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S5E34 · Atheism Part 3
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Standard of Truth · Season 5 · Episode 34 · 1:07:33

Atheism Part 3

Recorded live in a hotel room in Palmyra well over 90 degrees, Gerrit says the atheist argument about God's hiddenness is mostly an argument against a God Latter-day Saints don't believe in.

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The question ·

If God loves everyone, why is he hidden from so many people, and what do the atheist arguments about divine hiddenness and hell get right about traditional Christianity?

Richard

Recorded live with the tour in a sweltering Palmyra hotel, Kristy's Corner covers D&C 88 and the School of the Prophets minutes. Then the hosts finish their atheism series. Richard plays Alex O'Connor on divine hiddenness, and Gerrit agrees the argument has teeth if God created everyone out of nothing and condemns those who never hear of Jesus. A clip of Christian apologist Wesley Huff on heaven, hell and justice gets the Dandometer climbing, as Gerrit calls his door analogy a false comparison. He closes with the question Christians rarely ask, why God created us at all, and testifies that Latter-day Saints have the answer: to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

Who comes upAlex O'ConnorWesley HuffC. S. LewisBrigham YoungJohn MacArthurJoseph Smith
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The tour group records in a Palmyra hotel room well over 90 degrees.

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Intro Welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard LeDuc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the life and teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the Church with faith, expertise, and humor.
Gerrit Hi, welcome to a special live episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I am joined by my friend, although he may not be my friend, by the time we're done with this episode, Dr. Richard LeDuc.
Richard Hi, Gerrit, thanks for having me back. Boy, that was, we coached them, and we coached them, and that was, they are not excited to be here. It is 5,000 degrees.
Gerrit We decided we'd do a live recording in a room that's somewhere north of 90 degrees. Someone said we're trying to recreate what our ancestors went through as they crossed the plains.
Richard It's true. So we're in the Best Western Palmyra Inn, and I would give it only 4.8 stars. Oh, wow. Yeah. Air conditioner doesn't work.
Gerrit They're working on it.
Richard Our room wasn't cleaned.
Gerrit They're working on it.
Richard Very nice. The staff is lovely, though. Very kind.
Gerrit Ah, yes.
Richard So Kristy's Corner is going to be section 88 of the Doctrine and Covenants.
Gerrit So the last couple Kristy's Corners have been heavy. Yes. It's like, hey, here's the longest or most important section of the Doctrine and Covenants. Tell us something important about it. Right. Yeah. So, I mean, 88 is like legitimately like what, 130 verses? How many verses is it?
Richard I never read it. I don't know.
Gerrit Okay. Well, there's a lot of things in Doctrine and Covenants Section 88, like the command to build a house of learning, which they actually initially are going to take as a house where the school of the profits is going to be held. They don't know anything about temples. They know that they will build some eventually. But even in this revelation, they seem to interpret the house of the Lord that they're told to build as a school house and not for their kids, a school house for the elders to be educated. So this is the introduction of what will be the school of the profits. They'll begin meeting in Newell K. Whitney's store. And there's a lot of pretty heavy doctrine and doctrine in Covenant Section 88. God is teaching about the relationship between the light and Jesus.
Gerrit He's talking to them about those who are qualified based upon the various kingdoms that have been revealed. And so I thought I would spend time on the minutes of the meeting where this revelation took place. This revelation is received in a church meeting. So they have a conference of elders that are assembled. And it's December 27th, 1832. They start with prayer. So it's Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Joe Smith Sr., Orson Hyde, Hyrum Smith, Samuel Smith, Newell K. Whitney, Frederick G. Williams, Ezra Thayer, and John Murdoch. So it's not a ton of people there. This is, they'd have been comfortable in that room. They're actually not in the, they're not in the School of the Prophets room. They are, they're in the translating room. So the other, the other room, which everyone will get to see.
Gerrit But these are the minutes. Brother Joseph arose and said, to receive revelation in the blessings of heaven, it was necessary to have our minds on God and to exercise faith and become of one heart and of one mind. Therefore, he recommended all present to pray separately. Now, I hate to pause because it's beautiful sentiment. Joseph Williams, when writing this down, he spelled pray like you were about to kill a deer.
Richard We need to praise that.
Gerrit Now, that would be a much different meeting. If they took this very literally, it's like, if we want revelations, we've got to pray. I don't know. But that's what it says. This is not Joseph writing this. This is most things are spelled correctly. Williams, just a little. Maybe he thought it was the English spell, like which is still AY. But you know how they have the, you know, with gray, EY, kind of thing. No one knows that, but I don't know why I'm saying that. He recommended all present to pray separately and vocally to the Lord for to reveal his will unto us concerning the upbuilding of Zion and for the benefit of the saints, and for the duty and the employment of the elders. Accordingly, we all bowed down before the Lord, after which each one arose and spoke in turn, his feelings and determination to keep the commandments of God.
Gerrit So what's interesting is they're going to have everyone pray out loud in turn. In fact, this is a fairly common thing in the early church, in the earliest church meetings. Everyone will pray. Not everyone prays out loud together. Not they're repeating the prayer. Like, you know, Bill will pray because he's an adulterer. It doesn't stick until they go to the next person. And Jim will pray, you know, and they'll all pray. So like, you could only assume that as much of an hour of the meeting is different people praying. And that appears to be what Joseph wants them to hear and what they do. Each person takes turns praying out loud. And then after they're done, they kind of stand up and bear their testimony. I can only assume that they talked about, you know, I was just in New York City and, you know, I took my RV there.
Gerrit When I was there, I shouldn't kid, but talking about what they think about Zion, and the way that they're going to defend it, each man in turn his feelings and his determination to keep the commandments of God and then proceeded to receive a revelation concerning the subject at about 9 o'clock p.m. The revelation, not being finished, the conference adjourned till morning at 9 o'clock a.m. So I don't know how long they're going past, you know, they start at 9. They're not done. And in fact, Doctrine and Covenants, Section 88 is received in two parts. There's a first part that's received, and then a second part that's received. It's a revelation over two days, December 27th and December 28th. So the second part of the minutes, we met according to the adjournment and commenced by prayer.
Gerrit So I'm assuming in the same way. I can only imagine like, here goes John Murdoch's prayer again, guy who prays for 45 minutes every time. Yes, John, we know. Only I apparently have evil thoughts, but other people maybe, I don't know. We commenced by prayer and then proceeded to receive the residue of the above revelation, and it being finished, there being no further business before the conference, we close the meeting by prayer in harmony with the brethren and gratitude to our Heavenly Father for the great manifestation of his Holy Spirit during the conference. They get together for this conference, the point of it is to receive a revelation. They conduct no other business, they don't call anyone else to any other position, they don't set anyone else apart. They go in, they clearly need to receive a revelation.
