Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Jay Seegert: Two HUGE Skills Every Believer Should Practice
Transcript
- 0:03Welcome to Worldview Matters.
- 0:05Discussing controversial issues.
- 0:07Discerning current events.
- 0:10Defending biblical Christianity.
- 0:13No topic.
- 0:14Off limits.
- 0:16And now, here's your host, David Fiorazzo.
- 0:20Hello and welcome to another episode, friends, family in Christ.
- 0:23I'm so blessed to speak with the people that I get to connect with and we hear their expertise on whatever area, whatever the topics are.
- 0:32And today is no different.
- 0:33I do want to mention before I got on here with our friend Jay Siegert, who's going to be our guest today.
- 0:39We were talking about the conference that we just had, the Worldview Matters Conference today.
- 0:44and Olivier Melnick was one of the speakers.
- 0:47He just went on the Grand Canyon tour with Jay, and maybe I'll bring him in and have him talk to us a little bit more about that.
- 0:53I thought that was neat.
- 0:54So thestartingpointproject.com is the website.
- 0:58Thestartingpointproject.com.
- 1:02Got a great topic today.
- 1:03We're talking about conversations with people, the art of navigating skepticism with truth and grace, and we'll hopefully talk about a couple of huge topics
- 1:13skills that every believer should practice.
- 1:17Jay Seeger, welcome back to Worldview Matters.
- 1:19Good to see you.
- 1:21Hey, it's always great to be on the program, and I really enjoyed your conference.
- 1:26You do a very professional job, awesome speakers.
- 1:29I'm looking forward to next year.
- 1:30You've already got a lineup, great speakers.
- 1:33So I appreciate you doing what you do, and I appreciate your friendship.
- 1:36Thanks, Jay.
- 1:37It was a blessing to have you there and to have you connect.
- 1:40By the way, Olivier was at the conference, and he and Jay recently connected.
- 1:46And when we had Olivier on a week or so ago, he mentioned we did a little commercial for the Starting Point Project in your Grand Canyon tours, because he said that him and his wife connected with you and went to the Grand Canyon with you and took your tour.
- 2:00So tell us a little bit about that before we dive into the topic.
- 2:04Yeah, it was fun.
- 2:05I mean, our tables at your conference were close to each other.
- 2:08So we just started chatting and we just kind of hit it off instantly.
- 2:11Olivier is a great guy.
- 2:13And so I just said, Hey, you know, would you want to go on a Grand Canyon tour?
- 2:17He's like, sure.
- 2:17So we arranged that.
- 2:19So he showed up two tours ago and just...
- 2:22had a blast because the tours are so much more than looking at rocks.
- 2:27I usually tell my audiences, I think rocks are pretty boring in general.
- 2:31Now, when they're related to something like the flood and the authority of scripture, they become very interesting and exciting.
- 2:38But other than that, I don't take people on a Grand Canyon tour just to see a big hole in the ground.
- 2:42We do look at that.
- 2:43We talk about the flood, but it's all about the authority of scripture, that it can be trusted from cover to cover.
- 2:49And I actually have a list of 60 topics that I cover in addition to the flood and the canyon that are teaching people how they can know that God exists.
- 3:00Not just like, well, there's good evidence for design.
- 3:03No, you could know.
- 3:03You could prove that.
- 3:05God's existence, evidence for the Genesis creation account in Yes, Then the Flood, evidence for the inspiration of Scripture, how do you know it's the inspired Word of God, evidence for the deity of Christ, and then how to mentor your children and grandchildren, and even how to reach out to skeptics in a very gracious, sincere fashion.
- 3:23So it's just nonstop fun, family-friendly.
- 3:25We're not rappelling into the canyon.
- 3:27We're not whitewater rafting.
- 3:29But it's four days of nonstop fun and strengthening of your faith.
- 3:33I want to mention on your website, thestartingpointproject.com, there is a navigation tab that says Tours, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Devil's Lake.
- 3:45Is that in Wisconsin?
- 3:46Is that the Devil's Lake we're talking about?
- 3:48That's the one.
- 3:49I just kind of threw it in there casually.
- 3:52I'm supposed to do it in this summer.
- 3:54I got to squeeze it in sometime summer, early fall.
- 3:57But basically, Devil's Lake is in the Wisconsin Dells area for the listeners.
