I am amazed, that this Christian here on an atheist channel makes so much more sense than everything else I ever heard on all the Christian channels! Sure, I am not becoming a Christian now, since I still lack believe in deities, but I think the world might be a much better place if more Christians would be like that guy.
As a former evangelical Christian, I'd go as far as to say that Ken Ham literally idolizes the first chapters of Genesis. And in doing so, he reduces and oversimplifies the whole religion to a near absurdity.
And then, of course, he was given hundreds of millions of dollars. It's almost like he uses religious zealotry as a way of producing cash flow. Like all preachers.
Ken Ham believes that the first chapter of Genesis is absolute truth because it was literally written by God. A God, by the way, that Ken Ham knows almost nothing about. What makes this funny is that it is 100% fiction. What makes it dangerous is that Kan Ham is targeting children, to turn them into lifelong contributors to the God industry. He lives as an ignorant man and does his best to pass his ignorance to kids.
Joels characterization of ancient culture is also very simplistic to the point of being flat out false. “Every culture taught that humans are worthless except Christianity” is so blatantly untrue that it’s just as bad as Ken ham saying ancient Jews believed Genesis to be a literal telling of the creation of the world
Imagine a pro-life stance where the pro-lifer actively goes out of their way to adopt and care for children, putting their money where their mouth is. I can respect this. It shows way more integrity than the modern pro-lifer who actively does not care about quality of life.
You do realize that every pro-lifer will tell you that they care about quality of life and that by definition any life has a better quality than no life, correct? Do you care about the fact that every day people starve to death all over the world? Are you personally shipping food to these people? Do you care about the fact that every day people die because of a lack of access to medicine? Are you personally shipping medicine to these people? Do you care about the fact that every day people die because of violence? Are you personally protecting those people? What? You have only finite resources and have to make judgement calls about how to expend your time and material? You have obligations to family and friends that are stronger than your emotional reactions to the plight of strangers? I guess you are human and you need to acknowledge that fact in the other side of the debate.
Considering pregnancy is nowhere like the Monty Python’s baby falling out of Mom’s vagina, adoption only comes after finishing the marathon. Mom goes through several months of “involuntary” torture. Until the fetus can be transplanted to an artificial womb, the question becomes can we force a woman to be tortured? How does a man, have horse in that race?
@@Kolopsych Unless you are talking about a case of rape, many would argue that the woman opted into the situation and that there is now the human rights of another to consider in the equation. Men always have a horse in the race. The child is also theirs as well. Even if they don't care emotionally, society will extract child support regardless of the father's wishes.
@@Kyeudo so a women has to consent to get pregnant, when having sex? What if one or both lose their job the day after. Until the man goes through the health risks of being pregnant, giving birth, his horse should be disqualified. Sounds like women should follow a national “Chi-Raq”. Man has nothing a woman needs that she can’t get at a donor clinic
@@Kyeudo Maybe the better questions to ask pro-lifers: So... you are concerned about abortions, unplanned pregnancies and children. So... you must be in favour of: Practical sex education in schools.(not abstinence only) I speak from personal experience that leaving it up to the parents is a BAD idea. Increased funding of Planned Parenthood... the organization that works to reduce unplanned pregnancies. Insuring that pregnant women of all social classes have equal access to medical care before, during and after the birth. Ensuring that the resulting children have access to proper nutrition and education... regardless of social status. Wonder what their responses would be.
Every time I have an argument with a creation believer, their response to any and all evolution science has been "That's not what the bible says." My response is always, " Maybe because they didn't know anything about biology 3,000 years ago?" It still amazes me how so many Christian Creation believers are actually proud of their ignorance. They wear it like a merit badge.
@@perujones2 and a favorite thing for Ham to say is “were you there???” Well, Ken…..was anyone there for the events in genesis? Nope. But the things that come out of their mouths don’t seem to make it into their own ear holes.
@@howdoyouknow1218 when people ask me that I just say yes, I was there. When they say I wasn’t, I ask them how they know, since I know they weren’t there when I was. I think it gets the point of inference across.
@@timhallas4275 You’re right, I hope soon that scientific literacy is seen as a virtue by the wider world. I think we have a responsibility to be intellectually honest, which necessitates throwing magic out the window most of the time. (Except at magic shows, those are dope.)
Woah, Joel’s first comment about fighting culture wars with creationism had me hooked right away. Well said. I love hearing thoughtful Christians’ perspective on this stuff.
Jesus was anointed as king of Israel in that choice between Jesus and Barabbas. Quickly said, Pilot dressed Jesus up as King, Pilot presented Jesus to the Sanhedrin and high priest among the crowd as "their King". Told the crowd to choose to crucify "their King" or Barabbas. The Saducees and High Priest chose "their king" Jesus to be crucified and instigated the Jewish crowd to choose "their King" to be crucified..... and so the Priesthood anointed Jesus as their king in order for him to be executed. I Pilat published this fact above Jesus head at a time when Jerusalem was most crowded of Jews from all over the realm. What this accomplished was to legalize according to Torah law Jesus' amended covenant and make irrelevant all burdensome Talmudic rules. I think Jesus and Pilat planned it together. Neet trick on the Sanhedrin huh.
And it's exactly what's needed to move people towards reason. Just laughing "You're WRONG" at people or shouting arguments at them doesn't move anyone away from radicalism. There need to be people who are providing transitory positions to move the window towards reason incrementally.
Christians have calling eachother heretics since the 1st century CE, so it is a very well founded tradition. One would think that when they were so heavy persecuted as we are always told, they had greater worries then beat each other over the head.
Based on experiences with the man, it is 100% possible for Ken Ham to be BOTH doing things he thinks is in the best interest of people AND be doing it in a predatory, exploitative way
"Kern" Ham because his arguments have wide-open spaces in them? Edit: Also, Kern seems to assume that church attendance is indicative of anything beyond a social convention of the time - it speaks to nothing of the actual moral behaviour of people attending church. In fact, I seem to recall that 1st century Jewish carpenter guy that Kern claims to love so much had something to say about people that thought themselves righteous simply because they went through the motions and mouthed the platitudes of their religion.
Dr. Anderson was quite a breath of fresh air. I remember having professors like him in college (I went to a Christian university), and despite now being an atheist, I still have so much respect for them as intellectuals. Watching a lot of radical views getting dunked on can definitely make me forget that.
Outstanding as always. I absolutely adore the respectful discourses that you facilitate and that you open your platform for other respectful creators. Regardless of beliefs.
Yeah I agree that it's good that Paul does not make his channel a full echo-chamber, like many of the big creationists often tend to do. I think Joel was the third Christian expert, since Paul has had Sy Garte and Joshua Swamidass on the channel as well!
@@Lobsterwithinternet And don't forget Phil Vischer from the Holy Post Podcast as well. As a Christian myself, I really appreciate Paul's respectful approach and willingness to engage in open discussion.
Paul gives Christian promoters a fair and balanced platform on which to make their case. He does not judge them, but instead presents the case against their beliefs and their assertions,and allows his audience to judge for themselves what is true and what is bullshit.
While I appreciate the more positive version of christianity, Aron Ra points out that the old testament does speak on abortion. If a man suspects his wife of being unfaithful he can take her to a priest for a potion that would most likely cause an abortion. It also notes that personhood starts with the breath of life, and breathing doesn't occur until after birth. Also, Digital Hammurabi would point out that much of the "history" of the bible doesn't line up with what we know happened.
There are a lot of small things where Joels christianity does not fit against either history or biblical claims. But i guess that just shows that nobody can perfectly balance the task to judge the book objectively when they grew up with attempts to make it subjectively "their" truth. You end up subconsciously taking up a lot of doctrine without noticing that these things explain away some of your problems with the text. Just look at his explanation of "in thy image"... does it make sense that all humans were made as god's personal idols to show its involvement in the world when humans making idols of their own gods way before this thing was revealed to the first human and could afterwards be written down? It also would not get you away from the problem that the bible obviously wants this verse to be understood to actual physical appearance... we LOOK like god does. And how would a somewhat human bodied god stay all the omnis? Which is what so many modernchristians want to avoid by going into extreme lengths to tell us that god is transcendental and not "the old guy in the clouds", so they can keep the omn is even if they look the image. Well what is it? Does the bible tell us something about how god is or can you just make up things to try and work around observable reality with special rules why nobody sees your deity? Joel kind of avoids that question and dychotomy. If he is serious about the idol, then god HAS to have a human like body and that brings with it soooo many problems of credibility and goes back to Adam and Eve or Moses walking around with their god...
I'd like to see a real source for this. The passage doesn't literally say that. You have to infer it as a metaphor. Not saying Mr. Ra is necessarily wrong, just saying I don't trust him as a scholar of the Old Testament or the ancient Levant.
@@ps.2 Numbers 5:11-31 A man suspects his woman of sleeping with someone else. He takes her to a priest who makes a potion of trampled dirt, ink, and parchment known to cause miscarriages. It's not using the word but it's describing an abortion that's not 100% effective. It's basically trial by combat for the fetus. I tried to put in a link to an online bible but my comment doesn't seem to post if I do, so I apologize but I'll have to ask you to look it up. For reference, I was looking at the NIV.
Talon, I don't disagree with the idea that many scholars believe that life starts at breath (the pneuma), however, Digital Hammurabi also makes a statement that this passage that you described is not specifically targeting abortion, instead, it was targeting fertility. It certainly could have have the side-effect of an abortion, but the curse/ritual was not directly created to address the entire topic of abortion. I appreciated Dr. Joel's refutation of Ken Ham's rhetoric, and that he approached these topics from a much more rational perspective. However, I felt disappointed that he brought very little scholarly discussion to the channel regarding the Old Testament. He mentioned that there is so much history written in the Bible, and while I don't disagree, I also would assert that there is quite a bit that is not historically accurate, especially concerning the earliest stories (the Flood, Moses, the exile from Egypt, etc.). I also note that he asks us to put ourselves in an ancient perspective when reading the OT, but then, retroactively applies theological underpinnings from centuries later, such as the trinity and monotheism, which were not found in the old testament according to many scholars (for example, Dan McClellan).
"A lot of Christians... have a difference of opinions as to whether you should sprinkle or immerse... but they know thats just a difference of opinions and thats okay" And then there's the Church of Christ who think that if you weren't immersed then you aren't saved.
