THE BEE WEEKLY: Flying Spaghetti Monsters and Bad British Food
Kyle, Adam, and Dan talk about this week at The Babylon Bee and talk to Justin Brierley from the 'Unbelievable?' podcast about bad British food, the worst atheist arguments, and staying Christian even while arguing with other Christians. Kyle and Adam also try to roast the resident Reformed guy in the office. The interview show is now a part of The Bee Weekly, so tune in to a new action-packed Bee Weekly! Be sure to check out Justin Brierley's 'Unbelievable?' book and podcast. He also hosts The Big Conversation, so check that out! This episode is brought to you by Enduring Word Bible Commentary. Go to https://enduringword.com for David Guzik's completely free teaching resources. This episode is also brought to you by INKL. Go to https://inkl.com/bee for curated ad-free news from reliable sources. This episode is also brought to you by Faithful Counseling. Go to https://faithfulcounseling.com/babylonbee to connect with a fellow believer online within a network of licensed, professional therapists. The Bee guys talk about the banger and bomb article of the week and then Weakly News with Adam Yenser gives you all the news you need to know for this week. Kyle and Adam roast the Reformed guy Dan Coats. The Babylon Bee obtained an exclusive interview with one of Kamala Harris' staffers, so hear it here on The Bee Weekly. Then, Justin Brierley of 'Unbelievable?' sits down with Kyle and Adam to talk about apologetics, annihilationism, and how British people sound very intelligent, but still have bad British food. And then, The Bee gets called out for being blasphemous for writing a story about Chick Fil-A getting an order wrong. In the subscriber lounge, Dan answers more questions from subscribers to The Babylon Bee about predestination, Roman Catholicism, and NFTs. There's also the best subscriber headlines, classic article of the week, and bonus hate mail. There's also a lot of N.T. Wright discussion in the rest of the interview with Justin Brierley!
As the editor-in-chief of the Babylon Bee, I have to keep up with the news all the time, which is super depressing.
It sucks.
But, you know, we got to do it.
So maybe you have to keep up with the news too for whatever reason.
Maybe you're just crazy and you like to read the news.
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That sucks.
When you browse news through Inkle, it actually has a lot of those paywalls removed.
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So go check it out.
Inkle.com slash B-E-E and start browsing premium reliable news today.
Madam Tussaudes unveiled a Joe Biden wax figure, but somehow it wasn't just a giant melted candle because he's old.
A rare blanket octopus was caught on film in the wild in Australia.
It's not as rare as the electric blanket octopus, which sparks and dies as soon as it touches water.
A Louisiana Democrat released a campaign ad where he's smoking pot.
He's trying to get appointed to a joint committee.
Hong Kong is planning to kill 2,000 hamsters with COVID.
All of them will be added to the official COVID death count.
Plus, instead of going after Catholics for a change, we interrogate Dan, our resident reform guy.
Find out once and for all if you're going to hell or not.
All this and more on the B weekly.
Welcome, everyone, to the Babylon Bee podcast, where you get to hang out with the people behind the Babylon Bee and cover some crazy news stories.
I'm hanging out with Adam Jenser and our good buddy Dan Coates, who's usually behind the cameras.
Yeah, this feels weird.
Yeah.
I should not be here.
Come on, enjoy it.
We'll have a good time.
Dan was telling us how nervous he was, and then Adam immediately made fun of him as soon as he sat in the chair.
Yeah, a little bit.
It helps slightly.
It eases the nerves a little bit.
Yeah, thank you, Adam.
You're welcome.
Thank you, Adam.
Yeah.
Just keep doing that.
It's helping.
So we've got a little bit of a podcast format change.
We're going to be shifting to a little bit more of a variety show format where we have all kinds of different crazy segments.
The weekly podcast is going to be longer, and we are going to be moving the interview show to become part of the weekly show.
So we do have an interview this week with Justin Briarly, who sounds very smart because he has a British accent.
I'm sure everything he said was nonsense, but he said it.
He sounded smart.
I believed every word of it.
He's from the podcast.
Unbelievable?
Unbelievable?
Unbelievable.
And he talks to atheists.
He's a Christian, but he talks to atheists all the time.
Which is cool.
And that interview will be later on in this show.
But for now, we're going to do a banger of the week.
Banger of the week.
Babylon Bee's top shared story this week.
The FBI says they still haven't found a motive for 9-11.
So what was the real story?
I was basically logged off of social media for like four or five days and I came back and there was like a hostage situation in Texas or something.
Yeah, so there was a British Muslim terrorist, I think, who took hostages at this synagogue in Texas near where I don't remember her name, but her name was like Lady Al-Qaeda.
She was some female terrorist that's being held in a military prison in Texas.
It was his sister, right?
He claimed it was, but then they said they researched it and he referred to her as her sister, but it wasn't actually his sister or something.
His sister in Muhammad or something.
Yeah, something like that.
Okay.
As opposed to Ilhan Omar and her husband, who actually were brother and sister.
But no.
I'm glad you're carrying on Ethan's tradition of saying things that make me look at the camera and wince.
But so basically this guy took these hostages.
Thankfully, no one was hurt and they brought in hostage negotiators and I think the terrorist guy died, but everyone else was safe.
But then afterwards, this was clearly a Muslim terrorist taking hostages in a Jewish synagogue and the FBI put out this statement saying something along the lines of there's nothing to suggest that this was specifically related to their Jewish identity.
And they're still searching for a motive.
I wonder what motivated the Holocaust.
Yeah.
Who knows?
Yeah, and the White House tweeted something that was really vague and they didn't really say what happened.
It says they called the man a man with a British accent.
That was like their attempt.
Can I get a vague description?
It could have been Justin Briarly.
He was in there trying to turn the Jews into atheists.
Or no, trying to prevent them from becoming atheists.
But, you know, yeah, because Joe Biden's statement was something like, we're still trying to figure out why he used this like anti-Semitic rhetoric or something.
It's like, well, because we're because he's anti-Semite.
That's why.
Yeah, that's probably why he used the anti-Semitic rhetoric.
The statement was basically like, we're aware of the situation.
We're taking it into account and we'll be dealing with it.
It's like, well, what's happening?
Who?
Where?
Like, what are you talking about?
So he didn't really mention any specific details.
Just there's something happening.
The tweet that I saw was just so like something happening and we're aware of it.
You're like, okay.
And it's such a weird juxtaposition to how the government and the media handled.
Like, I remember during the Trump administration, there's times where gravestones in a Jewish graveyard blew over in the wind.
And they were immediately reported as, ah, this is an anti-Semitic attack by Trump supporters.
They vandalized.
And then it turned out like, no, the wind blew it over.
Then you have the guy actually taking hostages.
Wasn't there some story about a shooter like maybe seven or eight months ago where like they were reporting it?
They were reporting it like Chris.
He was in Colorado.
Wasn't in Colorado.
At a supermarket.
It was like a mass shooter.
And then it turned out he was a Muslim guy.
Yeah.
And then they didn't care much about that story.
Yeah, it's like they just got memory hold.
It's like no one knows what happened anymore.
There's so many people on Twitter that immediately want to dockpile on something to push whatever their preconceived idea of what causes a mass shooting.
