The Scientific Evidence for God | A Timeless Wisdom Special

Life Audio.

On today's episode of Timeless Wisdom.

Dr. Schroeder is my guest now, and thank you for taking the time to be with me.

No, thanks for having me, Dennis. I'm delighted to be on your show. And all this idea, is there a God or isn't there a God, is why is there existence? We just take it for exact— I don't mean why is there life, or why is there anything?

Why is there anything? I ask that all the time. Go ahead.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's— we just like, we take consciousness as an, as, as an We are conscious, we swim in it. So existence, I mean, why— you've probably asked this many times, and you think on your show, we just take it for granted. But the reality is, perhaps the strongest evidence for the fact of there being a divine input, a willful input, put it this way, into the world, is the fact that we exist at all in a universe that is absolutely friendly for life.

That's coming up on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

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Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Hear thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs. And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to dennisprager.com.

Hello everybody, this is Dennis Prager and welcome to the show known as The Dennis Prager Show. And forgive me for having the same name. It's not an issue of arrogance. It's just there's no better name to tell you what the show is, I guess. So this is a very—

I hate it.

It's so clichéd. This is a very special hour. Every hour either has to be special or I should do other work. Nevertheless, having said that, there is something special nevertheless about this hour.

I have—

followed my entire life the, the question of, does science negate God? I have always been deeply, deeply interested in the questions and the challenges regarding God's existence. And as a result, I was always aware of the atheist Antony Flew of Oxford and then of York University in Canada. And, uh, he really was the, uh, The guru, if you will, of philosophical atheism. And now he has announced, to his enormous credit, because he said, look, I follow Socrates and I go where the evidence leads. He did not have, as I believe many atheists do, he did not have an emotional commitment to atheism. He had an intellectual commitment. And when the intellectual barriers seem to have dissipated— Anthony Flew, Professor Flew, decided that there is a God. There is this, the Supreme Being who created, who designed the universe. And he cited 2 thinkers who provided the scientific basis to have him affirm that there is a God. One is a Catholic, Roy Abraham Varghese. And his book, among others, The Wonder of the World: A Journey from Modern Science to the Mind of God. And the work of my guest now, the other, the other person who was apparently influenced— not apparently, who has explicitly influenced one of the great atheist thinkers of our time to believing in God, and that is Gerald Schroeder. And let me tell you a little about Dr. Schroeder. He is the author of Genesis and the Big Bang, The Science of God, and The Hidden Face of God. He earned his PhD at MIT before moving to laboratories at the Weizmann Institute, the Hebrew University, and the Volcani Research Institute in Israel. And he lives in Jerusalem with his family, and Dr. Schroeder is my guest now. And thank you for taking the time to be with me.

No, thanks for having me, Dennis. I'm delighted to be on your show.

Thank you. I, I, let me ask the human question first, then we'll talk about the scientist and about theism. How did it feel to be cited by perhaps the leading atheist in the world as one who brought him to God?

I tell you, it was a bolt out of the blue. I arrived one day at work about to teach a class, and one of the One of the teachers grabs me, gives me a hug, and says, congratulations. I thought he was happy I arrived on time.

Or that you didn't realize your wife was pregnant.

Yeah, or that. Yeah, right. That's a few years in the past. But, uh, yeah, and then I, I had known that, that, that Anscombe's view was changing. I had no idea that it was The Hidden Face of God, my third book, that that brought him around. I was— I, I— it's, it's very pleasing, I'll tell you. It's not like pride, but it's pleasing. I can't deny it any other way.

Well, it ought to be, of course. Why would you write it if it is not to hopefully influence some atheists?

Yeah, well, it influenced me, Dennis. It sounds strange, but the data, as I searched deeper and deeper into the, into the workings of life— the 3rd book, The Hidden Face of God, is very strongly into How life works, how the simplest reactions in our body or any forms of life, the complexity. And when you get deeper and deeper into that, a kind of an intelligence shines through. And I think that's what Anthony Flew saw. That he's like, there's— if there's a mind shining through these phenomenal complexities of which we're involved, and we just take it for granted because it's all in a human body, it's all hidden underneath the skin. So you don't see any of those magnificent reactions, but when you lay them out and define them and describe them, it's hard to see it any other way other than some kind of a mind active in the system.

Now, I need to note that Varghese is an Eastern Rite Catholic layman. I had mentioned him as the other person. Are you familiar with him?

Oh yeah, Roy, yes.

Oh, you know each other?

Yes, we met after Anthony had made his change. Roy had contacted me, and we've met and actually produced a video together, working to try to cement, to show explicitly what the information was that changed. Because, I mean, I just think of a person like Professor Flew. All of his colleagues, for all of his professional life, have seen him embedded in a certain mindset. And to have the, as you were saying before, to have the courage actually.

It is, it's absolute courage.

He has to face his colleagues the next day. Yes, that's right. It's not like he's on an island by himself.

That's right.

And people that have patted him on the back for decades as the most quoted, One of his— one of the treatises he wrote on the falsification of God was the most widely quoted philosophical paper for 50 years. And now he just changes it around. I mean, I just— I'm in awe of the fact that a person has the courage to do this, frankly, because, I mean, it's a— he's got to see his colleagues the next day, and it's a different person they see.

That's right. It would be fascinating for him to write About how they reacted to him. I, you know, uh, which reminds me, let me tell my producer Alan, we must try to get, uh, Professor Flew on, uh, if he, if indeed he's publicly speaking that much. Now, it's interesting to me that it was not the Big Bang and Genesis that moved him, but, uh, as much as your other book, The Hidden Face of God.

Yes.

Now, why do you think that is? Is it a more persuasive— I don't mean you are more persuasive, but do you think that speaking about that is more persuasive than talking about the Big Bang and Genesis?

Yeah. Yes. The Big Bang and Genesis could have an agenda. The Bible. The complexity of life is a given fact. It just wasn't 50 years ago. It wasn't 40 years ago. Molecular biology has changed the face of the understanding. The hidden face of God It's not a theological book, but it— but it— the— but the reality of a theology, or the reality of a— of a superintelligence, shines through. And I bring that out consistently in the text. But it's totally— it's— it's a very objective, non-subjective description of what's going on, because you don't need to— one does not need to subjectively color the amazingness of life.

Why do you think that that could not have been known 40 years ago?

Because molecular biology has changed the face of evolution.

So the more we know, it's almost exponential in the complexity that we realize?

Yeah, I think the shortcoming of words is that complexity is really too— I don't know if there's any word. We see a watch, we think it's complex. We see how a motor works in an automobile, it's highly complex.

Right.

