WEBVTT 00:00:01.120 --> 00:00:04.480 It is the 27th of February 2026. 00:00:04.480 --> 00:00:05.680 I am Cory J. 00:00:05.680 --> 00:00:09.520 Mahler, and this is at any cost. 00:00:09.520 --> 00:00:12.880 Before I begin tonight, just I guess a little bit of almost 00:00:12.880 --> 00:00:14.400 housekeeping, but not really. 00:00:14.720 --> 00:00:17.760 Just a question for those of you who are actually watching the 00:00:17.760 --> 00:00:21.360 video instead of just listening to the audio. 00:00:21.360 --> 00:00:24.160 I can take off these headphones here, speaking of which, since I'm 00:00:24.160 --> 00:00:26.960 no longer listening to anything. 00:00:26.960 --> 00:00:29.680 Do you care about the fact that I have a microphone and 00:00:29.680 --> 00:00:33.600 a boom arm obstructing part of the field of view? 00:00:33.600 --> 00:00:36.960 Because I do have lavalier mics I could use. 00:00:36.960 --> 00:00:37.920 They are marginally 00:00:39.200 --> 00:00:43.200 less good in terms of sound quality, but for anything like YouTube 00:00:43.520 --> 00:00:46.720 or streaming, I highly doubt it could be noticed by anyone. 00:00:46.720 --> 00:00:49.760 It's really only noticeable on my end listening to the raw audio. 00:00:49.760 --> 00:00:53.360 So anyway, if you care, comment in the in the comments in 00:00:53.360 --> 00:00:57.760 the replies, and I will consider that setup going forward because I 00:00:57.760 --> 00:01:00.160 do have the hardware here, I just have not bothered to hook 00:01:00.160 --> 00:01:00.720 it up. 00:01:00.720 --> 00:01:04.000 Partly because of that audio quality difference, but again, it's not going 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:07.680 to matter for streaming. 00:01:07.680 --> 00:01:10.880 So getting right into the questions then. 00:01:10.880 --> 00:01:14.960 The first question is about the Dead Sea scrolls, and then the 00:01:14.960 --> 00:01:18.320 second question Second question is sort of tangentially related, and so I 00:01:18.320 --> 00:01:22.160 will go into greater depth about that specific aspect when I get 00:01:22.160 --> 00:01:22.560 to that. 00:01:22.560 --> 00:01:25.360 But to f to first read the question. 00:01:25.360 --> 00:01:28.560 Should we believe anything about the Dead Sea Scrolls or are they 00:01:28.560 --> 00:01:33.520 unreliable? If they are reliable, do they provide any insight on the 00:01:33.520 --> 00:01:39.040 Septuagint or the lost original Hebrew text? 00:01:39.040 --> 00:01:42.080 And so there are a number of things here that need to 00:01:42.080 --> 00:01:45.760 be drawn out of the history of the Dead Sea Scrolls first, 00:01:45.760 --> 00:01:48.960 and then are they reliable or not? 00:01:48.960 --> 00:01:51.040 The baseline answer is no. 00:01:51.040 --> 00:01:53.600 I would not rely on them for anything. 00:01:53.600 --> 00:01:57.120 But the reasoning is important because just the bald answer isn't really 00:01:57.680 --> 00:01:59.120 sufficient here. 00:01:59.120 --> 00:02:04.160 And so the Dead Sea scrolls refer to a number of mostly 00:02:04.160 --> 00:02:11.040 fragmentary pieces of supposedly scripture and some other things found in various 00:02:11.040 --> 00:02:16.160 caves in what was part of the territory of Jordan, not the 00:02:16.160 --> 00:02:19.280 modern nation state of Israel at the time, that comes into play 00:02:19.280 --> 00:02:20.560 as well. 00:02:20.560 --> 00:02:26.320 The initial discovery was supposedly by a Bedouin who was just grazing 00:02:26.320 --> 00:02:28.080 his flocks in the area. 00:02:28.080 --> 00:02:30.480 He took a stone and tossed it into a cave. 00:02:30.480 --> 00:02:32.160 This is the narrative they say. 00:02:32.160 --> 00:02:36.240 He took a stone, tossed it into a cave, heard pottery shattering, 00:02:36.240 --> 00:02:38.960 and went in to investigate. 00:02:38.960 --> 00:02:42.960 That should probably already raise some alarm bells because it's kind of 00:02:42.960 --> 00:02:46.560 odd that something would be that accessible and have been completely ignored 00:02:46.560 --> 00:02:48.960 for a period of For a period of centuries. 00:02:48.960 --> 00:02:54.400 But beyond that, the narrative changed over time. 00:02:54.400 --> 00:02:58.160 They were not always completely consistent about how it had been discovered, 00:02:58.160 --> 00:03:01.760 who had discovered it, who had been brought in to look at 00:03:01.760 --> 00:03:05.280 the materials after it had been discovered, and a lot of other 00:03:05.280 --> 00:03:06.480 things like that. 00:03:06.480 --> 00:03:12.800 So an inconsistency in the narrative does raise some questions, because something 00:03:12.800 --> 00:03:16.240 like this should have a consistent narrative Yeah, I threw a stone, 00:03:16.240 --> 00:03:20.000 heard some pottery, I went and got my cousin who knows these 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:21.840 things, and he came out and looked at it, and then from 00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:23.280 you go from there. 