June 26, 2025 • 27 mins
Set the wayback machine for yesteryear. David C. Smalley debates Sean Connelly. More at dogmadebate.com
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's another It sounded like Monty Python right there. It's
it's another throwback Thursday. Man, I'll tell you the week
we're having here in Trump's America. I might just have
to throw back some beers for Throwback Thursday as well.
But this episode is also a little bit cathartic, so
(00:21):
fun to go back and listen to the turn on
the wayback machine. This is a debate between David C.
Spalley and a gentleman by the name of Sean Connolly.
Is that James Bond? No, that's Sean Connery, right. I
was like, wait, is that Sean anyway? I listened to
(00:41):
the whole episode as always great debate. I picked it
up for you guys for this little sample, and if
you want the whole episode, you're just gonna have to
join our patreon that would be Dogmadebate dot com, where
you're gonna get all the episodes, all the archives, and
we are up to eight hundred and eleven episodes. There's
some content there, folks. So I start the snippet of
(01:03):
this episode David asking a question, which you know, fair
game and a question I've heard before, which is baby's born.
You say that we're all born into a sinful nature.
Baby's born can't express his acceptance of Jesus Christ as
(01:24):
his savior. Baby dies. What happens to the baby, Well,
anyone that's listening to this show or debated a Christian
knows the answer is going to be a convoluted mess
that ends up with Yeah, that baby might just end
up burning in Hell forever. Shouldn't have been so darn sinful.
(01:44):
God created us sinful, birthed you sinful. You die of
the disease the God gives you. And I'm not saying
that this is necessarily the exact conversation David and Sean
had I'm just saying this is Christian theology for you.
You created sinful, You're giving a disease as an infant
(02:04):
that God had control over, And God says, I know
you couldn't express yourself. You couldn't even think a thought,
much less comprehend the idea of Jesus Christ dying for
your sins. But you will be able to comprehend the
pain and torture that it awaits you forever. Down to
(02:25):
Hell you go. It's a fine question, and I don't
fault Sean for not having a fine answer. It's not
his fault. It is literally reverse engineering. That's what I
believe Christians are doing. They are trying to reverse engineer
this story so that it makes freaking sense, and as
(02:49):
far as I can tell, can't be done unless you
say it's all a bunch of metaphor and it's just,
you know, whatever, a story, take it or leave it. Well,
then go okay, that works anyway. I give you David C.
Smalley versus not James Bond, Sean Connolly.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
It's I'm Neil de grass Tyson. Hey, I'm Adam Carolla Gillette.
Not only listening, I'm the guest.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
I'm a teller, and I am the fourth listener.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
And I am the fourth listener, and that must make
me at least the fourth listener.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
To keep our three listeners coming back, we must be
doing something right. And if you're the fourth listener, we
thank you for the support. You can get every episode
with no ads at patreon dot com slash David C.
Smalley and take advantage of your fourth listener status.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
And we're going to sue David smalley for slander.
Speaker 5 (03:54):
With the world divided, it's time to resurrect a nuance
and remember the importance of conversation. He's an actor, he's
a comedian, and he'll make you think this is David
c slowly.
Speaker 6 (04:11):
I'm curious, and I know you're saying you don't know,
and I appreciate that, but I'm curious, like, what are
your thoughts on, like, you know, sudden infant death syndrome.
If a baby is a matter of weeks old, has
that baby sinned and fell short of heaven or felt
fell short of perfect.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
I would think that we're born in this life sinful, yes,
born into this life, not that we're already here and
then we start sitting. We're born into sinful nature?
Speaker 6 (04:38):
Yes, well, yeah, I mean maybe sinful nature, meaning you know,
as you grow up, you develop these instincts through evolutionary
biology that make you want to have sex and see
people in a certain way and rebel against your parents,
and in that way, we have a nature that Christianity
would classify as sinful. But like you're a couple of
(05:01):
weeks old or like four days old, you think that
that baby has fallen short and is sinful?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yeah, I would say so, yeah, I mean because that's yeah,
and so if that the baby has a sinful nature. Now,
does that baby go to heaven? I can't answer that
question for you.
Speaker 7 (05:19):
Yeah, that's my next question.
Speaker 6 (05:20):
Is I wonder and I know you don't know, but
I'm wondering how you think that works in that if
the baby is a sinner or has sinned somehow, and
yet they can't confess their sins before man because they
literally can't form those thoughts or speak, do they go
(05:41):
to hell because they didn't get to accept their Lord
and savior Jesus Christ?
Speaker 3 (05:47):
And you know, and I can't answer that. You know,
the the plain, simple truth of it is, you know
who created that person? Who created that four year old
infort or four day old effort or thirty year old
man or eighty year old man or woman or whatever
God did ultimately?
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Right?
Speaker 6 (06:05):
Well, so if I you know, let's say, let's say
that we developed a way to create life in test tubes,
like literally out of gel, just a little imagine like
a little amoeba, right, or a little starfish type thing,
and I just create it by putting this bacteria with
that and this cell with that, and I grow this
(06:28):
thing and it develops nerve endings, and I created it
literally from scratch without me doing it, it would not exist,
and it can feel pain, it can scream. It has
a one vocal cord. And I'm next to you at
my table and you're like, wow, that's amazing that you
created this thing. And I'm like, yeah, watch this, and
I start poking it with a needle and chopping off
(06:50):
its limbs and lighting it on fire. How would you
feel about me.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Happen?
Speaker 6 (07:01):
No, but if it did and you turn to me,
if you turn to me, if you turned to me
and said.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Dude, you know, we can't live and what if this happen?
