hi my name is Paul Keough and you're listening to Catholic versus Catholic if you would please just tell the listeners a little bit about yourself who you are what you believe and how you came to believe what you believe sure so I'm the ninth of 13 children from a family in upstate New York with a agnostic father and a Catholic mother and so the result of that is that right now I'm Catholic and five of my siblings in total are Catholic I don't actually know really fully the status of my other siblings I think half of the remaining are Protestant or just believe that God exists and then there are at least three or four who are atheist or agnostic as far as I can tell and so part of what I learned from all that is that the beliefs of your parents are going to affect what you believe because I look at the mix of my brothers and sisters and what they believe it's a Mick what their parents believed so now I feel a duty to try to evangelize my own siblings and others because I think Christ expects that of us and I've debated many people especially my own siblings will often tell me well don't you want to be liked and I say I don't believe the purpose of our lives like I believe the purpose of our lives was stated by Jesus Christ we said he'd come into the world to witness truth so if he's come into the world he is truth to witness truth and we also as his follower will have to make our attempt to being a witness to truth so I just the hardest part is when people's worldview is so far from mine that we can't agree so I know for example I had an atheist say to me well now we agree on something so our views aren't that different you know in the temptation in our culture at least here in America is to agree with someone say oh yeah you're right our views are almost the same but I did not I said well this one thing our views are similar but our worldview could not be more different you believe there is no God and I believe there is a God that's about is different you can get and it's hard because you know many many at least liberal thinkers and I would just say secular thinkers where I live if you don't agree you're considered a difficult person or a problem person or something something like that I guess and I just don't believe that's the purpose of my life I don't believe the purpose of my life is just to agree with people so the people somebody's happy I think the purpose of life is to witness truth so if that's if that's the purpose of life we're not going to make friends with everyone that we meet no matter how hard we try and I even concluded that when I was an atheist so I was an atheist from from sixteen until twenty eight or twelve years of my life those most miserable years of my life I was an atheist which I think the misery relates to being an atheist so my atheist friends don't agree but I even concluded when I was an atheist that the purpose of life was to witness truth I just thought truth was something that it was not at all and so I was I was I was barking up the wrong tree I was selling a bad bag of goods you know but one one thing that really fascinated me in Dante's Inferno was when Virgil went to the first plane of Hell there were a lot of people that that Dante never expected to see him in hell spite philosophers and scientists and great thinkers so he turned to Virgil and said well why are these people in hell doesn't make any sense these are these are great thinkers and what he said really struck me what what Virgil says in Dante's Inferno he says the limit of human reason is the first plane of hell I thought wow the limit of human reason is still hell it's still help it's still the place you don't want to go and so if it exists nobody wants to go there they're just denying its existence right if they knew it existed would want to be there but so that just amazed me I realized wow so if it's the greatest thinkers in time thinking on their own not not through the grace of God and not you know through the Holy Spirit but on their own the greatest they can too is the first plane of how we can't do it without God we're it's impossible basically without God and so even as a scientist and even as atheist I didn't conclude that God existed when I was an atheist but what I concluded when I was an atheist was that the purpose of life had to be truth and the reason that I to pursue truth and the reason I came to that conclusion was that I quickly realized as a young adult that you could not make everyone like you it was impossible you can't because there's always going to be people who disagree with you always and doesn't matter what position you take there's someone of the opposite position certainly see that on blogs today it doesn't matter what position you take I mean what's worse today is that it doesn't matter what position you take today you can find so-called evidence out there someone on the Internet even though it's the sourcing can be really poor you know so so I think that makes it even more confusing it's made it easier for the devil to mess with people's minds right because there's all this fake data on the Internet so if people don't know what the good source of data versus a poor source of data but they could believe all kinds of crazy things you know so I've been point to anything they want as evidence so what I came to the conclusion I came to even as an atheist was that the purpose of life was to pursue truth and it was kind of Machiavellian at that point and I said to myself and the reason is because you