Shadowing Practice: Stuart & Cliffe Knechtle | Do Agnostics Just Want To Have Control? | Give Me an Answer - Learn English Speaking with Video
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music music music music
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I got a lot of Democratic friends
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and man they're passionate I got a lot of Republican friends man they're passionate they both are convinced
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that the other side is an idiot right?
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Okay so I gotta study the issues
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and I gotta figure out what are the important issues and what's a biblical world view on handling these issues.
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Right.
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Okay?
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Similarly with God.
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No God, you're an accident.
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I'm an accident.
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No God, your birth is an accident, your death is an accident,
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which means the only thing that lies between those two accidents is another accident, your life.
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Chance.
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Exactly, chance.
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You can't live that way, I can't live that way.
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What I mean is this.
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He's just a chance collection of atoms.
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Therefore, wow, he's got one nice backpack.
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Goodbye.
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I'm going to steal this sucker.
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There's nothing wrong with stealing.
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Oh, there are laws in the city of Philadelphia that I better not steal his backpack.
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But if he's an accident and I'm an accident, morality is relative at best.
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And for me to steal his backpack, there's nothing wrong, objectively wrong with it.
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See what I mean?
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socially wrong but not objective exactly thank you sir for listening
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so well socially wrong according to our society
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but not objectively wrong exactly right make sense okay
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so now what i've got to do is i've got to ask myself is it more reasonable
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now here's the issue remember you you got you got it real right i hate the word proof
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because i can't do it and i get sick and tired of people saying, oh, I can prove this and prove that.
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Buddy, you can't prove to me that your eyesight picks up reality.
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As a student at Columbia put it to me, he said, Cliff, prove to me
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that a very intelligent scientist this morning did not put you together and your brain together in a big vat.
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And I thought he was playing games with me.
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No. He just came out of humanities and philosophy class.
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And he was struggling with epistemological nihilism.
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How do you know anything?
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How do you know?
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Can you prove that your eyesight tells you the truth about reality?
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You can't prove it.
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Is there a bunch of evidence?
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Yeah, you better believe it.
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That's why my fist is going to stop right here.
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Because the evidence is his handsome face starts there.
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And I better not just swing through it.
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Okay, so the evidence is God exists.
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Moral absolutes, order and design not coming about by chance out of chaos.
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reason, not coming from non -reason, but coming from reason, the anthropic principle,
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which is basically, if the sun was a little closer to the earth, we'd all fry.
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Exactly.
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I mean, if the laws of nature were not the way they are, this man and I would never have been born.
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life would fall apart if there was not an incredible precision to the laws of nature
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so there's got to be some type of mind behind it all and then when it comes to jesus gosh
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you look at his lifestyle
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you look at his ethical teachings the sermon on the mount just guys just read don't take
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it from me read for yourself matthew chapter 5 6 and 7 It's incredible.
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Whoever put that together was a stinking ethical genius.
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So that's evidence that he's reliable.
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And then you watch the way he dies, forgiving his enemies.
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You watch the way he rises from the dead.
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Sir, if you die and rise from the dead, you know what I'm going to do.
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I'm going to listen very carefully to everything you have to say.
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I would hope so.
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Yeah, exactly.
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Because the evidence says you are in touch with reality.
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You were dead, and you came back from the dead?
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Whoa.
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Well, that's why I believe in Jesus, because he was dead and he came back from the dead.
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Whoa.
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Putting your faith in him is very wise. Does that make sense?
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I can rationalize with that.
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Okay, tell me, what are some of the other obstacles that you find so challenging to overcome?
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So, in terms of obstacles, there's the problem with convenience that I have with just living my life as it is.
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Maybe absolute truths are not worth seeking if they are not tangible.
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Maybe they are too metaphysical to actually come to conclusion with because people will debate for on forever.
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Yeah.
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And it's been that way for 2 ,000 years.
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Right.
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3 ,000 maybe.
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And I understand that with my.. within my lifetime i don't believe
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that this debate will actually end so right
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when i project my life into believing values
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and what could be true yeah what's what kind of evidence i can rely on
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when i believe in my set values what i can build my foundation off of in my early 20s
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i would like to know
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if you have any advice for somebody like me
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that's trying to learn how to be intellectually honest in learning about the truth and not be lazy and conventional.
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Man, I like you.
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If you are a typical Drexel student, this is a fine university.
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They're teaching you to think.
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All right, just give me the first point you were making.
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To clear the thing at all, it is very conventional and easy for me to live the way I am without seeking out more options.
