Guys, welcome to the John Lovell Show special guest today. His name is Wes Huff. And if you don't know the name already, you need to and you're going to. Because this guy is super sharp, super bright. He's been on a bunch of big shows and he is an absolute brain. He can beat you in an argument, but he's also jacked. He could beat you in a fight. Get ready to meet Wes Huff. (...) Wes Huff, welcome to the show, man. Good to see you. Yeah, it's great to be here. Awesome. So I've been following you since you appeared on Joe Rogan, right? I imagine a bunch of people found you there. You're on Pierce Morgan and a bunch of other real big shows, right? How has that been? Navigating thrust into the limelight when you've been used to just studying ancient codex and academic papers and stuff as an intellectual. Yeah, living in obscurity. Sometimes I wonder if living in obscurity is really the aim. All these people are trying to seek fame and then you get a little snippet of it and you're like, maybe I don't want this. (...) But it's, yeah, it's been a wild last, what is it, nine months now? Almost maybe more than that. Because I went on Rogan in December of last year. So we're creeping up on the time that I actually was in his studio. (...) But yeah, it's been crazy. It's been great. God has clearly had his fingerprints all over this. There's no way that I alone could have possibly orchestrated, you know, the original interaction with Billy Carson and then Rogan and then all the other things that have happened, PBD and Pierce Morgan and you name it. It's been amazing what God has been able to accomplish. So Joe Rogan, I'm a fan of Joe Rogan. I like him because I think he's honest. I think he asks genuine questions and they're real questions. He's kind of open handed and I've watched him over the years.(...) That's not to say I agree with everything on Rogan. There you go. Caveat up door.(...) But I'm a fan of his. I think he's an honest seeker of hard questions and real truth. And as that I see him creeping more and more towards some intelligent design advocates for people who are claiming there's an intellectual case for the existence of God and for Christianity.(...) So bearing that in mind, where do you see him on, you know, that that journey and how, how is that conversation? How did you, how did he strike you?(...) Joe is definitely open minded. He's definitely curious.(...) He's a, an incredibly good conversationalist, right? And I think that's why his podcast in particular has gotten as popular as it is.(...) He has this unique capability because he has amassed such a large audience that he just collects people, right? He, he's interested in the subject. He kind of goes down various rabbit holes and in terms of where he thinks is the interesting avenues in that particular discipline, and then he reaches out to people and so he's a very unique individual. I think his, his interests are eclectic, but he, he's searching and I think he's searching in a lot of the right places and he's coming to conclusions that I think are the logical ones in terms of the more existential questions. You can definitely track a trajectory from even just like five years ago of him being more skeptical and I think he would be fine with the term ignorant in terms of just not knowing. He didn't know what he didn't know. And so he would say certain things regarding Christianity and religion and worldly perspectives that were just ill informed. And I think he's wised up to that in, in talking to a number of individuals, you know, whether that's the Jordan Peterson's or myself and getting a more clear picture of, well, what's going on here in terms of the worldview questions that surround the person of Jesus in particular, but, you know, Christianity versus atheism versus, you know, what have you. So I'm, I'm incredibly encouraged to see even just the journey that's taken place and the number of guests that have come on since I was on there who have been bold in their proclamation of what the Christian faith holds and entails and him being more and more open to receiving that, receiving that in a way that is, is not kind of putting your guard up and being a little bit of a cynic, but being more of a skeptic, reserving judgment until he feels like he has enough evidence to kind of draw conclusion on that. And in that way, I think he's a skeptic in the right way. I think a lot of people will dismiss the belief in God or Christianity is kind of that fairy tale category and they're, they're rejecting it before they've actually really heard the evidence. And what I appreciate about Joe is he's courageous enough and honest enough to actually at least evaluate the real arguments in favor of before he accepts or rejects. And so in that way, I'm a fan of Joe. Have you noticed what I have just in the public square in general across America, across the world, there's a lot of big figures that are professing Christ that are coming to belief in God that weren't before. And really speaking out in a big way, I saw something on social media like just yesterday that Bible sales doubled over the last month. I mean, 100% increase in Bible sales. That's amazing. Are you seeing what I'm seeing?(...) Oh, definitely. I think that there are some people have called it the quiet revolution or kind of the, um, the resurgence of interest in God. And, you know, the organization, I have the pleasure of working for and being the vice president of Apologetics Canada. We've been talking about this quite a bit lately because I think what we're seeing is the, the, you know, chickens coming home to roost of the new atheist movement that we saw in the early 2000s was the catalyst for the actual founding of our president at Apologetics Canada was in response to the new atheism and people, young people in particular leaving the church. And I think since that time of the Richard Dawkins and the Sam Harris's and the dangle dennets being very, very popular, what people realized was the more and more you applied those things. Practically and logically, the more and more you realized it gave you no foundation to have any purpose and meaning in life. And so because people planted those seeds and saw dead and dying trees grow with fruit that was untenable, um, that you couldn't eat because it itself was rotting. (...) People are more and more open to spirituality and that comes with its kind of downsides too, you have kind of this growing movement to people who are spiritual, but not religious. But alongside of that, kind of the piggybacking is this interest once again in Christianity, in the Bible, in finding answers to questions that go beyond matter and motion. We're not just bags of meat bumping into other bags of meat that are all going to, you know, leave this earthly coil at some time or another. There's, there's more to that. We have these longings and these desires and these emotions that transcend just simple matter. I think it was on Rogan, um, that I said, you know, you are, you, you do matter more than you are matter and that's, that's the claim of the Christian worldview. And I think people realize that when they're really honest with themselves. I think the new atheist movement, I mean, it really stood up tall, roared loudly and beat its chest in the public square for a while. And now what I see, and it's been happening over the last decade, is it crashed and burning and Christianity is standing untarnished in the rubble.