Gerrit Joseph says, if we want a revelation, all of us are going to have to pray for it. They all commence praying. Joseph then gives a revelation that is not short, and as it continues to go, they eventually adjourn the meeting. I don't know what that was like. In the middle of the revelation, I hope that it was Joseph who said, let's get back in the morning. You know, it's past midnight. Emma's going to wonder why I'm not back yet or something. But somehow, there's an adjournment. We don't know how the break comes in that regard of how they know to stop. But they stop, go home, come back the next morning, repeat the same steps, praying again, and then receive the second half of the revelation. So there's some context of this revelation. If you think it's a little long to read, at least it didn't take you two days to receive this.
Richard That's very good. There you go. So I hope my sister is able to raise her hand quickly and make the comment.
Gerrit If you're going to make that comment, I feel like that should be before they even start the class.
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit Yeah. You come in to Sunday school, and they start passing around the meat packing assignment thing.
Richard Yeah. Yeah. You got to serve down at the mill.
Gerrit Yeah. So it's something like that. Oh, we need more volunteers. Yeah. Then as they're passing it around, just stand up. You should stand up.
Richard Of course.
Gerrit Say, I wanted to share something that I learned through my own study about Doctrine and Covenants Section 88, that I think everyone here would like to know, and then-
Richard Then go. Yeah. Yeah. I wish my sister the best of luck if she does that.
Gerrit She's an award in Texas, so it's going to work.
Richard She's in McKinney, Texas. She's running for Relief Society President, and we hope she's going to get it.
Gerrit Yeah. Has she ever stopped aspiring? That's the question.
Richard Well, she was a Young Women's President.
Gerrit Oh, well, yeah.
Richard That fed her blood lust for a period of time, but now-
Gerrit She was never an MTC district president or district leader, right?
Richard She was not. She didn't serve a mission, but-
Gerrit But if she had.
Richard If she had, yeah. So, Gerrit, speaking of my sister serving a mission, we're going to finish up our discussion on atheism today. There's no connection. I don't know what that is. I love my sister. I'm just- What's that?
Gerrit Are we going to finish up?
Richard We're never going to finish it, but we're going to do part 3 today.
Gerrit I feel like we have several other things we need to do.
Richard We do. We actually received-
Gerrit We just skipped right over the mailbag.
Richard We did.
Gerrit We have thousands of people that are emailing us. Beautiful emails, sincere emails.
Richard They're very thoughtful.
Gerrit We just want to talk about atheism.
Richard Very touching. Unlike Section 88, we've read them all. We did want to have a discussion. We talked about Alex O'Connor and his podcast, where they were talking about different atheist arguments. We talked about the problem of evil in part 2. In part 3, we received quite a bit of positive feedback about Angry Gerrit, and so we're going to try and deliver on that here.
Gerrit We've got to change the format of the podcast. The podcast can't be you trying to make me mad.
Richard If it was only so hard to make you mad, if only. The thing is-
Gerrit It's embarrassing.
Richard No, it's good. Look, here's the thing. I've said this to the-
Gerrit They don't know this, but before we started rolling on the mic, someone made a comment and I lost it.
Richard It was a Christian comment.
Gerrit Yeah, it was kind. It was someone trying to say something.
Richard It was virtuous, lovely. It was a good report.
Gerrit It was praiseworthy. It was a Christian comment that you would make about loving someone else.
Richard Gerrit said-
Gerrit I would not.
Richard Gerrit's like, we will not have this here. He said, Richard was a merciful man, but I will not.
Gerrit But I will not. That's Richard's favorite quote.
Richard It is. It's the Joseph Smith Brigham Young quote.
Gerrit Joseph Smith Brigham Young.
Richard Yeah. Brigham Young saying that about Joseph, that he was a merciful man, but I will not. Was it in winter quarters?
Gerrit It was in winter quarters. There's lots of Bill the adulterers there. We did have someone just e-mail and say, I know a man named Bill who's like my stake patriarch. He's the greatest guy ever. I think he'd be pretty upset if you said he was an adult. I'm not saying that's the Bill that's an adulterer.
Richard No, but also he might have repented. You don't know.
Gerrit Oh, my goodness gracious. No. But it's just a generic, generic term, but anyway, yeah.
Richard William McClellan, you were talking about people having adultery in winter quarters.
Gerrit Right. So there's all kinds of problems in winter quarters. You got everybody out there on this giant camping trip, so things are going to be a problem. You don't have the right supplies. You're sleeping out in the middle of the snow. It's cold. You're in Nebraska. I mean, there's a lot, there's many, many things that are difficult. And people have, you know, there's people stealing things from other people in the camp.
Richard You're going to steal.
Gerrit There's people that are gambling. There's people that are getting drunk.
Richard We shouldn't judge the gambling.
Gerrit I mean, well, the moment you, I figure anyone...
Richard President Hinckley hasn't given us a dress yet.
Gerrit Anyone who gets into Nebraska is already warming up for a Cornhusker game. So that's where the drinking comes from.
Richard They do have casinos on the Council Bluff side over in Iowa.
Gerrit How do you know that?
Richard I've heard.
Gerrit Okay. Okay. Anyway, you're late to put in your WNBA Sparks bet. Is that...?
Richard Yeah, the fever.
Gerrit Okay. All right. Well...
Richard Indianapolis fever.
Gerrit Anyway, so...
Richard That's a terrible name, by the way.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard Isn't it? No? I mean, fever.
Gerrit Miami heat?
Richard Yeah, but it's hot. It's hot here. Fever is directly attached to sickness, illness, death. Fever. Unless it's a fever from more cowbell, I can't understand a possible reason why you would want...
Gerrit The only cure is more cowbell.
Richard I apologize. It's a very poorly named WMA. I don't know why I'm so worked up about this WMA thing.
Gerrit Yeah, I feel like you're more mad about that than I am about this whole Christianity thing. Anyway, so the whole quote, I should look it up so I get it right, but I won't because already delayed. That is, Brigham essentially says, look, if you don't stop your lying, if you don't stop your backbiting, your evil speaking, your stealing, your adulteries, I'm just going to leave you here and I'll go on to our new place. He said, the quote that Richard loves is he said, brother Joseph being a merciful man bore with you these things, but I will not. That's sometimes how you feel. I mean, but if you're Brigham Young, you're like, guys, I literally just brought you out of Illinois, where people were murdering us. We barely got across Iowa and you're stealing flour from brother Johnson?
Intro Yeah.
Richard So we're going to go from that. We're going to play a clip from Alex O'Connor and his podcast, where they discuss the atheist argument of divine hiddenness. So I'm going to play that clip, and then we're going to get your reaction to that. We're going to talk about your feelings, and we'll take it to that point.
