Oh wow! Thank you for posting this video. My walk with Christ is so similar to what you both spoke. I will say that it seems like skeptics are responding more so to what Christians do than what God does.
I remember reading about the lives of great religious leaders/religious founders, and being disgusted by the way many of them treated the women in their lives. That doesn't disprove their message, of course. But it did highlight to me just how loving and above reproach Jesus really is.
Love the questions he tackles in the book...all of them so prevalent today! Young people really need these questions/answers to give a firm foundation to their faith! Thanks!
Bobby Conway wow what a great perspective on Christianity and being vulnerable in truth of what we are broken human beings trying to be more Christ like
Thanks for this episode. These are questions I’ve had some friends and family ask me. Even though the answers are clear to me, it’s hard to put into words to explain to them. I appreciate you and those you have on your show!
If there are still questions there must still be mysteries. Like, what is really up with the cathedrals. Why was everything so magnigicent, and beautiful but no plumbing.
Dear Sean, I was stuck when you said this at around the 11 minute mark, ...I'm more confident that my wife loves me than that Christianity is true..." Then you went on to say you were "highly confident" Christianity was true. It isn't about Christianity being true, it is all about Jesus and our love for him. Does He alone hold your love and confidence? Are you so in love with him that all else pales? While he may feel distant at some points in our lives, he is still there. He will never leave us or forsake us, ever. To say you are more confident that your wife loves you and is faithful to you, than you are that Christianity is true, is very troubling. Jesus loves you and is yours for eternity while your wife's love is earthly and fleeting, for this life only, and could possibly change as she is fallen creature just like the rest of us. But, "Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus." Romans 8:39, ESV
I would argue that racism doesn't exist at all. We are all one species/race. It's just a misunderstanding of terminology/definition. It is hatred of people groups based in phenotypes/genetic lineage/culture. Hatred is simply hatred but racism in my opinion is a very shallow reductive perspective on a larger issue. Like many others have pointed out melanin manifests in concentrations (shades) not actual different colors or deviations from a single species.
Genetics differentiates the human species into racial groups. Unique Personalities differentiates humans into individuals. The teachings of Jesus unites mankind, in that We All are sons and daughters of God. And salvation leads to entry into the heavenly family.
Christianity makes sense because I have seen it work in my life and the lives of billions of people over thr last 2K years. It would scare me to be like Richard Dawkins or Alex O'Conner or any of the other toxic , angry unpleasant atheists.
Near the end, the problem of evil. For God to be known as love, we need to see his love as unselfish, unconditional, and sacrificial. In his unselfishness, he doesn't get his own way, and creates creatures/creation that are/is other than himself, not just a mere extension of himself. Creation can violate his will of volition, and this is the way he has sovereignly ordained his creation to be. If there were ideal conditions only, for all of eternity, we would not know his love to be unconditional. If everything were pleasant for him with no sacrifices, we would not know our worth to him, and would not be wooed by his love. If there is no cost to an action, we don't know if that action is loving. For there to be evidence to us of the kind of agape love that God is in his essence, it must be that he doesn't always get his own way, that conditions are not diverse and difficult, and that there is a cost. If we were God, we think, we would make everything comfy and pleasant for ourselves, but that is because our fleshly essence is selfish, not love. And when we imitate God as His beloved children, the only way we can imitate and reflect his love through our lives is similarly if we don't get our own way (allowing other people and other elements of the created world to behave in their own way), if conditions are diverse and difficult in at least some ways, and if there is a cost to us. Sacrifice is a key identifying element of love.
