00:04:01.920And what they do is there's underneath my skull, they surgically implanted a chip that's attached to these electrodes.
00:04:08.020And they pump those through your skull, through your ear canal.
00:04:12.040so that way it functions like the hair follicles and so it's digital and then there's an external
00:04:16.920component that attaches with a magnet so once i turn on my processor and attach it then it turns
00:04:22.600on and um what really sucks about it though is because after you get the surgery you can't hear
00:04:28.120for a long time because your body has to relearn how to hear all over again and it's a hard process
00:04:33.640so when i first got mine turned on it sounded like you know those old school dial-up modems
00:04:38.120you know, all those kind of weird ticks and beeps and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And it was,
00:04:43.740it was like that for over a year. It was about a year and some when I started being able to hear
00:04:48.720again. And, but I had to relearn it and it was a slow, long process. So it was during that time
00:04:54.140though, that I started getting online and started just like debating atheists and stuff. And some
00:04:58.960of these, these Facebook groups on Facebook. And so I was doing that for a while. And there was a
00:05:04.860guy that was always kind of watching me or i mean i was talking with me and watching me in these
00:05:09.780debates and he's like you should start a youtube channel and he was a guy that lived in australia
00:05:13.800and i was like i didn't really watch a lot of youtube and i was like i don't really know what
00:05:18.400that would be i've never thought about it before and he's like look i'm gonna send you a camera
00:05:21.860and all this stuff you need to get started he's like just do it and give it a shot and so i did
00:05:26.620and then yeah and we ended up here a couple years later so wow was this another christian
00:05:32.520yeah yeah as a Christian guy in Australia yeah okay that's cool so have you been a Christian
00:05:39.360your entire life were you brought up in a Christian family no I wasn't no so we weren't like
00:05:44.940we never went to church or anything again we never even talked about God and like my whole time kind
00:05:49.140of grown up um I was first introduced into faith when I was 15 um and so I went to a church with
00:05:54.780my aunt um but it was weird because I was introduced to this kind of Christianity though
00:05:58.780like now I just, you know, just don't agree with it. I just don't believe any of it. But it was
00:06:04.300really kind of cultish, like it was really legalistic. And so like, it kind of left like
00:06:08.820a weird kind of bad taste in my mouth afterwards. And so after that, I was kind of just kind of
00:06:13.100more agnostic, like sometimes believing in God, sometimes not believing in God. And then eventually
00:06:18.900I took a philosophy of religion class in college. And in philosophy of religion, we went through
00:06:25.820arguments for God's existence and that sort of thing. And then that's when I started becoming
00:06:29.800convinced that God existed. One particular argument, the Kalam Cosmological Argument,
00:06:34.380I just was persuaded by. And then that's what kind of started me believing in God. And then
00:06:38.180I started visiting a bunch of different churches. And throughout visiting these different churches,
00:06:42.320I would start asking people questions about why they believe that their belief was true
00:06:46.240and why they believe that their beliefs were false. And I keep getting all these kind of
00:06:50.000similar answers no matter what type of church I went to. And I mean, I went to like the Church
00:06:54.040of Scientology. I went to like every kind of church you could think of. Yeah. And kept in
00:06:59.900the same kind of answers, you know, like their life got better or, um, you know, there's a bunch
00:07:04.780of kind of, um, things that happened in their life that was like, showed them that this church was
00:07:09.260true. So it was a lot of stuff like that. And then eventually I came across the evidence for
00:07:13.680the resurrection online and started studying that and was convinced by the, uh, argument for the
00:07:18.720resurrection interesting okay so you even went the scientology route and you said you had similar
00:07:24.820answers kind of across the board about why they believe whatever they were believing was right
00:07:29.340so what was what did that answer look like yeah so it was mostly just those um ones where people
00:07:34.900say that their life has changed since they started joining this church we're following god um or and
00:07:40.620then they would say like there was all these kind of usually like some sort of set of like
00:07:44.480coincidences or something things that would happen that they couldn't explain elsewhere
00:07:48.460and then they would conclude yeah conclude that that was the reason why their church was true and
00:07:54.380they knew that god existed wow and is this this is for everyone including like scientology this
00:07:59.680is just across the board yeah yeah across the board yeah that's why it was so interesting to
00:08:04.280me too because it's like you when you start doing that because you don't i guess like i guess i at
00:08:10.000least i don't think like i wouldn't expect that you know and so when i started talking to all
00:08:13.660these people it was really strange to me because i said man there's something that's kind of
00:08:17.040embedded in human psychology or i mean who knows the explanation for it perhaps maybe um god is
00:08:23.180using you know i mean god has given these people signs and stuff but the problem with it is that
00:08:27.960like for my in my mind it was that all of these different religions couldn't be true because they
00:08:32.420were all mutually exclusive you know and so that was like the big problem in my mind and so that's
00:08:36.480why i was kind of like my first kind of introduction into like looking at religion and stuff way more
00:08:40.600in depth and that's when i started getting online more and studying these different religions and
00:08:43.960stuff and what they believe and so on okay so then what made you settle on christianity over
00:08:51.020anything else yeah yeah this is a long process too because um it's a lot of thinking and stuff
00:08:57.580even when i started doing the debates and stuff part of it was me trying to figure out what i
00:09:01.040believed in stuff and looking at the evidence and then testing it with you know my arguments
00:09:05.800with people who disagreed and stuff like that um but it was a long process but really i think it
00:09:10.140was like, ultimately, the historicity of the resurrection, I became convinced. I mean, I think
00:09:15.440that, I mean, all historians agree that Jesus was a real person who existed in history, you know,
00:09:19.840and when you follow these sort of objective kind of standards and methods that they use in order
00:09:24.860to come to historical facts, I think that when you do that, you come across a lot of facts that
00:09:31.020I think is only explained by the fact that Jesus actually did raise from the dead. And so for me,
00:09:36.700that was like um the thing where i spent a lot of time thinking about it too like trying to run it
00:09:41.800around in my head trying to like argue it with myself and with other people and so on and i just
00:09:47.300slowly became more convinced of it and i kind of got to the point where i realized that christianity
00:09:51.700makes the most sense of all of reality so it's not just like you know this external reality as
00:09:58.300well like say the beginning of the universe you know when you look at that or when you look at
00:10:02.700like why is there something rather than nothing like consciousness you know when you look at that
00:10:07.500but also with your internal world as well so with your internal world too you're like why are humans
00:10:12.760this way why do we have this impulse where we have this like near universal agreement that you
00:10:18.300shouldn't do things that are wrong like steal kill and rob and lie and all these things but we still
00:10:23.000do those things you know and so like it made sense to me of both the objective world and also my
00:10:29.020subjective world as well aren't there other religions that kind of abide by the same rules
00:10:35.260like people that people are bad or at least killing stealing murder all that is bad and
00:10:41.560that you shouldn't do it but we still do it does not line up with a number of other religions
00:10:45.200yeah but i don't understand the explanation for why that's the case and these other religions
00:10:50.660right so yeah because i think in christianity if you have the view of like the sin nature
00:10:54.860and how we're all like you know subject to the to being slaves to the sin nature then it makes a lot
00:11:00.940more sense in my opinion and then christianity is only religion that actually solves this problem
00:11:05.460as well you know what i mean and so it's like you have this problem of like this perfectly holy god
00:11:11.080and then you have and then so it's like how could we live in the presence of a perfectly holy god
00:11:16.440or perfectly moral god how do we live in this presence unless we too are perfect you know and
00:11:21.080And so I think that Christianity actually takes the idea of sin a lot more seriously because it's like God is so holy and he's so morally perfect and righteous that in order to be in his presence, we would also need to be holy and righteous.