I found that statement to be rather silly myself. A lot of denominations have very strong feelings about those little details! Would that they could all get along, but it's simply too generous to say that most Christians don't care that much.
@@pleaseseatyourself4312 that's interesting. I also was raised in Church of Christ but my church embraced instruments(mostly guitars and pianos). But any music that wasn't considered "worship" seemed pretty heavily frowned upon
@@roseredr1058 there was a big split in the CofC back in the 40s and 50s over instrumental music. The anti-instruments side is also extremely strict about other things like only full immersion baptism, extremely firm gender roles and hostility to LGBT+, necessity of attendance any and all times the doors are open, and in some cases even only using a single shared cup for lords supper juice, just to name a few. Growing up in that, i didn't have any exposure to the pro-instruments side of cofc other than constantly being told they were wrong, "liberal", sinful, and going to hell.
I’ve been hoping you would feature Joel eventually! I’ve interacted closely with him online before, and I loved “The Heresy of Ham”. It makes a good theology-based companion to the more science-based book “God’s Word or Human Reason”.
The reason Ken Ham needs Genesis to be historical/literal is so he can get to original sin. Without a literal Adam and Eve, there's no original sin, and no need for salvation. The whole story unravels
Or you can just hsve people responsible for their own sins. Edit: I am only saying this because I hate strawmanning people. I feel that it is important to get someone’s position right before dunking on them.
@@tompatterson1548 what would be the sin(s)? Against which god? If Adam, Eve, the fruit, and the serpent are all metaphor and allegory, it would follow that so is this God character
@@tompatterson1548 how did I strawman them? This is a direct quote from an AIG article titled "evolution and original sin": "We would actually agree with the atheist that evolution, if true, would disprove the need for a savior-or better, the Savior, Jesus Christ, who died for our sins."
Gotta love Ken Ham. While you love the other guys, sometimes you just wanna hear the classics. Ken hasn’t had a new idea in decades and he’ll be damned if he’s going to play anything but his classic set. I mean, who wants a new song when you can hear “Rock Around the Clock” for the 10,000th time?
None of these guys have had any idea ever. they are just regurgitating Apologist that came before. They usually do not actually understand the argument, mess it up, and twist the argument around so that it is not even coherent, but yes very classical. The best is when they try to change something to come across like they do have an original thought of their own, and butcher it so bad that we now call them Banana Man.
@@kerianhalcon3557 Well said, tho’ scamming people out of 100 million and then actually building the thing is new. Kinda silly - I think it’s better to keep the money - but it is new.
@@atomicsquirrel6457 I don't have any evidence of it, but I think I am fairly safe to say a high percentage would go into their pockets. Now that you say that it is new isn't it, there are a few that are not adorned in gold robes, and rolling up in private jets - but only a few.
I'm sure that the guy whose entire career is based on being a biblical expert who then went on to build a giant, biblically-inaccurate Ark (that proves that the one described in the bible would definitely not have been seaworthy) using taxpayer money, filled it with misrepresentations of atheism and science, and is currently planning on building a recreation of the Tower of Babel (which God presumably didn't have major feelings about, one way or the other, in the Old Testament), is a good faith actor who honestly believes what he's saying and isn't just fleecing the flock.
I just can't handle the "inate brokenness" arguments anymore, even well-intentioned. Growing up feeling like every emotion or urge is bad/wrong is terrible. Not to mention the hypocrisy!! If you took every adult who preaches christian purity culture, and said "only those who have *never* sinned sexually can speak on this", we'd never have to hear about it again! (excepting the few asexuals in the churches) And if you take away all those claims of sin and shame, it's just humans being humans. Realizing that these concepts have such flimsy foundations, and that it all might not be real was an epiphany. I don't have to fight myself anymore. I can be angry or lustful or disdainful in my thoughts, and just cope, instead of feeling shame and trying not to feel what I'm feeling or think what I'm thinking. And christianity is so phobic about things that *don't matter*! I can spend my energy fighting meaningful fights to materially help people, instead of trying to uphold ridiculous ideas that I can't really justify, but I'm supposed to care about. Stop locking our kids in boxes of self-flagellation. Stop the cycle of shame.
I think Joel Edmund Anderson is a lot more empathetic on stuff like LGBTQ, despite being a more conservative Christian. He has critiqued the Nashville-statement, confesses that gay people can genuinely love each other as straight people and be faithful Christians and believes people should not harass them, rather leaving the subject between them and God.
I wish more theist scholars would go against them. Apologists just write off atheists but they won’t have the same thing when their critics are theists.
Individual students can still pray in school you just can't pray in a way that would disrupt the class. I'm sure plenty of students pray before taking the test they didn't study for. Like that's actually going to help but oh well.
That sounds like desperation lol. Back when I was still religious we were told that you should pray but also prepare. As for the effectiveness of prayer, speaking as an irrelevant person today, I do think it has advantages. It can calm nerves and helps with anxiety which is always a good thing. But you still need to prepare!
I kinda like this approach, it's good to show that the creationist ideas don't represent all of Christianity. That being said, when I hear Ken's I actually think: "he has a point. If an all powerful, all knowing, completely good god inspired this thing, why would he not make sure that everything is clear and literal? Why leave things up to interpretation?" I disagree with theism, and strongly disagree with creationism, but I find creationist/fundamentalist views more internally honest sometimes.
Might almost agree with that, except... They cherry pick which parts they claim is true vs are fable, then fail even more by claiming that their current "modern" bible is more accurate than literally everything that the authors stole/copied/plagerized it from. Good example - why would anyone claim that death came from sin if they where reading the original version, in which a) it is Lilith that tempts Eve, not a serpent, and they could have chosen to eat fruit from the "other tree in Eden" - which gave immortality? You only get the sort of nonsense that Ken babbles by 1) removing one of the trres, 2) throwing out the section about Lilith, and then 3) making the devil (who was never God's enemy until Christianity decided they needed him to be) shape hangs into a serpent, to do the deed. But, want to bet that even the guy paulogia brought on would claim that the modern rewrite of the story is the true one? Odds are maybe 50:50, since he seems someone who might be more honest about the Bible's history. Then again, literally pointing out ANY of those things would make Ken wrong, not just theologically, but in terms of claiming to know the "history in the Bible".
I'm not a Christian, but it seems plausible to me that if God actually did inspire the Bible, he chose not to make it literal/clear because he wanted to engage peoples' hearts, not just their minds, and wanted people to think about the contents, not just memorize them.
@@sauteur-36 I mean, but it kinda failed. And books of facts, science, math, history, etc. Still require analysis to be understood properly, but they leave much less room for ambiguity.
@@Fernando-ek8jp It does seem like it failed for the American evangelical church. I have insufficient historical knowledge to know if it failed for other cultures at other times or to predict whether a less ambiguous text would have failed in different ways.
@@sauteur-36 Right.. And, many, many, many people have, and concluded that its a mix of stuff that everyone comes up with, without needing even religion, horrible tribal stuff, which it completely self serving, and other stuff that literally contradict each other. Unless the intent is to decide, with their hearts, that it is nonsense, and reject it, I don't see the point of the supposed "inspired" nature of it.
Me, also a Jew, whose ancestors were dehumanized, ostracized, robbed, imprisoned, tortured and forcibly converted to Catholicism: I REALLY HOPE THIS RELIGION DIES.
@@artemisia4718 I mean.. *gestures at the Jewish conquest/genocide of Canan and the modern apartheid Israel that has its roots in that provably false story*
As a guy who was threatened by his Christian college professor for questioning a literal interpretation of Genesis, it's refreshing to hear a Christian call that out as being extremely harmful. Great discussion; great video!
On my first day in infant school (I'm British, I think Americans may call it first grade) I remember thinking that I'd been sent to the wrong school, one for orphans, because everybody chanted "Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name". My father's name was Jim and he would be home before I went to bed.
@@brickwitheyes1710 Oh wow 😲 that does sound awesome 😊 I haven't had a vacation in a couple of decades so it's nice to hear from other people who have 🤗
Cool to see Paul have a variety of guests on his channel and getting actual scholars and experts on the topics of science, theology and other subjects, unlike Ray Comfort's 10 "experts" of evolution!
That "I knew I was going to get corrected" from Eric Hovind in the introduction really says it all.... They know what they say isn't true, but still try to sell it.
I'd ask you be a bit cautious there. I don't rule out dishonesty as a possibility. But expecting corrections only means he knows there's a lot of people that strongly disagree. He's not in any way admitting his ideas are wrong, that I can see. Expecting their ideas to be criticised or attacked is embedded in a persecution narrative that they've thoroughly latched onto.
I had a lot of weird lessons in school that the Creation as stated in Genesis is the key to the teachings of Jesus. If Genesis isn't true, then nothing that follows can stand up. Thank you both for the dissection!
At about 6:18 Joel says the a prayer in school doesn’t do anything. For me it was the beginning of the end of my Christian life. In the third grade, I folded my hands while everyone else around me folded their arms. George from the back of the class, pointing, said there’s one! I was bullied and had no friends the rest of the year. The next year prayer was thrown out of schools, my life got much better and I thought Madeline Marie O’hare was the greatest person ever. This experience led to me at 14 to read the Bible. When I read Deuteronomy I became an Atheist. Having said all that, I respect where Joel is coming from and I appreciate how he views the scriptures.
Wow. You obviously aren't from mississippi. I remember when we started middle school, all of the kids had these long conversations about how we werent going to listen to the blasphemy of the biology classes that year because evolution was a lie. And we would all, i mean ALL, pray for god to take that lie out of our school and noy let it lead any of our friends or ourselves away from jesus...
I still dont know how i became so lucky to find my way out because it is so deeply ingrained into every aspect of my society that it was unthinkable to even ask questions, and its still not safe for me to openly be an atheist here. Very scary
I like it that there are Christians with a nuanced view of their own faith. That being said Dr Joel still danced around some stuff that he would eagerly agree with Ken Ham. He doesn't come out and say anything directly but you can hear the dodges.
I don’t really get why Joel believes that the Bible is the ‘Word of God’ when Genesis 1-11 is obviously false, and that’s far from the only passage that is inaccurate at best. How could I - from an agnostic/atheist point of view - decide which religion is true, if any? If the method ‘feeling’ leads to different conclusions (given the fact that there are so many religions in the world), why wouldn’t any God make sure his book would be superior? This has been the main reason I left Christianity, while I am really curious what Joel’s response would be.
