Can You Prove the Scientific Method?

LiamI don't really take, I mean, you can still go on with it if it comes out early, it's just going to be a lot harder to take care of.

MichaelSo it's not a cake, or it is a cake when it came out. It is a cake. But then I put the toothpick and it wasn't done, so I put it back in, right? Because I want it to cook all the way, right?

LiamYes.

MichaelAnd now it's not a cake.

LiamYes.

MichaelAnd then I take it out, and now it is a cake.

LiamYes.

MichaelOkay, and that's comparable to how birth works.

Campus staffGood, happy Friday.

LiamHappy Friday.

Campus staffGood, how's your week been?

LiamPretty good. Good, good, good, good.

Campus staffJust came and... Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. Liam's everywhere, so great job. Yeah. Well, good.

LiamThank you.

Campus staffExcited about that. We're looking forward to some...

MichaelHow are you guys? Yeah.

Campus staffHow are we? Yeah. Yeah, good.

MichaelYeah. Any thoughts on human rights, abortion?

Campus staffAll kinds of thoughts. Yeah? Yeah, just came, saw your sign, just came out to check it out and just kind of make sure things are all good. You're welcome to be here, you have that right and just can't impede any of the process here, anything like that. If you offer a conversation and a student or anyone declines, you just have to let them get on with their day and things like that. But yeah.

MichaelOh, so are you like a First Amendment lawyer or something?

Campus staffI am not. I am not. I oversee student engagement and well-being and student conduct and kind of when folks are tabling or something like that, they have to go through a process where they get permission to be on the campus and things. So, hello. So, excuse me one second. So, things went okay? Feeling good?

MichaelYeah, I mean, it was... So, you think that that's like a perfect analogy for human birth, or like a similar...

LiamI thought it would be something that would get on your level of analogies that you've been saying.

MichaelSo, you intentionally came up with something inane to try to show me that you think the analogies I've made are inane?

LiamI found an older charger to go into an older device to work out. Because you can't put a USB to an older device. So yes, there's some holes in it. But it gets the point across.

MichaelOkay, so your point was that my analogies were so bad, so you came up with basically an even worse one, so that I would...

LiamI think I'm on par.

MichaelAnd you don't realize that your analogy was so unbelievably not analogous to my analogies. But it was kind of clever how you led me into it and made me think you believed it for a second. But it really, it's really hard. You're seriously irrational about moral topics. And I'm guessing you're not irrational about, for example, like IT stuff. Like I bet when you're solving a computer program, you don't think weird magic happens once in a while, except I guess just Windows restarts. But I'm sure you think, I was gonna say, I'm sure you think there's some reason why that works, even if it's mysterious to so many of us. Yeah, but you don't believe that there's any kind of system in real life that actually the designer of everything that designed you, who now can play with computers, actually built into things such that we can actually use logic. You think it's just magic.

LiamI never said I believed in magic.

MichaelI asked you if a child magically became a human when it left the mother and came out, and you said yes.

LiamI thought you were using a dated term.

MichaelOkay, okay, so you didn't literally mean magic.

LiamWell, no, that is it.

MichaelJust like we didn't literally think Jesus meant that the bread was his body. Which hopefully you'd at least side with me on that one, because you're not Catholic either, and that's more weird than what I believe.

LiamI don't see why I wouldn't disagree or disagree if it's something I think is out there.

MichaelI thought you were on my team.

LiamI mean...

MichaelIf there was a war between Catholics and Christians, which team are you on, Liam?

LiamI'm sitting outside with a popcorn.

MichaelYou're not allowed. We're roping you in. We're roping you in. We're going to put a uniform on you. You've got to pick a side. Which side are you on?

LiamI'm standing in the middle and letting whoever shoots me first do it. I have no place.

MichaelThat's probably a good choice. That's probably a good choice.

LiamIt is a dated belief. Everything in there was...

MichaelDo you think new beliefs are better than old beliefs?

Liam100%.

MichaelI could feel that. So if a belief has withstood the test of time and lasted and actually been tested over and over by philosophers and theologians for centuries, that belief is not as valid as something that some guy came up with in the last 50 years.

LiamIf he has newer technologies and evidence to back it up and he can rerun it in a scientific method, then yes.

MichaelWhat's a scientific method?

LiamI mean, I feel like you know what a scientific method is.

MichaelWell, I do. I want to know if you know.

LiamI know what it is. It is going through... You have a question, you make it to your hypothesis, you make your observations, you have your experiment, and then you share your results. It's a bit more of an abbreviated version.