Josh McDowell describes “God consciousness”… the realization that God is, that He is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent & I am answerable to Him for my life… every human, he says, comes to that point at sometime in their life… that’s insufficient for salvation BUT if that person earnestly wants to know more, God will supernaturally move heaven and earth to reach them with the gospel… further, in Romans 10:18, Paul asks have they not heard? He then quotes Psalm 19:4 to answer his own question… YES INDEED, they have already seen & heard…
There IS indeed prejudice and discrimination towards others based on race, sex, age…and the church has played a role by being indifferent, dismissive, and (at times) abusive. This is not something in the imaginations of CRT. It’s in the makings of our country and running through our veins, passed down from Adam. (I’m not just talking about Hollywood. It’s doesn’t work both in most of the country for regular every day people. History and simple data shows that.) While it IS the reality of sin and the church has to assume their part in it, it’s not what scripture teaches. Still… I’m grateful for the family of Christ. It’s exactly all of our brokenness that leads us to the foot of the cross. Over the years, I’ve had to wrestle with how those within the church have tainted the name of Jesus, but even with our imperfections and faults, I’m still thankful. I’ve also learned how the church has lifted the name of Jesus and has shaped history with the message of salvation, with generosity and kindness, in service and in love. We celebrate this eternal family, not for its shortcomings, but for the community and fellowship that leads to true transformation. Thank you Sean for making the clarification.
If I don't question and seek the answer in the Wisdom of God in the Word by Holy Spirit, I would be stymied and become stagnate. In Him I live and move and have my being... This is vine to branch to bud and fruit Life
General revelation condemns but never leads to salvation- it cannot reveal to us the special revelation of the gospel. When people have trouble with this, I find there are two problems: 1. Their understanding of Genesis and the Fall; and related, 2. Their understanding of original sin and our descendancy from Adam. Both of these issues are crucial to an accurate understanding of the gospel.
The proofs for the resurrection are eye witnesses and the disciples dying for it. That is not compelling to me, Is there anything else? Great interview
The book Freakanomics talks about out the bias against black sounding names. We need to normalize not including your name on your resume. Exchange personal info at the interview
Goddess worship came before Jesus. Not being rude, but it did. Was matriarch rule. So women were not always degraded. Apollo came along and things changed.
People don't go to hell because they don't believe in Jesus. They go to hell because of their rebellion against Jesus. They go to hell because of their sin.
Bs. There is NO god of ANY holy book. ALL gods are strictly human manufactured fiction. ALL evidence and rules of evidence point to ZERO gods. God is fiction in EVERY religion, culture, and language, everywhere, every second of every day, 365. It is just an excuse to engage in ordained hate and othering. Non-belief is JUSTIFIED! Christianity, Islam, Judaism are an absurdity full of hate and ignorance. The divinity of Jesus is fiction, likewise that of Mohammed, likewise Moses...etc for all religions for many thousands of years, ALL fiction. Your religion is false just as much as you believe the religion across the globe is false, no one gets to be right all by themselves, instead, EVERYONE’s religion are wrong. Human created god(s). Religion is no solution for the requirements of humanity in the 21st century. The sooner humanity understands this, the sooner we can get to work in unison for humanity actual. Go to hell 😂
Yeah I don’t think it’s that Christianity is oppressive to women so much that the secular culture is so hedonistic. You made an interesting point that competed to other early religions, Christianity was the most respectful and liberating for women, a breath of fresh air really. We just live in a very libertine culture right now so any standards of any kind are viewed as “oppressive”. It’s all about perspective.
The problem with the studies you sited, is that they were very limited in their reach and some belive they were biased from the start, also, in today's culture bigotry towards white people is much more accessible than towards anyone else. I wish people would talk about that more.
It makes sense within a generally Christian worldview. The trouble these days is that people are being indoctrinated against a Christian worldview- so the job of presenting the gospel in a clear and understandable way has become far more challenging.
There is NO god of ANY holy book. ALL gods are strictly human manufactured fiction. ALL evidence and rules of evidence point to ZERO gods. God is fiction in EVERY religion, culture, and language, everywhere, every second of every day, 365. It is just an excuse to engage in ordained hate and othering. Non-belief is JUSTIFIED! Christianity, Islam, Judaism are an absurdity full of hate and ignorance. The divinity of Jesus is fiction, likewise that of Mohammed, likewise Moses...etc for all religions for many thousands of years, ALL fiction. Your religion is false just as much as you believe the religion across the globe is false, no one gets to be right all by themselves, instead, EVERYONE’s religion are wrong. Human created god(s). Religion is no solution for the requirements of humanity in the 21st century. The sooner humanity understands this, the sooner we can get to work in unison for humanity actual.
