So many of you would probably recognize the name Raging Atheist
from different debates that I've had on this channel with him,
and believe it or not, Raging Atheist now is no longer an atheist.
He believes in God, and I think that this is phenomenal,
and we had a great discussion about it, and he is having his eyes open to the
truth, and I am just so happy for him,
and I just want to say it takes a lot of humility to admit when you're wrong,
and anybody who knows Raging Atheist knows that his channel was
filled with vitriol against God for a very long time, for
five plus years, and so to see him give all that up takes a lot of humility,
and to see the atheist community, many of them turn on him,
some remain friends, you know, it's an incredible thing to witness. It's an
incredible thing to witness the Christians that are also rallying
around him and supporting him, and I think that we all need to pray
for Ronnie that he will trust Christ as his Savior someday,
and I have the wonderful chance to share the Gospel with him after this interview,
and so I hope that you guys enjoy the conversation that we have.
God bless. But I've been this, like, hardcore atheist on YouTube for six
years. We had our time going at each other.
I've had many battles on YouTube, and there's streams that I did where I was
intentionally blasphemous, especially towards the Christian God, but
towards the concept as well. After all of that, for Divinity to be able to kind of
reach out and touch me and say, you know what, you're important,
you've got work to do, I think it's phenomenal, and I think it
has kind of, like, jarred a lot of atheists, especially those
that followed me. I had one recently comment to me
that, you know, like, I'm just ghosting all the people that supported me
for years, and I'm like, well, no, I literally made an announcement. That's
like the opposite of ghosting. You know, like, I let everybody know
what happened, and I didn't lie about it, and I don't think that they really
know how to take it. Yeah, it's kind of cool to
reminisce and see kind of the past, especially the past
that we have was kind of big on YouTube for a while.
Well, yeah, well, even before the debate, I always said, you know, like,
because I was making videos, and when we first talked, I was only
making videos. I wasn't doing lives. I wasn't debating anybody at that time.
I was just making some kind of, like, edgelord atheist videos, trying to be
just, like, really trying to emulate and kind of be
like Cult of Dusty, old school Cult of Dusty, way back in the day
before he got into the politics, you know, and
and then, you know, you came along, and it was the first time I ever talked live
with not just a Christian,
but, you know, somebody that does this on YouTube, and somebody that was
getting really well known at the time, and then I started, you know, as a result
of the movie with you, I started streaming, and so
yeah, like, I've always kind of considered,
even though I was making videos before I met you, and we
had our first conversation, but that was really the start
of my channel. Right. Yeah. One second, just one second, my
daughter is, she always waits until I'm live, or
we're not live, but no worries, man.
Yeah, I am muted. Yeah, Ronnie says hi. Very good.
When yours are old enough, you'll realize that, you know,
they'll have all day, you know, which I've only been home since four, but she's
had an hour and a half. She has to wait until I'm actually in
my office and doing something to have a question.
Yeah, that's how they are. They're such a blessing. You know, I
have two little ones, and they're just phenomenal, but they
do that at, like, the worst moments, but it's still such a blessing to
see them thrive, and see them interact, and whatnot.
Oh yeah, I wouldn't change it for anything. It's
the best part of life. You know, people that
don't want to have children, you know, I was there. I never wanted to have one
until I did, and man, it's,
it's, yeah, it's a blessing. I don't think you can say it any other way,
and, you know, not everybody's a good parent, so some people shouldn't have
kids, and they end up doing it, but if you're a
good parent, yeah, it's going to touch you, and it's
going to change you forever. By the way, when you were still an
atheist, we actually, I don't know if you remember this or
not, we met up and had coffee, like, a year ago, I think.
Yeah, you know, I, yeah, I put the picture on Facebook. I might have even,
I put it on my Twitter, and I might have even put it on the channel,
and yet, like, every time that I say I'm going to talk to you, they're,
the atheists are like, why? Why are you going to talk to him again?