00:11:33.340And so it's like, how do we solve that problem?
00:11:35.080Like, what is the problem and what is the solution?
00:11:37.320And that's what it really boils down to in my mind.
00:11:38.960And it's like Christianity solves it because only in Christianity do you have God, who is also perfect.
00:11:45.240Of course, God is perfect, coming into our world, putting on human flesh and coming into our world and living that perfect life that we couldn't live.
00:11:52.980So that way, and then giving us that life as a sacrifice for us.
00:11:57.260And so when he's given us his life, I mean, given us his life in our place, then we can actually stand before God with his imputed righteousness is what it's called, the doctrine of imputed righteousness.
00:12:08.960but we have that righteousness now so that way we can be in heaven that makes sense yeah it does
00:12:17.040this is so this is where i've had a difficult time understanding why would the act of sacrifice
00:12:25.760like so jesus which is which is he's basically sacrificing himself he agrees to do this
00:12:30.960why does that save people yeah um and so maybe i probably didn't articulate this well but
00:12:40.220really it's because we have to so when you look at the bible as a whole even starting up the old
00:12:45.300testament what you have is like humans are separated from god they're separating themselves
00:12:49.220from god because they're trying to go their own way and so like our sin nature believes that we
00:12:53.460can get all of our happiness we like we don't leave god we can get all of these things apart
00:12:57.360from God, right? And so we separate ourselves from God through sin. But if you look at the
00:13:02.900Old Testament too, there was always a sacrifice of a perfect animal. It was like these unblemished
00:13:09.520animals and stuff in the Old Testament. And then they would be used as a mediator between God
00:13:14.520because of the pureness of the animal. And it was really kind of symbolic too at that time as well.
00:13:18.840okay okay okay yeah kind of so okay i i get that as a mediation between okay i can kind of
00:13:28.180understand that i've just had a hard time like uh these things resonate with me on a level that i
00:13:33.320can't exactly describe but i've had a hard time understanding why is it sacrifice why is that
00:13:40.020that's what saves you yeah yeah it really is because it's complicated it is no it is i think
00:13:47.480it's because you you would need like kind of like going back to that example what i said about like
00:13:52.040being in a perfect god's presence you need perfection of that sort right and so if you
00:13:57.220aren't perfect the way you become rightly related to god is through this the um a sacrifice of
00:14:02.880someone that is perfect and so like jesus is the fulfillment of um you know the new testament so
00:14:08.580jesus becomes that unblemished lamb that perfect sacrifice for us because his life is perfect and
00:14:14.440so it's his imputed righteousness that we get from believing and so if we believe we get that
00:14:18.980imputed righteousness on our behalf so that way god sees because of god's perfect mercy and justice
00:14:24.600as well too right um um yeah i'm jumping over topics i'm sorry but okay good so his perfect um
00:14:33.780So God is perfect in justice. Right. And so if a judge is perfectly just, he has to punish every single wrongdoing. Right. And it's also the thing that's separated us between God. Right. But God is also perfectly merciful. And so because he's perfectly merciful, he made a way for us to be rightly related to him. And that was through the sacrifice of Jesus. That makes sense. Yeah.
00:14:55.240so jesus took on the punishment in that aspect cool okay i'm glad we delved into that a little
00:15:02.800bit i think that's what stuck like when i first so last summer i had the same kind of experience
00:15:07.900that you said you saw everywhere which was a whole bunch of really strange things happened
00:15:12.380they like they lined up and then when i started believing my life changed so it was like too many
00:15:20.500weird things that i couldn't explain happened until god was the most logical explanation and
00:15:26.040then once i started believing my life changed for the better so that sounds like what people
00:15:30.920experience regardless of whatever religion they're looking at um but i did i did land on
00:15:36.780christianity and one of the things that kind of had me like stuck a little bit and i started going
00:15:43.280to this church i found i finally found a church i wanted to talk to you about this too about the
00:15:47.780importance of finding a church because um my husband so he's been christian for his entire
00:15:53.020life and in the last year we were in tennessee and things and he kept pushing me to go to church
00:15:57.680and i'd go to church and i'd be like i wasn't it wasn't resonating the pastor i felt was posturing
00:16:03.800like it felt like i was listening to a cult like it's just i had a whole bunch of warning things
00:16:07.580off in my head and i'm like i'm not that interested in not to like talk negatively about churches but
00:16:13.600I wasn't that interested in going to like a gymnasium and listening to somebody posture
00:16:18.160under fluorescent lights for my Sunday. I was like, it's not, sorry, I can't even fake
00:16:23.660me liking this for you. It's like, I can't do it. I'm pretty disagreeable. And we looked around
00:16:30.520and then we found this pastor in like just North of Miami and he's complete, like he's good. He's
00:16:37.400great. So we're going there and that's amazing. And I don't get any like weird culty vibes.
