Christian Cop Shoots Bible in the Foot (J Warner Wallace response) 

It's not a right of passage until you've been given a flannel stick-figure. 😉 I'm actually just delving into your work, but if you'd ever be up for a friendly conversation on my channel, I'd love to arrange it.

@@Paulogia that would be.... interesting.

Wow ! Would not have expected Melissa Dougherty to be on here. I know she generally does anti-new-age stuff, but it’s crazy to see her commenting on Paulogia.

Hi Melissa, I’ve watched your show…you’ve done some funny stuff. I don’t watch anymore but I make comments and get involved in discussion that maybe aren’t fair. Christians who chose to watch Paulogia may be seeking to engage with atheists but your audience isn’t usually seeking that kind of discussion. Gracious comments and nice seeing you here. Merry Christmas!

@@azophi I'm always amused when she is anti-new age and her religion is nothing different that that silly stuff.

The 'I ignore experts who's conclusions I don't agree with' line seems of particular interest

This is simultaneously hilarious and extremely relatable, thank you.

I wrote the same thing, almost identical! Jim's approach to law enforcement makes me wonder how many unfairly prosecuted people are in jail thanks to his incompetence. ROFL

Bet it totally depended on how christian they were, in Frank's eyes.

@@johnnehrich9601 Unfortunately I think you are totally correct.

You're talking about the guy who had to ctrl+alt+delete the entire planet he made

@@jackfrosterton4135 In the immortal words of Destro, He just gave it a bath!

ROFLMAO, you guys are cracking me up.

@@jackfrosterton4135 😄

​@@autobotstarscream765 😂

Hardcore cognitive dissonance.

“it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair.

And it might work well for getting other people (juries, protectors, judges, the general public) to believe that someone is guilty, but that says more about our judicial system than anything else. And not only is testimony unreliable immediately after the event in question, what about two thousand years of translation and transcription errors? The fact that this allegedly happened that long ago, and there have been no miracles performed since it's enough for me to seriously doubt that any of the supernatural aspects of it are true.

A Strobel wannabe

It's much more shocking to see how incredibly biased people are when addressing the work of people they don't agree with, and how readily they're willing to jump onto a collective bandwagon of "this person is obviously wrong and stupid" when it suits them. All without ever actually reading anything the person wrote, naturally.

Oh he knows. It's all part of the grift.

@@utubepunk that makes it even worse sadly. If he was just a moron you could roll your eyes and more or less ignore it. If he’s just lying (which you’re right is more likely) for the purpose of selling a book mind you, you have to ask yourself what he lied about while wearing a badge. He’s doing irreparable damage to Christians and cops

It's especially concerning given that we've known for at least 15 years _with research backing_ that even just a single person recalling an event over and over distorts the story, with our brains essentially playing 'the telephone game' with ourselves each time we retrieve a specific memory. I've heard people say things like "would the disciples lie about something so important, or something they believed in so fervently?" But it ignores that often, such retellings don't need to be intentional _lies_ to be vastly distorted recollections, even *if* (and that's an outrageously charitable if) we take the gospels as their testimonial accounts.

Cops don't care they just want to narrative for whoever they're trying to convict

Doubt he's ever been a cop.

J. Warner Wallace, the great evangelist who has done so much to convert so many...to supporting the defunding of the police.

exactly

Yeah i was legit thinking about how some family "legends" i remember hearing as a kid have totally changed through the years at family get-togethers depending on who is telling the story.

@@Paulogia Growing up in the church, I was always told that the oral tradition that predated the gospels was very reliable because, in first-century Judaic culture, there was a huge emphasis on accurate recollection. This was because children were required to memorize the Torah when they grew up and those who did well went on to memorize more. Is that something you could speak to?

@@sarahrogers-pastio7709 Bart Ehrman haș addressed this false narrative in a few of his books, but that's almost not important... there was no codified version of Christianity to accurately remember.

@@sarahrogers-pastio7709 Which requires a reliable source that the unreliable source can be compared to. Look at family names. It is pretty much the most important word you are supposed to remember correctly and yet you will find hundreds of variants of common family names and that they change a lot depending on the language of the region.

Have you read Wallace's book?

Of course he hasn’t. These people would say they know how to weigh evidence Bette me than Sir Lionel Luckhoo Dr Simon Greenleaf John Warwick Montgomery and Dr Norman Geisler. 🤦🏼🤦🏼🤦🏼

Keep in mind these apologists don't have the goal that they say they do. Their goal is to keep people from leaving the cult - whether people are convinced to join in is really just a bonus. I mean, just think about that book title from this video - "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist." Do you think that book title will convince you to pick it up? Of course not, it's not for you. It's titled that way to attract the average christian who wants to feel better about their faith. When you review apologist material with this understanding in mind, it all makes a lot more sense. Another example: if a christian starts wondering about, say, why their bible seems to promote slavery, then they will look for answers from these christian speakers first. And then they may well stop wondering about it once they hear the answer you and I have heard a million times. Even though we know that answer is a misrepresentation and maybe even a lie, that doesn't matter - they've satisfied the surface level question as far as that christian is concerned and therefore, the apologist has accomplished his goal.