00:03:23.280 --> 00:03:28.160 The narrative was not always consistent, it tended to evolve over time. 00:03:28.400 --> 00:03:32.960 And so part of it is you have that unreliable discoverer, and 00:03:32.960 --> 00:03:37.680 then part is you have subsequent individuals who were themselves also unreliable 00:03:37.760 --> 00:03:39.840 and the narrative changed. 00:03:39.840 --> 00:03:43.280 Some of the men who were involved very early on were in 00:03:43.280 --> 00:03:45.840 fact antiquities dealers. 00:03:45.840 --> 00:03:48.880 For those who are familiar for this from with this part of 00:03:48.880 --> 00:03:52.240 the world, alarm bells are already going off in your head. 00:03:52.640 --> 00:03:56.560 You know how Arab and Jewish antiquities dealers are and how reliable 00:03:56.560 --> 00:03:57.360 they are. 00:03:57.360 --> 00:04:00.640 And the baseline for that is that they aren't at all. 00:04:00.640 --> 00:04:03.360 Because they're usually trying to pass off forgeries. 00:04:03.360 --> 00:04:07.760 And so the early involvement of those men also raises some very 00:04:07.760 --> 00:04:10.400 severe questions. 00:04:10.400 --> 00:04:13.120 The part that I want to get into with the next question, 00:04:13.120 --> 00:04:20.240 because it's tangentially related, is that these were dated using radiocarbon dating. 00:04:20.240 --> 00:04:21.680 That is unreliable. 00:04:21.680 --> 00:04:23.600 I will get into some of the specifics of that with the 00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:27.360 next question because it is more directly related, but it is worth 00:04:27.360 --> 00:04:32.080 mentioning that some of the early dating by various individuals, including a 00:04:32.080 --> 00:04:36.240 number of Jewish scholars, incidentally, for whatever you want to value that, 00:04:36.240 --> 00:04:40.240 said that no, these are medieval forgeries, these are not from whenever 00:04:40.240 --> 00:04:42.000 they're supposedly claimed now. 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:45.760 Usually the oldest claimed now is 250 BC. 00:04:45.760 --> 00:04:50.880 But the problem there is that if you're relying on something that 00:04:50.880 --> 00:04:54.560 is itself unreliable to date them, well I think we can all 00:04:54.560 --> 00:04:55.920 see the problem. 00:04:55.920 --> 00:04:59.520 The next part of this would be what I mentioned earlier. 00:04:59.520 --> 00:05:03.040 This was Jordanian territory at the time. 00:05:03.040 --> 00:05:06.080 And you should also bear in mind the timeline here, the first 00:05:06.080 --> 00:05:08.240 discovery was 1946. 00:05:08.240 --> 00:05:12.240 Kind of convenient for reasons that are very obvious to this audience. 00:05:12.240 --> 00:05:15.440 The subsequent discoveries were basically over the period of a decade up 00:05:15.440 --> 00:05:18.960 through about nineteen fifty six in various caves in the same general 00:05:18.960 --> 00:05:23.760 region. But like I said, Jordanian territory and I say it in 00:05:23.760 --> 00:05:28.960 the past tense because it became territory controlled by the modern nation 00:05:29.120 --> 00:05:33.200 state of Israel, which is not Israel, in nineteen sixty-seven after the 00:05:33.200 --> 00:05:34.720 Six-Day War. 00:05:34.720 --> 00:05:39.280 And in fact, part of the argument that Israel used for saying 00:05:39.280 --> 00:05:42.240 they should have this territory and be allowed to keep it is 00:05:42.240 --> 00:05:47.280 they said it had historical and religious ties to Israel. 00:05:47.280 --> 00:05:51.280 And they used the Dead Sea Scrolls as part of that justification. 00:05:51.280 --> 00:05:56.080 Again, highly suspect that they just so happened to find something in 00:05:56.080 --> 00:05:59.920 a region where they wanted to take that territory and then use 00:05:59.920 --> 00:06:04.480 the thing they found as warrant for keeping that territory. 00:06:04.480 --> 00:06:07.040 On top of that, and this is going to sound familiar to 00:06:07.040 --> 00:06:11.600 some other historical things, many of them were not released to the 00:06:11.600 --> 00:06:15.600 public for forty years after they were discovered. 