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The Thinking Out Loud Podcast with Kevin Wilson
This podcast exists to help you navigate the culture from a biblical perspective. We tackle the tough and sometimes controversial issues from a Christian perspective. If it’s happening in culture, we are talking about it!
The Thinking Out Loud Podcast with Kevin Wilson
{Ep.125} A Scientist's Journey From Atheism To Christianity | Guest: Dr. Sy Garte
Do you have a topic suggestion, a question, or feedback? Text or leave a voicemail on the show’s hotline 24/7 at 248-301-2010. Donate to the show:
Kevin Wilson (00:02.486)
Welcome back to the thinking out loud podcast. My name is Kevin Wilson and I can tell you, I am excited to be back with you this week for another week of the show. And so, uh, this is something, what we're going to talk about today is something that's been on my heart for a very long time. Um, I love, and this is one thing that I didn't know. We talk about a lot of things on this show.
But one thing about me is I love apologetics. I love people who find Christ that maybe didn't know Christ before and especially people who thought that Jesus didn't exist or just didn't believe in God like it is fascinating to me and I know those of you out there, you know as Christians we
talk a lot about discipleship. We talk a lot about bringing people to Christ. And I think, you know, some of us would say that some of the hardest people that we feel like that we would have, we would reach would be an atheist. And today, that's exactly the person that we're going to talk to is we're going to talk to somebody who was a former atheist and is now a Christian and
And I think this is going to be a fascinating discussion. I'm really excited about this discussion. And of course, don't forget, you can jump into this conversation at any time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, at 248-301-2010. And you can ask questions and different things like that as we go through this. And so my guest today is Dr. Sai Gopal.
He is a scientist. He's an author. Sai has a PhD in biochemistry. He has been a tenured professor at New York University, Rutgers University, the University of Pittsburgh. He's also been the division director at the Center for Scientific Review of the National Institutes of Health.
Kevin Wilson (02:20.558)
Uh, he's interim vice president for research at the uniform services university of the health sciences. He is currently visiting professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Rutgers university. Uh, he has published over 200 peer reviewed scientific papers, uh, three scientific monographs and is the author of two books, uh, the works of his hands.
in science and faith in harmony. And Dr. Gart joins me now. Dr. Gart, thanks for coming on the Thinking Out Loud podcast.
Sy Garte (02:59.682)
Thanks for having me. Good to be here.
Kevin Wilson (03:01.186)
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And so, and folks, if you want to learn more, and this will be in the show notes, um, if you want to learn more about him and his ministry, uh, you can go to CyGart.com and that's just S Y G A R T E.com CyGart.com and there will be, uh, lots of resources there. His books are available there.
Uh, and, uh, you'll be able to, uh, link up with him. And so, uh, Dr. Garth, so you were obviously you're an, you were an atheist. Um, you're now a Christian. And so obviously there's been a journey there. And so that's what I want to talk about today. Tell me, let's start off. Tell me a little bit about your childhood. Um, tell me a little bit about, um, you know,
young side, like what kind of environment did you grow up in? Were you exposed to church? Were you exposed to God? Like, what did that look like for you?
Sy Garte (04:09.034)
Well, the answer is no. I was not, I didn't, I had no exposure to anything religious. My parents were very strong Marxists. They had been members of the American Communist Party in the 1930s. They were believed in communism.
Kevin Wilson (04:12.735)
Okay.
Kevin Wilson (04:29.082)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (04:33.558)
They had left the party by the time I was born, but they still remained very strong Marxists. And part of that ideology is two things. One is that there's no such thing as God. There can't be a God, which is not that unusual among atheists. But the other part was that religion is evil and Christianity is the worst of all. That Christianity was and remains
Kevin Wilson (04:51.176)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (04:57.766)
Hmm.
Sy Garte (05:03.306)
as they would put it, a tool of the ruling class to oppress workers and ordinary people. And so it's bad, it's evil, it has to be overthrown. So I grew up in that environment. It was not just my parents. My family going back three generations were all left-wing, you know, labor leaders,
Sy Garte (05:33.194)
So that's how I grew up. We didn't celebrate Christmas. We didn't celebrate any holiday, any religious holiday of any kind. And I didn't think about God. I just knew it was, it was my view when I heard, I mean, some of the kids on my street where I lived in Brooklyn, New York, and some of the kids there went to parochial school, parochial high school, you know, Catholic schools.
Kevin Wilson (06:02.543)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (06:03.398)
I just thought they were deluded, you know, they were just a fool. You know, I had that attitude growing up through my teenage years into early adulthood. I just thought, I mean, I never really took communism very seriously, but the atheism part stuck with me just like glue. I mean,
Kevin Wilson (06:07.675)
Mm.
Sy Garte (06:33.894)
I had no knowledge. The first time I walked into a church was in my late 40s. I had never been inside of a church before that. A lot of people who now say they're atheists, many of them had grown up Christian. They knew a lot of Scripture. I don't have to tell you, I'm sure you know this.
Kevin Wilson (06:42.298)
Wow.
Sy Garte (07:01.634)
And then they lost their faith, but I never had any faith. I was never, never had the opportunity to have any faith at all. So I had to start from scratch, basically.
Kevin Wilson (07:05.382)
Mm-mm.
Kevin Wilson (07:12.902)
Hmm. And so, yeah, and that's it's crazy because you talk about people who you know, a lot of atheists today are people who've you know kind of been in church and stuff like that and I've said in the past that You know a lot of the newer atheists. It's hard to find a true atheist what you find What you find are people who maybe grew up in the church they you know, or they've been around church
And then something dramatic happened in their life. So whether it be a mother passed away or a grandma, or had a, they had a tragic situation that happened. And then what they, what they did was they said, okay, well, if God is good, then that would have never happened. Or, you know, you know, grandma would have never died or whatever the case may be. And so then they just, their default position because of anger and bitterness.
Sy Garte (08:00.694)
Right.
Kevin Wilson (08:10.762)
is now God doesn't exist. And I've always said, you know, you know, it's almost like having a bad father in a sense. So it's like, you know, just because your dad was not a good dad is not an argument that your dad doesn't exist. Right. We we could we could talk about your dad's care. Like if you struggle with your dad's character, well, let's talk about your dad's character, but let's not.
Sy Garte (08:28.705)
Hahaha
Kevin Wilson (08:39.426)
Let's at least establish that you had a dad. Then let's talk about the character or the part of his character that you struggle with and then go from there. But don't say you don't, you don't have a dad. Right. So I, so sometimes I struggle with new school atheists because I really believe that a lot of it is it's hurt, you know, and some, some of it, frankly, could be church hurt, right? You know? And so, uh, yeah, yeah. So, um,
Sy Garte (09:03.4)
Yeah, I've heard that.
Kevin Wilson (09:09.842)
So you said so growing up in a Marxist home, communist home. So when you got out of, you know, maybe your house with your parents. So what happened? So what happened from, you know, obviously growing up this way? Then you went to college. What what was kind of your worldview, your thoughts while you were in college and actually starting to learn science and all of those type of things?
Sy Garte (09:38.134)
Yeah, that's a great question. My worldview was pretty clear. I loved science. My father was a scientist. He was a chemist. And I loved chemistry. I majored in chemistry in college. And I loved science. And what I thought was the philosophical background behind science, which would be determinism.
naturalism, materialism, reductionism, all those things, which are all to anything related to spirituality, divinity, anything that's, you know, not part of science. And so that was my worldview. I decided I was going to be a scientist. I decided I was going to be a biochemist because I love chemistry, but I also like biology. So this is a combination of the two.
Kevin Wilson (10:12.307)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (10:37.581)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (10:40.995)
And that's what I did. And but what was happening to me when I, it took a while, but eventually I was not only learning in classwork, but also reading books about physics and other parts of science, even the philosophy of science. And I was learning that something didn't quite fit with my worldview. And what that was, was
Kevin Wilson (10:55.718)
Hmm.
Sy Garte (11:08.642)
things like quantum theory, which is physics. It's perfectly good science. It's as real as anything can be. But the philosophical implications of quantum theory go against the whole idea of absolute determinism and absolute, the absolute idea that we can learn everything from science.