I’m sure that McDowell and Conway would agree that non-Christians can live good, happy lives that aren’t “train wrecks”. That being the case, my suspicion is that Conway claiming that it was Christianity that turned him around from living a “train wreck” life might be just good marketing that plays well in some pastor/evangelizing circles. What I have to ask is, how do you tell the difference from Christianity actually, truly being responsible for someone’s turnaround or someone who actually turned their own lives around on their own volition and is just giving the credit to their faith?
The Christian response would be, in my eyes, that: it was their volition to entrust themselves to, but not conscious acceptance of, God’s Will within them.
Interesting conversation. I think religion (in this case Christianity) can be a stabilising force in culture simply because the various versions of the faith contain central ideas which appeal to many people and in so doing, provide a forum for common agreement on many issues which affect people's psyche, issues such as meaning and purpose. However, I think at this moment in history, technology has allowed a huge mixing of ideas across the planet and Christianity has been found wanting in many areas. Too many claims made by various Christians have been found to be overblown if not downright false. I thought these comments from Sean and Bobby were brutally honest and brave:- 1. Sean (11:00): "You know what? I’m more confident that my wife loves me more than Christianity is true …” 2. Bobby (18:00 )“I was at such a low point that Jesus was not enough”. 3. Sean (18:50): "And yet Christians are also supposed to have the power of the Holy Spirit inside of us. We are a new creation.”. Bobby: “That is a big question right there”. Regarding point 1. Too many Christians will claim the reverse. Yet with Sean's wife not only can we all easily and obviously interact with her, when things fail, we don't need faith in Sean's claims about his wife in the manner Christians often say we need to have faith in their claims about God and Jesus. Regarding point 2. Exactly. Often Jesus is not enough. No matter what some Christians claim. In fact, often people get by without Jesus. Regarding point 3. This is where Christian hypocrisy shines. Of course we are all hypocrites. But so many Christians smugly claim to have the most awesome tools available, tools which are beyond the imaginations of non Christians. Yet we see them fail as badly as the rest of us. How can that happen given the magnificent tools believers claim to have access to? Some words about "truth". Having made the above kinds of honest admissions, Sean and Bobby then go on to grab the truth for themselves and only themselves. That is, only they have it. Yet, given the brutally honest admissions of point 1 and point 2, how can they be so sure? Why not be more circumspect and more humble, when it comes to making claims about truth? Offer Christian ideals as something that worked for you but accept that people have very legitimate arguments against your faith. Stop assuming that non Christians are fools, and wilfully ignorant reprobates, simply because other men said so in the bible. Understand that if modern Christians can get so much wrong, then so could ancient Christians ... and that includes the various authors of the books of the bible, as well as those who followed and who formulated different Christian doctrines and the various versions of the bible. Finally, I wonder how many Christians would remain in the faith if there was no heaven promised at the end and there was no fear of hellfire for holding doubt about the faith? That is, how many Christians are as brutally honest with themselves as Sean and Bobby were. Christianity has something to offer but stop overselling it. We see through it.
I plan to read the book, so maybe the answer is there, but I still have a question about your discussion of the accusations of oppression of women. All that you said about the positive aspects of Christianity and women is true. However, you didn’t even mention the scriptures that bother me most. Given all y the positive aspects, why does Paul so categorically forbid women from speaking in church? Why are only men allowed to be pastors?
Re women speaking in church: my favourite explanation is that that culture previously had female oracles who made proclamations and they tended to continue this practice in their new faith, but this was not of God and it disrupted the church services. Also it was shameful in that culture to override the husband who was the “head” of the woman in God’s hierarchy. As a woman, this made me want to scream until I realized that it benefits us to be obedient to God’s hierarchy, and I have been rewarded with understanding when I chose God’s truth.