Other Next up is the argument from divine hiddenness. So there are many different arguments from divine hiddenness. It's a bit misleading to say the argument, but here's one way to construe the argument. The first premise would be something like, if a perfectly loving god exists, then there's a god who is always open to a personal relationship with any finite person. The second premise would be that if there's a god who is always open to a personal relationship with any finite person, then there's gonna be no non-resistant non-belief in god. Okay, so what is non-resistant non-belief? Well, it's just basically people who fail to believe in god, but that's not, their failure to believe in god is not due to like willful, culpable resistance to god on their part. God might have reason to restrict evidence from people, but then for me, an interesting subset of this argument is the problem of religious geographic distribution. So the fact that statistically speaking, you are far more likely to be a theist if you're born in Rwanda, say, one of the most Catholic countries in the world, than if you're born in Thailand, which is like 90 something percent Buddhist and Buddhism is atheistic, therefore you don't believe in god.
Other So if Christianity is true, for example, then your place of birth is a statistically reliable indicator of how likely you are to be saved. That doesn't seem so great, and people will say that this commits the genetic fallacy of you sort of believing something for the wrong reason doesn't make it true, doesn't make it false. That is of course accurate. However, if you believe that it's being supervised by a god who loves everybody equally and wants to come to know everybody, like you say, then why would he hide his face more from the Thai than from the Rwandans? Or is it just that the Thai are just naturally like orders of magnitude more resistant than the Rwandans are? And if that's the case, then why are they built in that way? You know what I mean? So there are so many problems as to God's seeming arbitrary desire and ability to reveal himself to some and not to others. There are those who even don't want to believe in God, like CS.
Other Lewis' conversion. He talks about dragging his eyes, darting like a desperate animal for any means of escape, dragged into belief in God. And there are those of us who go, please just give me something and they get nothing. So the arbitrariness of God's revelation, the geographical distribution of God's revelation, and also the fact that it doesn't seem to accord of people's desires seems to me to undermine belief in God quite powerfully.
Richard All right, so, Gerrit, that's a pretty common atheist argument. What are your thoughts on that point?
Gerrit Well, this is another argument that an atheist or agnostic, I mean, he claims to be...
Richard Yeah, Alex is great. I think he's pretty fair.
Gerrit He's at least claiming he's in this... He's the perfect example of this divine hiddenness, right? He says he really wants to believe, that he's searched all different kinds of belief systems, that he's prayed for God to give him light, and he doesn't have it. But he's not as much troubled by the fact, or maybe he is, and he's just not being forthright. I don't know. I mean, I don't know the guy. But he doesn't appear to be as much troubled by the fact that he's not getting an answer from God, as it is the apparent randomness of whether or not someone has the proper belief in God. And, of course, if you don't have the proper belief in God, then...
Richard There's a randomness element, and then there's also an element that's not random at all, when he brings up people being born in Thailand. Right.
Gerrit And that is something he said, you know, how do I know whether or not you're, you know, a good Catholic? Well, if you're born in Rwanda, you probably are, right? That geographic location has more to do with what someone believes than almost anything else. This is a problem that, you know, early theologians wrestled with, even without knowing the extent of all the people in the world. And they wrestled with it because if you say you have to have faith in God in order to be saved, then almost every conversation you will ever hear from every, any Christian publicly will be about personal salvation, their personal salvation and how someone else that they know personally could be saved. But in practical terms, Alex is making a very good point, that in that system there is a gigantic disparity in people who actually have the ability to know about Jesus.
Gerrit Even if you say, well, if someone really wanted to know Jesus, they would just know. I mean, you'll hear people say this. Well, they should be able to just look at a tree and know that Jesus is their Savior. That's literally not what Paul says. Paul says, how can they believe except someone be sent? Right? Paul says, you believe hearing cometh by belief cometh by hearing. And hearing by the word of God is what Paul says. So their own Bible, their own Sola Scriptura says, someone can't have faith without hearing the word, and then we're going to just act like it's not a big deal, but almost no one in the history of the world could ever hear the word. So even if you took that off the table and said, well, somehow in China where there's no Jesus being preached, there's no access to the Internet for things like Christianity, that someone could still theoretically find a Bible floating down the Yangtze, and they learn to accept Jesus, it would still be the case that it's an unfair situation, that that person in no way had the same opportunity as someone living in the United States to learn about Jesus.
Gerrit And how do you account for that? How would you possibly account for that? Well, frankly, I mean, early Calvinist theologians, they accounted for it the only possible way you can. And that is if you believe that God is absolutely all-powerful, then that means God does what God wants to do. It's actually the best part of being all-powerful, that you do whatever you want to do. You're as an all-powerful being who knows everything and knows exactly what's going to happen for the outcome of every single situation. You're never surprised. You're never like, oh man, I had no idea Jill wasn't going to have faith in me. Guess I should have another Bible float down the river. You know full well that she's never even going to hear the word Jesus. And yet, you know, what they don't cover here, which is unfortunate, and it's so shallow in that regard, which I hate to say it, I'd say that to Alex's face.
Gerrit The real issue is that the punishment that is attached to that non belief is forever. We're not talking about someone who's just looking for secular wisdom and they, you know, they went to the wrong guru and they didn't quite find the truth they were looking for. Or they're mistaken about something like Einstein, who believed in a static state theory of the universe and he wasn't right about it. He had to change what he thought. We're talking about someone suffering forever. Not a million years or a billion years or a trillion years forever. Because God gave them an immortal spirit. So far more problematic than the divine hiddenness or the randomness of where someone is born.
Gerrit The reason why it's problematic is the suffering attached to that is forever. There is no, oh, I'll make it up to you in the next life. The next life is nothing but horror. So, I don't know how our Christian responds to that, but it led early Calvinist theologians to simply say God never intended to save those people. Now, that is really hard. You're a Latter-day Saint and you're like, no, he did. And their response to you would be, God is all-powerful. God does what God wants to do. Are you trying to tell me that God wanted to save that girl in China but just couldn't figure it out?
Gerrit I'm all-powerful. I created her out of nothing. I created the means of salvation. I created who goes to heaven, who goes to hell. I just can't figure out how to bring her the gospel, even though I could send an angel there right now. If you believe God is all-powerful, ultimately, you can't get away from the fact that it is ultimately God's fault if someone does not hear the gospel. Because God knew that when God made them. God didn't have to make them. He's making them out of nothing. And making them out of nothing, He didn't have to have them born in a country where there's no Christianity. And making them out of nothing, and having them born in a country where there's no Christianity, He didn't have to give them an immortal spirit. He's making them out of nothing. Just when you come to the ones that you've already decided, you're never gonna have them hear the word Jesus.