- 4:01And a beautiful area just to visit in general.
- 4:04But there is a hike you can go on when you're at Devil's Lake on the north.
- 4:08to the left, which would be the East Bluff.
- 4:10You hike into the woods, and within six, seven minutes, you come upon a rock formation that isn't very exciting, and everyone just walks past it.
- 4:20But that slab of rock is actually the same slab of rock that you see at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
- 4:28It's foundational earth rock.
- 4:30When the earth was formed, that was part of it.
- 4:32And then you can see the whole thing was just sheared off catastrophically.
- 4:36And then everything above it is sedimentary layers laid down by the flood.
- 4:40So if you go to the canyon, you look a mile down, you see the basement rocks and then all the flood layers.
- 4:45In Wisconsin, you can walk into Devil's Lake up on the East Bluff.
- 4:49You walk right up to it, put your hand on it, and then you can see where it was sheared off with sedimentary layers.
- 4:53So that's why we do a tour of Devil's Lake to talk about evidence for the flood and the ice age, even in Wisconsin.
- 5:00So we weren't planning on getting into this, but I just want to ask you, are you already booking for next year or, you know, can people sign up?
- 5:10Sure.
- 5:10We have seven tours this year.
- 5:12I just finished the sixth one.
- 5:15Our seventh one is already, it's been full for a long time in October.
- 5:19And we're not doing one in September just because in a few days I'm heading to the United Kingdom to speak.
- 5:24Then when I get back, I'm speaking to West Point officers at a retreat out in the hills of Pennsylvania.
- 5:30Then when I get back, I'm doing something else.
- 5:33And then, or yellow, I know.
- 5:36I'm leading the Yellowstone Jackson Hole Tour in September.
- 5:39And I get back from that.
- 5:40And then I finally do the final Grand Canyon Tour in October.
- 5:43So if they're interested in Grand Canyon, they'll want to get a hold of us.
- 5:47We generally like to work with groups that if someone says, hey, we have...
- 5:52a group that would like to go, you have enough people in your group, we could secure the dates for you if you want to fill the bus.
- 5:58That's 52 people plus my daughter and I.
- 6:02Then it can be just your tour.
- 6:03If you can't fill the bus, that's fine.
- 6:05We'll just open up the other seats to the general public.
- 6:07But they'll definitely want to get a hold of us now because we've already got, I think, at least four scheduled, and we can't do an infinite amount.
- 6:14So they want to get a hold of us.
- 6:15Yeah, the startingpointproject.com is the best venue to do.
- 6:20Awesome.
- 6:21So Jay's usually in studio.
- 6:23It's just really interesting seeing you with a background there at home and different environment, because I even have your pen here in studio.
- 6:30I'd be kind of going, I'd be spinning your pen and saying, Hey, Jay, we'd be talking, he's sitting right over in, because he lives, what, is it two and a half hours, roughly south of where we're at?
- 6:41Just under two hours, hour and 45 minutes.
- 6:44And I really wanted to come up and be in the studio, but I looked at my calendar.
- 6:47I just got home from the Grand Canyon, leaving for the United Kingdom.
- 6:50I was like, I should probably just do it from my home office.
- 6:53Yeah, you barely have enough time to get to the gym and work out.
- 6:56So I know you're really busy.
- 6:57There's a little inside joke there.
- 6:59Inside joke, yeah.
- 7:01He was on his way.
- 7:02So after this, Jay is going to go.
- 7:04So let's talk about any kind of skepticism as Christians.
- 7:09You know, it's something that we deal with just as humans, I think.
- 7:14But let's talk about the conversation.
- 7:16And you came up with the topic for this one.
- 7:19I really like it.
- 7:20So just let's walk us through this, Jay.
- 7:23What do you want to share about this conversation?
- 7:26Yeah.
- 7:27Sure.
- 7:27Well, quick background.
- 7:29A few years ago, I was just thinking over different things that are important to keep in mind when you're trying to connect with a skeptic.
- 7:35And I thought of one important one.
- 7:37So I just put it down on a piece of paper, a bullet point.
- 7:40And then I thought of another one.
- 7:41So I had two bullet points.
- 7:43Pretty soon I had a half a page and I had a full page of just bullet points with things that are important.
