In this episode, Trent Horn responds to Joe Rogan’s interview with linguist Daniel Everett and the claim that ancient religious history is unreliable simply because we weren’t there to see it. Trent explains why this objection misunderstands history, applies a double standard to Christianity, and wrongly treats modern “immediate experience” as the only reliable way to know truth.
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Transcript:
00:00:00:01 - 00:00:27:07
Christianity is about stuff that happened a long time ago, so we can’t know if it’s true. That’s a silly reason to not be Christian, but it’s not uncommon. So in today’s episode, we’ll show how to answer this anti-intellectual objection, even when so-called intellectuals make it. You can see this in Joe Rogan’s recent interview with linguist Daniel Everett. Everett arrived as a Christian missionary in the Amazon in 1977, and spent several years learning the language of the pita tribe and sharing the Christian faith with them.
00:00:27:07 - 00:00:44:15
However, eight years into his mission, he eventually left Christianity because of the reasons the Pita Ha never accepted Christianity in the first place. You know, hey Dan, what does Jesus look like? Is he brown like us or is he white like you? And I say, well, you know, some people say he was brown like you, and some people say he was white like me.
00:00:44:15 - 00:01:00:11
And they said, yeah, yeah, but you’ve seen him. What did he look like? And I said, well, I never saw him. Well, your dad saw him. No, my dad never saw him. He lived a long time ago. I don’t know anyone who has ever seen Jesus. And they said, you don’t know anyone who’s ever seen him, and you’re just talking about him the whole time telling us about him.
00:01:00:15 - 00:01:21:22
They said we don’t want to hear about this anymore. According to Everett, the Peter Ha only believe what can be proven by immediate testimony. If you or your relatives didn’t see something, then it effectively never happened. As a result, unlike many other cultures, the Ha don’t have creation myths. In fact, they don’t have any stories about what happened more than a few generations into the past.
00:01:21:22 - 00:01:56:20
So the concept of Jesus Christ, or anyone for that matter, doing anything for them 2000 years ago is nonsense. And and that was like, but you at the time were a believer. You’re a true believer. Yeah. So when did that start to slip away? It started to slip away from two sides. One, I was spending a lot of my time in the intellectual world and trying to do serious linguistic science, and it slipped away mainly, however, by constant interaction with the Peter Ha, because as I gotten to know these people over the years.
00:01:56:22 - 00:02:20:03
These are really smart people. They’re very intelligent people. They they had me figured out before I had them figured out. And they can predict my behavior better than I can predict theirs even today. And so they would come to me and they would say this, you know, they say, Dan, you keep telling us about Jesus. But it seems that only Americans believe in Jesus because we don’t know any Brazilians that we’ve ever met that believe in Jesus.
00:02:20:03 - 00:02:42:22
And so this seems like an American thing, but we’re not Americans. And then they would say, you know, where did you get your evidence? And I began to think, you know, these are good questions. I can’t just throw these questions off. What is my evidence? Everett goes on to say that he was only Christian because he had surrounded himself with Christians and his young adult life that helped him leave atheism, and so he thought maybe he was correct about atheism in the first place.
00:02:42:22 - 00:03:03:13
But it boggles my mind that someone who can be so intelligent in one area, like linguistics, can fall for such bad reasoning in another area. However, this isn’t uncommon among very smart people who mistakenly think that because they’re smart in one area, that makes them an expert in every other area they opine about. I mean, that’s what Everett is doing with the Peter.
00:03:03:13 - 00:03:24:13
Ha. I’m sure the Peter are very good at reading people’s emotions and knowing how to survive in the Amazon, but that doesn’t take away from the incredible ignorance they have about the world because of their isolation. And it certainly doesn’t make that ignorance something that we should imitate. Here’s how Everett describes them. Isn’t their language a completely different language than ours?
00:03:24:14 - 00:03:42:10
Like in terms of like, they have no words for color, they have no words for direction. They don’t have a left or right, right. So in this all takes time to find out. Because when I went there, I thought everybody had words for colors. Everybody had words for numbers. Everybody had a concept of God, right? They don’t have words for numbers.