Kevin Wilson (11:35.863)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (11:37.342)
In quantum physics, there's a lot of probability. The Schrodinger equation gives you, doesn't tell you where an electron is, it tells you where it might be. Probability that'll be here or there. And there's something called the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which tells you there are things you can't know, you cannot know. And that struck me as strange. And I didn't understand that. And I just thought, well, okay.
Kevin Wilson (11:46.138)
Ryan.
Kevin Wilson (11:56.846)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (12:07.858)
I guess I had it wrong. But then when I was learning the details of biochemistry, how cells work, how living organisms work, it was staggering. I mean, the complexity of the simplest cell is beyond our comprehension almost. I mean, we do understand how they work, but we can't understand at all how they got to be there.
Kevin Wilson (12:09.952)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (12:30.956)
Hmm.
Sy Garte (12:36.446)
That that we don't know to this day. We don't know and That complexity really started me thinking about you know, maybe I don't have it right. Maybe there's something I'm missing here. I Didn't know what it was. But at the same time there was a lot going on in the world around me this is the late 60s and well more like the early 70s and At that time there was a lot of You know
Kevin Wilson (12:36.779)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (12:50.048)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (12:59.683)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (13:05.594)
altered states of consciousness, there was a lot of new age type stuff, people getting into psychedelics, a lot of talk about consciousness, the soul, all kinds of things. And most of it I dismissed as just woo, you know. Yeah, but some of it, you know, I was interested in, you know, why not? And you know, I looked into Buddhism, wasn't really attracted by it.
Kevin Wilson (13:11.033)
Mmm.
Kevin Wilson (13:23.47)
Oh yeah.
Sy Garte (13:34.658)
You know, it sounded groovy at the time.
Kevin Wilson (13:37.276)
Right.
Sy Garte (13:39.826)
And I felt myself starting to open up a little bit. It started with the science, but it eventually opened up a little. And just enough, I would say, for me to get to the point where I was open to the Holy Spirit. Now, I didn't know that. If anybody had said that to me, I said, there's no such thing as a Holy Spirit. Leave me alone. But that's what actually happened. And...
Kevin Wilson (14:04.663)
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (14:09.019)
Later, when I became a Christian, I remembered several incidents where God had definitely been calling me and I had just ignored it.
Kevin Wilson (14:18.958)
Yeah.
Sy Garte (14:20.142)
Uh, so, you know, uh, I didn't become a Christian because of science. The science led me to accept it, but I, I didn't do it. It was done by, I mean, Jesus came to me. I didn't, you know, that's what happened. I, and I'm not going to go into the details because I've done it many times. And it's in my book, my first book. You know, I had a couple of dreams and I had, uh,
Kevin Wilson (14:36.966)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (14:49.31)
Awaking experience that was like a vision and all of these were the work of the Holy Spirit and During this period and this lasted a long time I'm talking about maybe three decades from my mid 20s to my mid 50s I was slowly Thinking about the possibility of God first with a lot of resistance
Kevin Wilson (14:57.093)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (15:17.87)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (15:18.646)
But then after a couple of these dreams, and especially after the experience I had awake, when I declared that I was a believer, that was all the work of the Holy Spirit. It was my doing. And it was a long uphill journey.
It also involved my finally going to a church. As I mentioned, it was in my late forties and somebody brought me to a church. And I very pleasantly surprised, uh, nobody tried to, you know, stone me or, or at me and, uh, and then I even cracked open a Bible and I began reading the, you know, the gospels.
Kevin Wilson (16:03.557)
Right, right.
Kevin Wilson (16:14.717)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (16:15.434)
And once I just kept building, you know, and, and again, a huge amount of resistance. I mean, I kept saying, Oh no, I can never go there. I just, that's not me. You know, and eventually, eventually it was overcome.
Kevin Wilson (16:18.149)
Right.
Kevin Wilson (16:28.266)
Mm hmm. It was. Right. So I want to go back because I want to get there. I want to get where you were just going. I do. But I want to go back a little bit and talk about because most of our listeners are, you know, a lot of our listeners are Christian, obviously, but then there are people who are that listen to the show that are not. They're skeptics. There are people who.
Sy Garte (16:38.448)
Right.
Kevin Wilson (16:53.878)
you know, are kind of on the fence, they may be agnostic. So for people who just don't understand the world of an atheist and what kind of what that worldview looks like and how you see the world, how does an atheist see the world? Like, you know, there's so much, and as a Christian, now you look and you say, well, you know, the earth declares, you know,
the Lord, right? And you get you like you see the trees, you see the water, you see the fly, you see these mountains, you see all this stuff. You're like, OK, I get it now. But from an atheist standpoint for an atheist on a random, I don't know, Wednesday morning, what's like, what is that like? What is your world view? Like, what is it? I don't know. Do you do you, you know, I obviously don't believe in God. But what about death? What about like?
Sy Garte (17:21.616)
Alright.
Right.
Kevin Wilson (17:47.646)
what are things that you believed as an atheist?
Sy Garte (17:50.666)
Well, I can't speak for all atheists because I know that many, everybody has different views here. And I know many atheists. I have very good friends who are atheists, some from my previous life and some who I've met more recently online. And I've been interviewed by several atheists. Most of them are former Christians. And my
Kevin Wilson (18:00.331)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (18:12.247)
Mmm.
Sy Garte (18:16.986)
My guess is that there's still a little bit of Christ in them. They will deny it, but they don't have the same views that I had. Now remember, I never believed that there was a God or that there was anything other than the real than the pure material reality that we face. Furthermore, I had this background of a political view
Kevin Wilson (18:22.602)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (18:40.314)
Mmm.
Sy Garte (18:46.23)
that was very, very materialistic and very, I don't know how to explain it, Marxism to me is it's not a good thing. And I, to tell you the truth, my basic worldview was incredibly depressing. I felt that
Kevin Wilson (18:57.1)
Mm-mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (19:07.759)
Mm.
Sy Garte (19:12.094)
you do the best you can, which is never really going to be good enough, and then you die and it's over. Now, I was never depressed. I never had suicidal thoughts, but the reason that I know that I was in a bad state is because when I came to Christ, and this was after, I mentioned this a couple of times, after the experience I had with the Holy Spirit coming to me,
And I, when it was over, I knew that I was a believer. And I said out loud, I believe. The tears were coming down my face. It was a very emotional moment. But at the same time, I had such an amazing feeling of joy and relief. And just, it was, people say born again. Yes, that's what it was. It was like all of a sudden.
Kevin Wilson (19:49.955)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (20:10.506)
things I didn't even know that I was afraid of or anxious about or upset about, they just disappeared. And then I kind of watched them go away. And it was a huge beginning. And now I don't know if this would apply to other atheists, because especially if they had gone to church as children and
Kevin Wilson (20:17.194)
Mm.
Kevin Wilson (20:21.134)
Wow.
Sy Garte (20:33.954)
been taught the Bible and they believed it as kids and then they got older and they said, no, I don't really believe that. They didn't have the same experience I had. I had nothing like that. I didn't believe anything. I mean, my belief system was science works. Science is good. That's it. I mean, you know, I didn't even really know what love was or, you know, I...
Kevin Wilson (20:53.133)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (20:56.515)
Yeah.
Sy Garte (21:03.89)
I love music and I thought music was wonderful and I actually was almost going to be a musician. And I didn't know where that came from. That didn't make sense to me. Why should people love music? What is it about music that stirs you? You're not supposed to be stirred. You're supposed to be just a brain with neural impulses and emotions caused by hormones. I mean, nothing outside of that. There's no soul.
Kevin Wilson (21:09.872)
Mm.
Kevin Wilson (21:31.272)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (21:34.182)
And so when I saw all of that for what it is, which is just not true, it's a falsehood. And it was such a relief because I could be happy. I could be really happy with just, as you said, looking at the trees. My wife and I now, we go for walks. I'm retired. I have plenty.