(...) That's really interesting. Some folks won't really understand exactly what I'm talking about there. But what I mean is, is the Christian worldview, whereas when you don't really know what the intellectual arguments are, you can kind of straw man, beat it to the ground. But when people actually lean in and investigate some of the claims, there are devastating, devastating arguments in favor of the existence of God and that Jesus is who he said he is. And I know you're one of the foremost world experts right now in the public square in the limelight that's bringing those truths to bear. I mean, I know a lot of apologists and they're doing that, but you're kind of an every man's man, but you're also an academic.(...) So they'll probably be, I bet you, I know you're a humble guy. You'll be like, whoa, no, there's guys way higher. I'm like, yeah, but you're so relatable. You're an attachment point into those higher arguments. I wanted to be able to get into all that stuff of some, some reasons for belief. But before we did so, your resume is too interesting to not allow people to kind of get to know you a moment. Can we do a quick stop in your, some resume bullet points before we get into some of the arguments for God and Christ? Sure. Let's do it. Awesome. So first off, you're a scholar. You're an academic, you're an intellectual, real impressive educational pedigree. But at the same time, you're, you're a meat eater, bro. You're an alpha. You're super jacked. What can we put a photo of him up on screen? Just looking jacked. Look at Wes Huff looking all jacked. It's like he's going to beat you in an argument and then he's going to lift you up like Bane breaking Batman over his knee style. This is. Uh-oh. Until they figure out how tall I am and then everything kind of collapses. (...) Are you, you can compensate. I can't grow any taller. So I just started growing wider. That's really what happened. Yeah. I'm not a tall man either. And I just quickly said, people meet me in public and be like, Oh, I thought you'd be taller. Yeah. You and me both.(...) Yeah. Sorry to disappoint, right? But I say I'm taller when I stand on a box. Yeah. That's right. And I just do it deadpan and they, they seem to enjoy that a moment. (...) So, uh, you're working out all the time. Uh, you, you're, you're an academic that doesn't strike me as a dungeons and dragons and backgammon in the back room kind of guy of like, you're into weaponry and stuff of like, I'm looking at you. I'm like, man, uh, you're, you're an alpha, right? You, you, you into guns or anything or weaponry or martial arts. What, what, what do you do for workout routine? Tell us about how the academic with the big head also has a big body. Oh, that's an, I, an interesting way of putting out, you know, so I, I was really involved in track and field, uh, when I was in high school and university, I ran varsity track as a sprinter and I think I'm the only one I know who tracks track and field as the only sport that they actually follow, but, uh, I was a sprinter, so I was a 100, 200 meter guy. And then here in Canada during the university season, it's all the distances are funny, there are 60 meters, 300 meters, and then you have a four by 200 meter relay, so, uh, but outdoors I would run one, two, and then the, the four by 100 meter relay, and that was a real passion of mine. I enjoyed that, uh, partly because my hand eye coordination isn't terrific and I have no court awareness, so, but I am quick in a straight line. So they put the lines on the track so that I, I know where to go and can stay in that straight line. And, um, that was a big part of my sort of social scene and life. Uh, it gave me a lot of direction and stability and, uh, just kind of, um,(...) uh, a framework for staying on task, uh, especially in, in university. And so, uh, I carried that on after I, you know, retired, if you want to put it that way from track and field, realizing, you know, I trained with a couple of guys who were Olympians and realizing as a, you know, Caucasian sprinter that I could work as hard as I could, but I wasn't necessarily gonna, uh, hard work doesn't be talent necessarily, even if, um, talent doesn't work hard.(...) Um, so that was my mentality, right? Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. And then I found out, no, there's, there's a, there's a ceiling to that even. Um, but trained with some really great guys. And so after I retired, I, I carried that on. I did a little bit, little bit of powerlifting. I had a buddy who was a nationally ranked pole vaulter and he opened what was essentially a CrossFit gym and him and I did some Olympic lifting and power lifting together for a little bit. And then, um, just continued on. I, I, I love the gym and I'm one of those guys who, uh, I'm not overly complicated. I've more or less been doing the same four workouts on the same four days for the last 20 years and doesn't bother me a bit. Uh, but. Well, what is that warrior poets? I mean, like we're, we're about being good protectors. And so people want to know the workout routine and they'll immediately jump in the comments, let you know you're wrong. So if you'd like to know how wrong you are, I encourage you to look back in the comments, uh, they'll all contradict each other, but each individual is completely right. What's your routine? What's the four workouts? Well, it's, it's pretty much bro splits. Um, I, I do around, um, the, the key lifts of bench deadlift and squat. I'll do a, a Monday is a chest and triceps. Uh, Wednesday is typically back and biceps. Then I do a shoulders on Thursday and legs on Friday. Um, sometimes I'll double up legs, uh, one at the beginning of the week. Sometimes I'll, I'll, I'll go in on Tuesday and, and do a heavy squat day on, on one day of the week, and then kind of a lighter, more like high reps day at the end of the week, but, um, I've more or less been doing that my, my entire, you know, career as a, as a, as a, um, an informal lifter, but I, I love it. Uh, you know, it's, it's genuinely, uh, what I find fun and, um, putting up those, those big weights, uh,(...) has always been, you know, uh, uh, something that I've enjoyed. And, and so I've, I've, I've been doing that for a long, long time. Uh, I loved martial arts as a kid. I did a little bit of, um, just sort of dabbling in, uh, what's called yedo, um, which is w if you ever seen the Japanese, uh, you know, Japanese swords, the katanas, uh, cutting the tatami mats, um, I did a little bit of that. Uh, thought that was really cool. I have a, uh, one, two, three, four, um, uh, katanas in my office and, uh, uh, did that and then Hima, which is a historical, um, European martial arts, which is a basic, basically like Knights fighting, um, did, uh, it was super interested in that and, um,(...) Yeah, I love that. Watch way too many kung fu movies when I was a kid. And so, you know, although never really got like big into actually, you know, going to a jujitsu gym or doing, uh, kickboxing or something like that. Um, I was always just fascinated with that kind of world of mixed martial arts and weaponry. Yeah. Uh, before we went live on this, you