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And very convenient for me as well.
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I don't wanna be that way.
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How do I build up my intellectual honesty and my build up in my early 20s?
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All right.
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You see, what I notice is, because of your sharp intellect, you like the word proof, and that's fine, okay?
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I don't mean to minimize that.
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Right.
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But now what you gotta figure out is, are there different forms of knowledge?
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Okay?
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Many people in our culture say, no, there's only one form of knowledge, science.
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You're right.
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Troy Van Voorhis, who's a chemistry professor at MIT, stood in front of a group of people there at MIT and said,
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if you ask me, Troy, why is your shirt blue?
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I could first of all say, if you extract the dye from this shirt, you will understand why it's blue.
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That's a scientific, materialistic answer.
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But I could also say, my shirt is blue because my wife likes me in blue.
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That is a relational answer.
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Exactly.
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Thank you.
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Which is also true.
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Both statements are true.
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But they are in different areas of knowledge.
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Scientific knowledge, personal, relational knowledge. Can you scientifically prove
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that your roommate is not gonna stick a knife in your back as you're lying asleep on your bed?
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No, but relationally, hopefully you know, the evidence is Drexel does not accept murderers to be students here,
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and the evidence of my roommate is he's not gonna do that to me.
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You will go to sleep, not terrorize that he might stick a knife in your back
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but confident no this dude's reliable therefore i can go to sleep without checking his back pockets
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and his jacket hanging in the closet
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so remember you've got scientific truth you've got personal relational truth
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you also have historical truth can you scientifically prove to me that george washington was the first president of the united states
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Can you scientifically prove that?
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Correct.
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But what's scientific knowledge based on?
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Repeatability of an experiment.
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If you can do the experiment at Drexel, but you can't do it in London, England, it's not science.
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You've got to be able to repeat that son of a gun.
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Scientific knowledge is based on repeatability of an experiment that you can observe and verify.
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historical knowledge has nothing to do with repeatability
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you don't get George Washington back to the lab here at Drexel every fall and have him inaugurated for his president
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United States not going to work is historical knowledge legitimate yes
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but what's it based on records good eyewitness testimony somebody saw Washington inaugurated they wrote what they saw
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and we study it
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and they even charge money for you guys to study history at drexel what a bunch of twits
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no they're not twits they understand that historical knowledge is a legitimate form of knowledge
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so you see you've got different forms of knowledge scientific personal experiential historical mathematical knowledge
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now
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when you look at the whole thing
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i am convinced jesus christ is the most credible answer to who made it this way
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does love mean something to you yes sir same here to
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be honest with you e equals mc squared is nothing compared to the love
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that my wife my children my friends have for me
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And I think you're not too different from me.
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So remember, love is one of the strongest pieces of evidence that there's more to reality than just science.
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You're a person with the ability to love, to receive love, to celebrate, to be celebrated.
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And that's good.
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It's often called a party.
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We like parties.
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Make sense?
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Man, it's been an honor to talk with you, sir.
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It's been an honor, sir.
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Thank you so much.
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Good to see you.
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So I identify as an atheist.
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There was a time in my life where I might have been an agnostic.
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I was questioning, you know, why a lot, you know, what started the universe.
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I personally believe that my scientific understanding of the universe trumps my spiritual understanding of the universe and I feel as though,
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as I respect a lot of people who follow religion,
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I feel as though I don't feel the same drive within myself to believe over a scientific understanding.
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So I'll give an example.
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When I was 10 years old, I saw what some people would consider a religious miracle by your standards probably.
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I was in my bedroom going to sleep.
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It was the night before Christmas and I saw the nativity scene in my bedroom.
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It was a glowing sort of visualization
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that I saw in the corner of my bedroom and it looked so real to me.
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And then I went to sleep.
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And to me, I think, wow, that was a really weird psychological hallucination.
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That was a really weird way of my mind playing tricks on me.
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Something that I know psychologically can happen.
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Yep.
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You know, you were just talking about, you know, What is something that you can know?
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What can you know?
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And I don't want to claim that I know that God exists or God doesn't.
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It is just I prescribe myself to the belief that he doesn't
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because why should I trump my own judgment over that this was a psychological phenomenon rather than a religious phenomenon?
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Thank you.
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I like the way you think.
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I hope you realize that one of my pieces of evidence that God exists is not, I saw the Virgin Mary,
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I saw the creche, I saw the little
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Christ child in a dream I had.
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That could just be me having indigestion.
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For me to use that as evidence that God exists, I find to be embarrassing.