Speaker 7 (07:09):
No, but we can because this is drawing a point sean.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
But we live in reality about it.
Speaker 6 (07:14):
Well, that's what I'm trying to do. I'm bringing this
whole concept to reality. Imagine us standing there doing it
and I'm I'm I have a lighter and I just
keep holding a fire up to it. And you hear
this thing screaming, and then I chop off one of
its tentacles and you're like, dude, what are you doing?
Like why we And I look at you and I go, WHOA,
I created this. I could do whatever the hell I
(07:35):
want to it. No, there's still a moral obligation to
reduce suffering and improve flourishing.
Speaker 7 (07:44):
You don't just get.
Speaker 6 (07:45):
To torment, torture and kill anything because you made it.
And I don't understand why you give God carte blanche
to make a decision to send a four day old
infant to hell if he wants to, just because he
created it. That doesn't make him not a monster.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
But that's in your eyes, not in mind, not in
a person who trust him with everything that they have.
It's not it's not an option. We didn't create anything.
You're going off the assumption that you get to create something,
and you don't. The only way, even if you did
(08:25):
what you said you were doing, even if you somehow
figured out how to put this micronism with this and
this and this and this, it was only God who
gave you the ability to do that in the first place.
Speaker 6 (08:36):
Right, So you do believe that because God created everything,
if he wants to torture something, we should have nothing
to say about it.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Yep, that's right. It is not our option.
Speaker 7 (08:48):
That is mind blowing to me.
Speaker 6 (08:50):
We are not sure so if God so, If God
wants to give a three month old baby debilitating leukemia,
Praise Jesus. I can't get behind that, Sean, I don't care.
I don't care how much authority that God has if
that's how he wants to run his creation.
Speaker 7 (09:11):
I refused about his feet. I would not worship that.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Way with I mean, well, look at it this way.
What if God, and I'm not saying this happens, but
what if God through this baby that you just mentioned,
What if God through that baby, through that child, through
that family.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
What if.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
And I'll just go love, What if one one person
decides to follow him because of the example of the family,
that the faith that they had in God, that even
though how bad and how tragic this is, that God
had something good in mind, that God had a better plan,
And if one person turned their life over to him,
(09:55):
would it be worth it.
Speaker 7 (09:56):
Absolutely? I would say to you that that is the
most sadistic and disgusting way to get somebody on your team.
If you are willing, as a God to torture an
infant by giving them leukemia just to get somebody, just
(10:19):
to get somebody to believe in you.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
First that I didn't say that God did the leukemia part.
You said that, yeah.
Speaker 6 (10:28):
Yeah, well God created evil and if that it's things
only happened according to God's will. So if the baby
was born and has leukemia, all of that's according to
God's will. And God created the baby, God created leukemia,
and God created evil Isaiah forty five to seven.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
It work, brother, It ain't just God. There's other powers
in this world that we live in called you know,
like great planet Earth.
Speaker 7 (10:51):
So if God, if God at work here.
Speaker 6 (10:55):
So so if God is willing to allow a baby
to have leukemia and uses that to get somebody else
to believe in him, you still think that's a moral decision.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
I didn't say it was moral or not. I said
it ain't my It ain't my right to judge what
God does and what God doesn't do.
Speaker 6 (11:19):
I that blows my mind, Sean, that blows my mind
that if if God did that, that you would still
worship him and consider him.
Speaker 7 (11:28):
To be good.
Speaker 6 (11:29):
That that is just mind blowing to me. And it
makes me so glad that I'm a humanist, that I
love human beings, and that I would I would uh
in the in the snap of a finger, my choice,
if I were God, would be to get rid of
that suffering, not use that suffering to convince somebody else
(11:53):
to believe in me. That sounds like an egotistical, maniacal
monster that does not sound like any being that loves anybody.
Speaker 8 (12:03):
And it is, Hey, just a little nugget. I was
just thinking, Okay, so when you guys were talking about
the baby with sids, right, so obviously the baby dies
before that age of what is it accountability? So I
was talking to somebody randomly and this was like years ago,
(12:24):
and we were talking about this because I had a
problem with that. I was like, what about this poor kid?
And the only thing they said they were like, well,
if they haven't had a chance to confess and you know,
bow at the feet of God and you know, all
this stuff and be baptized, then they go to hell.
(12:45):
But what they said was the same way you come
into the world with no recollection of anything, they would
go out and it would be justified that way.
Speaker 7 (12:53):
So pretty much they're.
Speaker 8 (12:54):
Saying they have no memory of having good experiences, so
they don't have a bad one because they didn't have
anything to put it up against. And that that's always
stood out with me. But like, that's I just wanted
to say that into a microphone because that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Have you ever heard anything like that? I have?
Speaker 3 (13:16):
I mean, and and you know, even if I had,
you know, nobody knows that to be true. How to
you know, there's no Yeah, there's no way to prove,
to prove or disprove that. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6 (13:28):
Oh yeah, it's all speculation, but it's it's it's interesting speculation.
One final thing, you said something at the very very
beginning of the show that you talk to God and
he talks to you, That you talk to God like
you guys are friends and Sean, that puts you in
a very very unique and special and some would say
(13:52):
privileged position.
Speaker 7 (13:56):
If God.
Speaker 6 (13:58):
Exists and God is is the most powerful being in
the universe and you can talk directly to him and
have a direct line, not to a governor or a
city mayor, or the president of the United States or
you know, a leader of a UN council, but literally
(14:20):
the creator of all matter, space and time.
Speaker 7 (14:25):
That is that is an amazing thing that you've accomplished.
I mean, it really would be. And so.
