religious text out there.

00:56:28.000 And the only reason why they have no faith is that, or they don't have a religion or a relationship with Christ is that they have no faith.

00:56:35.000 So my question to you guys is, how would you approach a conversation about religion to people who want faith, but just don't know how to get it?

00:56:45.000 This is a great question.

00:56:46.000 I'm sure a lot of people in this room, this might resonate with you, right?

00:56:49.000 And so I'll give my take and then Eric, you can go to yours.

00:56:52.000 You have to know the type of atheist you're dealing with, and you're already kind of on that path.

00:56:56.000 Some atheists will be convinced by Eric's scientific reason-based arguments.

00:57:01.000 They want to try to see the argument for the unmoved mover or the fine-tuning argument or for how in the beginning was the big bang, therefore there must be someone who actually executed the big bang.

00:57:13.000 These are rather reasonable arguments that I think are rather convincing, but not every atheist is convinced of that.

00:57:19.000 Other atheists, though, and you have to know kind of what you're dealing with, they are atheists because they've been hardened by the world.

00:57:25.000 This is very important.

00:57:27.000 And facts, logic, apologetics, reason, science, that's not going to move them.

00:57:32.000 Instead, they need a transformation and they need either prayer, experience.

00:57:36.000 They need to be brought to church to see something that is beyond just reasonable type arguments.

00:57:42.000 Now, for me, I'm more in the direction where I want to know the teleological answer for existence.

00:57:48.000 And I'm moved by the more apologetics type perspective.

00:57:51.000 But Christianity is so much more than that.

00:57:55.000 We are given reason as a gift, as it says in Isaiah 1, let us reason together by God to make sense of the natural world.

00:58:03.000 But the reason we have faith in Jesus Christ is not solely based on that.

00:58:07.000 It's faith and it's experience.

00:58:10.000 We have a renewing of our mind, it says in the New Testament in the scriptures.

00:58:14.000 And I could say that I have seen people that say, no matter what you say, Charlie, I'm not going to give my life to Christ.

00:58:20.000 I don't believe in God.

00:58:21.000 And for whatever reason, God plans a collision course in their life.

00:58:25.000 And the best thing you can do, in my personal opinion, is tell them, keep your eyes open for God every single day.

00:58:34.000 You'll start to see him.

00:58:38.000 That's a perfect answer.

00:58:39.000 It's exactly what I would have hoped to say.

00:58:42.000 The only thing I would add to it is that I think sometimes Christians can be too cerebral. 1.00

00:58:48.000 And this book is cerebral.

00:58:51.000 But I will tell you: prayer is real.

00:58:55.000 And you need to know that prayer is real.

00:58:59.000 Don't hope that it's real. 1.00

00:59:02.000 Hoping that prayer is real is stupid. 1.00

00:59:04.000 Prayer is real. 1.00

00:59:06.000 God hears your prayers.

00:59:07.000 That is a fact.

00:59:09.000 We need to understand that God can do things supernaturally that are utterly impossible in the natural, and by definition, obviously.

00:59:18.000 But I mean, I got saved in a dream because a guy was praying for me.

00:59:24.000 And the dream changed my life overnight.

00:59:29.000 What changed intellectually?

00:59:31.000 The intellectual stuff had been there, but suddenly the Holy Spirit came in.

00:59:37.000 And I think that when we see revival in America, that's going to be a big part of it.

00:59:42.000 It's going to be the Holy Spirit.

00:59:44.000 And people are going to say, I don't know why.

00:59:46.000 I don't know what happened.

00:59:48.000 C.S. Lewis famously said that he took a ride in the sidecar of his brother Warney's motorcycle and they went to the Whipsnade Zoo.

00:59:58.000 And all he knows is that when he got in the sidecar, he didn't believe Jesus was the Son of God.

01:00:03.000 And when he arrived at the Whipsnade Zoo, he did.

01:00:07.000 And it's an amazing thing that God works on us in mysterious ways.

01:00:12.000 We need to know that.

01:00:13.000 So if your parents are really open, just pray for them, show them the love of Jesus.

01:00:18.000 It's not up to you to save them.

01:00:19.000 It's up to God.

01:00:20.000 And this doesn't work with everybody.