00:16:43.600um yeah what's been your experience with churches man i i so interesting because because i didn't
00:16:53.660grow up in a church going home or anything like that church yeah there's always been weird to me
00:16:58.280in some ways yeah me too like yeah it's the strangest thing because it's like man like the
00:17:02.920facade it feels like a lot of people put on it's like you know you have like all the ned flanders
00:17:07.740and stuff like that it's awkward you know what i mean and so it's like that those churches kind
00:17:13.460to turn me off and so we found the church too that was um where people seem to be normal like
00:17:18.140i just want to meet normal people and talk normal conversations you know what i mean and so um and
00:17:23.640then learn like a normal person you know and so like i think like um i think especially for us
00:17:28.700like as millennials i think like we want like just authenticity like people that are just authentic
00:17:33.620and authentic community you know but i agree i mean it's it's been tough for me too like just
00:17:38.800to kind of not only just feel like i belong you know what i mean but also be able to feel like
00:17:43.180I'm gonna learn something too and I'm not just here yeah completely like anecdotal like you know
00:17:49.300just stories or something that's like mostly story like I like to learn when I go to church
00:17:53.180too which I don't know how most people are but anyways yeah so I always had a kind of an
00:17:57.620uncomfortable relationship with church as well so okay that's good I think one of the reasons I
00:18:02.300talked to my dad about it too because he talks about like he talks about the importance of
00:18:07.380community and everything and my mom she's Catholic at the moment she's been going to church
00:18:11.960and um i was like i can't do it and he he was like yeah the reason we never went to church like we
00:18:20.020weren't he we were always taught the psychological significance of the bible not the bible being real
00:18:25.840like that's what that's what i was taught um but he was like part of the reason we didn't go to
00:18:29.720church was because they're just like it was fake it felt fake felt like people posturing it felt
00:18:35.400fake and i couldn't stand it i was like okay yeah yeah yeah and like it's i i think i would
00:18:44.500have probably like if i'd gone to or been introduced to a community of people maybe
00:18:49.760i was pretty skeptical so maybe it wouldn't have worked but as a kid instead of kind of the
00:18:55.220the churches that just feel a little yeah like ned flanzer and flan ned flanders ish ish but
00:19:04.180like okay okay so that's normal that's good and maybe from not being in it yeah from not being in
00:19:11.040it maybe less tolerance for that just get yeah okay i agree i agree yeah i was gonna ask too like
00:19:18.120what was it like i've always kind of been curious like so if your dad kind of has more of that
00:19:23.160psychological perspective have you seen my video my videos on your dad any of them i know i saw one
00:19:28.540pop up on youtube i haven't watched it though okay okay no worries okay because i kind of analyze
00:19:32.800kind of his perspective but do you think like your perspective differs from his in that sense
00:19:37.460um because you have more of like an objective kind of view of christianity right like this
00:19:42.740actually happened is that right that's what i thought and what do you think causes that
00:19:46.580cause that difference just kind of curious um so i think dad goes back and forth
00:19:56.020i think the longer he's talking about it the more he's moving towards the objective view
00:20:03.400um i think understanding as much about psychology as he does there are i mean
00:20:11.580there's psychological significance to the bible and i believe it's objective right so like there's
00:20:19.440psychological significance like every aspect of the bible in multiple ways plus plus it's objective
00:20:25.720and so i think he probably got wrapped up in in the cycle psychological significance and and
00:20:32.840honestly if you're if you have more of a scientific background um we were told for a very long time
00:20:38.900that like science if you believed in science then you couldn't believe in the bible which i think is
00:20:45.120ridiculous like i don't think that that was necessary at all like those two things didn't
00:20:49.920have to be polar opposites um so i think he got wrapped up in that but i also think that0.70
00:20:55.260he's writing he's writing a book at the moment called we who wrestle with god um yeah this is
00:21:01.980going to be intense um and he thinks he can disprove atheism so i would i would say he's
00:21:10.320whatever direction that that's in he's going in so yeah i'm looking forward to that well because
00:21:18.220it seems like he has a uh i think he's done a talk and i haven't watched it though but on the
00:21:22.180problem of perception which is a kind of like a philosophical problem of how do you get from the
00:21:26.520subjective to the objective and so when i've heard a lot of this stuff it seems like that's where kind
00:21:30.700of the barrier is it's like okay we have the psychological world the narrative world i think
00:21:34.780he calls it a lot of times too but then how do you go from that to like what's objective what's
00:21:39.540external of your consciousness and your conscious perception and so i think um that's what seems
00:21:44.720like that holds them back where that's not probably not necessarily a barrier for you in that sense
00:21:48.680i think it wasn't a barrier for me um because so many strange things have happened to me like
00:21:55.840even as a kid i was so i was so sick i was suffering so much i can remember like when i was
00:22:02.080when i had my hip and ankle replaced and i was in like i was in so much pain it was unbelievable
00:22:06.580for an entire year like broken bones but like not able to be fixed and i remember thinking
00:22:12.800at that point that like something had to be real like i didn't know if god was real
00:22:20.160but that amount of pain and suffering like something evil had to be real um and and then0.73
00:22:28.760things were just have been super weird with my life like being that ill like unbelievably stupidly
00:22:35.000like job level ill i remember reading job and being like i've got a lot of those things going
00:22:39.800on like my family hasn't died but like a lot of those things are going on and then having like
00:22:45.460fixing it with a diet that like nobody believed right like what is that about and then having my
00:22:51.740mom get really sick and then my dad get really sick and then my dad get famous for like it's
00:22:56.160just things have been so absurd that it's like yeah well that stuff could have happened it seems
00:23:01.680logical yeah life's pretty weird yeah yeah that is because you you have had a different life like
00:23:08.960you know i was thinking even like i was thinking what it'd be like for you to do to like you're
00:23:12.920living your life and then all of a sudden your dad like explodes in a social consciousness like
00:23:16.840out of nowhere see that would throw everything off as well too it's like all the stuff you went
00:23:21.660through as a kid and the autoimmune um aspects that you had to and then trying the new diet that
00:23:26.640nobody else is um you know people think you're probably like they're like what is that right
00:23:30.660like yeah so that would be so it makes sense to me why like you kind of like you start processing
00:23:36.100things a different way yeah the other thing i do think contributed to this and i've had some like
00:23:42.240negative feedback about this but i did do and this was well mostly because i was interested in them
00:23:47.540but i did do psychedelics quite a bit i haven't done them in a while but i did do them quite a
00:23:52.620bit and i think that really and i'm not saying that's the way to do it because people are like
00:23:58.920that's not how you have to do it i'm like yes i agree but i think for me for me it like put me in
00:24:04.460a state where i was seeing things that aren't there and uh and that i don't for whatever reason
00:24:11.100it was like well those experiences probably led me to believe god was a possibility because
00:24:17.200you can't see him exactly right you kind of see things that happen kind of but like you have to
00:24:25.260believe there isn't like that's i think one of the things i didn't understand until more recently was
00:24:30.720there isn't like at least this is and i still believe this there isn't some definitive proof
00:24:36.420that everyone is going to believe that like oh well here's the proof of god um yeah although i
00:24:41.800think dad maybe in his new book is trying to do something like that but regardless like there's
00:24:47.520you have to suspend judgment a little bit right you have to believe um i do think psychedelics
00:24:54.040helped me do that because they showed me things i couldn't see what do you think about that what's
00:24:59.560what's your opinion on those yeah no that's a great question so um my my thinking about it is
00:25:05.440like it's almost like everything else i think all of us need to get out of our own way in some way
00:25:10.140um but it's like for example when people go to prison right like and then they find god in prison
00:25:14.360which happens to a lot of people being poor being homeless so these sorts of things like
00:25:18.120god can use these um different kind of situations in order to point us to ourselves point us to
00:25:23.680himself and so i think like um it's not a prescriptive thing i don't i wouldn't say like
00:25:29.160people need to go try psychedelics to find God right because I think that's just the means in
00:25:33.860which God used um through because God uses us through the things like that we do and the things
00:25:38.860we do wrong and like all of these different ways like everything that we do God can still use
00:25:43.280any of these things in order to draw us to himself so I think in that time um you know God just used
00:25:49.100that that moment I guess in that aspect um but at least you were open to it I guess from that you
00:25:55.300know and then god was knocking on the door i mean so in some ways so my thinking on it is like i mean
00:25:59.560i think that like the bible tells us to be sober minded so um you know so whatever that entails
00:26:04.440but i don't i wouldn't say that you should do psychedelics you know in that aspect but um i
00:26:09.480think that in this aspect it's like it was um god used it for good you know he turns all things
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00:27:07.680kind of the conclusion I've come to. Like there were, there were a couple of things that was like
00:27:12.080that, that was like a little push and then some really bad, like really dark, desperate moments,
00:27:18.840you know uh yeah at the like rock bottom is probably when i converted yeah yeah like i
00:27:30.320because i remember hearing your story i don't i don't think so it's crazy because i said so when
00:27:34.860i talked earlier about like everybody having these kind of coincidences and stuff like that
00:27:38.660i would still pump that in that same category i'd say like i don't know the cause like so the cause
00:27:43.780could be god right and i'd say that it could be other things but regardless god still used that
00:27:48.620situation into drawing to himself and so in that aspect i mean that's like i'm not against
00:27:53.180experiences or anything like that you know i guess for me i just think that we need to try to tether
00:27:58.200them and balance them out with objective reality you know so that way we know like what's true
00:28:03.080because you figure say you have an experience about muhammad or something like this right
00:28:07.280you convert to islam and you become a terrorist right so like that wouldn't be good you know
00:28:12.080what i mean and so it's like you want to try to like what is actually true you know what i mean
00:28:16.480And if it's like whatever's actually true, we want to have our beliefs correspond with reality and, you know, try not to go up the deep end.