saw the brave heart poster right above my shoulder and what did you bring up to me? Yeah. So I, uh, actually a fan sent me this, uh, just after the whole Rogan thing, um, they saw, I'd posted some sword videos and, uh, then they sent me this, which is a, uh, a replica of a Scottish claymore and it's about, it's about five feet tall. So this is a, a Honshu is the company, um, the company from Japan and it is a battle ready, it's about almost five feet long. Uh, it's, it's a beast. I have it hung above my desk. Um, on my wall, just, just above, uh, my computer monitor. And, um, yeah, this is, this is one of a number of, uh, blades that I have here in my office. So always loved like medieval and, uh, weaponry from antiquity, um,(...) and kind of getting in into that kind of stuff and the, the heraldry and the intricacies that go along with it. Um, another point of your biography and it's on your website, it's what you actually led with, it was the first bullet point. It wasn't your academic prowess. It was at 11 years old. Uh, you were diagnosed with a rare neurological condition that left you paralyzed at 11 years old, you're paralyzed and you were also born in Pakistan, which I found that's not normal, but I guess academic scholars also doing powerlifting and track in having claymores above their desk. You're a pretty enigmatic figure, but born in Pakistan paralyzed at 11. What happened with that? Cause you don't seem very paralyzed to me.(...) Yeah, I'm not. Um, I could stand up and prove it to everybody right now, but, uh, yeah. So my parents were missionaries in Pakistan between 1989 and 1992. And we came back in 1993 to Toronto, which is where my dad is from. He was studying at Ted's, um, the seminary and for his doctorate. And in February of 1993, my parents ended up going back on the mission field to the country of Jordan, where I spent a portion of my childhood. Now we came back, uh, later in the nineties, um, to Canada from Jordan, but, uh, between, uh, 1993 and 1996, I think it was in 1995, the spring of 1995, my dad was made the chaplain at the British embassy in Amman, Jordan. And so we, we lived there in that majority Muslim country for a little bit. Uh, we came back after,(...) um, you know, in the late nineties, uh, to, from the mission field back to Canada. And then we bounced around Canada, lived in central Ontario and, uh, northern British Columbia, and I spent my high school years in northern Ontario. And then.(...) I actually ended up going back to Jordan after I graduated high school in the summer of 2009, I worked with a Bedouin in a rural area that was really fun. Um, I was working at a tuberculosis clinic. Uh, lived alone by myself in an abandoned police station in the desert, which is a story in and of itself. And, uh, but what you mentioned in terms of my, my paralysis experience was just before my 12th birthday, after my, my parents had come back from the missions field, I had the flu and my body's immune system, instead of attacking the flu, attack the nerve endings at the base of my spinal cord, causing inflammation on the myelin sheath on the base of my spinal cord and cut off communication between my legs and my brain. And so I was diagnosed as a paraplegic and, uh, told that I would most likely be paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of my life. And so the short story that I often say is that one month from the day that I, uh, woke up and couldn't feel my legs, I woke up on a Saturday morning on February 8th and got out of bed and walked over to my wheelchair and sat down. And so that was it. The doctors couldn't find any evidence of the swelling. Um, I truly believe that that was a supernatural experience. That that was a miraculous healing. And a work of God. (...) And yet, despite that, in my teen years, I really struggled with intellectual questions about the Christian worldview and about worldviews in general and, and figured, you know, I, to the best of my ability as a 17 year old, wanted to investigate those things. And that led me down the road of eventually where I am today, not just in my study, formally and academically of the Bible, but, uh, in terms of apologetics, giving a reason, giving a defense for the, the worldview that I hold. And after, you know, that the soul searching in is, in my teens came to the conclusion that it wasn't just by chance that the worldview that my parents raised me to believe was the one that I was following. It was because it was actually true with a capital T. I think your parents can raise you a certain way, but at some point, uh, if you have any, any education at all, you've got to ask the hard questions and really come to grips with reality. I remember I had to go through that exact same process and mine looked different. Um, and I understand as an apologist, you have to have a critical mindset or you're going to be, you're not going to be any good at your job if you can't think from an opposing worldview thought. And so you, as a careful intellectual academic, you're going to be going through that, that critical thought. And so for me to hear you claim a miraculous healing, uh, I give you this respect that you should deserve and not just, um, carefully count, um, the validity of that. Were doctors having any explanations for any of this or? (...) Yeah, it was the doctors that first used the word miracle, not my parents. Uh, and, and they said that they had no true medical explanation. It wasn't that there was no chance of me walking, but because of the, the, the timeline of the paralysis, so that the condition I had is called acute transverse myelitis. And so transverse myelitis is not uncommon, but it's the acute that makes it a rare condition in that the quicker the paralysis takes place, the slower the amount of time for recovery actually is. And so my paralysis, as far as they know is instant, uh, the, the inflammation was almost immediate. And so I, uh, I actually woke up from a nap, um, no more than 20, 30 minutes. And I was completely paralyzed from the waist down. And so that was kind of the severity of the actual diagnosis was them saying, you know, this is, this is going to be a long haul, uh, if there's going to be any kind of recovery whatsoever. And so you, you basically need to be prepared for that. And so the miraculous,(...) oh, so sorry, uh, for a naturalistic explanation, medical professionals would assume a slower and gradual recovery. Now you can move your toe. Yeah, I think so. Um, that's what, and actually kind of related to my passion and track and field, that was a lot of the motivation for it was understanding at least to some degree that God had given me an experience of taking advantage of something as simple as my legs. And you know, the hubris of the, the finite and fallen mind is that I at a certain point believed that God had put me through this because I was going to be the next, uh, you know, Eric, a little, the next track athlete that was going to win medals at the Olympics and share the glory of God. And, you know, God has these ways of humbling us and through injuries and training with people who are far more talented, uh, than I was, you know, coming to the realization, oh, maybe God, maybe this isn't about me. Maybe this is more about what God's doing. That's good. Hey, uh, last kind