You've done that, blah, blah, blah, dishonesty. It's like, well,
like, isn't that the point? Like, isn't, even when I was an atheist,
I've tried to talk to everybody, like, and I even ended up kicking John
Peterson off the channel, because he wouldn't let
Danny come into rooms, and Danny, Danny's, like, harmless.
You know, it's like, no, I want to talk to everybody,
and people need to get, get over this mentality, like,
what's the point of doing this, or being a conversationalist on YouTube if you're
not going to talk to people? I've never really understood it.
Definitely, definitely. So, I wanted to actually
bring up a post that you made. It was phenomenal, and I agree with this post
on Facebook. You said, I announced yesterday that I was no longer an
atheist, but I did that on YouTube, and not here.
I'm no longer an atheist. I've had an experience that, as an atheist, I would
have scorned and mocked, but it was truly my experience. Words
will never be able to truly describe it, and when I think of all the negativity I
put out there against divinity, to have the divine touch me, words will
never describe it. I think that's phenomenal, man. I think
that, you know, it's, it's neat to see that God is working in your life, and
that God is ever-present with you, and I would pray,
and I've been actually praying and hoping
that you would trust Christ.
I'd say four weeks ago now at this point, three weeks ago now at this point,
you know, as the raging atheist, anybody came with the story that I was
telling, that I am telling, I would have bashed them and said, you know,
just outlandish things about them, dissed them in every way that I could, so I
fully understand that atheists are never going to accept what I have to say,
but I can't dismiss it. I can't dismiss that
something happened to me, and I was at one of my lowest points that I've ever
had been in in my life. I was set to lose everything.
Something happened to me, and then all of a sudden, everything turned around.
Not just my mentality, not just the way that I think,
but physical things in real life. I got saved on my apartment, you know. I got a
job when I hadn't had a job in over a year.
Somebody died right outside of my apartment door
in a manner that easily could have been me a month and a
two months ago when I was deep into my alcoholism, so it's like
all of these things added on to the experience that I had, the personal
experience that I had has led me to the conclusion that there is divinity.
I'm sure that I could smell the booze on him, so he was drunk, but
you know, he like OD'd. He must have mixed something with
whatever he was drinking, and yeah, it happened
the morning after I prayed to God for the first time. I said, God, if you're up
there, my first prayer was, God, if you're
up there, show me you're real. Help me get this job. I want this job, and
I thought about it, and I felt bad, and I didn't feel
bad because I prayed like, you know, the Raging Atheist. I
should feel like stupid because I just prayed. No, I
felt bad because the prayer was selfish, so
I said, you know what, God, if you're there, show me you're real. Next day,
six o'clock in the morning, this guy OD's right outside my door,
right after he tried to get in my door. It was just,
that with the personal experience that had happened that day,
it's too much for me to dismiss. Like, the universe is telling me something.
Deity, divinity is pointing the finger at you saying, it's not too late.
I just have to listen, and I have to be open to it, and yeah, I don't understand
it fully right now, so when I do go on the streams, I kind of explain it badly,
and atheists are like, you are insane, and I'm like,
you guys are kind of bigoted because I was, and I understand.
Right, definitely. Well, I was going to mention, I can actually see kind of a
change almost in your countenance, in the sense of, you're no longer really
the raging type. Yeah, I lost that. You know, I lost it.
Yeah, I still struggle with the word God,
but I was an atheist for a really long time. It's going to be a process of me
trying to figure this out, and I'm not, I'm not
dismissing anything. Right now, I consider myself a nominist, which is an
acceptance of all religions, and that there's truth
in all religions expressed towards the deity of the
universe, right? So, whether that's a creator deity,
whether it's Yahweh, you know, it's going to be an interesting path forward trying
to figure these things out. I would agree there's truth in
pretty much every religion, in the sense that
every religion understands that there's some sort of higher power, there's some
sort of designer, but you have to keep in mind, too, the rat
poison that's given to rats. It's 99% food, so you could have 99%
truth. You want to make sure to have 100%
truth, and that's found in Jesus. Again, I don't want to absolutely come off as if
I'm forcing that on you. Obviously, that's,
you'll have to consider down the road, and I think maybe even off air, we would
talk about Christianity, and, you know, I have
nothing to hide to my viewers, and to you, Ronnie. I would absolutely try
to convince you to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. I would try to convince you
to just simply trust Christ. There's two
concepts, ultimately, of religion, and I think you'd agree with this.