That's trivial. And Dennis, I don't say this casually. It's trivial to compare that to the complexity of just to flex your finger or blink your eye. Is that a dream? If a person hasn't studied molecular biology, and that's what I bring down in the text, I bring a lot of, in layman's terms, I bring the molecular biology that runs your body and allows a mind to emerge from a brain. Complexity doesn't— the word complex doesn't describe it. It's too small. I don't know if there's any word in the English language that can handle it.

And that's obvious.

That—

you see, it's interesting. Uh, my, my older brother is a physician. He's a professor of medicine at Columbia University. And he went— and I only mention this because I— because it's him. I wouldn't even mention it. It's like the H-bomb, we call it in America. He went to Harvard Medical School.

Okay.

And, and he, uh, he told me— I was in high school at the time— but he told me, Dennis, I, I look at a cell under the microscope, and, and, and to me, that's the single greatest argument for God's existence. And that, that is about, uh, let's see, he's 66, so it's— it is, it is 40 years ago. I, I agree. I, I'm a layman, so I totally, uh, trust you that we know so much more today. But I, I've never understood why, why the eye or walking or thinking didn't suggest a designer. I, I, I, you know, is the level of evidence now just so overwhelming that—

Excuse me.

Yeah, no, no, please.

It used to be we called it the God of the Gaps. Oh, we can't explain it. So that, you know, things that we didn't know. But, but reality What demonstrates the presence of a divine mind isn't the gap, it's having explained the gap, literally in molecular terms. That is to say, we now understand how certain functions occur, and the—

Alright, you'll continue the thought in a moment, and then I want to ask you about, does God make mistakes? We'll be back in a moment. Gerald Schroeder, I'm Dennis Prager. As I said earlier, Dr. Schroeder, there are people who have positions, whether belief or non-belief regarding God and/or religion, that are— and some on both sides— that have a psychologically vested interest or an emotional investment rather than an intellectual realization. And so it is a tremendous credit to him. Now back to, uh, back to your book.

I, I—

the, uh, about— it is— I did not read this book, this one. Uh, I had you on, I believe, about God and Genesis, God and the Big Bang. And the— this one, is it accessible to the layman about the complexity of life?

Oh yeah, yes. I mean, it's probably— the publisher— can I mention the publisher? Oh, of course.

Simon& Schuster. Not only can you mention it, we're, we're putting it on our website so that people can get Ah, wonderful. No, no, no, it is a non-issue. But it is accessible. It's not a series of chemical formulas.

No, of course not. No, I mean, the reason I mentioned Stanley Schuster, because it's told in layman's language. I mean, Anthony Flew is not a scientist, he's a philosopher.

Right, good point. That is a good point.

And I spoke to him. I spoke to, thank God, a few people.

All right, look, let me ask you the question that bothers everybody, and it may be a silly question, and you are totally free to say it's a silly question, and I mean that sincerely.

I've only heard silly answers, very few silly questions.

Okay, that's very sweet of you. That's what I tell audiences, and that is the truth, by the way, that as a lecturer, I will say that I've almost never been asked a silly question. But in any event, in the sense of silly, not that I'm foolish, but that it may just be an obvious question that has no answer. But what do you do with— if God is in the complexity of nature, or not within, if God is the author of this Infinite complexity, and you say complexity is not even a good enough word. Fair enough. But Siamese twins are born. What happened? Deformed babies are born. What happened? Did God— did God—

Tsunami wipes away.

Well, all right, that's fine. Tsunami's fine. Okay, I'll live with that. And I deal with it constantly on the show and in talks and writings, but But since you base the belief in God, at least intellectually in large measure, on this is the great designer, did God design these things, or do they thwart his will?

The essence of creation of the world from a theological, from a biblical theological point of view, is that there's a concept And the Hebrew word is tsimtsum, contraction, that God pulls back and allows a slack in the system, a granted autonomy. For the world to look natural, which has to— if you want that free will, the world has to look natural. There will be things like earthquakes, and I hear on the news mudslides, tremendous deaths. The world— God pulls back and allows a leeway in how God controls the world. Although theologically we say that God is present, God nonetheless, from the biblical point of view, it's— there's a statement in Isaiah which is one of the key statements in this interaction between the divine and the created, the creator and the created. And it reads like this: I am a God, there's nothing else. I form light and I create darkness. I make peace and I create evil.

Hmm.

Now there's a complexity there. I form light and I create darkness. Well, one of the metaphors for God in the Bible is light. The Psalms is full of it. So if you're the source of all light and you want darkness, I form light and I create darkness, you have to pull back some of the light. It's defining the word creation. Creation is a God— from the divine point of view, it's a lessening of God's manifest presence. Okay, I make that clear, manifest presence. Which allows a slack in the system. Now, now, physics— it had always been assumed that identical causes produce identical effects, and then we discover quantum uncertainty, and there's a slack in the system. Physics has come to agree with the, with the 3,000-year-old understanding that there is a, a leeway. So does God allow these errors to take place? Well, I think the place to really find this out is in the Bible itself. By chapter 6 of Genesis— now, there are 187 chapters in the 5 Books of Moses, the Torah— By chapter 6, God says, I regret having made mankind. It's a straight statement in the Hebrew and the English translate perfectly. What do you mean God regrets? God has regrets? The text says it explicitly. In other words, it's not an added-on that some commentators added. The text says God said, I regret having made mankind. And then comes the flood. So how can it be that we have this statement? The reality is, in how God runs the world, is That things run by themselves, and that from time to time God steps in manifestly and changes the system. The flood is a classic example. Before the flood, people were living to 900 years. It— people should never get hung up on the idea whether you could or whether you couldn't. It's the message I'm looking at, okay? Following the flood, lifespans gradually dropped down to 90 years. What's, what's the message? For the big molecular engineer in the sky, God, 900-year-old people were not a good idea. Too much free will. 90 years works a little bit better. And do you hear, Dennis, you hear me saying that the— this is— that this is— that God says, I regret having made the system the way I did. Brings on the flood. Lifespans start to drop gradually. The next 10 generations, lifespans drop. The numbers are right in the text. You have to pick them out of Genesis. Drop from 900-year-old It's a 90-year-old. And I repeat myself, one shouldn't get hung up on the idea of whether people could or couldn't live to 900 years. That's not the question. The question is, what's the— what's the— what's the—

By the way, you may find this— you cited Isaiah, and I believe that's 45:7.

Yes.

You cited it, though, interestingly— I assume you're an Orthodox Jew?

Yes. Well, more or less, yes.

Okay. More or less. I love that. I'd love to know what that means. You have no idea, but I'm not going to go there right now. But, uh, that's the rabbinic rephrasing of what, of what, uh, Isaiah said. Isaiah said, I create good and evil. The rabbis changed it to light and dark.

Well, there's 2 parts of the sentence. I form light and I create darkness. I make peace and I create evil. There's 2 parts in there.