01:00:22.000 This is a small percentage, but I always need to say this because I think people don't know this.

01:00:27.000 But some people say there's no such thing as the supernatural or metaphysics.

01:00:31.000 Go meet.

01:00:31.000 And this, again, this is very, this is a select crowd.

01:00:34.000 Go meet with someone who's dealt with legitimate demonic possession.

01:00:37.000 Sometimes true testimonies of evil spirits can move people to believe that there's a spiritual domain.

01:00:44.000 Some people are moved when they actually meet someone who's dealt with real exorcisms and real deliverance.

01:00:49.000 Again, it's not for some people, they're like, that's not for me.

01:00:52.000 That's a very real thing, though, Eric.

01:00:53.000 I think you would agree.

01:00:54.000 No, no, no.

01:00:55.000 That's actually my story.

01:00:56.000 I read a book by M. Scott Peck called People of the Lie.

01:01:00.000 And at the end of it, he talks about exorcism and stuff.

01:01:02.000 And I realized I would have been happy to see the devil because I realized then I would know there's something beyond this world and I would choose God.

01:01:10.000 And I do believe exactly what Charlie said.

01:01:12.000 We need to start understanding that the spiritual reality is reality.

01:01:17.000 And even seeing the dark side, for some people, it is that that will make them understand.

01:01:23.000 Oh, okay.

01:01:25.000 And it's not for everybody, again, but some people say there's nothing out there.

01:01:28.000 Like, really?

01:01:29.000 I want you to go meet with someone who's done real deliverance sessions of people that have lost full autonomy of that.

01:01:35.000 And it's powerful.

01:01:36.000 It's profound.

01:01:37.000 And sometimes Christians kind of don't talk about that.

01:01:40.000 They act as if, you know, that doesn't exist.

01:01:43.000 And I mean, I have seen videos, read books that are so beyond convincing that there is a supernatural domain out there.

01:01:54.000 I've had people like this on my radio shows.

01:01:56.000 A dear friend of mine, Ken Fish, I have him on my radio program all the time.

01:01:59.000 He experiences this stuff all the time.

01:02:01.000 It is utterly real.

01:02:04.000 All right.

01:02:04.000 We'll pray for your parents.

01:02:05.000 Thank you for being here.

01:02:06.000 Yes, thank you.

01:02:06.000 Great question.

01:02:11.000 Hi, my name is Micah, and I have two questions.

01:02:14.000 The first one is: if God was in the beginning, when was the beginning?

01:02:22.000 Well, we don't know exactly, but we do know it was on a Tuesday.

01:02:26.000 You have to just be very clear.

01:02:28.000 There's no doubt about that.

01:02:30.000 He's joking around me.

01:02:31.000 I'm joking.

01:02:31.000 He knows I'm joking.

01:02:35.000 Actually, you say if God was in the beginning, when was the beginnings out, you said?

01:02:41.000 Yes, like if he was there, it doesn't.

01:02:48.000 Okay, let me, I'll save the time.

01:02:50.000 God is outside of time.

01:02:54.000 Time and space, I believe, were created 13.8 billion years ago in the Big Bang, okay?

01:03:00.000 And science says that that's what happened.

01:03:02.000 That space itself, not everything in space, but space itself and everything that occupies space and time were created 13.8 billion years ago.

01:03:14.000 So you realize you can't go before that.

01:03:16.000 And that when we go to heaven, people say it's going to be eternity.

01:03:19.000 It's going to be a long time.

01:03:20.000 It's not going to be a long time.

01:03:22.000 It's going to be outside of time.

01:03:25.000 We were not made for time.

01:03:26.000 We were made for eternity.

01:03:28.000 And eternity is like an eternal present.

01:03:31.000 It's something that's very hard for us to comprehend.

01:03:34.000 But the idea of like we're just going to be out there for billions of years sounds boring.

01:03:39.000 And God is in eternity.

01:03:42.000 He is outside of time.

01:03:44.000 And he created time and space from that place.

01:03:48.000 So there's another mystery.

01:03:50.000 Some very brilliant physicists can talk about different dimensions of time, but I'm not one of them.

01:03:57.000 What's your second question?