can't get everybody to agree with you no matter what you do do you might as well pursue truth and that's that's the conclusion I came to as an atheist so I mean I guess one thing I would say about having been an atheist is that there were a theist that at that time I respected and and to a certain extent I respected what they were trying to do you know I do they just again we're selling a bad bag of goods but I respected what they were attempting so so I respected them that they were trying to accomplish and I think that you know as a Catholic now I believe there's a little bit of truth everywhere cuz God is everywhere therefore there's a little bit of truth everywhere and even when I look to a theist groups agnostic groups humanism motorcycle gangs okay their gangs there's a sense of the desire to be together sense of communion right we want communion word word social animal we want to be together we want to be with other humans right so so these these desires of course once you understand God you realize either these were put in our heart these were put upon our heart written upon our souls that that these are just natural human desires it's not just that we're a social animal right if we were just a social animal that doesn't even explain how how the fraternal behavior of people in gangs there's something else going on so so there just doesn't seem to be enough and I literally I studied science I studied biological you know so so there was a lot of people talking when it when I was getting my doctorate about humanism and and humans as animal but even that didn't explain a lot of human behavior we seem to act different than other animals so there was something else going on even scientists were acknowledging that something else is going on with humans and if truth is written upon our heart that's one explanation right that's the explanation I eventually came to and I also think it's someone who really I was such an advocate of pursuit of the truth that it really matters to me pursuit of the truth is probably the most important thing in my life it's probably the overlying theme of my of my human life my personality my life is the pursuit of truth except pursuit of truth is so important and if God exists he's everywhere so anywhere you look if you look hard enough and deep enough you're gonna come to God unless you just resist it the whole way right I don't believe that I'll please now believe that what do you you'd have to deny your own path so once I became a you know realize that my personality is the person who must have truth must seek truth although I think that's written on all our hearts what was the overriding theme of my life once I realize that's who I am then I perceive truth so you know I didn't want to be a Catholic or an agnostic as my parents fought I didn't want to be a Protestant because Protestants tried to trick me when I was a kid you'll have to see the EWTN Shona see an example of that but many times I was tricked and belittled by by Protestants were I grew up sighs you want to be a Protestant so when I went to college I still wanted something greater than just myself you know I mean when I looked at my dad I thought the purpose of life is just selfishness he decided to date a young attractive nurse and he left my middle-aged mom for a young attractive nurse well just the pursuit of pleasure right the pursuit selfishness but I got to college I felt I thought of higher things it's all on here at higher education of thinking of higher things what are some higher things and one was is there higher purpose is there higher meaning to life so I took a course called a study of the seven great religions of the world so one of the reason they looked at religions of the world they categorize how many believers regardless of over a period of time right just the total number of believers in any particular issue and they ranked them and they picked the top seven and it was like a great books course in college and there was it a public university and there you know in there and they're doing this great books course so so so I put that in the order of course the order started from Eastern religions and ended up with Western religions and my thought is is a 17 year old at that time I went to college at 17 I just turned 17 when I went to college and that's what this one of the first courses I took for those fascinated by it I got to go back up in high school I did a comparison of the Koran and the Bible out of an interest in it like it's just to study it I was already an atheist but my senior year I compared the two but then I took this great religions course and my assumption was the reason they started from Eastern religions and ended in Western religions was because the writers were Western you know II mean the fact that Christianity was the last one in the book I just thought was a chronological thing of writers preferences so I cared it coulda been random the only mean they could have just presented them randomly but something happened when I took the course I took the course and you know they started by talking about religions in ancient times you know petty the religions of the petty I guess is what they sort of labeled it as which was you know the petty Greek gods the petty Viking gods he only mean they act like humans in a soap opera and they're just basically petty humans with powers right they talked about that and they talked about you know gods of primitives where it's so called primitives you know the native peoples