Okay, fine, fair enough, because you cited the first part. Yeah, because, I mean, because God is behind evil. I mean, behind in the sense of he's created everything And we have to work with that. So you don't— so to you, and I have no agenda here, I just want to understand, to you then, children with deformities and tsunamis do not present any theological problem?

It's a sad problem, but it provides sadness and empathy, but it's not an argument against the presence of God. I mean, by chapter 4, God has let Cain murder Abel.

Well, that's evil. That's human choice. But tectonic plates is God's choice. So that's, that's, that's why. Gerald Schroeder, let me, let me just reintroduce you. We've got to take a break. Gerald Schroeder is the author of many books, including The Hidden Face of God, which changed Anthony Flew's This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

The greatest known atheist, Antony Flew, professor from Oxford and York University in Canada, announced that 2 people had influenced him so much that he has now believed that there is a God. And one of them is Gerald Schroeder, who was a professor in Israel and who has written the book that, that did it, at least for Antony Flew, one of the 2 books. The other we had mentioned by this Roy— is it Varghese?

Yes.

The Hidden Face of God. All right, so we We, we have dealt with how God, God has contracted and allowed nature to, to take its course.

To some extent, by stepping in from time to time.

Yes.

Okay.

All right. I, I, look, I, I live with that. To me, the— to me, there is peace in knowing that a, a God governs the universe. Let me though go to the next question, uh, and then I want to get some of your— the evidence, what you would, what you would offer as the greatest example of this infinite complexity. that just makes it overwhelming that there is an intelligence. There is a— there is one gap here, not in your logic at all, but, but, uh, there is one gap that needs to be traversed, and that is, okay, there is a designer. How do we know that this designer cares about his design?

Perfect, perfect. That was one of the discussions I had with Anthony, Anthony When I met him finally, after all this change had taken place, was one of the questions that came up. They have to see whether there's any— in other words, did God just wind up the universe and let it run?

Yes.

That would be the alternative.

Uh-huh.

Right. I think if we look at the flow of existence in the world, the flow of life, it appears that further and further Downstream from the creation, from the Big Bang creation, further and further into existence, it appears that there's a divine imprint that shows up again and again, which implies an ongoing interest of this creator into the world itself. And I'd like to— can I explore that a bit?

Yes, of course.

Okay. I mean, if you think of most— I think many persons are not aware of the fact that the Big Bang did not produce anything solid. It didn't produce scrambled eggs or whatever, you know, or whatever. And it didn't produce protons and neutrons and electrons, the particles of atoms. The Big Bang produced one thing and one thing only from the material world, and that's energy, light beams. The fancy name is electromagnetic radiation, but the reality is just super energetic light beams. Dennis, those light beams are the only physical creation. All of physics holds by this. The fact that all of biblical theology holds by this isn't so relevant at the moment, but that happens to be the case. Let's just stay with the science of the world. All of science holds by the fact that the creation brought forth, as far as the material part besides space and time, light beams, super energetic light beams. Those light beams became alive. We look around the world and we look back in evolution and we say, oh, can there be a monkey in our family tree? Go back, we don't have a monkey in the— we may or may not, we probably do, but we go back, we have rocks and water 4 billion years ago. Go back earlier, you have stardust, and go back to the very beginning, light beams. The way I see it is like this. If I had a block of ice and then I had over here a kettle out of which a white cloud was coming out, we call it steam. If I didn't know the reality, I would never believe that the steam is made of H2O water and the ice is made of H2O. Ice happens to be low-energy water. Steam has to be high-energy water. But it's all H2O, even though they look totally different. The metaphor I'm getting at here is we are, as strange as this will sound, condensed light beams. The Big Bang produced light beams. The light beams somehow condensed into matter. And the matter became alive. I apologize for making it sound—

I love it, I love it.

It's not New Age. It's as old as physics, as old as quantum mechanics. Can light beams become alive? This is the discussion we had with Anthony, that, of course, he originally said, okay, a mind, a divine force in the mind, but then, you know, perhaps steps back and lets it run. How do light beams become alive? Or just, I'll just, I won't go that far. Light beams become protons and neutrons and electrons, but those protons, neutrons, and Electrons are condensed light beams, because that's what— just like ice is condensed water and steam is vaporous water, they're all H2O, they're all water. We may see oatmeal and people, etc., but it's still fundamentally light beams. It's not that they've disappeared from the scene, they've just changed form. And 4 billion years ago on the Earth, those light beams became rocks and water that became alive.

All right, this is too much, and I have so much to react. This is just— I'm sitting with a big smile on my face. Gerald Schroeder and the Hidden Face of God: Who Influenced Anthony Flew. I'm Dennis Prager. We'll be back in a moment. Professor Gerald Schroeder in Jerusalem. He is one of the 2 scientists, although— is Roy Vergase a scientist?

He was more of a philosopher.

Yeah, so the one—

He was in high tech.

Right.

And he's a scientist engineer.

Well, uh, so one of the 2 writers, and this is the scientist, uh, Gerald Schroeder, who has changed Anthony Flew's mind that there must be, there must be a God. And, uh, it is because of the staggering complexity. By the, by the way, I need to react to this fascinating statement that in effect we are all— what is it, electronic beams? Light beams.

Light beams. Condensed light beams.

We are condensed light beams.

Not in effect, in reality.

In reality. I love that fact. I love it because that argues to me Uh, so powerfully for, for a God. I, I, I mean, for God. Now, in that same sense, can one respond to those religious people who are, uh, very worried about, uh, evolution as undermining faith in God, that we are no more, uh, a, a, an ape than we are a light beam? Or do you have— what is your take on evolution?

I prefer calling it development. I think for certain life developed from the simple to the complex. When you look at some of the details, it seems that the finger of God is present, and we were discussing whether God just winds it up or not. The first aspect of evolution would be 4 billion years ago, rocks and water became alive. I mean, there was non-living matter on the Earth, and life started. Immediately, most persons are not aware of the fact that there weren't billions of years between the Earth cooling enough so there could be liquid water. The Earth was molten, crust cooled to a temperature where there could be liquid water, and life starts like that. Bingo. I mean, the oldest rocks that can bear fossils already have fully formed bacteria undergoing mitosis, undergoing reproduction. So the first of the questions is, How does life come out of rocks and water? Because that's what happened. I mean, that's just a reality. So once— what we look at when we look at the details of what we call evolution, the major jumps that occur, it looks to me, and it looked like— look to Anthony also— that there was in fact the finger of God present in these reactions, or the hand of— how do you want to see it? A divine influence. I shouldn't— don't want to be prejudicial. God's divine influence. Dennis, how do you explain, you take one mix of protons, neutrons, and electrons, the things that make up an atom, take one particular mix, you get a grain of sand. Take the identical protons, neutrons, and electrons in a different combination, you get the brain of an Einstein, or a mind that can produce a Beethoven's Violin Concerto that can move you to tears. The, the unlikelihood of this happening without some other type of matrix of— I don't use like Matrix, the movie, but the Matrix has been around before the movie was around. The idea of a matrix within which all existence is embedded, and that matrix is mind. Mind predates the Big Bang. That I have, in my opinion, I no longer have any question about that. Not from a theological point of view. Theological is totally in accord with that. But the very nature of existence, light beams becoming rocks and water—

So for you, let there be light prior to any of the celestial lights is the trademark, almost proof of the scientific accuracy of the Genesis account.