They're like, white supremacy.
And then it's a Muslim guy.
And it's like, yeah.
And then they either have to double down and say, well, he was kind of influenced by white supremacy or they have to just drop it.
Yeah, I couldn't even remember that one because I went and saw our Babylon B article about that got fact-checked this week.
Did it write about the shooter back in March because people like screenshotted it and then started sharing it around.
Oh, and it was this time around.
Yeah, so we had the CNN report saying the shooter was factually Arab but morally white.
And so that has just gotten fact-checked right before we started this.
It's saddening that that's like an evergreen article.
Yeah.
We could just keep using that.
And we also have a bomb of the week.
Bomb of the week.
Crazed Ron Paul seen shouting, I told you so, at passersby in front of the national debt clock.
I don't really like this one, and nobody else did.
Nobody liked my headline.
What's wrong with you people?
I like envisioning it.
It's a funny funny picture.
I like picturing him actually doing that.
Maybe it's, yeah.
Just didn't work as a headline.
Maybe we should make a like a 20-minute long video of this.
It bombed as a headline, but it would work really well as an extended short film.
We should see if he'll film this for us.
Ron Paul, will you scream at people walking by the national debt park?
What the heck even is the national debt at right now?
I keep like seeing the number.
I remember, I want to say like when I was in high school, our history teacher told us like, guys, the national debt is like at $6 trillion right now.
It's really bad.
And I think now it's what, over $30 trillion or something.
Let's see.
Does it matter?
Is money real?
Real time.
It is.
Oh, man, there's a lot of numbers on here.
$29 million.
$29 trillion, $817 billion.
$51,700.
$700,000.
Yeah.
It's not ideal.
No.
No.
It's bad.
It's bad.
But we can pay it off in installments.
Yeah, I was looking at all the Amazon points.
Yes, we're going to refinance it.
It was amazing what they do.
I was looking at all those articles over the weekend where it was like talking about inflation and CNN was like saying, should we do price controls?
And everyone's like, gee, how could this have happened?
They just keep printing money.
I think I saw somewhere that they added like 40% of the total amount of dollars to the economy.
All within the last year.
Like, gee, how could this have happened?
If only we had listened to Ron Paul.
Yeah.
Who was shouting?
I told you so.
Ron Paul is trying to usher us all into the bunker.
It's happening.
It's happening.
I remember we were eating at a Buffalo Wild Wings a few years ago and a Ron Paul commercial came on the TV and he's just like, you got to buy gold.
It's all going to crash right now.
I was just like looking up.
He would just like buy these random spots on Fox News and like shout about gold.
Did you see that thing with chicken wings at their restaurant where like they're looking at the menu and it says chicken wings, market price?
Oh yeah.
Like back in the day, that was like Alaskan King crab lady.
Yeah, like really exotic fish or something.
You get to choose your own chicken out of the tank out of the tank in front of the restaurant.
So things are going well.
Yeah.
To sum up.
Hey, let's do some weekly news with Adam Jenser.
It's time for the weekly news with Adam Jenser.
Madam Tussaudes in New York unveiled new wax figures of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
The Biden statue looks so real, parents are telling their little girls not to get too close to it.
And just like the real Biden, the wax figure is located in a fake set designed to look like the Oval Office.
Oh boy.
This past Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but wouldn't you know it, a white stole all the attention?
Maybe a picture of Betty White and all her.
She would have been 100 today.
Anyway.
Yeah.
A rare blanket octopus was caught on video in the wild in Australia.
It was immediately pepper sprayed and arrested for violating the lockdowns.
The blanket octopus is a unique species in which the female grows up to six feet and the male is only 2.4 centimeters.
They're basically the Zendaya and Tom Holland of the animal kingdom.
Gary Chambers, a Louisiana Democrat who is running for Senate, released a campaign ad where he's smoking marijuana.
The theme of the ad is that at this point, you'd have to be high to keep voting for Democrats.
Own.
Destroy.
Got him.
Own the lips.
Adam Jenser destroys the limbs.
2.5 cents.
You guys always like the most heavy-handed ones.
That's where this room goes crazy.
Pet stores in Hong Kong are planning to kill 2,000 hamsters that tested positive for COVID to keep them from transmitting it to humans, which is tragic.
If little kids bought those hamsters and took care of them, they could have lived another two weeks.
The government has provided the stores with 2,000 toilets to help dispose of the hamsters.
We watched a friend's hamster growing up, and they went on vacation for a week, and we left it in our garage in a little cage.
And it was like 120 degrees outside.
They die like that.
If we didn't mean to do that, it would have died anyway.
Did you replace it like in a sitcom?
Like, oh, we got to get a pet that looks exactly like a pencil.
Yeah, painted it the right color and all that.
Yeah, absolutely.
I saw there was some like Twitter viral thing this week where there's a video that said, like, sometimes hamsters hibernate.
And like, people might have been throwing away their dead hamsters when they're all just hibernating.
But then other people were like, no, no, they don't have.
But it was this big, like, everyone on social media is like, did I just kill my hamster?
Like, you didn't kill it.
You buried it alive.
We need to get Snopes on this.
Yeah.
All right.
Cracker Barrel was ordered to pay a Tennessee man $9.4 million after he was accidentally served a glass of cleaning chemicals.
Apparently, he had actually ordered a glass of sweet cleaning chemicals.
The victim suffered birds to his mouth at esophagus and had to be rushed to the hospital without finishing his peg game.
Ignoramus is probably what he got.
Yes, exactly.
He was trying to get genius and then he burned his esophagus.
He was like, no, I'm not an ignoranoramus.
The president of the University of Michigan was fired for having an inappropriate relationship with another university employee.
According to the university's current diversity policy, a relationship is considered inappropriate if it's heterosexual.
During a podcast, Dwayne Johnson revealed that he has a $31 million Tyrannosaurus Rex skull in his living room, marking the first time a rock has purchased another rock.
Good old pun for you guys.
Phone right in at this point.
I am always fascinated by what rich people spend their money on.
So $31 million for a T-Rex.
That's pretty cool.
I mean, I might do that.
He was on some NFL podcast, and it was in the background behind him.
And one of the other, it was like Eli Manning or Peyton Manning, one of those two.
One of them has a big forehead, the other one doesn't.
I'm trying.
But one of them asked him about it.
It says he has a net worth of 800 million.
So he could buy a bunch more T-Rex skills.
So that was like going to In-N-Out or something for him.
Well, it's more than that, right?
Because it's like 5% of his net worth-ish.
Oh, 31 million?
Yeah, 31 million for a T-Rex.
And Trivia, it's the most complete T-Rex skull in the world, apparently.
Wow.
He bought it and he owns it.
But it'd be like us spending a few thousand bucks.
It'd be like all those Lord of the Rings swords you have.
It's like that in the subscriber lounge.
A fashion designer is suing Lego for illegally replicating one of his leather jackets for its queer eye for the straight guy Lego set.
The queer eye set is like other Legos, except the bricks only have studs, no holes.
You gotta put together the pegs.
Kyle.
I don't know why Kyle is cringing so much.
This is a Babylon B article.
Well, no, it was genderless.
They were smooth.