00:28:27.040I've probably had so many strange things happen to me, too, that I like I don't believe, you know, a bunch of the things I believed in kind of crumbled over the last probably since 2016, like media, you know, anything I read in the media.
00:28:42.420I don't know if anything online I read is true and then anything the government says I have no
00:28:48.320idea if anything they say is true and I don't know how deep that goes and then it's like even
00:28:54.520censoring on social media platforms it's like oh that sounds like paranoia and then Elon Musk
00:29:00.440buys Twitter and is like nah you weren't being paranoid enough and it's just like I think I've
00:29:06.980probably, I've probably switched over to trying to understand things intuitively, which is
00:29:13.860something I would have just like murdered myself over if I'd heard myself say that as like a 17
00:29:18.740year old. It's like, oh, you're going on intuition. Okay there. But I think I've probably switched
00:29:23.580over to like, no, I know on some level that feels right. And that's probably been strengthened since
00:29:29.360converting. I think that's gotten easier. Like I never understood before if I did things, you know,
00:29:36.920you know if you lie and anybody including people who aren't like religious know that if you lie
00:29:43.880you feel bad and it can just feel like soul crushingly shivering like deep evil bad when
00:29:51.440you lie yeah why would it feel like that like why would it feel that evil when you lie i mean for a
00:29:59.520normal person it should feel like that and i think it it does line up with sin and and christianity
00:30:06.200making you feel that way yeah i think um because the way i kind of look at it is like
00:30:11.920you have these natural laws like say the law of gravity you know so you have these natural laws
00:30:17.500like thermodynamics and these things that govern the physical universe but it seems like there's
00:30:22.460a natural law of love that governs us inside of the universe you know our kind of moral selves
00:30:27.880because when we get out of alignment with that like we can't allow ourselves because we have
00:30:32.460free will i believe so we can allow ourselves to get more hard um hearted and stuff towards stuff
00:30:36.560and that's why c.s lewis talked about like um when you continue to do stuff you need to become a
00:30:41.900better person or a worse person from all your little decisions because when you do something
00:30:45.880bad it's easy to do something bad the next time and same with being good you know but um i ask
00:30:51.080the the aspect of like everybody having um this kind of moral um awareness of some sort even
00:30:58.640though they're going to differ on stuff you know depending on background information but there's a
00:31:01.840moral awareness of some sort that I think is interesting because I think it makes more sense
00:31:06.280on theism that God created us with this morality on our hearts, as the Bible says. That makes more
00:31:13.640sense to me than some sort of evolutionary explanation. Yeah, it's hard to chalk up.
00:31:20.400I've been, one of the disagreements I had, although my husband's, I think, is converting over,
00:31:24.940it's like, whenever I heard about Christians, especially like as a kid, I was like, oh,
00:31:29.660christians the people who don't believe in evolution like that's that's right what i knew
00:31:34.480about christians the people who don't believe in in evolution and and so i've talked so i what's
00:31:40.260what's your opinion on this okay um and then i'll tell you my opinion you go first what's your
00:31:45.700opinion on evolution okay okay so so here's my thinking so it's it's and this is a complex thing
00:31:51.860and i'm not too far into it because i don't see it as really a stumbling block for a lot of people
00:31:56.860today. A lot of the younger generations, they don't really care if evolution is true or not
00:32:00.920in order to believe in God. So let's kind of spend a ton of time focusing on it. But my thinking
00:32:04.800goes something like this. When I look at the Bible, you know, 66 books, you know, written
00:32:08.700over a span of 1,500 years, you know, three different continents, that aspect. But all of
00:32:13.340the different books, you have to understand what the genre is, right? So when I look at like Psalms,
00:32:18.300I understand that's not a historical genre, you know what I mean? And when I look at the Gospels,
00:32:22.180understand that it is ancient Roman bio, you know what I mean? So I can understand it through that
00:32:26.760lens and so you want to understand each book of the bible through its appropriate lens um so it's
00:32:31.560like the proverbs are not like okay these are promises the proverbs on promises is wisdom
00:32:35.760it's proverbs you know what i mean and so understanding that now in most places in the
00:32:39.940bible is pretty clear and pretty straightforward but there's some places in the bible where
00:32:44.020we're not exactly sure what it is for for different reasons and so when it comes to the
00:32:49.060book of genesis at least genesis 1 through 12 um it seems that there's something more going on than
00:32:54.220just being this like historical narrative it seems to be blending in um just sort of like um the
00:32:59.440stories of the culture at that time in the ancient near east um blending in these stories for a
00:33:04.020theological purpose that that's the way i understand it at least is because it seems like
00:33:07.740from a theological purpose rather than just a strict historical purpose that doesn't seem to
00:33:12.820to make a lot of sense to me logically when i'm looking at it and then looking at the different
00:33:17.100accounts and that sort of thing and then also reading all of the the literature in the ancient
00:33:21.460near east as well too that's available um but i think um so when it comes to that and so i think
00:33:27.140about the gut lens and then i look at the world you know what i mean and try to see what makes
00:33:31.060more sense um i can't see um the world making sense to me for it to be 6 000 years old that
00:33:37.120that doesn't logically make sense to me and it doesn't seem like it corresponds with reality
00:33:40.780um you can have ways around it but we can talk about those later if needed but um but then i
00:33:46.240think you have bigger problems so if you say god created it and with the appearance of age then i
00:33:50.440think you have bigger problems because then how can you know anything at all, really? You know
00:33:53.760what I mean? Because the whole epistemic system is broken. And so that's a problem for me. But
00:33:58.020I'd say that what I found to be the most persuasive, and again, I've only read a few
00:34:02.900books on this, but what I found to take as the most persuasive evidence for evolution would be
00:34:07.180like the pseudogenes. So for example, whales have like these OR genes, they're osculatory receptors.