- 7:47things that are in addition to the facts, in addition to try to show design in DNA or something about the universe.
- 7:55So I was writing them down.
- 7:56Well, eventually I had two full pages.
- 7:59Then I had three.
- 8:00Then I had four.
- 8:00Then I eventually had 12 pages of bullet points of things that I have learned over the past 41 years of speaking that are critical, that if you leave them out, you're not going to be very effective, even if you have great facts, and you're going to be very effective.
- 8:15And so I thought, I need to record a video series teaching this, because it took me 41 years to learn all these things.
- 8:22I could teach it in one series of video talks.
- 8:26So we got together with a videography group.
- 8:30And we just finished recording it a few months ago.
- 8:32There are 20 sessions, and it's basically me talking to the camera, keeping it real simple, very personable, training people in these skills.
- 8:44And it's for all Christians, whether they're in—even grade schoolers would learn from it, but certainly junior high, high school, college, regular adults, grandparents.
- 8:54It'll make you much more effective in sharing your faith, again, above and beyond the facts.
- 8:59There are facts in the series as well, but most of it is just different skills that will help you connect better with a skeptic in a very gracious and caring way.
- 9:08Awesome.
- 9:0920, 20 sessions.
- 9:10You've already recorded these then.
- 9:12And so I know you're working out some logistics and where they're going to be posted.
- 9:17But what's the time frame?
- 9:19When can people start looking for that?
- 9:21We're hoping this fall we have finally sat down and done some diligence to figure out.
- 9:27It's kind of like the ready, fire, aim thing where we recorded it.
- 9:30It's like, well, now what do we do with it?
- 9:33We hadn't really decided exactly.
- 9:34So ideally, we would like it to be on a platform where people can sign up, start going through the sessions.
- 9:42And if you go halfway through one, it remembers where you left off.
- 9:45attracts your progress, plus probably offer certification.
- 9:49If you go through the whole thing and can submit some information, you've grasped the material and get certified in it, there should be a study guide that comes out with it.
- 9:57So those are a few things we need to figure out how to write the study guide, what format should it be, what platform do we use online for people to get to the materials, how do we market it.
- 10:07Those are a few things that we're grappling with right now, but hopefully this fall we will send out a newsletter saying that it's ready to go.
- 10:14Okay.
- 10:15And people can sign up for your newsletter at thestartingpointproject.com.
- 10:18I really want to title a future podcast, Ready, Fire, Aim.
- 10:22I really want to do that.
- 10:24So we have to put together a program that would go along with that.
- 10:28Maybe when you're evangelizing, Ready, Fire, Aim.
- 10:31And I think that's, put that on the back burner, Jay Seagert.
- 10:35Let's dive into this.
- 10:36I love this sentence that's in the notes that you sent me here.
- 10:39It says, facts are fine, but communication skills and a soft heart are much more crucial.
- 10:48Go ahead.
- 10:49Love that.
- 10:50Yeah, most people miss that.
- 10:52You just think, well, if you want to defend your faith, you better be ready to prove this and prove that and have all these facts.
- 10:58And again, when I got started in this 41 years ago, being at the State University, my physics professors and other science professors were telling me I was wrong about what I believed.
- 11:09And again, I realized I know what I believe, but I don't know why I couldn't defend the Christian worldview.
- 11:13Well, I had to gear up.
- 11:15And my way, naively and somewhat immaturely, was to gear up by putting more facts in my head.
- 11:21And so I started doing a lot of research.
- 11:23I got really excited about what I was reading, and I naively thought...
- 11:28If other people knew what I just learned, they're going to realize that their worldview was wrong and maybe run to church and worship Jesus.
- 11:35And it didn't work that way.
- 11:37I was what I call a fax machine, not a copier, just spewing out facts.
- 11:44And it just wasn't ineffective.
- 11:47And I was wondering, like, what's happening here?
- 11:48The evidence is so clear and powerful.
- 11:51Well, the power of an argument is in the academics.
- 11:57but persuasion comes from the heart.
- 12:00And we're dealing ultimately with a heart issue.
- 12:03And so if you are not connecting with a person in a tangible, gracious way, they're not gonna really care about your facts.
- 12:10And then there's a whole nother avenue
- 12:13Facts don't speak for themselves.
- 12:14They don't say anything.
- 12:16They need to be interpreted.