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That's why you will never hear me use that. Or Stuart.
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No. We don't know whether that dream was a result of low blood pressure, high blood pressure, indigestion, or whatever.
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So to believe that God exists because of that is ridiculous.
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Second point, you are a real evidentialist.
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You like science.
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Okay then, if you say there's not enough evidence that God exists, therefore I'm an atheist, or there's not enough evidence that Jesus is the truth,
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what is the object that you have put your faith in that is supported by enough evidence?
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What do you mean by object?
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I believe in scientific objectivity.
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You have faith.
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I have faith.
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You obviously are dressed a certain way.
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I'm dressed a certain way.
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You have a world view of what's good and evil, what's just versus unjust.
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You have motives in life, ambitions.
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You have goals.
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You're a pretty motivated guy.
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What are you living for?
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What's the object of your faith?
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In other words, what are you living for?
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And the person who says to me, oh, no, no, no, Cliff, I don't live for anything,
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and I don't really have an idol or a god.
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I like to point out to them, you're lying to yourself and to me.
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All you've got to do is ask yourself, what do I sacrifice the most effort, work, and money for?
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That's your idol.
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Now, obviously, you sacrifice a lot of work, effort, and money for something or someone.
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A second way to answer the question is, who determines, who writes your values, your philosophy of life?
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That's your idol.
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That's your God.
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Maybe you do it.
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Maybe the culture does it.
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Maybe the intellectual elite do it.
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I don't know.
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You've got to answer that one, and that's what I'm asking you.
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Who or what is the object or the source of your values,
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your philosophy of life, your priorities? Does that make sense?
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Yeah.
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So I would say that I believe my values
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and what I.. you know hold dear to my heart are the things
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that I've been taught you know I believe
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that I've been nurtured into who I am I believe
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that who I am is a product of my environment
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and the people who raised me and I think I am simply a product of
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that natural phenomenon we're raised by our parents
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they were raised by their parents it's a natural evolution of social norms
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and so I would say that I am a product of my environment.
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And I sort of want to ask you a question.
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What makes you choose your belief system over, say, a different religious belief system?
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Because I understand maybe having a devout feeling that there is an order to the universe and there is a God.
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But what makes you think that you're right?
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You know, obviously you're a very motivated guy, too, because you're out here doing this.
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What makes you so confident that you are right over, you know, millions of people?
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I am not standing out here saying, I am right.
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I am standing out here saying, Jesus Christ is right.
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I'm out here saying, if you put your faith in me, you are a fool.
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because the evidence is I can be very unreliable.
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The evidence is often I know the good that I should do, and I don't.
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I do the opposite, and I experience guilt.
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The evidence is I've got a little bit of knowledge, but gosh, there's so many unanswered questions in this head.
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It's incredible.
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So for me to put my faith in myself would be a really dumb move.
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But when I look at Jesus Christ, at his lifestyle, the way he treated people at his ethical teachings at his death
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and his resurrection whoa you talk about impressive you talk about integrity you talk about he teaches one thing
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and he lives up to it
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incredible so that's why i point people not to me
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but to christ now why am i convinced
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that he is superior why do i think you're making a humongous mistake
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when you say i put my faith in what my culture has taught me
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you have heard about abraham lincoln right yeah do you think the civil war was just ethnocentric do you think
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that was just lincoln saying my culture in the north is right
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and your culture in the south is wrong you think
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that's what motivated lincoln to fight the civil war i don't think
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so instead i think abraham lincoln had a conscience and a rational mind
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And in spite of the fact
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that half of the United States was saying slavery is very important and the other half was saying it's not important,
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Lincoln said, I will follow my conscience.
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I will follow what I am convinced are moral absolutes.
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And therefore, I will call men and women to put their lives on the line in order to abolish slavery.
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Pretty gutsy move.
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If that's just based on ethnocentrism, he's an arrogant twit.
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My culture's right.
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Your culture's wrong.
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Oh, give me a break.
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Who do you think you are?
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No. Lincoln understood.
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God has created all people in his image.
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Therefore, all human beings have equal value, worth, and dignity.
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But you see, if atheism is true, she is a good -looking hunk of meat on a hoof.
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She's a good -looking hunk of meat on a hoof.
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And I am a not -so -good -looking hunk of meat on a hoof.
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which means these two are valuable and i'm trash you know what it's like to go into a frat party
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as a woman and walk past the line of guys who are whispering to each other
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two four six oh eight whoa ten do you know how dehumanizing that is
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Do you know how cultural that is?