00:06:15.600 --> 00:06:21.360 In fact, they were not made widely available until nineteen ninety-one, when 00:06:21.360 --> 00:06:27.600 the Huntington Library in California released copies basically of them, scans of 00:06:27.600 --> 00:06:28.640 all of these. 00:06:28.640 --> 00:06:29.280 And so 00:06:30.480 --> 00:06:32.800 that raises some more red flags. 00:06:32.800 --> 00:06:36.880 If something is held for that long that of a of this 00:06:36.880 --> 00:06:41.280 level of importance, why did you not release pictures at least to 00:06:41.280 --> 00:06:42.080 the public? 00:06:42.080 --> 00:06:45.520 Why did you not allow other experts to come in and look 00:06:45.520 --> 00:06:49.040 at these during this period of up to forty years? 00:06:49.040 --> 00:06:52.160 Why did you hold them in secrecy and only let your hand 00:06:52.240 --> 00:06:54.480 selected experts look at them. 00:06:54.480 --> 00:06:58.560 You can think, for instance, about the Gerbil's diaries, that were held 00:06:59.040 --> 00:07:04.320 right after World War II by Russia until today, only very recently 00:07:04.400 --> 00:07:06.560 were some scholars allowed to come in and look at them. 00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:10.800 I don't consider them reliable because I consider the source. 00:07:10.800 --> 00:07:15.600 If the source holding this thing is itself hostile and has gated 00:07:15.840 --> 00:07:19.200 access in that way for this long period of time, and in 00:07:19.200 --> 00:07:23.920 fact both sources are known for forging documents and other things, you 00:07:23.920 --> 00:07:28.480 should probably be hesitant to rely on anything they are trying to 00:07:28.480 --> 00:07:29.680 sell you. 00:07:29.680 --> 00:07:35.040 As a a tangent here, the Huntington Library in Los Angeles is 00:07:35.040 --> 00:07:37.840 very worth visiting, so if you happen to be in the area, 00:07:37.840 --> 00:07:40.960 if you happen to vacation there, that is worth a at least 00:07:40.960 --> 00:07:42.560 half a day of your time. 00:07:42.560 --> 00:07:46.800 Great, beautiful grounds, lovely museum, all sorts of great artwork. 00:07:46.800 --> 00:07:49.840 Some of the memes that some of us know and love, the 00:07:49.840 --> 00:07:51.840 original artwork is actually in that museum. 00:07:51.840 --> 00:07:54.400 You'll walk around a corner and walk right into it, so a 00:07:54.400 --> 00:07:56.880 bonus for those who have spent perhaps too much time on the 00:07:56.880 --> 00:07:57.120 internet 00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:03.360 But continuing on with the Dead Sea Scrolls and the relationship now 00:08:03.360 --> 00:08:08.960 to the Septuagint, the oldest dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls places 00:08:08.960 --> 00:08:12.240 the oldest ones in the collection at about two hundred and fifty 00:08:12.240 --> 00:08:16.640 BC. The Septuagint was completed in two hundred eighty. 00:08:16.640 --> 00:08:21.040 For those who don't remember, BC is backwards, so the Septuagint is 00:08:21.040 --> 00:08:22.480 in fact older. 00:08:22.480 --> 00:08:28.320 So even if these were reliable, even if these were true, the 00:08:28.320 --> 00:08:31.680 Septuagint is still the older copy that we have on hand. 00:08:31.680 --> 00:08:35.440 And as we went over in the Septuagint series, God preserved his 00:08:35.520 --> 00:08:38.320 word in the Greek, he didn't preserve his word in the Hebrew. 00:08:38.320 --> 00:08:43.920 Also worth mentioning here, not everything found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, 00:08:43.920 --> 00:08:47.760 and this should also go to comments with regard to the timeline 00:08:48.080 --> 00:08:51.680 and other things like that, not everything was in Hebrew. 00:08:51.680 --> 00:08:55.440 And in fact, the things that were in Hebrew were not in 00:08:55.440 --> 00:08:57.440 ancient or biblical Hebrew. 00:08:57.440 --> 00:09:00.960 They were in a not modern Hebrew because modern Hebrew is a 00:09:00.960 --> 00:09:02.640 separate, totally separate thing. 00:09:02.640 --> 00:09:06.000 But in but in sort of the the second temple 00:09:07.280 --> 00:09:11.120 Roman occupation period Hebrew of the the sects that were out in 00:09:11.120 --> 00:09:12.880 the desert, basically. 