Latest / Brandon Fogal Evolution / #76 - The Simplest Answer Is God—How Occam’s Razor Unlocks the Truth

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#76 - The Simplest Answer Is God—How Occam’s Razor Unlocks the Truth · Brandon Fogal Evolution

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What is the simplest explanation for the reality that we are presented with daily?
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Today we're going to take a look at how do we account for this world?
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How do we account for the universe? How do we account for our existence?
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How do we account for everything that we experience daily?
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My name is Brandon Fogel. This is Evolution.
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Now, despite what the name of the show might sound like, I do not believe in
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actual macroevolution in the sense that we evolved from apes.
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But a lot of people do believe it. A lot of people do believe that.
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My evolution is greater than I believe in.
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The evolution that we will experience as humanity in the hereafter.
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So today we are going to take a look at how do we account for this existence
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that we're experiencing.
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And I'm going to pull from and we're going to look at this guy. His name is Occam.
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Occam. And we're going to look a little bit about his history.
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It's called Occam's Razor. and it's the most simple explanation for something
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is usually the correct one.
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Occam's razor is a problem-solving principle, also known as the principle of
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parsimony, that suggests the simplest explanation for a phenomenon is usually
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the most likely to be correct.
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All right. And I'm, we're going to pull up, you know, we're going to go to old
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faithful, old faithful Wikipedia, Wikipedia, and try to find out what, who is this guy?
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And who is this guy? We're just going to get a little bit of a history.
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Let me switch screens real fast. All right.
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Occam's razor. And I put the link in the description, but everybody knows what Wikipedia is.
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It's taken the world by storm. All right. William, walk, walk them.
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William Ockham, I guess it's William of Ockham.
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He lived in 1287 through, and he died in 1347. He was an English Franciscan
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friar and theologian, an influential medieval philosopher and a nominalist.
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His popular fame as a great logician rests chiefly on the maxim attributed to
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him and known as Ockham's razor.
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And this is the main point. The term razor refers to distinguishing between
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two hypotheses, either by shaving away unnecessary assumptions or cutting apart
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two similar conclusions.
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All right, so how do we get down to the bare bones? And this is what I am theorizing,
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what I am postulating, what I am putting forward is the most simple explanation
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for our universe that we can count for is, I'm going to say it, the G word, God.
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God is, he is the best explanation for everything that we experience daily and why we are here.
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It only makes it like, because I was thinking about this the other day,
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we try to, we overcomplicate things.
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In life, in all aspects of life, we overcomplicate everything and we make things
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a lot harder than they should be.
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And I think when we think about just the purpose of life, the meaning of life,
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why we are here, because we didn't just choose to be born one day,
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but while we were here, the best simple.
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Natural explanation, I believe, I believe is God.
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And we're going to look at four major points that I'm going to
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show that this is the reason for this, that why God is the simplest,
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the best explanation, because we always talk about like, we're always searching
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for a higher life form, something out there.
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There's got to be something, there's got to be aliens in the sky that are watching our lives.
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There's got to be something, there's got to be some simulation that we're plugged into.
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And the only way there's a simulation is if we're behind a screen somehow, and people are seeing,
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something is watching us live out this existence and we're just experiencing
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it in our senses, you know, but we're actually just plugged in and what we're
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just, what we're experiencing is almost a hyper virtual reality.
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I mean, why we have this drive in this tendency that we want to,
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we love virtual reality and we want to play games that are so real when the
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life in general is like the ultimate virtual reality.
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And that's why, I mean, if I didn't believe in God and I wasn't a Christian,
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I would fall back on the simulation.
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And in a sense, like, Christianity is kind of like a simulation.
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God planned everything ahead of time in advance, and we're just living out this
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book that he has written the script for.
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We're like, there's predestination, there's God ordaining everything,
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there's God's providence.
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It's all, It's the script, you know, like free will, God's sovereignty.
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How does this all go together?
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And so, I mean, I mean, simulation is what I'd fall back on if I wasn't a Christian.
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And it kind of is a simulation in a sense.
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But all right, if we want to remove all the complexity, let's go down to the bare bones of it.
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And I would say, number one, number one, to explain the existence of God,
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the complexity of the universe, the complexity of the universe.
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That alone and i've i've seen
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videos by someone i i highly respect and
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i like and i enjoy watching alex o'connor i'm always
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watching his stuff and him explaining and
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saying that the how the universe is together that if we were only just one like
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inch closer to the moon or the the sun and everything would fall apart everything
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would dissolve everything would just go to complete chaos we would not be able
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to live because you know that if we were if the moon was so much further away,
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or we are so closer to the sun or so far away.