Kevin Wilson (21:39.615)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Kevin Wilson (21:45.05)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Kevin Wilson (21:53.395)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (21:59.466)
I shouldn't say plenty of time because I'm doing a lot of other stuff, but I have some time. We go for walks in the woods and every minute of that time I think this is miraculous that all of this exists, that these flowers are here. I mean the tulips are coming out now and it's just incredible and I never had that.
Kevin Wilson (22:03.301)
Hehehe
Kevin Wilson (22:11.156)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (22:16.864)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (22:22.502)
Mm hmm. Where did you think morals came from? I'm just curious. Like when you when you, you know, that, you know, killing was wrong and I mean, all of these different morals that we have from in your atheist worldview. How like how did you make sense of that?
Sy Garte (22:30.455)
Yeah.
Sy Garte (22:44.65)
Well, that's an amazing question. It leads into many things. So I'll give the very short answer first, which is that, which you get from every atheist today. Morals came from evolution because if people kept killing each other, it wouldn't work. So they started being nicer to each other and that and nicer people did better. Yeah, that's not true.
First of all, I know a lot about evolution and it doesn't work. Evolutionarily speaking, you know, aggressive violent tribes would do much better than peaceful, you know, accepting tribes, they could just get wiped out.
Kevin Wilson (23:21.802)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (23:26.323)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Sy Garte (23:28.162)
We even see that in historical times. So anyways, it's not evolution, but I had a very interesting moral background, which had to do with Marxism. I think that there are several types of morality. One type of morality is, which was the predominant morality, let's say in the ancient world during the Roman empire and before and everywhere else.
Kevin Wilson (23:39.186)
Mmm.
Sy Garte (23:56.694)
which is that there are powerful people who are wealthy, powerful, rich, you know, and also just, you know, in charge. And then there are everyone else who is either a slave or, you know, very poor or whatever. And those two groups are different. They're not considered equal. So the rich people can do anything they want to the poor people. It's morally fine to kill a slave.
Kevin Wilson (23:59.288)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (24:05.853)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (24:22.333)
Mm.
Sy Garte (24:27.003)
in Rome.
Kevin Wilson (24:27.308)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (24:31.59)
Now, Jesus came along and said, hold on a minute.
No.
Kevin Wilson (24:41.577)
Right.
Sy Garte (24:43.03)
I don't accept that, okay? I'm not here for the rulers, for the rich people, for the ruling, you know, they can join me. I'm not against them, but everybody can join me. I'm here to help, right? I'm the physician who came to help the ill, the sinners, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the woman at the well, on and on, right?
Kevin Wilson (24:44.923)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (24:53.693)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (25:02.701)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (25:08.909)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (25:09.11)
That was revolutionary. No one had ever said that. I mean, people had said, yeah, be nice. Don't kill, you know, the 10 commandments. And that was true in a lot of the world. But no one had said, love your enemies. What?
Kevin Wilson (25:23.106)
Right, yeah, yeah.
Sy Garte (25:24.918)
kill your enemies. You don't love your enemies. Look at King David. He talked about enemies in almost every song. Jesus loved them. This is so revolutionary and it led to a revolutionary kind of morality, which is what we have today. It all comes from Christianity. And this is something that Tom Holland has written about in this wonderful book, Dominion. You know, the people who are saying,
Kevin Wilson (25:33.38)
Right.
Kevin Wilson (25:45.53)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (25:54.314)
drop Christianity, they're terrible people, and basically all you need to do is just be good to everyone. Well, no, because it was Christ that said be good to everyone. And I had this problem as a youth. I was facing this issue because as a left-wing person, this was in the 60s, I was
Kevin Wilson (26:05.474)
Right.
Kevin Wilson (26:09.39)
Yeah.
Kevin Wilson (26:23.43)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (26:23.706)
civil rights movement. To my shock, I found out that all the civil rights leaders were Christians, devout Christians, most of them pastors, right? I mean, Luther King and all the others. How did that work? I didn't understand that. I asked, you know, other, my parents, other people
Kevin Wilson (26:36.042)
Mm-hmm. Sure.
Sy Garte (26:53.722)
Negro spirituals which talk about Christ. They didn't have an answer, I'll just put it that way. And so I was left with this crazy contradiction, you know, like, okay, how does that work? I didn't understand it. And so what I now see is that
Kevin Wilson (26:57.287)
Mm-hmm, right, right.
Kevin Wilson (27:02.815)
R-ha
Sy Garte (27:19.618)
There is a Marxist morality, which is kind of the reverse of the ancient morality, which is that you have good and bad groups, only it's the good groups are the working class and the bad groups are the ruling class. So it's kind of an inverse of the original idea. And, you know, I mean, I'm more sympathetic to that than the other one, but, you know,
Kevin Wilson (27:36.378)
Mmm.
Kevin Wilson (27:45.143)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (27:48.954)
I don't like, one of the reasons I love Christianity is I don't like to put people into groups and then say, okay, well, you're in that group, so you're, you know, whatever, good. And I never liked that. And the communists do that all the time. And by the way, they're still doing it. Although people don't realize it, but they're still doing it. So the morality that I follow is Christian morality.
Kevin Wilson (28:00.614)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (28:10.93)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (28:18.822)
is that we are all sinners if we're saved by Jesus, if we believe that he was the Messiah and we are saved, if we believe that he died and rose again for our sins and we are washed clean in the blood of the Lamb.
Kevin Wilson (28:37.261)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (28:39.03)
We're all brothers. We're all brothers and sisters. That's it. There's nothing else to say. I mean, and this is stated so clearly, you know, in the gospels by Jesus, by Paul. I mean, that's it. There's nothing else. And so you treat everyone this way. And that's morality. That's, and that's not, that doesn't come from evolution. That comes from Jesus Christ.
Kevin Wilson (28:43.086)
Yeah.
Kevin Wilson (28:48.047)
Right.
Kevin Wilson (28:56.055)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (29:05.154)
Yeah, yeah, no, I yeah, 100% agree with that. Um, when you, so when you were in college, was there no, like, cause you only have college ministries now and all kinds of different things. Was there anyone who had ever tried to like witness to you? Like we, you know, or, you know, give you one of those tracks or gospel tracks or something like that, like any experiences with that?
Sy Garte (29:35.158)
Well, not in college. I was in New York City and there were not a lot of Christians around. You know, every now and then I'd meet a Catholic who had lapsed, but they were not... Christianity was not a big thing in New York in the late 60s, early 70s, especially. But later, when I was out of college, I did have an experience where a young couple
Kevin Wilson (29:38.286)
Hehehe
Kevin Wilson (29:43.253)
Okay.
Sy Garte (30:05.218)
who were attending a Christian school near where I lived, tried to minister to me, and I was absolutely horrible to them. I mocked them, I made fun of them. I mean, I have repented of this quite a bit. Because I was with a bunch of people, friends of mine, and I was entertaining them with my so-called wit.
Kevin Wilson (30:24.009)
Yes.
Kevin Wilson (30:34.286)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (30:34.386)
and making fun of this poor young couple who were just they finally ran away and uh you know uh satan i mean satan is powerful i was fertile ground i was fertile ground at that point for that so yeah that's the only time and uh didn't go well
Kevin Wilson (30:41.002)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (30:48.238)
Yeah, yeah.
Kevin Wilson (30:52.658)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (30:59.174)
Mm hmm. Right. What were your thoughts about? You know, because I you hear from some atheists that when they look at Christians, they look at the Bible, they look at Jesus, all of that, and they go, yeah, that's just a crutch for people who just need something to get through life. Like, well, that's it's, you know, you know, if that's what you need to get through life. Well, then, you know.
You know, have it your way kind of deal, but I don't need that. So did, did you have that kind of.
Sy Garte (31:30.538)
I would put it this way. Well, I've heard that all the time, but here's my answer. Let's say you sprained your ankle. Okay, and you're in pain. Life is painful. You sprained your ankle and you're finding it hard to walk and you realize I need a crutch.
Kevin Wilson (31:38.795)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (31:51.627)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (31:53.214)
So there are two options. One, you actually get a crutch. It's a real crutch. And now you can walk. Or you get a make-believe crutch, which isn't really there. And that doesn't help. That doesn't help, right? You still can't walk. So which is it with Jesus? Well, you know, I've known people, I have known since I became
Kevin Wilson (31:58.639)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (32:02.914)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (32:07.734)
Right, right, right.