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If you don't understand that, take a quick trip up to Cornell University in Ithaca,
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New York, and find out what's happening at Cornell. But guess what?
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It's not just Cornell, guys.
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It's every campus in the United States.
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Let's be honest.
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Okay, what is the basis of human value?
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And if there is no God, your number came up in a Monte Carlo game, you're a cheap accident, and that's all I am.
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My number came up in a Monte Carlo game, I'm a cheap accident.
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But if there is a God who created this man in his image and created me in his image,
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then any racist attitude I have towards this man is objectively,
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not subjectively, not relatively, it's objectively evil.
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Because God made him, God made her, God made him, God made me, and that is why respecting each other,
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loving each other, forgiving each other makes sense.
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But if you're an atheist, there are no objective morals, there's no objective basis for human worth, it's all a crapshoot, whatever you want.
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And my point is, my atheist friends are intellectual hypocrites because they say, that's right, Cliff, no God, morality is relative.
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But then they act as if racism is really evil.
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Sorry, if there is no God, racism is culturally evil if you live in the North.
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But if you live in the South, so be it.
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If you live in apartheid
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South Africa, so be it.
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just live out what you believe does that make sense yeah i would say
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that the moral relativity is something that i prescribe to i think i think
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that i believe in a moral relativism and i think
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that in a lot of ways religion does have a lot of beneficial things in
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that aspect but i also disagree with a lot of religious teachings you know in a variety of religion
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So I would say that, yeah, there's a lot of guidance that can come from religion, but there can also be like a misinterpretation.
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Yes.
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Like the misuse of the word of God.
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Yep.
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And so I would say that I understand that people are flawed.
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It's who we are.
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And so somebody might say, oh, yeah, like I'll say this, but I'm a hypocrite, so I'll say that.
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But I don't think that is unique to the fact that I don't believe in God.
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I think that's just something that is human.
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I guess, yeah, you can respond to that.
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All right, Stuart, come here and start dialoguing with this gentleman, will you please?
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You started with science.
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Okay, well, why in the world in the 16th and 17th centuries, so Galileo, Kepler, Newton, the father of modern science,
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he wrote more on Christianity than he did on science.
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Like most scientists don't know this or they try and cover it up.
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And C .S.
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Lewis, one of the great, greatest authors who's ever lived, talked about, yes, scientists were looking at a creative God.
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And so they wanted to be creative in knowing that there is a creator out there who designed this place.
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And so if modern science wasn't started by Christians, I don't know if it ever would have come about.
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Maybe.
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But they were looking for a moral law giver because they saw things like moral law,
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like Cliff has been talking about for the last 10 minutes, about this is really right, this is really wrong, objectively.
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So it was reinforcing what modern science and Christianity were in tandem perfectly,
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because something can't come from nothing, Galileo was saying.
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Scripture would back up why things like, obviously, human rights are correct.
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If you are raised red tooth
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and claw you should not be loving somebody else you should simply be living to survive
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and dominate the strong eat the weak so
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if i'm living according to just evolutionary theory my aunt who has the education of a fourth grader
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she has special needs i should say that she's a suck on society
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and i should just put her in a home
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and talk to her once a year i mean why does she have as much value as me
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that doesn't make any sense each individual is able to make their own decisions on
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that value system so if you love your aunt then you can put value in her
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but I don't love your aunt so I'm not gonna say
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that she's a suck on society but I'm not gonna have
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that same connection to her you know I'm not gonna say
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that she's any less of a human than anybody else I'm not gonna say
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that anybody is worthy or less worthy of anything but I'll say
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that I think as people we treat each other as we want to be treated
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so the the part of me that is the most spiritual is the idea
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that what we put into the world comes back to us
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and that the the substance that creates the fabric of this social dynamic
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that allows us to be good to one another is our desire to be treated as we treat each other
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so if i want to be treated in a certain way i will treat my fellow humans in
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that way because I see myself in them and so I want them to treat me in that same way.
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So I have a sort of theory of like you know everything is is done for personal gain and and everything
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that we do whether whether you know it seems like a empathetic decision we make you know maybe I'd choose to
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you know, support someone, whether financially, emotionally, that is because I want to feel good about myself.
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And so I think you as a human,
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you support your aunt because you think that that conforms to your idea of who you want to be as a person,
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not because God made you love her, you know?
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No, that's a free will choice.
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God gave me a free will.
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Jesus Christ died on the cross for me.
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So he says love is the most important thing in this universe.