Oh, okay.
All right.
So we can make jokes about Legos.
Debating how far to explore this one.
The town of Sunnyvale, California has been overrun by crows.
So just like Los Angeles and San Francisco, their murder rate has exploded.
And a new murder.
Yeah.
In a new interview, Bono revealed that he has never liked the band name YouTube.
Me too.
Specifically, Bono said he finds the name embarrassing.
So man, wait till he hears their terrible music.
Due to the Omicron surge, White Castle has canceled its annual Fine Dining Valentine's Day event.
But due to the crime surge, you can still get stabbed at Popeyes.
That's it for the news.
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Who, what, where, when, why?
Let's ask a reformed guy.
All right, it is time to burn a reformed guy at the stake.
That's our Catholic Patrick clapic in the background.
Last week, we burned Patrick at the stake, and everybody said, boo, bring wait, no, they were happy that we burned him at the stake, but they wanted us to bring a reformed guy on.
So here we are.
We're talking to Dan.
Dan, I guess I represent all of reformed.
You were speaking for all reformed Christians throughout history since the beginning of time and or 500 years ago when it started.
And here we go.
We're going to ask Dan a bunch of questions.
We got some of our own, and we also have some subscriber questions.
So maybe we'll continue some of those on in the subscriber portion, but here we go.
So, Dan, what are three things that you like about Patrick?
That's a tough one.
No, I'm just kidding.
You want to come back to me?
No, you know, Patrick's a funny guy.
He's a nice guy, and he helped me move.
So he showed up and he had a truck, and he's like, hey, when do you need me?
Where do you need me?
And so he's definitely a man of actions.
That's a good friend.
I don't think I've helped anybody move in a very long time.
I don't think that movie.
What are three things you dislike about Patrick?
I don't think.
You have to.
It's all the questions.
I mean, he's a Catholic.
I'm not predestined to answer that question.
All right.
Eucharist praying to Saints, Brandon and Mary.
We got it.
Our Catholic views are great.
I make jokes about Catholics.
I love our Catholic views.
Please don't turn it off.
Yeah, let me say up front: like asking the reformed guy as a segment, I will say that I do love Catholics, and I don't want to come across like the, hey, I'm the anti-Catholic guy, and I'm here to answer your questions.
Like, I know everything.
As a Lutheran, I find it funny to joke about Catholicism, but I don't have anything like actually against Catholic people.
Kyle?
Kyle.
Kyle's twitching on.
I don't.
I hate them.
Yeah.
All right, Dan.
Who's your favorite reformer?
Ooh.
I think I'd go with John Calvin.
I would have picked Optimus Prime.
Optimus Prime.
Really?
That's a transformer.
Yeah.
Not a reformer.
More than meets the eye.
Yeah, I'll go Calvin.
I do like Luther quite a bit because of all of his potty humor and just the way he wrote was very funny to me.
But then he had a lot of stuff about the Jews that I didn't care for.
Yeah.
You didn't care for his comments on the Jews.
Right.
You like the Jews.
Luther is to Jews.
That was like a doubling modifier.
Luther is to Jews as Kyle is to Catholics.
Do you ever work on Sundays?
If you respond to Kyle's message on the Babylon be slack, would that be considered a fourth commandment violation?
I try not to work on the Lord's Day.
That is definitely a reason.
The line.
So I slack you, you slack me back.
Yeah.
Are you going to be in at eight tomorrow?
I think you're forcing me to sin when you do that.
Okay.
So I can't slack you on.
But it's incumbent on you to not respond.
Yeah.
That's tough.
I'm just the tempter on your shoulder.
Yeah.
What about why do you do that?
What about like errands?
Or like, do you draw a line like at home?
Like, like, can you get work done in the house?
Yeah, there's like differences of opinion in the reform movement of whether you can go to a restaurant on a Sunday or, you know, if you're a police officer.
Or like if you're patronizing someone else who's working on it.
Yeah, you're forcing that person to work for you on the Sunday.
So yeah, there's definitely lots of difference of opinion.
I do think that one thing that everyone in the reform movement agrees on is that there is a Sabbath, that it does continue, that we are supposed to have one day a week that we rest.
And I think they do make allowances for like anything that's necessary.
Like, obviously, if you need to go to the hospital, go to the hospital.
If you are a police officer and you have to work on Sunday, do it.
But yeah, I think there's like a general principle of trying to have one day of rest devoted to worshiping God.
So how happy were you when Elon Musk called us out for working on Sunday?
That was so amazing.
And Dan didn't come with us because it was a Sunday.
Oh, that's awesome.
He's like, why aren't you heathens in church?
And Dan's like, yeah, I told them.
I told him.
Dan's the best Christian in this office.
That was tough because what day was that that Patrick messaged?
It was like Thursday night.
He's like, hey, can you meet up this weekend?
Yeah, it was like rushed.
Yeah, so I felt left out.
Yeah.
I'm sorry, man.
We would have loved to have you there.
Oh, well.
Yeah.
But you didn't sin, so there's that.
What would you do if your daughter Amelia came home and announced she was dating a Catholic, maybe dating Patrick's future son?
Oh, boy.
I guess I would try to have a conversation about that and try to discuss the differences.
He gets his belt ready.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then say she's grounded and send her to her room.
Yeah.
What have been some of your favorite board game moments at the beat?
How many times has Kyle beaten you at board games here at the office?
Was this your question?
Oh, yeah.
I think I added the part about me beating him.
I do think my favorite board game moment was one I wasn't even around for.
It's when you guys were playing Star Wars Risk, you and Patrick, and he beat you like on the last turn with the last dice roll of the Millennium Falcon flying into the Death Star and blowing up your Death Star.
I think I had killed his entire fleet except the Falcon, and he flies in at the last moment and blows up Death Star 2.
And you were bummed for like a week.
You just couldn't.
I was standing up on the last few turns, like staring at it, like, no.
I was ecstatic for a week.
Yeah.
I would say that if you are going to play a game with Kyle, do not play Galaxy Trucker.
Because he's like a savant at that.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Like everyone else will be like 30 points, 27 points, and Kyle will be like 172.
I keep trying to play Adam in the Star Trek trade card game, which he's a big collector of all the Star Trek customizable card game.
I have to do that.
You used to go to a mega church.
What do you miss about it?
Hmm.
I do miss, like, I go to a smaller church now, like about two or 250, 250 people.
And I used to go to a church that was like 5,000.
And I do miss the, I guess, like the amount of stuff that you could go to.
Like, hey, on Tuesday night, we got this going.
On Thursday night, we have a Bible study.
On Friday night, we had, so like, there was always like an opportunity to like go meet people, go hang out.
And now when you're at a church, it's smaller and it's all families, it's a little bit like there are different things you can do, but I know for like the men, it's like, hey, come to the 6 a.m. men's Bible stuff guy.
My church does that too.
I always get emails straight.
Do you want to come to the men's group?
And I'm like, yeah.
And they're like, we're meeting at 7 a.m. on Saturday.
I'm like, no.
Yeah, so it's a little different.
I do miss the movie clips of having the pastor playing.
Oh, you miss Braveheart.
The Bible doesn't come to life unless you can miss the Braveheart's.