The concept is, in Hinduism, Mormonism, Judaism, so forth, they all teach that if
you're good enough, if you keep enough commandments, if you
pray seven times a day, you're going to go to heaven. Whereas
pure faith would tell us, and Jesus has told us,
that if you believe on Him, and if you trust Him as your Savior,
that it's a gift, and that it's not something that you
earn. And so, all other religions really are based on
arrogance, in the sense that they think that they're so good that they can
inherit eternal life. Whereas Christianity would tell us, and
Jesus would tell us, that, look, I died for you. I paid for your
sins. Buried and rose again. And by putting your faith in that, you're
humbling yourself, and realizing that you can't get to heaven
on your own. That you need somebody, that you need God to literally take you
there, to take your soul to heaven as a free gift. It really requires
humility, and so that's the difference. There's people who try to work their way
to heaven, and there's people who trust Jesus, that
Jesus deserves the glory, and that Jesus would take them to
heaven. So, just so you kind of get the two religions. So, every other
religion outside of Christianity will teach you,
well, you just do the works, and you can stay saved. Well, that's not
what the Bible says. It's certainly not what Jesus said.
You know, I'm not closing myself off to it, and I've started to actually read the
Gospels, not in the manner that I was doing as
Raging Atheists, oh, the Bible is stupid series,
but actually reading it, being open to it, and I've already kind of changed my
stance. Like, I was a mythicist, and now I'm like, you know, I'm getting away from
that. I'm not going to go against
history anymore, just because I don't like a thing.
I'm going to open myself up to it, so I'm no longer a mythicist. That's a
start, and we're going to see where this thing
takes me, because obviously it has some intention for me.
So, I believe it's going to show me the truth of everything eventually.
You have to be pretty humble to admit when you're wrong about something that
you've based your entire channel around. Being a YouTuber, right? I mean, you
have to take into consideration, you've
spent your whole YouTube career basically as the Raging
Atheist. It's life-changing. It's been totally
life-changing, and I'm still trying to get used to it, but
I'm looking forward, like, you know, because I wasn't sure if I
wanted to do YouTube anymore, if I was going to have a channel
today. I was like, you know what, I'm going to, you know, I'm not going to shy away
from talking about this just because I don't understand it yet,
and I'm going to, you know, I'm going to be there for people that
have supported me and support me still, regardless.
You know, some atheists aren't going to kick me out of their in-group,
you know, and hopefully I can be a bridge to them,
but a lot of atheists are, and, you know, they're going to,
they're doing the same things that they **** and moan about when it comes to the
theist, right? And it's really hard to see that when
you're in the moment. It was hard for me for the longest time.
You know, one of the things that Smokey Saint said to me
that always stuck with me was that I'm bigoted against
Christians, you know, I'm bigoted against religious people, and I was like, no I'm
not, I fight against bigotry, it's what I do.
But, you know, no I was, because I just couldn't see it in myself. I
couldn't see that I was literally doing the things that I said I
despised in other people, you know, and but when you're in the
moment you don't see it, you don't see yourself like that, you
kind of really have to have an experience like I had or just step
outside of yourself for a moment. Take a chill pill and look at yourself, and I
think a lot of people are afraid to do it.