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And he showed it not through lip service, but dying on a cross for somebody.
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That's why we live human rights out based off of the Christian worldview.
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Look, if you're an atheist, you shouldn't be compassionate.
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You shouldn't live by human rights.
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You could say that's your value system, but again, that's just relative.
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And that's not in line with the powerful dominating the weak.
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It's just Nietzsche, Friedrich Nietzsche, who was the most impactful atheist on our society, in history, just our society,
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would say you're calling yourself an atheist when really you're just living as a Christian.
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That's why Richard Dawkins himself recently called himself a cultural Christian.
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And it took him how many years to get there?
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So I'm simply saying, if Nietzsche was standing right here, he would call you out as an atheist.
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He's obviously an atheist.
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He impacted Hitler greatly.
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He would say, you need to live more in line with an atheistic worldview you?
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To me, being a Christian requires me to believe in Christ.
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And so, you know, I have many friends who are religious.
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They put themselves in the box.
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But when I talk to them more deeply about, you know, what do you get out of this religion?
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They kind of say, well, it's more of a community thing.
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It's more of a value system.
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And I'm like, that's great.
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I'm glad you have that in your life.
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That's a really valuable thing.
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But you don't need to put that in the box of Christianity, Islam, like anything.
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You can just call that, you know, your personal values.
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And we can all conform to our own value system.
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And, you know, if you want to break from your own value system and be like, wait, let me reconsider that.
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I don't need to be like, oh, I'm defying God's word.
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You know, I can just be like, well, I've reconsidered.
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You know, I don't understand why I need to put myself in a box of, oh, I am a cultural Christian.
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Because I don't believe in Christ.
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Well, you don't have to.
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That's the whole thing you don't need to live by a virtue system and say, hey, this is the virtue Christian system that's all MAGA.
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You know, a Christian is MAGA, obviously.
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A Christian is a white supremacist, obviously.
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No, these are all categories that people make up in their mind.
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Obviously, somebody who's a white supremacist, how does that fit with Jesus Christ?
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They're the exact opposite.
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And so labels saying this is just a value system, I think those
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Christians are dead wrong, dead wrong.
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My value system comes from the historical evidence of who Jesus was, how he lived, taught, died, and rose from the dead.
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Then, believing that he is the Son of God, now I assume, yes, obviously, if he's the Son of God, I better adopt his values.
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So it's not just a random, like, hey, here's
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Buddhism, here's Hinduism, hey, I was a brought -up Christian.
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These are all just value systems, and I'm just going to live by one.
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conforming to a religion and prescribing to the religious idea
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that there is a life after death
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and all of this stuff is founded in love and the love of God and you are created.
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It's very comforting.
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And that is, in many ways, the strongest reason for my doubt in religion.
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Oh, okay.
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Is because of the psychological comfort that is derived from it.
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It feels so innately human to be comforted by the idea that there is something after death, that there is something to give us meaning.
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And so to me, it just feels like, yeah, of course people want to believe this.
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Of course, there's so many different religions
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all coming to the same idea of there is something after death because it is just a human comfort, not a truth.
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Go ahead.
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That's a great point.
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All right, so
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Christians are afraid of the darkness.
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Atheists are afraid of the light.
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They're afraid of truth.
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Atheists are afraid and don't want God to hold them accountable.
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They want to be their own gods.
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Absolutely, 110%.
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I find comfort, like
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Martin Luther said, yes, in life beyond the grave.
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You find comfort, just like most of my atheist friends do,
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in, hey, hey, I can make up my own meaning and I'm not held accountable by anybody.
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So I can be like the USSR guard who said I can torture this poor innocent man to death
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because there's no ultimate accountability.
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I make up my own accountability.
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And if I despise him because he's part of the other, he's an enemy, then I'm going to do whatever I want to him.
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And why not?
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I'm just setting the rules.
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I set the rules.
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I do what I want.
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And that's why Dostoevsky said, if there is no God, all things are permissible.
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Do whatever you want.
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And Nietzsche said the same thing.
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He said, we killed God.
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I'm glad we did.
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But watch what happens.
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I don't think I find any comfort in believing that there is no God.
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I think that's honestly a very scary thing.
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Like death is so much scarier when you think it's final.
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And all you have is this life.
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And you've got to make the most of it.
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And you can't get a redo.
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You can't get life after death.
452
Or there's no way to live on.
453
That's scary.
454
That's extremely scary.
455
And I understand the point you're making about, like, you know, maybe I have like an egoist mentality that,
456
like, you know, I like being in charge.