- 12:17So you throw some facts out there thinking these facts prove my point.
- 12:22They can look at the same facts and come up with a different conclusion.
- 12:25Why?
- 12:25Are they not smart?
- 12:26No, they're probably really smart.
- 12:29They have the wrong facts.
- 12:30No, they're the same facts you just threw out there, but they're interpreting it differently because they have a different starting point.
- 12:37That's why we're the starting point project.
- 12:39You will always use what you currently believe to interpret new stuff.
- 12:44So you can't just throw facts out there and expect that to be convincing because they're going to use their current worldview to interpret it differently than you.
- 12:52So you always need to get down to that starting point level because if they find out their starting point is an error or not a good thing to use, they're going to connect the dots and realize I'm going to come to the wrong conclusions using this.
- 13:03So the problem isn't the facts.
- 13:05The problem is they're having an errant starting point.
- 13:08I love that.
- 13:09And F-A-C-T-S, facts.
- 13:12We think when we can get all this information, we can be convincing.
- 13:16But there's so much more involved.
- 13:18Someone's background, their understanding, their interpretation, our delivery.
- 13:24You know, you said, what did you say earlier?
- 13:27A soft heart and communication skills, the importance of that.
- 13:31Plus, we don't want to leave out a huge one, huge factor, the Holy Spirit.
- 13:37So in each interaction with someone, it's going to be different, not only based on where they're coming from, but we're going to be led to approach things differently, right, Jay, by the Holy Spirit?
- 13:46Yeah, I cannot underestimate that factor.
- 13:49There have been many times where I've given a talk—
- 13:53And then afterwards I realized, oh, I forgot to say this one thing.
- 13:57It's really cool.
- 13:58I can't believe I didn't say that.
- 13:59And I'm kind of frustrated with myself only to find out from some in the audience, say, hey, I brought my neighbor and here's their background.
- 14:08And then I realized, wow, if I would have shared what I normally do, that would have totally turned them off.
- 14:13It wouldn't have been helpful at all.
- 14:14So I felt the Holy Spirit just allowed me to forget it.
- 14:18And I've had the opposite where I've said something I've never said before.
- 14:21I don't even know where it came from, but I just threw it in there for 10 seconds or 30 seconds.
- 14:26Afterwards, finding out someone says, when you said that one thing, that changed everything for me.
- 14:32It was just phenomenal.
- 14:32I'm like, don't give me credit because I wasn't planning on that.
- 14:36So you really have to rely on the Holy Spirit to guide the direction and then not even to kick yourself so much afterwards.
- 14:42Because if God really, really wanted you to share something, he could have reminded you.
- 14:47But he either caused you to not share it or he allowed it.
- 14:51And it's a part of maturing that maybe next time you'll include that.
- 14:54But you don't have to worry so much afterwards if you're really praying that the Holy Spirit guides your conversation.
- 14:59So Jay, we're already halfway through more than that.
- 15:01So we've got to move here.
- 15:03I want to get to some practical advice that you can give based on your experience.
- 15:07And I know you're condensing a lot into this podcast.
- 15:10So I'll go ahead and share whatever you'd like.
- 15:12Sure.
- 15:12Well, we could skip over some things like we're commanded to be able to give an answer.
- 15:18First Peter 3.15 says we're commanded to be ready always with an answer.
- 15:22Answer for what?
- 15:23The reason for the hope that we have.
- 15:24What's the hope we have?
- 15:25Jesus Christ.
- 15:26So that verse is saying you are commanded to be ready as to why you placed your trust in Jesus Christ.
- 15:33It doesn't say be ready with an answer to talk about radiometric dating in the creation account.
- 15:38That can be helpful in conversations, but the primary focus is always the gospel message in Jesus Christ.
- 15:44So that's a given.
- 15:45We don't need to beat that one to death.
- 15:47It's pretty clear.
- 15:48Scripture says that.
- 15:49Well, again, with our abbreviated time, I guess one thing we can jump to is two skills that are extremely helpful in,
- 15:58to everyone.
- 15:59This isn't necessarily even a Christian thing.
- 16:01This is just a life thing, but Christians should be the best at it.
- 16:06And it's not rocket science.
- 16:08It's not hard.
- 16:08It just takes some intentionality.