Kevin Wilson (32:16.293)
Hmm
Sy Garte (32:23.67)
lay leader in my church. I have known people who came to Christ after being in prison, after getting over drug addiction, single, unwed mothers, people who had sprained ankles in life. And then they came to Jesus and now they're walking. So is Jesus real or fake?
Kevin Wilson (32:44.527)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (32:51.218)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Sy Garte (32:53.098)
It's real, because all of these people I'm mentioning, like me, were lay leaders. They had found Christ and they had risen in the church to the point of where they were at the top of their mission without going to seminary. So how did that happen? They found a real crutch. And, you know,
Kevin Wilson (32:59.531)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (33:12.6)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (33:21.248)
Right.
Sy Garte (33:22.218)
Jesus says he's a crutch. He says when you can't go I'll carry you Yeah, and he does But guess what if you if you're dreaming that someone's going to carry you and they're not real you're going to fall down But we fall down. We do not fall down. We we keep going Because he is there he is real and he's carrying us
Kevin Wilson (33:26.926)
Right, right. Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (33:36.783)
Right.
Kevin Wilson (33:41.562)
Right.
Right. Yeah. So you talk a little you talk a little bit about, you know, your life in your worldview starting to change gradually. When you started when that started happening, why not other religion? I mean, there is so many other religions out there. Why? Why Christianity?
Sy Garte (33:58.946)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (34:09.59)
Yeah.
Kevin Wilson (34:13.866)
Out of all of those other.
Sy Garte (34:15.486)
Yeah, well, I have an answer for that, is that I had exactly the same idea. When I, when I first started thinking there's something I'm missing, some kind of spiritual thing I was in, I, I tried transcendental meditation. That was very nice. You know, I closed my eyes. Home. No, I got into a certain place. I mean, I never took LSD because I have a problem with drugs in general, but you know, I heard other people give testimonies about that.
Kevin Wilson (34:24.995)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (34:30.79)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Sy Garte (34:44.342)
So I was interested in alternative roots of altered consciousness. I said I did biofeedback, transcendental meditation. I looked into Buddhism, but I realized that if I'm going to take this idea of God seriously, I probably want to think about a monotheistic religion. So
First thing I thought it was Judaism.
Kevin Wilson (35:15.578)
Hmm
Sy Garte (35:16.766)
And I kind of looked into that a little bit. My ancestors had been Jewish, although nobody practiced it for, I don't know, two, three generations, but, you know, they were still theoretically Jewish. So I looked into that. Yeah, there's a God. The God is there. God is real. Of course, it's the New Testament. I mean, sorry, the Old Testament. But
Kevin Wilson (35:42.667)
Mm, deal.
Sy Garte (35:44.97)
You know, I couldn't relate to it. I couldn't relate to that God. Far away. I mean, you know, it's like, there's lots of rules. There's lots of things you have to do or not do. And I didn't care about that very much. I want to eat whatever I want to eat, you know, things like that. And I didn't, I didn't, it didn't, it just, I, you know, I didn't like it.
Kevin Wilson (36:03.66)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (36:10.79)
And I never considered Islam for various reasons, mostly probably just because I didn't know anybody. I didn't, I didn't, I wouldn't know where to go. And I didn't like what I knew about it. Now, it's not fair because I never read the Quran. I don't know anything really much about Islam. It's just, you know, a few things that I knew about didn't excite me or attract me. But when I started thinking, when I started reading the New Testament,
Kevin Wilson (36:31.91)
Sure.
Sy Garte (36:40.234)
And I started thinking about this idea that God came to Earth in the body of a human being, was born, was incarnated into a human being. I thought, well, wow, that's interesting. So this is God talking to us, which you don't get in other religions. I mean, God doesn't come down to our level. Jesus walked. He walked and walked on. And...
Kevin Wilson (36:45.062)
Hmm.
Kevin Wilson (36:56.59)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (37:03.974)
Great. Yeah.
Sy Garte (37:09.518)
The things he said were incredible. As I said, they were revolutionary. They were amazing. And when I first read some of this, I said to myself, how come all these communists were anti-Christian? I mean, he's basically saying a lot of things that the commies were saying, you know? He meant that they didn't. And I love that. But even more so, I just...
Kevin Wilson (37:26.438)
Mm-hmm. Right, right.
Sy Garte (37:36.93)
The theology grabbed me. And I have to say, and I've said this before and people get surprised, I think I became a Christian before I became a theist. It was believing in Christ that led me to God.
Kevin Wilson (37:51.224)
Mm.
Sy Garte (37:51.862)
You know, it was Jesus as the person, as the man, you know, who was also God. I was also God. I mean, fully human, fully God. I love that. And, and yeah, that's, and so, you know, the more I looked into it, the more I loved it. And the dreams that I had, which didn't, which came from, I'm absolutely convinced, came from the Holy Spirit, involved
Kevin Wilson (37:57.638)
Mmm.
Kevin Wilson (38:00.806)
Got sure.
Mmm.
Sy Garte (38:21.758)
Two of them involved a man talking to me and that man was Jesus Christ, you know and And on and on so yeah, I really you know I now I don't know which version of Christianity is truer than the others and I don't care I could be a Catholic. I almost became a Catholic Instead I became a Methodist. I could have been a Presbyterian a Baptist. I don't all those denominational things
Kevin Wilson (38:26.491)
Hmm.
Kevin Wilson (38:39.587)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (38:43.365)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (38:49.762)
don't matter to me because I grew up with nothing. So for me, just knowing that Jesus Christ lived, died and was risen and risen from the dead and that he saved, you know, our, he saves our souls and he is God incarnate and he's always with us. All the rest of it, I don't care if you believe in young earth or old earth or evolution. I don't care if you.
Kevin Wilson (38:51.822)
Yeah. Yes.
Kevin Wilson (39:08.87)
Mm-hmm. Mm.
Sy Garte (39:16.642)
think the pope is infallible or not. I mean, all of it. To me, I know these are very big deals and very important to many people and whether women should preach or not. To me, these are little details compared to what? The difference between having nothing, which is how I consider myself, and having Jesus Christ in my life. That makes everything else small.
Kevin Wilson (39:20.014)
Right.
Kevin Wilson (39:36.294)
Hmm.
Kevin Wilson (39:42.69)
You know what, doctor, your belief, what you just said, and I don't, I just, I don't know, you know, I don't know who got that, but I'm going to make sure I superimpose this so that people really can see it. Your belief in Christ is profound. And here's, here, here's why, here's why you have something that most, I feel like most Christians don't have and it truly, because here's the thing, here's the thing.
So I, you know, so somebody like myself, I grew up in church. My dad was, my granddad was a pastor. My dad was a pastor. I became a pastor. Like, it's just like, I have been in church my entire life. But what, and yes, that's a, it's, I say with my inside voice, and I usually don't say this with my outside voice, but for the sake of this conversation, I'm gonna say it. It can be a double edged sword. And the reason why I say that,
Sy Garte (40:17.133)
Okay.
Sy Garte (40:23.851)
Right.
Kevin Wilson (40:40.026)
is because when you when you grow up in something and now mind you, I grew up in a weird, I grew up in what you call the UPCI and it was it was a some people would call it a cult but it was very religious very you can't you know the women couldn't wear pants you know they had to have their hair they couldn't cut their hair no makeup I didn't grow up with the tv like just lots of things like that and so it was it was very legalistic
Sy Garte (40:58.51)
Mm.
Sy Garte (41:05.369)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Kevin Wilson (41:08.834)
and very, you know, if you do, you're going to, you know, it's fire and brimstone, just very, you know. And so I had to relearn God. I truly had to relearn God, but I didn't come from where you came from, where I didn't believe in anything. And then I, then I embraced the gospel and what you did, doctor, was you embrace the pure. I mean, you literally just, it just said
Sy Garte (41:17.538)
Right.
