We can read some of the Book of Mormon.
You're like my gospel doctrine
teacher that asks questions and then
someone gives a profound thing
and they say thanks thanks. Oh yeah we
have five minutes, thanks Jim.
We've got Greg Trimble here, a popular LDS
blogger who wrote a really cool book Dads Who
Stay and Fight. And we're going to talk about atheism.
Oh. We're so afraid. I'm actually terrified.
Because the atheists, they're like
an army on YouTube they're powerful.
Have you seen like the Amazing Atheist
with the beard, TJ? He's like... I don't know
TJ. I don't know but he's like
this is a popular account. He's a count?
Like he's like a rich man?
Count TJ the Atheist? He's a count like a vampire
but he's an atheist. Instead of a coffin he just lays
in a pile of Richard Dawkins books.
Atheists are human beings, they're rational, they're smart, they have morals
they're people. They're still loved by God even if they don't believe in God.
So I think we need to have a conversation about
misconceptions of atheism.
So I tweeted "What do you think are mistakes Christians make about atheists or
atheism in a discussion about atheism. And @MLAFletch said, "Mixing up
the differences between being agnostic and being atheist as well as acting
like we are better than those who don't believe." What would you say is the
difference between atheist and an agnostic? An atheist doesn't believe in
an intelligent designer and agnostics are just, I don't know, I'm waiting to
figure out. If there's, if there's a God then I'll meet him
and I'll say hi and good but... I really think most Millennials are
leaning for that area. There's no doubt. In fact there's a Pew Research
poll that says that it's the fastest-growing religion among
Millennials is agnosticism. If I weren't a Mormon, I'd probably be an agnostic.
Oh, I'd be a Catholic. Or maybe a Presbyterian and sing in a gospel choir
cuz that's fun. So I think there's a big battle especially online
atheists, agnostics against Christianity and they say, "Why are you binding yourself
to a certain doctrine? I feel like I can be happy
if I can choose anything I want. There's too many rules. My argument would be that you're not
going to find more happiness... like what would I do if I wasn't a member of
the church? I wouldn't go out and do a whole bunch of other things that the
world says is it going to make you happy. In fact those things you see are
actually more binding than keeping the commandments. Keeping
the commandments actually makes you free.
What are some examples?
Take drinking, for instance. If you were to go out and become an alcoholic
you have now been put into submission, you've become a slave to a debilitating
a debilitating drug and to remain, to keep that commandment, people are like
Oh you're Mormon, keeping the Word of Wisdom. Well, it's actually a
method that keeps us free from stain and bondage to those things.
I'm going to talk about the two-world view and how Christians look
toward the next life like we're following Jesus Christ, we're
living by these set of Commandments because we want our reward or either
just lack of punish. Many people would say, "You guys are probably lost in your
thoughts or lost in this hope for the future because it's not based in fact. If
there is no future and there is no God and we are just you know particles
we're just fertilizer. If Ian had a million
dollars right? Maybe just say Rob. And I was gonna rob him...
Yeah, you're gonna rob him. What is keeping you from robbing Rob?
What is keeping me... if there's no God... if you're not bound by anything.
Then I don't know, I'm not sure. I mean except my conscience and my
emotions. You have no conscience, you're a fertilizer.
you're a prokaryotic cell that turned into a
self-replicating cell in evolution over many years and you're just two
fertilizers. But you've evolved into higher intelligence
what keeps you from feeling bad about taking all his money?
And there is no point for existence, we're just here, why wouldn't I? I don't know...
Well I would say it's our conscience and our emotions. That's what keeps
someone as just two pieces of fertilizer. Is there conscience? Like how does fertilizer
get a conscience? Or cells? Oooo I see what you're getting to here!
I like his face.
Play devil's advocate. If you are atheist, an agnostic would say, "Well I
don't know, I mean there could be a God and maybe I feel this way because there
is a God but I don't know for sure and so I'm not gonna
commit myself to either way I'm just going to try to be a good person I know
lots of good agnostics I know lots of good atheists but philosophically what would
keep you from taking all his money? You would say the law. Right? You would say
the cops will come and arrest you. So is there anything else? Why do people feel bad for
for things you know? Because it was culturally planted by religion. Was it?
It could have been. Or there's a divine sense in each of us that radiates
with morality, that knows there are Commandments and laws that are
transcendent of our time. I think we have to set the groundwork for what we're
willing to accept as evidence or proof right? So that's always what's teetering
because let's say, okay if we're going to say we accept proof for historical
events, we know certain battles happened and that these number of people died from
the records and testimonials from diary entries from from a number of things
from writings from the people at the time period right? That's how we can
determine many historical events but when you put in a divine force into an
event like the first vision people are like that's fake. I was gonna get there...