While I appreciate the thoughtful approach of Dr Anderson, he's still interpreting a 2,000 year old book. His interpretation is probably more erudite, nuanced and complex, he might still be wrong. If a god and divine powers are actually involved, there's no way to tell how he did everything. God might have done it the way Ham claims he did. Both of them (Anderson/Ham) tell us things like "God tells us that..." How can we trust which one of them is actually telling us what god said? PhD is not a door to god's mind, God's word is still made up. Both of them are making a decision on how to interpret this old book. So, of course, having to choose one of them, I'll take the more thoughtful one, but it does nothing to convince me that god is real and that this book is relevant, they are both talking about fantasies.
Well, there are far too many Christians in the country to be completely radical about it, we really have no choice but to ally with the non bigoted ones with brains
6:00 That painting is the "Ransom of Visby", depicting the Danish king Valdemar Atterdag holding the town of Visby to ransom in 1361. The painting was made in the 19th century though. Not sure I understand what it has to do with Christianity specifically.
I was about to comment on that one, too! "Ooh! This is depicting my island!" (Even if the event it shows never happened.) I guess they were simply looking for an image to illustrate medieval times.
Generalizing people based on any factors is a bad idea. Everyone is different and you cannot assume any characteristic based on any other characteristic. Wish we could all remember that.
Christians arguing with Christians about Christian theology and calling each other wrong will never not be funny. I appreciate that Paul often has Christian guests on so that I can get a regular dose of this kind of hilarity.
As a Jew living in the US, and one born in the 80s, this idea of being an active Christian is an act of patriotism has been damaging. For my parents and grandparents generation, it was far worse. My mother was made to recite the Lord’s Prayer her first few years of schooling. She was forced to pray to a god and “messiah” that were not her own. She was ostracized by other students for expressing discomfort, and by teachers for her entire primary and secondary schooling because her grandfather was an outspoken Jew. My grandfather served for 20 years as an officer in the Navy, but nearly was stopped before he started when someone questioned if he was a communist because he was Jewish, and nearly halted his commissioning as an ensign. Can you imagine that his patriotism, when he was signing on to serve in our military, was questioned just because he was something other than Christian?
While I can appreciate a Christian being more in touch with reality, I still think that without a literal fall there's no need for a literal salvation. Jesus thought Adam was a real dude, there's no mental gymnastics that can save you from that reality.
Yes, Holy Hamster, you’ve found me out - I want to be my own GOD. I prostrate myself 11 times a day and pray fervently to myself that I might please myself and that I will be blessed by myself to enjoy all of the sacred beneficence that only I, as a quad-omni being, can grant myself…
_"The reason why I'm a sinner is because some dude back then sinned. Then you're passing the buck."_ But...like...isn't that the basis for large swathes of Christian dogma? It's not just YEC idiots who believe in original sin and/or this "sin nature of humanity" nonsense. This is a problem I have with a lot of the "reasonable" Christians. They may outright deny less of reality than someone like Ken Ham...but they're still doing it. Maybe it's just the editing, but at the end of the video, it was very strange to hear him talking about dividing and hurting the church, even going so far as to bring up their accusations of heresy, when that's basically what he did here? Right down to putting heresy in the title of his book? Idk, man... I get that you're trying to show that there are Christians out there who push back against Ham's crap, but I don't think doing it from a theological standpoint is really getting the job done. Ham's wrong because he's twisting and ignoring what has been discovered about how our world works, not because his interpretation of scripture clashes with this guy's.
Yeah, I really think Paulogia should stop putting Christians on his show, seeing how in the end they all push the same nonsense. Yes, Anderson's version of Christianity may not be as bad as Ken Ham's, but it's still embodies a very harmful outlook on the world that should not be promoted in any way.
@@unduloid I think Paul wants to do something few other content creators do on the theist/atheist debacle. Reach across the borders and convince the other side to genuinely think on the issue, rather than use the same old arguments that have barely worked for the last 150 years. This way, they might become more open to a full and thorough reassesment of their beliefs.
Have you ever had a discussion with a YEC adherent? They fully accept Ham's claims that science is corrupt and evil and take his cherry-picked data points unconditionally. Presenting them with someone who, instead of rubbing the same data in their faces that they are likely desensitized to, approaches the topic from a different angle and shows them that Ham is full of it even from a Christian perspective might just be the breaking point that is necessary to get them to evaluate Ham's bull.
@@OzixiThrill I agree. That's an appropriate way to reach out to people. Incrementally make them think without activating their "defense systems". Makes me appreciate what Paul is doing even more.
While it's good to hear from a moderate Christian pointing out the inconsistencies of an evangelical, there were many times as he spoke that it caused me to cringe at claims of actual history in the Bible assertions he was making.
Thanks for having Joel on. It's good to be reminded that the likes of Ken aren't all Christians. I dropped by his blog to thank him and ask some questions about his talking points.
I spit out my drink laughing when Aron Ra was talking on one of his videos about how Noah's Ark only had one window, so the 8 people would have died immediately from the methane gas from the animals farting and pooping!!!
The chart on church attendance might have something to do with the fact that in the late 90's the internet became the norm. The clergy basically were stripped of their influence because people could look for themselves and see what other people outside of the their theological bubble thought. It's a move to critical thinking.
i really enjoyed this one, a breath of fresh air.. finally an undertaking by someone who understands the bible as opposed to an atheist spouting off their misunderstandings of something they do not understand while trying to slam a knuckle-headed person for not fully understanding the science concerning evolution and astronomy (not pointing that finger at paulogia). there are so many brilliant palaeontologists, bio-chemist, archeologists and physics phd holders who believe in God and teach at harvard, oxford, princeton, cambrdige and other places that are never brought up here. this was a breath of fresh air.
It's great that Anderson accepts evolution and everything, but in a way, I have more respect for Ham, than for him- At least Ham is CONSISTENT, and his position makes sense within his worldview ; "This book is a message from an infallable, all-powerful god, therefore anything in the book, however absurd and magical, is true"... But what's Anderson's position? If Genesis is only "symbollically true", then is the resurrection only "symbollically true", too? Does Anderson pick and choose which magical acts in the bible are/aren't true? Or, is he a "cultural Christian" like Jordan Peterson, where you can reject ALL magical claims in the bible, but somehow remain Christian, just by believing in "the vibe", or the "metaphorical truth" of it? Without a belief in the supernatural bits of the bible, what does it even MEAN to call yourself "a Christian"? Is "Christianity" merely a philosophical outlook? Or is it a belief that Jesus LITERALLY rose from the dead, and Yahweh LITERALLY created the universe?
Christian creationists are more internally consistent in terms of their belief structure than the average Christian, it's true. And flat-Earth creationist Christians are even *more* internally consistent, which is precisely why non-flat-Earth creationists like Kern Ham dislike them, because they know flat-Earthers are wrong, yet their view is exactly what the bible describes. Anyway, from what I've observed, it seems that more "mainline," non-evangelical, church-going Christians value the social aspects of religion (as in, a built-in community) and the idea that they're "doing good" more than they value, know, or even believe, the actual theology. So, they're fine with cherry-picking the good out of the bible and calling the rest "symbolic" or "just how things were then" or whatever. That way, the bible doesn't get in the way of the bits of their religious practice that they deem valuable. As a result, they come off as unconvincing and wishy-washy to the non-believers and as weak, pathetic compromisers to the "true" evangelical believers. They can't win, basically. Which is good, as far as I'm concerned. Maybe that way they'll come to realize how ridiculous religion is and that they can have a community and "do good" without it.
@@memyselfandi4173 given that the Bible that Creationists use contradicts itself, they cannot be consistent. The consistent views of the Bible are: 1. It is writings by humans of myths and beliefs of the Jewish and Christian peoples. Some things mentioned existed in history. Nothing can be considered literally true unless independent corroboration exists. 2. It is writings by humans to control followers. Nothing can be considered literally true unless independent corroboration exists.
@@aaronbredon2948 Well, sure. I'm an atheist -- a "hard" one when it comes to most concepts of gods, even -- and it's obvious that the bible itself isn't internally consistent at all. That wasn't what I was talking about, though. What I meant was that, among Christians who generally believe the bible to be the Word of God(TM), the creationists believe and follow that bible more closely than "mainstream" Christians generally do, in that they tend to ignore fewer of its bits, and they will not write things, such as the Adam and Eve story, off as allegorical or symbolic, even though that's clearly what they were meant to be. Therefore, creationist beliefs are more internally consistent and in alignment with the bible than that of "mainstream" Christians, who tend to cherry-pick the bible and simply ignore the uncomfortable or inconvenient bits that they don't like, thus having their cake and eating it, too. This makes their beliefs less internally consistent and in alignment with the bible while at the same time making belief in general more palatable to the average, non-fundamentalist person, especially people who are just nominally Christian. But that's precisely why the creationist camps dislikes "mainstream" Christians so much, because they think such "compromise" erodes the foundation of belief, thus leading to the "destruction of society." Which is why organizations like Answers in Genesis are aimed more at convincing their fellow, but non- or less- fundamentalist, Christians to believe as they do, not really to convince non-believers of anything. I think they've given up on us. :)
What part of the Old Testament does he think is history? Adam & Eve, Moses, Noah's Ark, The Tower of Babble, and the Exodus have all been declared to be fiction.
It was Kent hovind's teachings that led me to study the Bible but after I read it from cover to cover I started to realize that Christianity was full of problems that I could not morally reconcile. Honestly looking at the Bible as "historical facts" the way Mr. Hovind describes it was what led me to become an atheist.
The thing is, even Mr. Anderson seems to have a lot more trust in the historicity of the Bible than is justified. We don't even need to go to the NT (see Paulogia on that), but it seems pretty clear today that the whole Moses story is made up. Israeli (and other) Archeologists have tried their best, but they have utterly failed to find anything that might, even squinting a lot, sound like it corroborates that story. No slavery in Egypt, no Exodus, no 40 years in the desert, no invasion of Palestine, nothing. It's no more historical than the story of Eden. (Now, the Babylonian exile we know is true, even though some of the stories surrounding it are ... more suspect.) I'll admit, the "not a finished product" interpretation was new to me.
@@js1423 could be, it's their right to do so, but at some moment they must arrive at the point they have to wedge square pegs into round holes or just ignore the shape of the pegs and the holes.