of resume bullet point that I wanted to hone in on. And then let's get to some of those, uh, intelligent design kind of questions, intellectual presupposition things. Uh, you're a family man. Uh, and I really honor that. I love that you got some kiddos and how many kids do you have? Four. What are your youngest and oldest ages? So, uh, my youngest is almost four months. Uh, Luke, he was just born this year. And then my son just turned seven and my daughter this month just turned five. And then I have a two year old. That's a busy house, especially man. You guys doing okay. You all right? We're holding up, you know, God is good. And we have a, an amazing church family, uh, that is, is, you know, um, very close by both, uh, geographically and, you know, willing to come alongside us. So we're, we're very, very blessed. Well, uh, something that's brought us together was we're both speaking at a homeschool conference soon. And also, uh, that men's gathering the 16, 13 conference coming up next year. That's going to be a 16, 13 conference. That's going to be amazing. Uh, why homeschool for you guys? Uh, why not as an academic intellectual, obviously you value education. Why not private schools or public schools? Yeah. So this is an interesting topic because my wife is a trained kindergarten teacher and she's worked both in the public and private school system. She was the curriculum coordinator for a classical Christian school, even after my son was born and I was of school age. And so the conversation about, you know, why we chose to homeschool him, even when she was actually working at a classical Christian school was one that we got asked a lot. And I think, um, my wife was also homeschooled for her primary school years as a child. And so, uh, although I went through the public school system, uh, we both felt that there was, we had the training and capabilities, particularly my wife, um, to be able to field that, but not only that, because I think some people might feel daunted by that, you know, okay, well, your wife went to teacher's college and she has a degree in childhood development and you know, you're pursuing a PhD. So you're obviously interested in, in academia at some level, but I think kind of demystifying that is it's probably more in your grasp than you think it is and that, uh, there's a value to the one-on-one connection and the ability to speak into the teaching scenario and, uh, way that your child learns specifically.(...) So we, we've just always felt, you know, I think almost from day one, when we were talking about having kids was that this was something that was what we probably wanted to do. It was pretty high up there in terms of the hierarchy of, of motivations of, how we wanted to speak into the lives of our children and raise them to be men and women after God's own heart. No, I think there's something, especially with the school system. Um, I don't think it's wrong to send your children into the public school, but we do need to be careful, right? Because it's discipleship at some degree.(...) And if, if you are not discipling your children, I think it's unrealistic to then expect that teachers who are with your children eight hours a day for five days a week are not then likewise discipling them. And I think it was Vody Balcom who said, we really shouldn't be surprised when we send our children to Caesar and they come back Romans. So there's, there's, there's a caution that I think we should be realistic about. I don't think it's, as someone who was a missionary kid, I don't think it's realistic to send our children out to be missionaries. It's when they don't have any formal training, knowing being, you know, on the mission field, it takes years of formal training for adults to be able to speak into the culture that they are going into. I don't think it's always realistic to say my six year old can go into a secular setting and be a witness to that. Yeah. And you also lose the time with your kids. Uh, what we found, we moved into the homeschool movement, uh, early from the very beginning, our kids have never seen the inside of an actual classroom, but we did have some early brushes with like speech therapy and stuff where they were kind of, uh, adjacent to the system. And it was a real bad experience for us. Uh, homeschool wasn't on our radar. That seems so otherworldly and crazy. Like, great, you guys do that. That's definitely not for us. And I was a private and public school kid as well. And so that was the default track. But what we found is the homeschool movement is massive, uh, movement now, huge resurgence.(...) And what we discovered is homeschooling was easier than we thought it would be with less time constraints. And you really, you got to raise your kids. You got to spend time with them in a real cool way. And so, uh, we found that out. We went to the great homeschool conventions. That's where me and you were going to speak, uh, the great homeschool conventions. (...) And we were blown away by all the assets that they had of like all these resources and all these people in it together. And once we went to that conference and we were really going there, kicking tires of like, what is all this about? Is our, are we idiots for even trying this? And then we saw so many resources and so many like peop minded people and so many speakers that really demystified us. And we got a nice track on a side note, anybody listening in, y'all should absolutely attend one of the great homeschool convention shows they've got them in, uh, me and you are going to the Cincinnati, Ohio one. And that's, uh, April 9th through 11th, but Cincinnati, Ohio next year, that one's there, and then they have one in California, Texas, Missouri, and South Carolina, and my wife and I have spoken at all of them before. We love them. We're going back. Uh, so there's that. And then there's the 1613 conference. Are you excited about that? That's a different thing from homeschool. That's all just masculinity stuff, but yeah. Yeah, no, I think that'll be great.(...) So, uh, yeah. And that one's July 17th and 18th. So if you guys want to meet me or Wes at a great homeschool conventions or the masculinity movement one, that's the 1613 conference. July 17th and 18th. I'll have a link down below this video so that y'all can see that. Uh, but there, uh, come meet us and hear the great Wes Huff talk about stuff. Anything to add there? Cause I want to get into the, uh, more academic questions for, no, I think that sounds great. Yeah. My man, uh, for those listening in who struggle with belief in God, it's kind of more in that fairy tale category. They can't get their head around it and may even look down and say, how could anyone believe this stuff? Can you give a quick elevator pitch, uh, for why we should believe in God? (...) Yeah. Well, I think we are beings that are instilled with a longing that goes beyond just like I was saying before, when we're talking about the new atheist, the mere matter that exists around us. And I think we should push into some of those things that we, we often assume. You know, we, we, there's miracles that we read about in the Bible of turning water into wine and walking on water and Jesus healing people. But realistically, if the first miracle happened that everything came from nothing, then