01:04:00.000 And my second question is: if we're spending money to give to other countries, how much money do we have for ourselves in America?

01:04:15.000 Yes.

01:04:16.000 That's a topic panel.

01:04:17.000 I'm pretty sure that's a racist question.

01:04:20.000 I'm pretty sure. 0.72

01:04:21.000 You don't like brown people, do you? 1.00

01:04:23.000 I'm joking again. 1.00

01:04:23.000 Eric, you're so vicious. 1.00

01:04:27.000 He knows I'm joking. 0.98

01:04:28.000 No, he doesn't.

01:04:29.000 Yes, he does.

01:04:33.000 We spend far too much money on foreign aid and shipping money all overseas.

01:04:37.000 We're trillions of dollars into debt.

01:04:38.000 How old are you?

01:04:40.000 10.

01:04:40.000 So you're 10 years old.

01:04:42.000 The rest of your life, you're going to be paying off the debt that your parents and grandparents gave you.

01:04:46.000 And the $27 trillion will soon be $35 trillion and soon be $50 trillion.

01:04:50.000 By the time you can vote, in eight years, you will be in a political circumstance that you did not earn that you were born into because of intergenerational theft.

01:04:59.000 Now, don't complain about it.

01:05:01.000 Don't make any qualms about it.

01:05:03.000 It's just a set of circumstances.

01:05:05.000 But your general question is: why don't we take care of our own citizens?

01:05:08.000 You're very wise.

01:05:09.000 You just asked two very wise questions.

01:05:11.000 Actually, the question: Have you ever heard on a plane when they say when the masks drop down, they say to the adults, put the mask on yourself first before you help the children next to you, right?

01:05:24.000 That's not because they don't care about children. 0.70

01:05:26.000 It's because that if you don't take care of yourself first, you will be in no position to help other people.

01:05:32.000 And so I would say, I wish America would thrive so extraordinarily that we could give away so much money that we could give away, we could open up our borders and we could feed the world.

01:05:46.000 We all would want that.

01:05:48.000 But if you want to help other people, you have to make sure your own house is in order.

01:05:55.000 And so that's a great question.

01:05:56.000 God bless you.

01:05:57.000 Thanks for being here tonight.

01:05:58.000 God bless you.

01:06:02.000 Hi, I'm Emery.

01:06:04.000 And my question is, how can a kid like me tell people that COVID-19 is not the biggest thing to worry about in this world?

01:06:18.000 How old are you?

01:06:20.000 I'm 11.

01:06:21.000 11.

01:06:22.000 Do you have classmates and friends that believe it's the biggest thing to worry about?

01:06:27.000 I'm actually homeschooled.

01:06:29.000 Well, there you go.

01:06:31.000 Right on.

01:06:36.000 So, obviously, it doesn't pertain to your friends then or your teachers who are probably right behind you.

01:06:43.000 Which is it's been a massive disservice what we've done to young people in so many different capacities, the masking the vaccines.

01:06:52.000 But also, there are students that truly believe that the greatest threat to their existence is this virus.

01:07:00.000 And so, Dr. Macquerie, I'll give you a little statistic.

01:07:03.000 If you go home and look up Dr. Macri in the Wall Street Journal, he did a study of 42,000 children that were all infected with the Fauci virus and went through and he found that zero died from the virus.

01:07:18.000 The only ones that did die had underlying very serious comorbidities or underlying health issues.

01:07:25.000 Did you ride in a car on the way to the event here?

01:07:29.000 Yeah.

01:07:31.000 You were in much more danger as a passenger in that car, almost 10 to 20 times greater chance of dying in the car ride over than from getting the virus.

01:07:42.000 So drive very carefully on the way home, is what I'm trying to tell you.

01:07:46.000 That's true.

01:07:47.000 Yeah, especially if it was a 72 El Camino, they're the worst.

01:07:54.000 By the way, it's pronounced the doctor is McCary, you said Matt, or whatever, but he's a friend of mine, and he is, you know, there are doctors speaking the truth, and we need to make sure we do everything we can to get the word.

01:08:10.000 We also, we have to say this: we know we're living in crazy times, right?

01:08:13.000 I mean, madness has been unleashed.