00:09:12.880 --> 00:09:17.120 So you had that, Aramaic, Greek, and in fact some Latin as 00:09:17.120 --> 00:09:22.720 well. But the Hebrew texts, by and large, the majority of them, 00:09:22.720 --> 00:09:25.840 were written in the Babylonian script, which is the same one that 00:09:25.840 --> 00:09:30.320 is used by modern Hebrew, not in the Paleo Hebrew script, which 00:09:30.320 --> 00:09:35.920 is what would have been used originally for the original versions of 00:09:35.920 --> 00:09:39.280 Scripture that are no longer extant, because God preserved his word in 00:09:39.280 --> 00:09:42.160 Greek. He did not need to use the Paleo Hebrew any more 00:09:42.480 --> 00:09:46.480 And so most of them aren't even in the Hebrew that would 00:09:46.480 --> 00:09:49.360 have been the relevant one for copies of scripture. 00:09:49.360 --> 00:09:51.520 There are some that are in the Paleo-Hebrew script, though. 00:09:51.520 --> 00:09:53.600 There are a few of those in there. 00:09:53.600 --> 00:09:59.840 But the fundamental problem is you have something that is younger, still 00:09:59.840 --> 00:10:02.720 has all the problems Hebrew has, it's an objod, you don't have 00:10:02.720 --> 00:10:05.600 the vowels, you need the vowels in order to so on and 00:10:05.600 --> 00:10:06.400 so forth, right? 00:10:06.400 --> 00:10:08.720 Because you don't have until the the Masoretes are the one who 00:10:08.720 --> 00:10:10.400 gives you the vowel pointers. 00:10:10.400 --> 00:10:13.200 You have all these same problems we brought up in the Septuagint 00:10:13.280 --> 00:10:14.880 series with regard to Hebrew. 00:10:14.880 --> 00:10:16.400 Again, they're younger. 00:10:16.400 --> 00:10:18.320 They come from an unreliable source. 00:10:18.320 --> 00:10:21.840 They were held in secrecy for years even after they were discovered, 00:10:21.840 --> 00:10:26.720 supposedly. You have all the irregularities surrounding the discovery and the subsequent 00:10:26.720 --> 00:10:29.440 handling. I just don't find them reliable at all. 00:10:29.440 --> 00:10:32.960 My baseline conclusion on them would be that that 00:10:33.920 --> 00:10:37.680 at the absolute best they're a product of Jews going out in 00:10:37.680 --> 00:10:40.880 the desert and LARPing around the time that they were occupied and 00:10:40.880 --> 00:10:44.320 destroyed by the Romans, and they should be taken with a grain 00:10:44.320 --> 00:10:46.480 of salt and probably just ignored. 00:10:46.480 --> 00:10:47.920 Why would we use them? 00:10:47.760 --> 00:10:49.280 we have the Septuagint. 00:10:49.280 --> 00:10:51.760 Of what value are these documents? 00:10:51.760 --> 00:10:55.280 Maybe they're of some value with regard to the groups that were 00:10:55.280 --> 00:10:57.360 out in the desert being weird and what they were doing. 00:10:57.360 --> 00:10:57.920 Okay, fine. 00:10:57.920 --> 00:10:59.200 Maybe it's a document. 00:10:59.200 --> 00:11:00.880 It's a narrative of what they were doing. 00:11:01.600 --> 00:11:03.520 But is it scripture? 00:11:03.520 --> 00:11:05.360 My basic answer is no. 00:11:05.360 --> 00:11:08.080 And so we should not rely on them, we shouldn't use them. 00:11:08.080 --> 00:11:11.520 The people who bring them up generally know nothing about them. 00:11:11.520 --> 00:11:14.400 And I won't say they're doing it in bad faith though, because 00:11:14.400 --> 00:11:17.280 I think generally the people who know almost nothing about them hear 00:11:17.280 --> 00:11:20.560 Dead Sea Scrolls and think that's proof that scripture's really old and 00:11:20.560 --> 00:11:21.760 we can rely on it. 00:11:21.760 --> 00:11:23.680 They just don't know the reality. 00:11:23.680 --> 00:11:26.480 They don't know that no, the Greek is older, and we have 00:11:26.480 --> 00:11:29.200 the Greek, and God preserved his word in the Greek. 00:11:29.200 --> 00:11:32.080 If they knew the reality and the actual history, I think they'd 00:11:32.080 --> 00:11:34.000 be happier to have the Greek. 00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:36.960 Not least of all because Greek's actually a proper language and Hebrew's 00:11:36.880 --> 00:11:41.920 awful. But that's the basic answer too and the the history for 00:11:41.920 --> 00:11:43.600 the Dead Sea Scrolls. 00:11:43.600 --> 00:11:49.680 And now the second question where you'll see why radiometric radiocarbon dating, 00:11:49.680 --> 00:11:54.240 really radiometric, not specifically radiocarbon here, is more relevant. 00:11:54.240 --> 00:11:57.200 Do you believe that dinosaurs ever roamed the earth? 00:11:57.200 --> 00:12:01.440 Or do you believe that God created dinosaurs, bones, fossils, etc due 00:12:01.440 --> 00:12:03.440 to creating the earth with age? 00:12:03.440 --> 00:12:06.400 Which I've explained it in an article and I will make a 00:12:06.400 --> 00:12:09.920 little note to myself to add that article in the show notes. 