I know but you were talking for awhile.
So we can use that same
groundwork for evidence and say that well we have multiple witnesses that
Jesus Christ appeared in the Kirtland Temple to the Saints. Joseph and Sidney Rigdon
both testified and saw the Savior appeared to them. We have the
three witnesses of the Book of Mormon. We have a lot of these divine
miracles. That's the same measure of proof we have
in historical accounts so why is it completely discredited, why is
that kind of proof not allowed in the discussion about theology? So a
modern-day Joseph Smith 1820 having the first vision in springtime, seeing God
the Father and Jesus Christ, he was the only one there. How are we
supposed to believe that if he's just making this up? Well there's more
miracles besides the first vision. I know but it's something that we based
the restoration on, right? It's true and so I think what's important is lots of
atheists they're not nonsensical or they're irrational and they say things
like well how could you believe this if it's based on one man? Yes we believe
that Joseph Smith was the prophet of the restoration but that's the thing
is you take evidence and you take the scientific method of discerning logic
and discerning truth but then there's also a spiritual engagement that you
have to have with God when talking about theology. It's about God so why
don't we allow him in the conversation? It's silly when we say yeah that's not
possible because it's God. There is an interview with Richard Dawkins and he is
one of the most respected atheists in the world and one of the world's most
hated eyebrow holders. Eyebrows are everywhere! Come on. He had an
interview with Ben Stein and I mean this is coming out of his mouth. Ben Stein
asked him, he says, "Hey, what are the chances that there could be an
intelligent designer?" He says, "There's no chance, maybe 99% No. Maybe 1%."
He says, "Maybe 98% or maybe 49%, why is it 1%?"
One of the most interesting things I've seen is it Dawkins he goes and he says
Well there is this compelling and intriguing possibility that there was a
higher, more intelligent being or beings somewhere in this universe that came
down to earth and seeded life on this earth and then Stein kind of looks at me
says but you can't call it God, right? So you can call them aliens, you can call
them intelligence riding on the backs of crystals and hitting a primordial
swamp and get struck by lightning and eukaryotic cells turn into
replicating cells and life begins, we have all of these things happening that are
so much more unbelievable than thinking that there's an intelligent designer.
And it was interesting the word that Dawkins used when he described it,
he said that there would be some sort of signature in life that that began here
and so you have you have the world's most well known atheists or
probably one of the most well known atheistic books against God admitting
that there could be a possibility of a higher intelligence seeding life and
beginning life here on this earth as some sort of experiment or project or
whatever so there's no there's no evidence, you can't prove that God
doesn't exist. I mean they'll come right back at you
that you can't prove that he does exist. Exactly but you would say, "Does
your logical mind look at everything that we have our eyes, our bodies, even in
the cells the factories within our bodies, do you look at that and do you
say to yourself, "Yeah, that looks like something that could be ten to the fifty
second chance of randomly assembling itself out of nothing. And that's what I was trying
to say earlier. Chaotic material is much more unbelievable to believe that I'm
sort of to the fifty second power that we've been created than it is
to believe that there is some sort of superior being designing all this. If you
take an atheist and you say, "Well the Holy Ghost..." They're going to
laugh at you and say, "The Holy Ghost, what? Are you kidding me, this invisible
communication? Well, if you ever watched Ghost Watchers, you will know that
spiritual matter is a thing. No, seriously though back in the days they used to
call it Ether and now it's kinda this essence
throughout everything and now they call it dark matter. They have different-
scientists agree that there's some sort of essence that goes in all things and
through all things and round about all things, we would use the scriptures.
But this essence is actually used to communicate and we actually use it every
single day. If I have my phone I'm sending invisible messages across the
world up into the air to a server that records every single impression that
comes from this phone and it's recorded somewhere. I mean this is there's a
science behind even the way that we feel the Holy Ghost and
so they say religion and science, it has to be separate. Religion and science
actually go together God is the great scientist. At the end of the day, I don't
like saying that atheists are bad people. They're not. They're people.
And I think at the end of the day we need to understand that conversations
about atheism and theology need to happen. And they don't have to be
vitriolic, they can be they can be scholarly and kind and rational we don't
have to be children okay. Someone's going to write at the end be like well you
guys did that for in the whole show yeah but our show
it's our show yeah. When you want it, you create a YouTube show.
We're such jerks!
Honestly, Atheists we'd like to hear what you think because... I don't know
for some reason I have an issue saying atheists. No, it's fine.
Thanks for watching today we really want you to check out Greg's books, go check out his
blog and subscribe to the show. We're on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook all over the
place we're even in dark matter and ether matter spiritual matter we're all
over. God is all over. Who's all over? That sounds like Twister. You know references that
nobody knows. You never played Twister? Oh no, that game is weird.