01:08:16.000 We have to know that and remind each other that God didn't change reality a few months ago.

01:08:24.000 And we're going to stay the course.

01:08:25.000 We're going to keep our eyes on him.

01:08:26.000 And I believe by his grace, we will get through this.

01:08:30.000 Amen.

01:08:31.000 Thank you so much for being here tonight.

01:08:33.000 God bless you.

01:08:35.000 Hi there.

01:08:36.000 My name's Heather, and I work in the Deer Valley Unified School District.

01:08:40.000 How old are you, Heather?

01:08:43.000 I identify as a 21-year-old.

01:08:47.000 That was good.

01:08:48.000 That was good.

01:08:51.000 I just have a couple things.

01:08:52.000 The first thing is, I want to keep encouraging the parents to speak up.

01:08:56.000 Your voices are being heard.

01:08:58.000 I work in the school.

01:08:59.000 I hear it firsthand.

01:09:01.000 They're scared of you.

01:09:02.000 That is.

01:09:03.000 Yeah.

01:09:06.000 Isn't that wonderful?

01:09:07.000 Isn't that wonderful?

01:09:09.000 And that's a fact.

01:09:10.000 It is.

01:09:12.000 And if you have a student in the Deer Valley School District, you need to question the Panorama Education Survey that they are trying to give your children.

01:09:20.000 Do not let them do it.

01:09:22.000 If you signed the form, request it back.

01:09:25.000 They are pushing it.

01:09:26.000 And Panorama is the Garland family.

01:09:28.000 That is the company that is run by Merrick Garland's son-in-law.

01:09:32.000 Yes.

01:09:34.000 And the only way we found out about it as staff members is because a parent brought it to our attention.

01:09:38.000 So parents keep speaking up.

01:09:40.000 My main thing is my husband is a pilot for Southwest Airlines.

01:09:47.000 And I know you said the company has rescinded the vaccine mandate.

01:09:51.000 However, that is not true.

01:09:53.000 We still have to jump through hoops and we have to fill out a two and a half page survey on religious beliefs to get a religious exemption from this.

01:10:04.000 And it guarantees nothing.

01:10:05.000 So what is our next step?

01:10:07.000 I mean, we fill out the paperwork.

01:10:09.000 They can still say no.

01:10:10.000 We reveal everything about our beliefs.

01:10:14.000 Yeah, well, first of all, then Southwest Airlines is lying because they sent out the press release today saying that they were not going to mandate the vaccine.

01:10:21.000 I've had it with all these airlines, to be perfectly honest with you.

01:10:24.000 And they know they have you because they're going to be like, what?

01:10:27.000 What are you going to do differently, right?

01:10:29.000 They know that they have you kind of over the barrel.

01:10:33.000 I still think they're going to collapse.

01:10:37.000 And I know you have to be careful the way you answer this, but the more sick days your husband and his co-workers might take in the coming weeks will make Southwest Airlines come to a grinding halt and sue for peace.

01:10:52.000 You cannot.

01:10:55.000 I know you have to be careful in acknowledging that, but when pilots stop showing up and flight attendants stop showing up, they'll realize that the specialized workers they have for their airlines cannot and should not be abused.

01:11:08.000 By the way, for a vaccine that is now being shown to be 3% effective, the Johnson ⁇ Johnson vaccine is being shown to be 3% effective in this month.

01:11:18.000 76% of all deaths in the United Kingdom are now people that are fully vaccinated.

01:11:23.000 What they're trying to do, they're trying to destroy people's careers.

01:11:26.000 Why?

01:11:26.000 Because they don't take the medicine that they like.

01:11:29.000 So what can you do?

01:11:30.000 It's going to be a fight.

01:11:31.000 You're going to have to organize.

01:11:33.000 You're going to have to find other workers.

01:11:34.000 You're going to have to stay with them.

01:11:36.000 But I will say this, that Southwest Airlines, in particular, changed the rules of the game when all of a sudden their workers started to use their sick days and their ability to show their collective power. 0.98

01:11:48.000 The only thing I would add is when somebody tells you to fill out a form like that, that is garbage. 0.83

01:11:54.000 I would never fill out a form like that. 0.80

01:11:56.000 That is invasive.

