hi I'm UC and you're listening to Catholic versus atheist so tell us a little bit about yourself who you are what you believe and why you believe it I mean um well I am from Ontario and I was raised in a family that was Jewish and Protestant but we practiced nothing really like you know celebrated Christmas but not with any type of religious undertones and we would do religious kind of events like Passover and stuff with my dad's family but I was a child I was never encouraged to believe in God or pray or there was never any mention of my relationship with God or religion um we were always encouraged to be curious and to ask questions and read we read all the time right and I was always fascinated by biology and how things worked because of the exposure and the openness that we had with science even if my parents didn't know the answer to a question there was no religious answer it was always either you know we don't know or let's look in this book right is it safe to say that you are a materialist you believe that there's only matter and energy in the universe there's no supernatural soul or supernatural of God that's right okay you believe that your mind is nothing more than a certain configuration of neurons and cells in your brain in your spinal column in your whole body and how they interact with the rest of the universe right right okay there's nothing supernatural there's no fairy dust in there right presumably if you believe in science you believe in cause and effect that no effect happens without a cause right okay so what we can conclude from those two facts is that you do not believe in free will cetera right okay so without free will there can be no real justice there can be no real praise there can be no blame and when the criminal goes before the judge it's just theater really it's it's just what's happening it's not like the judge is really passing judgment it's not like the criminal is really guilty he's just doing what he had to do and that's just what happened while I believe that there is no free will and everything just occurs like I don't think that that gives us leave - no there's no we as well no there's by definition don't do anything cuz I mean we're good or for you we still do have this really impression yeah the illusion that yeah you know a so I think realistically the way that we live our everyday lives is identical right like we still must act with values and morals and people should still go to prison and people should still work hard and what you're should is different from my should your applies to everything you're locked in to everything well I my should is a much more dangerous affair because what's at stake for me is eternal bliss or eternal sorrow you know and when you say people should do the right thing of course you say that because every everyone should do exactly what they have to do there there's no choice right every state of affairs is the logical consequence of the preceding state of affairs even if realistically I don't believe that I am making this moral choice the things that cause me to make this choice are so infinitesimally small that the only difference is that I believe I should do it because I'll feel better in it but do you also are you capable of seeing from my point of view that there is a God there is a supernatural soul that we do have free will that what we do does matter really not just in appearance I mean everyone can identify with the experience of actions having constable and so heaven in hell would be just a series of actions having a consequence so I do think that I can so to the extent that you are a moral person that's the role that you fall into those molecules have fallen into that configuration here it's no better or worse than Hitler's configuration right you're no better or worse than me I mean like objectively speaking yeah we're from a bigger scale absolutely not however we do still live life on a very small scale when you look at yourself objectively in a clinical philosophic manner you can say I don't have free will nothing matters but when you're living your life day to day you do the good thing because it's the right thing to do and and you don't question the mechanisms that are so subtle behind that right okay I really hope that you can understand it from my perspective you are created by an all good god and that you have a conscience and that's why you do the right things as you're listening your conscience and God made you this way with freedom right true freedom which is by definition supernatural and that's why you're a good person and you know we can educate our conscience and we can grow in virtue and we can move towards God whether we believe in him or not or we can go in the other direction by being indulging in selfishness you know we can go in the opposite direction why do you believe in God or not you can go away from God right so have you heard this sort of thought experiment where there's a ship that needs repairing and how I replace replace and yes they replace one plank it's still the same ship right but as it goes on and on and on and on eventually there's no original plank right and there's no original not even one stitch of original ship and our bodies are doing this right I think our oldest cells are maybe seven years old or something like that yeah that what you told me I'd be that's four bones I'm not sure how long I think you're on blast I think you're on blast for the like if you haven't her on it you've had it for your life but I'm not sure I think I've had it entirely yeah so you are you because of this particular configuration of energies and matter matter and energy are the same thing right principle of equivalence e equals mc-squared and there's a principle of conservation of matter energy which means we've got what we've got it's neither created nor destroyed it just moves around and then with entropy of course we have this inevitable heat death coming which means that there's definitely a beginning of the universe because