- 16:10And it's something that I had to proactively think about and work on.
- 16:15And my wife has helped me with that as well.
- 16:16The two skills, number one,
- 16:19is listening.
- 16:21And I'll explain that in a second.
- 16:22And then the second one is asking questions.
- 16:26Yes.
- 16:26So what's the point with this?
- 16:28Well, too often when I would be approached by a skeptic and they would make some claim, you know, there is no God and everything came from a big bang and Darwinian evolution is a fact and the Bible is just myth.
- 16:39It's filled with errors and contradictions, whatever it is that they say.
- 16:43they would make those claims, and I would just instantly jump in and make the opposite claims.
- 16:48Well, no, there is a God.
- 16:49He created everything.
- 16:50The Bible is the inspired Word of God.
- 16:52And then the skeptic says, fine, prove it.
- 16:55Give me one fact.
- 16:56Just one fact that proves that God exists, he created everything, or the Bible's inspired word of God.
- 17:02Well, many Christians at that point kind of cringe.
- 17:04They're like, oh, I don't know that I can, like one fact, you know, well, the world is kind of beautiful.
- 17:10And so it's just, they're struggling.
- 17:12They're back on their heels instantly.
- 17:14And so a much better approach.
- 17:18is to listen to the claims the skeptic is making in order to better understand where they're coming from, to learn who they are, what is it that they believe, how do they come to that conclusion, why are they confident that that's true, and what difference does it make in their life?
- 17:34Get to know them.
- 17:36rather than giving them the impression, I don't really know what you believe or really care.
- 17:39It's just going to be wrong.
- 17:40And I'm here to tell you what's right.
- 17:43Who wants to be in that conversation?
- 17:44Nobody.
- 17:45And so, in fact, I'm just winging this.
- 17:49Let me give you a really quick sample analogy that will help flesh this out of the listening and asking follow-up questions.
- 17:58And so I'm going to give you a very short, typical confrontation between a skeptic and a Christian.
- 18:04We'll go through it really quick, and then we're going to revisit it quickly.
- 18:07The skeptic says, evolution's a fact, and the Bible's just myth.
- 18:13Again, normally the Christian says, well, no, creation is true and the Bible is inspired word of God.
- 18:17Then the skeptic says, all right, prove it.
- 18:19Just give me one fact that proves that the Genesis creation account is true or the Bible is inspired word of God.
- 18:25Then the Christian says, well, I don't know that I can prove it necessarily, but that's what I believe.
- 18:29Yeah, you have your nice little fairy tale belief, but I live in the real world.
- 18:32We deal with science and we prove things and invent things and cure diseases and they walk off.
- 18:37and the Christian is left humiliated, embarrassed.
- 18:40They're thinking, I don't know that I want to share my faith anymore.
- 18:43In fact, some of them start doubting their faith and walking away.
- 18:47That's a typical confrontation.
- 18:49We're going to quickly revisit that, and this time...
- 18:53Even though the skeptic's going to make the same initial claims, the Christian's going to change the response.
- 18:58And all the Christian's going to do this time is listen and ask follow-up questions.
- 19:04So this is how it now works.
- 19:06Same claims.
- 19:06Evolution's a fact, and the Bible's just myth.
- 19:09All right, at this point, the skeptic just made what we call truth claims.
- 19:13They, on their own, claimed two things are true, and all you're going to try to do now is find out more about that.
- 19:19So they say evolution's a fact, and the Bible's just myth.
- 19:21So you ask them, oh, how do you know evolution's a fact?
- 19:25Well, all the scientists believe it.
- 19:27Like, okay, they just made another truth claim.
- 19:29So you ask them, how do you know all the scientists believe it?
- 19:33Well, all the real scientists believe it.
- 19:35No, how do you define a real scientist?
- 19:37Well, anyone who believes in evolution, they're a real scientist.
- 19:40There's circular reasoning going on.
- 19:42But then you go forward and say, well, what is the evidence that is so convincing to them that makes them believe it's a fact?
- 19:48Well, there's tons of it.
- 19:50All right, I don't really need tons.
- 19:51If you could just give me a few examples.
- 19:53Well, there are whole books written on it.
- 19:55Go out and get a book.
- 19:57Okay, so you believe evolution is a fact because you think there's some evidence in some book somewhere.