01:11:57.000 It's just wrong.

01:11:58.000 I would absolutely refuse.

01:12:00.000 I'm sorry.

01:12:01.000 All right.

01:12:02.000 We're going to do one or two more.

01:12:03.000 And we also, I think we have a special guest that just walked in.

01:12:06.000 We are a 501c3, so is the church not endorsing at all.

01:12:10.000 I think that's Carrie Lake, if I'm not mistaken, who just walked in. 1.00

01:12:27.000 So you guys will be able to say hi to her after that.

01:12:29.000 Okay, one or two more questions.

01:12:30.000 Hi, Charlie and Eric.

01:12:32.000 My name is Kalena, and I'm a student at Greg Canyon University.

01:12:35.000 And wanted to start by thanking you for having a great program like this and how inspirational it is to students like me who see you speaking out about all these societal issues.

01:12:45.000 I was at a golf event at the GCU golf course a few weeks ago and I'd heard about the Dream Center and all these young girls and boys that are getting human trafficked every day.

01:12:53.000 I was also looking on the Turning Point USA website a few months back, inquiring about a job, and had the thought of how we can maybe help these girls through Turning Point USA if there was some kind of chapter that maybe could be started or something.

01:13:07.000 I know Ms. Barnett had mentioned earlier that the Biden admin has also defunded this program and I just wanted to know what more we could do to help these innocent people.

01:13:16.000 Well, I mean, yeah, the best thing you can do is to support this church and to support what Angel and they're doing here at Dream City Church.

01:13:24.000 I mean that.

01:13:25.000 And my wife and I will continue to be supportive of what's happening here.

01:13:30.000 And everyone has a gift.

01:13:31.000 And what Angel has done and what Luke and the Barnett family have done in this space is profound and it's real.

01:13:38.000 And if you go up, if you ever want to take a road trip and you want to serve, go up to Colorado City and you'll see what they've done up there from The former polygamist colony now to a place of hope and a place of salvation. 0.70

01:13:54.000 And so we at Turning Point will do everything we possibly can.

01:13:57.000 And it really kind of comes down to this, you know, this issue of we're all made in the image of God and human dignity.

01:14:03.000 And this church believes that.

01:14:04.000 You want to talk about what the church should be.

01:14:06.000 Dream City Church has prayer meetings at 6 a.m.

01:14:09.000 They have Freedom Square around what's happening in the community at night.

01:14:12.000 They're doing midweek services.

01:14:14.000 They have amazing worship and praise.

01:14:15.000 They have the sex trafficking recovery programs.

01:14:19.000 That's a church that is being salt and light in every single way possible and imaginable.

01:14:25.000 So thank you so much.

01:14:26.000 I appreciate that.

01:14:28.000 We'll try to get to one or two more.

01:14:29.000 I feel bad always cutting it off.

01:14:30.000 Yes.

01:14:31.000 Hey, Charlie, I just want to thank you.

01:14:32.000 I've got a son that's starting at ASU right now.

01:14:35.000 He's a first-year freshman.

01:14:37.000 And he's come to many of these meetings and he's given him a good foundation.

01:14:42.000 Second of all, I'm going to let you off the hook here, Eric, because I'm not going to ask you a question.

01:14:48.000 And I do want to make a correction with the response on the Southwest Airlines.

01:14:52.000 They haven't repealed the mandate.

01:14:54.000 They have delayed it until after December.

01:14:58.000 And then they'll decide whether they're going to defer, accept, or defer the religious exemptions.

01:15:05.000 So I'm a pilot at one of the two major airlines in this town.

01:15:09.000 I'm not going to say which, but it's tough to guess.

01:15:12.000 Southwest Airlines.

01:15:14.000 Charlie, I believe you're meeting with us next week with Josh Yoder.

01:15:19.000 I represent U.S. Freedom Flyers and Airline Professionals for Justice.

01:15:28.000 We're currently 80,000 members strong, and I'm going to go out on a limb here.

01:15:32.000 And I'm going to ask everyone in the audience that is related to or knows anyone in the airline industry, a gate agent, a ramper, a pilot, or a flight attendant, or anyone in the industry.