457
I want to be controlling of my own life.
458
And that definitely makes sense.
459
I agree.
460
But I think that, you know, the idea that death is final trumps that in every sense.
461
And my friends who are atheists are hedonists.
462
They live for pleasure.
463
I know scientists who have honestly stated, I don't want to believe in God because I want to sleep around.
464
I had a Yale student recently just pummel me with all these questions about, there's no way Jesus is the son of God.
465
No way.
466
This, that, and the other.
467
Finally, we finished our discussion.
468
Yale, super bright guy.
469
And I go, are you sure this isn't an emotional issue with you, like a volitional issue?
470
And he said, fine, you're right.
471
I just want to sleep around.
472
And the guy's honesty was amazing.
473
He said, I realize there's good evidence for Christianity,
474
but I'm never going to believe because I don't want there to be any accountability for my life.
475
And a lot of atheists, if they're honest and they really look in the mirror every morning, that's exactly what they say.
476
And you just said it.
477
There's ego.
478
It's egoistic.
479
And so it's incredibly attractive, that worldview.
480
Incredibly attractive.
481
Now, I want to go back to your original point, and then we'll go on to somebody else.
482
Science.
483
why were all the modern scientists in the 16th and 17th centuries Christians?
484
And where are the atheists?
485
And how do you get this incredible miracle?
486
You started with a miracle.
487
It is a miracle that something comes from nothing.
488
It is a miracle that we are here.
489
The chances of us being on this earth is 1 to the 10th to the 164th, which nobody can even comprehend.
490
It's impossible.
491
Thirdly, moral objectivity.
492
How do you get ought to?
493
I ought to not treat that person who's across the political aisle as an enemy.
494
Instead, I'm actually to love that person.
495
How in the world do you get intangibles like love?
496
If I go home tonight and say to my wife, hey, wifey, I don't really love you.
497
It's just my oxytocin and endorphins and dopamine that are forcing me to love you at this time.
498
But if they say no, then I'm going to go cheat on you because I am completely determined by all my chemicals in here.
499
A Christian comes and says, no, yeah, you have those, and they influence you for sure.
500
But there's something beyond that.
501
We know love is an intangible beyond just the dopamine kick, if we're honest.
502
So you see, you as a scientist or a scientific -minded person, it stacks up.
503
There's way less miracles, according to you, in the Christian faith than the atheistic faith.
504
You have to live by a miracle every single day.
505
You have to say, look at how I'm put together.
506
Why am I put together so nicely in this creative type of way?
507
If you just came up by chance and total entropy, you should be a complete mess.
508
You shouldn't have drive and objective purpose in this life.
509
But you live as if you do.
510
And so these scientists came along and said, it's time to wake up, atheists.
511
It's time to wake up.
512
There is a creator, there's a creative process in this world, and you cannot explain it from an atheistic point of view.
513
I have one question for you before I go.
514
So what do you think created, like I'm not extremely familiar with religion, but what created God?
515
Because you were asking, you were like, oh, you can go back forever.
516
What created God?
517
You asked what created the universe, what created God?
518
Anything that has a beginning, there has to be a beginner.
519
Okay, so if you walk in over here, the door's about to slam, there's going to be a big bang, right?
520
Well, no, it's held open, it's automatic.
521
If it came back and slammed, you'd be like, there's a big banger.
522
Okay?
523
This universe had a beginning, started with a big bang.
524
The Bible is the only comprehensive worldview that got that right in the beginning.
525
Every other worldview at that time said it's either cyclical or eternal.
526
Science today says, no, there was a beginning.
527
Anything that has a beginning must have a cause.
528
What is that cause?
529
Well, it's something that has to be infinite outside of space and time to create space and time.
530
It can't just be an infinite regress.
531
And this something has to be all powerful in order to create.
532
Omniscient, knowing how to create.
533
And personal, to say, I'm going to make this decision to create.
534
It can't just be, we talked earlier, it can't just be gravity up there.
535
It can't just be some light.
536
That's not personal.
537
It can't make the decision to create.
538
And so I would posit that that is God.
539
It's more than just a computer, right?
540
A computer can't decide to create. Does that make sense?
541
So nobody created God.
542
He's outside of space and time.
543
Because we are locked inside of space and time, you have to have something outside of space and time to create space and time.
544
Why do you think it manifests in God?
545
You can call it an intelligent being with a personal nature.
546
You don't have to call it the Judeo -Christian God.
547
But some type of intelligent being that made the decision to create.