Kevin Wilson (41:37.722)
pretty much salvation. Like you're like, I have salvation in Christ in that salvation has made me free. I could care less about whether you're Pentecostal versus Baptist versus Lutheran versus that's the part. And I know I'm not gonna, I could go on this for days. So I'm not, but I just, I wanna superimpose this is that you, where we should be as Christians.
Sy Garte (41:48.366)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (42:07.438)
Because a lot of us have been Christians on our lives. We don't have anything else to argue about so we argue about We argue about the stuff that really doesn't matter like none of that stuff matters now I understand if you're gonna be a theologian or a Apologist and you know and some of the stuff I've talked about on my own show I mean, I've got tons of podcasts where we talk about you know, should women preach and you know
Sy Garte (42:13.733)
Yeah.
Sy Garte (42:19.136)
Right?
Kevin Wilson (42:35.722)
You know all those type of things right because that's the stuff that people they care about But at the but at the end of the day, and it doesn't mean that stuff's not important, but at the end of the day When you get to heaven, it's not gonna be hey Did you did you know did you preach on stage or were you on the floor? Because if you did it on the one step up that meant you were a preacher and that was wrong Like that's not how it's gonna work. It's gonna be like hey, he's with me
The reason why he's righteous, the reason why he's here is because talking about Jesus, he's with me and you believed in your heart that Jesus raised or that God raised Jesus from the dead. Right. And your sins were forgiven. You are going to enter into heaven. And so just to hear somebody say that it's crazy because most people that have been in church all their life, they're hung up on all this other stuff when it's really just about Jesus.
Sy Garte (43:31.818)
Exactly.
Kevin Wilson (43:34.618)
Oh, I love that so much. Oh, um. What were some of your so when you when you were like right before you really kind of like turned your life completely over to God, what were some of the questions that you had? Because I'm sure you I mean, you still were fighting this. I mean, you said it was like a could have like a 20 year or so. I mean, there's just a lot of years there where you weren't fully a Christian, but you were like
maybe agnostic or you were kind of, you know, what, what were some of the things that you had to fight through? Some of those thoughts that you were fighting.
Sy Garte (44:12.278)
Yeah. Well, there were many. I knew no theology. I knew nothing about theology at all. All I had was what I was reading in the Gospels or the New Testament, Paul's letters, some of them. There's a lot of things I didn't understand.
Sy Garte (44:38.634)
You know, I think at one point, I remember that I actually asked this of a priest at one point when I was having instruction in the church. And I asked the priest, I don't understand the Trinity. What does that mean to God? Is the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, but what? The three different people, all one person? How does that work?
Kevin Wilson (44:57.914)
Mm.
Sy Garte (45:08.958)
And he gave me the perfect answer. He said, I don't know, it's a mystery. Why was that the perfect answer? Because I'm a scientist and I love mystery. Mystery is at the bottom of what every scientist does. Okay, there's a mystery to understand it. And so when I heard that, I said, okay, he didn't make up some strange thing.
Kevin Wilson (45:14.063)
Mmm.
Kevin Wilson (45:21.169)
Hehe
Kevin Wilson (45:28.006)
Mmm.
Sy Garte (45:36.118)
And now I have no trouble with the Trinity. It makes perfect sense to me. I can't explain it. I know that we are mortal human beings. I know we're of the flesh. We do not understand the nature of God. It's so far beyond us. But, you know, and the analogy I always give is you have a really smart dog and you decide to take him to an avant-garde play.
Kevin Wilson (45:40.876)
Mmm.
Kevin Wilson (45:50.962)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (46:06.803)
Hehe
Sy Garte (46:07.55)
And he's sitting there, or even an opera in another language, and he's sitting there and he's saying, what are these humans doing? That's kind of like what we would be when we watch God and the angels and, you know, I mean, we can't even begin to fathom. I mean, we can't fathom this universe that God created. Our science.
Kevin Wilson (46:16.307)
You're right.
Kevin Wilson (46:25.087)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (46:34.696)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (46:36.762)
is very good at understanding many things. But this is why I, this is what my second book is called Science and Faith and Harmony. I'll just hold that up for a second. And what I say in that book, the reason I use that title is because they don't say the same thing. Like all good harmony is not, you know, it's not come from the same notes. You have to play different notes to get a harmony. But they go together very beautifully. And you know, our science
Kevin Wilson (46:40.488)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (46:46.874)
Yeah.
Kevin Wilson (47:00.878)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (47:06.554)
is telling us that we can understand a small part of this world, but every time we get an answer to something, it opens up a dozen new questions. It's never finished. So why is that? Why is it that we never… there's not one field of science where people say, okay, we got it all, it's all done, close it.
Kevin Wilson (47:16.719)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (47:21.324)
Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (47:34.648)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (47:35.666)
Chemistry, biology, physics, geology, there's always more to discover. Why should that be? That's part of God's creation. This is God we're talking about. If smart engineers, human engineers, wanted to build something, which they do, they will build it and they will know exactly how everything works. There won't be any questions.
Kevin Wilson (47:47.394)
Yeah.
Kevin Wilson (47:54.785)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (48:02.797)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (48:07.499)
Right, yeah.
Sy Garte (48:08.421)
That's not how God created. I mean, even the, even this planet, which is not alive, it's the, the rocks, the, you know, the, the earth. It's so complex is so much to keep learning. And it's never going to end. Definitely because it's God's creation.
Kevin Wilson (48:19.211)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (48:25.114)
Hmm. Yeah. So when you were so when you were in this and you were asking these different questions, why do you feel like you didn't land on, you know, God is just this great, you know, God is just this great teacher or Jesus. I shouldn't say God, but Jesus is just this great teacher because.
Some people, you know, if they study the scripture, they all if they're so beautiful. Oh, Jesus loved every. Oh, we need to be like him. What a great teacher. But of course, they don't make him their lord. What do you feel like caused you not to stop there? And this may get into what you're talking about, your dream. And I and I do want you to at least give us some because I know you keep alluding to it. I want to make sure you give us at least some.
Sy Garte (49:21.446)
Okay, all right. I guess I have to now.
Kevin Wilson (49:23.094)
Yeah, of what? Yeah, because I just want to know what like what happened that got you like? Yeah, because I assume you're a scientist. You're probably a left brain guy, not a right brain, brain necessarily feelings guy, like where you're just like, you know, because there's people like that. It's like, well, I believe in Jesus because he really makes me feel good. And
You know, and you know, people can kind of be swayed by that. And I feel like a lot of atheists are like, yeah, you need to you need to stop all that feeling stuff. That's your problem. Like you need to start thinking with the left side of your brain. And then if you study science, you'll realize that kind of thing. So how did you like how did this happen? Right.
Sy Garte (50:08.85)
Okay, so I, you're right. It's time to say it. So, the first dream I had was I was still an atheist, or maybe I was already an agnostic. You know, I moved a little bit away from pure atheism. And the dream was a nightmare that I was holding on to a cliff, the edge of a cliff, I was about to fall down. I was just holding on with my two hands and I was terrified.
I hate heights by the way, so it was a real nightmare. And I didn't know what to do and I was calling for help. And at some point I heard a voice that said, probably somebody standing on the cliff face, I mean on the cliff, on the surface. And it said, just let go, is what the voice said. I said, what, how can I let go? I'll fall down, that's how to avoid. Just let go. Well, I was losing my grip anyway, so I let go.
Kevin Wilson (50:38.615)
Mmm.
Kevin Wilson (50:57.826)
Mmm.
Sy Garte (51:05.674)
And as I did, the world turned 90 degrees. And instead of falling, I was lying flat on the ground on my stomach. I was holding a boulder and I looked up and there was a man and I woke up. I said, what was that? What was that? Now this dream was a long time ago, but it was so powerful, I never forgot it. And I had no idea what that meant. What does it mean? Let go, just let go.
I don't know. And I never forgot it, but I stopped trying to think about it. I didn't know what it meant. And then many years passed. I had gone to this church. I had started, I think I had read the Gospel of Matthew, not much more than that. At that time, I had another dream where I was walking and I saw a wall.