those religions were often related to what they did for a living so if they hunted there was the god of hunting if they had to go to war there was the God of War they had to fertilize the crops there was the god of fertility etc etc etc right so sort of rationalist approach to religion when they started and then they get to the seven great religions finally and they say well certain number of people followed these they call it world views so we're gonna obviously they met religion because the things they list are all religions you know so and there were some borderline ones they talked about too before they got to the seven great religions like so asterism Shintoism which are sort of their very small factions and didn't last very long and there weren't enough people following it for them to decide to categorize it is one of the favorite seven great world religions but they mention them because they said they were kind of like a transition you know religion or something where we're now the God you can pray to them and not only that but they'll bestow upon you a gift so to speak or punishment because the original set of gods the you know the selfish God only punished so now there is this new level where they also give guests or something I don't know it seemed like malarkey to me but but that said they said those were the transitions to these seven great religions then they finally get to the seven great religions and the first three I think are like Confucianism Hinduism and Buddhism I think that through Taoism and again but they said it was borderline not a religion or something due to the number of participants which to me it makes sense I don't think something's qualified as a religion because one person believes that or a million people believe it but they kind of stated that these these were more philosophies than religion you know they were saying their religion what they claim to mean by that is that they were a way of life Confucianism I think I think really kind of embodies that it's just a way of life right you're going to live this way this is better you'll have a better life practical simple day-to-day you know kind of living and then you get a little more you know in terms of how they decisions anyway I don't know if they're right or wrong I've never practiced those religions but but this is how they positioned it anyway the book you know in the professor which was high and lofty and probably dead wrong but you know this is what we're saying and then when they get to Buddhism and Hinduism they will hear their philosophy of how to live but also an expectation of what will come next so another level right although you could argue that for even Viking gods where you want to go to Valhalla right I mean so I mean it's not perfect the way they're describing it but you see what's going on is they're going from one level to the next to the next implying that these are these are higher religions than the previous set and then they get to the Western religions and of course it all starts in Israel starts in Israel the Jews and then and then Christianity which they don't call Catholicism in the book but for 700 years the only Christians were Catholics I hate for Protestants that but you know I'm a fellow at Acton Institute in Grand Rapids Michigan so the Acton Institute is a Center for a cuticle religious studies and they have a really good study on what happens to faculty and Protestant seminaries who study the history of their church well they confer and they leave and they have to hire new people well it's not telling them something so anyway but we know that the first several hundred years the only light Christians were Catholics and then the others just modified we're modification to that and and the Muslim religion while trying to claim to predate the Bible is a modification of the Bible in my opinion having studied both tacks and compared them even even like Mormonism you know in a way you know John Smith I mean the American had just ripped out chapters of the Bible and the products listed that till Calvin and Luther they just ripped out parts they didn't like well I don't like this I don't like that you know so the famous one of course is the king of England who wanted to have multiple wives and both told me couldn't so he decided this is my new religion I'd be had anybody who doesn't agree with me so you know and I suppose the Russian Czars did that too when they got rid of Catholicism so um you know then it finally comes to Christianity the end of the book is Christianity and there's the maritime Christian concepts of judeo-christian concept first the Jewish concept of one God okay one God and so instead of these petty gods that are fighting each other or leaving out a soap opera and I don't know in the clouds or something in valhalla whatever it is but now there's a single God and all-powerful all-knowing all you know omnipresent God that that there is no equal to or no challenger to not men a real way right the devil well Lucifer was the highest angel until he fell where we're on upon I don't think he's the highest angel anymore Michaels Oh him the humble became the highest angel instead he's not an equal of God because he's an angel and God is God so there was never the sense in the Jewish faith that there was any real challenger to God there's no one who's going to get in a wrestling match with God I know there's a wrestling match with God in the Old Testament what I mean is there's no one who could challenge his