@@js1423 Some scholars believe there is a kernel of truth in the exodus story, but it isn't the way it is portrayed in the Bible. Most Egyptologists do not share this point of view. For example, see Digital Hammurabi's video on this (it's a bit lengthy and takes a bit to lead to this discussion of the exodus): ua-cam.com/video/W9-EdaSC7n4/v-deo.html
I didn't realise Dr. Anderson was a ventriloquist, LOL! At 34:46 he starts speaking without moving his lips. Thanks very much Paulogia & Dr. Anderson for this excellent video. I'm still an atheist, but your reasoning and interpretation of Genesis 1-11 appears quite rational.
Well, I wasn't taught that the Bereshit creation stories (there are two of them) were historical in Tanach classes. Any guesses on why some Christians continue to affirm historicity of these ancient myths while the tradition that actually wrote them does not?
I think it could have to do with the dark middle ages, where the Church needed to assert that the original sin was very real (and did it by asserting that Genesis, the story from which it came was also a real event), which gave them the power and authority they needed to become a power block. Alternatively, they wanted to further differentiate themselves from Jews. Granted, both of these are blind speculation.
I used Ken Ham and AIG to scratch my science itch growing up. Not only did this entrench all the mental health issues around being willfully ignorant; it robbed me of the opportunity to really understand the bible. Knowing apologetical thought and talking points does not mean you understand the bible. This is me now.
Listening to Joel is about as frustrating as listening to Ken Ham. Hearing a Christian telling another Christian they are interpreting it wrong is the reason why we shouldnt take either seriously.. It is a shame that you didn't push back on his claims but I can understand why you didn't. Would make an interesting future video to do that though
What a child like understanding of evolution and life ,It shows how dogmatic people can be to put religion above science and reason. Read the bible don't have others read it to you. Gods horrors will be exposed.
This is interesting commentary about the early pro life movement around 8:00 however I have just come from a video where Bart Ehrman talks on about how the Jewish idea was that life exists when there is breath in the body, hence the reference in Genesis and the fact that there is no afterlife mentioned in the Hebrew Bible or considered as part of Judaism today. Did these early Christians already have a totally different paradigm from that?
His opening statement was " we have drawn in ' experts ' on evolution!". So where is Aron Ra. Where is Erica ( Gutsick Gibbon ) to name but two. The only expertise Ray Comfort has is in video editing. Oh well. At it least I got a belly chuckle out of this. 🇬🇧💜🤦
Aron Ra is not an expert in evolution. Erica is not an expert but on her way to becoming one. An expert in a scientific discipline is someone who has done a PhD. Then also maybe just post grads who have done research and been part of papers published on the matter. Yes they both have more knowledge than most people Ham got in, but still not experts.
I have a couple issues with stuff he’s saying. A few times it almost sounds like dog whistling and I would like to know what cultural steps the US is taking that he thinks are detrimental since it almost sounded like he was touching on gender identity, LGBT rights, and abortion issues. But also his characterization of ancient cultures is not quite true. Christianity isn’t the one and only culture that taught that humans have worth. Every culture believed humans had worth to some extent, polytheistic cultures would believe that certain gods might value humans while other gods despise them. That’s not teaching that humans are worthless. It’s just as easy to characterize Christianity as an idea that promotes human worthlessness because it states that we all deserve punishment by the mere fact that we are born imperfect. If I look at modern Christian culture and ancient Greek culture it’s clear to me that modern Christians value human worth much less than the ancient Greeks did. The Greeks told a story of a titan god who cared about humans so much that he risked his own eternal suffering in order to give us fire and metaphorically some amount of power over the gods. That doesn’t sound absolutely worthless to me. Humans didn’t have any more worth to the Hebrew God that committed genocide by flood than they did to Zeus. There’s a lot of value in finding compromise with Christians whenever we can, but it always seems like no matter how honest and reasonable a Christian is they always eventually fall back on some level of dishonesty (whether they know it or not) to defend their faith. It is kind of sad.
Once again, Ken Ham demonstrates how easy it is to twist, misrepresent, and reinterpret the ancient writings in the most propagandized book in human history.
It boils down to how someone else interprets the bible - in a less bigoted and hateful way. Just laughing "You're WRONG" at people or shouting arguments at them doesn't move anyone away from radicalism. There need to be people who are providing transitory positions to move the window towards reason incrementally.
Where did Joel get the idea that all other religions in ancient times considered people as worthless? Also where did he get the idea that Christians and perhaps Jews were unlike other ancient peoples in that they had monogamous marriages but Romans visited temple prostitutes? I can’t say I have read of any Roman temple prostitution or even anything like that. That some, perhaps many men visited prostitutes isn’t strange and was common throughout the Mediterranean world just as it is today. Herodotus wrote about women in Babylon prostituting themselves at the temple of Aphrodite and a Roman writer complained about this happening in Corinth as well iirc but not in Rome.
7:55 Joel seems to conflate 'exposure' of an infant with abortion. That's not the same thing. His theology is so bizarre. He claims a whole lot of the bible *is* historical that we have good reason to believe isn't. And given that he seems to accept that most of this stuff is mythology, why does he even talk about 'sinning' & 'disobedience'? It's incoherent.
If God “has revealed all we need to know”, we have no business nosing around with science trying to fill in the blanks. Natural theology was the correct path. Natural philosophy was a wrong turn.
@@istvansipos9940 That passage doesn't say anything about the woman being pregnant, nor does it talk about terminating a pregnancy. I'm reading it in Hebrew. There's no mention of pregnancy or even terminating one.
@@TheRealLucifer_Morningstar This is textually and historically incorrect. There were no 'rabbis' as we understand them in that context, as the ritual was done by a PRIEST (Kohen), not just someone who was a teacher/leader in the 2nd Temple period and after.
I'm going to present this to the Nobel society... clearly it proves there is a 5th fundamental force... the force of "concentrated stupidity". It has a near-gravitational effect in that it sucks in nearby stupid to form pools of stupid. I'm going to get a Nobel in Physics!
As far as explanations go, that's as close to a universal theory of everything as we are ever going to get. The arc of history bends towards the concentration of stupidity.
I am amazed, that this Christian here on an atheist channel makes so much more sense than everything else I ever heard on all the Christian channels! Sure, I am not becoming a Christian now, since I still lack believe in deities, but I think the world might be a much better place if more Christians would be like that guy.
He’s one of the good ones.
It's as BionicDance would say, "all they need to do is play nice with the other kids".
Fundamentalists tend to be louder and more confident than progressives.
@@uninspired3583 but still wrong
@@DAYBROK3 lol yeah neither of those things is a measure of comportment to reality
As a former evangelical Christian, I'd go as far as to say that Ken Ham literally idolizes the first chapters of Genesis. And in doing so, he reduces and oversimplifies the whole religion to a near absurdity.
It IS an absurdity, with or without Ken Ham.
True
And then, of course, he was given hundreds of millions of dollars. It's almost like he uses religious zealotry as a way of producing cash flow. Like all preachers.
Ken Ham believes that the first chapter of Genesis is absolute truth because it was literally written by God. A God, by the way, that Ken Ham knows almost nothing about. What makes this funny is that it is 100% fiction. What makes it dangerous is that Kan Ham is targeting children, to turn them into lifelong contributors to the God industry. He lives as an ignorant man and does his best to pass his ignorance to kids.
As a still evangelical, I agree.
"That is a very simplistic way of looking at the issue."
Pretty much the bottom line of every Ken Ham video.
Is there an easier way than "god did it" to look at things?
Joels characterization of ancient culture is also very simplistic to the point of being flat out false. “Every culture taught that humans are worthless except Christianity” is so blatantly untrue that it’s just as bad as Ken ham saying ancient Jews believed Genesis to be a literal telling of the creation of the world
He's a simple man, obviously
@@Faint366 yeah, it's pretty clear human life was worthless in the old testament
@@Faint366 Yea, like Zoroastrianism believed that humans were overall good and necessary in the fight against evil.
Imagine a pro-life stance where the pro-lifer actively goes out of their way to adopt and care for children, putting their money where their mouth is. I can respect this. It shows way more integrity than the modern pro-lifer who actively does not care about quality of life.
You do realize that every pro-lifer will tell you that they care about quality of life and that by definition any life has a better quality than no life, correct?
Do you care about the fact that every day people starve to death all over the world? Are you personally shipping food to these people?
Do you care about the fact that every day people die because of a lack of access to medicine? Are you personally shipping medicine to these people?
Do you care about the fact that every day people die because of violence? Are you personally protecting those people?
What? You have only finite resources and have to make judgement calls about how to expend your time and material? You have obligations to family and friends that are stronger than your emotional reactions to the plight of strangers? I guess you are human and you need to acknowledge that fact in the other side of the debate.
Considering pregnancy is nowhere like the Monty Python’s baby falling out of Mom’s vagina, adoption only comes after finishing the marathon. Mom goes through several months of “involuntary” torture. Until the fetus can be transplanted to an artificial womb, the question becomes can we force a woman to be tortured? How does a man, have horse in that race?
@@Kolopsych Unless you are talking about a case of rape, many would argue that the woman opted into the situation and that there is now the human rights of another to consider in the equation.
Men always have a horse in the race. The child is also theirs as well. Even if they don't care emotionally, society will extract child support regardless of the father's wishes.
@@Kyeudo so a women has to consent to get pregnant, when having sex? What if one or both lose their job the day after. Until the man goes through the health risks of being pregnant, giving birth, his horse should be disqualified. Sounds like women should follow a national “Chi-Raq”. Man has nothing a woman needs that she can’t get at a donor clinic
@@Kyeudo Maybe the better questions to ask pro-lifers: So... you are concerned about abortions, unplanned pregnancies and children. So... you must be in favour of:
Practical sex education in schools.(not abstinence only) I speak from personal experience that leaving it up to the parents is a BAD idea.
Increased funding of Planned Parenthood... the organization that works to reduce unplanned pregnancies.
Insuring that pregnant women of all social classes have equal access to medical care before, during and after the birth.
Ensuring that the resulting children have access to proper nutrition and education... regardless of social status.
Wonder what their responses would be.
Every time I have an argument with a creation believer, their response to any and all evolution science has been "That's not what the bible says." My response is always, " Maybe because they didn't know anything about biology 3,000 years ago?" It still amazes me how so many Christian Creation believers are actually proud of their ignorance. They wear it like a merit badge.