Gerrit Just make them without an immortal spirit.
Richard One of the things that you talked about in the last episode was somebody was trying to explain the problem of evil, and they were trying to explain the problem of evil as saying, yes, in this life, there is injustice, but in the next life is where these things are made right.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard But...
Gerrit Unless you're almost everyone who's ever lived on earth. Right.
Richard So that...
Gerrit That's the divine hiddenness and the randomness that's such a problem.
Richard Exactly.
Gerrit So, does God love someone born in Indonesia in 600 AD as much as he loves me? You ask that question to any Christian, they will say the answer, yes. Well, God has a pretty terrible way of showing it then. Because not only is he going to have them born in a time where they have... I mean, I know the air conditioning is not working, but we've got it pretty good, you know. I mean, we just ate dinner, had more calories than most people on earth are going to have in a week. You know, I mean, or at least... Was that just...
Richard There's just you and I.
Intro I had like seven helpings of rice pudding.
Richard Yeah, we really hit that pretty hard.
Gerrit I feel like maybe there was something added to it. That's the reason why...
Richard MSG.
Gerrit Yeah. There's no maybe about that at all. That the idea behind it is so frustrating because what the response will be, well, yes, he does, but he created them in a place where they were never going to hear about Jesus, where he knew they were never going to hear about Jesus. And after this horrible, unfair life where there's no medicine, it's a terrible society, early times, that their next life is they're going to burn in hell forever. And you're supposed to walk away from that saying, yeah, God just loves everyone equally. He loves them so much. He's just like creating them by the billions to burn in hell. And if you were to posit that, the response would be, well, you don't understand the wisdom of God. Who are you to question the wisdom of God?
Gerrit What I'm saying is, God is not what you're saying he is. Because you want me to believe that God is all good. At the same time, nearly everyone he creates, he creates knowing that after this life of suffering. For the rest of time. And God could put an end to that whenever God wanted to. If God's all-powerful, God could empty hell right now. If you say God can't empty hell right now, then God stops being all-powerful. So you don't get to talk about whether or not God could empty hell. You now have to have a conversation about why won't He? Why won't He? If God could save everyone, why doesn't He? And the response that you get back is just, you know, mysteries of God.
Gerrit Well, mysteries of God, it's a fine thing to say. Look, there's all kinds of things about God that I don't know. But we're talking about billions of people that are going to burn in horrific suffering forever. Fine, you can say, we don't really know. That's fine. But you then need to turn around and admit, you don't really know why God did almost everything that He did. So maybe stop condemning me to hell for believing in a Jesus that's not a triune God. You know, maybe, maybe dial that back a little bit. Because you seem super certain about that. But you don't know where 3 billion people are going.
Richard So this is a perfect same way then into talking about Wesley Huff. I think you're going to love it.
Gerrit I feel like maybe we should just end the podcast now.
Richard Like completely.
Gerrit I feel like forever. Thank you for attending our last podcast of all time.
Richard Your blood pressure is 400 over 300. Yeah. But I, so what I want to do.
Gerrit My blood is gravy.
Richard I'd like to play a clip. So Wesley Huff was, to Latter-day Saints, they might know him from a Joe Rogan clip where he was talking about our faith and how the ways it was wrong, and that got six or seven views on the Joe Rogan podcast.
Gerrit Super accurate with his descriptions. That's the best part.
Richard He gets under your skin, which is why I'm playing the clip.
Gerrit I don't want it to seem like I don't have any grace. I clearly, I need some. But it's incredibly frustrating when someone in a supposedly position of education, right? Wesley Huff is at least claiming that he's an expert.
Richard Authority, yeah.
Gerrit Right. Why do we care what he has to say? Well, because he's a preacher. He's an expert. Well, then you don't get to be wrong. What? People are wrong all the time. But if what you're being wrong about is how you're condemning someone else as not being a Christian, then you need to be right about what you're saying about them. Because you don't have to talk about them. You don't have to talk about them. You chose to talk about them. If you chose to talk about them, I don't know, maybe read anything. At this point, I'm convinced he hasn't read anything. Not even CS.
Intro Lewis.
Gerrit He quotes CS.
Richard Lewis.
Gerrit I know.
Richard I don't even believe that.
Gerrit At this point, GPT gave his answer.
Richard He hasn't seen Lion Witch in the wardrobe. He hasn't, nothing.
Gerrit He bought far less Turkish Delight than you did.
Richard Well, yeah. $600 on Turkish Delight. I know. It was so much money. I got in so much trouble.
Gerrit How much Turkish Delight was it?
Richard It was a lot of Turkish Delight.
Gerrit Do you still have some?
Richard Well, that's the problem. It all went bad. Almost all of it did. When I gave it as a gift, what I said every time I gave it, I said, look, I know you don't like this. You didn't give it to me.
Gerrit No one likes this. I like Turkish Delight.
Richard We threw years away. We didn't see it before it went bad. Anyway, what happened is that we, and it's not the jelly stuff. That's garbage. This is made with honey or something. I don't know.
Gerrit With apparently something that rots instantly?
Richard It was very good. Well, a month. It was very good. I bought a lot of it. And it was at the Turkish Bazaar. And it was around, it was, so it was in one carry-on. We had to buy a separate carry-on. That carry-on weighed 40 pounds.
Gerrit Of Turkish Delight?
Richard It was all Turkish Delight. And some dirty garments that we padded it with.
Gerrit Yeah, it makes sense. Becky, how was the Turkish Delight? It was good.
Richard It was very good.
Gerrit Okay. So you got to eat some before it went rancid.
Richard Yeah. They went hard in the paint with the fig though. No one wanted any of that. The peanut butter one was pretty good. And anyway, we ended up having to throw most of it away. It made me very sad. As we gave it as gifts, I said, look, you don't want this. But I need you, when I give this to you, I need you to pretend that you really, really are happy to receive it. Because it cost me a lot of money. And that's how I usually give gifts. So anyway, most of it in the trash. What are we talking about? Atheism? Yeah, you were about to play a clip from the clip from Wesley Huff. And this is the, so this is, so we've talked about the atheist arguments, the problem of evil, divine hiddenness. Those are, there's lots of atheist arguments. Those are two of the better atheist arguments and two of the better atheist arguments that get a lot of Christian apologetics to Christian counters to. The reason why I want to play this Wesley Huff bit is he was on the, and Andrew Schultz's podcast, Flagrant.
Richard And the language can be aggressive. I've gone through, I've listened to this now like three times to make sure that there are no swears in this segment on YouTube, so it's all clean.
Gerrit So you're possibly about to play a clip for these fine people.
Richard I'm going to vid angel this clip. And so I'm going to be sued by Disney somehow.
Gerrit There are multiple people. This will be the first curse word they have ever heard. I don't know.