Here’s a doozy: what about prayer? To me that’s the most puzzling and stumbling thing of all. Does it actually “work”? I know it does in some situations but other times dead silence. What is it? How exactly (or some explanation) does it work or not work. Why pray if it’s His will or not anyways? C.S. Lewis said it’s to change us but all it does is change me to a confused and often sad believer 😩
they’ve done studies and found that prayer works as well as random chance in swaying outcomes. i guess prayer just works for communication and contemplation. use it as a meditation and it can help you work on yourself
@lookup129 How could I have been a Christian for as long as I have, and still remain so immature as to not realize these wise words? I will remember them and take to heart.🥹
I remember being taught that when we look for the work of the Holy Spirit in an individual life is to compare them to themselves before or previously, not to compare them to others. Yes, we will all fail at times and slip up, but if in general we see the work in that person's life, that is the only comparison that matters not other people.
The racist question is presuming guilty, it's a fake gotcha "question". Racism exists, but as Christians any, all believers are loved in God's family no matter what color they are.
God puts a curse on humanity and then, 1000s of years later, creates a loop hole which requires people to believe in an unverifiable supernatural tall tale. Nah, don’t make no sense to me.
It is the Lacrimosa from Mozart's Requiem. Heavily indluenced by Mozart's stidies of earlier masters, Bach and Handel in particular, it is am achingly beautiful work, made all the more poignant by the fact that Mozart himself passed away while writing it, leaving it incomplete.
There are certainly ambiguities in the Bible… However, the vast majority of the scripture is clearly understandable… The deity, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the unmistakable, central message of the Gospel… Like Abram, who BELIEVED God (Genesis 15:6), not just in God, I’ve moved beyond believing in Jesus to BELIEVING JESUS…
So many christians, it seems from looking at videos like this, are christians in their minds. They claim that they are convinced by apologetics that Christianity is true and so have made the decision to follow the Christian pathway. I cannot comment on their path in life, but I know, for me, God has patiently shown me that He is in my heart, and He is in control. I did not choose Him, nor would I have had the emotional awareness/control to do that, but He chose me, - it is not my willing choice at all. How this happened, I do not know. Somehow, magically, I find, over the years, a deepening love for God in my heart, and a deepening awareness of the Humility and Extravagance of Jesus Christ's death/resurrection gift to me/us. I know that if I had been given the choice, I would not have made the right one, and I am at the same time grateful and resentful that God chose (the right one) for me. I am sorry, but for me, if anything, apologetics seems like an anti-climax, like I would be abandoning God's love in my heart in favor of an intellectual decision, and one that would ultimately lead down the wrong pathway. I do not deny apologetics, but it seems to me that it is choosing second best, like picking the bathwater instead of the baby...?
I think it comes down to how each individual is wired… in my case, I was raised in an abusive environment where emotion & subjectivity was severely chastised… my career was in science & medicine where objectively rules the day… my faith is based on objective evidence that supports the objective truth which I embrace… I would surmise yours to be more subjectively based but I think both approaches are equally valid for how we individually think…
Read the gospel of John and see that Jesus used signs (miracles) in His earthly ministry as evidence to enable people to recognize Him as Messiah. There is nothing wrong with recognizing and sharing the evidence that God gives us for faith. That being said, with all the evidence we have, faith is still the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. I think Sean & Bobby both expressed this pretty well in the first 20 minutes.