Yes! Put that statement next to his talking about he after being on tour with Frank their stories change so they now can tell the same story identically. If the gospels were eye witness accounts created in that way, wouldn't that make them even less reliable than what scholars currently think?

None of these stories has been produced by anyone close to Jesus. The followers are mostly nonexistent, have different names, and behave after the tenth miracle as if they haven't seen any other before. It is poor fan fiction that relies heavily on other stories like Dionysos to turn water into wine and many more.

@@RikardPeterson Apologists like to have it both ways, depending on the current argument they are facing at that moment. Their stories are similar because they both saw the same thing! They're different because it's two different accounts, thus making them more reliable! The mild differences are just because it's two different people's perspectives! The similarities are because they are describing the same event! Obviously when you put the excuses next to each other none of it makes sense, which is why apologists typically only use one excuse at a time.

He became an 'apologist' that is a professional liar.

I see what you did there.

Check out Overly Sarcastic Productions! They cover history, literature and mythology from all over the world, and especially in the Greek & Norse myth videos show that there’s never really an “original”. It’s always variations that first proliferate and then are over centuries winnowed down to a sort of Greatest Hits version.

@@alisaurus4224 Oh definitely, OSP is great, the main reason my formerly protestant partner knows any kind of culture 😅

(I sing this as a liturgical chant…Lutheran cadence) “Ye who pray on bended knees, Lift your eyes unto the trees… Ask what scripture’s sacred words, Ring more inspired than the songs of birds?”

@@alisaurus4224- So many stories began as oral tales, told by bards and storytellers, with few (surviving) written versions. Depending on the stories, there may have been popular versions and 'official' (for lack of a better term) versions. Regional variations. Retellings and recastings, influenced by other cultures and religions. And some straight-up fanfiction.

@@julietfischer5056 💯

This is something i find funny, the bible managed to put itself in a place where we know it has not independent sources (because the gospels literally copied word for word between each other) and we know it cannot be a reliable source (because it cannonised the multiple contradictions within the fable). It is almost as if whoever put together the bible went out of their way to yell to everyone else the bible should not be considered history.

Yup. It’s just crazy that people think that an independent eyewitness would need to use 90% of another persons eye witness account. It’s nonsensical. If I witnessed an event I wouldn’t go find the paper of someone else who was there and literally copy them word for word for 9/10ths of my account

@LuthAMF nice ad hominem, would you care to explain why the gospels copy off each other yet still get things wrong between them?

@@LuthAMF And yet you have been unable to support your claims that the bible is more reliable than other book of fables. No wonder you got reduced to these silly ad hominems instead of presenting some solution for your fable's failures.

@LuthAMF you're now appealing to authority by saying that we can't have an opinion unless we do X thing, which is another logical fallacy. Can you not answer a simple question? It's pretty embarrassing for someone who's apparently so well read and well studied as yourself

Good point. If it is oral there is no timeline and must be dismissed as hearsay.

Yep. If I had worked on any cases that he was involved in I would be worried.

I suspect this is typical of the level of thought of most detectives. If you were a really sharp detective, you’d become a Hollywood writer instead.

Dont forget fix the plot holes.

Exactly. Just like folk music, the oral transmission of stories is organic. "It's the way I tell 'em!", as Frank Carson oft remarked. There is no "true" version, but as many variants evolve as there are musicians and storytellers. This changes once a score writer or a scribe gets to work. Both the song and the story become fixed and fossilised ("set in stone", almost). Of course, the advantage of a fixed score/story belongs to the owner of the copyright. Things are sung / told the way THEY want it, either for profit, control, or both.

@@mattm8870 Heh, if only they bothered to do that :)

You forgot the primary goal of apologetics which is to convince the faithful that the apologist can convert bunches and bunches of heathen scum to the true faith if only the faithful will give just a little more. Both little Frankie and Jimmy are experts at this. The actual converting of the heathen, not so much.

I guess bearing false witness isn't so bad after all eh? I wonder which other commandments are optional!

Q: Where does evil come from. Hitch: RELIGION. I saw that vid years ago. Still one of my favorite comebacks.

To advance the plot, ya nut!

@@rembrandt972ify 😂🤣😆

Nobody ever said Jesus could walk through walls.

@@fluffysheap C.S. Lewis did. I mean, he was an idiot but he was somebody. So Jesus, after his resurrection was not less physical, but more physical. This is why they sometimes could not recognize him-because he was now in the resurrection body which was of another dimension which their eyes could not easily perceive. He could appear and disappear in and through this physical world as if he were stepping through a curtain or a bank of fog. He could come through doors and walls because they were no more substantial to him than a veil of water vapor.

@@rembrandt972ify So basically, He's not a Ghost, we're the ghosts...are the Peoplebusters gonna call Beetlejuice the Bio-Exterminator on us!? 🤯

🤣

Now I'm really hoping that someone out there found a clip of him melting down and entitled it "Turek, Rage Wars"

It's even better when you have an indeterminate number of unnamed eye witnesses

Eye witness testimony has been proven to be unreliable... but it is the most compelling evidence for juries.