Richard If they've talked to Dan, they've heard more.
Gerrit Well, anyway, I think... Dan, after I flew off the handle.
Richard Yeah. So no, so it's a clean clip, but it's great because he's on there and he's talking about hell and the misconceptions that people have about hell. And I think that it's kind of a good segue in that it can be frustrating, I think, to you, where the hell that he's describing isn't necessarily the hell that is part of the doctrine that is being taught. And I think it creates the frustration and also some, some, well, all kinds of different fun things. I think you're really going to enjoy.
Gerrit Some dandometer.
Richard Your dandometer, dandometer is going to be through the roof. So I'm going to go ahead. So what we're going to do is, so it's an eight minute clip. So we're not going to play it all. We're going to play it until you say, do you want to respond to something? And then we'll stop it.
Gerrit Okay.
Richard It'll be a stop, start, stop, start, stop, start.
Gerrit Okay.
Richard We'll see how far we go.
Other Humans are very... I also think we want heaven without subscribing to... Also the alternative......the rigidity of the religion. I think there's part of it that's there. It's like, hey, I'm a good person. Yeah, maybe I don't go to church, and maybe I haven't accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. But I'm a good person, so I still get in, right? It's like, we still want in. We still want to... We want the eternity. Right. It's still begging the question... But the alternative is hell. That's the issue I have. If there was a first class, a business class, and a coach, I'm with it, Ryan. I don't gotta be first class. That's fine. But the idea that it is a... Like, God doesn't owe you heaven. He don't need to give you hell. Well, I think part of this is that we have these understandings of hell, which might be skewed by Middle-aged painting. Okay, I would love to hear that. People burning. I would say hell is the concept of God's wrath against evil in eternal justice. But it's also a separation from his goodness. And so, you see these depictions, particularly from the Middle Ages, of like demons burning people alive.
Other And that's more, both heaven and hell in the Middle Ages is drawn more from like Greek imagery of where the gods live and what the underworld is than it is from what Scripture... actually says about these things. Yeah, I feel like Dante's Inferno defined hell for us and not Scripture. Sure, sure. And that's like quintessential, you know, Middle Age. Yeah. What does the Scripture say hell is? Well, it's separation. It's separation from God. Like, God is not going to force you into his presence, into that. And if you are not choosing that, like if you are not in Adam, you're in... Sorry, if you're not in Christ, you're in Adam. So Jesus is called the second Adam, right? Adam brings sin into the world and taints everything. Christ comes into the world and renews everything. And so the gospel message is that you're either going to be found in Adam or in Christ. Yeah. That's it. And God is not going to force you into being under Christ's righteousness.
Other And at the same time, I still don't deserve that. So this is where, like, when I was talking about before, all these religious concepts, it's about to do the field of think. It's also about mercy or justice, right? So I would argue that something like the Eastern philosophies, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, anything that has a reincarnation, that's just, right? You get what you deserve. The good you do in this life, you get in the next life, the bad you do in this life, sort of. There's a difference between reincarnation, Hinduism and Buddhism. But that aside, it's like just, right? But we wouldn't necessarily say that it's merciful. You do get what you deserve. Oh, yeah, it's not. Yeah. Then there are other religious systems. And to a certain degree, I would pin Islam in that group, because every chapter of the Quran, bar one chapter, starts with the Bismillah, God the Most Merciful, the Most Mediator. So in that sense, the God of Islam forgives, but somewhat arbitrarily.
Other And it's at the expense of his justice. So if God will forgive you, but the wrong you've done hasn't actually been paid for. His law is kind of just winked at. Where Christianity is different is that the punishment that we deserve is taken on God himself and the person of Jesus. And so in that sense, justice is fulfilled. And because justice is fulfilled, his law is accomplished. And now mercy, so justice is getting what you deserve. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. And grace is getting what you don't deserve.
Gerrit Okay, there's a lot there. First, I already know multiple theologians that have taken issue with his characterization. He does this a lot. Now look, there's a lot of Christian concepts of heaven and hell and salvation. But a lot of theologians, you know, he wants to stress that hell is purely the separation from God. That hell is you're not with God. And look, I think Latter-day Saint can get behind the fact that you want to be in God's presence, right? So that, and that heaven is being God's presence. I think that there's some aspects to that. The problem is he kind of jumped over what the actual question was, right? Well, well, if you choose to be separate from God, then God's going to give you the choice that you want. Well, you know what? I actually could see how that would be a fair system.
Gerrit If you made a choice.
Richard So, because we, we believe that, right?
Gerrit That if you chose to reject God forever.
Richard Right.
Gerrit You could. Because agency is an eternal principle.
Richard Right.
Gerrit That's not what he's saying. Right? Well, he is saying it, but he's saying that the people who aren't saved, the people who go to hell, they are people who choose to be separated from God. Well, how do you make a choice? Any, to say that someone has a choice, you have to have some semblance of an understanding of the choice that you're making. If there's a door that's labeled A and a door that's labeled B, and behind one is a million dollars and the other one is an alligator that's going to eat me, probably because he thinks this room is a swamp because it's so hot and he came up from Florida.
Richard Why did he come to upstate New York?
Gerrit Well, because he has family.
Richard Florida, a lot of New Yorkers. New Yorkers is up to Florida, so he's coming up for summer.
Gerrit My cousin Vinny. He's coming up for summer, yeah.
Richard That checks.
Gerrit Yeah, maybe he's from New Jersey.
Richard Yeah, so the alligator is from New Jersey, lives in Florida, coming to visit family in upstate New York.
Gerrit Yeah, they're there.
Richard And he's in the best Western Palmyra Inn, behind option A or B, but it's only labeled A or B. I'm just trying to set up the scenario that you created.
Gerrit This is way clear that Wesley was saying. We can say, if I choose the door that the alligator is behind, and I get eaten by the alligator before he goes to visit his friends in Poughkeepsie. That is by far the dumbest analogy I think I've ever made in my life. Let's cut that out. Yeah, okay, I'll cut it out. Yeah, okay. So, let's say I go to door B and the alligator eats me. You can say, well, he made a terrible choice. And at some level, I guess- Yeah, he did, he did. I did choose door B because I had no idea what was behind it. I had no idea there were alligators that were anywhere, much less visiting their friends in upstate New York.
Gerrit I didn't know what was behind the other door. It's a randomness in that regard, right? So, saying, oh, well, this is what you chose. You chose to not go to heaven. Well, if you're saying I chose to not go to heaven, then that means you presented me two possible options. I understood both options, and like a rebellious teenager said, you know what? I bet I can beat the alligator. And I went through the alligator door.
Richard The reason I wanted to play that clip is while it's not a direct rebuttal against Divine Hiddenness, it's kind of Alex O'Connor's point.