In my second book, The Science of God, I go through day by day And year by year, and show the concordance, the confluence of the two. Science discovers more and more relative to what the Torah has been claiming in the ancient commentaries on the Torah. The match is, I say, literally unnerving. It's just extraordinary, without bending any of the biblical text or bending any of the science. The two come together age-wise, year-wise, It is in the subtlety of the text that the information flows out.

Let me take some calls, if I may, okay, Professor?

Yeah, sure, it's just fine.

Frank in El Cerrito, California, in the Bay Area. Dennis Prager, hi.

Hi, Dennis, how are you?

Okay, thank you.

This is a very interesting subject to me. I guess what I want to say is that complexity itself isn't an argument for God, that there's a new— not actually that new, type of mathematical discipline called complex systems theory, which deals with systems with many variables and feedback. And they've developed many types of computer models that do things like artificial life algorithms and algorithms to listen to voices and understand them. And they're made by this type of algorithm. And what they do is they use an evolutionary process of, of of trial and error to build up whatever they want to build up in the system, in voice recognition to recognizing vowels or recognizing speech as such. And then over time they develop these programs which do that. And if a human being looks at these programs and tries to logically understand them, they can't. They're a complete mess. They look exactly like a complex human body or complex organism that we can now build up in artificial life situations. We can build up things which resemble the complexity of life, and not only the complexity, but the sort of illogical mishmashiness of life that we see. And when we compare systems that were designed logically by an intelligent designer and systems that were designed by evolutionary algorithms, we see that life itself resembles evolutionary algorithms and doesn't at all resemble things that are, quote-unquote, intelligently designed.

By the way, you're an engineer with NASA?

Yeah.

Okay, Dr. Schroeder?

Yeah, first of all, I would reply along the lines of the fact that unless a system recognizes the order— now, no one will deny the fact that the complexity of life is a massive system of order, chemical reactions going phenomenally beautifully.

Of course.

Those totally— the laws of thermodynamics make it very clear that unless the system recognizes the order and locks it in, Although random reactions can produce order spontaneously, the order always degrades. Not sometimes, not rarely, always degrades. Yeah, but what you're saying is not really true. Unless the system is programmed and knows that that's the order that it's aiming for, or that it knows the order is present. Otherwise, mountains wash to the sea and bodies became the grave.

Right. That's a great question for Frank, and mull it over during the break and we'll come back. The fact is, though, that those algorithms were produced by people. That's a higher intelligence to the algorithm. We'll be back in a moment.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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Now, back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

Uh, Dr. Schroeder, I have a question for you. We had planned this to, uh, end at the hour, the hour, and that we— 99.9% of the time we do, uh, and I treasure your time. Are you available beyond this hour?

Yeah, I'd be delighted to, uh, to stay on.

Okay.

I mean, I, I— the conversation is extremely interesting. Well, yeah, to me.

Yeah, that's— I'm very touched that you feel that way. It certainly is to me, and I know to my Listeners, I didn't even mention the number and the lines are filled. But now I'll mention the number because Dr. Shorter will stay on. I do, though, need to just get a response from our NASA engineer for a moment. Frank, I just— hi. I just need to understand. I'm the layman between the two of you. You're both in different sciences. The creation of algorithms on computers is done by a higher intelligence, namely the human being.

No.

You mean computers would do it without humans?

Yeah, computers write their own algorithms. What the programmers do is they put in a seed, they put in what's called a rule, and the rule is how—

Right, right, right, but forgive me, Frank, forgive me. I'm not interrupting out of rudeness. I just— that's the point though that I'm making, and that is that at some point there was intervention or creation by a higher intelligence.

No, no, but as far as evolution and life goes, the only rule that needs to be applied Is that things that don't work die. Once you have that rule— and it's not a rule, it's inherent in the system— once you have that, all the rest follows.

All right, but how did the system begin?

Well, truthfully, Dennis, we don't know. I mean, I have to tell you—

Well, why does it not suggest to you that this staggering complexity from electronic beams to you, it does not have a higher intelligence involved? Why is that less—

Listen, I work with complexity every day. That's my field. I know where complexity comes from. I know how to create it. And I know that it doesn't come from intelligent design because we can't do that. I mean, maybe God could. You know, you can make an argument that God's super intelligent and could create something intelligently. But as far as designing stuff, designers tend to go for simplicity, not complexity. Complexity only can happen with one type of design, and that's non-intelligent. When random variables are created and then they're tried and they're rejected because the system lives or dies, we see it every day. This is how complexity happens.

Yeah.

This is the only way complexity can happen, in my opinion.

All right, Professor Schroeder.

The rule, the rule that's put in— first of all, we have the basic question about complexity, not complexity, goes back from the very beginning of how— of the basis sets and anything. What Dennis was saying about this idea of light beams becoming alive, I said it, Dennis repeating, the idea— the rule of complexity that's put in That allows what works or doesn't work. Works or doesn't work in what respect? I'm missing the point there. You said it either rejects what doesn't work or accepts what does work.

Well, I don't know, the organism needs to see or it will be eaten by prey, by predators. We'll be back in a moment. We're gonna continue with Professor Schroeder on the Dennis Prager Show. You can call in now. I have almost never— I can't say never, but almost never done this— and asked the guest to stay on past the first hour together. And I deeply appreciate the fact that Professor Gerald Schroeder in Jerusalem has agreed to do so. He is one of the 2 people cited by Antony Flew, perhaps the most cited atheist in our time, and I have known about him. I debated the issue of God at Oxford, and I certainly knew about him at the time. And he cited, that is Antony Flew to his great credit, 2 authors. Gerald Schroeder and Roy Vergese, whom we'll also hopefully have on, as having turned him around. It is just the arguments for God are simply too intellectually compelling. And that is what Professor Schroeder argues in his various books: Genesis and the Big Bang, The Science of God, and The Hidden Face of God. But it's The Hidden Face of God specifically Which apparently turned around Antony Flew. So Professor Schroeder, I thank you again. We had a challenge from a NASA engineer about complexity, and as I understood it, complexity, which is part of your argument and the one that touched Antony Flew, the staggering complexity of life is— does not come about on its own but suggests a complex maker. And the argument here was, well, we can— when I asked Frank, the NASA engineer, he said, well, look, what is necessary to be built is built, as it were. When the rules are set, what is necessary— I am asking you to respond to that. So, for example, I assume, well, it's necessary for creatures to have eyes or predators will eat them. Or they will bump into things constantly, or whatever other reasons we need eyes. And your response would be what?

