Tag: religion on qanda

John Stackhouse on Q&A gives a great answer to a tough question (and explains why I’m not an atheist)

John Stackhouse is a very smart man. And a Christian. He was on Q&A last night and served up what I think is the only coherent way to reconcile the tension between the very broken world we live in, and all the bad stuff that goes on, and not just believe in the existence of a loving God, but follow that God. I had a stab at answering this question (sort of) in about 12,000 words. Stackhouse was much more succinct. So his answer is of significantly greater value.

The ABC will no doubt post a transcript in the next little while – but I typed this one out last night to share on Facebook.

Question: Professor Stackhouse, as you know there is a lot of strife in this world, in various places, including what one commentator called evil, the likes of which we have not seen in generations. Such evil is even being visited upon innocent children. And many Australians are beginning to feel a sense of despair. It’s tempting to ask why God hasn’t shown up on the scene to fix a very broken situation. But supposing he did what’s your sense of a just punishment for those who bomb, torture, rape, and slay innocent human beings. And by the same token what remains of a positive vision for peace.

Stackhouse: I think it’s an excellent question. We do have to presume, if we’re Christians, and people of similar outlooks, that God is mourning over the world, that God is not happy about these things and that God, is, in fact, as the ancient Scriptures say, keeping a log of these things. That nobody does anything in a secret place. God has maximum surveillance in fact. He does know what everybody is doing all the time. He knows the metadata and the data. He’s got it all.

TJ: Does he do much with it though?

Stackhouse: Well. That’s I think the crucial question. If God wants me to continue to trust him as an all good and all powerful God when he manifestly seems not to be one or the other or both, then he better give me a jolly good reason to trust him anyway. And God hasn’t given me any daily briefing on why he’s allowing the atrocities here, or the atrocities there, and they go back since the dawn of time.

TJ: Is that where faith comes in, because we know many holocaust survivors lost their faith when they saw the dark side of human nature, and realised that God was never going to intervene?

Stackhouse: Indeed. Post holocaust theology among my Jewish friends is a very daunting and very dark place, because for them there is no ground on which to continue to believe in God that is strong enough, to outweigh the grounds for not believing in God. And that to me is the real question. It’s not necessarily whether God explains to me what he’s going to do. I’m not sure whether I have the moral or the mental capacity to be able to judge whether God is doing a good job in the world. I think he’s not doing a good job often, but I’m not sure I’m capable to judge that. But if he wants me allegience, he jolly well better give me a good reason to trust him anyway. And. For the Christian. That answer is Jesus. That answer is looking at this figure who Christians believe is the very face of God. So if God’s like that, then I can trust this hidden God, who seems to be making a mess of the world. And if he’s not like that, then I’m in a difficult situation. So Tony, for me, as a Christian who looks at the world like everybody else does, if I don’t have Jesus, I frankly, better be an atheist because like my Jewish friends, post holocaust, God doesn’t seem to be doing a very good job running things.

August 12, 2014

How KRudd’s selfie-centred flip-flopping alienates the Christian right, left, and centre and shows he doesn’t get the Gospel

Did you catch last night’s Q&A? The Fairfax press is hailing KRudd’s exchange with New Hope Brisbane pastor Matt Prater as the “answer of the century.”

Kevin Rudd has lurched right on Asylum Seekers, and lurched left on marriage, and in the process has alienated those Christians – and I’d put myself in this category – who want to take the words of Jesus seriously when it comes to issues of justice for the oppressed, and the nature of the church/state relationship. Personally, I believe that marriage as God created it, is a lifelong union between one man and one woman, but I don’t believe my views should be enshrined in the legislation of a secular state where all minorities need to be protected and catered for equally.

While this election is something like a battle of the evil of two lessers – Rudd’s constant movements of his moral compass with the political ebb and flow on moral issues has me despairing for the nature of leadership in opinion poll driven politics – and despairing for the impact his soap box theologising has on how people understand what the Bible is about and what Christianity is. This is the big concern for me coming out of last night. Rudd just doesn’t seem to get the gospel.