Gerrit Right. Yeah, trying to say, you know, it sounds good on a doily, you know, maybe that someone would crochet. Well, you know, the reason why you're separated from God for eternity is that's what you chose. Well, again, I believe there are occasions where that's true. But it's not true for almost anyone. Could it be true? Sure. Is the 16-year-old girl in Indonesia in 600 AD., is she choosing to reject Jesus?
Richard No.
Gerrit She doesn't ever hear the word Jesus in her life. Is she choosing to reject him?
Other No.
Gerrit To say that she's choosing to reject him, is to essentially make Alex's point. Christianity sure seems to be like a Western European, Western, you know, Hemisphere whites only club almost, right? Like, if you happen to be born in a place where the Europeans were dominant, lucky you, you'll get to hear about Jesus, and then of course, you'll choose against him, and you'll go to the alligator door, but you don't have to have chosen that, right? So I think that frustrates me because he used a lot of words almost as a kind of razzle-dazzle without coming to what the real problem is. Look, Wesley, the problem isn't that I'm not okay with the fact that someone who knows God and says, I reject God, I want nothing to do with God, and for the rest of eternity, even after this life, they say, I still reject God.
Gerrit I'm okay if that's your scenario, that God allows them to continue to reject him forever. But that is not what we're talking about. A Christian will tell you that the moment you die, you immediately are judged and you immediately go to heaven or hell. I mean, a Protestant Christian anyway, Catholic's not going to say that, but my guess is Wesley's not super pro-Catholic. Which means you already know who Jesus is. He's the one who's judging you, sending you to heaven or to hell. What he's saying is the reason why people are in hell is that even after they die, knowing Jesus, knowing that there's alligators behind the door. They're just like, you know what? Bring me some more alligator. Do you have any more relatives up here? You know.
Gerrit And that's just, it's a false analogy. And I think it's one of the things that Alex is upset about is, you're acting like your own personal journey to find Jesus is anywhere similar to anyone else who has ever lived on earth. And in doing that, saying, yeah, God's totally just and merciful. You know, I have a friend, and I mean, I told them all about Jesus, and he wouldn't believe, and he died, and you know, he had a chance. That's great. I get it. I understand why you might say that they're going to hell. But that is almost never actually the case with the billions of people that have lived on earth. Most people will never have his opportunity to learn about Jesus. But don't worry, God's just. He's just condemning them all to hell because they chose that they wanted to be separate from a God that they didn't even know existed. They chose without knowing somehow.
Gerrit And then the other point is a pretty common Christian comment. And that is when you start to push the point of why doesn't God save more people? The response is always, well, all of us should go to hell. All of us are sinners. Again, a Latter-day Saint understands this. We can't be saved without the blood of Jesus Christ. So we agree that there is no salvation except through Jesus. But the point that he's making is that you shouldn't complain about the fact that that 16-year-old burns in eternal hell forever. And, you know, kind of burying the lead, I mean, yeah, the reason why we think that there's like fire in hell is because, like, you know, all that medieval art like showed it. That's why we think it's like crazy that we believe it.
Gerrit I mean, I guess kind of, I don't know, we could maybe read the Bible though, since I hear that's something that Latter-day Saints aren't willing to do. There's a certain man, a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. There was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate full of sores and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores, and it came to pass that the beggar died, and he was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man died also and was buried. And in hell, he lift up his eyes, being in torment, and seeing Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom, and he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in these flames.
Gerrit I have no idea why people have a conception of hell as being fire and excruciating. It's crazy. It's as if it's totally invented by medieval artists. And that's why.
Richard Well, so we ended the clip with him saying, justice is getting what you deserve. Mercy is not getting what you deserve, and grace is getting what you don't deserve. And that sounds pithy. Is that a hummingbird or is that a moth? It's a moth. That's a big, big moth.
Gerrit I think it's probably just a bat.
Richard That's a monstrous moth. By the way, Gerrit, the most northern alligator attack was in North Carolina. Well, did that include zoos and stuff, though? I didn't look at zoos. I'm going to look at alligator and zoo attacks.
Gerrit Alligators, zoo attacks, and include crocodiles.
Richard Okay.
Gerrit And maybe caimans.
Richard Okay. Lake Waccamaw, North Carolina, a 12-foot alligator attack.
Gerrit I've always avoided Lake Waccamaw.
Richard I've never been there. But you know what? I'll look at zoos and I'll actually expand the worldwide because we'll just look at latitude. Anyway, to the Justice, Mercy, Moth, and Grace discussion. Do you want me to read it again?
Gerrit I know. I mean, I think that's a...
Richard It's a pithy comment.
Gerrit It's pithy, and that's why people like Wesley. He has a lot of pithy ways of saying things, and he's obviously a better communicator than someone like me. But, again, to say grace is what we don't deserve, hey, I'm on board with that. The problem is, in the same breath you're saying, and it just so happens the only people who do deserve it are the people who've heard about Jesus. And it just so happens the people who do deserve it, and the people who've heard about Jesus, just so happen to be people who live in these Christian countries. People who don't live in oppressive dictatorial regimes where religion is oppressed, all throughout the history of humankind. It's again, it's something that's burying the lead. I get it that if my sins are washed away, I don't merit that at all.
Gerrit That I deserve to not be given the free grace that God gives me through the atonement of Jesus Christ. But we're not just talking about me. And one of the unfortunate features of Protestant theology, because the primary argument that you have a direct relationship with God, that it's just whether or not you have faith, and that's all that matters in salvation, that's great for you. But what happens when you care about anyone that isn't you? When you look outside of the country you live in, and when you think about the vast expanse of human time since Christ's crucifixion. And so, yeah, I mean, it's great to say, you know, God is merciful. In the same breath that you're saying, almost no one gets that mercy.
Gerrit It's amazing to say that you're saved by Christ's grace. It's just that almost no one gets that grace. But lucky me, I got it. I got it. I'm good. I'm good. And I think that's why it's frustrating, because, I mean, I don't know that the co-host he's talking to, the host of the show, is thinking that deeply about this. I mean...
Richard Yeah, no, I mean, Andrew Schultz is a, you know, he's a thoughtful comic. But, yeah, I don't know that...
Gerrit So maybe he's not thinking on the deeper...
Richard Well, no, I mean, that's a fairly... But that's part of the problem, right, is that the second and third questions that you're asking are fairly deeper...
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard Fairly deeper in nature.