Well, if you pick eyes as an example, then I'd like to jump into another one called reproduction. But for eyes, the complexity— an eye is quite extraordinary. And if we look at the fossil record, there are 34 basic categories of animals, 32 or 34 depending on how you make the categories. Our category is called Chordata. It's every animal that's bilaterally symmetrical and stereoscopic. There are certain characteristics. So birds are Chordata. There's another one called insects, arthropods, and there's another one called mollusks. These are the 3 types of life that have vision-forming eyes, that have eyes that see images. The first time they appear in the fossil record, all of them have eyes. Since you mentioned eyes, I just— jump into that because there's no indication in the fossil record of the evolution of the eye. The oldest animals in our phylum, Chordata, and the oldest animals in the insect phylum, and the oldest animals in the mollusk phylum, the 3 that have vision, already have vision when they first appear among the first of the animals. Now, you mentioned eyes, because— so I bring that out as an example. That type of complexity seems to have occurred de novo Just from the fossil record, out of the blue. There's no hint. And it's not that there are no fossils before this, but all the fossils before them are bacteria and algae, one-celled life.

Hmm.

But Dennis, I want to jump to something more to talk about this idea of complexity, if I may.

Mm-hmm.

But leaving the word complexity out of it because it's, it's, it's too fuzzy a word. The first forms of life which appear on the Earth, as I said in the previous section, immediately after the Earth cools, Liquid water forms in the Earth, life starts. Not after billions of years, life starts geologically immediately. The oldest rocks that can bear life already have life. That in itself is interesting. But one of the things that helped turn Anthony into the idea of not just a wind-up God, which he still wavers back and forth of that, that there's a divine mind he feels certain. The question is, is God always active? One of the aspects, and we have this on video on tape, that made him at least question and accept the fact that there might be this ongoing influence of God. The first forms of life already had to know reproduction. Now that, to listeners, they may not sound significant, but reproduction is purpose-driven, the continuation of the species. If the first forms of life did not know reproduction, and I tell you, the The way that a cell reproduces is a ballet on the scale of molecules. It's purely a ballet. It's exquisitely beautiful motions of atoms and molecules literally dance through the cell to produce the reproduction. But that system of reproduction had to be invented simultaneously with life. I'm not making myself clear.

Yeah, simultaneously with the very first life. Or we— it would never have continued.

Exactly.

It would have died and that would have been the end.

And then you would have to start life de novo again from absolute rocks and water again, which is so unlikely in the first place. So why did life know at the beginning? See, this isn't trial and error, because there's no chance— there's no chance, because if you make an error at this point, the species is dead. Because if it doesn't know— it's not like now when there's a plethora of life. Here you have the first bacteria, forming, and they knew how, and they had built into them the ability to carry on their species, purpose-driven. And that's a strong indication that it's not just a wind-up God. At least now we've got this influence, so to say, downstream, past the light beams becoming rocks and water, and past the rocks and water becoming alive, because that life had another input into it, namely, to repeat myself for the third time, reproduction. It's extraordinary. It's a basic aspect that is often overlooked in the evolution of life, this idea of this intelligence already present, knowing that it had to have reproduction to make it meaningful.

Let me give the number here for those of you who would like to either challenge or clarify or affirm anything that you've heard from Professor Gerald Schroeder. 1-800-PRAGER-776. 1-800-PRAGER-776. Digitally, it's 877-243-7776. 877-243-7776. Did you, in your own— uh, it's funny to use the word— in your own evolution, in your own thinking, uh, did you, uh, have a, a day where there was a theophany or an epiphany? Did something hit you one day and you went, aha, or has it been a gradual process?

I think it's a gradual process, although having witnessed 6 nuclear explosions, detonations of 6 nuclear weapons, that's quite an emotional experience, and that pretty much started me on my journey of trying to see this confluence between Bible and science. But I did grow up in the country, and my parents had an apple orchard. And pruning the trees year by year, you see this like it's a helix going through time. And it's kind of a— I look back on it as a very spiritual experience, this presence of nature, being intimately involved with nature itself and not clothed with— With the city, we lose that sense. It's so hard to see the wonders of life sometimes when you're surrounded by all the works of our hands, put it that way.

Let's go to, uh, Jamie. Jamie in Scottsdale, Arizona. Dennis Prager and Professor Gerald Schroeder, hi.

Hi, Professor. You're making one of the most compelling arguments that I've ever heard for the existence of a, um, of a God, for lack of a better word. My question is, Uh, can you then make the leap, um, from evidence to suggest that a God exists, um, to suggest that a Judeo-Christian type of God exists? In other words, now that you've sort of established to the best of anybody's ability that a God exists, what about the existence of the Judeo-Christian type of God that is referred to in the Bible?

And specifically what? That God is good? That God cares about his creatures? What exactly? That God is moral? What do you mean specifically, Jamie?

Well, there's— he appears to be making an argument for a supernatural being.

Correct, correct. So what is—

What I'm saying is human beings have followed, tend to follow, at least in the Western world, the Judeo-Christian definition of God.

Oh, I see. So in general, okay, the God— so the God of the Bible. Go ahead. That's a very good question, Jamie. Professor Schroeder, there is a leap of faith between there is a guiding intelligence and the God of the Bible. So go ahead.

Well, I think at that point you'd want to know whether the Bible rings true or not. And for this, I'll stay with the 5 Books of Moses and primarily Genesis. And if in fact the data that we accumulate from science and also from biblical understanding come together, have a confluence, then that would imply that the Bible is correct, and therefore the definition or the description of God in the Bible would make sense. I think the Bible— I think the fact that Judeo-Christian understanding of God's action in the world is still a major interest in, in, in Western culture is because, because the description of God in the Bible Rings so very, very true.

Okay, we'll continue in a moment. Forgive me, Professor. Gerald Schroeder and Dennis Prager, and we continue.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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Now, back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

I am speaking with With one of the 2 men who has brought Antony Flew, the greatest atheist philosopher of our time, certainly the most cited, to believing in God. And Antony Flew himself has cited Gerald Schroeder, his works on science and God, which are written for the layman. I emphasize that. Utterly understandable by any, any of you listening, because I know I understand his work, although I have only read one of them. And the If I can understand it, and they'll say, well, Dennis, you're very smart. But folks, I don't have a scientific brain. When God gave out scientific ability, I was in the talk show line. So please understand, we all line up in different queues. That's my belief. Before we're born, we get different abilities. I was never in the business line or in the science line or the poetry line or the gardening line. Anyway, it's Let me take some more calls for you, Professor Schroeder, because people have some interesting questions. Let's go to Cincinnati, and on WBOB, it's Joel. Hello, Joel. Dennis Prager.