everything else is kind of small pennies in that if we believe in the origin story of secular materialism, that everything came from nothing and there was no progenitor, right? The big bang had no big banger. Then that's, that's, I think harder to put your faith in than looking at the world around us as a conscious human being. How did mindless matter produce minds? I think that's a genuine question that we need to put, to push into, you know, how did, how did everything come from nothing? Well, I think the, the fact that we, you know, you and I, John, are here and we have this however many pounds of gray matter in our brain that is somehow able to ask these genuine, authentic questions should make us pause. Now, otherwise, you know, if it's just chemicals fizzing, if it's no more than the soft drink that I pour into a cup and you know, that's fizzy and so are, so are the chemicals in my brain, then, then why trust that? Why put my ability to trust my logical thought processes if that is just a product of time plus matter plus chance? I don't think that is a reasonable assumption, conclusion. Now I'm not a scientist, I'm a historian by training, but I think that there are these kind of philosophical and scientific questions that merit a good answer. And I don't think that secular materialism and atheism offers any concrete answers. (...) This is where I think the Christian worldview is not just intellectually credible, but it's existentially sufficient in that it applies questions of meaning and purpose and morality and consistency and historical reliability. (...) And it takes them seriously in order to actually get to the bottom of where those questions come from. (...) You know, you just put a whole bunch of different arguments together to build a real quick defense. I thought that was fantastic. By the way, you should do this professionally. What do you think? Maybe it's a good idea. I'll write it down. Yeah, you're welcome. That TM that came from me. You cited like cosmological argument. What are the names of these other arguments that you just strung together so that folks listening in, they can do deeper reading and study on those particular arguments? What are they called? Yeah, so that you have like the cosmological arguments, you have the teleological argument, you have the argument from morality, which is one of my favorites. You know, we argue, and I think this is one that's very profound in our day and age, because our culture, for better or for worse, is very concerned with topics like justice. And in one sense, I want to say, that's great. You should be concerned with justice. Where do you think that comes from? You know, you're calling something evil. Where do you think the foundation for calling something evil comes from? Because if there's an evil, there's a good to compare it to. And if there's a good, then there's a law. And if there's a law, there's got to be some sort of a law giver. What or who is that? And how can we ground that? And so the argument for morality, I think is a very powerful one that really gets to the root of what a lot of people are dealing with. But this is ultimately, you know, what we're talking about, these arguments for the validity of the Christian worldview. It's a multivalent analysis in a cumulative case. You have science and philosophy and psychology and history all convening. And I think this is something that's really interesting about the Christian worldview is that none of it hangs on any one particular argument. Other than, I guess the caveat would be the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But there are all sorts of arguments out there that if you don't like, say the argument from design, that doesn't then make the entire Christian worldview a house of cards and it all falls apart. Right. Because they're intersecting with all sorts of other types of arguments and ways that the Christian worldview upholds that there is actually a creator behind the creation that we see. And so whether that's, you know, the cosmological arguments or the argument from fine tuning or intelligent design, which are more scientific perspectives, or whether it's the historical reliability of the Bible as a whole, or particular books of the Bible or the gospels in the New Testament, which correspond with early eyewitness testimony. I think the Christian worldview has a lot going for it in terms of getting to the root of the questions that actually fulfill the ultimate questions that we have. You mentioned the origin of the universe.(...) I have all this matter, Alpha Centauri,(...) Venus, Earth,(...) oceans, rocks, everything. The I'm being led to believe by the atheist camp that everything just came from nothing. (...) And they rewind the clock to a big bang, where it's like this singularity, which is still the same amount of matter. They just packed it real tight. (...) Anyway, it's really hard for me to even follow the line of thinking or lack thereof. But what is the atheist? What is the new atheist you find countering the cosmological argument? What do they say to to big bang and origin? (...) Yeah, I think ultimately, there are theories like string theory and the multi universe theory. But I think to a certain degree, what those do is they just kind of push the ball further down the road. Right. Stephen Meyer says that the survival of the fittest doesn't necessarily get you to the arrival of the fittest. What is that first step? How do we go from nothing to everything? And so there are some attempts at dealing with that. And actually, this is an interesting fact that Joe Rogan himself has been talking about publicly a number of times on his podcast is that he says that he's interviewed a bunch of people, cosmologists and scientists and philosophers and nobody's been able to give him a sufficient answer of how we answer that.(...) And I said on his podcast, a lot of people want to deny the virgin birth but then uphold the virgin birth of the universe.(...) I think you know. Oh, that's devastating. That's pretty good. Because like I said before,(...) why deny one and not the other? If everything can come from nothing, then is it that much of an impossibility for a virgin to be with child? Well, not really and not considering that there's a lot more going behind that that was predicted hundreds of years before that thing actually took place. And so that's where I think there's always going to be individuals who are going to attempt to come up with solutions to and maybe they're very intelligently sounding. But I want us to actually think about these in a concrete manner and say, okay, you know, everything came from nothing. Well, there are certain scientists out there who want to start playing around with the word nothing. And you find out, well, they're not actually talking about no thing. They're actually talking about something. And then we're back to the original question. Okay, well, where does that nothing come from? Right. You know, if it isn't no thing, if it's actually something, I still have the question of what happened? What caused that spark? How did everything fit on a space smaller than the head of a pin and then turn into the universe around us? Right. They're starting with a cosmic soup with a cape on. It's a supernatural thing that either way they're they have to invoke some type of supernatural because they're saying that chemistry was always there. It always existed, which defies the laws of science. What happens when they turn the script and say, well, okay, very well, where did God come from? (...) Well, I think it's a category error because we don't claim that God came from anywhere. Right. We claim that God is the author of creation. He's not part of creation itself. And so it's it's it's, I think, incorrect to try to assume that God came from somewhere. You know, there's an aspect of the fact that we are finite human beings.