He tried to explain his asylum seeker backflip in the earlier minutes of Q&A last night – but I missed that. I tuned in about 15 minutes after the show started. But it was when a pastor from Brisbane stood up and asked him a question about his flip-flopping on marriage equality that Rudd problematically made the shift from politician to theologian.

Slamming the pastor in the process.

It’s odd that you can get so much mileage from lambasting a position you held publicly until just three months ago – when KRudd made his move on marriage equality based on his theology (I’d say illegitimately) – rather than his political philosophy (which I’d say would be legitimate).

Here’s the video of the exchange.

Here’s the question Rudd faced. From the Q&A transcript.

“MATT PRATER: Hi, Prime Minister. I’m a pastor of a local church and work for a national Christian radio network. Most of the listeners and callers we have had in our radio station have been saying they won’t be voting for you because they’re disillusioned because you seem to keep chopping and changing your beliefs just to get a popular vote with regards to things like marriage. Why should we vote for you?”

I’m sad he didn’t say “like marriage and asylum seekers”… but the question is what it is.

The video makes for awkward viewing – and I’m not particularly interested in the marriage debate. As outlined above. So lets focus on the claims Rudd makes about the Bible. Because that, ultimately, is where he’s winning praise outside of the church.

The ‘abnormality’ of homosexuality

“Number one, I do not believe people, when they are born, choose their sexuality. They are gay if they are born gay. You don’t decide at some later stage in life to be one thing or the other. It is – it is how people are built and, therefore, the idea that this is somehow an abnormal condition is just wrong. I don’t get that. I think that is just a completely ill-founded view. Secondly, if you accept that it is natural and normal for someone to be gay because that’s the way they are, then it follows from that that I don’t think it is right to say that if these two folk here, who are in love with each other and are of the same gender, should be denied the opportunity for legal recognition of the duration of their relationship by having marriage equality. If you accept that – if your starting point is that homosexuality is abnormal – I don’t know if that’s your view.”

Choosing the terminology one employs in a debate and forcing the person you’re talking to to adopt that terminology and all its baggage is a really horrible way to conduct a civil conversation. By framing the question the way he did, Kevin Rudd skewed the theological playing field. The normality or otherwise of a sexual orientation is irrelevant. We are all sexually broken because our sinful natures – which mean we sin naturally – taint every aspect of our being. That’s a pretty foundational tenant of the Protestant stream of Christianity. The relationship between being made in God’s image and being sinful is something Paul grapples with in Romans. It’s properly basic Christianity.

Here’s what Paul says in Romans 7, from verse 18.

“For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

This is the first point at which KRudd’s position poses a significant threat to the Gospel. If there is no dilemma – if what is natural is good, if what is natural is created and “what ought to be” – then there is no human dilemma. If sin is not natural then there is no need for humans to be rescued by God. There is no need for God to send Jesus into the world. There is no need for Jesus to go to the cross to deliver us and to redeem our nature. There is no need for the Holy Spirit to work in us, as Paul says it does in Romans 8:29, to conform us into the image of God’s son. Which leads neatly into the next problem with KRudd’s understanding of the Gospel.

Slavery, Born this way, and transformation

Here’s the follow up from Matt Prater.

“Jesus said a man shall leave his father and mother and be married and that’s the Biblical definition. I just believe in what the Bible says and I’m just curious for you, Kevin, if you call yourself a Christian, why don’t you believe the words of Jesus in the Bible?”

Here’s the next significant issue from Rudd’s answer.

“Well, mate, if I was going to have that view, the Bible also says that slavery is a natural condition. Because St Paul said in the New Testament, “Slaves be obedient to your masters.”

Ignoring the false link Rudd then draws with Slavery in America – let’s have a look at what else St Paul actually says about slavery. In 1 Corinthians 7. From verse 21

“Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t let it trouble you—although if you can gain your freedom, do so. For the one who was a slave when called to faith in the Lord is the Lord’s freed person; similarly, the one who was free when called is Christ’s slave.”

Rudd doesn’t seem to grasp his hero Bonhoeffer’s understanding of the Christian life…

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

If slavery is a “natural condition” as Rudd says the Bible says it is – then there should be no escape. And yet, here Paul calls those who are slaves to take their freedom if available.