00:12:09.920 --> 00:12:12.880 Do you think dinosaurs are a tool that Satan may be using 00:12:12.880 --> 00:12:15.360 to get people to doubt that God created the earth in six 00:12:15.360 --> 00:12:16.720 literal days? 00:12:16.720 --> 00:12:20.400 Do you think believing that dinosaurs once roamed the earth can be 00:12:20.400 --> 00:12:26.080 problematic? And so obviously, radiometric dating comes up here. 00:12:26.080 --> 00:12:29.360 The baseline answer here is that yes, I think dinosaurs were real, 00:12:29.360 --> 00:12:34.640 and in fact, we have recovered some corpses from dinosaurs that were 00:12:34.640 --> 00:12:38.160 weirdly fresh if they are extremely old. 00:12:38.160 --> 00:12:41.280 Notably those have typically been the sea dwelling ones. 00:12:41.280 --> 00:12:44.400 Kind of obvious why perhaps some of those could have survived after 00:12:44.400 --> 00:12:45.280 the flood. 00:12:45.280 --> 00:12:47.840 God didn't kill all the fish, which is something people tend to 00:12:47.840 --> 00:12:50.480 overlook in the flood narrative. 00:12:50.480 --> 00:12:53.360 God killed all life on the earth and in the air. 00:12:53.360 --> 00:12:55.840 He didn't kill all the fish, and so anything in the ocean 00:12:55.840 --> 00:12:59.200 could very well have survived because it was not part of the 00:12:59.200 --> 00:13:01.280 judgment that was the flood. 00:13:01.280 --> 00:13:05.280 But the basic answer is that yes, dinosaurs did exist. 00:13:05.280 --> 00:13:08.480 A great deal of the stuff regarding sediment layers and things like 00:13:08.480 --> 00:13:10.480 that is explained by the flood. 00:13:10.480 --> 00:13:12.720 And there are men who have gone into the physics and all 00:13:12.720 --> 00:13:16.160 those things, the geology of that in greater depth than I'm going 00:13:16.160 --> 00:13:16.640 to here. 00:13:16.640 --> 00:13:20.640 I'm not as familiar with geology in that field, so it's better 00:13:20.640 --> 00:13:22.640 if other men more versed in it do that. 00:13:22.640 --> 00:13:24.960 But the flood does explain these things. 00:13:24.960 --> 00:13:27.120 There's some very good books that do that. 00:13:27.120 --> 00:13:29.360 I don't know that I have them my shelves in here, I'd 00:13:29.280 --> 00:13:31.040 have to look up those titles, but 00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:37.520 the fundamental problem, as I already mentioned, is that radiometric dating is 00:13:37.520 --> 00:13:42.080 unreliable. And that's where you wind up getting this narrative of, you 00:13:42.080 --> 00:13:45.360 know, the dinosaurs were sixty five million years ago, right? 00:13:45.360 --> 00:13:48.960 Or depending on which particular period and which dinosaurs and you get 00:13:48.960 --> 00:13:50.800 people who are really into it and love to say, no, that 00:13:50.800 --> 00:13:53.120 dinosaur can't be in this film with that one because they were 00:13:53.120 --> 00:13:54.880 ten million years apart, right? 00:13:54.880 --> 00:13:57.440 Stuff like that. 00:13:57.440 --> 00:14:01.360 The issue is that men are going to use whatever they are 00:14:01.360 --> 00:14:05.520 handed from whatever source, if they don't want to believe in God, 00:14:05.520 --> 00:14:07.600 they're going to use these things in a as an excuse. 00:14:07.600 --> 00:14:12.400 And dinosaurs become an excuse for men when they aren't really a 00:14:12.400 --> 00:14:13.200 proper excuse. 00:14:13.200 --> 00:14:15.440 And so you'll have Christians who try to reconcile it and try 00:14:15.360 --> 00:14:17.040 to say, Oh, well we'll go with 00:14:18.080 --> 00:14:22.400 You know, God created the earth over time using these methods and 00:14:22.400 --> 00:14:24.800 so it's an old earth in the sense of an old earth 00:14:25.040 --> 00:14:29.360 chronologically, not in terms of how it was created. 00:14:29.360 --> 00:14:32.320 Which is the distinction I've drawn, and I'll again link that article. 00:14:32.320 --> 00:14:34.800 I recommend reading that for that distinction. 00:14:34.800 --> 00:14:36.560 God made the earth mature. 00:14:36.560 --> 00:14:39.680 The short version the short version of that is just God didn't 00:14:39.920 --> 00:14:43.680 put Adam in the garden as a zygote, or an infant, or 00:14:43.680 --> 00:14:45.120 a five year old. 00:14:45.120 --> 00:14:47.360 Adam was a fully mature man in the garden. 00:14:47.360 --> 00:14:48.240 God made him old. 00:14:48.240 --> 00:14:49.680 He did the same thing with the earth. 