Speaker 6 (14:34):
I'm wondering, and I'm not being facetious.
Speaker 7 (14:38):
I know you're gonna think this.
Speaker 6 (14:39):
I really am not, Like, do you ever ask him to,
you know, cure diseases or help us prevent the next
terror attack, or give us some sort of information, you know,
to stop the next school shooting, or you know, intervene
(15:00):
in some way to stop these bad things from happening.
Do you ever, do you ever cry out to him
and ask him, since you talked to him on a
regular basis, to you know, keep our kids safe in
schools or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
You know, I think there's been times that I've asked
for specific things, you know, but more so what I
ask for is that His will be done. And I've
been in you know, we talked about the guy that
passed away, and I've been in many many situations where
I've gone to a hospital to pray over someone who
(15:37):
was fixed to either have a procedure or they you know,
whatever the case may be. And I've been asked to
pray for those people. And my prayer, first off and foremost,
has never been that the person is healed, that the
person is you know, doesn't die. First, my very first
(16:01):
prayer before anything, is that God would be glorified and
that he would use the situation, whatever that situation is,
to draw people to himself. Then I would say, God,
if it's in your will that you know this person
does this, or this does person does this? That I
(16:22):
pray that thy will be done, not my will, but
thy will. And you know that's and that's the big
key right there, is that you know it's hard because
there is so many times that you want to pray
for somebody, and you know, I say with selfish motives,
because there are motives, There are motives that we would
(16:44):
want instead of what he would want. So that's that's
the reason why I say selfish motives.
Speaker 7 (16:50):
Well, but what do we base what we want on.
Speaker 6 (16:54):
It's our based on our morality, right, we don't want
we don't want the suffering. If you see a kid
in a car accident and he's laying there and the
car is trapped on him, and you're not strong enough
to get it off, wouldn't you say a prayer for
that kid to you know, allow the kid to get out.
God give me the strength to lift the car.
Speaker 7 (17:12):
God.
Speaker 6 (17:13):
You know, God, he sees it. He knows if God's real.
He saw it happening, He allowed it to take place.
He knew three days ago this was gonna happen.
Speaker 7 (17:22):
He knew seven million years.
Speaker 6 (17:23):
Ago this was gonna happen to this kid. He has
the power to take the car off the kid, and
yet he doesn't. He stands there watching with you as
you struggle trying to lift something too heavy for you,
the pain, the terror of the screaming, the blood. God's
watching and doing nothing.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
I had a similar situation to that happened several years
ago before I became a Christian.
Speaker 5 (17:48):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
I had a really good friend of mine that was
just a very very devout Christian rode a motorcycle, was
driving to work one day, came up on a wreck
where a guy had a wreck in a car pretty
bad and the guy was obviously, you know, very very
bad off, bleeding, very bad. And my friend goes, gets
(18:13):
off his bike and goes down the hill and is
sharing the Gospel with him. And at the time, I
crucified this buddy of mine. I thought, how could you
do that? How could you sit there while this guy's bleeding,
while this guy's hurting, How could you sit there and
share the Gospel with this guy instead of taking your
(18:36):
shirt off and helping stop the bleeding or whatever. And
it wasn't until later in my life, until I give
my life to Christ, until I understand understood why he
did what he did because it wasn't about this body
(18:57):
that we're in here. It wasn't about this temporal life
that we live here. It was about eternity spent with God.
And yes, the guy was bleeding, but the most important
thing that was going on in that guy's life at
that time was that he knew God, or he didn't
know God in case he left this world.
Speaker 7 (19:19):
Yeah, that's that's terrible, but it's not in mind.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Well, yeah, the most import in life.
Speaker 6 (19:30):
I don't know, but Sean, you said earlier you wanted
to stay in reality, and in reality, that guy's bleeding
and helping him stop the bleeding is way more important
than talking to him about Jesus.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
No, absolutely not.
Speaker 6 (19:44):
Well, yeah, more important than a misunderstanding of what breath is.
Speaker 7 (19:49):
No, not breath, that's what the soul was.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Oh, it's eternity. That's what your opinion of it is.
Speaker 7 (19:55):
No, that's the facts of reality, Sean. I've already told
you that it's not my opinion.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Sean.
Speaker 6 (20:00):
That would be like me saying, we know how the
sun goes across the earth, that's not a God dragging
it in a chariot, and then someone who believes that
the God is still dragging it in the chariot goes Hey, man,
it's just your opinion that the earth goes around the sun.
Speaker 7 (20:13):
No, it's not.
Speaker 6 (20:14):
I'm explaining to you the history of how we got
the word soul. That's mistaking the one's breath for some
sort of spiritual entity was a mistake of early human beings.
That is not take precedent over someone who is actually
bleeding real blood out of their body. And on top
of that, not only is that what the guy did,
(20:34):
and that's what that's one.
Speaker 7 (20:36):
Part that makes it terrible. The other part is.
Speaker 6 (20:38):
Imagine imagine being in an accident, hurt, in so much pain,
feeling like your body's on fire, losing blood and finally
you're just desperate for someone to show up and help.
And the person shows up and they're finally there, and
you're thinking, maybe he'll stop the bleeding, maybe he'll help
me breathe, maybe CPR, maybe he'll lift this thing off
(21:00):
my legs, maybe he'll call nine to one one. And
the guy starts talking to you about what's in Matthew twelve.
The one person who's there to actually do something.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Yeah, the one person that could esher you into Christ
presence when you're in and.
Speaker 6 (21:16):
On top of that, and on top of that, what's
the alternative, Sean, what's the alternative?
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Anative?
Speaker 6 (21:22):
He's laying hold on, He's laying there hurting torment, feeling
pain and torture, And what's the story of the gospel.