You know, science definitely doesn't know everything. You know, I've,
I always kind of scoffed when Christians especially, but like anybody
would say, um, scientism, you know, the religion of
science. I would always scoff at that until I
actually started meeting people that believe, like, science is the end all
and no all. No, like, to me we barely know anything yet, and
there's no way that any atheist is going to be able to sit there and tell
you that they know for a fact that a God did not
create the universe. No, we don't know much of anything about the universe. We're
still babies, we're still finding things out.
So I'm not, I'm not leaving out anything. What I am doing is admitting I, I don't
know anything. I'm just a human being on this, on this,
on this rock in a vast universe, but I do think that what touched me is
going to lead me to the truth eventually. I just got to be patient, and I got to
wait for it, and I got to change myself. I've got to be a good human being. I
think that's the prerequisite. You've got to be a good human being, and
if you're not, recognize it in yourself and change right now, because
whether you want to see it as a physical demon, there's things inside of you
eating you away, and you don't have to let them.
There you go. You sound kind of like a Christian. Well,
yeah, I'm getting there, I think. I'm kidding there, I think.
And, and who knows, maybe someday maybe you'll get saved and go on to be like a,
like a pastor. Maybe, maybe God would want you to be
evangelist. Everything's possible. Yeah, I think it's possible. I really do. I,
look at what happened to the Apostle Paul. You know, you've got this guy that,
that was very much anti-Christian. The Apostle Paul was so zealous of what he
believed, and when he found out that he was wrong,
and when God himself touched the life of Paul,
Jesus said to Paul, he says, why persecutest thou me?
You know, Paul said, where do you want me to go, Lord? What do you want me to do?
And that was kind of where Paul believed on the Lord Jesus Christ as his Messiah
at the time. And, you know, that he ended up becoming an incredible witness
and an incredible piece of, wrote over half the New Testament.
Yeah, I had this conversation with my dad because,
yeah, I think that that is a possibility. I think it's a possibility I become a
Christian minister. It's a possibility I become a Buddhist
monk. I mean, I was really close to declaring myself a Buddhist
a few months ago, but I don't know, like, the, the feeling that I got after my
personal experience was, man, I'm really glad I didn't declare
myself a Buddhist. So I don't think that that's really a possibility, but
I'm open to everything. But I, I had this conversation
with my dad. I'm like, dad, you know, it'd be really easy and probably profitable
for me right now just to declare Christianity. You know, the
Atheists would say I'm another Brett Keane,
just grifting, whatever, but, like, I could use my story as the Raging Atheist and
make a hell of a profit as a Christian preacher. But if that's
my path, I want it to be a genuine one. I don't
want it to be a grifting one, just something that I know I can profit off
of. I, if I come to any deity, it's going to
be because I've come to that belief and that faith.
Despite how tense it did get between us sometimes, you always showed me an
element of respect. Even when I wasn't showing you any, and
I think that that's, I think that's a compliment to you.
And, you know, when people do end up seeing this, either on your channel or
my new channel, they're going to hate me for saying that. But,
you know, give credit to where credit is due. There was times where I was really
crappy to you, and you've always been very, very, very
pleasant to me. And kudos to you, and I, I think that, I
think that you taught me a lot, and I'd be a fool not to, not to learn
those lessons. And you taught me to do it better next
time. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, you taught me,
yeah, you taught me great things. And, and, you know, looking back,
even though I was an atheist, I was the raging atheist, you did
always show me a certain level of respect. And
yeah, man, I truly, truly appreciate that.
You know, honestly, and I've always said this, even as the raging atheist, I'd be
kind of offended if you weren't, you know, like, if you, if you weren't, like, I know
atheists get offended about people saying, I'm going to pray for you, all of
that. I never really did, because as a Christian, that's the best thing you can
do, right? Like, if you weren't doing that,
then it, that truly means that you have no
compassion for me or no, no, no empathy for me as a human being.
So, you know, I think that's something that atheists need to realize, do that
internal critique and realize when a Christian is telling you atheists that
they're praying for you, that's literally one of the best things
they can tell you.
you