otherwise the heat death would have already arrived if we had in a time behind us and so on and so forth so we live in a universe that has a beginning and there's a principle of conservation of energy and matter what I call Lucy is just this particular configuration but like we said with the boat analogy where you have a plank here in a plank there and you remove this not a big deal but if eventually you've replaced everything how is it the same and that's who you are your your planks have been replaced your cells have been replaced so you're not just one configuration you're a whole bunch of configuration so what I want to talk about in this sci-fi thought experiment is if we could reproduce that configuration by definition it is you yeah so there's no limit to how many Lucy's there could be right if that were to occur where we were cloning people exactly so it was like all of these people were the same I think that for us to continue to have a functioning method of life we would have to call them different things however in I believe that they would be the same Lucy one Lucy - yeah however um what I would be interested in is and I understand that there's some kind of difficulty with the you know like is the Bible to be taken word-for-word or is it symbolistic of something or in the Bible when it was written in all the parts and put together my understanding is that it relied heavily on the philosophy of aerosol much of the scientific parts of which were disproved during the Scientific Revolution and beyond okay how do we interpret we interpret very literally or is it more symbolic when they say Joe went to the store to buy milk the first thing we do is we say okay well let's assume that they're trying to tell us that Joe went to the store to buy milk unless we have a reason to say well it can't be right and then if it can't be then we look for higher levels of meaning not to say that there couldn't be a higher level of meaning even if Joe did that go to buy milk maybe he did go to buy milk but that has a semantic value that means something just like you know these ships flags and all the colors and the shapes and all that sort of thing they have meaning everything means something everything so there's literal there's many many layers of spiritual reading there all kinds of literary styles in the Bible so that's the first thing that I wanted to address the second thing had to do with science in particular and Aristotle and a lot of interpretation of the Bible on that scientific level and how it changed over time right and basically the church at the time the Scientific Revolution they were first resist and then say oh no this is right but when the Bible said it it was symbolic I am told to believe and I do believe that there's no error in Scripture that God is a primary author of Scripture that it was written by humans the patriarchs and the Saints that put their pen to parchment or whatever they did and that they were inspired and that they exercised the freewill and they have these inspirations and they wrote what they wanted to write and they wrote what God wanted them to write and God is a primary author and they are the secondary authors who are cooperating with God's grace okay so there's no error there is no danger of infallibly proclaiming a scientific dogma that will be disproven later why because the dogmas don't pertain to natural science the dogmas pertain to faith and morals exclusively so the church can't say that the earth is the center of the universe dogmatically it can't say that and it may be that the church at one time in the time we Galileo for example thought that was the center of the universe it may be but even if that's the case it's not a dogmatic position it's just that was the conservative position based on where they had come from and they hadn't caught up to the signs but they were willing to catch up to the science they just want to do it on their own terms and that in their own pace and to make sure that they cross every T and they dot every I and everything's in order there's no contradiction yeah it's a cautious approach and it's one that I think can be a little bit embarrassing looking back on it but I'm not embarrassed but I find it reasonable because of the burden responsibilities that they have and because they don't want to jump on every fashion because there are fashions in science and there are false trails as well so they just want to be sure and I just want to go slowly and that sometimes can come across as being a little bit stodgy when the church looks back on its own history and sees that it called CPR evil then how can it look at its modern contradictions with science in relation your humanism and have conviction if we look at the lives of the saints so we look at the history of the saints and we look at the canonization process of the saints now I don't want you to I don't need to generalize this too much I don't I don't know how frequently it happens we have certainly seen examples of it in the history of the church okay that the Saints at their time are persecuted by the church they're repressed by the church they're oppressed by the church they're demonized by the church and then 200 years later 400 years later they're seen as a saint and they're canonized as a saint how does this church move forward and as it's stepping on it Saints today it's canonizing them tomorrow how does it do that how did the Jews who killed their prophets claim to be the sons of the prophets that they killed you know Jesus in his own day was persecuted and belittled by Jews who were claiming to be the sons of the prophets and Jesus turned around and said we have the blood on your hands it's I think it's always case and the the answer the short answer is original sin that's the short answer we are in a fallen world we're in a pilgrimage here we've fallen from God's grace we're on our way back to God's grace and in the meantime we're literally crushing each other's skulls in this pilgrimage my life