01:15:43.000 They're coming after you and they're coming after me because we have until the 28th of this month to decide whether we're going to succumb to a vaccine that is made with aborted fetuses.

01:15:56.000 Yes.

01:15:57.000 I've got 21 years at this company.

01:15:59.000 I've been a trusted employee for 21 years.

01:16:02.000 I'm also a retired colonel, United States Air Force with 24 years.

01:16:10.000 And I am not going to get the man.

01:16:12.000 I am not going to get this vaccine.

01:16:14.000 I'm going to throw my career away because I'm not going to succumb to this unlawful mandate.

01:16:19.000 Well, so my question is to all the folks in here.

01:16:25.000 Where do you stand?

01:16:26.000 Are you proud of where you stand?

01:16:28.000 I'm going to ask you to do three things.

01:16:31.000 I'm going to ask for you to engage your representatives.

01:16:33.000 I spent a half hour on the phone today with a Zoom conference with U.S. Freedom Flyers or Airline Pilots for Justice, speaking with Congressman Schweikert.

01:16:44.000 And we're meeting with you, Charlie, next week.

01:16:47.000 Josh Yoder is.

01:16:48.000 And I'm going to ask you to engage with your politicians, call them up.

01:16:52.000 I'm going to ask you to not get frustrated with the gate agents if you're traveling during the Thanksgiving period because many of us are unfortunately going to be sick and not be able to fly.

01:17:08.000 I have a sequence that I won't be flying.

01:17:11.000 So don't get irritated with the flight attendants and the gate agents.

01:17:14.000 It's not their fault.

01:17:16.000 So last thing, what else can we do to help?

01:17:19.000 Because I just want to say you served our country in the military, and then you have to then be treated as if you're a living like science experiment.

01:17:29.000 I mean, it's disgusting.

01:17:30.000 What can people do to help?

01:17:31.000 Because people are saying, okay, we get it.

01:17:33.000 Yeah, well, but by the way, I just want to say, contacting representatives, like they don't listen to us.

01:17:38.000 You know that.

01:17:39.000 Yeah, but Congress isn't going to do anything. 0.86

01:17:42.000 The best thing you could do is be sick for a very long time.

01:17:45.000 Like, I know that sound, the only thing that gets their attention is if they can't run the airline.

01:17:50.000 And we have Peter Duke working on that.

01:17:52.000 You probably know who he is.

01:17:52.000 Yeah.

01:17:53.000 Well, what can you do?

01:17:54.000 You can go to U.S. Freedom Flyers and research what they're doing.

01:17:59.000 There's 80,000 of us right now.

01:18:01.000 We need your money.

01:18:02.000 On behalf of everyone that's a military or a government contractor, we are filing lawsuit in your defense.

01:18:09.000 So we just need you to support and provide your donations.

01:18:13.000 Thank you.

01:18:14.000 God bless you.

01:18:15.000 Thank you.

01:18:16.000 We'll do two more.

01:18:16.000 We'll go here, then here.

01:18:17.000 Yes, because that shirt is just so awesome.

01:18:21.000 Hello, my name is Brodie Goodson.

01:18:23.000 I'm 14 years old.

01:18:25.000 And my question to you is that what do you say to the people that are afraid to speak out about their beliefs, Republican or Christian?

01:18:34.000 And because I know people that didn't want to come here because they're worried that they might get judged for it.

01:18:39.000 Yeah.

01:18:40.000 Friends, like high school friends?

01:18:42.000 I'm homeschooled.

01:18:44.000 Well, that's again.

01:18:46.000 There you go.

01:18:50.000 So, yeah, you have to make a decision.

01:18:52.000 And at a young age, you know, at age 14, you're going to have to make a decision.

01:18:55.000 Do you want to be the same person in public that you are in private?

01:18:59.000 And the sooner you make that decision, the more free you will be.

01:19:03.000 And I hope, you know, everyone out here is listening.

01:19:07.000 You see a common through line.

01:19:08.000 We get this question at least once a month.

01:19:10.000 Charlie, what do you say about this?

01:19:11.000 Yeah, it's going to cost you something.

01:19:12.000 You're going to lose friends, maybe lose your job.

01:19:14.000 You're going to sacrifice, but you'll be free.