MichaelYeah. So let me ask you this. Can you prove the scientific method is a good method without using the scientific method itself to do so?

LiamIt's potential.

MichaelBut do you recognize that the scientific method is an assumption on your part?

LiamWell, yes. Nothing is 100% and nothing is 0%. Nothing is perfect, nothing is guaranteed.

MichaelSo how do you know anything at all then?

LiamYou don't. You go with what you think you have.

MichaelSo you don't think you know anything at all?

LiamI think I could know anything and nothing.

MichaelOkay, so you could be wrong about everything.

LiamI could be wrong about everything. I could be right about some things. I could be a mixture of both. I could be in a coma somewhere doing nothing.

MichaelOh, this could be a dream?

LiamI'd be impressed, but...

MichaelIt'd be a good dream, huh?

LiamIt could be.

MichaelSo...

LiamEverything is relative.

MichaelWell, except that statement. That statement was absolute.

LiamEssentially.

MichaelYou just made an absolute statement.

LiamEssentially.

MichaelYou did.

LiamYes.

MichaelDo you see the self-refuting philosophy and reasoning of what you just said?

LiamPotentially.

MichaelPotentially or actually?

LiamPotentially.

MichaelSo, you're going to say everything's relative, you're going to acknowledge that's absolute, thus not relative, and you don't see a contradiction there?

LiamI do not.

MichaelSo you don't believe in the law of non-contradiction?

LiamI think there's some.

MichaelSo you believe that... You don't acknowledge the law of non-contradiction.

LiamI believe in helping people. That's what I do.

MichaelDo you help children in the womb?

LiamThey aren't children.

MichaelYou define them as such.

LiamI think I've clearly said that they are not people and they are not children.

MichaelYou've asserted it, but did you follow the scientific method? Prove they're not?

LiamIt's not making a child. It's not a child until it comes out.

MichaelWhat would it take for you to believe that Jesus really is God and that you need him as a Savior? What would it take?

LiamPhysical presence.

MichaelOkay, so Eucharist boy was closer to you then, right? So does the Eucharist count as physical presence? If a Roman Catholic says, hey, this is Jesus, do you believe that?

LiamIf any of them appeared, that would be an amazing Monday.

MichaelNo, like if you went to a Roman Catholic church and they told you, hey, this bread just became Jesus, would you believe it?

LiamI don't really think I would.

MichaelOkay, so that evidence would not satisfy you, you're saying. Hi. So, what if Jesus appeared and people observed his appearance and wrote down the things that he said and documented that he died and rose again and then those documents had been just passed on for 2,000 years in such a way that we could be sure these are the original documents and it's what people really testified to. Would you believe that? Eyewitness testimony?

LiamI'd be pretty impressed. I'd probably think it's AI with our current time.

MichaelWell, that's exactly what's already happened before AI. People saw Jesus, documented it, and gave us the Bible, which documents all this. So you don't believe their eyewitness testimony, right?

LiamI feel it could be legend. Santa Claus was a person in Germany who then got a legend made around him that is made into a tradition. I think Jesus could be seen as the same way.

MichaelOkay, so his physical presence that other people observed and documented is not sufficient for you because you don't trust it.

LiamA lot of things have been amped up throughout history and been written incorrectly.

MichaelSure. Yeah, I totally agree.

LiamEveryone wants to write down a bad record of themselves. They want to make themselves look good.

MichaelWell, that's a good point, which actually is an argument for the validity of the Gospels. Because in the Gospels, the Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, where the men wrote about Jesus, they actually wrote self-deprecating things about themselves and all humanity. So if you believe that nobody wants to write things bad about themselves, then why did these people do it? Was it maybe because they were writing the truth about God, and that was more important to them than how they looked for all of antiquity?

LiamI don't know.

MichaelSo if other people telling you they saw Jesus... So you don't believe that people saw Jesus 2,000 years ago because the documents could have been changed or people could have lied, right?

LiamI think it was made to allow humanity to progress.

MichaelOkay, so then what if I told you I saw Jesus? Would you believe that?

LiamI'd like to see a video.

MichaelOkay, so you want to see it yourself, you're saying. Like that's what would satisfy you.

LiamLet me shake his hand.