moment to moment is like oh my god I can't believe how foolish I was yesterday but I'm just as foolish today and what's worse I'll be just as foolish tomorrow there's very little progress in me spiritually and the only thing I can do is say I am fallen I'm a sinner I am weak I am nothing I am a fool I need God it's humbling if you look at the lives of the Saints you'll see you'll recognize in them that they are like you and they're like me the only difference is that they know that they need God they just know that they're weak we think that we are tough and we're tough minded and we're intelligent and we think that we can confront the world and we can manage our lives and that we can do a pretty good job of it but the Saints depended on God and they put their faith in God and God alone and they were honest with themselves about their the weaknesses and about their their ability to be wrong not only about science but about morality and about everything else even even about faith so it's a really really tricky question you know the problem with evil specifically and especially within the church evil within the church is a real thing so there's there's always this punishment that we're carrying with us in this fallen world why would someone who loves you punish you like that it was always perfect like I can understand people who love someone you can treat them poorly and be awful to them and still love them but someone who is perfect and only good and everything that is good how could God is not the source of any evil ever he's incapable of evil he is goodness itself and he's the source of everything that's good so everything that you love and cherish life Beauty goodness justice truth everything that's that comes from God God is a source of everything that's good and everything that you hate pain suffering injustice ugliness of any kind all the evils of the world they all come from original sin God allows those consequences to play themselves out okay because he can bring good out of it that's how powerful he is he's omnipotent he can bring good out of evil and therefore since there's evil in the world and God is incapable of evil there must have been a fault there must have been a movement away from all that goodness because in Catholic philosophy evil is not a thing evil doesn't exist evil is a lack of good so if you want to think of it in terms of light in darkness there's light darkness is a lack of light right there's heat coldness is a lack of heat there's knowledge ignorance is a lack of knowledge there's love hatred is a lack of love indifference is a lack of love okay well how do you know that it's not the opposite like how do you know that goodness is the natural state so you and I take a walk and we discover an apple tree okay and you're like hey look at these apples and you grab one and I grab one a different one and you're like oh this Apple is perfect and I say oh lucky you because my Apple is half eaten with mold and worms and decay and then we split your Apple because mine is no good to eat so we just share your Apple and then as we're thinking about it we're like well which Apple was more Apple II was it yours the perfect one the nice color and the texture and the firmness and the odor and the taste and the white flesh and the integrity and the wholesomeness of it and the way it felt going down or was it mine the one that was melting almost in my hand and that stank of death which one was more of an Apple I don't think it takes rocket science to figure out which one is the basis of reality its goodness its wholesomeness its health its beauty but wouldn't the natural state the goodness and holiness and that is the natural state however is that is true then wouldn't it be that love is a lack of haze a hatred is a lack of love for the same reason that the healthy Apple is more of an apple than the rotten apple the Catholic teaching is that goodness is and evil is a lack of goodness so a cancer cell is a healthy human cell that gets deformed and malfunctions and is out of whack it's disordered right it's falling away from its function and it's falling away from its form however what that is is a mutation that happens to occur in one spot in seven another so cancer cell and another type of cell the mutations may be different but neither of them is necessarily I'm not saying that cancer is good but in the grand scheme of things a cancer cell is a cell that has mutation that is bad for life and a human cell is the result of millions and millions and millions of mutations that happened to be good for life in the way that we see good and bad I think that one of the difficulties is that we fundamentally see we see things in a different way what would be the tragedy of my life having taken a leap of faith I don't think that religion in itself is bad however I hold a view that when people get carried away with religion there can be consequences and I'm not saying that all religion is bad because of that what I mean is simply that fanaticism is dangerous right and that if you believe I'm not saying that all atheists are linked you know open to change however the I think that is the way that I see things is that if I can understand it and experience it and touch it and feel it or comprehend it then that is my best estimation of that it is real and if what I can experience changes my view changes right it seems to me that atheism is flexible more skeptical maybe yes I consider myself a skeptic but what I mean is that the number of deaths that have occurred because of religion like Aquino look at that for six more people have been killed in the name of atheism than in the name of religion add up the numbers of deaths caused by communists versus death caused by religious the Communists have killed more it's a materialistic worldview that explicitly puts atheism at its core how it's not incidental it says there is no God and we need to make paradise on earth because there is no God and there is no heaven the only heaven is here so let's