00:14:49.680 --> 00:14:52.240 God didn't make a primordial earth that was covered in lava and 00:14:52.240 --> 00:14:55.520 then wait for it to cool and then bring life. 00:14:55.520 --> 00:14:59.760 But to go back to radiometric dating, the fundamental point here that 00:14:59.760 --> 00:15:02.160 I want to make. 00:15:02.160 --> 00:15:06.480 The biggest issue with it is that they assume the starting conditions. 00:15:06.640 --> 00:15:11.040 And for those who don't know, a quick rundown of how radiometric 00:15:11.040 --> 00:15:15.280 dating works is that you have elements and then you have isotopes 00:15:15.280 --> 00:15:16.640 of those elements. 00:15:16.640 --> 00:15:19.920 And so an element is basically determined by the number of protons 00:15:19.920 --> 00:15:20.480 in the nucleus. 00:15:20.480 --> 00:15:23.760 You have protons, neutrons, then obviously the electrons circling it. 00:15:23.760 --> 00:15:25.520 That's the rough model. 00:15:25.520 --> 00:15:29.920 And isotopes are determined by the number of neutrons. 00:15:29.920 --> 00:15:33.280 Different number of neutrons, different isotope. 00:15:33.280 --> 00:15:36.160 And so what you can end up with is that some of 00:15:36.160 --> 00:15:39.920 these are not stable, which means they decay over time. 00:15:39.920 --> 00:15:41.840 These are what we call radioactive. 00:15:41.840 --> 00:15:46.400 These are the ones that we use for these dating practices, because 00:15:47.360 --> 00:15:50.880 we contend, and this time I'm speaking as the scientists, of course, 00:15:50.880 --> 00:15:52.880 I don't believe that this is accurate. 00:15:52.880 --> 00:15:57.680 We contend that we can not only predict the rate of decay, 00:15:57.680 --> 00:15:58.800 which is somewhat accurate. 00:15:59.120 --> 00:16:03.280 It's one of those things that can be stochastically assessed because it 00:16:03.280 --> 00:16:08.240 is not, in a sense, it's not like a metronome, right? 00:16:08.240 --> 00:16:10.160 It's not tick, tick, tick, tick. 00:16:10.160 --> 00:16:14.880 It doesn't happen like that, but it happens with a statistical regularity 00:16:14.880 --> 00:16:19.280 that given a large enough sample, you can basically say what has 00:16:19.280 --> 00:16:20.800 happened in the past. 00:16:20.800 --> 00:16:25.200 The fundamental problem is that you don't know the starting ratio, and 00:16:25.200 --> 00:16:29.360 that you also can't predict in some cases various things, cosmic rays, 00:16:29.360 --> 00:16:33.200 things like that that can influence your results, particularly in talking large 00:16:33.200 --> 00:16:34.560 spans of time. 00:16:34.560 --> 00:16:38.000 Fundamentally unpredictable, absolutely no way to account for that. 00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:42.720 You can make a rough guess statistically, but a rough guess statistically 00:16:42.880 --> 00:16:46.880 over a course of millions of years is not accurate. 00:16:46.880 --> 00:16:50.160 And in fact, your error compounds. 00:16:50.160 --> 00:16:56.320 But if you don't know the starting conditions, which are fundamentally unknowable, 00:16:56.320 --> 00:16:59.120 then you can't actually know where you are in that line of 00:16:59.120 --> 00:17:03.200 decay. Let's say the decay is absolutely predictable example, we know that 00:17:03.200 --> 00:17:08.160 if you started with this percentage of carbon fourteen in your sample, 00:17:08.160 --> 00:17:12.480 and you have this percentage today, then because we know the rate 00:17:12.480 --> 00:17:15.600 of decay, we know the amount of elapsed time. 00:17:15.600 --> 00:17:20.640 That's all true, I'm fine with that, that is good enough statistically, 00:17:20.640 --> 00:17:22.560 we can rely upon it. 00:17:23.040 --> 00:17:25.280 You can't know that starting condition. 00:17:25.280 --> 00:17:28.800 If you don't know how much of it was in the sample 00:17:28.960 --> 00:17:35.040 proportionally at the beginning, then you can't draw that out. 00:17:35.040 --> 00:17:37.760 You cannot figure out how much time has elapsed because you don't 00:17:37.680 --> 00:17:39.520 know the starting conditions. 00:17:39.520 --> 00:17:43.120 And yes, I know that they use all sorts of statistical models 00:17:43.120 --> 00:17:46.320 and assumptions and things to try to do that, but that's the 00:17:46.320 --> 00:17:48.560 issue. They are assumptions. 00:17:48.560 --> 00:17:49.920 They are projections. 00:17:49.920 --> 00:17:51.680 They are not known facts. 00:17:51.680 --> 00:17:53.600 And so they're not reliable. 