00:03:42:11 - 00:04:01:06
That’s just so crazy. Yeah. They don’t have. And do they have numbers? Do they know numbers? They don’t count. How many fish did you catch today, Mike? A lot. That’s it. That’s it. A lot of a little. A lot of a little or a good amount. Yeah, yeah. So should we not believe in colors or numbers or the objectivity of mathematics?
00:04:01:06 - 00:04:27:21
Because the Peta ha people don’t believe in those things. Honestly, the reason that some Westerners fall for this mindset is actually rooted in a kind of racism about indigenous peoples, called the myth of the noble savage that goes all the way back to the thinking of the political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The idea is that traditionally, we’ve believed that humans are born with original sin, and civilization through law and religion helps people to become good.
00:04:27:22 - 00:04:51:18
So when Western civilizations encountered other cultures that practice horrible atrocities like widow burning or child sacrifice, it was the duty of Westerners to civilize those cultures. For more on this, see my previous episode on Why Christians Must Convert Savages. But in the time of Rousseau’s becoming popular, to believe that people are born good and it’s modern civilization that corrupts them and makes people greedy and materialistic.
00:04:51:18 - 00:05:18:01
In contrast, indigenous people who grow up apart from modern society represent the height of human virtue and show how we can live in harmony with nature and one another. And it’s evil to try and change those indigenous cultures. Now, granted, there were many instances of abuse and evil committed by European colonizers, but that doesn’t prove the more radical claim that indigenous tribes, in virtue of their lack of contact with Europeans, are morally superior to Europeans.
00:05:18:01 - 00:05:41:03
They told me one time. They said, you know, from what we understand, Christians don’t drink and they don’t sleep with other women. And, you know, we like to do those things, so we’re not interested. What was convincing for you, though? If you’re a true believer, you think your path is the right way. When you’re hanging out with these people, what is making you question it?
00:05:41:04 - 00:06:01:13
Well, several things. One of the most important things was that having spent so many years as a Christian and knowing Christians both in the US and missionaries who are the cream of the crop, supposedly I didn’t know anyone in the Christian faith that was as well adjusted, who could cope with life as well, who was as satisfied and content with their lives as the Peter.
00:06:01:15 - 00:06:24:18
They were like the ultimate Zen masters and the ultimate, you know, if you if you thought, what is Jesus supposed to do for your life? They already had it. And I didn’t know many Christians who did. So first. It was quality of the spiritual life. They seemed to me to have the highest quality of spiritual life. So one MIT guy who came down, an MIT PhD student said, these look like the happiest people in the world.
00:06:24:19 - 00:06:43:07
And I said, well, what kind of statement is that? How would you measure who’s happiest? He said, well, I would spend time. I would see how long they smile and laugh every day and compare it to others and how much time they spend laughing and smiling, and I’ll guarantee you, he said, I’ve never seen a Peter here who’s not smiling or laughing.
00:06:43:07 - 00:07:03:11
It let me offer another example. Imagine I introduced Everett to a commune full of young adult children of billionaires, and I tried to share the gospel with them. Unfortunately, because of their culture, they have no concept of the future and so they don’t worry about anything. As a result, the concept of God judging them after death has no meaning for them.
00:07:03:12 - 00:07:28:11
They also told me they don’t like Christianity because if they became Christian, they’d have to stop fornicating and they’d have to start caring for the poor. And they aren’t interested in doing that. But I was just so impressed by how much they laughed and enjoyed life that I decided to stop being a Christian too. Now, I bet Everett would pity these people, not emulate them, but the Peta ha get a pass because they don’t belong to a group.
00:07:28:11 - 00:07:51:16
Academics have traditionally been taught to despise a group that if they did, what the Peta ha did, would be considered moral monsters. For example, consider this passage from one of Everett’s papers about the Peta he writes as a result of the Peta has laws fair attitudes toward sexual relations. It is likely that at some point, most adults in a village will have had sex with most other adults of the opposite sex.