All I heard was what you two believe. No two answers to these questions that would actually answer a skeptics question. You were both honest, and I appreciate that. If you really want to convince skeptics I would invite RU-vidrs, to discuss these topics with you in a video. Otherwise you’re just preaching to the choir
The best source of truth is the Word. We cannot help but react personally with our own understanding as the Word speaks to us in response to our individual situation. Right now for me “God is Love” permeates my whole experience. Jesus asks that we lay down (my)/our life, take up (my)/our cross and follow Him. The “narrow path that leads to life” seems to be in the context of following the O.T. Commandments: the love and respect of God, and the love and respect of our fellow man. Blessings! from Canada 🇨🇦
I enjoyed Bobby's honesty and agree that skepticism can be found with any view taken. I am an agnostic atheist myself where I have to include the agnostic part simply because there is plenty that doesn't make sense simply because we don't know everything. I should also mention that even though I am not a theist, I can and do find value and truth in Christianity and the bible so it is not completely absurd to me why a person would become a believer. However, knowing everything that I know about the bible and Christianity, it is also not absurd to me to understand why a person would leave the faith or a Christian like Bobby to struggle with faith.
@@pammichel8314 I certainly don't disagree with that assessment if we are talking about across the whole spectrum, but that sort of holds true among Christians themselves. The whole thing involves learning what the bible says, which I have read and studied it multiple times, which includes attempting to interpret what the writers were actually trying to convey, account for the history of what was going on at the times of the writings to have better context and debating unclear concepts of the bible. I have read the many reasons people become Christians as well as the many reasons people leave Christianity. There are still many things that I am unclear about due to their complex nature. I think I would be a fool to claim I know everything there is to know about the bible and Christianity. I am sure due to the shear complexity of the issue I probably have wrong notions based on wrong interpretations. I have talked to many Christians and I can tell you that many times they were shocked by what was in the bible and I had to show them. This doesn't mean anything about right or wrong, only the many Christians that I have encountered haven't even bothered to read the entire bible. I have plenty of Christian friends and relatives that I occasionally attend their churches and I can tell you they are all different in the messages they convey and vary wildly in how they made me feel, from complete boredom to much excitement. Like anyone else, I simply do my best to learn the truth and since I am not perfect I would agree with you that I may have some things wrong.
@@scottguitar8168I appreciate your humility and time you took in responding. I agree with you that many Christians don’t know their Bible very well. Thankfully people are not saved by their understanding of scripture, but it would be better if more believers had a more thorough understanding of it. I pray God gives you undeniably evidence of Himself and a heart of belief in what Jesus did for you in His death and resurrection.
@@seaglass.jen86 I suppose that is up to God. I think it is somewhere in Paul's epistles that it is said God chooses whose hearts to hardened and whose to allow belief leaving followers to ask why blame us for something that God controls.
At 22 minutes. The "wrong kind of freedom can make us slaves" The scheme of the enemy of our souls is deliberate in this; "did God say?" The vitality is the Word , True, noble, right and pure, lovely and admirable-Life giving, and excellent and praiseworthy One deception of Satan especially damaging... The branch must be attached to the vine and the life-force must be Jesus. Creator of all that is seen and unseen. This secures my heart in all the seasons of my life.
The love of God moved me to share this personal true testimony. God told me this story is important for the evil atheist demoncrats to hear but I hope it edifies all the super loving Christians as well as my fellow Saints and Trump supporters. I was doing my morning ocean swim in shallow water when I was attacked by a shark and I barely made it back to shore. A large part of my thigh was missing and I was losing so much blood...I knew I was a goner and would never be able to make it for help. But then out of nowhere a surfer showed up, he looked exactly like Jesus, the white version. On that day I witnessed one set of foot prints in the sand leading away from where I laid. I called out..."hey Jesus looking dude...are you just going to just leave me here"? And he said.."do you know how much you weigh...hell yeah". And then I died. But don't worry I came back three days later. Proof! How could I have written this if I didn't come back from the dead? The End. By the way, I did find the Jesus looking dude after I came back from the dead. Ironically his name was Jesus but with the Spanish pronunciation. He was in awe of my miracle recovery from death and has become one of my apostles. I am sure my story will be written about in about a hundred years. Now is a great time to get in on the ground floor...I am sure there is a lot of money to be made.