make heaven here and how do we do that get a committee together to plan society and let's just build it from scratch so round up the religious people round up the intellectuals kill them and let's start over okay no one's going to do it for us God's not going to do it because he doesn't exist that's the story of communism so how do you start over mass killings and you can't just say oh well they're not religious so it doesn't matter it matters what you believe and if you're an atheist and if you're a materialist and if you deny the supernatural you don't believe in free will and you don't believe in morality that's a very very very very very very dangerous philosophy you may not express it in the dangerous way you may not round us up and kill us but you're part of that team and it's incredibly dangerous and it's a reality in the world that I live in it's a real thing it's there's a spiritual battle taking place good versus evil and I'm not saying that you are consciously on the side of evil but I'm saying you are on the side of evil philosophically do you mean that all religion is better than no religion I'm saying that there's one light source and I'm orienting myself consciously and explicitly toward delight and saying I want to partake of that light I want to go to that light and someone else is denying the very existence of that light then from my perspective they are for darkness if they're not for light therefore darkness so people partake of the truth to varying degrees the fullness of the truth resides in the Holy Roman Catholic Church the Jews don't have the fullness of the truth the Muslims don't have the fullness of the truth they have God Almighty but they're missing they're missing the Trinity they missing the Incarnation and the Protestant Christians are missing the sacraments they're missing a lot of it if two people live their lives the exact same way and they both strove to make the people around them happy and be good people and work hard and be compassionate and considerate and one of them did it because it was right and one did it because they thought it was right because of God there's more merit if you do it forgot if Tim you'll do something that's bad and one says they're doing it forgotten one says they're just doing it because they feel like yet then which one would be worse the religious person anytime that Christians or Catholics have done evil done evil it's more evil than when an atheist does it yeah the good they do is better not bad to do is worse it's more extreme so when I commit sin it's infinitely worse than when you do the same objective sin the same projective Act if I take a pen from work if I steal a pen from my workplace it's infinitely more evil than if you were to do it infinitely more but if I give money to a beggar with love and with the true devotion in a truly religious way I do it forgot and for neighbor for God's sake it's infinitely more valuable than if you give them the same amount of money it's infinitely more liable so the stakes are high I can really win I can really lose whereas you're probably going to coast into heaven I'll probably end up burning in hell because I have been given so much grace and just abused it so I could go to hell literally go to hell for stealing 110 from work if I don't and it's a very very dangerous thing to play with religion very dangerous and what do you make of Occam's razor in relation to religion I think that's a big big big big big turning point for the worse in society in Western culture it's basically the end of the Middle Ages to me the Middle Ages are the high point of Christianity and we are now suffering because of Willie Malcolm who was nominally Catholic and it's ironic that I say he's nominally Catholic because he's a nominalist the name of his philosophy is nominal isn't it what I mean he what I mean is this he was not actually the one who came up with Occam's razor it was just named after him but what I mean is that the supporting explanation explanations generally the correct one yeah but that comes from alchemy may not have come directly from his lips but that comes from Occam this is what happens in philosophy is that ideas are proposed and if they're true bears good fruit and if they're false if there's bad for there's a lot of bad fruit growing out of Alchemist ideas they can seem harmless at the time and you can seem like they're pious and holy and devote notions but they're dangerous and that's why we need to always submit to the church because the church knows best the church is infallible okay no matter what we believe in the purpose is to live each day being the most kind and compassionate member of society that we can be let's say that you and I both work at a suicide hotline and so we both get a call from the same guy and he's serious he's not joking around from my worldview I can acknowledge the depth of sorrow and despair and hopelessness especially reason atheist I can understand in a real way the reality of what he's going through and I can offer him real hope because I believe that God is good and that God created him in the christ died for him and that he's made to be happy with God forever so I can offer him hope it's up to him to take it or not he can kill himself and go to go to hell he could also show he not come 7:00 in heaven he could not kill himself what happened what could he not tell me I don't mean like what I mean is can he kill himself and yet still go to heaven yes you can it only takes a moment for that angel to come and say are you with God or not do you love him or not are you returning his love that he freely gave you or not it's up to you you're free to choose so yes you can kill yourself and go to heaven but the church teaches very sternly and strictly if you can't kill yourself and go to heaven but when they say that you cannot kill yourself and go to heaven there's a nuance behind that I think it's like it's similar to how we discussed earlier about the Dalai Lama and how he doesn't want to