And one time, I remember, I said,
I love going to church.
Go to church.
There was one time, there is a lady
at church found out what I did
for a living.
She was like, um--
"you know, brother
"Norman--
"the Scriptures teach
"us that loud laughter is not
"approved."
(audience laughing)
And I said, well, Sister Johnson,
if you've ever seen me perform,
you know that's not a problem.
(audience laughing)
I used to have a really cool Sunday
School teacher.
But he was a little over-confident
sometimes.
And one time he forgot his lesson,
so he just, he comes in,
and he's like, "all right, boys, tell
"you what we're going to do.
"You just go ahead, throw out
"any questions you have,
"throw out anything about life
"in general, anything
"you want about church, anything.
"And I'm going to give you
"a straightforward honest answer
"right now."
We're all just--
Teacher?
"Yes, brother Norman?"
Oh, just-- OK, is God--
is God omnipotent?
"Well, yeah."
OK, is God omniscient?
"Yeah."
OK.
Well if God is all-powerful
and He's all-knowing, would he
not know everything we're going
to do before we do it,
and then if he allows us to do it
even though he has the power to stop
us from doing it, if he allows us
to do it,
would not then anything that we do
then become God's will, that's
making free agency an illusion?
(audience laughing)
"Why don't we just go ahead and play
"hangman."
(audience laughing)
And later on, I studied philosophy,
because I wanted to find more
and get more answers.
So I went to college for philosophy.
It was a little weird.
It's the first day of class, right?
Teacher comes walking in.
He goes, "perhaps the most important
"thing that you can learn
"in this class
"is that there are no absolute truths
"in the universe."
Back there I'm--
Yes?
Yeah, hey, uh-- well if--
OK.
If there are no absolute truths,
and then you make the statement
that there are no absolute truths,
wouldn't the statement that there
are no absolute truths
be an absolute truth?
Thus negating the idea that there are
no absolute truths?
(audience laughing)
"Perhaps we should
"just play hangman."
(audience laughing)
I had this, I had this other class
where all we talked
about for the first week, which
was--
we talked about chairs.
Not knowing how to build a chair
or anything constructive or useful
about the chair, but the idea
that the chairs you're currently
sitting on is not actually a chair,
because that chair has not always
been a chair,
but in order for it to be a chair,
it always has to be a chair,
therefore it's
only a temporary state
in representing a chair.
Because the idea of a real chair
is an idea of a chair
and that's the real chair, being
a chair,
and that this is just
a physical manifestation of the idea
of the chair,
because the idea of the chair
is the real chair, so this chair
is not really a chair.
(audience laughing)
For a week.
(audience laughing)
And then at the end of the week,
we come walking in,
and the professor is like, "OK.
"We're going to have a quiz.
"And just take out a sheet of paper,
"and as we've been discussing
"about the existence of a chair,
"you need to defend
"your own existence."
(audience laughing)
I'm sitting there, thinking, man,
maybe it's not too late to go change
my degree to something real,
like, you know, English.
(audience laughing)
So I just started
thinking about it, in the front.
I just got up.
I got up and started walking out.
And the teacher in front of us
said, "hey!
"Hey, excuse me,
"where are you going?"
And I was like--
pardon me?
Who were you talking to?
"I'm talking to you!"
Me?
"Yeah, you."
Well I guess I got an A.
(audience laughing)