Gerrit And that's kind of the point I made, is that we tend to have these discussions that focus on my own personal salvation and the salvation of people that I know and the people around me, when that's almost nobody in the grand scheme of things. And I realize that, you know, there's a reason why I'm worried about my own personal salvation. Joseph Smith was worried about his own personal salvation. But I mean, at some point, don't you need to kind of have the experience where, you know, you're praying all night, you know, you're praying and as soon as you get salvation, you begin praying for your brethren to have salvation. And as soon as you understand that they're going to have salvation, you pray that even your enemies are going to have salvation. I mean, that at some point, the closer you get to Christ, the more you want the salvation of everybody. And again, many wonderful, great, good Christian people desperately do want everyone to have the message and to be saved.
Gerrit But them wanting everyone to have the message doesn't actually answer for the fact that almost no one does. And I think that's why Alex struggles with it, right? It's great that you say everyone can be saved by Jesus. In a theoretical world that doesn't actually exist. We live in a world where billions of people have lived or will live where they won't ever have a real opportunity to have faith in Jesus. So why did God create a world where billions upon billions of people will never have a chance to be saved?
Richard And I think that that's the thing that the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ is able to answer in a way that is so beautiful and profound and that I hold just so incredibly dear, is that not only does our theology answer that question, it answers the larger question, which is why we're even here at all.
Gerrit Which is a great question that you don't ever really hear asked. What's the purpose of life? I mean, look, John MacArthur will give it to you straight up.
Richard Glorify God.
Gerrit To glorify God. You're here to glorify God. God created you for His glory. God does all things in His glory. God created you in this world and you suffer and whatever. The ultimate thing you can do is bring glory to God. And that's the best answer, by the way, for Christians. Because anything else you say runs up against God's all-powerfulness. Why did God create us? I mean, I've had a pastor say back, well, you're lucky God created you at all. You shouldn't even exist. Well, okay, but he did create me, and then he made me a Mormon, so then what? You know, the idea that there's a purpose to our existence, because any answer you give to that, if you believe in a truly all-powerful God, whatever that answer is doesn't actually make sense, right?
Gerrit Why did God create us? Well, so that we could learn about his glory. Okay, except God's all-powerful, he can just have us learn about his glory without having to suffer through a mortal life, because he's all-powerful. Why did God create us? So we could be tested. Okay, except God already knows the answers to the exam, right, because he's God and he knows everything, and he already knows everything that's going to happen. So why do I have to suffer and then go to hell? Couldn't I just go directly to hell and do not pass go, and I don't collect $200? Why do I have to suffer first and then go to hell? What's the redeeming quality of that? You already know, God, you already know. I'm a Latter-day Saint. As far as every Christian is concerned, I'm going to burn in hell. So why create me? Oh, you're going to be tested? Be tested in a world that you created with an exam that you know I'm going to fail, with an immortal spirit that you know I'm going to suffer in a burning hell forever with?
Gerrit Why? I mean, ultimately a Christian is going to argue, God needs nothing from us. God existed outside of time, and then God decided at some point to create time, and to create the universe, and to create us, and to create everything out of nothing. Well, why did he decide to create billions of sentient beings in his own likeness and image, in which he gives them immortal spirits, knowing that almost all of them that he creates are going to have horrific mortal lives, starvation, sickness, disease, malnutrition, and that's not even counting all of the other sufferings we have, heartache and loss and the death of loved ones and friends who betray, and that all of the other horrors that are incident to mortality, and those are nothing compared to the horrors of eternity, forever suffering.
Gerrit Why is that the plan? Why is the plan to create billions of people out of nothing, that you know are going to suffer forever? And the great part about being a Latter-day Saint, is that's not the plan. It was never the plan. You weren't arbitrarily created by God, and thrust on this fallen world, so that God could somehow gain more glory from your suffering. You were with God in the beginning. And when the plan was presented, that you could potentially become like your Heavenly Father. If you went through a difficult mortal life, that you could become like Him.
Gerrit We clapped our hands and shouted for joy. And we weren't tricked into it. We didn't think that it was the door B with the alligators. We knew exactly that mortality would be filled with suffering and disappointment and loss and difficulty. And we shouted for joy. The Christian world believes that a God that is all perfect, all wise and all just created billions of people knowing that they would writhe in agony forever for God's glory. We believe that because we're God's children, because the purpose of this earth is so that we can become like God, the purpose of this mortality, this difficulty, so we can become like God, that God's glory is that we become like him.
Gerrit To bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. You might someday, probably not, certainly not if Wesley's making the argument, convince me that yeah, it's actually really a triune God, and it's God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, they're all one God, one and the same, three and one, one and three. Maybe you'll somehow convince me of your triangle God argument, but you will never convince me that God is somehow all good when he created almost everyone to suffer forever. That's the best part about being a Latter-day Saint. You stand alone in that as a Christian. You don't have to believe that God created everyone arbitrarily with so much suffering. That's why, look, I get it people have questions about church history.
Gerrit I get it there are things that, well, I don't understand this, and why hasn't God revealed that, or why did God allow this to happen for so long? They're valid questions. All of them pale in comparison to the alternative. And the alternative is this life is fundamentally meaningless. God could have done whatever he wanted, and almost like he's playing chess on a chessboard, decided arbitrarily to create us in this suffering. We don't have to believe that. And so we're probably over time, Richard's giving me the look like he wants me to be quiet, and that's most of the time.
Richard It was very good, very well said. By the way, most northern alligator attack.
Gerrit Yeah, in a zoo.
Richard No, it was in a, well, it was a petting zoo. Scales and Tails was the name of the petting zoo. And the state?
Gerrit I was hoping you'd say it was in Quebec, but.
Richard Utah. Oh, yeah. It was in Utah.
Gerrit I remember that.
Richard The most northern attack. Now, there was a time when an alligator snapped at somebody in Ireland, and an alligator named Zoo in the 70s.
Gerrit And then St. Patrick drove them all.
Richard Drove them out. But yeah, you saw Utah, the most northern attack.
Gerrit Well, I feel like.
Richard I feel like that's a perfect ending to the beautiful testimony that you just shared.
Gerrit Yeah, and I was using a Latter-day Saint motif of alligators we knew.
Richard It was good.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard That was a beautiful and heartfelt testimony on the planet salvation, Gerrit.
Gerrit Well, thank you so much for joining us. And yeah, there you go.
Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth Podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard LeDuc. If you know of anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. Until next time.