encourage suicide but it's very delicate very delicate I still think that life is better than not life right and I still think that life is precious and beautiful because in my small-scale it is so the guy phones you on the suicide hotline okay and he asks you will the pain and when I die just tell me will the pain and when I die everything want everything so my table anyway I die yes but it will also end if you get okay I think this is a little bit unfair because the because of the purpose of my beliefs is not to prevent people for having felt yeah this is just do you feel like you have the short straw here in this thought experiment I think I do I think most are you because I think that I I do believe I have a long straw when it comes to darkness yes basically every time what I mean is that okay I think that most thought experiments are aimed to prove religious ideas because evolution can explain basically everything that I've realized and that everything that you have I have in terms of science everything yes there's no portion of science that I don't have action but what I mean is that I am I believe there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for everything right do you oh yes however as far as I've ever I seen there's no proof for God so do you believe that the universe is caused by an uncaused first cause what I will use is that we do not have the answers are you open to the possibility that it is because that's my god I don't think that there could be something that has no cause okay so you your claim your belief is that there is no first cause which is itself uncaused not in a way that i would be able to understand what if I told you that no one can ever understand it but you can believe in it the way I put I think you can believe in anything no what if I told you that you have no choice but to believe in it if you want to be rational and scientific kind of walk you through the proof sure okay you believe in cause-and-effect every thing that happens has a perfectly reasonable explanation meaning it has a cause it doesn't just happen without a cause right so you and I are sitting here today that is the effect of a cause which is in turn was the effect of the state that preceded that state we can look at it like a series of states going all the way back in time as far as you want to go and there necessarily has to be a beginning because of the second law of thermodynamics otherwise known as entropy where things spontaneously tend to disorder all right we can take that river the water is flowing from the mountaintop down to the ocean through a stream we can grab a cup and we can scoop up some water the walk up stream and we can put it higher than where it slowed down naturally but spontaneously and naturally it's always flowing down okay but we are like reverse entropy machines we can reverse that in that little region we can reverse entropy but it's so miniscule in the universe and as we do it we're causing more than work yeah so there is a tendency in the big picture towards disorder and so this is the nature of reality the universe that we live in and what that means is that given enough time given a finite amount of time biological life will no longer be tenable in this universe it just won't that means that there is necessarily a beginning so there's a first cause which is by definition uncaused therefore you shouldn't say oh well I can't understand that my brain can't route no no no I owe you no like it's the case I can understand that that yes HR based on what we have that's reality now however it's not like I put a ruler on the ground and therefore the earth is flat at one point that was the best that we had and now it's no longer the bet we're using deduction we're not using induction we're going to use deduction we're going to assume the opposite of what I just proposed we're going to assume that there is not a first cause which is in a cellphone cost okay because there's a principle in logic called the excluded middle it's either a or it's not a there's no third option it's a or it's not a so if you say what about B and C and D well those are not a okay and if B is a then it a but if B is not a then it's not a so it's either a or it's not a this is a principle of thought so either there's a first cause or there's not there's no third option you can't just answer chocolate sundae that's not an answer is there a first cause or not so yes or no so we're going to do a reduction to absurdity by looking at what you think might be possible look wait of course there must be something before the Big Bang that's something we can ask ourselves were going to make it a lot more simple we're going to say that there is no first cause that isn't it's in and of itself own cost okay we're not going to put a ruler on God we're just going to use the duction use your rational thought and say there is no first cause what does that mean logically and rationally there is no beginning but just everything not just it there's an infinite amount of time behind us yes that's what it means we can reject that even if you didn't believe in entropy in the laws of thermodynamics and the conservation of matter and energy you could still reject it because if you go into the waiting room at the doctor's office and you take a number as you take your seat the lady next to you has one number lower so you won't get to go see the doctor until she sees the doctor but she can't see the doctor until the person of her I see the doctor and so on and so on and so on and guess what you're not going to see the doctor because that lineup of people that need to accomplish that physical material gesture of getting up of their seat and going into the doctor which is bound up with space and time it's not a number line where we can just say all infinite numbers behind us no problem right yeah that's not a problem the problem is when you have an appointment and you got to see the doctor and then go pick up your kids from school that's a problem and so when