I realize you're in a tough situation here. I get
that you're in a pickle bud and you got a
lot of pain going on in blood. But if you
don't believe what I'm about to tell you, you're gonna
(21:45):
feel that for eternity, on top of never having hope
again as long as the universe exists. So he went
down there and threatened him with more pain and torment.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
He didn't threaten him at all.
Speaker 7 (21:59):
That's what the gospel is. The whole thing is a threat, Sean.
The whole thing is a threat.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
I'll take offense to that. That is not offensive. It
may you may not agree with it, but it's not offensive.
Speaker 7 (22:09):
It's a threat.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
No, it's not. It's a promise.
Speaker 7 (22:13):
There's a difference a promise of torture if you don't believe.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
A promise of life without God in hell and.
Speaker 7 (22:21):
What if you don't right, Yeah, that's a threat.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
That's not a threat.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
It's a promise.
Speaker 7 (22:25):
If you right, Okay, it's a threat, No.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
A promise. We have to make sure we're on the
same page. A threat is something Hey, I'm gonna do
this to you and it may or may not happen. No,
I told you it's coming and it's gonna happen.
Speaker 7 (22:40):
That's still a threat.
Speaker 6 (22:41):
I mean if I look, if I if I called
you up and said, hey, I'm coming over to your
house to punch you in the face, you could call
the police and say, David Smalley said he's coming to
my house to punch me in the face.
Speaker 7 (22:50):
What are they going to call that?
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Until you showed up, it wouldn't happen. So that's still
a threat.
Speaker 7 (22:54):
It's both.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
If it shows up and it happened, then it's a promise.
It's a threat. It doesn't weigh this is it doesn't matter.
This is a semantic argument that goes nowhere. The point is,
the whole story of the Gospel is a threatening promise.
If you don't believe what I'm telling you, you are
going to be tortured for eternity.
Speaker 7 (23:13):
That's a threat.
Speaker 6 (23:16):
And your friend ran down that hill and threatened this
man with eternal torture as he was in pain, that
is terrible.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
He offered that man to know Jesus Christ, and I
don't you know, I don't know if he did or
if he did, and I never heard, you know, that
part of it because of how I went off on
the guy, So I wouldn't know the end result of
it anyway. But uh, you know, I could only hope
(23:45):
that if you know, if I'm in a situation that
if somebody doesn't know that I knew or didn't know Christ,
and I come to a point in my life where
my life could be out or it could be the
end of my days, I surely hope that somebody tells
me how much my God loves me and how much
(24:05):
he wants me with him.
Speaker 7 (24:06):
Don't you already know that I do.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
I'm saying if I if somebody else, if I came
to the end of my life, yeah, and somebody who
didn't know me, you know, because they don't know if
I'm a Christian or not a Christian, I would hope
that they would give me the same reaction that I
would give somebody.
Speaker 6 (24:24):
Sean, I think if you were actually in that situation,
I think if you were actually in that situation and
you were bleeding out, and someone ran down the hill
and opened the Bible and started preaching to you. I
think you'd go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. I'm
already on your team. How about we turniq it this shit,
stop my bleeding, save my life.
Speaker 7 (24:41):
I get it. I'm already a Christian, you know what.
That's what i'd say. Even an atheist right here today,
I would say, I would say, I already believe, I
already know I'm going to heaven, but can you help
me out?
Speaker 3 (24:50):
That's what you would say.
Speaker 6 (24:51):
I would say that right now because I think staying
alive is more important.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
But you're only staying alive for this two April time
that we're here.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
That's my poll.
Speaker 7 (25:02):
Well, that's according to your opinion.
Speaker 6 (25:03):
Though we don't have evidence of we don't have evidence
of the afterlife.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Sean, you can't tell me that it's not going to happen.
I can't tell you. I can't convince you that it
is going to happen. But I'm going to tell you,
and I tell you this right now, and I believe
this with everything that is within me. I would bet
everything that I have put everything in this one simple
small basket, that there will come a day that you
will stand in front of him and he will tell
(25:28):
you that, and then you're going to realize you're going
to go. Dude, he did tell me, you know, Yeah.
Speaker 6 (25:38):
Yeah, I would if I found myself before him, Sean,
I'm telling you, I would just say, how disgusting must
you be to treat people the way you treat us,
to allow people to treat people the way other people do,
(26:01):
How disgusting must you be to allow babies to die
of leukemia? I would turn my back on him and
walk away because he doesn't deserve to be worshiped and
some things aren't worth paradise.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Well, dude, he wouldn't even give you the chance to
rebuttal Honestly, if you didn't know him from if you
didn't know him and you got to that point, you
wouldn't even get a chance to rebutt him.
Speaker 7 (26:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (26:26):
I think I'd rather Uh, I'd rather go to hell
than to worship a monster.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
David c smally going out on a point there that
most Christians just cannot wrap their head around. They so
want for you to say, oh, well, if I find
myself in front of Jesus and God in heaven, then yeah, obviously,
I just I'll admit I was wrong and cheapers, I
(26:53):
guess I'm going straight to hell, and boy, well my
face be red, and not just because I'm in a
lake of fire, but because I'm so embarrassed that I
didn't worship your God. But the fact of the matter
is most of us atheists are like, yeah, God was
a monstrous character when I thought he was fictitious, and
if for some reason this Bronze Age fairy tale turned
(27:17):
out to be true, then he would go from being
a fictitious monster to a real monster. Still wouldn't get
my respect. By the way, did I mention There's eight
hundred and eleven episodes of Dogma Debate in the archives,
and the only way to get those is to join
the patreon at dogmadebate dot com.