Kevin Wilson (51:53.57)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (52:02.51)
walled garden and I knew that inside was a beautiful garden and I want to get in. So I tried climbing over the wall. I kept walking around and I couldn't find a good place to climb. Every time I tried to climb up I just fell down. There was no good handholds or anything and I was getting very frustrated and upset and I was walking around and uh
I passed a man who said, what's wrong with you? What's your problem? And I said, well, I'm trying to get into this garden. I know it's beautiful inside, but I can't climb over the wall. And he said, why don't you use the door? And I looked and there was a door which I had not seen. So it was open and I walked in and woke up.
Kevin Wilson (52:37.892)
Mm.
Sy Garte (52:45.982)
Now, I hadn't read the Gospel of John yet. I didn't know those verses about knock on the door and, you know, the door will be open and all of those door references. I knew that man at that point, by that time, I knew the man was Jesus and I remembered that the man in the first
Kevin Wilson (52:50.615)
Mm-hmm
Kevin Wilson (53:07.14)
Mmm.
Sy Garte (53:09.966)
I found that very powerful and it brought me a long way to thinking that maybe this is all real, but I couldn't quite get there. I couldn't quite bring myself over the threshold to believe because of all the things you said. Well, maybe he's just a good teacher. Maybe I can't believe in all this supernatural stuff. I'm a scientist.
Kevin Wilson (53:35.012)
Right.
Sy Garte (53:37.286)
And then I was driving in my car, and this is several years later, and it was, I had, I was turned on my radio and I heard a Christian preacher. It was in rural Pennsylvania, which is, you know, most of the radio stations are Christian radio stations.
And I love this preacher. I don't remember what he was saying. I don't know if I was really even listening, but he was a really good preacher. And I don't have to tell you a child and grandchild of preachers. When a preacher is preaching, it's, it's like, you know, a symphony orchestra. It's good. And this guy, this guy was good. So anyway, I stopped listening after a while and I turned it off and I, and my mind was kind of wandering. I wasn't really thinking of anything. And.
Kevin Wilson (53:56.864)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (54:04.208)
Mm.
Kevin Wilson (54:14.255)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Sy Garte (54:27.742)
And something came into my mind was, what if I gave a sermon, what would I preach? And I first started thinking of, well, something about science and the origin of life, which is still not well understood. I couldn't think of anything. And then I had this weird feeling, which is not describable. And I pulled the car over luckily and stopped and I...
closed my eyes and I could see myself talking, preaching to a crowd outside. And my feeling was it was in the South. These were all Christians, these people who were believers. And I heard myself give a sermon, which, praise God, I wrote down when I got home. And it's in my book. But the main thing in the sermon was that I was talking about love. And...
I said to these people, every one of you is loved by Jesus Christ. And I know that because I know that he loves even me. Love even me, who could he not love?
Kevin Wilson (55:39.021)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (55:45.866)
I mean, this is a long time ago and I still have trouble saying it without talking about feelings. And I burst into tears.
Kevin Wilson (55:49.966)
Mmm, wow. Yeah, yeah.
Sy Garte (56:01.354)
and I said out loud I believe and all of that what I said before all of that joy and relief just flooded into me. I was there for maybe a half an hour just crying my soul and uh eventually I was and that's it I mean I was a believer for real and
Kevin Wilson (56:11.366)
Mmm.
Kevin Wilson (56:23.622)
Hmm
Sy Garte (56:24.65)
everything else. And then I got worried, you know, well, what's it's going to do to my science? Am I going to have to stop being a scientist? It turned out that wasn't anything to worry about at all. So, yeah, that's, that was the final thing. And that was the Holy Spirit. I mean, the words that came out of my brain were not mine. They were not my words. I never thought about this idea that Jesus loves me and loves people. It was not me.
Kevin Wilson (56:35.066)
Hmm.
Kevin Wilson (56:43.223)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (56:54.338)
there were some other parts of it that just, you know, and I knew they were from outside of me. Now atheists have heard this story and they say, oh, come on, that's just, you know, that's just your wishful thinking or whatever. Okay. But it's like I said before, if it's all a crutch, yeah, maybe, but it's a real crutch because my life changed.
Kevin Wilson (56:54.448)
Right.
Kevin Wilson (57:01.613)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (57:12.967)
Mm-mm.
Kevin Wilson (57:23.525)
Mmm.
Sy Garte (57:24.538)
I was not an alcoholic. I was not a drug addict. I was not Somebody with a terrible problem that had to get solved. I was doing okay but still This experience of coming to Christ as I said, I was born again and it just changed me forever
Kevin Wilson (57:34.59)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (57:45.542)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and you had said, I think earlier, I don't, I can't say it verbatim, but you said you were healed and changed from things you didn't even know that you had. Yeah. And that's what the, that's what Jesus, that's what the gospel does. That's what Jesus' blood does. That's right. You know, the Bible talks about the law and how the law was there to help us to understand.
Sy Garte (57:58.494)
Absolutely, absolutely. Yes.
Kevin Wilson (58:15.654)
who like that we couldn't be good on our own. I mean, just like you, you said, hey, I was doing pretty good, but you didn't even it from a, from a worldly materialistic standpoint, you were, yes, you were probably doing pretty good. But when, yeah. But when Jesus, right. Yeah.
Sy Garte (58:18.59)
Right.
Sy Garte (58:31.678)
I'm doing all right. But was I happy? I mean, I would have called myself happy, but nothing compared to later.
Kevin Wilson (58:41.782)
right because you would, you didn't know what you didn't know. You didn't know what real happiness was.
Sy Garte (58:44.854)
I didn't know what I did. That's it. That's it. When you when you've never had something you don't know you don't have it
Kevin Wilson (58:52.258)
Yeah, yes, yes. This, oh, this makes me so excited. So I just have a couple more questions. I know, so when you finally, like really, like just surrendered your life to Christ, what was it like trying to find a church? Like, how did you, did you know somebody that was already a Christian or something? Like, how did that happen?
Sy Garte (59:15.116)
Mmm.
Sy Garte (59:22.25)
Well, I don't want to get into this in great detail because it's a whole other subject, but I, the people I knew who were Christians were all Catholics. I actually lived in Italy for about 10 years. I was going back and forth between Italy and the U.S. So I had, at that point, I attended Catholic churches in Italy and then again back in the States.
Kevin Wilson (59:27.174)
Okay.
Kevin Wilson (59:31.834)
Mmm.
Sy Garte (59:48.91)
I did not become a Catholic, and the reason for that was because of the church itself. They actually didn't accept me. When people hear that, especially when Catholics hear that, they get very upset, and I had to explain the whole details to people. But my life was very complicated, not simple.
Kevin Wilson (01:00:00.282)
Oh.
Kevin Wilson (01:00:07.747)
Mmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:00:11.842)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:00:15.918)
and I had lots of past experiences that were difficult for the church. They were willing to deal with it, but it was very difficult. So I then I didn't know what to do. I knew very little about Protestantism. I hadn't known any Protestants. I grew up in New York. There aren't many Protestants in New York. So
Kevin Wilson (01:00:20.259)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:00:30.831)
Hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:00:35.)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:00:39.445)
Right.
Sy Garte (01:00:45.546)
I didn't know what to do. I, and the other thing is, since I was traveling a lot back and forth between two continents, I was never in one place long enough to actually join a church. You know, I'd spent three months and then three months. So I didn't join a church for many years. Probably, my guess is about six or seven years after I came to faith. I was just.
Kevin Wilson (01:01:10.874)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:01:12.41)
randomly going to churches now and then, again, mostly Catholic churches, but a few Protestant churches. I got to know a couple of Protestants and I went to some churches. But what happened was finally I got to the point where I knew it was time for me to go to find a church and I did not know anything about where to go.
The first church I went to was a Presbyterian church because it was near where I lived. The parking lot was full. I couldn't find a space, so I left. So then I went to a Methodist church, plenty of parking. I don't know what that says, but anyway. And I walked in and the pastor was a woman actually.
Kevin Wilson (01:01:43.174)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:01:49.553)
Oh
Kevin Wilson (01:01:55.033)
hahahaha
Kevin Wilson (01:02:00.422)
Yeah.
