Latest / Brandon Fogal Evolution / #187 - Do Multiple Gods Exist in the Bible? Alex O’Connor & Dan McClellan Say Yes!

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#187 - Do Multiple Gods Exist in the Bible? Alex O’Connor & Dan McClellan Say Yes! · Brandon Fogal Evolution

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  So are there multiple gods in the Bible? Yes and no.
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  We're going to take a look at this. This is from Alex O'Connor and his conversation
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  with Dan McClellan. And they went through this pretty in depth through the Bible.
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  And Dan McClellan, I still don't know what he views really.
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  I don't know if he's a Mormon, if that's where he's coming from it.
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  But he reads a lot into the Bible.
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  And a lot of the things, he's a scholarly person. He knows his stuff.
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  But a lot of the things is it's it reminds me
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  of the whole bill clinton thing well it
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  depends on what the word is is kind of
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  thing it's like you can make anything say anything
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  you want that's my that's how i wanted to start it off but alex connor he's
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  kind of just pressing them he says they went through this whole thing and dan
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  dan is saying that there's multiple gods throughout the bible old testament
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  and new and that and that's it's just this amalgamation of all these things
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  There's no consistency. There's nothing there.
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  But in reality, what Alex is trying to drive at is, well, what do you actually believe?
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  And if you came from it from a Christian perspective or a monotheistic perspective,
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  how would you prove monotheism from the Bible? And that's kind of where they ended up on.
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  And it was pretty interesting to see what Dan McClellan said.
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  If you had to say what the strongest indication in the opposite direction was,
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  like if you had like a couple of minutes and your life depended on it and you
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  had to defend the idea that monotheism is definitely in the Old Testament,
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  what would you point to as the strongest case?
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  I would probably try to point to, in the Old Testament, I think I would struggle
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  a bit, but I think I would probably use what folks like Gavin use,
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  the notion that the God of Israel is being exalted so far above the other gods
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  that they are treated as some kind of, it's a qualitative.
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  Or it's a qualitative, not just a quantitative distinction.
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  And I think I would point to, in Greco-Roman period Judaism into the New Testament,
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  the fact that Judaism is characterized by non-Jewish and non-Christian authors
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  as odd because they only recognize one God.
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  There is certainly one God rhetoric that we find in the other literature of
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  ancient Judaism and early Christianity.
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  And I think that's where the best case is going to be made in the notion that
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  Judaism and Christianity are distinct and are distinguished by the other groups
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  because of the fact that they refuse to acknowledge or worship the other gods.
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  And I want to stop right there. So where he says.
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  The Yahweh God has been exalted. Now, I would grant you that there is progressive revelation.
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  The person writing the very first books of the Bible, he can't just throw it
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  all up and just say, here it is. We got everything covered.
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  I'm going to give you ultimate knowledge. I'm going to upload everything into
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  you instantaneously so you have everything perfect and you understand there
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  is this progression of revelation.
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  But it's like as we get further along and it's
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  the same author that is writing exodus that is the
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  same author writing deuteronomy and that's what a lot of the skeptics
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  will say that will they'll tear their hair out for if you say that because they
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  can't they can't imagine one person writing all these these first five books
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  of the bible there are editors i will grant that there are people that go in
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  because moses can't write about his own death obviously but the it's the the
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  same first five books of the Bible written by Moses.
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  And he is, he's putting together this whole like masterpiece of,
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  of, of revelation for us and for the Jewish people when he's giving that to him.
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  And he ends, what I would go to is Deuteronomy 6, 4, hero Israel,
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  the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. The Lord is one.
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  It doesn't take away that the fact that there are other in quotes,
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  gods, because there are little G gods that the creator Yahweh made,
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  that he made those gods, that they are there.
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  And there's the rebellion and there's the ones that stayed, that stayed true,
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  the divine counsel kind of thing that, that, that is a real deal,
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  but it doesn't take the fact. And it's not that God was exalted.
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  He like, he, he did so much. And that's kind of like, I'm thinking that he's
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  kind of Mormon or something like that, that he He did so much to attain Godhood.
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  And he's always evolving kind of thing.
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  Rather, God just is. He is exalted.
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  He didn't become exalted like
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  this exalted man up there, but he is that and he always has been that.
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  But when we think about like, because there's, this is coming back into the
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  flow of the conversation of whether the universe is eternal and all that.
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  And like, it like matter is eternal and like the, the, everything that the,
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  the molecules and the atoms in this universe, they always existed.
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  You know, the material universe always has been there. I don't,
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  I don't know about all that in my head. I don't think so.
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  I don't think it has, but when we come to God, he has, whether he is creating
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  things, because who he is, he sees everything perfectly. He sees what it's going to be.
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  So in his mind, all these things have existed.
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  It's not God is just coming up with some new information, something new out of the blue.
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  Nothing has ever occurred to God. He didn't just come up with something randomly. He's always been.
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  But as creatures, that's the thing where we get into creature and a creator.
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  And the biggest thing in the Bible is that all things were created by God. They were created.
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  And if they were created, that means there was a point when they were created.
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  But it gets complicated because in God's mind, they've always existed because
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  he is who he is. He doesn't change.
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  He doesn't change. So in God's mind, they've always He's been there.