The ability to change your state from bondage – your natural state or in this case literally being a slave – is a huge part of Paul’s understanding of the Gospel. Why should our sexuality be removed from this equation?

Here’s what Paul says about the outworking of our broken nature and the pursuit of freedom just a little bit earlier in that same letter to the Corinthians.

Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were.

This seems, from Paul’s logic earlier in Corinthians, and elsewhere (like in Romans), to involve a natural state – especially because of how he describes the transformation happening…

But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

This is the problem with the born this way argument. It makes people slaves to their nature – unable to exercise freedom to self-determine one’s identity – sexual or otherwise. It’s a horrible position to take. It pigeon holes people based on factors they can’t choose. The question often asked here is “what sort of God would create people who do the wrong thing by nature?” – but a question on the flip side that is rarely asked is “What sort of God would make people a slave to their biology or environment with no potential for growth or transformation?”

The answer, from Paul, is that the sort of God who does exist is a God who not only makes transformation possible – he equips broken people with the capacity to be transformed through his intervention in the world in the person of Jesus. Who offers transformation. That’s a pretty key idea in the New Testament – in fact I would say it is the BIG IDEA of the New Testament (and the whole Bible). This is the third problem with Rudd’s answer last night. The biggest problem.

The big idea of the New Testament is not about our love for others, it is about God’s love for us in Jesus.

“What is the fundamental principle of the New Testament? It is one of universal love. Loving your fellow man. And if we get obsessed with a particular definition of that through a form of sexuality, then I think we are missing the centrality of what the gospel, whether you call it a social gospel, a personal gospel or a spiritual gospel, is all about.”

The centrality of the Gospel – the word means “good news” and in the Graeco-Roman setting meant the good news about the arrival of a king – is the arrival of God’s promised king. Jesus. Jesus is at the heart of the Gospel – not “universal love” or “loving your fellow man” – these are outworkings of the character of God who reveals himself in Christ. These are the way we respond to being loved by God so much that he became human and died our death to offer us new life. This is how we respond once our nature is transformed. It is not something we are naturally capable of. It is not something that makes people “Christian.” It is not the Gospel. There is no social Gospel without the person of Jesus. There is no personal Gospel without the person of Jesus. There is no Spiritual Gospel without the person of Jesus.

The gospel is about Jesus.

It is clear Rudd doesn’t get this.

He should stop talking as a theologian and work at speaking as a politician.

September 3, 2013

Fred Nile gets my vote (on Q&A at least)

I thought last night’s Q&A was going to be a trainwreck.

The Christian panellist, Christian Democrat MP from New South Wales, Fred Nile, isn’t exactly presented in the media as being moderate and nuanced. Lawrence Krauss went toe-to-toe with John Dickson – one of Australia’s most impressive Christian thinkers, and while it was a bit of an agree fest, Krauss showed he was capable of being winsome and engaging. And he was back. The rest of the panel were window dressing for this fight – former British Anglican Bishop, the openly gay Gene Robinson was on as something like the middle ground between the two, and there were a couple of Australian pollies – Amanda Vanstone and Susan Ryan.

I was worried. I wasn’t going to watch. And then I flicked to the ABC at about 9:45. And caught this interaction…

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi, there Fred. I want to ask you when the suicide rate is so high in LGBT teens, when you use such hateful and disgusting language about them, do you not feel – or I think maybe you should – feel slightly responsible for some of this that goes on?

FRED NILE: I must object to that because I will give you $1,000 if you can find anywhere where I have said anything which is hateful or vicious about homosexuals. Okay.

TONY JONES: Okay. I think it is time to move on.

Fred was facing a pretty hostile group of panellists – even the other religious guy was against his clear presentation of the historically orthodox understanding of the gospel. He managed to be relatively gracious, speak of God’s judgment, and keep pointing the conversation back to Jesus.

I missed this bit… according to the transcript.

FRED NILE: Because I take, as my authority, Jesus Christ, the son of God, and also the living word and I believe that God gave to us the written word, the holy Bible and as a Bishop you would know the church for 2,000 years and longer has upheld marriage as it is and has also said that homosexuality is immoral and unnatural and so on. So you are going against the teaching of the church so you should be ashamed to be a Bishop and going against the teaching of the church.