Was the mega church and your small church both reformed churches?
No, no, no.
The megachurch was more of a non-denominational type Baptist feel.
Are there reform reform churches?
I feel like most mega churches are like Baptists.
Are there megachurches of all the denominations?
I don't know that there's many, like, there's some that maybe may lean more reformed in like sodiurology or whatever, but I don't think.
Yeah.
I don't think there's any that are like super hardcore reform that would be a megachurch.
I don't think the conformed churches are really drawn in the crowds.
Yeah.
It's like, hey, you want to come here this organ and sing the psalm?
And I'm not saying it's bad, but it's like not, it's not the concert with the smoke machine and the lasers.
And I think that tends to be like the megachurch feel.
Like drawn in the big concert vibe.
Yeah.
You've written some Babylon B headlines.
What's your favorite?
Oh, man.
Being put on the spot.
I didn't see his question.
I did write one that got snoped.
That's one I always think about.
The California banning Bibles as assault weapons or something like that.
And so then Snopes, like the next day, I see an article from Snopes about it.
I'm like, hey, isn't that surreal?
I did that.
I'm just wondering who is out there that read that article.
It goes, is this real?
Did they really ban the Bible?
Because they think it's a weapon.
Yeah, yeah.
All right.
This is clearly a question Kyle wrote.
If you were on Geneva's governing council, would you have voted to burn Servetus at the stake?
Ooh, interesting.
I don't know what I just asked.
Okay, so John Calvin famously was a part of a council that voted.
Oh, that's the guy that he voted.
I don't think he was on the council.
I thought he was not part of the council.
Yeah, there was a city council, and then he was obviously like one of the ministers.
He was probably like the expert witness of like, you know.
He just clicked the barbecue.
So here's the thing.
Servetus, he was wandering, not wandering, but he was going around France and Geneva, Switzerland.
If anybody caught him, they would have burned him at the stake.
If the Roman Catholics caught him, if the Patrick, would you have burned him at the stake?
Thumbs up.
He gave a thumbs up.
So at that time, it was like the church and the state were very much one.
And it's like, if you were a heretic, it was like a civil crime.
And I think he wrote to Calvin.
He had correspondence with Calvin and Calvin wrote him back and said, do not come to Geneva.
I cannot guarantee your safety if you come here.
And so then he ended up coming, got arrested, and got tried and sentenced to, was a burning at the stake, I think.
And I think Calvin had tried to argue for like a lesser or a less painful death.
Yeah, so he argued for beheading.
Yeah, he was trying to make it quick and painless.
And he was like, that was nice.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
What a nice guy.
So like, I think people always slam Calvin like, oh, he murdered Cervetus, but I don't think he really had anything to do with the trial itself.
I could be wrong on that on the details.
So would you vote to.
Oh, I totally dodged that question, huh?
It sounded like a yes, like a reluctant, like a reluctant yes.
You would have voted to behead him, not sure.
Not burn him at the stake.
Well, this goes to like Jordan Peterson's point where he talks about like, if you were in Nazi Germany, you probably would have been.
You have to be aware that you have that capacity in you to have been on the side that wanted to kill.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's an interesting question for like any of us.
Like if we were alive in that time when the church and the state were basically one and you were raised that way to think of that like any crime against God is a crime against the state.
Like I think any of us would probably think, oh yeah, this is a good thing.
We should do this.
But as Americans centuries later, we're probably looking back going, there's probably different ways to look at this.
And I don't know.
So my answer is we're all predestined to believe whatever we hear.
Oh, okay.
There you go.
What brought you from being a libertarian to a classic conservative?
Hmm.
I was reading a lot of like Austrian economics guys.
I don't know if you're too familiar with that whole movement.
A little bit, but they're basically like the libertarian right-wing, like the Mises Institute guys.
They're all great people from my experience.
But I was reading like Murray Rothbard, Louis Guamises, getting very heavily into like economic theory and like following Ron Paul.
So I became a libertarian through Ron Paul, probably.
And then I started reading other things that made me question that.
So one thing like I started getting into Russell Kirk.
He's a real big traditional conservative, just kind of challenging like kind of like the presuppositions I had.
Cause I feel like libertarianism is a very it's a very logical system, but it's also in some ways, any system like that is going to have a circular logic to it.
So like if you accept this premise, then yeah, everything that you're saying makes sense and it goes around in a big circle.
Like, yeah, it makes sense.
It makes sense.
It makes sense.
So I think if you take out one of those pieces, like I think libertarians are all about the non-aggression principle.
Like this is the one thing that you can't question or think differently on.
And then everything's built upon that.
And I think reading Russell Kirk and some of the more traditional people like him, I started thinking of society as being more of something that God's created, that we're made for an enduring moral order.
I'm getting really deep on this podcast.
No, I like this answer a lot.
But yeah, we're made to be in society with each other.
We're made to have obligations to each other.
And I think that that kind of rubs against the whole premise of a libertarian society of it's all about me.
It's all about my rights.
And I only can give away my rights through contracting them away.
Or I'm probably phrasing that the wrong way, but the only way that you can have your freedoms restricted is through making some kind of social contract.
And I think I started thinking about it in a different way and kind of coming away going, yeah, I guess that doesn't really make sense to me.
Anyway, sorry.
I thought that was a great answer.
Like if you read the libertarian guys enough, like you get into Hopkins.
I think that's enough of an idea.
Oh, okay.
Sure.
No problem.
We all make dumb jokes.
Dan comes on and gives a very thoughtful answer.
That was one of the most thoughtful things.
And then he apologizes for it.
I'm sorry.
No, yeah, I think I got into Hans Hermann Hoppe, and he talks about covenant communities as a way of explaining how society could be constructed in this way.
And I think if you follow that back through history, I think that's kind of what we ended up doing, that the traditions and the institutions that we have today are from a long history of those kinds of arrangements.
So anyways, sorry.
All right.
Well, you have to.
No, don't apologize.
Stop apologizing.
This is one of the best answers we've had to any questions.
That's an amazing answer.
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
All right, well, we've thoroughly burned down at the stake, and we have some more questions, even harder-hitting questions from our subscribers that we're going to get to in the subscriber portion.
So stick around for that.
But first, we had a new video this week where Kamala Harris's aide gave an exclusive interview to us.
You want to go to that?
Somehow we landed the exclusive interview.
Kamala's aide.
Yeah.
They came to Babylon B first.
So let's hear this interview with Kamal Harris's aid.
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That's faithfulcounseling.com/slash Babylon B. There have been a lot of rumors about an alleged toxic work environment in the office of Vice President Kamala Harris.
Several Harris staff members have resigned, describing it as abusive and saying that people were, quote, treated like shit.
We have an exclusive interview with one of Kamala's longtime aides who insists the rumors simply aren't true.
Here's the vice president's communications assistant, Ashley Simmons.
Miss Simmons?
Hi, thanks for having me.
We've heard that the vice president's office is a difficult place to work.
What has your experience been like?
Look, these rumors are ridiculous.
It's a bunch of right-wing media lies spread by haters and trolls.
The vice president's office is not only a wonderful place to work, but a rewarding one.
In fact, there's no one I'd rather work for than President.