Yeah, well done, Paulogia. It’s so clear in my mind now, I almost feel as though I came up with it myself 😉

I wonder if wallace has the manhood, decency, and honesty, to watch this video and reflect on how he's conducted himself through his career.

Then what's likely to happen, is that some years later, someone hears the story and decides to imitate it, and really does ride a dirt bike thru the school, acting on a story that never really happened originally.

Okay, but school kids have no commitment to the truth of the story, quite the opposite in fact... Many of the early Christians became martyrs, defending the truth of their convictions.

@@stephenkeen6044 You think no one has ever lied or exaggerated a claim to benefit their religion? Bro. Really? How tall was Goliath? lol. And martyrdom doesn't matter, its not an indicator of truth, just belief. I could make a claim to you today and you die for that claim tommorow because you believed it, it doesn't mean my original claim was true. Just that you really, really believed it to be true.

Agree. Wallace's position is the worst of all worlds.

thank you for the support

At least it's less tacky than the "I'm wearing a lab coat, you can trust me, I'm a scientist (... Automotive repair technician, midhusband, and...)" stuff, I guess?

That is high praise. Thank you.

I absolutely agree.

The witnesses should still get the big events similar to each other and in the right order though.

😉

No, he retired years ago. It's a prop, part of his costume, a humblebrag designed to "subtly" lend himself authority and convince his audience he knows what he's talking about.

Yes, the existence of Q is entirely predicated on groupthink. There's no evidence for it at all.

You know? I guess I'd lost some perspective on this. We are perhaps making some progress in this uphill battle. I hadn't made a point to truly consider that question in a long time, and now that I have? It was worse, I'm pretty sure. That is, if my experience was remotely typical and my memory as accurate as can be hoped for. Seems to me the most extreme "Kill it with fire! Purify the unclean!" positions of The Church Universal are more fringe beliefs these days. Still definitely out there, still dangerous, and not exactly rare. Still, feels like I'd be far less likely to attend a random rust belt revival/fellowship weekend today and openly hear a panel along the lines of, "Our next speaker, a former devil worshiper, is here to share some stories about his time as a werewolf so you can better identify Satan's magicks in your life and tell if your weird neighbor is some sort of secret demon it would be good to harm, actually."

I bet it sounds exactly like apologetics from 1882.

It's like these apologists can't imagine people just making stuff up. And being able to do it in a credible way, or at least credible enough for the most credulous.

@@johnnehrich9601 Funily, they are making up things to explain why the Bible writers couldn't be making things up.

Had to rewatch it twice to figure out which "German" word she meant whith "kella". Why are the pronunciations made up? As if there wasn't Google or something, to read it to you?

So, it would be pronounced kyu-ell, or kwu-ell, or would it be pronounced like quell is? As in "quelling a rebellion"

@@mwagner1444 I wonder that all the time. I guess they don't want to put that effort into it. I would do it for any kind of foreign word I'd use in content creation.

@@hermithefrog629 probably like in quelling, but since I never used that word, i am not 100% sure. But important is the "e" at the end. You don't say just "quell". The e in german isn't pronounced like in english l, so it's hard to try to explain what it sounds like. But again, take the way the "e" is pronounced in "sell" and put it on "quell" or "kwu-ell". And then pronounce it in one sweep without stop between the sillables. So not "kwu-ell-e" but "kwuelle"

Its also possible that Luke was trying to correct Matthew account after all a learned man will know there's some silly errors in that account.

Yeah, but then you must factor in how many lives he's destroyed just as a cop...ain't all that funny.

Defending the indefensible has a way of doing that. For example, every apologist that tries excusing their god character advocating slavery, which just draws attention to how vile the character is.

@@KianaWolf well, its their fault, the church... Couldnt they pick a much better god from all the other gods? At the very least if we chose zeus, we could have at least blame him if he fucks up. But the bible god? Every screw up in the bible is 10000% yahweh's fault. But the fucker never gets blamed. A very poorly written book.

He should, but quotas for butts in jails can do a number on due process.

Literally the Ramayana.

isn't it more likely that Luke just lifted passages directly from Mathew?

Dont forget that the oral tradition would have had to have been translated as even translation into greek would result in more diversity if done by two different people.

😂

You're welcome. :) (Speaking as part of the religiously-apathetic generation who grew up in the UK in the 1970s/1980s!)

Ummm, how many religious wars are in your history? The influences you think aren't there are hiding in plain sight.

@@liberalhere3731 I compared the UK to the US and used the present tense. Try reading for comprehension.

@@liberalhere3731 Any country more than a few decades old has religious strife, wars, and/or oppression in its history, especially the powerful ones, like Britain, France, Spain, and Germany. But it is certainly true today that most British people barely notice Christianity anymore, even if it's still the established religion, or perhaps because it is...

@@LambentIchor Oh, but I did catch that. Your comment was as relevant as a killer saying, "but I haven't killed anyone this week." Meanwhile one's house is decorated by "trophies" of previous weeks' killings. Your self-congratulation was vulgar....especially when one realizes American religious thinking has deep roots with the UK.

I inwardly cringed when I saw that. It's so pathetic. Apologetics aside, the guy's entire identity is that he's a homicide detective. Except he's not anymore