position and take over his throne but and other religions there were there were I mean the deal with the Viking religions and the Greek religions and the Roman gods that that was a real threat this is this is a different it's a different game and this is a different game and it seemed like you know in looking at Judaism there were there were more scientific if I can I'm allowed to say that because science comes from philosophy which comes from metaphysics which comes from theology there was more scientific approach to the universe how the universe was created wasn't a turtle on the back of a frog on top whatever you know wasn't some crazy idea that a kid could think up in the clay in the sand it was it was much more much more organized and seemed very intelligent which surprised me because you see these these other these other religions and things they didn't even call religions in the book right the so called primitive fears they called it in some parts but they seemed to me like something man could have made up you know I could write a play I wrote a play about this man who wants to steal his friend's wife because she's pretty right and the other guy wants to steal his money and steal his cattle right I mean it sounds like a person made that up when I looked at Judaism I was surprised there was a level of intellect there that that surprised me and then I came to Christianity and despite the fact that the professor was was seem like an atheist I found something very different about Christianity in comparison to any other religion or philosophy or way of life and that difference was that the God they described which was the son of God really the Son of Man Jesus behaved in a way that I could not explain I could not see man making it up I couldn't see it it didn't make any sense God's going to become man so can be tortured and killed the man can be freed to go to heaven to be with his father I thought wow that's alien either I came to a conclusion in my head either either because Jesus I learned was the most documented figure in history at that time documents weren't you know he took a picture of somebody and scanned the image you know it was other people doing writings and drawings and other things that are historical documents the best documented figure in history is Jesus Christ even more than Caesar even more than Egyptian pharaohs even more than czars he's the most documented figure meaning the most number of people wrote things about him again which said to me there's something really different about this Jesus something is strange here and I could not explain his behavior and I kind of came to the conclusion his behavior was alien not human it was not human and so I thought there's only three things that can be true well the documents were assuming they're true all these people are saying they saw all these people are saying he did these things all the even these enemies are saying he did these things right not just his friend so there's all these factions and groups of different interests saying he existed he did these things okay and I had I believed you could oh there are only only three things you could conclude of Jesus either he's not right he belongs in an insane asylum or he's a liar or he's telling the truth that's all I could think of it's got to be one of those three so I examined the three which is very dangerous for an atheist to do there's no evidence he's insane nothing if you look at any of his documents or anything anyone talked about them no one said he was insane none of his statements contradict any other of his other statements I mean if somebody's insane you can usually find some pattern of irregularity in their statements something you can point out something otherwise you wouldn't call them insane you just say they're a little odd right so was he a liar well again there's nothing that he said that was contradicted by anything else that he said or anything else that he did even predicted things that seemed impossible to predict and he was right every time well it's absurd either he's a really good guesser a really good liar right where he's telling the truth and so that then there's the possibility of he's telling the truth well it's very hard to handle especially if you're an atheist and come a broken family and you've got a broken household and you're poor and you don't you don't see joy or love in your life it's pretty hard to come to the conclusion that he's telling the truth it's very difficult I think for anyone anyone's the greatest challenge in our lives is to accept God for what he is accept Jesus that for what he is except the Trinity for what they are and and it's one God in three persons it's it's the ultimate battle it's the ultimate battle of humanity is to accept that he told the truth now the postmortem evidence - after he died shocked me let me give you an example if you think of like a gang or a motorcycle game my father rode motorcycle after he left my mother so I I just became fascinated by gangs and motorcycle gangs to try to get to know my father if you know what I mean so if you think of a gang and let's say a gang robbed a bank and then they caught two of the five guys who robbed the bank what are the other three afraid of they're going to snitch and the pressure to snitch is is huge right there's called the prisoner's dilemma if you're given two choices neither party will pick the best choice and gnash determine that - the mathematician so so you can't win basically you can't win