It's another It sounded like Monty Python right there. It's
it's another throwback Thursday. Man, I'll tell you the week
we're having here in Trump's America. I might just have
to throw back some beers for Throwback Thursday as well.
But this episode is also a little bit cathartic, so
(00:21):
fun to go back and listen to the turn on
the wayback machine. This is a debate between David C.
Spalley and a gentleman by the name of Sean Connolly.
Is that James Bond? No, that's Sean Connery, right. I
was like, wait, is that Sean anyway? I listened to
(00:41):
the whole episode as always great debate. I picked it
up for you guys for this little sample, and if
you want the whole episode, you're just gonna have to
join our patreon that would be Dogmadebate dot com, where
you're gonna get all the episodes, all the archives, and
we are up to eight hundred and eleven episodes. There's
some content there, folks. So I start the snippet of
(01:03):
this episode David asking a question, which you know, fair
game and a question I've heard before, which is baby's born.
You say that we're all born into a sinful nature.
Baby's born can't express his acceptance of Jesus Christ as
(01:24):
his savior. Baby dies. What happens to the baby, Well,
anyone that's listening to this show or debated a Christian
knows the answer is going to be a convoluted mess
that ends up with Yeah, that baby might just end
up burning in Hell forever. Shouldn't have been so darn sinful.
(01:44):
God created us sinful, birthed you sinful. You die of
the disease the God gives you. And I'm not saying
that this is necessarily the exact conversation David and Sean
had I'm just saying this is Christian theology for you.
You created sinful, You're giving a disease as an infant
(02:04):
that God had control over, And God says, I know
you couldn't express yourself. You couldn't even think a thought,
much less comprehend the idea of Jesus Christ dying for
your sins. But you will be able to comprehend the
pain and torture that it awaits you forever. Down to
(02:25):
Hell you go. It's a fine question, and I don't
fault Sean for not having a fine answer. It's not
his fault. It is literally reverse engineering. That's what I
believe Christians are doing. They are trying to reverse engineer
this story so that it makes freaking sense, and as
(02:49):
far as I can tell, can't be done unless you
say it's all a bunch of metaphor and it's just,
you know, whatever, a story, take it or leave it. Well,
then go okay, that works anyway. I give you David C.
Smalley versus not James Bond, Sean Connolly.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
It's I'm Neil de grass Tyson. Hey, I'm Adam Carolla Gillette.
Not only listening, I'm the guest.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
I'm a teller, and I am the fourth listener.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
And I am the fourth listener, and that must make
me at least the fourth listener.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
To keep our three listeners coming back, we must be
doing something right. And if you're the fourth listener, we
thank you for the support. You can get every episode
with no ads at patreon dot com slash David C.
Smalley and take advantage of your fourth listener status.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
And we're going to sue David smalley for slander.
Speaker 5 (03:54):
With the world divided, it's time to resurrect a nuance
and remember the importance of conversation. He's an actor, he's
a comedian, and he'll make you think this is David
c slowly.
Speaker 6 (04:11):
I'm curious, and I know you're saying you don't know,
and I appreciate that, but I'm curious, like, what are
your thoughts on, like, you know, sudden infant death syndrome.
If a baby is a matter of weeks old, has
that baby sinned and fell short of heaven or felt
fell short of perfect.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
I would think that we're born in this life sinful, yes,
born into this life, not that we're already here and
then we start sitting. We're born into sinful nature?
Speaker 6 (04:38):
Yes, well, yeah, I mean maybe sinful nature, meaning you know,
as you grow up, you develop these instincts through evolutionary
biology that make you want to have sex and see
people in a certain way and rebel against your parents,
and in that way, we have a nature that Christianity
would classify as sinful. But like you're a couple of
(05:01):
weeks old or like four days old, you think that
that baby has fallen short and is sinful?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yeah, I would say so, yeah, I mean because that's yeah,
and so if that the baby has a sinful nature. Now,
does that baby go to heaven? I can't answer that
question for you.
Speaker 7 (05:19):
Yeah, that's my next question.
Speaker 6 (05:20):
Is I wonder and I know you don't know, but
I'm wondering how you think that works in that if
the baby is a sinner or has sinned somehow, and
yet they can't confess their sins before man because they
literally can't form those thoughts or speak, do they go
(05:41):
to hell because they didn't get to accept their Lord
and savior Jesus Christ?
Speaker 3 (05:47):
And you know, and I can't answer that. You know,
the the plain, simple truth of it is, you know
who created that person? Who created that four year old
infort or four day old effort or thirty year old
man or eighty year old man or woman or whatever
God did ultimately?
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Right?
Speaker 6 (06:05):
Well, so if I you know, let's say, let's say
that we developed a way to create life in test tubes,
like literally out of gel, just a little imagine like
a little amoeba, right, or a little starfish type thing,
and I just create it by putting this bacteria with
that and this cell with that, and I grow this
(06:28):
thing and it develops nerve endings, and I created it
literally from scratch without me doing it, it would not exist,
and it can feel pain, it can scream. It has
a one vocal cord. And I'm next to you at
my table and you're like, wow, that's amazing that you
created this thing. And I'm like, yeah, watch this, and
I start poking it with a needle and chopping off
(06:50):
its limbs and lighting it on fire. How would you
feel about me.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Happen?
Speaker 6 (07:01):
No, but if it did and you turn to me,
if you turn to me, if you turned to me
and said.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Dude, you know, we can't live and what if this happen?
Speaker 7 (07:09):
No, but we can because this is drawing a point sean.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
But we live in reality about it.