(...) We are we are very limited in our understanding. This is what theologians sometimes call it, call the difference between comprehending and understanding.(...) John, I can comprehend that there's a lot of water in the ocean. But can I truly understand how much water when you start to throw around numbers? If I put it into grok or I put it into chat GBT and said, give me the exact number of gallons that are in the ocean.(...) Can I conceptually understand that much liquid? No. But if you just kind of think of it as a lot of liquid, if I try to think of eternity talked about in scripture as time without end, I can't truly wrap my head around that. Right. And I think there's something there's an aspect of the fact that there are certain mysteries that we're not going to figure out. But the Christian world is not claiming that God is part of creation. God's not matter. God is not beginning. He's not matter or space or time. He's outside of it all. That's the, yeah. Yeah. This is, this is the claim of the Christian worldview is that everything we see around us is created by God. And so to say, well, who then created God misses and misunderstands who we think God is, he's timeless, he's immaterial, he's spaceless. Now, certain people might not like that, but I think, you know, that is, and even with the morality question that I was, I was talking about before, there has to be an objective moral law giver. Otherwise you're always going to run into issues. But that only makes sense if there is a God who's out of time and out of space where goodness is actually an overflow of his character, not something he lives up to. I think the moral argument you brought up, I think that's a really powerful one where I've struggled as somebody who's trying to defend the Christian worldview and give an intellectual answer for what I believe in here. My biggest difficulty with the moral argument is my, the person I'm debating with or having a conversation with really just can't grasp it. Have you experienced that too? And if so, what are some ways that you could help folks really grasp the moral argument in different words?(...) Yeah, I think helping people really think through why they think something is good or bad. Now, in one sense, it's not our jobs to convince intellectually everyone that we have a conversation with, right? You and I's application to join the Trinity, John, has been denied. We failed a minimum requirement. The Spirit is the one who's actually going to make that person and open their eyes in terms of getting to the spiritual knowledge, right?(...) Christianity and salvation isn't an intellectual ascent, thank goodness, because I think we would all fail, right? The test of spiritual comprehensibility or competency is not one that I think anyone can really pass in a way that is 10 out of 10. But I think we have the due diligence. We're called to do things like in 1 Peter 3, 15 and 16 to always be prepared to give an answer, to give a reason for the hope that we have. We're called to make disciples of all nations. We're called to contend for the faith. And so I think there's an aspect of we need to speak into people's lives and we need to help them understand that this is the reality of it. But it's not necessarily our job to take that person's heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. And there are going to be some conversations that we encounter where we're just going to have to walk away. One of the things that I do occasionally is I say, let's just back up from this conversation. If Christianity were true, would you believe it? (...) And I have actually had some people tell me no. If Christianity were true, I still don't want to worship that God. I still don't want to go to church and submit myself to a local body of elders. I still don't want to. You know, all those things. And in that sense, the conversation is really not going to go anywhere. It's a good point. You could have just saved you and them a couple hours because there's no amount of evidence that would have convinced them. They don't want to believe and therefore they won't believe. They're going to make sure they're only picking and choosing the evidences they like. So no matter what evidence you give, they'll at the end of it declare, but there's no evidence for God because they're invalidating perfectly good evidence in favor of what their judgment was before you began, right? Is that. Yeah. And for the moral argument in particular, to address your question a little bit more specifically, a friend of mine, Andy Bannister, who's out in the UK, heading an organization called Solas, he was speaking when he still lived in Canada at one of the universities here in Canada. And in a Q and A after his talk, someone came up and they made this statement about Christianity being bad for the rights of women. And my friend Andy, he's British, so he has a lot of things going for him in terms of just his accent. He sounds smarter just by nature of his voice. But 20 IQ points right out of the gate. That's right. Right off the bat. He could be an absolute dummy, but the British accent really kicks you up a notch. Yeah, it's true. It's true. I have thought about just putting on a fake one, but now my publicity is too wide and I can't do that. It's too late. Yeah, I can't instill the deception. And so this person came up and brought up this objection about the rights of women. And Andy could have addressed that specifically, but one of the things that he did, which I think was kind of clever in the moment, is he said, "Well, why is it wrong to oppress women?" (...) And the guy said, "Well, what do you mean, why is it wrong to oppress women?" He said, "Why is it wrong?" (...) I have a framework to talk about why it's wrong to oppress women, but according to your worldview, why should women have rights? And the guy kept going, "Well, because it's bad, because it's wrong."(...) And Andy at a certain point stopped him and he said, "We're standing in one of the top universities in Canada and all you can come up with is it's wrong because it's wrong." (...) That's not overly comprehensive or academic, is it? And the guy just went in circles until at a certain point he just said, "I don't know why it's wrong." At that point, Andy said, "You can pause it that you don't like that women aren't treated well or that you want women to have rights, but going from an is to an ought merits an objectivity." So how do we get there? So I think asking these questions when people bring these things up, I think go a long way in helping them even come to the conclusion. Rather than talking at them, we can dialogue with them and say,(...) "I can tell you why women should have equality because they're created in the image of God just as I am." So they are entitled to rights. And this is the actual, the historic framework of biblical Christianity.