and police are good at this so who are the police of the time of Christ the Romans or the police so when the Sanhedrin they police their own people you have two sets of police okay so twelve people separated eventually tortured wouldn't one of them snitched if this were fake any game will tell you they would have they should have now for the sake of the Jewish faith which are not anti-semitic because this could have found a nice medic but I am NOT I'm trying to make that clear okay but if the Sanhedrin could have proved that Jesus were not the Son of God wouldn't I have done that wouldn't they have revealed something if they could have found it like he didn't rise so here we found the body they didn't do it they never did it the Romans wouldn't they like to prove he's not God because this Christian faith was like a real hassle for them they were unable to do it they couldn't find the body for the big police the little police and his followers none of them could find the body but maybe what he's telling is the truth even postmortem even after his death there's no body no one ever found a body in 2,000 years another one Mary she was assumed into heaven no body show me the bones of Mary evidence right archeology anthropology where the bones no bones we've got bones of saints all over the place right we chopped up their bodies and put them in vessels and you know they're reliquaries you know we honor them because we know that they're in heaven with God and and miracles happen because they're they become holy bodies even chopped up doesn't matter even all over the world doesn't matter so even after they die the evidence is overwhelming that's that what he said was true so if what he said is true so here's the real problem here's where the rub comes there's a period where like an atheist like me who converted and I've seen that agnostics go through the same thing too where you start to realize this Christ was telling the truth and what he said really happened here's the problem here's the route right if what he said is true and those things happened I have to change my life now that's the real rub even Agustin struggled with that even Paul said I said I want to do this but I do that instead I mean these two are very very strong and even they realized their body was weak the original sin had a great power over them and the devil and the demons were always whispering in their ear so I do what I do not wish to do I say what I do not mean to say now if you don't act now now that now you don't have an excuse especially someone like me I'm a passionate pursuer of truth once I saw it was true I had to do something I had to I had to do something I think that the exploration of other religions philosophies and worldviews it's actually very important and I think I think for those like me I didn't get to go to Catholic school there was poor formation of upstate New York I had to do it as an adult and the word University means unity and diversity University the purpose of higher education Thomas Aquinas said this is to ask questions I mean people call me a doctor of questions I have a doctorate and I ask a lot of questions I Drive some people nuts I have so many questions I can't help it it's my nature and I think all of us need to we need to ask questions and I think sometimes the fear might be well we shouldn't ask questions and we shouldn't pursue things why not if God is behind the universe if God is behind everything eat and you will find knock in the door be open to you so I had to do it as an adult basically I had to to ask all the questions of others and myself that st. Thomas Aquinas did so beautifully you know in his work and could have been learned in a Catholic school you know one good formation I had to do it on my own I had to do it on my own so God knows what we face right God knows I always get these questions from from ACS top questions I get are things like this well there's evil in the world and God knows that he allows that therefore God is evil I'm like wait a minute wait your logic it sounds logical but it's not you're missing a concept called free will you're missing the understanding of original sin which originated with us not him and his love for us being so great that he allows us even to choose not him and so they don't understand what the evil in the world is the consequence of sin not God it's not God it's causing evil in the world okay so that that's a real common one I'll get from from the Atheist and there's other similar to that there's real common questions I'll get and what I often realize in those questions is they haven't done a very good job of exploring so I think Scott Hahn says this I think it's a beautiful and I'll probably mess it up but I'll do my best he says I've met a lot of people who are not Catholic for what the Catholic Church is not but I have yet to meet anyone who is not a Catholic for what the church is in other words most of the time what I find when I have conversations with atheists agnostics if they focus on because I went through a period like that because I know what they're going through to a certain extent in my own experiences is have you really dug deep enough your question sounds great or the logic you've you've created the logic trap you've created in your head you're going around and around to defend your position what if it's wrong what if you're misunderstanding the steps the devil's whispering in your ear yeah yeah that's it you got it yeah yeah another one I tell a theist another