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It's like we are in the pristine, perfect position.
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And he, he did something that, that has just baffled me when he took that when
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I, cause I look at that and I'm like, my God, that we are, how are we able to
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even walk around outside?
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How is like rocks and like everything just, just going chaos,
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you know, how, how is like, it's just a perfect, everything is just so perfect and settled, you know.
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And he, but he took it a different way. He said that why, why would,
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if God is real, why would he make it that way?
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Why would he put us on just like the knife's edge that we could just fall off
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one way or the other? Why would he?
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And he flipped it. He flipped that whole argument, like in the whole,
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like that did not make sense to me, but there, there is a complex nature in
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the universe, a very complex nature in the universe.
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I mean, you look at all the animals, you look at the stars, the cosmos,
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everything that is out there.
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It's just, there's so much to it. And just like the intricate nature,
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like we look at the vast expansion of the universe, it's just infinite,
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it seems like. It just goes on forever.
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But then if you get to the microscopic level of our cells and the atoms of our
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bodies, the molecules, and somehow everything is just being held together,
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somehow everything is just being put together.
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These molecules are just staying together for some reason.
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I'm not just turning into sand right before you, but I'm somehow staying a cohesive,
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unit of a human being and not just becoming nothing,
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not be just becoming wind and liquid and just how, what is holding this all together?
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But because like the, the, there are so many, just our body is made up of these
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atoms and these molecules, these, this, the DNA of our body is just so just
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intricately, intricately woven.
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And so it's like you go, there's like the infinite that goes out beyond us.
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And then there's the infinite. If we get in the microscope and put
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our eye in a microscope that we just see it just goes on
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almost into an infinite just chasm that
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just goes on forever because we we think we
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got to the very bottom of it you know but then we
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split the atom and then there's all this other stuff it's like it doesn't stop
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it just keeps going going going you know that's why there's the infinite out
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and then there's the infinite inward all right number two the universal moral
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law I would say this we all know there's something we have something in our
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heart where we know things are wrong,
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and we know things are good, and we all feel that.
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And say we've lived for thousands and thousands of years,
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people in general have always had this general understanding of what is morally
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right in the big things, the major things, the things that God has impressed on our heart.
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All of humanity agrees murder is wrong.
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All of humanity agrees that if you steal, it's wrong.
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Say you want to, say somebody's walking down the road and you try to trip them, that would be wrong.
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That would be wrong. And that person would be like, what the heck are you doing, man? Why, what's up?
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But say you accidentally tripped them. You didn't even mean to.
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They might be upset for a second, but they're like, oh, I get it. You didn't mean to.
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You didn't have an evil, like some thought that pushed you into trying to mess up my day.
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You know, we all understand there's something, whatever it is.
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And I battled through that before I became a Christian.
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And I can see it clearer now, now that I am a Christian, that the explanation
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is God has given us all. he has put some moral law on our heart where we know there is an ought.
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We should do something.
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We can't always agree to the smallest details.
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Some of the smallest details we can't agree on, you know, and there's disagreement.
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God hasn't answered everything before us, but he's given us basic principles.
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And I would say just the fact that we have a moral law just demonstrates the God's existence.
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All right. Number three, the experiences of the divine.
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Throughout human history, and even right now, all across the globe,
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everybody is trying this, and it manifests in so many different ways of humans
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trying to understand that there is something.
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We're reaching for something out there, and our best version of it,
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you've heard of the example of there's all these blind people,
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and they're standing by an elephant, and they're all grabbing a different part of the elephant.
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Some are grabbing the tail. Some are grabbing the trunk. Some are grabbing the feet.
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Some are grabbing every, they're touching different parts of the elephant and
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they're trying to understand what is this.
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And that is their religion that is making, trying to make sense of this,
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this something that is out there.
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There's something that we can't see, but we're all trying to figure it out.
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So that there have been so many different people in history.
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That's why we have like so many different holy writings.
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You know, I would say the only holy writing, true holy writing, is the Bible.
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But there is that innate nature that we are unstoppably religious.
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We are hyper-religious beings. And it's going to come out in some form or fashion.
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If you don't direct it to God, that there is a creator, he made you,
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and I'm going to live my life for him.
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If you don't direct it to that, you're going to direct that energy and that
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hyper-religious nature that you have inside you.
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You're going to, it's going to go towards something, whether it's your career,
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whether it's just money, whether it's pleasure,
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whether it's sports, whether it's whatever, all these things,
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anything, you know, and it's not to say any of that stuff in itself is bad,
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but we, that's what the whole thing of idols, that's what an idol is.
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It's whatever you substitute and put in place of God, what that energy of your
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life, if you're directing it to this created thing, but you're not directing
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it to the one who created you. That's what that is.