(...) You have studies that have been done that show that the rights of women throughout the last 2000 years, when agency is given to particularly women and children, Rodney Stark did this study, the historian Rodney Stark, where just prior to their being, the agency of women kind of baked into society, you can track the movement of Christian missionaries into that area a few decades before. It's because this is a Christian value. This comes from scripture, that in Christ there is no male nor female. We all have equality under the saving work of the cross. And so it's those things that we can encourage people and point them in saying, "Now, I have an ability to say these things, but where do you get that from?" That's good. You mentioned the cross, a quick elevator defense to help us get to the claims of Christianity concerning Jesus himself versus, I mean, all the other rival religions. Here you have all these different religions and you've got Buddhas and you've got Muhammad and you have different leaders of different religions and all these different contenders. How arrogant to assume that Christianity is the only right one and that Jesus Christ specifically is the only way to get right with God. Can you give a case for Jesus for us? Yeah, well, especially in the context and framework of putting it alongside other religions. When I was on the flagrant podcast with Andrew Schultz and Akash Singh, this came up and(...) Akash, who comes from a Hindu background, wanted to really push me on this. And one of the things that I said was, "All worldviews are exclusive to some degree." I don't think there is such a thing as a fully inclusive worldview because even the inclusivists have to exclude the exclusivists. They have to say, "I don't like what you are saying." I tell the story sometimes. This is another aspect of my rap sheet is that I had a very short-lived Bollywood career. And so when I was in India one summer, I- Your resume, hold on, timeout. Your resume, it's an acid trip, right? Yeah, that's right. Can we just agree? Your resume is an acid trip. Yeah, I'm fine with it. I mean, it's my life, so it's very normal to me. But I fully grant that there are certain aspects of it that are unusual to your regular listener. But so I was in India, I was in Delhi, I think it was 2012, and I'd actually ended up at the Grand Baha'i Lotus Temple in New Delhi. And the Baha'i faith is one that claims to be inclusive, right? It's sort of this grab-bag religion. Some people have called those types of inclusivistic worldviews "cafeteria religion" where they take little bits and parts of the religions that they like, but then they kind of leave the other bits that are unsightly off. And so I was walking around. This is a beautiful building. It's architecturally very impressive. And I ran into this other guy who actually happened to be from California, and he was there on a pilgrimage, and he introduced himself. He said, "You know, my name is so-and-so, and I am Baha'i, and I believe that always lead to God." And a little bit tongue in cheek, I said, "My name is Wes. I'm a Christian, and I believe that one way leads to God." And he went, "Oh, no, no, no, I can't accept that." And I went, "Hold on. (...) You're excluding me." And he went, "No, no, no, we want to include everybody." Oh, that's so good. The reality of the situation is that him as an inclusivist, he could not accept that I don't believe that the truth claims of Islam, which says there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the prophet of Allah,(...) that that doesn't jive with Christianity. (...) He couldn't accept that when you read the story of Gautama Siddhartha, the Buddha, who was raised Hindu, but then rejected Hinduism because he saw the authority of the Vedas as evil, and eventually went on to start what we now know as Buddhism, that that was excluding another worldly perspective. If you look into the actual truth claim. So what I said on flagrant was, it's kind of like if I told you that I spent the entire week at the public library, and I read all the books, right? I read every book in the library, everything from, and what I said on flagrant was, "One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish, two mind-conf." And I concluded that based on my assessment of all the books, they're all saying the exact same thing. And I can verify this because they all have words and grammar and syntax and concepts and paragraphs, and that you could conclude one of two things. Either that I had not read all the books, or I read all the books very, very poorly.(...) And I think when people make these statements about all religions really saying the same thing, or all religions claiming to lead to God, I think it's one of those two conclusions. It's either you have not really looked into all the worldviews very well, or you've done so, so superficially that you actually do an injustice to those worldviews to begin with. Some of them don't even claim to lead you to God. Eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism and Jainism, the purpose is for yourself to cease to exist and you to become one with the universe. There is no God. It's a non-theistic worldview. Yeah. So I think these are the kind of things that when we're encountering people, and so the kind of juxtaposition to that is that the Christian worldview is unique in that it does (...) hang historically. (...) You could actually remove Buddha from the picture and you could still get Buddhism because it's a philosophy. Someone else could have come up with the philosophical concepts that make up Buddhism. You could have had a different prophet other than Muhammad communicate what is now known as Islam. But it had to be Jesus. It could not be anyone else. And that's where it all hangs on the historical validity and reliability of this first century itinerant Jewish rabbi who came into the world, fulfilled prophecy with his birth, life and death, and then ultimately was vindicated by his resurrection. And I think that likewise is historically reliable. Very, very good. I love that. That's awesome.