00:34:13.940And so they're used for detecting violent chemicals outside of water, but these genes
00:34:18.860are dormant and so you figure if god created the well just as is then why would he create it with
00:34:24.360these genes you know because they're not being used so i think that's probably some of the bigger
00:34:29.220evidence but i still think that there's so many gaps in the fossil record so um yeah so it's
00:34:34.020really tough i haven't come to any like shown conclusions on it but i think that there's
00:34:38.040something like um some sort of what everybody believes in evolution to some degree like there's
00:34:43.100some sort of evolving process but i don't tend to hold to the view i don't think that you have these
00:34:48.100different, these different kinds of animals, I hate using that term, but these different kinds
00:34:54.600of animals turning into other kinds of animals. So like the distinction I make with like macro
00:34:58.860evolution, it doesn't seem, that doesn't seem as plausible to me, but there is some sort of
00:35:04.300thing going on where you have these creatures that are like, that have clearly shown some sort
00:35:08.680of evolution from, you know, being land animals, water animals, so on, you know, so there's clearly
00:35:13.680some sort of evolution going on. I just don't think that it's that one blanket term of like
00:35:17.600everything comes from a single common um you know single common um can't remember the term
00:35:22.420they use for it but just like one one like an ego or something like that yeah yeah okay so what
00:35:28.580i've thought about and i've had this discussion with my husband because i don't think he'd really
00:35:33.840thought about it before it's like who cares but um like i have a i took biomedical science a bunch
00:35:40.620of courses of biomedical science so i like got taught evolution so and i remember like learning
00:35:46.160about darwin and things so i i've known this for a long time i i think that we've done quite a bit
00:35:52.900of research going back towards like the big bang that scientifically i can't i believe what the
00:35:58.780scientific community is saying i think that lines up with the bible um i just don't think the day
00:36:04.520period is right so when it's like god created the world in seven days it was like i i don't
00:36:10.940necessarily think that one of those days for god is the same as one of these 24-hour days for us
00:36:16.940that's like the most logical explanation to try and line up both of those things because otherwise
00:36:23.980i can see why people say that they don't line up but i think yeah yeah one of the things that
00:36:28.860like dissuaded me from christianity or made me look at christians like they didn't know what
00:36:33.740they were talking about was like i put them in the same categories like flat earthers
00:36:37.100i just as a kid for whatever reason and i don't know if that's because i was in like
00:36:40.740i just wasn't around christian people at all but i just put them in my or i was watching
00:36:45.440too much simpsons like i'm not sure what it was but yeah yeah you know that i mean i i i think so
00:36:52.920too because i mean um and it's always tough because it's like i respect people who really
00:36:58.420take the bible seriously you know what i mean and we should take the bible seriously too but
00:37:02.620sometimes it's like they don't take it seriously enough where they kind of do the interpretive
00:37:05.960analysis with a lot of stuff because like you even said too with um the day um you know the
00:37:10.600day 32 with like yom is the word for day and then you have these different um you have the word
00:37:15.640appearing you know later on in the old testament too referring to different periods of time
00:37:19.860then also you know the scripture um wait say that again so yeah say that again sorry oh no you're
00:37:27.860fine so um yeah so the word for day in the old testament is yom um i believe my memory says
00:37:33.220really it's been a while since i've looked at this stuff um but um i know you have later on
00:37:37.640in the old testament too you have this word use and it's not referring to just a single linear
00:37:42.440day that's interesting yeah cool yeah and so because of that yeah then so it does allow for
00:37:49.840different interpretations um of that passage but i think too it comes down to that genre
00:37:55.600and because we're not super aware of what that genre is i think that we should be open-minded
00:38:00.360to say, how should we interpret this? But the way I look at it is that everything is theological
00:38:04.160at its core. So what is the theological point that we get from it? And then how does that
00:38:09.260apply to the rest of the Bible, the story of the Bible, and also to our personal lives as well?
00:38:14.940Cool. Okay. That's cool. What denomination do you practice?
00:38:22.880Can you practice a denomination? Is that what he's called?
00:38:25.640Yeah. Well, it's funny because my wife is from Tennessee and out there there's like all this beef between like the Baptist and the Church of Christ and stuff, you know, because everybody identifies as Christian out there. But like out in Colorado, you're like, I'm just happy to see people who are Christians and taking it seriously. You know, we don't we don't really do too many denominations out here. There's no denomination beef that I'm aware of, at least.