00:17:53.760 --> 00:17:57.760 And this has been demonstrated, for instance, by sending samples off to 00:17:57.760 --> 00:18:02.400 a lab and getting it back dated six thousand, seven thousand, eight 00:18:02.400 --> 00:18:03.600 thousand years ago. 00:18:03.600 --> 00:18:08.560 Radiocarbon dating is for relative things that's fifty eight to sixty five, 00:18:08.560 --> 00:18:10.720 I think it is thousand years supposedly. 00:18:10.720 --> 00:18:13.040 For the rate of decay, it's fifty seven hundred ish for the 00:18:13.040 --> 00:18:15.040 half life of carbon fourteen. 00:18:15.040 --> 00:18:17.280 Don't quote me on that, I don't remember the exact number. 00:18:17.280 --> 00:18:18.560 I believe it's right around there. 00:18:18.560 --> 00:18:21.760 But so fifty ish thousand years, give or take a little bit. 00:18:22.160 --> 00:18:28.160 And they've sent things off that were very recent, like garbage, produced 00:18:28.160 --> 00:18:31.680 in the last fifty years, and it's come back dated five, six, 00:18:31.760 --> 00:18:33.280 seven thousand years old. 00:18:33.680 --> 00:18:35.120 That's not great. 00:18:35.120 --> 00:18:38.240 Now, a fudge factor of 5,000 years, if you're dealing with 65 00:18:38.400 --> 00:18:40.400 million, that's not so bad. 00:18:40.400 --> 00:18:44.080 But it's a different kind of decay, and the fudge factor again 00:18:44.400 --> 00:18:49.360 compounds. So you could be off by absolutely enormous numbers, and you 00:18:49.360 --> 00:18:51.120 have no way of knowing it. 00:18:51.120 --> 00:18:53.520 So is it a useless tool? 00:18:53.520 --> 00:18:56.000 I wouldn't go that far, but is it a tool that is 00:18:56.000 --> 00:19:00.240 so reliable we can say this is definitively sixty million years old? 00:19:00.800 --> 00:19:02.400 Absolutely not. 00:19:02.400 --> 00:19:07.920 So the dating of dinosaurs is a fundamental unknown because we do 00:19:07.920 --> 00:19:11.360 not have the tools to actually date it in that way. 00:19:11.360 --> 00:19:14.240 We do have the bones and things though, and those aren't false, 00:19:14.240 --> 00:19:14.880 those are real. 00:19:14.880 --> 00:19:16.240 We know what a bone looks like. 00:19:16.240 --> 00:19:18.080 We know what happens when it calcifies. 00:19:18.080 --> 00:19:21.200 We know what happens when you have these things in the ground, 00:19:21.200 --> 00:19:24.800 when it fossilizes, we know those processes. 00:19:24.800 --> 00:19:27.840 And so, did these creatures exist? 00:19:27.840 --> 00:19:29.520 Yes, certainly they did. 00:19:29.520 --> 00:19:31.680 How much do we know about them? 00:19:31.680 --> 00:19:36.400 That's very debatable for almost all cases because we've usually only recovered 00:19:36.400 --> 00:19:37.680 small fragments. 00:19:37.680 --> 00:19:40.400 In some cases we have full skeletons, so that we know more 00:19:40.400 --> 00:19:41.600 about those. 00:19:41.600 --> 00:19:41.920 But 00:19:43.040 --> 00:19:47.360 we're relying again on projection and reconstruction. 00:19:47.360 --> 00:19:50.880 Go look at the skeleton for some modern creatures and tell me 00:19:50.880 --> 00:19:55.440 that the people who've reconstructed dinosaurs would reconstruct those correctly. 00:19:55.440 --> 00:20:01.120 A good example would be any number of, say, turtles, tortoises, the 00:20:01.120 --> 00:20:05.200 hippo in particular, looks like a cyclops. 00:20:05.200 --> 00:20:07.040 The skull of a hippo is very weird looking. 00:20:07.760 --> 00:20:10.480 They would never reconstruct it correctly, so do we know what the 00:20:10.480 --> 00:20:11.760 dinosaurs looked like? 00:20:11.760 --> 00:20:13.360 I don't think that we do. 00:20:13.360 --> 00:20:16.240 For some, certainly, because some we have more of them, but for 00:20:16.240 --> 00:20:18.240 most of them, we don't have very much. 00:20:18.560 --> 00:20:21.840 This is an ongoing problem in this area of science. 00:20:21.840 --> 00:20:26.400 For instance, some of the supposed missing links, they have one bone, 00:20:26.400 --> 00:20:31.040 and they reconstructed a whole creature, supposed ancestor of humanity, out of 00:20:31.040 --> 00:20:31.920 one bone. 00:20:32.400 --> 00:20:35.600 The point that I've always made when that gets addressed, when someone 00:20:35.600 --> 00:20:37.760 brings that up and tries to say, No, we have a missing 00:20:37.760 --> 00:20:39.760 link, we know No you don't. 00:20:39.760 --> 00:20:42.080 Look at the skeleton of the elephant man. 00:20:42.080 --> 00:20:45.120 Tell me that science would reconstruct that correctly. 00:20:45.280 --> 00:20:46.720 They wouldn't. 00:20:46.720 --> 00:20:50.720 Because they just they fundamentally would not know, right? 