00:07:51:17 - 00:08:13:06
There are few age limits kid philia, though this word doesn’t really fit well here since the practice carries no stigma in Peta. Ha occurs among the Peta has and children as young as 5 or 6 talk and laugh openly about sex. If this were an isolated group of Appalachians in West Virginia, Everett would be outraged and his fellow liberals would gladly support an intervention to save these children.
00:08:13:06 - 00:08:34:21
But because the Ha are part of the oppressed class, as Marxist academics would say, their culture can never be bad. So one must always side with them against oppressors like Christians who would try to change their culture. They would say it’s always wrong to try and change someone’s culture, except for Christian cultures that say you should change evil cultures.
00:08:34:23 - 00:08:58:11
So it’s silly to say Christianity is just an American thing in the Amazon. The Catholic Church has existed for centuries in the form of Jesuit and Capuchin missions in the Amazon, which is why in 2019, there was a synod to discuss how to minister to indigenous people in this region. In fact, the Catholic Church’s ability to make religious realities immediately present in the form of the liturgy and a sacramental priesthood is one reason the church has been able to thrive there.
00:08:58:11 - 00:09:16:23
But this is being challenged by Pentecostals, who also focus on immediate experience and have many more ministers. In contrast to the fewer number of Catholic priests who serve in the region. But it’s not only the Amazon that needs evangelizing. The internet is also a jungle of misinformation, and your support of the Council of Trent helps people combat it.
00:09:16:23 - 00:09:42:02
So please consider supporting this channel for as little as $5 a month at Trenton Podcast. Com to help it remain sponsor free and reaches many people as possible. But my main point is that just as numbers and colors are real things, even if an indigenous tribe doesn’t understand those concepts, history from more than 50 years ago is a real thing, and it’s the pinnacle of silliness to reject historical religious claims just because they happen a long time ago.
00:09:42:02 - 00:10:05:17
And it’s not just the Peta who succumbed to this kind of bad thinking. Consider the underlying assumption of this argument Ricky Gervais made to Stephen Colbert about the alleged superiority of science over religion. But science. Science is constantly proved all the time. You see, if we take something like any fiction in any holy book, in any other fiction and destroyed it, okay, in a thousand years time, that wouldn’t come back just as it was.
00:10:05:19 - 00:10:25:13
Whereas if we took every science book and every fact and destroyed them all in a thousand years, they’d all be back, because all the same tests would be the same result. That’s good. That’s really good. No, Stephen, it’s not good. That’s an idiotic argument. First, Gervaise is just saying that we should only trust facts that can be replicated scientifically.
00:10:25:13 - 00:10:46:12
And if we destroyed all books, we would eventually rediscover those scientific facts. But we probably wouldn’t, because different cultures on Earth haven’t made scientific advancements equally. Look at the Peter Hoffer example. So accidents of history can keep that knowledge from being discovered. Also, scientists are also freaking out a bit when they think that they’ve discovered something through testing.
00:10:46:13 - 00:11:15:04
They often can’t repeat it in laboratories, something called the replication crisis. But even if Jervois were correct, it’s not like you should only believe in science because it’s rediscovery and other forms of knowledge can’t be rediscovered. What Jervis calls religious books are really collections of ethical and historical religious claims. If you destroyed religious books, many of the ethical claims, like the Golden Rule, would still come back because they’re a part of our human nature or the law of God written on the heart.
00:11:15:04 - 00:11:38:12
As Paul says in Romans 214 through 16. And sure, the historical religious claims, if they only existed in religious books and not in people’s memories, would not return. But that doesn’t mean that those religious claims about history are false, because this is true for every historical claim. Religious or not, destroying every record of ancient Roman history wouldn’t mean Caesar never crossed the Rubicon.
00:11:38:12 - 00:12:01:05
Hannibal never crossed the Alps, or that Christ never died on a cross, and his disciples didn’t proclaim his resurrection. In fact, the foundational truth claim of Christianity is that Jesus Christ was seen alive, died on a cross, and was seen alive again. And according to Bart Ehrman, virtually every expert on the planet believes the first two claims. So why is it absurd to say there is evidence for the third claim?