00:38:50.180oh that's funny okay probably same kind of thing well toronto is pretty uh atheist or even maybe
00:38:59.220agnostic but mostly atheist um i think there's a lot of catholicism and orthodoxy and then
00:39:06.520christian like other non-denominational i guess that makes sense yeah yeah are you um have you
00:39:13.440been looking at the denominations at all or is it kind of like not really get that
00:39:16.980didn't think so no not really um whatever like protestant is i suppose yeah yeah okay yeah
00:39:27.320otherwise i mean i don't know i honestly i probably don't know enough about it's like
00:39:31.320come to a conclusive decision but i feel like there's just like little differing rules
00:39:38.140right yeah it's like different preferences basically so a lot of them i mean so some
00:39:45.220people like the um different styles and different kind of cultures and it's one of the things that
00:39:50.600makes christianity kind of beautiful as well i think an aspect too is like you have these different
00:39:54.280ways of expressing um your worship and and these sorts of things too you know but the denomination
00:40:00.400fact makes sense to me why we have so much plurality and denominations and i think it really
00:40:04.680the bible kind of explains we all have this tendency to like want to elevate ourselves and
00:40:09.820elevate things that we think are important and pride in this sort of thing and so i think that
00:40:14.320that's the other um aspect of it there's a good side to it and a bad side but the bad side is we
00:40:19.840like to divide like we like to divide on things that might not be as critical as we like to think
00:40:24.020they are you know because they're important to us we send their importance to god you know and in
00:40:28.280that aspect so we're like well this is super important because i feel strongly about this
00:40:32.340and you'll see that with all the different kind of theological accounts um but i think at least
00:40:36.200on the bible it makes sense you know because i don't see how it makes sense on other religions
00:40:39.640back to what we were talking about earlier no fair enough oh okay this is a good one um
00:40:47.240do you have you seen more churches becoming woke do you think this is creeping into churches
00:40:55.000yeah so i i guess the question is what do you mean by woke right so um do you mean
00:41:01.160locism work in like some sort of like um just a liberal i sense or uh i mean say well i mean for
00:41:11.160an extreme example is i saw one church with a transgendered jesus i mean like i mean i mean
00:41:18.120that kind of woke i mean yeah that's woke that's woke woke yeah i i guess changing uh you know not
00:41:26.120teaching parts of the bible because it doesn't line up with more progressive attitudes have you
00:41:33.000seen this happening or is this like right-wing propaganda that isn't real that's a great question
00:41:39.140i i i don't think it's as popular and i could be wrong on this actually too because um i'd like to
00:41:46.860see a statistical analysis of it but i don't think it's as popular because when even when i look at
00:41:51.300these type channels these youtube channels that are like these super progressive um progressive
00:41:55.960of christian channels uh where they have like you know these these type of trans pastors or whatever
00:42:00.300um they don't tend to have a lot of followers either so i don't think it's that attracted to
00:42:04.860a lot of people um a lot of these channels so i see it more as like um um maybe like right wing
00:42:11.580taking advantage of a situation you know i mean to show how bad the kind of liberal agenda is and
00:42:16.200that sort of thing uh but i could be wrong on that too i'm open to being corrected um but what
00:42:21.360I kind of see like this makes me think what I kind of see as a problem with with politics for
00:42:26.960Christians is that when you look at the Bible, you have all of these different things that don't fit
00:42:31.620nice and neatly into one category. And I think it was Tim Keller that talked about like for
00:42:38.000Christians that say there's like there's four things like the Bible shows us that Christians
00:42:43.520should be sold out and against racial injustice. Christians should be deeply concerned about the
00:42:49.320poor and marginalized. Christians should be pro-choice or pro-life, I mean, I'm sorry,
00:42:53.900pro-life, pro-life. And they should also, and they also hold to belief in marriages only between
00:43:02.980a man and a woman for a lifetime. And so because of that, you have two of them sound conservative,
00:43:10.020two of them sound liberal, you know what I mean? But the early church was defined by all four,
00:43:14.400you know what I mean? The early church was very clear about all four of these things.
00:43:17.200And so because of that, it kind of makes it bad because if you go to a church and say L.A., you know, a pastor is going to be vocal about two of them, you know, and then kind of hush about the other two.
00:43:27.200And then it's the same thing if you go to church in Louisiana. Right. You're going to have the church is going to be vocal about two and not vocal about the other two.
00:43:34.780But I think as Christians, we have to be our worldview needs to be more integrated in terms of like a biblically grounded worldview rather than it just being just solely one political side.
00:43:44.840I think we need to be open to saying, like, what is what does the Bible say about these issues rather than what do the conservative commentators say about these issues?
00:43:52.500And then trying to make that fit into the Bible and thinking that everything liberals say is wrong, you know what I mean?
00:43:57.340Or vice versa, everything conservatives say is wrong.
00:43:59.240So I think we need more of a holistic process, more biblically grounded than it just being looking at one conservative, I mean, one political group and thinking that they represent God and another one doesn't per se.
00:44:09.500You know, so. So that's my view in politics, where I think that it's could be somewhat of an issue for a lot of Christians, because there's a lot of pressure to conform all of your views over to just one side of the camp rather than having more nuanced views that are in accordance with Scripture.
00:44:23.960sure i agree um do you do you think actually you'd know the statistics better than me
00:44:31.480is um is christianity still shrinking or is it making a comeback more recently or do i just
00:44:39.020think it's making a comeback because i converted yeah it's definitely making a comeback
00:44:43.620no that's another great question um i i think from last i've looked it is still shrinking
00:44:49.840but what's interesting about it is it's almost it's like the same question of what do you mean
00:44:55.920by Christianity because a lot of people who identify as nuns they say the nuns say that
00:45:01.300they don't want to be identified as a particular religion but they're still just as likely to hold
00:45:06.720belief in God and belief in the Bible and their prayer life and this sort of thing too they just
00:45:11.640don't like the connotations or whatever that Christianity is identified with so this is what
00:45:15.720makes it kind of hard because when we're asking a lot of these questions on these surveys we're
00:45:19.440not asking some of the right questions we're asking some of the questions that like um people
00:45:24.280are gonna have to answer in a binary way but it's more nuanced than that and so i think that's where
00:45:29.180the issue is because i think that probably um i think there's probably still a high degree of
00:45:35.180people um that believe in something like christianity but i mean biblical literacy is so
00:45:40.900far low right now that like it's hard to say like what do these people mean too when they say they
00:45:45.480identify as christians you know have more view of culture or some sort of relative view of
00:45:50.980christianity where everything is relative and i'll take some parts of christianity some part of some
00:45:56.120parts of buddhism or whatever you know whatever works for my life and so that's why i think a lot
00:46:00.320of the statistics make it hard to kind of tell what's really going on that makes sense um do you
00:46:06.900get people like i suppose your audience is mainly christian do you get atheists watching you
00:46:12.200just out of curiosity yeah yeah um and i'm not sure the percentage but yeah i get some comments
00:46:18.420from atheists that say they they like my channel or whatnot you know so um but yeah no i did a
00:46:24.360percentage i'm sure so it's definitely a majority of christian for sure you know at least probably
00:46:28.64090 at least i'd assume but yeah what made you want to debate people about this sounds like my
00:46:36.400worst nightmare yeah no that's a great question too uh for me like um i like to hear different