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Someone said we're trying to recreate what our ancestors went through as they crossed the plains.

GerritBanter

So we're in the Best Western Palmyra Inn, and I would give it only 4.8 stars.

RichardBanter

If you think it's a little long to read, at least it didn't take you two days to receive this.

GerritBanter

Yeah, I feel like you're more mad about that than I am about this whole Christianity thing.

GerritBanter

Well, mysteries of God, it's a fine thing to say. Look, there's all kinds of things about God that I don't know.

GerritInsight

Your blood pressure is 400 over 300.

RichardBanter

My blood is gravy.

GerritBanter

I mean, that at some point, the closer you get to Christ, the more you want the salvation of everybody.

GerritInsight

We clapped our hands and shouted for joy. And we weren't tricked into it.

GerritInsight

That's the best part about being a Latter-day Saint. You stand alone in that as a Christian. You don't have to believe that God created everyone arbitrarily with so much suffering.

GerritInsight

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
People who go to hell simply chose to be separated from God.
The idea of fire in hell comes from medieval art, not the Bible.
Take it to classReady to use in a lesson or a talk.

Take it to class

Ready to copy into a lesson or a text

D&C 88 came after the elders each prayed aloud for revelation and took two days to receive; seeking revelation took real effort and unity.

The hardest part of divine hiddenness for traditional Christianity isn't where people are born; it's that the punishment for never hearing of Jesus would be forever.

The closer we get to Christ, the more we want salvation for everyone, not just ourselves and those we know.

Latter-day Saints believe we lived with God, understood mortality would be hard, and shouted for joy, because God's work is to bring to pass our immortality and eternal life.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
Recreating the pioneer trekRecording live in a Palmyra hotel room north of 90 degrees with broken air conditioning (0:51-1:32); Best Western Palmyra Inn gets 4.8 stars (1:17).
Kristy's CornerAnother huge section (1:51); Richard never read it (2:10); the elders praying 'prey' like hunting deer (4:14-4:47); Richard's sister in McKinney, Texas, should stand up during the meat-packing sign-up and start talking, since she's running for Relief Society president (10:01-11:05).
Bill the AdultererBill prays at the 1832 conference (5:47); a listener's stake patriarch named Bill is not that Bill (13:08-13:27).
Skipping the mailbagThousands of beautiful, sincere emails, but they just want to talk about atheism (11:27-11:37).
Angry Gerrit and the DandometerFans asked for Angry Gerrit (11:37); a kind Christian comment set him off before recording, 'but I will not' (12:26-13:03); the Dandometer is through the roof (36:54-36:58); blood pressure 400 over 300 (31:41).
The Indianapolis FeverRichard is more worked up about the WNBA team name than Gerrit is about Christianity; the only cure is more cowbell (14:29-15:10). Council Bluffs casinos (14:25).
Seven helpings of rice puddingPossibly with MSG (28:21-28:33).
$600 of Turkish DelightA 40-pound carry-on padded with dirty garments, mostly thrown away; the fig ones went hard in the paint (33:23-34:36).
The alligator from New JerseyDoor B's alligator lives in Florida and visits family in upstate New York (43:10-43:39); Richard's crack research finds the most northern attack at Lake Waccamaw, North Carolina (52:18), then a petting zoo in Utah (66:09-66:31).
VidAngel the clipRichard listened three times to make sure Wesley Huff's Flagrant clip had no swearing (35:42-36:03).
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown MailbagSend Gerrit and Richard your question.

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

Your question could be next week’s episode
Questions from Litners drive a lot of episodes. Send yours. If it makes the show, Richard reads it on air.
General ConferenceGeneral Conference talks that cite a scripture read in this episode.

In General Conference

Talks from the latest General Conference that cite a scripture this episode reads or names on air
October 2026 General Conference · cites D&C 88The Hour of Your Mission Is ComeBishop Sean DouglasBishop Douglas thanks missionaries of every age and urges the rising generation to place full-time missionary service high on their list.October 2026 General Conference · cites D&C 88Spiritual ImmunityElder Christian C. ChigbunduElder Chigbundu, recalling the talk of "immunity" during the COVID-19 pandemic, describes building spiritual immunity through four small and simple things: scripture study, prayer, the sacrament, and keeping covenants, including temple worship.October 2026 General Conference · cites D&C 88Comfort from the Holy GhostElder Matthew J. EyringElder Eyring speaks to the moments when we realize "I can't fix this," the thought that came to a friend whose son had died.

Summaries, themes and lessons for every talk are on What Did They Say?

Go deeperWhere to read more.

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
The minutes of the December 1832 conference where D&C 88 was received, and the School of the Prophets in the Newel K. Whitney store (3:14).
Alex O'Connor's divine hiddenness argument and religious geographic distribution (16:39).
Brigham Young's 'Joseph was a merciful man, but I will not' sermon and the troubles at Winter Quarters (13:08, 15:10).
Why God created us: John MacArthur's 'to glorify God' versus Moses 1:39 and the premortal plan (58:12, 63:09).
SOT Litner · S5E34.