Hello, Dennis.

Hi.

I've got a question for Professor Schroeder. Uh, given that, uh, there's scientific evidence that God exists and created, um, I— do you think that the, um, the process of evolution is a Progressive process, or is it a digressive process?

And explain that for everybody listening, including me. What is the difference between progressive and digressive?

What general evolutionary theory says is that life began, you know, in this warm primordial soup, and then it got more and more complex, which goes against the second law of thermodynamics anyway. Nothing gets more complex. I think that we've been told that evolution is always progressive because of speciation. I would surmise that an all-wise, powerful, creating God would create beings, and then over time, if they had all kinds of information within their DNA, that as you make copies of copies of copies, you get less and less perfect information. So that What we see in evolution is actually a digressive process.

Professor? Joel's conversation was breaking up. I couldn't— you know, telephone's a total mess. Could you repeat or just summarize the question? Dennis, I'm sorry, I couldn't catch it.

Alright, well, is— you're asking about evolution, Joel, correct?

Yes.

Okay. Is it progressive, which is clear? The progressive is it goes to more complex. But you're saying, Joel, and I agree with you, That defies logic, and that a copy after a copy after a copy will in fact reduce the quality, like it does on a photocopy machine, or on digital photographs. The more you copy them, JPEG files, the more likely deterioration will set in. You won't get a better copy at any point. Or is it digressive? And that's the part you'll have to explain for the professor.

Well, I think the digressive— I'm not hearing it. I missed that.

Yes, right. And it came through to me, but I still don't understand it.

Well, Dennis, can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay.

Just as that, uh, we've been programmed to think that all evolution, uh, is a progressive, uh, force because we see speciation. However, my view is, or I'm asking for corroboration from Professor Schroeder, is, isn't it more likely that what we see with evolution as being a devolution, or a—

As being what? I'm missing it. Evolution is being what?

A devolution. Devolution.

Backwards. It's loss of information.

A loss of information as species continue. Alright, alright. Let's have the professor react. Go ahead.

Well, first of all, we see— if Joel's question is, is it illogical? That this, we have this increase of information. To some extent it is because usually, as you were saying, Dennis, each copy degrades from the other, from the previous one. And yet somehow complexity has, or I keep throwing out that word complexity, has in fact increased, which helps towards survival. I mean, there's no question a clever mind can survive better than— An unclever mind. Uh, the— does it make sense though that this— it doesn't— that may be one of the clues that there's an ongoing influence in the world, that there's a, that there's a mind starting to emerge from, uh, from, from this inanimate world from which we evolved. I mean, the— it certainly, if you look at the flow of life, there's no question it's become more, more and more complex. Bacteria, phenomenally complex. No one has ever come even close in the laboratory to producing one. But as complex as they are, they pale behind the complexity of a human brain.

Okay, all right, all right. I think that deals with it, and I thank you, Joel. Professor, I am curious, do you believe that there is life elsewhere in the universe? Are you agnostic on the issue? Do you think it matters?

I guess you could say I'm agnostic. I don't know. When I look at— although I've seen equations, and Carl Sagan, rest his memory, broke down some equations, I think the equations are, are in error significantly. I would say if life exists elsewhere in the universe, it would be essentially proof that there is— absolute proof that there's a God. The, the—

Oh, that's interesting. So you think more life in the universe argues more for God? It would seem to me that, uh, I don't know if it argues for or against. I, I, I'm agnostic on that question, but it seems to me That if we are the only beings who are conscious in this almost infinitely large universe, it argues for how incredible we are, and therefore the incredibility suggests design.

Ah, but that would— see, then I say it even more so. I mean, that rocks and water— I always use that example— that rocks and water became alive, because that's what happened. I mean, the likelihood of it happening is so infinitesimal that there must be another force acting, that there must be some other— even Darwin talks about this, that there's another force put by the Creator. Most people are not aware of that. Charles Darwin, in the closing lines of The Origin of Species, says that the Creator put the forces into the world that allowed life to develop. Most— I think most persons never get to the last few paragraphs of The Origin of Species, but it's so extraordinary. And now to see it happen twice I mean, in other words, if life is elsewhere in the universe, then it's happened— this amazing phenomenon has happened twice or 100 times over. And I would say that's— that would be, for me, an indication that there is embedded in this universe a mind that brings inanimate matter into life. There's a famous— a Nobel Prize-winning biologist, George Wald, who started out his life In his papers as 100%, 100% materialist, no spirituality, zero. You read his early papers, it sounds like he just sees the world as completely without any spiritual input. And then about 20 years ago, in the International Journal of Quantum Chemistry, and it's always the quantum reality of the world that has changed people, quantum mechanics from the physics and the chemistry point of view has changed the world entirely. But Wald writes like this in a peer-reviewed international journal in quantum chemistry. It has occurred to me lately, and I must confess with some shock at first to my scientific sensibilities. Get that phrasing? And I must confess with shock to my scientific sensibilities that the questions of the origin of consciousness in humans and life from non-living matter could be brought into some degree of congruence. This is with the assumption that mind, M-I-N-D, Mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has always existed as the matrix, the source, and the condition of physical reality. The stuff of the universe is mind stuff.

I will ask you when we come back how you answer Anthony Flew's problem with, okay, I believe in God but not an afterlife. Coming back with Gerald Schroeder, this is Dennis Prager. I'm Dennis Prager. I am I'm with one of the 2 authors cited by the great atheist Antony Flew as having turned him around to now being a believer in God, and that is Professor Gerald Schroeder in Israel, and he is speaking to us from Jerusalem. Are you, uh, you are now with any academic institution?

Uh, about 8 years ago, I left the labs that I had in at Hebrew University in Moab County. And now I teach in the Old City of Jerusalem at the College of Jewish Studies, Asher Torah College of Jewish Studies, where I deal essentially with Genesis chapter 1, is where I teach. And I do work in control of ambient radiation. That's my— into science thing, but I do that privately now with a company. I work with a company.

Anthony Flew said he believes now in God. You and Roy Vergese have done that to him, but he cannot believe in an afterlife. What's your response?

That— well, as far as how I would try to convince Anthony, or just my response as to what an afterlife is all about?

Why are they different?