(...) I've seen in the past, these are mainly popularized on YouTube and these are Christ Smith are kind of videos. And here I happen to have an actual historian. (...) What would be the stakes if an atheist historian came out and said publicly written down there is there was no actual real Jesus Christ is just a myth. Are any secular historians claiming that there are secular historians claiming that. But I think if you were to make a list of all the academics within relevant fields, so we're talking history, historiography, biblical studies, historical Jesus studies, classicists, all of the relevant fields that could actually have a say on the matter over the last 500 years, I think you would probably find that though the group of the people who would make those statements denying the historical Jesus could probably fit on two hands. Right. So it's a very small minority of even atheist historians that would claim that. Yeah. As a historian, nobody was claiming that is his adversaries in the first half millennium. Right. And that's noteworthy. (...) Yeah, I think, you know, a part of the problem is that we just have so much data to go off of talking about who Jesus was. Now you might deny that some of the details about say the miraculous claims of Jesus are credible, but to deny that the actual character that Jesus of Nazareth that is, you know, in the overall framework of the gospels didn't exist, I think is to basically conclude that nobody can be assured or confident that anybody existed within the ancient world. That's good. And that's a pretty strong verifiable fact. In fact, you can read skeptics, no friends of Christianity people like John Dominic Croson, (...) like Bart Ehrman,(...) you know, there are countless others, Gerd Lüdemann,(...) who, you know, they pick a Slopeed, who's a Jewish scholar. And they say, if we can know anything about history, we can conclude that there was an actual historical Jesus. We might differ on the details. We might argue about some of the actual claims of fulfillments of who that individual was, but they're not going to deny that he actually existed.(...) And in terms of the like Jesus mythicists, parallels with other ancient deity figures, those are even more of the fringe of the fringe because it just doesn't add up when we actually look at those other ancient deity figures. The details of claims of virgin births and 12 disciples and crucifixions, they're not in those stories. And so those are either greatly exaggerated or completely fabricated. That's good. So there is a God. Jesus truly did exist. (...) I know I want to be respectful of your time, so we're wrapping up here. But how do we get to and Jesus did rise from the dead? Jesus really was God among us. Jesus really did die for sins and as a way of salvation. What is a quick elevator defense for?(...) We know Jesus is who we claim to be. (...) Yeah, well, I think there are a few things going on there. I think part of there's a historical case in terms of the reliability of the gospels that I can I could think actually can be validated. I think that the gospel authors communicate that they're actually talking about real history and they get the small details right time and time again to the point where I don't think it's an exaggeration to then claim that they get the big details right, especially because the people who are the origin points of these stories are the people who at Jesus's death thought that he was dead and gone and that the movement was over. Right. They'd seen other messianic movements. There were individuals prior to Jesus. There were individuals after Jesus who made these types of claims. And that's why there's a theologian, an author named Fleming Rutledge. And she has this great line that says, "If Jesus had not been raised from the dead, we would never have heard of him." And on that basis, I think that is a good argument. You know, what's an argument for the resurrection? The fact that you and I are still talking about it two thousand years later. Yeah. And the year is 2025 in every country around the world. Why? (...) Yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, there are a few instances, I'll just mention very briefly, that we can read about in the Bible itself on Pentecost, Acts chapter two. You go from Jesus's death to the disciples who claim they've seen the risen Jesus. And after Jesus's crucifixion, they go back to the city he was crucified in. And then they proclaim that he was risen from the dead. Now, why would you go back to ground zero, especially if you're trying to be dishonest, to the place where people, multiple people, groups of people would have seen him crucified? You know, you know how you could falsify that? A group of people could say, "Hey, you guys are lunatics. Let's go to his grave." Right? It's a tomb, it's a Jewish tomb. You can just unroll the stone door. And so, but that's what they do. They go back to ground zero and they proclaim this truth. This is, might I remind you, after Stephen has been stoned for this, so they know that there is a price that could cost them their lives for making this claim. And yet they go back to the source and proclaim it right there and then. And I think that goes a long way in terms of 11 scared disciples, right? This is what I said in Rogan, 11 scared disciples going from, you know, cowering in the upper room to then being willing to put their life on the line for this proclamation. Why is that? That needs an explanation. And they would be tortured and killed as well. Yeah, that's, they sealed the truth with their blood. It really happened. It really happened. Wes Huff, thanks so much. Two real quick last questions. People who want to do further reading or watching, what are some good resources, books or dudes that they should be watching on YouTube or some of your own material? Yeah. So you can go to wesleyhuff.com and I actually have a recommended resources list on wesleyhuff.com, which has links to Amazon books that you can find for each category, whether that's science, history, the Bible,(...) LGBTQ issues. I even have a section at the bottom books for kids and I break it down by intro, intermediate and expert on that. So you can find that at wesleyhuff.com. I work for apologeticscanada.com. So if you go to that website, that our organization, Apologetics Canada, you can find out where myself and my team that have the pleasure to work alongside an awesome group of individuals where we're speaking next and what kind of things we're getting up to and, you know, Logos Bible software is actually a partner of mine and they have some great resources along with, if you go to logos.com slash Wes Huff of resources that you can get deals on by using that particular link. If you have Logos, you can use it for 60 days free and check it out. It's a great software to study the Bible. But there are also resources that I myself recommend that you can find there and you can get good deals on it. Logos is great. I've been using it for like two decades. It's wonderful resource. That's great. How can people follow you personally? Where are you active? Social media, YouTube, where are you at? Yeah. So YouTube, Instagram, X, Facebook, I'm on all of those. You can find, I think the easiest place is just to go to wesleyhuff.com and you'll find the social links rather than me giving you all the different handles. You know, when I came up with these pages, I wasn't thinking as well as maybe I should have been, I didn't just use one handle. So the, it's various handles. So it's not as easy as just saying at Wes Huff. But if you go to wesleyhuff.com, you can definitely find all of that. I also have infographics and blogs up there as well. That's great. Your handles like samurai sword, sprinter 86. Not quite that bad. Follow me. Yeah.(...) Wes Huff, such a privilege to be able to get to talk to you. I really look forward to seeing you at the greater homeschool conventions and that 1613 conference can be good to see you face to face, shake your hand and say, thanks all that you're doing. I really appreciate it. I'm a big fan. So thanks for joining us. Any last word? No. Thank you so much for having me on. It's a, it's, I'll say ditto. It's likewise that, and I'm looking forward to meeting you in person too, John. Awesome. Warrior poets. Thanks so much for tuning in. See you next time.