MichaelWell, what if I told you that Jesus anticipated people like you, and what he said was to his apostle Thomas, who said the same thing, I want to see him, Thomas said, in John chapter 20. And he said, until I touch him with my own hands, I'm not going to believe any of you. So his buddies, he didn't believe them. And Jesus appeared and said to Thomas, blessed are you, seeing you have believed. And then he said, blessed are those who without seeing believe. And so what Jesus has done for the last 2,000 years, he's given us the testimony of all the people that did see him, written and preserved for us in a scientifically evaluatable way called textual criticism, where we can be absolutely certain beyond like 3,000 times any other historical event that the things written were at least what they really wrote at the beginning. Even if you disagree with them, we can know that we have the original New Testament in English now. We can see what they wrote. They wrote it in Greek, but we can read it in our language. And we can know it's really the right things they said. And what Jesus has said is that you need to believe their testimony and that he is the Savior. That he's the one that can forgive you for everything you've ever done wrong. He can forgive you for every time you've had a covetous thought, Anytime you've lusted after a woman or watched pornography, anytime you've stolen something, even if it was a little thing, anytime you've blasphemed him, every moment of unbelief, your cavalier attitude about abortion, he can forgive every bit of it. And you can have total confidence it's absolutely true. Because he's real. And he will not submit to your judgment and come and stand before you to prove himself. He expects you to trust him. He's God, you're not. But it's a gracious thing that he even gives you that chance. Do you understand me?

LiamI say that's fair.

MichaelIt is. It's actually unfair in a way that he would offer people like you and me a chance to be forgiven and granted eternal life. He died when he did nothing wrong so people like you and me who live our whole lives in rebellion to him can go to heaven. That's not fair. That's grace. It's mercy. And it's real. And I want you to experience it. Do you have a Bible? Because you won't read it or because you've already read it?

LiamWell, I want... I understand. I don't need the idea of a God for me to do good. I won't hurt your house, per se, but I do good because it's what I go with. I have my own, it's very brief, I have my own things that I go with, essentially.

MichaelWell, my website is confess.catechize.ing, if you can remember that. Okay, if you are sitting around one day, you decide you want to read the Bible, you want to test to see if these things are true, the Bible is free online all over the place anyway, you can find it. But I would bring you one here, I'll even give you my card so you can get a hold of me if you change your mind. I know right now you don't want to, but maybe one day you will. My name is Michael Coughlin, by the way.

LiamThank you. There's emotion, yet there's peace. There's ignorance, but there's yet knowledge. There's passion, but there's yet serenity. There's chaos, yet harmony. There is death, but yet there is still the force. That is what I go with.

MichaelI went with the same stuff when I was your age. I don't mean to be patronizing. I didn't believe in Jesus until I turned 30 years old. So when I say I was just like you, I'm not patronizing. I'm just saying I once kind of thought the way you think about things. And people told me this stuff and I thought they were weird. I thought they were stupid. One day I thought, you know what, I'm just going to read this stuff myself. And then God worked on my heart. Now I'm 50, 20 years later and just trying to tell people the same thing that helped me. I mean it.

LiamIs it God that drives you to do good? Or is it you?

MichaelIt's God.

LiamDo you need the big man telling you to not go steal?

MichaelYeah, I sure did. I was a horribly wicked person. And he forgave me anyway. And even as a Christian who has been changed by God, I still have to go to him regularly for help. Because only he is perfect. And I give him all the credit for that. So do I need God? Yes. Absolutely. I'm nothing without him. I can't even stand still if I feel a bug crawling on me. He's perfect for all eternity. I got impatient with the Catholic guy, didn't I? I need forgiveness. You need forgiveness. Only God can forgive us.

LiamNo,

Michaelthat would be atoning for yourself. Forgiveness is when you've committed an offense and the offended party chooses not to make you repay for the insult. They take the insult upon themselves, which is what Jesus did for his people. That's what forgiveness is. If you steal money from me and I let you keep it, and I say I forgive you, that means you keep the money. I'm the one that loses. If you pay it back, you've atoned for it. You can't atone for your sin before God. Only Jesus can. It didn't work, so finally it was like... But he's willing.

LiamI think he's willing.

MichaelWell, I hope you'll seek him. It won't hurt you if you're antagonistic. Antagnostic? Is that what you said? If you're antagonistic, I hope you will realize that praying to Jesus won't hurt you. Because if you're really antagonistic, you believe that it's at least hypothetically possible he's really God. You'd have to be totally atheist to say he's not, and you're sure he's not. And so, since you can't discount the possibility, I suggest you pray to him and say, okay, open my eyes. If he's God, he's got the power, right? And if he's not, he won't hear you anyway. He won't hurt you. Would you say that prayer?

LiamWill you?

MichaelI hope you do. Alright, buddy. It's good to talk to you. Thanks for staying with us so long.

LiamYou're welcome.