there's not just one person ahead of you in line not just two not three not four not five million not six trillion but infinite people ahead of you you're not going to have sorry your turn ain't gonna happen you won't be here and you are here therefore there's a beginning of time therefore there's a first cause that's um cause there for you believe in my god you can't possibly reject that without abandoning reasoning yes there must be something first cause first cause however that still contradicts the conservation of mass and energy no because that applies to the in the physical universe all of the science that you cherish is limited to the material universe of matter and energy Wonder Woman's that we believe that the there was a university for this one that collapsed as our universe well and became super super small and I related that by the way waging a chain of cause effect I've included that however although one is very good is that that universe may have had different laws of physics than ours I've included all the bizarre universes in my in my inner and it didn't work the same way as ours who is to say that that universe wasn't caused by something else I'm allowing you I'm granting you an infinite chain of cause effect with all the wacky weird string theory multiverses bouncing universes everything you want I'll give it to you and I'll give you infinite time behind us to accomplish all of it okay mult all dimensions you want all the strings you want everything now it's still the case that there's a limited amount of time that would accomplish the heat death to heat that has arrived therefore there's not infinite time Highness number one number two you're here which means that there weren't infinite people butting in line ahead of you to get here right okay I what do you mean never seen you go to the doctor's office you know good I understand this but what you are that have to do you are here now it's your turn it's your turn to be you're not a Buddhist that just thinks this is all a dream right you believe in the physical universe so therefore everything that happens takes time we don't live in some spiritual numberland where it's just infinite numbers are possible your material creature and cause and effect takes place within time you're here now therefore there's a beginning in the universe so in that case wouldn't it just be like the universe has always been and that's it you can't say well I skip the line and I'm at the head of the line of infinity that doesn't work there are infinite stages that okay and to proceed you so you cannot be here now with the shape of the universe if the shape is spherical or cylindrical or whatever it is then all times could exist simultaneously there's no challenge to my faith from saying that all time might be simultaneous of course it is but how do you escape the infinite chain of cause and effect or are you willing to admit that there is a first cause which is uncaused what I believe is based on evidence right in a way that I can experience and based on pattern I add you conclude right well I'm gonna conclude my I don't know anything I just like and realistically even if life has no purpose and I don't think that it has an inherent purpose we can still enjoy it neither of us know what caused universe neither of us can conclusively know that there's no proof I claim to conclusively hundred percent with hundred percent certainty know that God created the universe because there's an alternative they're the reason alternative the Buddhists are right then there is no physical universe but there's still God there's still that one mind because you can deny everything you want to deny you can deny everything but you can't deny that you exist so that existence is what you're faced with and you have to explain it you can choose not to explain it but it's still a cries out for explanation so I'm right no matter what I'm absolutely right that God created the universe if there's a universe okay is alternative to that and who's to say that it wasn't a magic unicorn because of the nature of the magic unicorn the magic unicorn has flesh right not necessarily maybe that makes it magic if everything about the magic unicorn corresponds to my god then it's just my god the magic unicorn is my god what I mean it you know okay what's essential is not the name look essentially you know I underst but what makes you think that humans are special and loved by God and will go into a state that is no physical that we are the special ones that have the special souls that animals don't have and first of all I do believe in the resurrection of the body so I will have a physical body for all eternity during death will be separated from my body my soul and water we separated but I will be given a glorified and perfected body a physical body those who say no to God will go to hell with the Claudia that's subject to torment and that never fully decays because it's always going to be subsisting in pain and agony that's why there's the urgency to get people to choose God and go to heaven rather than suffering and going to hell for all eternity and the analogy I'd like to use if you allow me to sort of go into this is the Titanic people were on the Titanic when it sank and some refused to believe and they perished and some took the warning and got in the lifeboats and lived ok this is an analogy I think for religion and what's happening in the urgency that you feel from religious fanatics or whatever you want to call them that you have to choose life you have to choose God you have to work out your salvation with fear and trembling because we're on a sinking ship and the music's good people are smiling they're dancing the food is one for the decor sumptuous but the ship is sinking and if you don't take that warning seriously it doesn't matter how fine your garments are you going down right doesn't matter how much you smile doesn't matter how nice at the time you're having and how polite you are with those around you it