I mean Vice President Harris.
So Kamala Harris herself is a good boss because some have alleged that these problems are coming from the top down.
Don't be silly.
Kamala Harris is the nicest, kindest, sweetest, most generous, loving, pretty, intelligent.
Don't forget generous.
I said generous already.
She's the most wonderful person I've ever met.
Ashley, is there someone in the room with you?
Nope.
I'm here by myself, speaking entirely of my own free will and have not been coerced or threatened in any way.
Because according to interviews with 22 former employees, the workplace was described as tense, harsh, and dour.
No, it's a great place to work.
Super nice.
Not toxic or harsh or whatever.
Kamala's awesome.
She's America's sweetheart.
But one insider even said she has a short fuse and throws people under the bus.
Nope.
She has a great fuse and doesn't throw anything.
No temper.
No temper at all.
Kamala is extremely likable and good at her job.
Is Kamala there with you now?
That sounds like her laughing.
No, no, she's not here.
She's off fixing the economy or visiting the border or something.
Like Kamala always says, it's time for us to do what we have been doing.
And that time is every day.
That's definitely her laugh.
Is she angry at you?
Is she hurting you?
No, no.
Kamala Harris is the greatest boss of all time.
Are you under duress?
Blink twice if you're being held against your will.
It's terrible.
I'm being held against my will.
Please send help.
Miss Simmons, we seem to have lost the video.
When we come back, we'll look at the rising unemployment rate among Kamala Harris's staff.
Oh, that was so good.
Oh, man.
Oh, man.
Good stuff.
I love just the perfect timing of the things bouncing off the body.
Did you notice the all enjoy that like landed in her shirt?
Someone in the comments commented on that when we posted the video initially because that was not planned.
It was clearly like just landscape and then she just goes like stayed there.
Yep.
Looks down at it and then it seemed just like perfect.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was so funny being in the office when that was being filmed because like I'm trying to work on a document on my side of the office and I just hear boom, boom, just stuff being thrown and hitting the walls.
And it was so funny.
Who is the arm throwing?
Bettina wasn't there.
She had a good arm.
She pelted her like right in the forehead or something.
It felt like she was letting out a lot of aggression.
Yeah.
And we brought in Chandler, so Bettina was not taking her aggression out on any of us.
It was the higher health.
Yeah, I wonder if we told Chandler ahead of time, like, hey, by the way, this is the scene.
She saw the script.
I don't know if she's new.
You really picked up.
What items would be thrown at her.
Hey, we're going to interview Justin Briarly now.
And he is the host of the unbelievable podcast.
Unbelievable?
Smart guy with a British accent.
And he talks to atheists all the time.
Great interview.
It was awesome talking to him.
Let's check it out.
And now for another interview on the Fee Weekly.
I guess just to get started, Justin, how did you come to faith?
You kind of have an interesting story growing up, charismatic, non-denominational.
And then it sounds like you had a similar experience to mine because I was in high school and just kind of had that experience of like growing up Christian, but then had that moment of like, you know, making my parents' faith my own.
And I read that here and that kind of connected with me because that is, it is interesting.
You know, you go and you listen to people that are giving their testimony and they always have the cool like prison tats.
And, you know, I was chewing on some cocaine and then I came to the Lord, you know, like, and we don't have that.
So, but it is an interesting story in its own idea.
Well, well, as a dad of four, I want all of my kids to have really, really boring testimonies that I aim at life, basically.
No, no prison spells.
No, I mean, yeah, we probably do share perhaps similar-ish stories.
Though, to be fair, here in the UK, being a part of a charismatic independent church is probably far more unusual than in the US, where, you know, there is a significantly larger Christian population generally.
But I was, you know, I was raised in a Christian family.
And as you say, very often when you're going to church as a child, that is the reason you go is because your parents go, they take you along.
It was only really in my mid-teens that it came alive for me that, you know, faith began to make sense.
It was particularly through the ministry of a youth pastor in my church and the youth group that I was part of that things started to fall into place.
And I did kind of have a wham bam moment, I would say, on a youth retreat when suddenly I felt like God hit me in a kind of powerful way.
And the lights kind of came on from that moment onwards.
Having said all that, you know, my wife came to faith in a completely different way, not at all a wham bam moment.
It was, you know, a gradual, you know, dawning of something that was there all the time.
So everyone's got their own story, haven't they?
But that was mine.
And in a way, it was only the start of the journey, though, as I'm sure it was for you.
Your faith grows, changes, matures over the years.
And, you know, I ran into, you know, some pretty big questions and doubts and that kind of thing along the road.
And that's all been part of the bigger journey of my Christian faith.
Yeah, I don't, I don't relate.
I never had any doubts.
So always been 100%.
I'm just on board, man.
Now, did you find when you sort of were raised with some faith, but weren't, you know, it wasn't this sort of deeply devout faith, did you find that you had more doubts and questions before your sort of wham bam moment?
Or in sort of developing your own faith more deeply, did that lead to more doubts and questions?
It was definitely sort of in my late teenage years and early 20s, I'd say, that the big questions came along.
And partly just because I kind of moved into the more adult world, you know, of university.
I went to Oxford University.
And while there's a very strong Christian presence there, in fact, a great, you know, Christian movement really among students in Oxford, it was still, I was still surrounded by a lot of atheists, skeptics, people who asked tough questions of my faith.
So that was probably a testing time, a time when doubt came along and I had to start thinking through some of the big questions around Christianity.
Because up to that point of going off to university, I think I'd essentially lived off this experience I'd had, if you like.
And it was really through university and then into my early adult years that I really started to engage in what you might call Christian apologetics and theology and that kind of thing, which I didn't know it at the time would turn out to be, you know, the career that I would pursue in the end, at least through broadcasting and so on.
But I think some of those early experiences of butting heads sometimes with people who didn't share my faith was quite instrumental in helping me to engage with the questions later on, you know.
We kind of live in this culture of echo chambers where, you know, everybody just goes and listens to the side that they agree with.
You know, Christians listen to Christian podcasts because the Christians hosting the podcast agree with them and will affirm everything that they believe.
And I don't know if that's getting better or worse, but that does seem to be kind of the prevalent attitude, you know, is that you go and you go cling to your own.
So kind of what you do with unbelievable and we couldn't figure out if we're supposed to say unbelievable.
It's a question mark.
It's a question mark.
But so that's interesting to me that you do, that you, you know, that you kind of open yourself up to hearing these different viewpoints and being involved and watching these debates.
And I don't know, what does that do for you?
Do you like that?
Yeah, I mean, that was really the whole purpose of starting the show, really.
And yes, I agree.
I've never quite known myself whether to end it, you know, with an inflection at the end, but it's got a question mark in the title precisely because we wanted to have a space where people could honestly ask questions in both directions, you know, Christians to non-Christians and vice versa.
And I completely agree.
In fact, I think at the time I started the show, I didn't realize just how pressing the need would become for having that kind of a place where you would get both sides together because, you know, at the time, we didn't have social media, you know, when the show began sort of 15, 16 years ago.
But all of that has just heightened the kind of tribalism that now exists, sadly.