Honestly, you could probably use the same reply on them. Most creation “science” is speculation that isn’t mentioned in the Bible either
@@perujones2 Creation science is an oxymoron. To the ignorant, science IS magic.. therefore magic can be science.
@@perujones2 and a favorite thing for Ham to say is “were you there???” Well, Ken…..was anyone there for the events in genesis? Nope. But the things that come out of their mouths don’t seem to make it into their own ear holes.
@@howdoyouknow1218 when people ask me that I just say yes, I was there. When they say I wasn’t, I ask them how they know, since I know they weren’t there when I was. I think it gets the point of inference across.
@@timhallas4275 You’re right, I hope soon that scientific literacy is seen as a virtue by the wider world. I think we have a responsibility to be intellectually honest, which necessitates throwing magic out the window most of the time. (Except at magic shows, those are dope.)
Woah, Joel’s first comment about fighting culture wars with creationism had me hooked right away. Well said. I love hearing thoughtful Christians’ perspective on this stuff.
The irony of it is it's always interesting to hear opposing opinions if they come from good faith or as you said, them being thoughtful.
Absolutely, that's the exact phrase that drew me in too
Jesus was anointed as king of Israel in that choice between Jesus and Barabbas. Quickly said, Pilot dressed Jesus up as King, Pilot presented Jesus to the Sanhedrin and high priest among the crowd as "their King". Told the crowd to choose to crucify "their King" or Barabbas. The Saducees and High Priest chose "their king" Jesus to be crucified and instigated the Jewish crowd to choose "their King" to be crucified..... and so the Priesthood anointed Jesus as their king in order for him to be executed. I Pilat published this fact above Jesus head at a time when Jerusalem was most crowded of Jews from all over the realm.
What this accomplished was to legalize according to Torah law Jesus' amended covenant and make irrelevant all burdensome Talmudic rules.
I think Jesus and Pilat planned it together. Neet trick on the Sanhedrin huh.
I find it rich to hear a Christian calling another one a heretic and talking about "true Christianity".
It's the "No True Scotsman" fallacy by definition.
And it's exactly what's needed to move people towards reason. Just laughing "You're WRONG" at people or shouting arguments at them doesn't move anyone away from radicalism. There need to be people who are providing transitory positions to move the window towards reason incrementally.
Christians have calling eachother heretics since the 1st century CE, so it is a very well founded tradition.
One would think that when they were so heavy persecuted as we are always told, they had greater worries then beat each other over the head.
@@diamondflaw You make a fair point.
Ham and co have been claiming that for decades, I think we are allowed to point out he is wrong
Based on experiences with the man, it is 100% possible for Ken Ham to be BOTH doing things he thinks is in the best interest of people AND be doing it in a predatory, exploitative way
@accelerationquanta5816 That's a spicy take.
"Kern" Ham because his arguments have wide-open spaces in them?
Edit: Also, Kern seems to assume that church attendance is indicative of anything beyond a social convention of the time - it speaks to nothing of the actual moral behaviour of people attending church. In fact, I seem to recall that 1st century Jewish carpenter guy that Kern claims to love so much had something to say about people that thought themselves righteous simply because they went through the motions and mouthed the platitudes of their religion.
more like canned ham.
Dr. Anderson was quite a breath of fresh air. I remember having professors like him in college (I went to a Christian university), and despite now being an atheist, I still have so much respect for them as intellectuals. Watching a lot of radical views getting dunked on can definitely make me forget that.
Yes, that's a very fair response. I can't think of anyone whom I respect more than C.S.Lewis, regardless of my own atheism.
Outstanding as always. I absolutely adore the respectful discourses that you facilitate and that you open your platform for other respectful creators. Regardless of beliefs.
Yeah I agree that it's good that Paul does not make his channel a full echo-chamber, like many of the big creationists often tend to do. I think Joel was the third Christian expert, since Paul has had Sy Garte and Joshua Swamidass on the channel as well!
@@js1423 Not to mention he had Sean McDowell and Eric Hovind.
@@Lobsterwithinternet And don't forget Phil Vischer from the Holy Post Podcast as well. As a Christian myself, I really appreciate Paul's respectful approach and willingness to engage in open discussion.
Paul gives Christian promoters a fair and balanced platform on which to make their case. He does not judge them, but instead presents the case against their beliefs and their assertions,and allows his audience to judge for themselves what is true and what is bullshit.
While I appreciate the more positive version of christianity, Aron Ra points out that the old testament does speak on abortion. If a man suspects his wife of being unfaithful he can take her to a priest for a potion that would most likely cause an abortion. It also notes that personhood starts with the breath of life, and breathing doesn't occur until after birth. Also, Digital Hammurabi would point out that much of the "history" of the bible doesn't line up with what we know happened.
There are a lot of small things where Joels christianity does not fit against either history or biblical claims.
But i guess that just shows that nobody can perfectly balance the task to judge the book objectively when they grew up with attempts to make it subjectively "their" truth.
You end up subconsciously taking up a lot of doctrine without noticing that these things explain away some of your problems with the text. Just look at his explanation of "in thy image"... does it make sense that all humans were made as god's personal idols to show its involvement in the world when humans making idols of their own gods way before this thing was revealed to the first human and could afterwards be written down? It also would not get you away from the problem that the bible obviously wants this verse to be understood to actual physical appearance... we LOOK like god does. And how would a somewhat human bodied god stay all the omnis? Which is what so many modernchristians want to avoid by going into extreme lengths to tell us that god is transcendental and not "the old guy in the clouds", so they can keep the omn is even if they look the image. Well what is it? Does the bible tell us something about how god is or can you just make up things to try and work around observable reality with special rules why nobody sees your deity? Joel kind of avoids that question and dychotomy. If he is serious about the idol, then god HAS to have a human like body and that brings with it soooo many problems of credibility and goes back to Adam and Eve or Moses walking around with their god...
I'd like to see a real source for this. The passage doesn't literally say that. You have to infer it as a metaphor.
Not saying Mr. Ra is necessarily wrong, just saying I don't trust him as a scholar of the Old Testament or the ancient Levant.
@@ps.2 Numbers 5:11-31 A man suspects his woman of sleeping with someone else. He takes her to a priest who makes a potion of trampled dirt, ink, and parchment known to cause miscarriages. It's not using the word but it's describing an abortion that's not 100% effective. It's basically trial by combat for the fetus. I tried to put in a link to an online bible but my comment doesn't seem to post if I do, so I apologize but I'll have to ask you to look it up. For reference, I was looking at the NIV.
That's what I was thinking too. He's supposed to teach this stuff but he doesn't think the bible talks about that?
Talon, I don't disagree with the idea that many scholars believe that life starts at breath (the pneuma), however, Digital Hammurabi also makes a statement that this passage that you described is not specifically targeting abortion, instead, it was targeting fertility. It certainly could have have the side-effect of an abortion, but the curse/ritual was not directly created to address the entire topic of abortion.
I appreciated Dr. Joel's refutation of Ken Ham's rhetoric, and that he approached these topics from a much more rational perspective. However, I felt disappointed that he brought very little scholarly discussion to the channel regarding the Old Testament. He mentioned that there is so much history written in the Bible, and while I don't disagree, I also would assert that there is quite a bit that is not historically accurate, especially concerning the earliest stories (the Flood, Moses, the exile from Egypt, etc.).
I also note that he asks us to put ourselves in an ancient perspective when reading the OT, but then, retroactively applies theological underpinnings from centuries later, such as the trinity and monotheism, which were not found in the old testament according to many scholars (for example, Dan McClellan).
"A lot of Christians... have a difference of opinions as to whether you should sprinkle or immerse... but they know thats just a difference of opinions and thats okay"
And then there's the Church of Christ who think that if you weren't immersed then you aren't saved.
Yep. I grew up in this church. Also, worship with musical instruments is sinful in the Church of Christ. It's only supposed to be a capella.
I found that statement to be rather silly myself. A lot of denominations have very strong feelings about those little details! Would that they could all get along, but it's simply too generous to say that most Christians don't care that much.
@@pleaseseatyourself4312 that's interesting. I also was raised in Church of Christ but my church embraced instruments(mostly guitars and pianos). But any music that wasn't considered "worship" seemed pretty heavily frowned upon
@@roseredr1058 there was a big split in the CofC back in the 40s and 50s over instrumental music. The anti-instruments side is also extremely strict about other things like only full immersion baptism, extremely firm gender roles and hostility to LGBT+, necessity of attendance any and all times the doors are open, and in some cases even only using a single shared cup for lords supper juice, just to name a few.
Growing up in that, i didn't have any exposure to the pro-instruments side of cofc other than constantly being told they were wrong, "liberal", sinful, and going to hell.
I’ve been hoping you would feature Joel eventually! I’ve interacted closely with him online before, and I loved “The Heresy of Ham”. It makes a good theology-based companion to the more science-based book “God’s Word or Human Reason”.
I concur
The reason Ken Ham needs Genesis to be historical/literal is so he can get to original sin. Without a literal Adam and Eve, there's no original sin, and no need for salvation. The whole story unravels
Or you can just hsve people responsible for their own sins.
Edit: I am only saying this because I hate strawmanning people. I feel that it is important to get someone’s position right before dunking on them.
Which is why so many are against evolution, as there is no need for Jesus without it.
@@tompatterson1548 what would be the sin(s)? Against which god? If Adam, Eve, the fruit, and the serpent are all metaphor and allegory, it would follow that so is this God character
@@beanbrewer anything their god supposedly doesn’t like.
@@tompatterson1548 how did I strawman them? This is a direct quote from an AIG article titled "evolution and original sin":
"We would actually agree with the atheist that evolution, if true, would disprove the need for a savior-or better, the Savior, Jesus Christ, who died for our sins."
Gotta love Ken Ham. While you love the other guys, sometimes you just wanna hear the classics. Ken hasn’t had a new idea in decades and he’ll be damned if he’s going to play anything but his classic set. I mean, who wants a new song when you can hear “Rock Around the Clock” for the 10,000th time?
None of these guys have had any idea ever. they are just regurgitating Apologist that came before. They usually do not actually understand the argument, mess it up, and twist the argument around so that it is not even coherent, but yes very classical. The best is when they try to change something to come across like they do have an original thought of their own, and butcher it so bad that we now call them Banana Man.