- 20:02You don't know what the evidence is, but you believe it's out there.
- 20:05So you actually have faith that it exists, which is fine, but then you can't claim it's a fact.
- 20:11And then you let them off the hook.
- 20:12You don't ever want to push too hard.
- 20:14Go to their second truth claim.
- 20:16The Bible is just myth.
- 20:18Why do you believe the Bible is just myth?
- 20:19Well, it's filled with errors and contradictions.
- 20:21Okay, can you give me some examples?
- 20:24Well, there are tons of them.
- 20:25Again, I don't really need tons.
- 20:27Just a few would be helpful for our conversation.
- 20:30Well, I can't think of any right now.
- 20:33Okay.
- 20:33Can you tell me what the Bible is all about from beginning to end?
- 20:36It starts with this.
- 20:37This happens.
- 20:37That goes on, and it ends with this.
- 20:3915-second overview.
- 20:42Well, it's been a while since I looked at it.
- 20:45All right.
- 20:45Tell me.
- 20:46If you can't think of any errors or contradictions...
- 20:49and you don't really even know what the Bible's all about, why do you have such a strong opinion against it?
- 20:53Are you sure you're not just repeating things you've heard from someone else rather than your own well thought out research?
- 20:58Great question.
- 20:59And that's the end.
- 21:00That whole time, all you did was listen to claims they're making and you want more information as to what does that mean, how do you know that it's true?
- 21:09You never even told them they were wrong.
- 21:12You don't tell them they're a bad person.
- 21:14You don't tell them you're not very intelligent.
- 21:15You're just listening and asking questions.
- 21:17You've never said anything about what you believe.
- 21:20You just let them paint themselves into a corner where they have to realize they're making claims that they have virtually nothing to back it up.
- 21:28Yeah, that's such an excellent point.
- 21:30I hope everybody can follow that pattern because it's so important.
- 21:35The pressure's off if we just back up and listen.
- 21:39Where is that person coming from?
- 21:41How do they believe this?
- 21:42Have them explain why?
- 21:44Yeah.
- 21:45Because that's what they're asking us.
- 21:47Why do you believe the Bible is inspired word of God?
- 21:50We're asking them, how can you believe or why do you believe that evolution is fact or true?
- 21:56So, Jay, we've got about five and a half minutes left or so.
- 22:00What else do you want to cover in this time?
- 22:03Sure.
- 22:03Well, I'm just, again, winging it.
- 22:06Another technique, again, these are all the types of things that we put in this conversation series.
- 22:10Sticking to the big picture, which also means staying out of the weeds.
- 22:14Now, if you're a golfer or a fisherman, you don't want to get caught in the weeds.
- 22:18So what can happen is sometimes you're talking to a skeptic and the conversation gets so deep so fast, you don't really even understand exactly what they're saying.
- 22:26Let's just say they say evolution's a fact because bacteria actually evolve resistance to antibiotics.
- 22:32Yeah.
- 22:33And most Christians don't know exactly what that means.
- 22:36Well, how can you possibly respond if you don't even understand the argument?
- 22:41Sometimes a person will do that just to throw you off.
- 22:43Sometimes they're not an eloquent speaker.
- 22:46But sometimes it's just something you don't understand.
- 22:48And so you don't want to get pulled down into the weeds into something you don't understand and can't respond to.
- 22:53So what you need to do is temporarily respond.
- 22:56Not that you want to ignore this altogether, but you want to put it on hold and back up to the big picture.
- 23:01And here's my, an analogy I came up with that everyone will relate to.
- 23:06You're on a used car lot.
- 23:07You're looking at a car and the salesman comes out, says, can I help you?
- 23:11Yeah, I'm looking at this car here.
- 23:13He gets all excited.
- 23:13He goes, oh, come around the other side of your passenger side.
- 23:16He opens the door, flips down the glove compartment.
- 23:19It says, look in the back there, bend down, look in the back.
- 23:21Do you see that bolt holding it into place?
- 23:23You're like, yeah, he goes, that is the most precisely manufactured bolt on this planet.
- 23:28You will not find a better bolt anywhere.
- 23:30And you're like, I can barely see it.
- 23:33I guess I'd have to take your word for it.
- 23:35But I actually have a few other questions maybe you can help me with first.
- 23:39We're going to back up to the big picture here.