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All right. And then the fourth and final reason, purpose and design.
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Like I said, there's chaos, everything is chaos. And we understand there's the
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chaos nature of the universe.
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You know, I mean, the jungle out there, if you go to the jungle and you see
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like, we would see a tiger tearing up another animal right now, an antelope.
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There's a lion out there that's right now eating an antelope.
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The wildlife of our world is vicious. It's vicious, you know?
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And it is. And it seems like that is just chaos. Like, how could, why is that happening?
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Why are, I mean, that's not to say a tiger's doing anything wrong by eating a zebra.
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They're not doing anything wrong. But I would postulate and theorize that this
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is where you have to kind of get into the Christian fold.
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If we had not fell, because the Bible presents that we are in a world that is not as it was intended.
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This world right now that we are living in and we're experiencing is cursed.
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It's cursed. It's fallen. It's not what God intended.
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So those tigers, if before the fall, maybe they wouldn't have been eating the zebras.
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Maybe they wouldn't have been getting along a little bit better.
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And the Bible also says that at the end of time, it talks about in the future,
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the, I don't know the exact verse, what it says, like that the lion and the
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something will lie down together.
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The little child will play by the snake, the asp or whatever,
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like it calls us the cobra.
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There's going to be peace and harmony. It's like there's this little,
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this time period that we are living in that is just, it's chaos.
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But in all of it, we can understand and we can still see design.
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We can We can still see design. We can see the animal kingdom is built the way
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it is, at least still now, even though it's, we're in a chaotic time.
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God has still made it so everything works together.
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You remove, like you remove a bee from our ecosystem and things start messing up.
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If you start removing something out of its natural habitat, for some reason,
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there is design and cohesion between all of life, all of you,
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between humans, between animals out there.
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And we could say humans are animals, but in a sense, much higher than animals.
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And we're not just on a different God made humans different than the animals.
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God, he made us so that we were to have dominion over all the animals.
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That's the way he made it. That's the, that's the way, that's the,
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how the Bible lays it out.
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But there, and then finally there is purpose, purpose and design,
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but there is purpose that we have in this life because we are all seeking it.
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Say that like everything in your life is going great and everything,
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and you're going towards whatever it is that you're striving towards.
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You, you want to, uh, you want to build a great family.
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You want to grow, build, you want to build a great empire or career, whatever it is.
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But then say something happens in your life and you can't go after that career
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anymore. You lose your job.
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Maybe you lose a family member. There's so many different things in our life
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that if we don't have purpose, if we don't have purpose, we need that.
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And we desperately crave that.
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We desperately crave purpose and significance.
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And I would say that apart from God, there is no purpose.
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There is absolutely no purpose, whatever. And you could try to put it,
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you could try to create your own purpose.
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But you're not going to get too far. And it's eventually, it's going to crumble.
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I would say that the Bible presents that we have purpose. There is a reason why we're here.
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And our ultimate purpose is to glorify God and enjoy him forever,
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to have a relationship with him, to be with him, because our hearts are not
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going to be at peace until they are at peace with God.
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You're never, and so I just, I have found that if, if I'm going my own way and
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everybody out there, like, I don't, what is it like for you?
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Do you feel like, say, say you are not pursuing God. You don't believe in God.
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Like, do you feel like you have purpose and what, and I, and you might have
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purpose, but what is that? What is your purpose?
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Like, what is the, the re like reason you're here and, and just in your mind,
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go throughout the, like to the end, the logical end of what you are going towards,
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whatever it is, it could be anything. It could be anything.
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What is the outcome of it? What is the final end of it?
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Are you, and say you got that tomorrow and you had it, would you be completely at peace and fulfilled?
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Or would you just need to find something else?
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And once, cause once you've got that, are you going to just need something else?
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God, I think, is the answer because we don't ever get to the end of God.
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And our hearts are always going to be at the most peace when we find our peace in him.
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He does not dissatisfy us. He's not going to be the one that's going to leave us high and dry.
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But he is going to ultimately, it says, at his right hand are pleasures forevermore.
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And it's like one day we are all going to wake up and we're going to see him.
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We're going to be staring at him face to face.
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Face to face. And it's like, then we will have the ultimate purpose.
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Like we will see that all our lives was not meaningless.
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None of it was ever meaningless. And God was with us throughout it all because
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man, like life can get dark.
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Life can get tough and dark. And if we are not anchored in purpose and like,
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why are we doing the things that we're doing?
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We're going to be left in the dark.
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So those are my four main reasons why I believe the simplest explanation for
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our reality is God. So we'll leave it at that.