548
That seems plausible to me.
549
But why Christ?
550
Why not Hinduism?
551
Why not anything else?
552
Did Cliff talk about this?
553
He didn't talk about it?
554
Not really.
555
Okay, why Christ?
556
It's very similar to Shakespeare.
557
Shakespeare punched a hole through space and time.
558
Hamlet comes in.
559
So basically he is Hamlet in many ways in order to connect with the world of Shakespeare, right?
560
And so this is what God does.
561
He punches a hole through space and time, writes himself into the play, which is humanity, in order to connect with us.
562
All right, fine, Stuart.
563
Interesting idea.
564
What's the evidence for that?
565
The evidence for it is Jesus Christ, obviously a historical figure.
566
Just about every single professor on this campus would say, yes, Jesus Christ was a historical figure.
567
The majority would say, yes, he claimed to be God.
568
The majority would say, yes, he lived a very impressive life.
569
The majority would say, yes, about 34%, 35 % of the world is Christian.
570
But where do they stop?
571
The supernatural.
572
They'll say, okay, very convincing this faith and very convincing that there's so many sources appealing to the supernatural resurrection that had occurred,
573
but it's a supernatural man.
574
David Hume, he had the impact on us more than so than we ever realized.
575
Atheists, he said no miracles.
576
It's impossible.
577
No supernatural.
578
Impossible.
579
So automatically we discount miracles.
580
You know what's so funny about that?
581
A recent poll was taken just in Asia alone.
582
Over 400 million people claim to have had a supernatural miraculous experience in their life.
583
So why are we here in America taking this elitist position of saying miracles don't happen
584
When have you talked to over 400 million of those in Asia alone who claimed, have you talked to any one of them?
585
Are they all hallucinating?
586
Are they all on drug trips?
587
Are they all just delusional and need to be in a psych facility?
588
I don't think so.
589
I think they're probably getting on to something.
590
And so Jesus Christ, endless amounts of sources behind who he was, what he did, and how he rose from the dead.
591
Jews would have been the very last people to ever believe that somebody would come back from the dead,
592
especially one person and not a general revelation like everybody coming back.
593
They would have had more hoops to jump through than you and I to believe in that.
594
Overnight, thousands were coming to believe that he was the Son of God.
595
Oh, Stuart, well, it was just a power play, some atheists will say.
596
A power play?
597
They gave up their land, their money, their families, and their very own lives because they said, eyewitness testimony, we have to believe in this.
598
The life change of his closest followers who kept denying that he was God.
599
His own parents said he was insane in the Gospel of Luke.
600
But then everybody's willing to die all of a sudden because they saw this resurrection?
601
And so within the Bible, you have endless amounts of sources claiming, hey, go check with Simon of Cyrene.
602
He's from Cyrene, father of Alexander and Rufus.
603
Go check with Malchus and all these different names as footnotes to, hey, don't blindly believe.
604
You better go check with these guys and see what the evidence is.
605
That's why the Gospel of Luke starts off with, I did not follow cleverly invented stories.
606
dear theophilus i've checked this out myself as a doctor
607
because i don't want to blindly believe this you have doubting thomas
608
he didn't just come blindly gullibly say oh yeah of course i believe
609
no he comes and he doubts but then he grabs christ
610
and then he gets the eyewitness testimony from his friends
611
because he wasn't there and then jesus says hey stop doubting
612
and believe you got the dna evidence
613
and the eyewitness testimony the top two forms of evidence that are in the court of law.
614
But it was a really good trick.
615
It could have been a party trick.
616
So he fooled that many people.
617
Maybe.
618
Do you think the evidence is strong enough for that case?
619
But it's what the entire evidence hinges on.
620
So again, you're saying all these people were just delusional.
621
Not delusional.
622
And were willing to go to their graves for what they knew to be a lie.
623
Nobody dies.
624
You know, you're, are you into psychology?
625
It sounds like you are a little bit.
626
Okay.
627
You know, nobody dies for what they know for what they know to be alive.
628
Some people will fly planes into buildings and be like, hey, we just believe in this principle and
629
that we're going to heaven immediately and that we're going to get virgins by doing so.
630
That's not dying for what they know to be alive.
631
They believe in that.
632
All of these people, when I was standing in the Roman Colosseum, 360 ,000 Christians died within a period of about 80 years, torn to pieces.
633
Even the atheist tour guides are like, yeah, we can't explain it.
634
It's crazy.
635
I don't really want to talk about it.