00:46:43.860sides to everything that i'm considering so that way i can think it through well on my own um
00:46:49.220because i think like if i'm missing um the other sides of the argument then how am i supposed to
00:46:54.580weigh that and then how am i supposed to communicate to people try to convince them of the other side
00:46:58.940and so it's really important to me because that's why i did a lot of my fleshing out for like a lot
00:47:03.540of the early stuff that i came to believe a lot of the fleshing out was me actually just debating it
00:47:07.520and then trying to take in consideration what the other side was saying as charitably as possible
00:47:11.880you know so that way i can understand what i even believe so for me it was like a lot of processing
00:47:16.120um like today i mean i'm not that interested in debating people as much you know but i mean i
00:47:21.720don't really mind debates like it doesn't they don't really worry me but i'm not really that
00:47:25.940interested because i think that the purpose they serve is it's it's kind of limited in a lot of
00:47:31.380ways because people are just more polarized on stuff you know so like conversations are a lot
00:47:35.560better than just like you know trying to prove your side you know because then people just shut
00:47:40.160down and won't take in any new information for the most part who are your favorite uh i don't
00:47:46.760know what the right word for this is i'd say like thought leaders in the kind of online for
00:47:53.100christians who do you follow yeah so um so i'd say like if we're gonna say like my kind of main
00:48:01.280kind of influences that's had the biggest impact on how i think there we go outside of yeah there
00:48:06.520we go yeah outside of um like paul apostle is where like a lot of like my arguments and stuff
00:48:12.380i really formulate from paul which is which is interesting but outside of like the bible um i'd
00:48:17.280say um william and craig played a really big role in shaping how i think um because this is where i
00:48:23.080kind of learned how to think more deductively and think more philosophically and concise and make
00:48:27.880these distinctions and define words, you know, so that way you can understand what you're saying
00:48:32.520as a foundation and then stack up. So he was a really big influence. Tim Keller was a really
00:48:38.680big influence because of his gospel-centric focus, which is similar to what I've taken influence for
00:48:44.980with my channels, having more of a gospel-centered focus to show people the relevancy of the gospel
00:48:50.880in their lives and for non-believers, too, to see how the gospel can make sense and integrate into
00:48:55.820their lives um and then um my best friend is other one you know his name is Joey Fukumoto
00:49:01.580but um me and him um we've we've debated about everything like everything so it's like he's
00:49:08.620helping you think better because what we do is before we even like bring up some sort of like
00:49:12.640argument or something we always know that we have to like the final terms you know it's like what
00:49:17.180do you mean by that and how did you come to that conclusion those are two questions in the book
00:49:21.040tactics um but like we're constantly doing this with each other and we like argue about everything
00:49:55.060okay that's fun um so you you brought up before so you said you you had health problems too you
00:50:01.660had this you have this hearing thing which is major um how did that and and that's when you
00:50:07.400started kind of debating people online um you said you were first exposed to christianity when you
00:50:12.360were 15 but in kind of a culty way for lack of better words um what made you switch into taking
00:50:21.260it more seriously was it before you got sick um no um that's what's kind of interesting about it so
00:50:29.960um really it was like kind of during that um hearing loss time when i was doing these debates
00:50:35.360that's when i started kind of thinking way more about it than i've been out before too like i
00:50:38.920thought a lot about it in college taking philosophy of religion course and stuff and after it but
00:50:43.920kind of like it kind of reinvigorated that in me um during that time and then when it comes to like
00:50:48.820the gospel that's a that's a longer story but that's one thing that really kind of changed
00:50:53.140for my life I think is everything changed once I continue to start learning the gospel more
00:50:58.440really working at understanding these different perspectives and stuff and then internalizing
00:51:02.400that gospel message is when everything really changed so I guess I can kind of run through
00:51:08.800briefly but so I guess when I first converted to Christianity I wasn't really like that clear on
00:51:17.200the relationship between works and salvation um because i think everybody has like these kind of
00:51:21.800muddled views or but i think a protestant problem i'd say more so is they have more of a muddled
00:51:26.900view with like where do works fit in with salvation this sort of thing um and so i had a
00:51:32.180view that's somewhat kind of like i'd say most people probably have this where it's like well
00:51:36.280if you're a christian you know you're going to be producing tons of good works and then by looking
00:51:40.580up these good works you can tell somebody's a christian or not um but um i remember there was
00:51:45.260a guy that came in to a reasonable faith meeting that i was teaching here locally um teaching on
00:51:50.500like apologetics and stuff and um he was asking these tough questions he says like you can a
00:51:55.700christian live like hitler and still be saved you know what i mean which is questions that's
00:52:00.020super uncomfortable for people you know what i mean it's like um super uncomfortable because
00:52:03.760you want to say yeah but then you're like oh that sounds so bad you know what i mean but you
00:52:07.560say you don't go but then you're like no that's too counterintuitive you know um but really like
00:52:12.560During this time, I spent a few, I think I spent about two and a half years, at least, I think, me and my friend, too, my best friend, and also talking with a whole lot of other people, really working through all of these scriptures and stuff.
00:52:25.380What are these scriptures that seem to say works, and what do they say about salvation?
00:52:28.920And so we went through all these scriptures.
00:52:30.220We started talking and thinking through this stuff and, you know, looking at all these different views and commentaries.
00:52:36.320And I became convinced that I think works were saved completely by grace.
00:52:41.220we're saved completely by grace through faith yeah completely by grace through faith i don't
00:52:44.980think i think the bible's pretty clear about this and um i mean so many passages romans 11 6 makes
00:52:50.620the distinction what paul says basically if it's by grace it can't be through faith uh because if
00:52:55.020i'm sorry if it's by grace it can't be through works because if it was by works it would no
00:52:58.820longer be grace by clear distinction i give you a gift you know um then it's like you have christian
00:53:03.880living um how you want how you're supposed to live how you're supposed to love others treat
00:53:07.520god treat others and stuff after um that salvation that's how you're supposed to live your life now
00:53:12.420um to be in court in accordance with you know what i mean this this new life that god has given you
00:53:16.620um but i think that like a lot of times christians we all have a tendency to like
00:53:20.960want to like look down and say these other people aren't saved because we're we don't like the way
00:53:26.280they're living you know what i mean people can look at my tattoos and say i'm not saved you know
00:53:29.440what i mean and so whatever's important to people we tend to be really judgmental towards those
00:53:33.600things because i think that's part of our sin nature you know and to be completely fair it's
00:53:38.280completely counterintuitive to think that christians can do bad stuff um like really bad
00:53:42.060stuff it's really counterintuitive but reality and the bible shows us that that's the case
00:53:46.460you know and um so really there's like a lot of passages like james 2 faith of our works is dead
00:53:51.640and matthew 7 passage where jesus says depart from me i never knew you there's all these different
00:53:55.800kind of scriptures people kind of run to um to say that a christian um by necessity has to be
00:54:01.720producing good works. But I don't think that that's necessarily the case because I think
00:54:05.560everybody produces good works. And then it's a slippery slope because Bill and Melinda Gates,
00:54:09.780for example, they've saved millions of African kids' lives. You know what I mean? So it's like,