And so even though we've got more opportunity than ever to hear from different perspectives, we tend to be more dismissive than ever.
And so having a kind of just an hour where two people have maybe very different perspectives, either on the Christian, non-Christian side, or even between two Christians who just hold very different perspectives on an issue, it's turned out to be a really important space.
And it's not always a comfortable space.
And sometimes you, you know, there's a reason why places where people just hear from their own echo chambers are so popular is because that appeals to us.
You know, it appeals to us to feel like I'm in the in crowd.
I'm in, I'm on the right side.
And everything that's being told to me is kind of affirming that.
And there's a place for, you know, hearing from your own tribe and so on and getting together.
But if you never are hearing from someone else and engaging in that kind of dialogue, I think that's a very dangerous thing.
And so I've been really pleased that the show has been able to provide that kind of a forum for so many years.
Cool.
Do you ever have a difficult time when getting guests on who disagree because they maybe don't want to be challenged?
I know you've talked before about in some of your, when you've watched like Richard Dawkins and stuff like that, there are people who sort of avoid engaging with the strongest argument that comes from the other side.
Now, on your podcast, like you kind of want to engage with people with the sort of strongest disagreements and have a dialogue about that to kind of work through those issues.
Do you find it that it's that it's ever been harder, that it's getting harder or easier to get people on who have the sort of strongest and most well-thought-out disagreements?
Well, it all depends on the individuals.
And sometimes you'll find that the folk who are maybe the happiest to declare their views online without really having to go up against anyone aren't so happy to come on and sort of defend them when it comes to an in-person dialogue.
Others who are, you know, who are all about, you know, getting involved in the discussion, the dialogue.
So, so it varies from person to person.
I mean, there are certainly people that I've invited on who are probably the best known people in their area, either Christian or atheist, who I've been saddened when they've said no.
And to me, what seems like pretty shoddy reasons, you know, that effectively they just don't want to be challenged in public on some of these things.
But having said that, there's lots of people out there who are willing to go toe-to-toe with the other side.
I mean, that's not to say that all the shows are kind of about these diametrically opposed perspectives.
You know, a lot of the shows actually, you might still have people who are on different sides of the aisle when it comes to Christianity and atheism, but may actually have more in common than you think.
And, you know, you can have quite an interesting conversation with someone maybe who shares a lot of the same values, but just doesn't believe in God or has a particular perspective that makes them maybe open to Christianity, but they're not convinced.
And so we do a lot of those kinds of discussions as well, where actually people are maybe a little closer together, but still aren't on the same page, you know.
Yeah, that's interesting.
It does feel like, you know, I don't know, we're in a different place culturally than we were 20 or 30 years ago, where we do find a lot in common with people who stand up for similar ideas that we do, and yet we disagree on fundamental questions about, you know, God's existence and faith and all that.
I'm curious.
And I was going to say that that's kind of been one of the most interesting areas, I think, that we've had on the show in recent years.
And I'm actually in the process of writing a book along these lines, which is that there's been a confluence actually between Christians and certain sort of secular thinkers, actually, who are sort of worried about the rise of, let's say, woke culture and that kind of thing.
And it's interesting that if you like, there are interesting bedfellows now between some conservative Christians and if you like people who are more on the conservative end of the secular culture and are not Christians by any stretch, but are nonetheless very much more open to talking with Christians who share their concerns.
So one example is I was out in LA about two years ago and did a show with Dave Rubin at a church.
And Dave Rubin, as I'm sure many of you are audience aware, is a popular kind of, you know, anti-woke sort of conservative sort of YouTube host.
But, you know, he's a married gay man.
He's not a Christian.
But he was really happy to come on a stage and have a dialogue with a well-known Christian thinker, Professor John Lennox, in front of a crowd of primarily Christians at this church.
And he got on with them like a house on fire, you know.
And it's kind of interesting because you wouldn't necessarily have seen that dynamic five or 10 years ago.
But I think circumstances have changed in our culture where actually a lot of those figures feel more of a kinship, ironically, with many Christians than they do with their secular left, you know, more left-wing brethren, if you like.
Correct.
That was the correct answer.
Is British food as bad as we've been led to believe?
It's probably much worse than you've been led to believe, I'm afraid.
But no, no, I mean, it depends what you mean by British food.
I mean, most here in the UK, one of the most British things you can have is a curry, which obviously is not really native to England originally.
But it's almost, you know, one of the most British things you can eat is a curry from your local Indian takeaway.
Yeah, when I was in London, I only ate at Indian restaurants.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
So how can a loving God create British food?
Check me out.
Because fish and chips are evidence of God's existence.
Anyone needed it is why.
I've got to say, guys, you know, you can make fun of British food, but I've been in the US and a lot of the food there, if I'm honest, once you've been there for a couple of weeks, you're like, I'm not sure I can take another burger and a, you know, and there's no, you guys don't have vegetables.
I don't think you've discovered vegetables yet, but we definitely have more vegetables here in the UK.
Oh, we have fries, which is vegetables.
Right.
Yeah.
One of the great discoveries when I was last in the US was in and out burgers.
So you've got that on us, that's for sure.
Yeah.
I like this guy.
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When you have had guests on your podcast having these dialogues, have you had any guests on that have changed your point of view or your mind on certain issues?
Yeah, for sure.
I think, you know, you can't host a show like this for 16 years and it not make a difference to the way you think about things.
It may not be that things got radically changed.
It's more that a lot of things crystallized that maybe you hadn't really thought about that much or you kind of weren't sure what you believed on something and you end up coming to a belief.
But one example of an area where I'd say my beliefs theologically have changed over the years as I've engaged in some of these discussions would be, for instance, on the issue of hell.
Now, probably when I started the show, I came from a perspective which many people might call eternal conscious torment, which is the view that, you know, hell is a place of everlasting conscious torment.
And I've been persuaded in the years of doing the show by a different perspective, which is called annihilationism.
It's the view that there is a final end to those who don't trust in Christ.
And that's a position that has been held by many, many Orthodox Christians for a long time.
But it's one example of a place where I would say my theology shifted because I did end up being convinced, you know, by because of hosting some of these debates between different perspectives on this and finding that actually there's a really solid case in my view, scripturally, ethically, and so on for that perspective.
Now, by and large, I think those kinds of issues, for me, count as kind of secondary, if you like, in Christianity, and there's room for disagreement on those.
When it comes to the core beliefs, if you like, the things that really define Christianity, I'd say my views have become more nuanced on some of them.
But if anything, I've become more confident in the central claims of Christianity through doing the show, because I think there is at the heart of this a very defensible, intellectually credible case for Christianity.
And that's been one of the most exciting things to discover along the way.
Interesting thoughts on hell.
Yeah.
Wrong, but interesting.
So in annihilationism, is it like they will sort of there's an end to their existence?
Do they get tormented for a while and then they get blown off?
It's sometimes given the more technical term, conditional immortality.
And it's the idea that, you know, just as you were created, you aren't created to be an eternal being.
Eternal life is the gift of God.
So those who choose not to, not, you know, who choose against God, as it were, they give up that.
And the, and obviously, the.
Where, you know, the eternal conscious torment perspective has come from has often been the interpretation of certain verses in scripture where it talks about there being uh, smoke that goes on forever, the unending fire and that sort of thing.