trick that people will get wrong they don't understand it one of the first tricks the devil does to people is convince them that he does not exist because if he does not exist and God does not exist there's no consequences of your actions at least not in an internal way only in a physical way or whatever happens materially in front of you there are emotional so so um he just want people to think he exists so in that and then he can work on him once once they don't think he exists now he they just open the door for him to come in and and mess with him and when I have people say well even if there's a devil I'm not afraid of him you know say look this is what the devil wants I think was Archbishop Fulton sheen said this I think what the devil wants is me dead in an alley in a dumpster looking up at the sky with dull eyes and slit wrists and a bunch of holes in my arms from Georgia right so he wants us dead in his grip that's what he wants if that doesn't scare someone there's something wrong with them who wants to be in that position no one but do you think he's gonna colloquy and say hey follow me or I'll kill you and I have dumped you in a dumpster no he's gonna lie the father of lies so easy lies and we start believing the lies because we like the lies we like sin the problem with sin is that we like it if we didn't like it we wouldn't have a problem you know it would we would not be tempted but because we like it we like we want to be masters of our own destiny so anyway so when I got to graduate school I felt a calling to community right I studied social social biology the social biology you look at how rats work together ants work together wolves Apes right so man is a social animal and that's supposed to explain all of his behavior but it doesn't I thought what could explain these behaviors of man that are not explained because the animals don't do it only men do it like a man running into a house to save children that are not his biological children the children get out but he dies he would did not marry and have any kids well genetically didn't he just destroy his own seed so why do you do that the animals don't do it so there's some things we do the animals don't do and I thought what is that so there I was in graduate school studying science so I went to the library and I thought can I find something that explains some of the higher things of man and and he stole an animal because that's what I wanted him to be so I could sin but he has these higher things and I found something called humanism humans in acting in their own best interests act in the best interest of society and that's I think it's stole this the Thomas Jefferson the invisible hand so anyway this was one where and I thought to myself wow even by accident man can do good of course I also realized the problem with the philosophy was that even by accident man can do bad but I thought why am I talking about good and bad right why why do I keep coming back to good and bad what's what's that right is it just a matter of our own interests and that's what humanism said and I started to see the weakness in humanism too that they couldn't really explain what is in our best interest and this is even a problem I see with the Golden Rule not the Bible but Protestant swear by it so when I was in business school I was taking a business ethics class talk about an oxymoron business ethics and the professor was from Notre Dame and he was a Protestant who was a Catholic who converted to some Protestant faith which one and he said the golden rule I said the golden rule in the class and I said I have an issue with the golden rule he said what's wrong with the golden rule do unto others as you would have them do unto you I said what if I'm warped what if I'm into masochism and what's that sadism what if I'm into hurting myself what if I'm insane so I want to do unto others well I want to be hurt so I want to hurt other people he's like ah what love and he he really was puzzled by me and he said you're the one student I've ever taught that I most regretted giving an a to so here I was still growing right I was still developing and I was starting to reject humanism and and there was something he said in one of the classes that that became a battle between him and I and it took me a while to figure out how to get around his his scenario because ultimately I did start to realize that there were kind of two camps in good and bad either good and bad don't mean anything or they just mean what you wanted to mean relativism or good and bad are actually definable absolutism right it's one or the other so he wanted to defend relativism it was strange in the class he would say we shouldn't do this and you shouldn't do that but then some would say what about this only I guess that's okay so it just seemed to me there were no rules really because it was an exception to every exception to every exception so ultimately chaos well he gave an example to defend this the so-called good bad whatever you want it to be definite of reality he said okay so one one time and I was with my family this is very personal form there's no intention to harm him in explaining his example because this is what he said publicly he said my grandmother was dying and we were in the hospital room with her and she really loved Christmas and it was only like Thanksgiving or something and they knew she really loved Christmas well the doctor was in the room and she said to the doctor will I live to see Christmas and