- 23:42And he says, like, what?
- 23:42Well, before you came out on the lot, I was walking on the car and I noticed there weren't any wheels.
- 23:47Yeah.
- 23:48And then I don't want to complain, but I got into the driver's side, and every car I've had prior to this had a steering wheel.
- 23:54This one just has this column sticking out.
- 23:57And then I popped the hood.
- 23:59There's no engine.
- 24:01But if you can explain how those things will not be an issue for me and I'll still be able to drive the car without a problem, then you can tell me more about that bolt.
- 24:10But if you can't answer those other questions, honestly, I don't care about the bolt.
- 24:14The big picture.
- 24:15So when someone gets you into the weeds and whatever they're bringing up, you can always step back and say, hold on a second.
- 24:21You're an atheist, right?
- 24:22Yes.
- 24:23I got a few bigger picture questions for you.
- 24:25Like what?
- 24:26Where'd stuff come from?
- 24:28There's an entire universe of matter and energy.
- 24:31If there's no God, help me specifically understand.
- 24:34Don't just say, well, there is a big bang.
- 24:35Specifically, how do you get something out of nothing?
- 24:38And then when you have something just expanding, how does it become more and more ordered?
- 24:41The cosmos, which means order.
- 24:43Then how do you get dead chemicals on this planet to come together to be alive and be able to reproduce themselves?
- 24:49And how do you get particles banging together over time, becoming aware of themselves?
- 24:53And why is it that the particles in my body that are interacting right now that came from nothing, they all of a sudden think that the Green Bay Packers are the best football team?
- 25:01Why do my particles care about anything?
- 25:04And there's other questions too.
- 25:06But the technique is you get into the weeds, put it on hold, back up.
- 25:10If they can't answer those bigger questions, it doesn't pay to spend time talking about the weeds.
- 25:15Excellent.
- 25:16Excellent, Jay.
- 25:17Thank you for that point.
- 25:19One quick question before we wrap up.
- 25:21What the heck is elephant hurling?
- 25:23Hurling.
- 25:24What is elephant hurling?
- 25:26Yeah, the larger context is, and we won't go over it now, but there's all these things that can happen in a conversation.
- 25:32And if you're unaware of them, you get back on your heels thinking, what just happened?
- 25:36One of them is elephant hurling, where someone makes a claim.
- 25:40You say, how do you know that's true?
- 25:41And they just throw out these large, vacuous statements like, we know evolution is a fact because all scientists believe it.
- 25:48It's backed up by evidence from every area of science.
- 25:51Very large, vacuous statements, no specifics.
- 25:54They can say those things to begin with if they have details later, but usually that's all they say are the big statements to intimidate you.
- 26:00They're throwing elephants out there with no specifics.
- 26:03Yep.
- 26:03So it's a massive hurl.
- 26:06They just throw the elephant out.
- 26:07I like that.
- 26:09And that's, I think about that when they think, well, all scientists believe or, well, do all scientists really believe?
- 26:15Well, most, the serious ones, right?
- 26:17You mean the atheists, right?
- 26:19Anyway, Jay, thank you so much.
- 26:21Looking forward to this series coming out.
- 26:23We'll try to get you back and talk more about that.
- 26:27You know, the fall is, we're already at the end of summer, so the fall is like really, really close.
- 26:31So ready, fire, aim.
- 26:34Fire, aim.
- 26:35Maybe we'll do that one in studio.
- 26:38Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 26:39I would love that.
- 26:39We've got to think about one.
- 26:41I just love it.
- 26:41I want to make that a title.
- 26:43Jay, thestartingpointproject.com.
- 26:45Thanks for all you do.
- 26:46Go have a wonderful workout, my friend, and we'll talk to you next time.
- 26:48I will do that.
- 26:49Great seeing you.
- 26:50Thanks.
- 26:51All right, friends, thank you so much for sharing the podcast.
- 26:53Again, go to Jay's site, sign up for those Grand Canyon tours.
- 26:57He's got a lot of great resources also on his website, thestartingpointproject.com.
- 27:03And by the way, again, the conference site for the next Worldview Matters conference is simply worldviewmattersconference.com.
- 27:12God bless you, friends.
- 27:13And as always, keep speaking the truth about things that matter.
- 27:17We'll see you next time.