Um, but many, many have argued, you know and there there, there are many books, articles and more written about this that that really what those images suggest is is an end.
You know, fire is something that ultimately destroys um, and and I, I think there is a very strong case in scripture that actually uh, that that that perspective on hell makes sense to me um i'm, i'm happy to be proved wrong um, and obviously I get on very well with all my eternal conscious torment friends, but the um, for me, that's what we refer to ourselves as.
That's right.
So, in your view, like atheists may get to blink out of existence, just like they've always wanted to, in a funny way yeah, I mean that that is the result is is, is that in in a funny way?
And their last thought, before nothing is, I was right and then nothing I I, I don't know.
I mean, I think what ultimately?
You know, there are different theories, even within the annihilationist perspective as, as you can imagine, and there are those who would say that there is still some kind of an afterlife for a period in which someone who has not trusted in Christ gets to see the, the result, but it's not a never-ending sort of, so there may be some kind of form of punishment that that exists.
In all honesty, i'm i'm somewhat agnostic on exactly what happens in in the end it.
My view is that what is ultimately described in scripture is a kind of an end to everything that ultimately goes against god.
Um, I don't believe there's going to be a square inch of of heaven and earth that that is still in rebellion against god.
Ultimately, I think it will be extinguished.
But the that, that that's, you know, the perspective that I now hold.
Um, as I say, it doesn't, it doesn't, define my Christianity, but it's one area where I would probably take a difference with with other Christians.
You know, in the, in the evangelical church, we all kind of mock the terrible atheist arguments for god that we come across.
Um, you know, online you get a lot of the flying spaghetti monster.
Or you know, you have the fly, you have the magic sky fairy god, whatever up in the sky.
Um, what is the absolute worst argument for atheism that you've ever heard, and what's the worst argument for Christianity that you've ever heard?
Someone deliver?
Oh, I mean what?
What I mean?
I think one of the worst arguments for atheism is basically the one that I quite often come across on Twitter, which is stating the current year.
That seems to be the way, you know, haven't you heard it's 2022?
That seems to be a pretty common argument.
It is unfortunately a really bad argument for atheism because when you say, I believe in God, and someone replies, you know, it's 2022.
How can you possibly still believe that?
I think that's one of the possibly the worst arguments for atheism.
But I mean, otherwise, yeah, there are just bad, bad arguments.
You know, essentially, I think both Christians and atheists can be guilty of what's sometimes called the genetic fallacy, which is the idea that I can dismiss a belief because maybe I, you know, I can say that it came from somewhere, you know, like, for instance, well, you were just grew up in a Christian family.
So therefore, I don't believe in your Christian faith.
You know, the EU was just handed down to you.
Now, that may be true, but that does not in any way disprove Christianity.
It's the genetic fallacy.
It's the idea that if I can show where your belief came from, it means the belief is false.
Well, Christianity can be completely true, even if you ended up believing it for fairly weak reasons.
You know, it doesn't stop it being true.
Likewise, for an atheist, it cuts both ways.
An atheist could be an atheist simply because that's the cultural family that they grew up in.
That doesn't have much to say about whether or not there's a God.
It's just, it just happens to describe the circumstances in which they, you know, came to their particular perspective on the matter.
So I'm always encouraging people to kind of, you know, ditch those kinds of arguments and actually get to the core stuff about whether there is a case for Christianity, whether there is a case for atheism, and kind of move beyond those kinds of somewhat shallow ways of looking at it.
And then conversely, would you say, are there arguments for both Christianity and atheism that you've found to be like the strongest in sort of challenging people on the other side?
For sure, yeah.
I mean, I have my favorites, you know, when it comes to Christianity.
I find, for instance, the moral argument for God a very powerful argument.
So very briefly, the moral argument is the kind of argument really that persuaded C.S. Lewis to convert from atheism to theism.
And it's the view that if we believe that there really is such a thing as justice in the world, that there really is such a thing as moral evil and moral good, then there has to be a moral lawgiver.
Because on an atheist perspective, on a naturalistic perspective, all that really exists is just matter in motion, the forces of nature.
There's no such thing as right or wrong, good or evil in the end.
The universe just is the way it is, and you just have to accept that.
And the reason I think the argument is so powerful is because none of us live life that way.
None of us live as though actually, you know, all our beliefs about right and wrong are just a kind of the happenstance of the way evolution happened to hand down, you know, things.
We all believe that some things are really right and some things are really wrong, you know, that, you know, and this, you know, this is where I find it sometimes amusing almost because, you know, I, again, on Twitter the other day, someone responded to a video we put up who was quite an ardent atheist and said, it's ridiculous to believe in an immaterial realm.
And I looked at the guy's bio and he said, I'm a strong believer in human rights.
I was like, like, that's the biggest contradiction you can get.
You believe in an immaterial concept called human rights.
Where do these rights come from?
Where do they exist?
They don't exist in the atoms or the molecules of this world.
They have to have, and if they exist, then they have to exist somewhere beyond that.
They have to have a transcendent source.
Me, that source is God.
I've never heard an argument that explains why we have this deep-seated belief in the objective nature of right and wrong, of moral values and duties.
So, for me, that's one of one of the strongest arguments, I think, for God.
It's not necessarily the easiest to grasp, but for people who do see it, I think it hits very hard.
You know, people like C.S. Lewis, and I know many others for whom it's been an important sort of part of their intellectual journey.
On the atheist side, I guess, you know, the problem of suffering and evil is always one of the key ones.
And that is never an easy, you know, problem to answer.
I think there are answers, but ultimately, it's such an emotive issue, especially if you're witnessing, experiencing suffering.
Then, yeah, I can fully understand why someone looking at some of the rubbish ways that the world is would say, I can't believe in a God who would allow this.
You know, even worse than British food, there are situations that cause people.
And I get that.
I get that.
The irony is, of course, that actually, for some people, suffering actually propels them towards God, not away from God.
So it doesn't always have that effect.
But inevitably, that's one of the hardest arguments.
It is interesting that it's still one of the hardest because it seems on one level to be the most basic and common, fundamental one, but it is very persistent.
And it's the one that I think, on an emotional and spiritual level, causes the most conflict and trouble within individual people, I think.
Well, not for me.
Yeah.
For people who have never had doubts, yes.
Yes.
Because you've never suffered at all either.
It's just, it's all been easy, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's true, though.
I think the problem, it's not that it's not possible to answer the problem.
It's just that when you do, you can sound really cold-hearted when you just basically come back with a philosophical argument to someone's deep-seated pain or suffering.
And as I say, that's why it's more than just an intellectual argument against God.
It's a kind of, you know, for many people, it's an incredibly emotional argument.
And for that reason, that is what makes, I think, one of the hardest arguments because you can't just go at it with intellect and reason.
You kind of have to take people somewhere else if that's really their main argument against God.
Are you allowed to have knives in the UK?
For cutting things in kitchens, yes, but not really supposed to carry them around on your person in public.
Interesting.
Why do you ask?
I don't know.
I was just curious.
We're as curious about British culture as we are about atheism and Christianity.
When God speaks to British people, does he have a British accent?