01:19:17.000 And that is the greatest gift that you can have.

01:19:20.000 And I tell people, do not allow somebody else to micromanage your decisions or your viewpoints or your beliefs.

01:19:27.000 Eric.

01:19:28.000 And I disagree with everything Charlie just said. 0.96

01:19:30.000 How ridiculous. 0.92

01:19:32.000 No, of course I agree with everything you just said. 0.96

01:19:34.000 And I would say this.

01:19:36.000 We have to be serious about our faith.

01:19:41.000 I have lost friends, and it really, at times, it really hurts.

01:19:45.000 But I rejoice that I can do what I think the Lord has called me to do.

01:19:52.000 And there's just no greater joy, no greater freedom.

01:19:57.000 It's a beautiful thing.

01:19:59.000 And I think, you know, we don't need to be looking for trouble.

01:20:02.000 We don't need to be looking for arguments and asking people that we meet, you know, where do you stand on this and this and this.

01:20:07.000 It's great to have friends that you disagree with on everything.

01:20:11.000 But there are times when you have to count the cost.

01:20:14.000 But you got to remember one thing.

01:20:16.000 God has your back.

01:20:17.000 You have to know that.

01:20:19.000 Again, don't hope that.

01:20:20.000 Know that.

01:20:21.000 God has your back.

01:20:23.000 And Bonhoeffer went to his death.

01:20:26.000 He didn't say, if I speak up, will I get in trouble?

01:20:29.000 Will I be killed?

01:20:30.000 He believed in a God who defeated death on the cross.

01:20:36.000 If we believe in a God who defeated death on the cross, doesn't that change whether we're afraid?

01:20:43.000 And I think we have to ask ourselves, do you really believe he defeated death on the cross?

01:20:47.000 Do you really believe he's real?

01:20:49.000 You have to know that these things are true.

01:20:51.000 And sometimes the Lord allows us to go through tea to test our faith, to say, what do you really believe?

01:20:57.000 So God bless you.

01:20:59.000 And get involved with Turning Point USA.

01:21:01.000 So God bless you.

01:21:02.000 This will be the last question with my favorite shirt.

01:21:04.000 You guys remember when AOC wore that dress that said tax the rich?

01:21:09.000 Well, we now came out with a shirt that says, be the rich.

01:21:12.000 I love it.

01:21:12.000 So yes, that's Turning Point USA.

01:21:17.000 This will be our last question, and we'll do book signing outside, everybody.

01:21:20.000 Okay, this was the only shirt that went with my faux pearls, and I wanted to dress up tonight.

01:21:26.000 So first I want to say thank you for suggesting the free online Hillsdale classes.

01:21:31.000 Our family's been doing it now for more than a month, more than a month, and really enjoying it.

01:21:36.000 I work with a lot of teenagers, so I've been sharing what I've been learning on the Constitution 101 and saying, did you learn this in school?

01:21:46.000 Surprisingly, they haven't.

01:21:48.000 So we talk a lot about it.

01:21:50.000 But my question is, there's a statistic that I've heard for more than a decade on TV, on radio, and it's a police officer is 18 times more likely to get shot by a black male.

01:22:06.000 So my husband and I talked about this often.

01:22:09.000 That statistic has not seemed to change over more than 10 years.

01:22:15.000 So we tried looking it up.

01:22:17.000 Where does it come from?

01:22:18.000 I studied statistics in school, and I've never seen something where it never goes up, it never goes down.

01:22:25.000 So do you know where that statistic comes from?

01:22:28.000 Yeah, it comes.

01:22:28.000 So Heather McDonald from the Manhattan Institute did a massive study with the Wall Street Journal.

01:22:35.000 And so she said that statistic like three years ago.

01:22:38.000 In fact, I'd love to have Heather McDonald as one of our guests here because she is the premier expert on crime in America.

01:22:45.000 And so I could follow up with you on that.

01:22:47.000 But I think this is an important point too, though, that, you know, as we kind of talk about crime, by the way, crime is up dramatically in our country.

01:22:53.000 It's up 30%.

01:22:55.000 And just in Scottsdale, they're arresting people for crimes that they have not arrested people for crimes in a while.