Speaker 6 (07:14):
Well, that's what I'm trying to do. I'm bringing this
whole concept to reality. Imagine us standing there doing it
and I'm I'm I have a lighter and I just
keep holding a fire up to it. And you hear
this thing screaming, and then I chop off one of
its tentacles and you're like, dude, what are you doing?
Like why we And I look at you and I go, WHOA,
I created this. I could do whatever the hell I
(07:35):
want to it. No, there's still a moral obligation to
reduce suffering and improve flourishing.
Speaker 7 (07:44):
You don't just get.
Speaker 6 (07:45):
To torment, torture and kill anything because you made it.
And I don't understand why you give God carte blanche
to make a decision to send a four day old
infant to hell if he wants to, just because he
created it. That doesn't make him not a monster.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
But that's in your eyes, not in mind, not in
a person who trust him with everything that they have.
It's not it's not an option. We didn't create anything.
You're going off the assumption that you get to create something,
and you don't. The only way, even if you did
(08:25):
what you said you were doing, even if you somehow
figured out how to put this micronism with this and
this and this and this, it was only God who
gave you the ability to do that in the first place.
Speaker 6 (08:36):
Right, So you do believe that because God created everything,
if he wants to torture something, we should have nothing
to say about it.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Yep, that's right. It is not our option.
Speaker 7 (08:48):
That is mind blowing to me.
Speaker 6 (08:50):
We are not sure so if God so, If God
wants to give a three month old baby debilitating leukemia,
Praise Jesus. I can't get behind that, Sean, I don't care.
I don't care how much authority that God has if
that's how he wants to run his creation.
Speaker 7 (09:11):
I refused about his feet. I would not worship that.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Way with I mean, well, look at it this way.
What if God, and I'm not saying this happens, but
what if God through this baby that you just mentioned,
What if God through that baby, through that child, through
that family.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
What if.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
And I'll just go love, What if one one person
decides to follow him because of the example of the family,
that the faith that they had in God, that even
though how bad and how tragic this is, that God
had something good in mind, that God had a better plan,
And if one person turned their life over to him,
(09:55):
would it be worth it.
Speaker 7 (09:56):
Absolutely? I would say to you that that is the
most sadistic and disgusting way to get somebody on your team.
If you are willing, as a God to torture an
infant by giving them leukemia just to get somebody, just
(10:19):
to get somebody to believe in you.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
First that I didn't say that God did the leukemia part.
You said that, yeah.
Speaker 6 (10:28):
Yeah, well God created evil and if that it's things
only happened according to God's will. So if the baby
was born and has leukemia, all of that's according to
God's will. And God created the baby, God created leukemia,
and God created evil Isaiah forty five to seven.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
It work, brother, It ain't just God. There's other powers
in this world that we live in called you know,
like great planet Earth.
Speaker 7 (10:51):
So if God, if God at work here.
Speaker 6 (10:55):
So so if God is willing to allow a baby
to have leukemia and uses that to get somebody else
to believe in him, you still think that's a moral decision.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
I didn't say it was moral or not. I said
it ain't my It ain't my right to judge what
God does and what God doesn't do.
Speaker 6 (11:19):
I that blows my mind, Sean, that blows my mind
that if if God did that, that you would still
worship him and consider him.
Speaker 7 (11:28):
To be good.
Speaker 6 (11:29):
That that is just mind blowing to me. And it
makes me so glad that I'm a humanist, that I
love human beings, and that I would I would uh
in the in the snap of a finger, my choice,
if I were God, would be to get rid of
that suffering, not use that suffering to convince somebody else
(11:53):
to believe in me. That sounds like an egotistical, maniacal
monster that does not sound like any being that loves anybody.
Speaker 8 (12:03):
And it is, Hey, just a little nugget. I was
just thinking, Okay, so when you guys were talking about
the baby with sids, right, so obviously the baby dies
before that age of what is it accountability? So I
was talking to somebody randomly and this was like years ago,
(12:24):
and we were talking about this because I had a
problem with that. I was like, what about this poor kid?
And the only thing they said they were like, well,
if they haven't had a chance to confess and you know,
bow at the feet of God and you know, all
this stuff and be baptized, then they go to hell.
(12:45):
But what they said was the same way you come
into the world with no recollection of anything, they would
go out and it would be justified that way.
Speaker 7 (12:53):
So pretty much they're.
Speaker 8 (12:54):
Saying they have no memory of having good experiences, so
they don't have a bad one because they didn't have
anything to put it up against. And that that's always
stood out with me. But like, that's I just wanted
to say that into a microphone because that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Have you ever heard anything like that? I have?
Speaker 3 (13:16):
I mean, and and you know, even if I had,
you know, nobody knows that to be true. How to
you know, there's no Yeah, there's no way to prove,
to prove or disprove that. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6 (13:28):
Oh yeah, it's all speculation, but it's it's it's interesting speculation.
One final thing, you said something at the very very
beginning of the show that you talk to God and
he talks to you, That you talk to God like
you guys are friends and Sean, that puts you in
a very very unique and special and some would say
(13:52):
privileged position.
Speaker 7 (13:56):
If God.
Speaker 6 (13:58):
Exists and God is is the most powerful being in
the universe and you can talk directly to him and
have a direct line, not to a governor or a
city mayor, or the president of the United States or
you know, a leader of a UN council, but literally
(14:20):
the creator of all matter, space and time.
Speaker 7 (14:25):
That is that is an amazing thing that you've accomplished.
I mean, it really would be. And so.
Speaker 6 (14:34):
I'm wondering, and I'm not being facetious.
Speaker 7 (14:38):
I know you're gonna think this.