TONY JONES: I’m just going to interrupt because…

FRED NILE: I am agreeing with (the transcript says “referring to”) that atheist over there.

That came after Gene Robinson had played down any meaningful distinction between religions.

GENE ROBINSON: I am actually delighted to respond to that question. It is the experience of the living God in my own life. That is why I stick with it. That is why I believe that the church, the synagogue, the mosque can constantly reform itself because God’s will is being revealed to us over time. We are constantly understanding better God’s will and this is one of those places where we are changing what we have believed for 2 or 3,000 years. I believe that scripture is holy in the sense that it is the story of people who have had an experience with the living God and we read it in order to know where to look in our own lives for an experience of the living God. And so I do believe in it. The Church has got a lot to apologise for but, then again, don’t we all? And I believe that this is the way to discern God’s will and I am thrilled to be a part of that.

I also missed this.

AMANDA VANSTONE: So you can be a nice person your whole life and still not get into heaven?

FRED NILE: That’s right. That’s right.

TONY JONES: Just excuse me for one second because…

AMANDA VANSTONE: It is not worth going there.

FRED NILE: Yes.

TONY JONES: …on this table we have two…

FRED NILE: To have eternal life you…

TONY JONES: Excuse me. Excuse me for one minute.

FRED NILE: …have to believe in Jesus Christ as saviour.

TONY JONES: Excuse me for one minute.

FRED NILE: There’s only one way.

Amanda Vanstone came back at him again…

TONY JONES: Just to sort of end this part of the discussion, can I just bring Fred back in here. I mean are you worried if you create an exclusive world where your version of Christianity leaves out people like Gene, that that is actually bad?

FRED NILE: Well, I’m not leaving him out. He is excluding himself. I haven’t left him out. I want him to come in.

TONY JONES: Well, in fact, he’s not excluding himself in the sense that he is a bishop with his own congregation.

FRED NILE: I would like you, at the end of this program, to say, “I believe in what you have just been saying Fred.” I hope he might do that.

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: But all the people who also believe in God but from other religions are also excluded, I presume. So basically you’re an atheist about all the other religions. It’s just yours you’re not. Is that correct?

FRED NILE: I leave it to God. He is the judge and he will judge each person.

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: So, no, but are they excluded? If you’re not a Christian but you, say, you’re a very faithful Muslim or a faithful Jew, are you excluded?

FRED NILE: I’m just saying God will judge them not me.

TONY JONES: Okay. We’ve got a…

FRED NILE: I know God is a loving God and God will be fair in his dealing with each individual.

And kept pushing that “good enough for God” wheelbarrow all the way up the hill.

AMANDA VANSTONE: I don’t know the details of the second case but they would seem, on what you have said, to be inextricably related. I mean the more you have people saying Muslims want to go and kill everybody, the more you have whipping everyone else up into a frenzy of fear and apprehension and a feeling that they must deal with this. So it goes back to what my granny said: if you lead a good life, you will get into any heaven worth getting into and it follows that you – you know, if I get up to Heaven and St Peters says, ‘Gee, you made a mistake and you went to the Anglican Church and you should have gone to a Catholic one or you should have gone to some other church,” I’m going to be bitterly disappointed because I went to a Christian school and I was taught the need to be a good person and not judge people, as you say, on labels. It doesn’t matter if they are Catholic or Anglican or Muslim or whatever. What matters is whether they are a good and decent person and that is how we should be dealing with each other. And once you start this, “Well, they’re Muslims. They want to kill you,” well, you’re separating it out, you’re getting into us and them and you will have battles, ugly ones, where people will be killed.

How wishy washy and meaningless. She didn’t pull her punches after Tony Jones had rung the bell for the end of the evening’s discussion though, hitting out with this low blow that Fred Nile couldn’t reply to.

AMANDA VANSTONE: Fred. Fred, I think I can help you with one thing at least and that is that any God worth following wants converts not conscripts. So religious people should stop looking to parliaments to conscript people into a belief that they don’t adopt.

That’s bad. It’s not very nice. It’s poor form. According to her view of salvation, she should be a little worried now.