@@kerianhalcon3557 Well said, tho’ scamming people out of 100 million and then actually building the thing is new. Kinda silly - I think it’s better to keep the money - but it is new.
@@atomicsquirrel6457 I don't have any evidence of it, but I think I am fairly safe to say a high percentage would go into their pockets. Now that you say that it is new isn't it, there are a few that are not adorned in gold robes, and rolling up in private jets - but only a few.
I'm sure that the guy whose entire career is based on being a biblical expert who then went on to build a giant, biblically-inaccurate Ark (that proves that the one described in the bible would definitely not have been seaworthy) using taxpayer money, filled it with misrepresentations of atheism and science, and is currently planning on building a recreation of the Tower of Babel (which God presumably didn't have major feelings about, one way or the other, in the Old Testament), is a good faith actor who honestly believes what he's saying and isn't just fleecing the flock.
Why do you say the one he built is biblically inaccurate ? Its bullshit just like the flood story so it is accurate
@@gowdsake7103 Yeah, but it's bullshit in different ways. For one thing, there are way more than one window.
I mean, Ken's ark also isn't seaworthy, so that's accurate. I don't know of any seaworthy building that look like an ark from one side.
As always, when you actually take the time to examine the claims or arguments from creationists you find out that they are lying.
I know right. It's like asking a toddler to explain why they believe in Santa Claus.
I just can't handle the "inate brokenness" arguments anymore, even well-intentioned. Growing up feeling like every emotion or urge is bad/wrong is terrible. Not to mention the hypocrisy!! If you took every adult who preaches christian purity culture, and said "only those who have *never* sinned sexually can speak on this", we'd never have to hear about it again! (excepting the few asexuals in the churches) And if you take away all those claims of sin and shame, it's just humans being humans. Realizing that these concepts have such flimsy foundations, and that it all might not be real was an epiphany. I don't have to fight myself anymore. I can be angry or lustful or disdainful in my thoughts, and just cope, instead of feeling shame and trying not to feel what I'm feeling or think what I'm thinking. And christianity is so phobic about things that *don't matter*! I can spend my energy fighting meaningful fights to materially help people, instead of trying to uphold ridiculous ideas that I can't really justify, but I'm supposed to care about.
Stop locking our kids in boxes of self-flagellation. Stop the cycle of shame.
I think Joel Edmund Anderson is a lot more empathetic on stuff like LGBTQ, despite being a more conservative Christian. He has critiqued the Nashville-statement, confesses that gay people can genuinely love each other as straight people and be faithful Christians and believes people should not harass them, rather leaving the subject between them and God.
I cannot fear Hell, for I have endured the Jokes of Ham.
Great collab, you two! Great listening and interesting perspective shared here 🍋
Thanks for having a real old testament scholar as commenter! It shows how off-the-mark Ken Ham is.
I wish more theist scholars would go against them. Apologists just write off atheists but they won’t have the same thing when their critics are theists.
Evolution Exposed! I love this series. I’ve learned so much (from Paul’s responses, that is)!
I've learnt from both sides, although it's mostly just how wrong and desperate these creationist nuts can be 🤭
Individual students can still pray in school you just can't pray in a way that would disrupt the class. I'm sure plenty of students pray before taking the test they didn't study for. Like that's actually going to help but oh well.
Well, Meth helps with studying, and I guess they could say they're a Crystal Methodist 😁
I'll let myself out... 🤦💥
@@DoctaOsiris 😜😝😛
That sounds like desperation lol. Back when I was still religious we were told that you should pray but also prepare.
As for the effectiveness of prayer, speaking as an irrelevant person today, I do think it has advantages. It can calm nerves and helps with anxiety which is always a good thing. But you still need to prepare!
I kinda like this approach, it's good to show that the creationist ideas don't represent all of Christianity. That being said, when I hear Ken's I actually think: "he has a point. If an all powerful, all knowing, completely good god inspired this thing, why would he not make sure that everything is clear and literal? Why leave things up to interpretation?"
I disagree with theism, and strongly disagree with creationism, but I find creationist/fundamentalist views more internally honest sometimes.
Might almost agree with that, except... They cherry pick which parts they claim is true vs are fable, then fail even more by claiming that their current "modern" bible is more accurate than literally everything that the authors stole/copied/plagerized it from. Good example - why would anyone claim that death came from sin if they where reading the original version, in which a) it is Lilith that tempts Eve, not a serpent, and they could have chosen to eat fruit from the "other tree in Eden" - which gave immortality?
You only get the sort of nonsense that Ken babbles by 1) removing one of the trres, 2) throwing out the section about Lilith, and then 3) making the devil (who was never God's enemy until Christianity decided they needed him to be) shape hangs into a serpent, to do the deed.
But, want to bet that even the guy paulogia brought on would claim that the modern rewrite of the story is the true one? Odds are maybe 50:50, since he seems someone who might be more honest about the Bible's history. Then again, literally pointing out ANY of those things would make Ken wrong, not just theologically, but in terms of claiming to know the "history in the Bible".
I'm not a Christian, but it seems plausible to me that if God actually did inspire the Bible, he chose not to make it literal/clear because he wanted to engage peoples' hearts, not just their minds, and wanted people to think about the contents, not just memorize them.
@@sauteur-36 I mean, but it kinda failed. And books of facts, science, math, history, etc. Still require analysis to be understood properly, but they leave much less room for ambiguity.
@@Fernando-ek8jp It does seem like it failed for the American evangelical church. I have insufficient historical knowledge to know if it failed for other cultures at other times or to predict whether a less ambiguous text would have failed in different ways.
@@sauteur-36 Right.. And, many, many, many people have, and concluded that its a mix of stuff that everyone comes up with, without needing even religion, horrible tribal stuff, which it completely self serving, and other stuff that literally contradict each other. Unless the intent is to decide, with their hearts, that it is nonsense, and reject it, I don't see the point of the supposed "inspired" nature of it.
Me, a Jew, seeing that America is becoming less Christianized: GOOD.
the point isn't that America becomes less Christianized, the problem is that the more those hate preachers get fringed the louder they get.
@@kamion53 Ken Ham's point is that he doesn't like that Christianity isn't normalized as the default cultural position. To which I say: good.
Me, also a Jew, whose ancestors were dehumanized, ostracized, robbed, imprisoned, tortured and forcibly converted to Catholicism: I REALLY HOPE THIS RELIGION DIES.
@@artemisia4718 I mean..
*gestures at the Jewish conquest/genocide of Canan and the modern apartheid Israel that has its roots in that provably false story*
@@artemisia4718 don’t bring yourself to the level of those haters. Be better then that.
As a guy who was threatened by his Christian college professor for questioning a literal interpretation of Genesis, it's refreshing to hear a Christian call that out as being extremely harmful. Great discussion; great video!
On my first day in infant school (I'm British, I think Americans may call it first grade) I remember thinking that I'd been sent to the wrong school, one for orphans, because everybody chanted "Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name". My father's name was Jim and he would be home before I went to bed.
Did you ever get the joke (AUS), "What's God's name?"
Ans: Harold
Harold be thy name.
I've been on vacation, I just went through my notifications looking for a new Paul vid. 😆 awesome timing
Hope you had a good vacation 🙃
@@DoctaOsiris awesome. Drove to rocky point mexico after flying into AZ to visit family.
@@brickwitheyes1710 Oh wow 😲 that does sound awesome 😊 I haven't had a vacation in a couple of decades so it's nice to hear from other people who have 🤗
Cool to see Paul have a variety of guests on his channel and getting actual scholars and experts on the topics of science, theology and other subjects, unlike Ray Comfort's 10 "experts" of evolution!
Yes they do get rather upset when you don't take the Book of Genesis literally.
That "I knew I was going to get corrected" from Eric Hovind in the introduction really says it all.... They know what they say isn't true, but still try to sell it.
I'd ask you be a bit cautious there. I don't rule out dishonesty as a possibility. But expecting corrections only means he knows there's a lot of people that strongly disagree. He's not in any way admitting his ideas are wrong, that I can see.
Expecting their ideas to be criticised or attacked is embedded in a persecution narrative that they've thoroughly latched onto.
Awesome. I am an uber conservative but deconstructed my faith. We can disagree on social and economic issues but religion has almost no basis in fact.
Great post 👍thanks Paulogia, was good to see you on Creaky's channel i learnt a lot more about you, didn't realise the star wars connection. 😁👍
Thanks!
I had a lot of weird lessons in school that the Creation as stated in Genesis is the key to the teachings of Jesus. If Genesis isn't true, then nothing that follows can stand up. Thank you both for the dissection!
At about 6:18 Joel says the a prayer in school doesn’t do anything. For me it was the beginning of the end of my Christian life. In the third grade, I folded my hands while everyone else around me folded their arms. George from the back of the class, pointing, said there’s one! I was bullied and had no friends the rest of the year. The next year prayer was thrown out of schools, my life got much better and I thought Madeline Marie O’hare was the greatest person ever. This experience led to me at 14 to read the Bible. When I read Deuteronomy I became an Atheist.
Having said all that, I respect where Joel is coming from and I appreciate how he views the scriptures.
Wow. You obviously aren't from mississippi. I remember when we started middle school, all of the kids had these long conversations about how we werent going to listen to the blasphemy of the biology classes that year because evolution was a lie. And we would all, i mean ALL, pray for god to take that lie out of our school and noy let it lead any of our friends or ourselves away from jesus...
I still dont know how i became so lucky to find my way out because it is so deeply ingrained into every aspect of my society that it was unthinkable to even ask questions, and its still not safe for me to openly be an atheist here. Very scary
I love the explanation of being made in God’s image. We’re all just God’s little OCs
God is a hairless ape??
Or more horrifyingly but practically, we are all God's NFTs.
@@chewxieyang4677 definitely not true, I am completely fungible
I like that they claim "man was made in God's image," when in reality god was made in the image of man.
I appreciate bringing different views into this discussion. While I disagree with Joel on many points, he was an excellent fit to Ken Ham's section.
I like it that there are Christians with a nuanced view of their own faith. That being said Dr Joel still danced around some stuff that he would eagerly agree with Ken Ham. He doesn't come out and say anything directly but you can hear the dodges.
I don’t really get why Joel believes that the Bible is the ‘Word of God’ when Genesis 1-11 is obviously false, and that’s far from the only passage that is inaccurate at best. How could I - from an agnostic/atheist point of view - decide which religion is true, if any? If the method ‘feeling’ leads to different conclusions (given the fact that there are so many religions in the world), why wouldn’t any God make sure his book would be superior?