Kevin Wilson (01:02:07.032)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:02:07.246)
and she gave a wonderful sermon which I loved. I went back the next week and then I, she came over to me and said, she asked me who I was and I told him a little bit about my story and she and I said, you know, I'm interested in finding a church and she said, are you baptized? I said, no, of course not. Do you want to get baptized? I said, yeah, I've been trying. I had taken two courses in two different Catholic churches.
Kevin Wilson (01:02:27.767)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:02:35.81)
for baptism, which, you know, takes a long time.
but they never went anywhere. So she said, well, how about next week? And I said, that's it, just like that? I don't have to take a class? No, come. So I was baptized in 2012 at the age of 65.
Kevin Wilson (01:02:55.773)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:02:59.402)
and joined the church. And I've been there ever since. And I became the lay leader two years later.
Kevin Wilson (01:03:01.862)
Wow.
Kevin Wilson (01:03:08.422)
That is, that's awesome. That is awesome.
for people who are atheists that are listening or skeptics, um, what would you say is your, and maybe from a scientific standpoint, um, I don't know, however you want to answer this, um, it could be from a spiritual standpoint, scientific, theological, however you want to do it. But what do you feel like this? The three biggest evidences for God
Like if somebody's listening to this and they're just like, yeah, you know, that's great, man, that you had this experience. But I don't know if I'm going to have the same experience, which they probably won't because God speaks to people in there, like in ways that they are going to understand and everybody's different. You know, if God would have done something totally different, you might not have, you know, I don't know. So but what would you say is yours? Your three.
Sy Garte (01:03:41.111)
Mm.
Sy Garte (01:03:52.426)
Right.
Kevin Wilson (01:04:10.266)
biggest evidences for that saying that you believe that shows that God is real and is who he says he really is.
Sy Garte (01:04:20.95)
Yeah. So there is scientific evidence for God. And you know, when I hear certain very famous atheists say, there's no evidence for God at all. Well, it's not true. I think the problem is if they're not scientists, they don't understand what evidence is. Evidence is not proof. Science proves nothing. It gives very strong evidence for things, but all of that can be overturned and has been overturned many times.
Kevin Wilson (01:04:25.872)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:04:32.806)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:04:41.517)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:04:48.274)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:04:49.054)
So science about evidence and evidence can be strong or weak. And I'll just say this, there's no such thing as extraordinary evidence. It's never used in the science, even though invented by Carl Sagan, who's a scientist, but I've never seen it in a paper. So there is strong and weak evidence for God, or at least for something beyond the natural.
Kevin Wilson (01:05:00.026)
Hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:05:06.266)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:05:14.142)
I think one of the strongest pieces of evidence is what's called the fine-tuning of the physical constants. That means that the laws of physics, the laws of cosmology, and there are many of them, have constants in them. Those constants, in other words, x is equal to a times b.
Kevin Wilson (01:05:31.781)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:05:42.358)
But usually, x is equal to a constant times a times b, or plus b, or whatever. And that constant, there's no way you can figure out what it is. You just find out what it is by experiment. And if any of those constants were different, even by a tiny bit, there wouldn't be a universe. And we wouldn't be here. And that's cool. And so it's.
Kevin Wilson (01:05:48.968)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:06:08.691)
Mm.
Sy Garte (01:06:10.846)
Now, many atheists have said that this argument, especially scientists, and some have even come to faith through it, have said this is the strongest argument from science of something, a creator. It could be an alien. It could be, you know, it could be, you know, the Matrix. It could be some science fiction thing, or it could be God. It could also be a multiverse, but that has other problems. I won't get into it.
Kevin Wilson (01:06:26.329)
Mm-mm.
Kevin Wilson (01:06:36.233)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:06:40.222)
So that, I think, is the number one scientific argument. But for me, as a biochemist, I've looked into this very deeply, and I've published several papers about it. In fact, the last one just came out about two months ago in theoretical biology, and that is the origin of life. Life should not exist. There should not be life.
Kevin Wilson (01:06:59.218)
Mm.
Sy Garte (01:07:08.426)
because it doesn't make sense from a chemical standpoint. And of course, the details are huge and I'm writing another book about that. So, that's gonna be my third book. So how did life begin? I mean, we know there's life, here we are. Well, I think the answer is gonna come either from new laws of science that we don't know yet.
Kevin Wilson (01:07:17.835)
Oh wow.
Sy Garte (01:07:36.374)
because the current laws that we have in physics and chemistry don't do it. So there have to be some new laws of science that we have yet to discover. And I think that those new laws, once we discover them, will point strongly to a creator as much of science does now. That's my second scientific reason. However,
Kevin Wilson (01:07:54.518)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:08:02.79)
I think that the strongest reason maybe is only partially scientific. It might be considered philosophical, maybe. And that is what you brought up before, the moral argument. But it's not just why are we good. Why do we know? I mean, people have said, oh, but morality is very subjective.
Kevin Wilson (01:08:13.631)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:08:32.574)
it's okay to kill some people or where people think it's okay to abandon your children and other places. Yes, that's true. However, every human being on the planet, regardless of what culture they're in, knows that there is good and there is evil. They may define those things differently. But unlike any other animal,
Kevin Wilson (01:08:56.186)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:08:59.926)
You know, you tell your dog, that's bad, don't do that. Do they really understand what bad is? No, they don't. And certainly no fox or squirrel or any other animal has any, we know, all of us know that there's good, which, you know, try to be, most of us, and there's evil, which sometimes, you know, we want to fight against. And why is that? Where did that come from? That's...
Kevin Wilson (01:09:05.868)
Mm-mm.
Kevin Wilson (01:09:15.26)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:09:22.85)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:09:28.381)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:09:29.366)
I've read the evolutionary arguments and there's so I mean, I hold to evolution. I affirm evolution is a true thing. But it's misused so badly by atheists in particular. Doesn't explain all the things that they try to use it to explain. It explains the diversity of life very nicely. It doesn't explain the origin of life. It doesn't explain the origin of humanity, of the human soul. That doesn't compromise.
Kevin Wilson (01:09:37.538)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:09:42.615)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:09:55.823)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:09:57.246)
It doesn't explain this moral sense that we have.
I mean, there's no reason that an animal, an ape, should say, you know, I think that's bad. I like what you did. That's good. I mean, you know, that's goodness. You know, you're showing goodness or you're not. And that's only us.
Kevin Wilson (01:10:10.708)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:10:25.684)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:10:27.682)
So where did we come from? How did we get to this? We are created by God. We are made in the image of God. And I know that's not a scientific argument, but it's undeniable, isn't it? To me, it's undeniable.
Kevin Wilson (01:10:34.784)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:10:41.739)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Hmm. Man.
Sy Garte (01:10:45.794)
So I think that's the strongest of all.
Kevin Wilson (01:10:49.114)
Yeah. Um, what would you say to people who are atheist today? Like what, if you were talking and I know you do, I mean, you, you speak in different places and all over. What would you say to atheists today? Somebody who's listening to who says, you know what? Uh, I'm struggling, man. I just, I can't get there. I just can't. And they.
Sy Garte (01:11:16.294)
Yep. I've had those conversations.
Kevin Wilson (01:11:18.938)
Yeah, yeah, you know, or maybe they're just like, you know what? I, you know, I maybe an agnostic, I believe there's something I, but I'm not sure what it is or whatever, but what would you say to a person that's struggling to even believe that there's a God and let alone the God of the Bible?
Sy Garte (01:11:41.978)
I would say to them what the Lord said to me in my first dream. Just let go.
Kevin Wilson (01:11:49.306)
Mm.
Sy Garte (01:11:50.302)
Let go of all your presuppositions. Let go of your nervousness, of your anxiety. You think God is not speaking to you. Trust me, he is. You just don't hear him.
Kevin Wilson (01:11:56.699)
Mm.
Kevin Wilson (01:12:05.688)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:12:06.838)
and you're not going to hear him by going like this. Come on, come on, God, come on, say something. You're not going to hear him that way. How are you going to hear him? By letting go.
and by being open. Right now, these days, people are going to say, oh, he's crazy. I hear the voice of God. In fact, I have a chapter in this book called The Voice of God.