Well, perhaps not. Okay, so how I would convince him. The— or how I would convince myself as well, which I have become convinced. Uh, the— if you look at the brain, it looks like there's something non-physical in our life itself. That is to say that there's something beyond the physical, kind of like the radio waves. You take a radio, picks up the radio waves, okay? Turn the radio off, the radio waves are still out there, you just don't hear it any longer. The, the mind, I think, All the study that I've had in brain-mind interface is that the mind may not be part of the brain, that the mind may not be shackled to the physical vitality of the brain. And there are several reasons for making this assumption, one of them being— one of the simplest ones to think about is I hear Dennis when you talk and you hear me talking, but there's no sound in your brain. There's biochemistry. There is not a single sound in your brain except gurgle, gurgle, gurgle. You put a stethoscope anywhere and all you hear is the blood going through the veins. There is no sound. This chemistry is known exactly how the sound that you hear through your ears is recorded in the chemistry, in the biochemistry of the brain. It's known within a millimeter each where nouns are stored, where music is stored, different locations. Right. But the replay is the problem, and my feeling is the replay is the mind. We can— we interpret— the cop-out is to say, well, we interpret these biochemical reactions as sound. We don't hear biochemical reactions. We hear sound. And the question, where is that sound? It's not in the brain.

But a dog hears the sound too.

Beg your pardon?

A dog hears the sound as well.

Absolutely. Oh, I'm— all of life has a metaphysical aspect associated with it. So you feel that—

so there are minds in insects?

Oh, that I, I don't, I don't know whether insects hear, you know. I don't know if it's all response, you know, if it's all instinct and it's all direct chemistry inside, inside the, in the animal, the insect. But certainly when you get to the level of mammals and human, humans, the, uh, the reaction—

So you feel that mammals, mammals have minds? But not self-consciousness. A cow is not aware of its own existence, I don't think.

Well, I've watched 2 chimps preen one another in the wild in South Africa once. One was preening the other, and then I watched for a long time, and one stopped, and then the other one took over preening the first one. So it was almost as if they realized what they were doing. Whether they have— we don't talk chimpanzee language, we don't talk cow language, so I can only stay with the humans in this. Humans have self-awareness and consciousness, and how does that arise from a mixture of electrons and protons and neutrons? And the argument that I use, and I used with Anthony also, is sound is the easiest one with which to work. We're aware of certain things, and yet They are not in our brain. There is no sound in your brain, which means that either you can say, well, it's just a response to the chemical reactions that are taking place. In my opinion, that's an invalid answer. The fact is, the reality could be that these near-death experiences that are reported, including in peer-reviewed journals now— Lancet, Lancet, one of the leading peer-reviewed medical journals of England, had a full article On, on near-death experiences, in which they did a statistical study of what was going on, and the conclusion is, it is time to consider transcendence in the study of the brain. And that passed peer review in Lancet. I don't know if you're familiar with the journal.

Yes, of course, of course. We'll be back in a moment. Gerald Schroeder, the phone number: 1-800-PRAGER-776. I feel very fortunate to have this dialogue. We return in a moment on The Dennis Prager Show.

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If you claim that certain things are good, certain things are evil, independent of how you feel about it, you are in effect affirming God.

If There Is No God by Dennis Prager, available now at pragerstore.com. That's pragerstore.com.

Dennis Prager here. These are 2 of the most powerful hours, frankly, that I have ever experienced. Gerald Schroeder is my guest. Professor Schroeder has— is the man cited, along with one other, as having brought Antony Flew from atheism. His name is Antony, so I said atheism, just figuring that I'll just drop all thes in describing, uh, Professor Flew. But Gerald Schroeder as well. If, if my listeners were to read one of your books, which would you suggest?

If, if they're interested in seeing how the Bible, how, how the Book of Genesis matches the reality of the world, the physical, the ancient biblical commentary, no modern biblical interpretations, only ancient biblical and modern science, then The Science of God, my second book, is the book to read. If they're trying to understand how the world can be billions of years old and fossils, etc., The Science of God is the book. If they're interested in, like what Anthony was in, in Something not Bible-oriented, but just wonder-oriented, just the magnificence of existence, then The Hidden Face of God. My first book, The Genesis of the Big Bang, was very popular, The Science of God. If I'm allowed to say it, The Science of God, I was told after the first year was out, it was the largest-selling book in its category worldwide for the entire year, Science of God. They're all accessible to laymen. It's not a, uh, you know, these are not science books. These are science books made user-friendly, put it that way. Dennis, there's one question I think we're overlooking, if I may ask.

Are you there? Yeah, boy am I here.

Go ahead.

I'm just quiet because I'm quiet because I want— I just want to suck in every word.

Go ahead. One of the questions I think we're overlooking is, in all this idea, is there a God or isn't there a God, is why is there existence? We just take it for granted. I don't mean why is there life, or why is there anything?

Why is there anything? I ask that all the time. Go ahead.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's— we just, like, we take consciousness as a given. Our consciousness, we swim in it. So existence, I mean, why? You probably asked this many times, and you just think on your show. We just take it for granted, but the reality is perhaps the strongest evidence for the fact of there being a divine input, a willful input, put it this way, into the world is the fact that we exist at all in a universe that is absolutely friendly for life. The condition, the constants, the natural constants, the forces of gravity, the fact that we have length, width, and height, these 3 space dimensions, and time. Without these being tuned, and it's standard, people talk about it all the time, but you see the numbers, it becomes extraordinary. The universe is tuned for life. It doesn't prove there's a tuner, but the very fact that there is a creation and a creation that produces these fundamental constants of which we just take for granted. You drop a pen, it falls down. You know, I mean, we don't fly apart. There are chemistries that hold our body together. We're not even aware of them. And yet they're tuned exactly for life. It doesn't prove there's a tuner, but it surely opens the door for the fact, you know, for the possibility of there being a Tuner with a capital T.

Mm-hmm.

Now I just want to go back to the afterlife. You, you base it scientifically on the notion that the mind does seem to be metaphysical, beyond the physical. That, that is, that is the basis of your scientific belief for something continuing beyond?

The pillars of quantum mechanics— and it's quantum, it's the quantum reality of the world that has changed the realization that there is something nonphysical. The Bible's been talking about it. I don't mean God, but the Bible has been talking about this for 3,000 years in some of the subtle wording.

Why do you think the Torah, which is, which is your, your basic book, uh, why do you— and mine— why, why do you think that it is so silent on afterlife?

Well, it's, it's, it's, it's silent unless, unless you listen very carefully. It's silent because if you've talked explicitly about afterlife, then I wonder how we might start living our life here.

Right, right. That's how I feel. And it was a rejection of Egypt. But tell me the silent parts.

The silent parts. Okay, Jacob, in the book of Genesis, Jacob is in Egypt. Jacob is in Egypt. He dies. The wording goes like this: Jacob dies, he's gathered to his people— catch this— he dies, he's gathered to his people, and he's embalmed. Then that takes 40 days according to the Bible. Then they mourn him for another 30 or 40 days. Then his body is carried up and he's buried in Hebron, which is where he had— where the cave, the double cave, the Cave of Machpelah, was bought. But notice the problem here. Jacob dies, is gathered to his people, and then about 3 months go by before his bones are gathered to the other people buried in Hebron. What does it mean, gathered to his people? It's clearly not the burial. And this happens for all the deaths that are described.