Krauss on Labels

This was another bit that showed the intolerance of the New Atheists and the contrast with Jesus… this was in a discussion of the recent events in England…

FRED NILE:… I follow what Jesus said: love your enemies and that is the central teaching of the Christian faith. It’s not a source of violence against people at all.

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: Who are the enemies in this case? I just don’t who the enemy are. Are you saying Islam is the enemy? You know, the problem is…

FRED NILE: Well, whoever is attacking you…

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: Yeah.

FRED NILE: Whoever is attacking you, like in Cairo, burning down the Cathedral, that is your enemy. So you still love them but you try to change that society.

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: Part of the problem here, and I agree with, of course, what you just said, but we label people and religion is a wonderful way of labelling people and making us versus them. And so we don’t see the people, we see them being Christians or Muslims and we hate them because of that and so that’s another reason why, I think, religion gets in the way because it causes us to stereotype people instead of seeing people as individuals with a common humanity…

Tony Jones interrupts with something meaningless… and Krauss gets back on point…

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: The point is that obviously they were driven by hate. My point was that they were not killing that poor young man because they knew him, they knew anything about him. They had already labelled him by a bunch of labels: military, representative of a Christian state that had done supposed atrocities against Islam and that is the kind of labelling that leads people to be able to do these heinous acts because they no longer see people as people but representative of something they hate and that, to me, is one of the real problems of the us versus themness of religious groups that cause other people to no longer be people.

Then he lets this clanger rip. Holy contradiction Batman.

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: Steve Weinberg, who is a physicist and also an atheist, said that there are good people and there are bad people and good people do good things and bad people do bad things. When good people do bad things, it’s religion.

Where Nile went wrong

Nile wasn’t great on the homosexuality question. He was faithful. He tried. He tried to be loving. But he was just outclassed and out of touch on the origins of homosexual orientation. He argued that same sex attraction is a choice because it is changeable – when all that reveals is that change is possible, it says nothing about the origins of the attraction. What was interesting was that Krauss and Robinson had a bit of a disagreement – Robinson, “the gay Gene” (line of the night) suggested same sex attraction is a product of environmental factors that kick in before you’re three, which is consistent with just about everything I’ve read on the topic. Krauss “corrected” him, apparently he’s a biologist now, and there is a gay gene out there. Because some animals are gay. That’ll be news to people who’ve conducted twin studies.

I didn’t love his emphasis on the distinction between the Old Testament and the New Testament – the continuity is greater than the departure, and Jesus affirms the New Testament. It’s hard to present a nuanced account of the narratives of the Old Testament when the dices are loaded like they were in the questions, and when people have pretty strong preconceptions about horrible stories in the Old Testament, as though God affirms what is happening there. Like this exchange. Thanks for your objectivity and literary nuance Tony…

TONY JONES: Just like, in fact, you could take that psalm, which is out of the old testament, which suggests you could dash babies’ heads against rocks as part of a revenge against the Babylonians…

FRED NILE: Well, that’s the point I’m making, that that is no longer relevant in the new testament period. Jesus said that was the old covenant. We’re now under the new covenant.

The answer isn’t that that verse somehow applied literally once upon a time. The answer is to look at genre. Psalms, poetry, aren’t exactly known for being law. The Psalm does not say “you must dash babies’ heads against rocks”… nor is there any evidence that Israel was ever in a position where dashing Babylonian babies against rocks was a possibility. Perhaps, just perhaps, the Psalm is saying that Babylon is really, really, really bad. So bad that people who do things that sound really, really, really, bad to them are commended because they are so bad that such an act is good by comparison. That seems to make more sense of the text than a command to murder babies. Especially in its literary context, and in the narrative context (Israel’s history). Here is the offending verse…

7 Remember, Lord, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
“Tear it down,” they cried,
“tear it down to its foundations!”
8 Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is the one who repays you
according to what you have done to us.
9 Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.