Speaker 6 (14:39):
I really am not, Like, do you ever ask him to,
you know, cure diseases or help us prevent the next
terror attack, or give us some sort of information, you know,
to stop the next school shooting, or you know, intervene
(15:00):
in some way to stop these bad things from happening.
Do you ever, do you ever cry out to him
and ask him, since you talked to him on a
regular basis, to you know, keep our kids safe in
schools or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
You know, I think there's been times that I've asked
for specific things, you know, but more so what I
ask for is that His will be done. And I've
been in you know, we talked about the guy that
passed away, and I've been in many many situations where
I've gone to a hospital to pray over someone who
(15:37):
was fixed to either have a procedure or they you know,
whatever the case may be. And I've been asked to
pray for those people. And my prayer, first off and foremost,
has never been that the person is healed, that the
person is you know, doesn't die. First, my very first
(16:01):
prayer before anything, is that God would be glorified and
that he would use the situation, whatever that situation is,
to draw people to himself. Then I would say, God,
if it's in your will that you know this person
does this, or this does person does this? That I
(16:22):
pray that thy will be done, not my will, but
thy will. And you know that's and that's the big
key right there, is that you know it's hard because
there is so many times that you want to pray
for somebody, and you know, I say with selfish motives,
because there are motives, There are motives that we would
(16:44):
want instead of what he would want. So that's that's
the reason why I say selfish motives.
Speaker 7 (16:50):
Well, but what do we base what we want on.
Speaker 6 (16:54):
It's our based on our morality, right, we don't want
we don't want the suffering. If you see a kid
in a car accident and he's laying there and the
car is trapped on him, and you're not strong enough
to get it off, wouldn't you say a prayer for
that kid to you know, allow the kid to get out.
God give me the strength to lift the car.
Speaker 7 (17:12):
God.
Speaker 6 (17:13):
You know, God, he sees it. He knows if God's real.
He saw it happening, He allowed it to take place.
He knew three days ago this was gonna happen.
Speaker 7 (17:22):
He knew seven million years.
Speaker 6 (17:23):
Ago this was gonna happen to this kid. He has
the power to take the car off the kid, and
yet he doesn't. He stands there watching with you as
you struggle trying to lift something too heavy for you,
the pain, the terror of the screaming, the blood. God's
watching and doing nothing.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
I had a similar situation to that happened several years
ago before I became a Christian.
Speaker 5 (17:48):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
I had a really good friend of mine that was
just a very very devout Christian rode a motorcycle, was
driving to work one day, came up on a wreck
where a guy had a wreck in a car pretty
bad and the guy was obviously, you know, very very
bad off, bleeding, very bad. And my friend goes, gets
(18:13):
off his bike and goes down the hill and is
sharing the Gospel with him. And at the time, I
crucified this buddy of mine. I thought, how could you
do that? How could you sit there while this guy's bleeding,
while this guy's hurting, How could you sit there and
share the Gospel with this guy instead of taking your
(18:36):
shirt off and helping stop the bleeding or whatever. And
it wasn't until later in my life, until I give
my life to Christ, until I understand understood why he
did what he did because it wasn't about this body
(18:57):
that we're in here. It wasn't about this temporal life
that we live here. It was about eternity spent with God.
And yes, the guy was bleeding, but the most important
thing that was going on in that guy's life at
that time was that he knew God, or he didn't
know God in case he left this world.
Speaker 7 (19:19):
Yeah, that's that's terrible, but it's not in mind.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Well, yeah, the most import in life.
Speaker 6 (19:30):
I don't know, but Sean, you said earlier you wanted
to stay in reality, and in reality, that guy's bleeding
and helping him stop the bleeding is way more important
than talking to him about Jesus.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
No, absolutely not.
Speaker 6 (19:44):
Well, yeah, more important than a misunderstanding of what breath is.
Speaker 7 (19:49):
No, not breath, that's what the soul was.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Oh, it's eternity. That's what your opinion of it is.
Speaker 7 (19:55):
No, that's the facts of reality, Sean. I've already told
you that it's not my opinion.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Sean.
Speaker 6 (20:00):
That would be like me saying, we know how the
sun goes across the earth, that's not a God dragging
it in a chariot, and then someone who believes that
the God is still dragging it in the chariot goes Hey, man,
it's just your opinion that the earth goes around the sun.
Speaker 7 (20:13):
No, it's not.
Speaker 6 (20:14):
I'm explaining to you the history of how we got
the word soul. That's mistaking the one's breath for some
sort of spiritual entity was a mistake of early human beings.
That is not take precedent over someone who is actually
bleeding real blood out of their body. And on top
of that, not only is that what the guy did,
(20:34):
and that's what that's one.
Speaker 7 (20:36):
Part that makes it terrible. The other part is.
Speaker 6 (20:38):
Imagine imagine being in an accident, hurt, in so much pain,
feeling like your body's on fire, losing blood and finally
you're just desperate for someone to show up and help.
And the person shows up and they're finally there, and
you're thinking, maybe he'll stop the bleeding, maybe he'll help
me breathe, maybe CPR, maybe he'll lift this thing off
(21:00):
my legs, maybe he'll call nine to one one. And
the guy starts talking to you about what's in Matthew twelve.
The one person who's there to actually do something.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Yeah, the one person that could esher you into Christ
presence when you're in and.
Speaker 6 (21:16):
On top of that, and on top of that, what's
the alternative, Sean, what's the alternative?
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Anative?
Speaker 6 (21:22):
He's laying hold on, He's laying there hurting torment, feeling
pain and torture, And what's the story of the gospel.