Right, that is the phrase, and he was gathered to his people.

Yes.

For the deaths of these patriarchs, okay. And that suggests to you—

It's not burial. It's not burial, because that doesn't happen until months later.

Oh, I see. If it was just physical, then the chronology is cuckoo.

Exactly, exactly, exactly. And if you think about this, gather those people and then you study, especially that article in The Lancet that I mentioned in the previous section of the program today, that peer-reviewed article which becomes not just anecdotal, but they bring such strong data. 340 cases are studied in detail. What's the near-death experience? I've interviewed 4 persons that have had this personally. Perhaps you have also. Die, and then they're greeted by their dead relatives. It happened to my aunt, Blessed Mary, Aunt Gert, a lovely, simple woman, didn't know near-death experiences. They gave her the wrong medicine. She died. She was— and she was such a lovely person. She died. They revived her, and she said, boy, I'm not taking that medicine anymore.

Because she didn't like the relatives she met.

And she met—

What if you don't like your relatives? I'm not kidding. I mean, you know, it— I, I assume you're, you're gathered to those that will give you solace, or maybe The best. I mean, there are people who were abused as children who don't want to be gathered to their relatives.

Yeah, or unless the relatives did teshuvah, did tremendous repentance.

Ah, I see. Repented. Alright, we have one final segment here, and I want to ask you the evidence that you would offer for that God is good, not just that God creates. You're listening to The Dennis Prager Show, and if you don't want a copy of this show to play for yourself, and others, you'll never want any. So you can call my office, 800-225-8584. 800-225-8584. The Dennis Prager Show, brought to you by the Mantis Tiller. Call today for a free Mantis Tiller video and information kit at 1-800-366-MANTIS. I'm Dennis Prager, and I've been speaking nearly 2 hours here with Gerald Schroeder, The professor, the scientist who has brought Antony Flew, the great atheist, to believing in God. Gerald Schroeder, this has been 2 hours that really have touched my life deeply. And even though I have— I am, without any of your great knowledge, a believer in God, and for very similar reasons, but it is nevertheless— it is over Overwhelming to hear the way you have constructed the data, and I believe intellectually, honestly, and obviously persuasively, given Anthony Flew, that I will be reading the other 2 books is, is a given. And I want to repeat again, for those of you who want a tape of these 2 hours, you can just email me at dennisprager.com and I'll tell you how to get it, or just call the office, 800-225-8584. The lines will probably be very busy for a while. Leave a message or call later, or again, email me. But I want you to give this to your kids at college. I want you to have it. I want you to be aware of these powerful, powerful arguments. A final question here, and then I'm going to summarize some of those on the line who didn't— just couldn't— didn't have the time to get through. Your evidence that God is good from a scientific basis.

Well, and from a biblical basis also, if it's possible. God is good, the universe, nature is beautiful. I mean, sunrises didn't have to move you to tears. I mean, the beauty that is present in the world and the abundance, the tikkun olam, this idea of fixing the world, we will eventually fix the world and all the beauty will be available for everyone. I feel, and that sounds— That's right. Perhaps too new agey, but I think it's true that God is good, you see, in the just— in the magnificence of a chocolate bar. I mean, you hear what I'm saying? Things didn't— things we just take for granted. Beautiful taste, beautiful views. You hear a violin concerto, you move to tears. Why do we react like this? You want to clap at the end of a great of a, let's say, great symphony or a great play, whatever moves a person, the first thing you want to do is say, hooray! And you want to clap. You want to acknowledge this wonder.

I am laughing because I did an hour here on how music argues for God's existence, Mike, and we replayed it. You would have loved the hour. Now, you have a website?

I have a website, yeah. I gave it to my wife a few years ago, a surprise gift. And it's, uh, geraldschroeder.com.

G-E-R-A-L-D Schroeder, folks, is S-C-H-R-O-E-D-E-R. Obviously we'll have that up. Well, if I say this to you, you'll— it's meaningful. God bless you with, uh, with great continued success. You, you're doing magnificent work.

All right, thank you. And so are you, as everyone, as everyone can contest.

Oh, that's very kind of you. Well, this is the first of many, or the second of many talks. Thank you so much. And to Dave, Dave, Juan, Mark, James, and others, sorry I didn't get to you. Stay tuned, folks. I need to tell you what I, what I just told Alan, that the last 2 hours of my show were overwhelming. If you missed them, and I say this almost never, that if you missed them, you must somehow get a tape of them. I interviewed the scientist who is responsible for changing the greatest atheist thinker, certainly the most well-known, Antony Flew of Oxford and York University in Canada, to believing in God. And Flew said it was Schroeder and Vergese. Vergese is more of a philosopher And Schroeder is the scientist. And if you want those, email me through dennisprager.com and I'll tell you how to get the tape of those 2 hours. I really, I'm overwhelmed. Even though I'm such a strong believer in God, to hear the scientific arguments put forth, just, they leave, I'm shaken. That is how powerful.

Tomorrow on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

If you find yourself regularly insulted by people, try to seek out a fair outsider to help you determine whether your perceptions are accurate. If they are accurate, replace these people with people who will not insult you. Or if you must keep some of these people in your life, fight back. You have no obligation to be demeaned. On the other hand, if your perceptions are not accurate, get rid of these perceptions And find out why you have a predilection for perceiving slights when there are none. How do you pronounce your name, uh, C-Y-L-E? How do you pronounce it?

It's Kyle.

So that's K-Y-L-E?

Kyle with a C.

Kyle with a C?

Yep.

Did your parents misspell, or it's just the way it came out?

I have, uh, 4 siblings.

We're all Cs.

No kidding. Yeah, that cracks me up. What are the other siblings' names? Wait, let me, let me try to guess. There would be, uh, Catherine?

Nope.

What are the other siblings?

Uh, Carrie, Chad, Clint, and Callie.

Oh, so you— there are 5 of you?

Yeah. Yep.

And they— that is so funny. Why did your parents— they just liked the idea, I guess? Yeah, that cracks me up. So Kyle—

only Kyle is the only one I know.

Yeah, I, I thought, I thought I thought that Eva had misspelled it, but I realized she couldn't have misspelled it. It must be deliberate. All right, go ahead, Kyle with a C.

Well, first, Dennis, I just wanted to say that you mentioned earlier how you have such great listeners, and I just want to say that you really appeal to the good side of me. And since I've started listening to you, I just— I noticed, you know, the voices get louder and they're harder to ignore. You know, on my conscience.

Really? Wow, wow, wow. Hold on, I'm gonna take you more. That is an unbelievable compliment. Thank you so, so much.

Join us tomorrow to hear more on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles. We want to take just a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the podcast. Go to lifeaudio.com to find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network, including shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.

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