Well, I would have assumed he had one wherever he speaks to people.
I've seen British United.
Yeah.
No, I mean, it's funny because, to be honest, because so much of our media is American, I suspect that my kids probably think that if God speaks anything, it's probably with an American accent, to be honest.
So, you know, that's just one of those things where you've infiltrated all of our media and we can't escape it now.
Yeah, to us, British accents either sound like God or a villain.
Yeah.
And it depends whether it's like the hybrid or like the cockney.
It can sound very like no matter what you say is intelligent and correct, or it can sound like whatever you're saying is just crazy.
I noticed this in US films.
Like so many of the villains are these sort of possibly spoken English people, aren't they?
And is it because it kind of denotes some air of incredible cunning and intelligence that could be used for dark purposes?
Is that basically why?
That's it.
Wow.
Yeah.
One of the best things about having a show that is widely listened to in the USA is it automatically somehow boosts my intelligence perception among my US listeners.
I frequently get this, that just having an English accent, apparently, automatically means it's assumed that you're more intelligent than you actually are.
Isn't that the Dawkins strategy?
All of our viewers right now probably correctly think you're smarter than either of us are.
Christopher Hitchens strategy.
It's very unfair because, you know, people with posh English accents can talk just as much rubbish as people with American accents.
But I'll take it if it's being handed to me.
I had another question about when you're talking to atheists.
So we're all Christian here and we come at this from a Christian perspective.
When you're speaking to someone who is atheist or agnostic, is kind of a non-believer in any religion.
Is there something that if they're questioning or if they're starting to be drawn towards faith would draw them to Christianity or be a stronger argument from Christianity than them moving towards another religion or another Abrahamic religion even?
Yeah, I guess every individual is different.
So you'd have to find out what the background sort of of that person tends to, why they get drawn in a particular direction.
I mean, in my experience, when I engage with adult converts to Christianity, very frequently, it's been a combination of factors.
It's very often that they know a Christian who has had an impact on their life and they've been able to engage and dialogue and everything else.
Now, would that be the same if it was a Muslim or someone else?
I don't know.
Perhaps there is to some extent, you know, culturally speaking, Christianity, even though we live in a very post-Christian West, it's still, if you like, the underlying current.
It's the assumption, if you like, that exists there.
And other forms of religion can still seem a bit alien or unusual in that sense.
I think, though, the thing that I tend to find, you know, my theory as to why people probably gravitate towards Christianity rather than another religion when they do is simply that the person of Jesus is a very attractive one and far more attractive that I would say than the founders of any other religion.
And there's something about that character, as revealed in the Gospels, that still speaks to people in very powerful ways.
And for me, that's, you know, that shouldn't necessarily be surprising because to a large degree, the West, you know, all of the cultural assumptions we have about human dignity, value, equality, and so on, have basically been given to us by Jesus, that the Jesus revolution, the Christian revolution, even though hardly anyone in the secular West now recognizes it, we are basically living in the wake still of the Christian revolution from 2000 years ago.
And so when people discover the source of that, I think it often wakes people up to this was the missing thing, if you like.
And you won't find that source in Eastern religions or in Islam.
So that's the interesting thing for me.
And I'm just in the process of writing a book that kind of touches on this.
And one of the people I've featured on the show quite a bit recently in recent years has been a guy called Tom Holland, not the Spider-Man actor, but he frequently gets confused with him on Twitter, though.
But he's a fascinating British historian who's written a huge book called Dominion on the history of Western Christianity, basically.
And he came from a very secular place as a historian to now basically saying, I came to realize actually my study of the Greeks and the Romans, how completely alien those cultures are to me.
And the only reason I believe everything I believe about what it means to be human today is because of Christianity.
And that has led him onto a very interesting journey towards the Christian faith and recognizing how completely culturally Christian he is and then investigating the actual, you know, Christianity itself and coming to find that it has some very powerful attraction to him.
And I think, you know, I think that there's a reason why when secular materialism kind of runs dry eventually and people realize it doesn't deliver meaning or purpose into their lives.
I think Christianity will be waiting in the wings.
And I think that's been the history of Christianity.
There's been these sort of cycles of revival and then things tailing off as generations kind of forget about it.
And then it comes back suddenly.
And I think that could be around the corner because I think people are increasingly aware of how little secular materialism actually offers.
And people often, when they only look, discover the riches of Christianity are waiting for them in its place.
I like your question because it implies that you would go like interview an atheist or witness to an atheist and then you're like, oops, I made him a Jehovah's Witness.
Or why would they be?
Yeah, exactly.
You convinced me.
I'm a Muslim now.
I had a co-worker who was a Mormon and I was like witnessing to him.
And then he became an atheist.
So I argued too hard.
Is that closer or further?
I don't know where the scale is.
There should be a scale of religions.
You got to, like, right in the sweet spot.
You got to make him.
Yeah.
Well, we're going to move into our subscriber portion where we got a few more questions for you on apologetics.
I'd like to talk about NT Wright a little bit and aliens.
And then we're going to ask our 10 questions.
Oh, man.
The conversation was just getting going with Justin Brierly.
We have a lot more where that came from in the subscriber portion.
So check that out.
If you're not a subscriber, please subscribe today and you will get all the exclusive content.
We also asked Justin Briarly Gadi 10 questions, which is always a good time.
We're going to do some hate mail now before we jump to the subscriber portion.
I really miss Adam Ford.
This is from someone named Claudia on Instagram who messaged us.
And she says, I usually find your posts pretty funny, but I find the ones taking a jab at Christianity tasteless, to say the least.
That is blasphemy and not humor.
Is that really mutually exclusive?
Like, I feel like you could be blasphemous and humorous.
Do I need to put money in the middle?
No, I agree.
You could be.
I'm not saying it's right.
But there can be things that you would laugh at, but you'd be like, oh, that's blasphemous.
I shouldn't laugh at that, but I am.
But I also don't think everything that we do.
I'm curious if there was, was there a specific article she was responding to?
I tried to find out when I pulled this and MJ got it off Instagram DM, and I don't think it was like related to anything specific.
Because I don't really think making fun of like sort of Christian pop culture generally or church culture is necessarily blasphemous, but maybe, you know, there's a certain one that.
So I'm looking.
So this was sent to us on Friday, and I'm looking at our Friday articles.
And the only one that was like really targeted at Christianity was Christian Questions Faith After Receiving Wrong Order at Chick-fil-A.
So maybe that was the one.
No, I'm just kidding.
She's like, don't make fun of Chick-fil-A.
That's too far.
That's the blasphemy.
Thou shalt not bash Chick-fil-A.
All right, beautiful.
Well, we have some more bonus hate mail.
Our subscriber submitted headlines and a classic story of the week and some more questions for Dan and the rest of the interview with Justin Briarly coming up next in the subscriber lounge.
Are we ready?
It's a packed episode.
Yeah, jam-packed, man.
Let's do it.
I got to edit all this.
Coming up next for Babylon Bee subscribers.
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Or the idea that if you believe in predestination, why evangelize?
Illustration of what apologetics does.
It takes out some of the roadblocks on the roads to meeting Jesus, but you still have to want to walk down that road.