636
I don't know why this many people would die for what they knew to be alive.
637
And the majority of those tourist guides are Christians because they just, they see that.
638
So again, anything is possible, man.
639
Now the question is though, if you're an evidentialist, I hope you follow the evidence to the point of saying, hey, what's most likely to believe?
640
And don't do it, like you said, don't do it for comfort.
641
If it's just for comfort, say, hey, maybe I'll take a little bit here and there.
642
A little antidepressants here, because it's hope.
643
But no, don't come to it because it's just comfortable.
644
Come to it because it's the truth.
645
Thank you.
646
Thank you very much.
647
Thank you so much, brother.
648
Hey guys, thanks so much for tuning in to this episode.
649
Like and hit that subscribe button in order to join the family.
650
Also want to invite you to our church where we pastor at in New Canaan, Connecticut.
651
It's called Grace Community Church.
652
We are currently meeting at a middle school, Saks Middle School, and we start at 9 .30 a .m.
653
Hope to meet you there.
654
See you soon.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Stuart & Cliffe Knechtle”. This video has 654 sentences and 6798 words to shadow. The speech runs for 40:46. The speaker talks at a natural 167 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 84% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| atheist noun | /ˈeɪ.θi.ɪst/ | A person who does not believe in deities or gods. |
| miracle noun | /ˈmɪɹ.ə.kəl/ | An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin. |
| moral adjective | /ˈmoɹəl/ | Of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behaviour, especially conforming to principles of rectitude. |
| comfort noun | /ˈkʌm.fət/ | Contentment, ease. |
| convince verb | /kənˈvɪns/ | To make someone believe, or feel sure about something, especially by using logic, argument or evidence. |
| supernatural adjective | /ˌsu.pəɹˈnæ.tʃə.ɹəl/ | Above nature; beyond or added to nature, often so considered because it is given by a deity or some force beyond that with which humans are born. |
| steal verb | /stiːl/ | To take illegally, or without the owner's permission, something owned by someone else without intending to return it. |
| objective noun | /ɒbˈd͡ʒɛk.tɪv/ | A material object that physically exists. |
| testimony noun | /ˈtɛstɪmoʊni/ | Statements made by a witness in court. |
| aunt noun | /ɑːnt/ | The sister or sister-in-law of one’s parent. |
| whoa | /woʊ/ | Stop (especially when commanding a horse or imitative thereof); calm down; slow down. |
| relative noun | /ˈɹɛl.ə.tɪv/ | Someone connected by blood, marriage, or adoption; someone in the same family. |
| trick noun | /ˈtɹɪk/ | Something designed to fool, dupe, outsmart, mislead or swindle. |
| bedroom noun | /ˈbɛdˌɹum/ | A room in a house, apartment, hotel, or other dwelling where a bed is kept for sleeping. |
| belief noun | /bɪˈliːf/ | Mental acceptance of a claim as true. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| come back from verb | To become successful, confident or effective again after an injury, setback, failure, embarrassment, etc. | |
| come back verb | To return to a place. | |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| make up verb | /ˌmeɪk ˈʌp/ | To constitute, to compose. |
| put together verb | To assemble, construct, build, or formulate. | |
| stand out verb | To jut out, protrude (from a surface etc.). | |
| wake up verb | /ˌweɪk ˈʌp/ | To stop sleeping; to awake. |
| back up verb | To move backwards, especially for a vehicle to do so. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- How do you know anything?
- Can you scientifically prove that?
- What's the object of your faith?
- You know what's so funny about that?
- You know, you're, are you into psychology?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | If it came back and slammed, you'd be |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | it's been · have put · I've been taught |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | have been born · is based · be celebrated |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who follow · person who says · people who raised |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 166 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: atheist /ˈeɪ.θi.ɪst/, ethical /ˈɛθɪkəl/, worthy /ˈwɝ.ði/, tooth /tuθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: resurrection /ɹɛzəˈɹɛkʃən/, delusional /dɪˈluːʒənəl/, conventional /kənˈvɛnʃənl̩/, passionate /ˈpæʃənɪt/, conscience /ˈkɑn.ʃəns/
- Long words — get the stress right: supernatural /ˌsu.pəɹˈnæ.tʃə.ɹəl/, testimony /ˈtɛstɪmoʊni/, experiment /ɪkˈspɛɹ.ə.mənt/, intellectual /ˌɪntəˈlɛkt͡ʃʊəl/, intelligent /ɪnˈtɛlɪd͡ʒənt/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like atheist, miracle, moral.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.