according to the professor the doctor knew she would not they found out in the hall later that she would not and she died maybe a week later and the doctor said yeah and everyone's side in the room because they knew how important it was to Grandma to little Christmas so he said that white lie was a good white lie it took me a little while to figure out what was wrong it really bothered me I thought there's something wrong and I can't quite see what it is okay now by this time I was already converting to be a Catholic okay so so I finally figured it out and I went to his office they say I think I see the problem with your dilemma while you're defending a white lie when in absolute system no lie is a good lie right because all lies would if form of spin and therefore have consequences that are detrimental somehow even if we can't see it right away or point to it immediately and I said what is it what what is it that you're thinking that they would solve this I said the doctor did not lie this is what do you mean I said well if we die and there is an afterlife she's still alive and she's more alive than anything we can understand it was like hi but this was I reflect this on myself instead of him this was me trying to figure out are there rules to the universe or not is the universe random and chaotic you know man a pile of chemicals which I would hear in science sometimes or are there rules and behind it if there is there an entity is there something that cares out there that made all this happen it is looking out for us and that's God and so it's got to be one or the other in my opinion because when you when I talk to Mel bell laureates and there were several at Northwestern and I got to meet others at other universities because we were a top science program so it was very nice I got to mingle with Harvard and Stanford and Cambridge and okay although all the top faculty from all over the place and Nobel laureate but surprisingly is a number of them were religious and when I would press upon why they say well I've looked at and then whatever it is if it's a physicist I've looked at the laws of motion if it's a strata miranne astrologist or worse astronomer I've looked at the universe if it's a biochemist I've looked at the molecule etc etc etc quantum mechanics I've looked at the basis of matter right and pretty much what they were what they would say to me at some point in some kind of evidence that there is complexities beyond complexities that could not be explained by any randomness there and even even the quantum mechanics guys who say you know there's random movement of the subatomic particles say it still arranged almost like an orchestra overall so there's this order within order within order the one that may be impressed me the most was a Jewish physicist who looked at all the constants of the universe and and came to the conclusion that the slightest move in any of these constants which have huge ranges that they could be and there's many of these constants the slightest move of any of them no life could exist in the universe so the probability that all these constants would be exactly where they are on these huge scales I mean scales in the ten to thirty kind of range I mean ridiculously huge scales is infinitesimally small to the point of zero right the been random and you could go on and on with these type of examples so but here's what fascinated me people who are pursuing truth in science which is supposed to be the healthy religion area which is it's not in my opinion at all guys it's just people seeking truth and some aspect of the universe we're coming the best minds come to the conclusion something started all this something intelligent you know some people call it intelligent design creationism both some don't know what to call it but randomness just doesn't seem to cut it not even biology you know there's people talk about evolution all the time and therefore there can't be a god there's really nothing in evolution that contradicts teaching to the Catholic Church in any way God didn't whatwhat's a day to God could be a billion years to us we don't know what's meant by day okay it could be poetry you know in in Genesis and there are huge leaps in like the Cambrian explosion where we go from single-cell organisms the body forms in a very short period of time that evolution doesn't seem to understand her no one can seem to figure out how it happened it used to be they said it was a hundred million years then they said oh my gosh it's down to 30 million years oh my gosh only 10 million years we went from bacteria to all the body forms not the the timespan needed for that to have occurred and I know I'll get people yelling at me for saying this because I'm in a sigh I was in a science field but it just isn't no one no one has an explanation for that and so the best scientific minds when they dig deep enough maybe that's true of any field the artists who Drake dig deep enough the musician who digs deep enough the person looking at beautiful landscapes who looks at landscapes in great detail enough the person who studies birds I don't really think it matters in other words I mean it matters in the sense it's beautiful whatever God gave whatever strengths he gave us and areas he has this pursuit I don't think it matters which area we look in the evidence for God is there because he's behind all of it no matter where we look or what fill we go into the best minds seem to find that that there's something behind it now that