doesn't matter it doesn't matter all that matters is heed the warning get off the sinking ship and the way you do that is by turning back to your loving creator thanking him for everything that you have that's good because it all comes from him and your not source of anything good all I got is a source of every good that you have your life your health your beauty and turn to him and return his love what am I supposed to do spend my whole trip on the beautiful ship sitting in the lifeboat in case that may happen no have you read the lives of the saints do you know what it is to be a saint do you know what it is to live for God and to give your life to God it's not a drab and our waiting room it's engaging in the world loving your neighbor doing God's work the issue is that you are created by God and you're not even acknowledging the God created you so you you're in danger you need to acknowledge first of all that you're not the source of your own life I know I'm seeing a net source right now again step one check step two you need to acknowledge the one who is the source of your own life and if you want to say mummy and daddy then you better go all the way back to mommy and daddy's mommy and daddy all the way back and see where you end up and you're going to end up with the first cause rationally you will end up with the first cause which is uncaused and then you'll acknowledge that and then you can dress I got up with all the perfections and all the attributes as reason dictates how no there is no evidence whatsoever that the ship is sinking by the way do you think there was evidence on like Titanic the night it sank do you think there was evidence is gone okay well we can't know how yes but we can't be we're not actually talking about the Titanic well I want to ask you is it possible for people to be so deluded in their false sense of security that they deny reality and then go about the business having fun not knowing that by ignoring the very real warning from a very real captain on a very real ship that has made a very real iceberg with very evidence they're doing themselves to death by ignoring the warning of the captain you acknowledge that captain Warren the captain sent delegates to warn and people continue to eat and to dance because it was promoted as an unsinkable ship so is it possible for people to be so deluded and so closed-minded to the reality in the evidence of a dangerous situation that they just go load their business yes yeah is there the remotest chance that your life has meaning and that there is an all good God that created you why would he do that I'm just asking you if there's the remotest possibility in your mind it is zero is it non zero the possibility zero okay how do you think I went from atheist to monotheists how do you think that happened the idea is appealing I will not deny that the idea and it's like I said earlier debt life is better than not life right and so it would be nice I'm to go about your life believing that no matter what there's this omnipotent being who loves you and wants you to succeed and wants to arrange all these perfect things for you and is that once you die you're going to go to this beautiful place that's better than anything you can imagine however a book that is supposed to confirm itself holds little value to me that's not the way I sued the Bible I believe in the Bible only on the authority of the Catholic Church I have a living Magisterium the church is the Bride of Christ they're one flesh so I don't use the Bible to prove the Bible so that's not an issue for me it's an issue for Protestants it's a big issue and it's their Achilles heel but your Achilles heel is morality you've admitted there's no morality that's very honest of you but one more thing I just a question that you we just didn't get sharia sure and that was that how do you know that if there is an uncaused cause that it is your god there's a lot of ideas that contribute to Western thought there's a lot contributed by Catholic philosophers and you can't avoid it in the Middle Ages Jewish philosophy there's Islamic philosophy so when I realized that the first cause was that god of monotheism I immediately just had a whole package of perfect attributes and the fact that God is perfect implies that God is one because if there are two gods either they're identical in their perfections in which case they're not two but one or one of them lacks something that the other possesses in which case he's not perfect therefore he's not done so to be God is to necessarily by definition have all of the perfections which it is better to have than to not have now a circle is perfect but God is not a circle because it's not better to be a circle than to not be in a circle so everything that it's better to be even to not be he is that attribute and it's just the principle of an effect cannot be greater than this cause so just to wrap up what would you say to anyone that's listening nothing but it seems to me that as long as we live our day to day life in a way that is valuable to it it's like as I've been doing this research and existentialism which I hate a lot it's one of the philosophies it's Albert Camus and it's that suicide is the only truly significant philosophical question and the idea there is that before anything else matters you must decide that life is worth living or not worth living and from my point of view if we live our lives in a way that is the most beneficial to everyone there is nothing better that we can do like that is the absolute best because you know we are the universe briefly expressed as a person so you know we may as well make the best contribution that we can and I think that that is the heart of every religion to be a valuable member of society and so I think that no matter what your greater beliefs are if you can do that then you've met the goal if you like it will do if you think it's got some questions at the end okay all you got to do it all you got this all you got to do it all you got this