00:54:13.900is that not good works? Sure. That's more good works than I might do in this life. You know
00:54:18.480what I mean? And so you have this kind of subjective element to like what constitutes
00:54:22.700good works? Like how many works is enough to prove that you're saved? You know, what kinds
00:54:27.700of works? Who determines what kinds of works and those sort of things? So for the Protestants,
00:54:31.540circles, I think we have a lot of that kind of messiness there. Like, at least the Catholics
00:54:35.160are clear about it, you know what I mean, where they say you have the venal sins and the mortal
00:54:38.240sins. That's clear. But my view, personally, what I think is the most consistent in faithful
00:54:43.460scripture is that I think Christians, I believe we have free will, which is another thing that
00:54:47.520like some Calvinists might not agree with, at least libertarian free will. So I think in that
00:54:52.660aspect, I think that like Christians can live bad lives because we're saved by grace through faith
00:54:57.240alone and so it's like we can be saved and be bad christians so you can be a bad disciple because
00:55:02.400jesus says you're going to be a disciple that's going to cost you something you're going to have
00:55:05.600to deny yourself follow me you know what i mean and all these things like um pick up your cross
00:55:10.280and um he's hyperbolic but he says hate your mother and father and wife and kids um in comparison
00:55:15.300to him that's costly but salvation he paid the cost for it's by his grace and and so i really
00:55:22.320kind of need internalizing that deeper and deeper and thinking man it's really a free gift the more
00:55:27.140actually really internalized that and thought about it that's when everything in my life seemed
00:55:31.180to change and I don't know if it's like psychologically you guys you and your dad
00:55:36.620probably know better but it's like when you know that you have this unconditional love and acceptance
00:55:40.740and then you have somebody that's also pushing you then you can change you know what I mean you
00:55:45.620can change from the inside then but you can't change if you're trying to meet these quotas
00:55:49.420on the outside and focus on how good you are and that sort of thing to me that never worked for me
00:55:53.380and i don't think it's like consistent with with um so much for career but yeah i mean do you kind
00:55:59.400of know like i think an aa or something like that i think they have some sort of acceptance
00:56:02.860kind of theory too which really helps people change i think so my mom my mom does aa and um
00:56:09.400i i don't know i like as soon as she started i was like that is a cult i'm getting really strong
00:56:14.200cult vibes from that like no thanks mom but then but then that kind of like wrapped up with her
00:56:21.200faith and she became a loving more loving person and i was like well looks like a cult to me but
00:56:26.800but it's definitely it's definitely valuable for her and then um whatever like i don't know who
00:56:35.380am i to judge right so i don't know how it works i don't know i don't know enough about aa i know
00:56:39.700that it's helped a lot of people i've had some other people on my podcast and it's completely
00:56:43.180transformed their lives too um going back to what you were saying about works so i i think we're in
00:56:50.060agreement from like the limited time i've spent reading and studying these things and talking to
00:56:54.660other people about it i i'm in agreement it's a weird it's a weird thing to say that you could
00:56:59.560be saved regardless of works yeah yeah um but i think yeah it is counterintuitive but i think it
00:57:06.840also it's like relaxing it gives you a level of ease that maybe allows you to be good right yeah
00:57:14.280you're not doing it you know it's not good and resentful people experience this it's not good
00:57:20.220to do things for somebody else because you think you have to that's not good even if you end up
00:57:25.100doing doing like good things if you're doing them to stop someone from being angry or because you
00:57:31.440feel guilty or because you think you have to uh you're just going to end up resentful it's not
00:57:36.220going to be good for anyone you're going to end up overdoing it for people you're not going to
00:57:39.740have the proper boundaries i used to be like that and i used to feel i think because i was sick too
00:57:45.360i felt guilty all the time so i was always trying to help more than i should help and i think you
00:57:50.580know being saved without it being tied to works allows you to kind of relax and then have the
00:57:57.740proper boundaries to allow you to do what you should be doing rather than doing it out of out
00:58:02.440of guilt so there might be i don't know it's probably something to that so i agree anyway
00:58:07.460Yeah. Yeah. And what's interesting is there's a passage in Galatians 5, 16, where Paul says he can step with the spirit and then you won't gratify the desires of the flesh.
00:58:17.720And what's so interesting about that is because he's talking about all these things with the flesh and he's not saying don't do these things and then, you know, you're going to be OK, like resist them.
00:58:26.460You know what I mean? And that sort of way in this passage. But he's saying basically it's like when you keep your mind kind of focused on the gospel, you know what I mean?
00:58:33.320like keep your mind and keep in step with the spirit then you're not going to gratify the
00:58:37.020desires of the flesh and that's what i kind of noticed too because that shame and guilt and all
00:58:40.880that stuff once that stuff kind of just went away that's when i actually had the desire i mean the
00:58:45.640willpower the ability to be able to stop doing these things that were like controlling me for
00:58:49.740so long you know and so it's super counterintuitive just like the trinity is counterintuitive you
00:58:54.220know i think a lot of the fundamental christian stuff is counterintuitive which is why people
00:58:58.120naturally push back people that's why the gospel message is offensive which paul talks about in
00:59:02.540Galatians five and six, um, because it's super offensive because that that's offensive to think
00:59:07.440that like somebody who lives an awful life, like Jeffrey Dahmer could be in heaven because he
00:59:12.120believed in Christianity, you know, um, which I've done a video on, but I think God's grace is big
00:59:17.540enough to save any of us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty weird, but I don't know. Life is pretty
00:59:24.720weird. And I mean, we're told that we can't even, you know, I believe I can't even understand what
00:59:30.660god is like right can't you can't see it you know people are blinded can't understand it so then who
00:59:37.180are we to understand the reasoning here yeah and that was one of the things that helped me believe
00:59:42.960christianity was true because i thought about i said if you're going to make up a religion
00:59:46.740why would you make up the trinity for out of all things right you know what i mean like he was
00:59:51.220going to talk about the most counterintuitive thing that you can say to people you're like
00:59:54.960you know you're like why why the trinity you know um but i think the gospel message is similar
00:59:59.760because every other religion on the planet believes in a salvation based on works every
01:00:04.680single other religion on the planet and so when i didn't know that's what bugs and christians do
01:00:08.860oh yeah they all believe you have to do something and you have to keep doing these things in order
01:00:13.140to be saved and christianity says no it's a free gift jesus did everything so that way you could
01:00:17.760be saved so that's a radically different claim which is super offensive you know and so i
01:00:22.680understand the offense but yeah but it's you know i think it's the only thing in some ways that
01:00:26.460really makes sense it's the only thing that makes sense in my in my mind because um if we could if
01:00:31.620we have to do all these things and it's like man who can say like when jesus gets to the heart like
01:00:35.680in matthew 5 or the sermon on the mount he's like if you looked at a woman with lust you've committed
01:00:39.680adultery in your heart right and you're like dang well if you've even looked at a woman you're
01:00:43.500violating the laws so like all of these rules people try to come up with to say um you know
01:00:48.940i know i'm saved because i don't do these things and i'm like well in your heart you probably do
01:00:52.500when you're condemning yourself, you know?
01:00:54.180So, yeah, that's why I think it's just such a beautiful
01:00:57.000and humbling and counterintuitive message.
01:00:59.180It's like, it's so bizarre all at the same time, you know?