Kevin Wilson (01:12:18.63)
Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:12:34.671)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:12:35.958)
And I hear the voice of God from.
A fox that ran by and stopped and started looking at me. And I was sworn he was smiling at me. I hear the voice of God from a kid, you know, a young child who.
Kevin Wilson (01:12:46.63)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:12:50.146)
You're right.
Sy Garte (01:12:58.458)
does something remarkable. Anyone who's a parent knows that happens all the time.
Kevin Wilson (01:13:03.742)
Yes. Yeah.
Sy Garte (01:13:06.938)
And I hear, I see it, you know, in.
been so many things and
Sy Garte (01:13:16.511)
You know,
Sy Garte (01:13:20.298)
It's not just, it's not just human. It's, I don't know how to express it well, but.
Sy Garte (01:13:30.09)
You know, if I hear a choir, I mean, remember I said I'm very interested in music. I love music.
Sy Garte (01:13:40.386)
There was a period at the beginning of the pandemic when you know, you couldn't go to church, right? I mean, many churches were closed. And I remember being somewhat depressed as everybody had been. And then I saw a video, and this was new technology at the time in 2020.
Kevin Wilson (01:13:48.93)
Yeah.
Kevin Wilson (01:13:56.589)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:14:09.93)
It was a choir in Tennessee that each person was alone and they were singing together, but alone. And now, in 2013, people do it all the time, you know, with all the technology. But then it was the first time I'd seen that.
Kevin Wilson (01:14:23.394)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:14:32.078)
and they were singing one of my favorite hymns, which is...
Sy Garte (01:14:42.194)
Oh boy, I just went out of my head. Yeah, you know how that goes. I'm pretty old. But it was a, you know the hymn, it's the one about my soul. It is well with my soul. Right.
Kevin Wilson (01:14:44.162)
Yep. I know how that can be.
Kevin Wilson (01:15:00.922)
It is well with my soul. Yeah.
Sy Garte (01:15:05.086)
And so you would see one person singing and then you'd see a screen with another person singing. It's trivial now, but at the time it was so moving and so powerful. And of course I know the story behind that hymn. You know, this was the hymn written by a man who had just suffered a terrible tragic loss. And it is well with my soul and
Kevin Wilson (01:15:27.267)
Yes.
Sy Garte (01:15:33.606)
I mean, if that's not the voice of God saying, here I am in you, you people, you used your technology, you used your voices, you made this thing to help me and so many other people who were struggling at the time. That's the voice of God.
Kevin Wilson (01:15:38.534)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:15:57.)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:16:01.794)
Yeah. Absolutely. Last very last question. You've been so gracious. So very last question. What what would you say to those of us who are not scientific and as smart as you and no, all the things like, you know, when we're talking to an atheist, you know, because sometimes it's
Sy Garte (01:16:11.002)
Okay.
Sy Garte (01:16:22.21)
Oh,
Kevin Wilson (01:16:31.938)
We don't have all the scientific arguments and all the thing. We couldn't go toe to toe with an atheist. What do you think we can do better as Christians on reaching atheists? Or what should we do at all? If you were giving advice to somebody who works with an atheist and you're like, then you're like, man, I really, really want to.
be a good witness and all of that. How does that happen? And obviously their lifestyle is, is they need to do that. But is there any, do you have any thoughts around that?
Sy Garte (01:17:09.004)
Yeah.
Sy Garte (01:17:14.823)
That's a tough one for me because I don't have a lot of experience with that. I've spoken to atheists, as I said, some of the first videos I ever made were with atheists who were interested in my story. Some of them quite well known. And I became friends with some of them. I have quite a few atheist friends.
Kevin Wilson (01:17:27.63)
Mmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:17:40.098)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:17:40.914)
I mean, even some prominent ones.
But I have not engaged very much in evangelism or apologetics to the point where I'm trying to convince someone to come to God, come to Christ. I don't know how to do that. I do know people who do know how to do that. There's a guy named, a friend of mine named Eric Hernandez, who's an amazing apologist and evangelist. And he's a young guy. He's just starting out.
Kevin Wilson (01:17:56.55)
Sure.
Sy Garte (01:18:13.514)
recently had a book come out, he's all over the place. That's one of many, and I know many others, also mostly young people. And I admire them and respect them tremendously. I don't have a lot of advice for that. As I said, the only thing that I can do is, somebody just wrote to me yesterday asking if they could talk to me about...
Kevin Wilson (01:18:24.934)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:18:39.126)
you know, their faith because they're having a hard time. And I said, sure. I mean, if I have time, I'll always do that. And I think that's what all Christians are called to do. I mean, that's not out of the question, but I have not been in a position where I, you know, I'm addressing, let's say, a room of atheists and trying, I wouldn't know how to do that.
Kevin Wilson (01:18:45.484)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:18:49.423)
Yes, true.
Kevin Wilson (01:18:58.363)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:19:05.158)
So I don't have a lot to say. I think the main thing is to just, especially, and this is why I wrote my books, it's really important to me, and this is a good place to end, that the idea that science and Christian faith are in conflict is false. And that's the message I want to get across.
Kevin Wilson (01:19:05.407)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Kevin Wilson (01:19:21.094)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:19:33.453)
Mmm.
Sy Garte (01:19:33.678)
There are a significant number of young people who have lost their faith because of science, they think. Science has nothing bad to say about faith, and faith is not contrary to science. And that's the reason, again, that's why I wrote my books. And if you don't believe me, read the books.
Kevin Wilson (01:19:41.949)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:19:54.53)
Yeah, absolutely.
Sy Garte (01:19:58.103)
It's a lie that was promulgated not that long ago. I mean, all scientists were devout Christians up until around 1900. After that, it became different, but there's nothing in science, modern or ancient, or any kind of science that it goes against.
Kevin Wilson (01:20:06.754)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:20:16.27)
Christian, the Bible. I mean this idea that the Bible is scientifically wrong or and some of this comes from the Christian side too. People say well you know science is man's word, the Bible is God's word. Choose God's word over man's word. That's nonsense. There's two books that God gave us, not just one. He gave us the book of nature, the book of works, and the book of his word which is scripture and they're both his word.
Kevin Wilson (01:20:35.454)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:20:45.554)
and they harmonize beautifully. So they're not in conflict. And if I can convince a young person who grew up in the church, then went to college, studied chemistry and biology, and said, oh my God, evolution is atheistic, which it's not. I have to choose. No, you don't have to choose. If there's anyone watching this in that position, please have them contact me or please contact me
Kevin Wilson (01:20:45.88)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:21:03.334)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:21:08.589)
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:21:15.446)
prove it to you. You do not have to choose. There are thousands of active PhD scientists like me who are devout Christians. I'm not an anomaly at all. Some of them quite famous. Many Nobel Prize winners, on and on and on. So that's the message that I would give. And if that can help.
Kevin Wilson (01:21:17.143)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Wilson (01:21:28.218)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Sy Garte (01:21:42.858)
You know, get some people back to the faith who left for the wrong reason, having to do with science, I think that that's about all I can do.
Kevin Wilson (01:21:51.866)
Yeah, yeah. Well, that's great, doctor. Folks, I encourage you to go to CyGuard.com and again, it just it's spelled S Y and then guard is G A R T E. It's CyGuard.com. Go there. Get both of his books. So that the first book, The Works of His Hands.
And then his other book, Science and Faith in Harmony. And I know I have been truly, truly blessed by what Dr. Gart has talked about today. And I, and I know you have, and if you're a skeptic, you're an atheist, you're a person out there and you're just like, Hey, I, I just want to know more. Please reach out to his website, grab those books.
Um, I encourage pastors that are listening. Um, I think these would be great books for, uh, your churches and your church libraries and different things like that. Uh, you know, youth pastors, young adult pastors, these are great things to put in the hands of this next generation. And so, um, I encourage you to do that. And don't forget, uh, you can rate and review us everywhere. You listen to this podcast.
And also, let us know. Let us know what you thought about this episode. If you have questions, I can also lead you to places that you will find answers. And so that's two four eight. You could text this number two four eight three zero one twenty ten two four eight three zero one twenty ten. God bless you guys. We love you and we will see you next time.