doesn't guarantee that the best manager can become Christians because I always think back to the first plane in health and trying to go in a circle now back to where I started that first plane and how in the end people still will decide I love God or I love myself they're going to decide one or the other and God loves them so much he's going to give them what they wanted but people in Hell want to be in hell the people in purgatory want to be in heaven and and they're choosing what they wanted either I want what I want despite the evidence I saw for a real truth with a capital T where I've decided that this God is greater than me despite my skills abilities strengths all that stuff you know and that I want to be the least in his kingdom rather than the greatest and the other to reverse the statement of Satan yeah so so I would rather be I would rather be the guy cleaning God's fingernails working on cuticles than than the prints of the Prince of Darkness or something so I love God first you know and so um that's that's the hardest part of all and the doubting promise there's a doubting Thomas in all of us some it's more than others there's a so I'll say to them finally I'll say we could debate forever I mean I can only be so much anyway all I can do is plant seeds the Holy Spirit and the mystery has to take over you know it does but they'll want to debate me and debate me and debate me I'll throw them research papers don't throw me research papers we go back and back and back I'll say them you know we can go on forever and the evidence will never satisfy you remember that what the Christ said to Thomas you had to put your hand in my side blessed are those who never saw me and believed well you could be given evidence indefinitely and still choose yourself over God so at some point that's that's what faith is it's a leap faith is a leap we do finally realize in our heart all right God didn't come from Christ didn't come from the mind he came for the heart the mind can't do it look at the first plane of hell brilliant minds they couldn't think the leap brilliant mind itself isn't enough you know the heart has to be one and so you know even when I think of my moment of conversion if you watch the wtn journey home episode you'll see that I couldn't understand in my moment of conversion it's a mystery I believe a lot of people were praying and the Holy Spirit worked on me and and he will do that for anyone if they will if they will just knock if they will ask and to go back to Thomas Aquinas and the founding of the University and the purpose of the university was to seek to ask questions and defeat and I feel that universities have become so politically correct now that it's getting harder and harder for people to really do real research is ask questions challenge concepts Thomas Aquinas was so brilliant even though they call him the dumb ox because he was slow when he was young he was so brilliant than in the end the only person he could find asked him tough questions was himself you know that that each of us can seek in our own way and find God he's not going to ignore anyone if someone were an Aboriginal and had no sign of God in their life he's going to bring them signs and only it's between God and the person only God in that person know that those signs were there and have their own personal revelation that God will bring them to him if they'll choose to love God first in the end it still comes down to our will and that's what I care about really is I have I helped atheist and agnostics find God because I was I feel blessed I was able to find at the end of all my episodes I always asked my guests to wrap up the show with a little positive thought so what do you think you might be able to say to anyone that might be or they're listening now sure so when I was an atheist I was exhausted there really was my books coming out in February which is a Canadian it's a Canadian publisher by the way Canadian editor and a Canadian publisher feeling the integral aureus light and it says from exhausted atheist too joyful Catholic that's the subtitle it's a glorious light and I was exhausted and part of the reason I was exhausted was I was trying to make everybody happy which is impossible remember I figured out even as an atheist you can't make everybody happy because when you say one thing someone's gonna have the opposite opinion doesn't matter what opinion you take and if you go in the middle and you're lukewarm the people are both friends now hate you you simply can't please everyone so stop trying second is look at your life if you're an atheist or agnostic look at your life is it really full of joy mine wasn't it was a misery and when I came to truth my life became full of joy I had new lenses on my eyes God gave me a new lenses got his lost so just the tiniest sliver of his love in my life the world went from a black and white Charlie Chaplin you know show too full you know plasma screen 4d I mean I said I saw a real reality and real reality is more than facts it's more than rocks and a pile of chemicals it's love the truth the life in the way is the Christ he came here to help us don't be afraid of him ask questions keep asking questions whatever made you become an atheist was probably something that upset you hey my father was a bad father so I always thought God was a meanie okay there was my there was my weakness keep asking questions seek and you will find knock and the door will be open to you all you got to do is all you got to do is