I realize you're in a tough situation here. I get
that you're in a pickle bud and you got a
lot of pain going on in blood. But if you
don't believe what I'm about to tell you, you're gonna
(21:45):
feel that for eternity, on top of never having hope
again as long as the universe exists. So he went
down there and threatened him with more pain and torment.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
He didn't threaten him at all.
Speaker 7 (21:59):
That's what the gospel is. The whole thing is a threat, Sean.
The whole thing is a threat.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
I'll take offense to that. That is not offensive. It
may you may not agree with it, but it's not offensive.
Speaker 7 (22:09):
It's a threat.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
No, it's not. It's a promise.
Speaker 7 (22:13):
There's a difference a promise of torture if you don't believe.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
A promise of life without God in hell and.
Speaker 7 (22:21):
What if you don't right, Yeah, that's a threat.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
That's not a threat.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
It's a promise.
Speaker 7 (22:25):
If you right, Okay, it's a threat, No.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
A promise. We have to make sure we're on the
same page. A threat is something Hey, I'm gonna do
this to you and it may or may not happen. No,
I told you it's coming and it's gonna happen.
Speaker 7 (22:40):
That's still a threat.
Speaker 6 (22:41):
I mean if I look, if I if I called
you up and said, hey, I'm coming over to your
house to punch you in the face, you could call
the police and say, David Smalley said he's coming to
my house to punch me in the face.
Speaker 7 (22:50):
What are they going to call that?
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Until you showed up, it wouldn't happen. So that's still
a threat.
Speaker 7 (22:54):
It's both.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
If it shows up and it happened, then it's a promise.
It's a threat. It doesn't weigh this is it doesn't matter.
This is a semantic argument that goes nowhere. The point is,
the whole story of the Gospel is a threatening promise.
If you don't believe what I'm telling you, you are
going to be tortured for eternity.
Speaker 7 (23:13):
That's a threat.
Speaker 6 (23:16):
And your friend ran down that hill and threatened this
man with eternal torture as he was in pain, that
is terrible.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
He offered that man to know Jesus Christ, and I
don't you know, I don't know if he did or
if he did, and I never heard, you know, that
part of it because of how I went off on
the guy, So I wouldn't know the end result of
it anyway. But uh, you know, I could only hope
(23:45):
that if you know, if I'm in a situation that
if somebody doesn't know that I knew or didn't know Christ,
and I come to a point in my life where
my life could be out or it could be the
end of my days, I surely hope that somebody tells
me how much my God loves me and how much
(24:05):
he wants me with him.
Speaker 7 (24:06):
Don't you already know that I do.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
I'm saying if I if somebody else, if I came
to the end of my life, yeah, and somebody who
didn't know me, you know, because they don't know if
I'm a Christian or not a Christian, I would hope
that they would give me the same reaction that I
would give somebody.
Speaker 6 (24:24):
Sean, I think if you were actually in that situation,
I think if you were actually in that situation and
you were bleeding out, and someone ran down the hill
and opened the Bible and started preaching to you. I
think you'd go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. I'm
already on your team. How about we turniq it this shit,
stop my bleeding, save my life.
Speaker 7 (24:41):
I get it. I'm already a Christian, you know what.
That's what i'd say. Even an atheist right here today,
I would say, I would say, I already believe, I
already know I'm going to heaven, but can you help
me out?
Speaker 3 (24:50):
That's what you would say.
Speaker 6 (24:51):
I would say that right now because I think staying
alive is more important.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
But you're only staying alive for this two April time
that we're here.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
That's my poll.
Speaker 7 (25:02):
Well, that's according to your opinion.
Speaker 6 (25:03):
Though we don't have evidence of we don't have evidence
of the afterlife.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Sean, you can't tell me that it's not going to happen.
I can't tell you. I can't convince you that it
is going to happen. But I'm going to tell you,
and I tell you this right now, and I believe
this with everything that is within me. I would bet
everything that I have put everything in this one simple
small basket, that there will come a day that you
will stand in front of him and he will tell
(25:28):
you that, and then you're going to realize you're going
to go. Dude, he did tell me, you know, Yeah.
Speaker 6 (25:38):
Yeah, I would if I found myself before him, Sean,
I'm telling you, I would just say, how disgusting must
you be to treat people the way you treat us,
to allow people to treat people the way other people do,
(26:01):
How disgusting must you be to allow babies to die
of leukemia? I would turn my back on him and
walk away because he doesn't deserve to be worshiped and
some things aren't worth paradise.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Well, dude, he wouldn't even give you the chance to
rebuttal Honestly, if you didn't know him from if you
didn't know him and you got to that point, you
wouldn't even get a chance to rebutt him.
Speaker 7 (26:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (26:26):
I think I'd rather Uh, I'd rather go to hell
than to worship a monster.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
David c smally going out on a point there that
most Christians just cannot wrap their head around. They so
want for you to say, oh, well, if I find
myself in front of Jesus and God in heaven, then yeah, obviously,
I just I'll admit I was wrong and cheapers, I
(26:53):
guess I'm going straight to hell, and boy, well my
face be red, and not just because I'm in a
lake of fire, but because I'm so embarrassed that I
didn't worship your God. But the fact of the matter
is most of us atheists are like, yeah, God was
a monstrous character when I thought he was fictitious, and
if for some reason this Bronze Age fairy tale turned
(27:17):
out to be true, then he would go from being
a fictitious monster to a real monster. Still wouldn't get
my respect. By the way, did I mention There's eight
hundred and eleven episodes of Dogma Debate in the archives,
and the only way to get those is to join
the patreon at dogmadebate dot com.
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My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
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Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com