This has been the main reason I left Christianity, while I am really curious what Joel’s response would be.
I have the exact same thoughts. But I don’t really know Joel’s standpoint on this.
Great video as always. Would love to see you on Atheist Experience again, Paulogia. Those are my fav episodes of that show.
ShannonQ as host & Paulogia as co-host.
@@utubepunk That is the best no doubt.
While I appreciate the thoughtful approach of Dr Anderson, he's still interpreting a 2,000 year old book. His interpretation is probably more erudite, nuanced and complex, he might still be wrong. If a god and divine powers are actually involved, there's no way to tell how he did everything. God might have done it the way Ham claims he did. Both of them (Anderson/Ham) tell us things like "God tells us that..." How can we trust which one of them is actually telling us what god said? PhD is not a door to god's mind, God's word is still made up. Both of them are making a decision on how to interpret this old book. So, of course, having to choose one of them, I'll take the more thoughtful one, but it does nothing to convince me that god is real and that this book is relevant, they are both talking about fantasies.
Well, there are far too many Christians in the country to be completely radical about it, we really have no choice but to ally with the non bigoted ones with brains
19:16 As a Latinist, part time Grecist, who has looked at Migne, I am peaking my ears when Joel Edmund says "Church history" ...
6:00 That painting is the "Ransom of Visby", depicting the Danish king Valdemar Atterdag holding the town of Visby to ransom in 1361. The painting was made in the 19th century though.
Not sure I understand what it has to do with Christianity specifically.
I was about to comment on that one, too! "Ooh! This is depicting my island!" (Even if the event it shows never happened.) I guess they were simply looking for an image to illustrate medieval times.
Finally someone points out the flaw in associating christianity with one particular political party! Your guest has wonderful insight.
Generalizing people based on any factors is a bad idea. Everyone is different and you cannot assume any characteristic based on any other characteristic. Wish we could all remember that.
Christians arguing with Christians about Christian theology and calling each other wrong will never not be funny. I appreciate that Paul often has Christian guests on so that I can get a regular dose of this kind of hilarity.
As a Jew living in the US, and one born in the 80s, this idea of being an active Christian is an act of patriotism has been damaging. For my parents and grandparents generation, it was far worse.
My mother was made to recite the Lord’s Prayer her first few years of schooling. She was forced to pray to a god and “messiah” that were not her own. She was ostracized by other students for expressing discomfort, and by teachers for her entire primary and secondary schooling because her grandfather was an outspoken Jew.
My grandfather served for 20 years as an officer in the Navy, but nearly was stopped before he started when someone questioned if he was a communist because he was Jewish, and nearly halted his commissioning as an ensign. Can you imagine that his patriotism, when he was signing on to serve in our military, was questioned just because he was something other than Christian?
While I can appreciate a Christian being more in touch with reality, I still think that without a literal fall there's no need for a literal salvation. Jesus thought Adam was a real dude, there's no mental gymnastics that can save you from that reality.
Great point!
Yes, Holy Hamster, you’ve found me out - I want to be my own GOD. I prostrate myself 11 times a day and pray fervently to myself that I might please myself and that I will be blessed by myself to enjoy all of the sacred beneficence that only I, as a quad-omni being, can grant myself…
_"The reason why I'm a sinner is because some dude back then sinned. Then you're passing the buck."_
But...like...isn't that the basis for large swathes of Christian dogma? It's not just YEC idiots who believe in original sin and/or this "sin nature of humanity" nonsense.
This is a problem I have with a lot of the "reasonable" Christians. They may outright deny less of reality than someone like Ken Ham...but they're still doing it.
Maybe it's just the editing, but at the end of the video, it was very strange to hear him talking about dividing and hurting the church, even going so far as to bring up their accusations of heresy, when that's basically what he did here? Right down to putting heresy in the title of his book? Idk, man... I get that you're trying to show that there are Christians out there who push back against Ham's crap, but I don't think doing it from a theological standpoint is really getting the job done. Ham's wrong because he's twisting and ignoring what has been discovered about how our world works, not because his interpretation of scripture clashes with this guy's.
Yeah, I really think Paulogia should stop putting Christians on his show, seeing how in the end they all push the same nonsense. Yes, Anderson's version of Christianity may not be as bad as Ken Ham's, but it's still embodies a very harmful outlook on the world that should not be promoted in any way.
Yeah, Romans 5 seems to imply that Adam-Jesus connection.
@@unduloid I think Paul wants to do something few other content creators do on the theist/atheist debacle. Reach across the borders and convince the other side to genuinely think on the issue, rather than use the same old arguments that have barely worked for the last 150 years.
This way, they might become more open to a full and thorough reassesment of their beliefs.
Have you ever had a discussion with a YEC adherent? They fully accept Ham's claims that science is corrupt and evil and take his cherry-picked data points unconditionally.
Presenting them with someone who, instead of rubbing the same data in their faces that they are likely desensitized to, approaches the topic from a different angle and shows them that Ham is full of it even from a Christian perspective might just be the breaking point that is necessary to get them to evaluate Ham's bull.
@@OzixiThrill I agree. That's an appropriate way to reach out to people. Incrementally make them think without activating their "defense systems". Makes me appreciate what Paul is doing even more.
Really off topic, but how difficult is the mouth animation to do?
While it's good to hear from a moderate Christian pointing out the inconsistencies of an evangelical, there were many times as he spoke that it caused me to cringe at claims of actual history in the Bible assertions he was making.
My favorite was at 34:00 when he called a collection of Abrahamic stories "all of human history".
That one really hurt.
Its as easy to point out inconsistencies on the moderate side to be honest even easier
It's always nice to have Christians on the channel, if only to remind us that Ken and his cronies are just a very vocal minority
3:13 I'm curious as to which social issues he agrees with the radical religious right. Abortion? Gay marriage? Are there any good ones?
Thanks for having Joel on. It's good to be reminded that the likes of Ken aren't all Christians. I dropped by his blog to thank him and ask some questions about his talking points.
I spit out my drink laughing when Aron Ra was talking on one of his videos about how Noah's Ark only had one window, so the 8 people would have died immediately from the methane gas from the animals farting and pooping!!!
The chart on church attendance might have something to do with the fact that in the late 90's the internet became the norm. The clergy basically were stripped of their influence because people could look for themselves and see what other people outside of the their theological bubble thought. It's a move to critical thinking.
"Let's take the gender issue..."
"Take my gender, please!"
Twist! Ken Ham comes out as gender abolitionist.
i really enjoyed this one, a breath of fresh air.. finally an undertaking by someone who understands the bible as opposed to an atheist spouting off their misunderstandings of something they do not understand while trying to slam a knuckle-headed person for not fully understanding the science concerning evolution and astronomy (not pointing that finger at paulogia). there are so many brilliant palaeontologists, bio-chemist, archeologists and physics phd holders who believe in God and teach at harvard, oxford, princeton, cambrdige and other places that are never brought up here. this was a breath of fresh air.
It's great that Anderson accepts evolution and everything, but in a way, I have more respect for Ham, than for him- At least Ham is CONSISTENT, and his position makes sense within his worldview ; "This book is a message from an infallable, all-powerful god, therefore anything in the book, however absurd and magical, is true"... But what's Anderson's position? If Genesis is only "symbollically true", then is the resurrection only "symbollically true", too? Does Anderson pick and choose which magical acts in the bible are/aren't true? Or, is he a "cultural Christian" like Jordan Peterson, where you can reject ALL magical claims in the bible, but somehow remain Christian, just by believing in "the vibe", or the "metaphorical truth" of it?
Without a belief in the supernatural bits of the bible, what does it even MEAN to call yourself "a Christian"? Is "Christianity" merely a philosophical outlook? Or is it a belief that Jesus LITERALLY rose from the dead, and Yahweh LITERALLY created the universe?
I was looking for this comment. I have to agree.
Christians like Anderson are just too afraid to let their faith go.
Christian creationists are more internally consistent in terms of their belief structure than the average Christian, it's true. And flat-Earth creationist Christians are even *more* internally consistent, which is precisely why non-flat-Earth creationists like Kern Ham dislike them, because they know flat-Earthers are wrong, yet their view is exactly what the bible describes.
Anyway, from what I've observed, it seems that more "mainline," non-evangelical, church-going Christians value the social aspects of religion (as in, a built-in community) and the idea that they're "doing good" more than they value, know, or even believe, the actual theology. So, they're fine with cherry-picking the good out of the bible and calling the rest "symbolic" or "just how things were then" or whatever. That way, the bible doesn't get in the way of the bits of their religious practice that they deem valuable. As a result, they come off as unconvincing and wishy-washy to the non-believers and as weak, pathetic compromisers to the "true" evangelical believers. They can't win, basically. Which is good, as far as I'm concerned. Maybe that way they'll come to realize how ridiculous religion is and that they can have a community and "do good" without it.
@@memyselfandi4173 given that the Bible that Creationists use contradicts itself, they cannot be consistent.
The consistent views of the Bible are:
1. It is writings by humans of myths and beliefs of the Jewish and Christian peoples. Some things mentioned existed in history. Nothing can be considered literally true unless independent corroboration exists.
2. It is writings by humans to control followers. Nothing can be considered literally true unless independent corroboration exists.
@@aaronbredon2948 Well, sure. I'm an atheist -- a "hard" one when it comes to most concepts of gods, even -- and it's obvious that the bible itself isn't internally consistent at all. That wasn't what I was talking about, though.
What I meant was that, among Christians who generally believe the bible to be the Word of God(TM), the creationists believe and follow that bible more closely than "mainstream" Christians generally do, in that they tend to ignore fewer of its bits, and they will not write things, such as the Adam and Eve story, off as allegorical or symbolic, even though that's clearly what they were meant to be. Therefore, creationist beliefs are more internally consistent and in alignment with the bible than that of "mainstream" Christians, who tend to cherry-pick the bible and simply ignore the uncomfortable or inconvenient bits that they don't like, thus having their cake and eating it, too. This makes their beliefs less internally consistent and in alignment with the bible while at the same time making belief in general more palatable to the average, non-fundamentalist person, especially people who are just nominally Christian.