00:12:01:06 - 00:12:34:23
As a result, it’s not uncommon for atheists to basically burn history to the ground and say, we can’t know anything about the past because they demand unreasonable amounts of evidence for the events surrounding the life of Jesus Christ. For example, they have no problem believing the story of Scottish freedom fighter William Wallace, even though our main Scottish sources about Wallace’s life are from 70 to almost 200 years after he was executed, you can see this antagonism towards basic historical facts in my debate with Matt Delahunty about Christ’s resurrection, where Dillahunt says he doesn’t think it’s reasonable to believe.
00:12:35:00 - 00:13:11:03
Even the non-religious claim that Jesus Christ was crucified. Is it reasonable to believe that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate? I don’t think so. Okay, so do you think that all historians in the world that teach at major universities, it’s unreasonable for them that they believe Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate? For them to believe it, perhaps. Perhaps it’s unreasonable them to leave it for them to teach it, as this is what is believed is not problematic.
00:13:11:05 - 00:13:20:23
No, I’m saying that. So you’re saying it’s unreasonable to affirm that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate?
00:13:21:01 - 00:13:45:02
This is saying I am not convinced. I am not personally convinced that that’s the case. Now, in response, some atheists will say that we should demand more evidence for the claims about Jesus because they have much more of an impact on our lives than claims about someone like William Wallace. But a truth affecting me more doesn’t mean I need more evidence to believe it, since the truth of that claim exists independently of how it affects me.
00:13:45:03 - 00:14:07:20
For example, if I’m justified in believing a jar of peanut butter contains peanuts based on what the label says, then I’m also justified in believing that same truth. Even if I have a severe peanut allergy. The differing circumstances of the recipient of a truth does not change what is needed to justify the truth. So one of the challenges of sharing the Christian faith is that it’s foundational.
00:14:07:20 - 00:14:25:22
Good news happened a long time ago, and people who were so caught up in the present moment, be they an indigenous tribe or someone just glued to their iPhone, doesn’t have an appreciation for the importance of the past. In fact, 70 years ago, C.S. Lewis encountered this same problem, and here’s how he explained it in his essay God in the dock.
00:14:25:23 - 00:14:48:04
The next thing I learned from the RAF, Royal Air Force was that the English proletariat is skeptical about history to a degree which academically educated persons can hardly imagine. This indeed seems to me to be far the widest cleavage between the learned and unlearned. The educated man, habitually almost without noticing it, sees the present as something that grows out of a long perspective of centuries.
00:14:48:04 - 00:15:10:20
In the minds of my RAF hearers, this perspective simply did not exist. It seemed to me that they did not really believe that we have any reliable knowledge of historic man, but this was often curiously combined with a conviction that we knew a great deal about prehistoric man. Dallas. Because prehistoric man is labeled science, which is reliable, whereas Napoleon or Julius Caesar is labeled as history, which is not.
00:15:10:21 - 00:15:41:13
Thus, a pseudoscientific picture of the caveman and a picture of the present filled almost the whole of their imaginations. Between these there lay only a shadowy and unimportant region in which the fantasma shapes of Roman soldiers, stagecoaches, pirates, knights and armor, highwaymen, etc. moved in a mist. I had supposed that if my hearers disbelieve the Gospels, they would do so because the Gospels recorded miracles, but my impression is that they disbelieve them simply because they dealt with events that happened a long time ago.
00:15:41:13 - 00:16:03:00
So as Christians, it’s important to point out the double standard people have when they’re willing to trust historical claims that don’t threaten their lifestyle like ancient Roman trivia, but immediately raise the bar to exclude historical claims that do threaten their lifestyle, like the evidence for one individual in ancient Rome defeating death and promising eternal life to anyone who would follow him.
00:16:03:00 - 00:16:20:09
And if someone you’re talking to is stuck on not wanting to believe evidence from centuries ago, then you can point them to evidence from just the previous century for the Christian faith in the form of Marian apparitions, saintly stigmata and Eucharistic miracles. For more on that, check out the links below. Have you like more resources on defending the real Jesus?
00:16:20:09 - 00:16:28:01
Check out my book, Counterfeit Christ Finding the Real Jesus Among the Imposters. Now you all so much for watching and I hope you have a very blessed day.