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  He did nothing new ever popped into his quote unquote head.
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  So it's like, he knew you forever. He knew the universe he was going to create
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  forever. It's just now, you know.
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  Happening in front of us. It's actually now as from a creaturely perspective,
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  we're seeing moment by moment events take place.
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  They were very cordial and nice through this because they both kind of don't
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  really believe in anything.
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  I don't know where Max McClellan stands on all this, but he's just deconstructing
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  everything into nonsense and oblivion that it makes no sense.
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  It makes no sense he can go into the text
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  and try to like pull out something and know the languages and kind
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  of and say that and all this but it doesn't really get
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  anything firm and he's just making it's just
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  it becomes nothing means nothing and there's nothing there and like we we're
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  we're just and i just watched a video with alex and it kind of came to light
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  that like i thought like it seemed like alex was coming more to like the christian
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  viewpoint because he's able to spout it all. He knows it. He knows the view.
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  And it just goes to show it doesn't matter how much knowledge you have.
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  It's something in you has to change. You have to like something, the lights have to go on.
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  It doesn't, you can know everything about Jesus in the world.
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  You could spend every day and night with Jesus in the world. Judas pretty much did.
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  And then he wanted to betray him because it's a nature thing.
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  It's like, it's something has to go on inside you.
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  And I think Alex is still not there because I mean, he's I guess you're not
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  there until you're there. I guess you're not there until you're there.
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  And it doesn't matter. Like, I mean, I can remember the moment before I became
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  a Christian. I was probably saying the stupidest things until the moment the lights came on.
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  Something has to change. I know it feels like that the way things are going,
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  I was just I was I've felt.
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  Like I wanted Alex, like, I just want him to become a Christian.
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  I just, I, because it, and it seems like he, cause like I've said,
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  it seems like the things that he says can almost get me fired up because he knows so much about God.
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  He's able to put it so eloquently and so great. And it means so much,
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  but then he still, he still hasn't, I guess, embraced Christ.
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  He still hasn't turned to Christ. I know this conversation about God.
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  Yes, there are multiple gods. you could say that, but there's only one big G, the OG, God.
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  He is the original.
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  He is the original. Everything else, he created.
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  So yes, there are these gods that he's made, but we will become,
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  in a sense, we get absorbed into the divine when we trust in Christ.
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  We get to partake in the divine nature when we trust in Christ.
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  You know, so and because I mean, through Old Testament to New Testament,
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  there is this there are many lords, there are many gods.
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  Yes, we see that. And when people were worshiping things in the Old Testament
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  and like they're worshiping idols, they are legitimately worshiping some beings that are out there.
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  They're really there, you know.
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  So but I want to continue just a little bit further because I wanted him to finish his thought.
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  I have a paper that's going to be coming out in an edited volume soon that will
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  talk about what exactly is going on with this one God rhetoric.
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  But I would probably try to prioritize that if I needed to convince folks that
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  monotheism is found in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament.
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  It seems like one of Gavin's strategies was to look at, I mean,
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  he lists on screen a bunch of quotes from the book of Isaiah.
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  I'm the Lord your God besides me. There is no savior.
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  Besides me, there is no God. Is there a God beside me? There is no other. There is no other.
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  Like listing. So they're reading, he's like saying like verbatim words from
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  like divine words from the old
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  Testament, but just, just saying it just so loosely and it means nothing.
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  So when God says, I am the Lord, your God, there is there.
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  And he says, there is no other God beside me.
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  How do you take that? He, God, that's the whole point of holiness.
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  God is holy. He is unique. He is other than anything, anything else.
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  He's the original, like I said, and there's nothing else that's going to be comparative to him.
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  But like Alex and Dan McClellan is just, they're reading through these passages
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  that like unequivocally state that he is God, that he is the ultimate God and there's no one else.
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  And he didn't just become that after doing millennia and millennia of doing
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  something, you know, to attain that.
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  He just is. And he's the one who created all these other gods that are out there.
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  They're out there. There are these, and they're his children.
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  They were his children, but then there's that rebellion, just like the angels rebelled.
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  And a part of them did that. We call them angels. That's just the moniker we've given them.
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  But we are children and we rebel. We're doing the same thing.
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  Everyone you see today is a child of God, but they're in rebellion against their
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  father, you know, and it's, you're not, you're in rebellion until you trust in Christ.
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  So that's where they're taking this. And I, I appreciate them looking through
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  this because nothing gives Alex more gratification and then talking theology.
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  And I've heard him say that He loves talking about it, you know, and it's fun.
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  And he's probably hearing a little bit of his father's voice and he's still not there yet.
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  And I think we just, it's just going to take a little bit more time until the lights come on.
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  I pray that the lights come on for him, that he would, because it's something
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  that's got to change in him, in his nature.
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  And I know to everybody else, it doesn't make sense. This doesn't make sense.
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  It's a foreign language to humanity that has to be uploaded into us.
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  Something has to change and it makes no sense to anybody until God turns on
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  the lights. All right, but either way, this was a good conversation by both of them.
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  I would say, like I've said, there are multiple gods, but there is one OG,
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  the original God, and that is Yahweh.
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  All right, we'll leave it at that. Follow me on X and Instagram at Brandon Fogle.
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  Have a great day. Peace, everyone.