01:23:01.000 And we can get into that at a different time, but not to kind of deviate or scare people, but read your local news, everybody.

01:23:09.000 There's things happening here that would never happen in Scottsdale before.

01:23:13.000 The guy, they just arrested a guy at a trailhead with a baseball bat smashing people's skulls in who are going hiking and smashing cars.

01:23:20.000 And you're like, that's Scottsdale.

01:23:22.000 And so crime is up 30%.

01:23:24.000 Murders are up 25%.

01:23:26.000 But to your, I'm happy to follow up with you on that.

01:23:28.000 But this, we need to know the true facts around crime in America because there's a war on police.

01:23:35.000 And the war on police has made America a much more dangerous place to live.

01:23:40.000 That the more we have criminalized our police officers and we try to go after them and defunding police or get or abolish police, we are now seeing anarchy.

01:23:48.000 And especially in cities like Seattle and San Francisco, New York, Minneapolis, it's kind of the Ferguson effect where police officers just completely and totally withdraw.

01:23:58.000 And so I want to thank you for wearing that shirt and God bless you.

01:24:00.000 Happy to follow up with you on that.

01:24:01.000 So thank you.

01:24:02.000 And also, which was mentioned, the Hillsdale online courses that we partnered with, charlieforhillsdale.com.

01:24:10.000 If you guys want to take online courses with your children, charlieforhillsdale.com.

01:24:14.000 Two things, everybody.

01:24:16.000 Number one, we're winning.

01:24:17.000 I know it might not feel like it.

01:24:18.000 The country's falling apart in a lot of different ways, but our movement is growing.

01:24:22.000 You just heard somebody who served in the military who's willing to organize fellow pilots to stand up against the mandates.

01:24:28.000 You understand this is the only country that's happening.

01:24:31.000 Yeah, I know they're doing stuff in UK and France.

01:24:33.000 It's weak compared to what's happening in America.

01:24:36.000 It still gives me hope that we have a percentage of people that are willing to stand and say, you could take my income, you could take my paycheck, you could take my career.

01:24:43.000 I'm going to stand for truth.

01:24:45.000 I'm going to stand for righteousness.

01:24:46.000 And it's amazing.

01:24:48.000 And so, Joe, when's our next date for this?

01:24:51.000 The 30th, right?

01:24:53.000 So our last Freedom Night in America, Freedom Square will be, because we're not doing one in December because it's, you know, December is such a crazy month with all the amazing Christmas Christmas services here.

01:25:04.000 By the way, you want to talk about the best Christmas service in Phoenix?

01:25:07.000 You guys have got to come to the Christmas service here.

01:25:09.000 It's amazing.

01:25:10.000 November 30th, we'll be having the last Freedom Square in America for 2021.

01:25:16.000 Boy, we're going to, I kind of, I'm glad to get this year out of the way in some ways, but in some ways, it's been the best year of my life because I got married in this year.

01:25:23.000 And so, but I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you for showing up to school board meetings, showing up here, staying engaged, staying involved.

01:25:30.000 More they throw at us, the stronger we are, everybody.

01:25:34.000 For the young people that are here, get involved with Turning Point, for the adults out here to say, What can we do?

01:25:39.000 How can we get involved?

01:25:40.000 Go mentor the young people out here, give them some sort of advice or give them some sort of support.

01:25:45.000 I want to thank this amazing church again for a donation of any amount.

01:25:49.000 You guys can get a signed copy of Eric's book outside.

01:25:52.000 I'll be out there taking pictures.

01:25:54.000 Let's go through as many as we can, everybody.

01:25:57.000 And I want to say thank you again to our amazing host, Dream City Church.

01:26:00.000 God bless you guys.

01:26:00.000 We'll see you again on November 30th.

01:26:02.000 Thank you.

01:26:03.000 And give it up for Eric from Texas, everybody.

01:26:05.000 Thank you guys.

01:26:09.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

01:26:10.000 Email us your questions, freedom at charliekirk.com.

01:26:14.000 Thanks so much.

01:26:14.000 Talk to you soon.

01:26:18.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - October 24, 2021

Is Atheism Dead? LIVE from Freedom Night in America with Eric Metaxas

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Transcript