But that's precisely why the creationist camps dislikes "mainstream" Christians so much, because they think such "compromise" erodes the foundation of belief, thus leading to the "destruction of society." Which is why organizations like Answers in Genesis are aimed more at convincing their fellow, but non- or less- fundamentalist, Christians to believe as they do, not really to convince non-believers of anything. I think they've given up on us. :)
Please have him on the channel more!!! What he has to say is so eye opening and interesting!
What part of the Old Testament does he think is history? Adam & Eve, Moses, Noah's Ark, The Tower of Babble, and the Exodus have all been declared to be fiction.
It was Kent hovind's teachings that led me to study the Bible but after I read it from cover to cover I started to realize that Christianity was full of problems that I could not morally reconcile. Honestly looking at the Bible as "historical facts" the way Mr. Hovind describes it was what led me to become an atheist.
I have heard a lot of things that were difficult to believe. But Ken Ham having a modern, scientific worldview? I need to sit down.
I love the graphic at 24 minutes. Adam and Eve had fifties haircuts.
The thing is, even Mr. Anderson seems to have a lot more trust in the historicity of the Bible than is justified. We don't even need to go to the NT (see Paulogia on that), but it seems pretty clear today that the whole Moses story is made up. Israeli (and other) Archeologists have tried their best, but they have utterly failed to find anything that might, even squinting a lot, sound like it corroborates that story. No slavery in Egypt, no Exodus, no 40 years in the desert, no invasion of Palestine, nothing. It's no more historical than the story of Eden. (Now, the Babylonian exile we know is true, even though some of the stories surrounding it are ... more suspect.)
I'll admit, the "not a finished product" interpretation was new to me.
It all sounds a bit like mixing oil and water, without getting a decent mayonaise.
I'm skeptical of the historicity of the Exodus, but there are still legit scholars that hold to it, such as James Hoffmeier and David Falk
@@js1423 could be, it's their right to do so,
but at some moment they must arrive at the point they have to wedge square pegs into round holes or just ignore the shape of the pegs and the holes.
@@js1423 Some scholars believe there is a kernel of truth in the exodus story, but it isn't the way it is portrayed in the Bible. Most Egyptologists do not share this point of view. For example, see Digital Hammurabi's video on this (it's a bit lengthy and takes a bit to lead to this discussion of the exodus): ua-cam.com/video/W9-EdaSC7n4/v-deo.html
@@JosiahSalmon I've seen that, and I'm personally a skeptic to a historical Exodus, but I'm also not an expert.
What an amazingly insignful perspective! If i was still a Christian I'd probably take the insights here into my belief system with no problem.🎉🎉
Atheism does not imply a specific worldview.
How did I miss this?? Great video!
I didn't realise Dr. Anderson was a ventriloquist, LOL! At 34:46 he starts speaking without moving his lips.
Thanks very much Paulogia & Dr. Anderson for this excellent video. I'm still an atheist, but your reasoning and interpretation of Genesis 1-11 appears quite rational.
I never tire of hearing Mr. Comfort calling these people "experts on the subject of evolution."
Ahh, Ken Scam, not heard him derp around for a while, where's my popcorn...
😋🍿
Paulogia, this was good! I was surprised that I liked your guests arguments! To a point. He still forgets the second tree.👍🥰💞✌
Well, I wasn't taught that the Bereshit creation stories (there are two of them) were historical in Tanach classes. Any guesses on why some Christians continue to affirm historicity of these ancient myths while the tradition that actually wrote them does not?
I think it could have to do with the dark middle ages, where the Church needed to assert that the original sin was very real (and did it by asserting that Genesis, the story from which it came was also a real event), which gave them the power and authority they needed to become a power block.
Alternatively, they wanted to further differentiate themselves from Jews.
Granted, both of these are blind speculation.
Joel, how many of your books are available on Nook? I looked and _The_Heresy_of_Ham_ isn't.
AT LAST! Big Dog Ham. I been waitin fer this un.
None of the people shown are experts on evolution.
WHAT?!??
Say it is not true. 🤣🤣🤣
I used Ken Ham and AIG to scratch my science itch growing up. Not only did this entrench all the mental health issues around being willfully ignorant; it robbed me of the opportunity to really understand the bible. Knowing apologetical thought and talking points does not mean you understand the bible. This is me now.
Listening to Joel is about as frustrating as listening to Ken Ham. Hearing a Christian telling another Christian they are interpreting it wrong is the reason why we shouldnt take either seriously.. It is a shame that you didn't push back on his claims but I can understand why you didn't. Would make an interesting future video to do that though
What's wrong with telling someone they're wrong about something?
Enjoy each of your presentations!😋❤️
What a child like understanding of evolution and life ,It shows how dogmatic people can be to put religion above science and reason. Read the bible don't have others read it to you. Gods horrors will be exposed.
This is interesting commentary about the early pro life movement around 8:00 however I have just come from a video where Bart Ehrman talks on about how the Jewish idea was that life exists when there is breath in the body, hence the reference in Genesis and the fact that there is no afterlife mentioned in the Hebrew Bible or considered as part of Judaism today. Did these early Christians already have a totally different paradigm from that?
His opening statement was " we have drawn in ' experts ' on evolution!". So where is Aron Ra. Where is Erica ( Gutsick Gibbon ) to name but two.
The only expertise Ray Comfort has is in video editing. Oh well. At it least I got a belly chuckle out of this. 🇬🇧💜🤦
Aron Ra is not an expert in evolution. Erica is not an expert but on her way to becoming one. An expert in a scientific discipline is someone who has done a PhD. Then also maybe just post grads who have done research and been part of papers published on the matter.
Yes they both have more knowledge than most people Ham got in, but still not experts.
He was a science teacher in Queensland in the mid 70s. Queensland in the mid 70s was a time capsule for Australia in the 50s, it still is.
I have a couple issues with stuff he’s saying. A few times it almost sounds like dog whistling and I would like to know what cultural steps the US is taking that he thinks are detrimental since it almost sounded like he was touching on gender identity, LGBT rights, and abortion issues. But also his characterization of ancient cultures is not quite true. Christianity isn’t the one and only culture that taught that humans have worth. Every culture believed humans had worth to some extent, polytheistic cultures would believe that certain gods might value humans while other gods despise them. That’s not teaching that humans are worthless. It’s just as easy to characterize Christianity as an idea that promotes human worthlessness because it states that we all deserve punishment by the mere fact that we are born imperfect. If I look at modern Christian culture and ancient Greek culture it’s clear to me that modern Christians value human worth much less than the ancient Greeks did. The Greeks told a story of a titan god who cared about humans so much that he risked his own eternal suffering in order to give us fire and metaphorically some amount of power over the gods. That doesn’t sound absolutely worthless to me. Humans didn’t have any more worth to the Hebrew God that committed genocide by flood than they did to Zeus.
There’s a lot of value in finding compromise with Christians whenever we can, but it always seems like no matter how honest and reasonable a Christian is they always eventually fall back on some level of dishonesty (whether they know it or not) to defend their faith. It is kind of sad.
Ken Hamm continues to spew his religious apologia so everyone on the internet can be provided with free entertainment. Thanks, Ken !
Once again, Ken Ham demonstrates how easy it is to twist, misrepresent, and reinterpret the ancient writings in the most propagandized book in human history.
I am curious, do you use a program to read the movements of your lips? Or animate the mouths yourself? Cus that seems like a lot of work
"So where did sin come from? The bible doesn't really tell us" -Joel
Damn you'd think God would get around to explaining that at some point 😆
Does it need explaining? Seems kindof obvious - - -
I think it would be really fun seeing Dr. Anderson debate Dr. Ham... I'd buy some popcorn and pay to watch it...
Apologetics by a well educated person are still apologetics. Cool video but at the end it boils down to how someone else interprets the Bible.
It boils down to how someone else interprets the bible - in a less bigoted and hateful way.
Just laughing "You're WRONG" at people or shouting arguments at them doesn't move anyone away from radicalism. There need to be people who are providing transitory positions to move the window towards reason incrementally.
Wow, I guess I missed this one.
Great guest.
Thanks for sharing this.
Where did Joel get the idea that all other religions in ancient times considered people as worthless? Also where did he get the idea that Christians and perhaps Jews were unlike other ancient peoples in that they had monogamous marriages but Romans visited temple prostitutes?
I can’t say I have read of any Roman temple prostitution or even anything like that. That some, perhaps many men visited prostitutes isn’t strange and was common throughout the Mediterranean world just as it is today. Herodotus wrote about women in Babylon prostituting themselves at the temple of Aphrodite and a Roman writer complained about this happening in Corinth as well iirc but not in Rome.
I love the fact that the eyes blink even when the character isn't saying anything.
7:55 Joel seems to conflate 'exposure' of an infant with abortion. That's not the same thing.
His theology is so bizarre. He claims a whole lot of the bible *is* historical that we have good reason to believe isn't. And given that he seems to accept that most of this stuff is mythology, why does he even talk about 'sinning' & 'disobedience'? It's incoherent.
What a WONDERFUL breakdown! (I also hope you don't do more Ken Ham anytime soon. This video really says it all).
If God “has revealed all we need to know”, we have no business nosing around with science trying to fill in the blanks. Natural theology was the correct path. Natural philosophy was a wrong turn.
Thank you both for this video! It really helped!
The Book of Numbers, it addresses abortion and says you can use it if you feel that your wife has been unfaithful.
wait, what chapter is that in?
@@Vishanti Numbers 5 : 16 - 28
It must be conducted by the Rabbi. AKA an unlicensed abortion provider.
@@istvansipos9940 That passage doesn't say anything about the woman being pregnant, nor does it talk about terminating a pregnancy. I'm reading it in Hebrew. There's no mention of pregnancy or even terminating one.
@@TheRealLucifer_Morningstar This is textually and historically incorrect. There were no 'rabbis' as we understand them in that context, as the ritual was done by a PRIEST (Kohen), not just someone who was a teacher/leader in the 2nd Temple period and after.
I love it when people who've been brainwashed and indoctrinated into believing fairytales argue with each other about interpreting them! What a hoot.
I'm going to present this to the Nobel society... clearly it proves there is a 5th fundamental force... the force of "concentrated stupidity". It has a near-gravitational effect in that it sucks in nearby stupid to form pools of stupid. I'm going to get a Nobel in Physics!
As far as explanations go, that's as close to a universal theory of everything as we are ever going to get.
The arc of history bends towards the concentration of stupidity.