This insensitivity to the context of passages in the Old Testament was demonstrated by panellists as well, so Krauss:

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: I am sure we will get to talk more about marriage but I want to go back to the questioner a little bit because it seems to me I actually kind of agree with him a little. I can’t quite understand why you stay in the church. I mean, look, you read the Bible and it’s pretty explicit. You know, there’s that wonderful section, really heart-warming, where Lot is visited by these angels, men and the town’s people want to take him on a raid and he says ‘No, no, rape my daughters instead,’ and, you know, it is one of the wonderful parts of the Bible. And when you read all of this and, you know, you read that men who lay together should be killed and all that, you know you can interpret it all you want but you’re sort of picking and choosing, I think. You decide you want to be a Christian and you throw out the stuff that you don’t like, like I think most Christians do, actually. Throw out the stuff you don’t like, keep the stuff you do. Why not just throw out the whole thing and just be happy and love people and be gay?

Lot’s actions aren’t affirmed in this narrative, you get the sense, if you’re a normal reader, that Lot isn’t held up as a paragon of righteousness here. Description isn’t prescription. This would be like me reading Krauss describing his version of Christian theology and ignoring the context and assuming that’s what he believes…

“People who are loving, caring, good people will go to hell.”

Or perhaps:

“Well, I mean, I actually think the worse crime in the new testament is the crucifixion of Jesus.”

The fuller context of these quotes is more fun than the misquoting game though…

Where Nile got it right – pushing Krauss on Jesus

The best bit of the night, for mine, was how incoherent Krauss looked on Jesus. He lost points a couple of times, and had the twittersphere turning against the snide new atheists with gems like this one…

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: Well, let me jump in and say – I mean we’re all pretending Jesus was this great guy but let’s step back and say this guy also seemed to say if you don’t believe in me you know what, you’ll be condemned. You know you won’t get to heaven. You’ll be condemned eternally to pain and worse than the people in Sodom and Gomorrah, just for not believing in me. What kind of God would you – I mean, you know, what kind of love is that? What kind of love…

FRED NILE: That was the…

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: People who are loving, caring, good people will go to hell for all eternity for choosing – choosing to have the – to use their brains and I find that just, you know.

Then there was this one…

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: Well, I mean, I actually think the worse crime in the new testament is the crucifixion of Jesus. It seems to me amazing that you solve the problems of the world by having someone sacrifice – by having this person violently tortured and sacrificed for the sins of a non-existent forbearer, who made a mistake of taking an apple from a rib-woman. I mean it just doesn’t seem to make sense.

TONY JONES: Okay. All right.

FRED NILE: Jesus was dying for all of our sins. Your sins and my sins and the victim’s sins.

And finally, what I think made the night worth the price of admission… or what would have if I’d paid to be admitted…

FRED NILE: I would just like to challenge Lawrence that the greatest fact is the fact of Jesus Christ.

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: How do you know?

FRED NILE: He is a reality and he came into this world to show us the way of salvation and he said in his own teaching…

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: Is that because he said he did?

FRED NILE: …”Who do you say that I am?” And so the question you have to ask who was Jesus Christ and what is his meaning – what is his meaning, his life to you and his death? You talked about the crucifixion. What does his death mean for you? And it’s a source of salvation. He died for our sins, the sins of the world.

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: Well, you know, when someone tells me they’re God I tend not to believe it. Okay. But, you know…

FRED NILE: But have you studied…

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: Hold on.

FRED NILE: Are you open-minded enough as a scientist…

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: I’m not even sure he was real, to tell you the truth.

FRED NILE: …to study – to study Jesus Christ and to study the new testament?

MULTIPLE SPEAKERS TALK AT ONCE

FRED NILE: Are you open-minded enough, I just…

TONY JONES: Fred. Fred. Fred.

FRED NILE: …would like you to give me…

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: When I was a kid…

TONY JONES: Can I just put this to you, the counterpoint: Are you open-minded enough to accept the Muslim position that Mohammed is the greatest man in history?

FRED NILE: I don’t believe he is the greatest man in history in the same way Jesus Christ was. Jesus Christ was the son of God and…

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: But that’s because you have decided he is.

FRED NILE: But that’s factual history. You can actually study that.

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: Factual history?

FRED NILE: There are documents, there are historical documents, that show that. It’s not a myth.

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: That show what: that he existed or he is the son of God?

FRED NILE: That he existed and how he was born and so on.

 

May 28, 2013