00:20:50.720 --> 00:20:51.040 So 00:20:53.920 --> 00:20:57.040 the issue that we have with dinosaurs is that we don't have 00:20:57.040 --> 00:21:00.640 enough of the material to reconstruct it, we don't have the methods 00:21:00.640 --> 00:21:03.680 to reconstruct it, and we don't have reliable 00:21:04.640 --> 00:21:07.120 date methods, dating methods. 00:21:07.120 --> 00:21:09.840 So are they a tool of Satan? 00:21:09.840 --> 00:21:12.000 Not explicitly, but does he use them? 00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:16.160 Absolutely, because he'll use anything he can to try to deceive you. 00:21:16.160 --> 00:21:18.800 That is just how he does things. 00:21:18.800 --> 00:21:21.680 And so the next question here, question 00:21:22.640 --> 00:21:28.480 three. I guess sort of tangentially related, but not not really in 00:21:28.480 --> 00:21:30.240 the same way. 00:21:30.240 --> 00:21:33.600 I believe that you have mentioned that the left stole the issue 00:21:33.600 --> 00:21:37.200 of the environment from the right, but that whenever they try to 00:21:37.200 --> 00:21:40.960 help the environment they always end up making things worse. 00:21:40.960 --> 00:21:44.160 I was wondering if you could expound on this point. 00:21:44.160 --> 00:21:47.840 Do you believe the left may also be using environmental issues for 00:21:47.840 --> 00:21:49.280 political purposes. 00:21:49.280 --> 00:21:52.000 For example, I believe the left is using the notion of man-made 00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:55.600 global warming as a massive wealth transfer and a way to hurt 00:21:55.600 --> 00:21:57.520 white people economically. 00:21:57.520 --> 00:22:01.440 At least for me, a less clear cut, no pun intended, example 00:22:01.920 --> 00:22:03.840 is microplastics. 00:22:03.840 --> 00:22:07.920 There have been several studies claiming that humans ingest microplastics from the 00:22:07.920 --> 00:22:11.280 environment. Eyes are watering a little bit because I tried to suppress 00:22:11.280 --> 00:22:12.400 a sneeze there. 00:22:12.400 --> 00:22:14.000 Which cause health damage. 00:22:14.000 --> 00:22:18.560 Other studies have recently shown that these original studies likely contained several 00:22:18.560 --> 00:22:19.760 false positives. 00:22:19.760 --> 00:22:23.520 Is there any harm in taking precautions, for example, using wooden cutting 00:22:23.520 --> 00:22:25.200 boards in light of such studies? 00:22:25.200 --> 00:22:30.080 How are we to discern which environmental issues are legitimate and which 00:22:30.080 --> 00:22:33.760 ones are used by the left for political purposes? 00:22:33.760 --> 00:22:37.200 So the issue here is that yes, absolutely, these things are used 00:22:37.200 --> 00:22:39.120 by the left for political purposes. 00:22:39.120 --> 00:22:42.560 Particularly global warming is one that has been used by the left 00:22:42.720 --> 00:22:44.800 for like you said, a wealth transfer. 00:22:44.800 --> 00:22:47.200 That is exactly how it's been used. 00:22:47.200 --> 00:22:50.560 Climate change is real. 00:22:50.560 --> 00:22:54.080 Anthropogenic climate change is not. 00:22:54.080 --> 00:22:55.520 That's the contention here. 00:22:55.520 --> 00:22:59.760 They contend that human which is that's all anthropogenic means is human 00:22:59.760 --> 00:23:02.080 originated, human caused, right? 00:23:02.080 --> 00:23:06.160 Anthropos, human, gen, source, seed. 00:23:06.160 --> 00:23:06.480 So 00:23:08.080 --> 00:23:11.680 they're saying that climate change is a result of human activities, and 00:23:11.680 --> 00:23:13.040 that's simply not true. 00:23:13.040 --> 00:23:16.640 Our activities are not of such a scope and scale that we 00:23:16.640 --> 00:23:18.880 have changed the global climate. 00:23:19.440 --> 00:23:22.320 Now, have we changed the global environment? 00:23:22.320 --> 00:23:23.280 Absolutely, yes. 00:23:23.280 --> 00:23:26.800 We have done some rather bad things to the environment many places. 00:23:26.800 --> 00:23:31.840 China's fishing fleet is a great example, currently basically killing the oceans. 00:23:31.840 --> 00:23:35.840 So it is possible for human beings to cause damage on a 00:23:35.840 --> 00:23:37.040 global scale. 00:23:37.040 --> 00:23:40.640 I don't believe that what we have done with regard to the 00:23:40.640 --> 00:23:44.960 atmosphere has actually changed the climate of the planet. 00:23:44.960 --> 00:23:46.480 I disagree with that. 00:23:46.480 --> 00:23:50.800 Does that mean that we shouldn't take measures that are good for 00:23:50.800 --> 00:23:52.320 the atmosphere? 00:23:52.320 --> 00:23:58.960 Like for instance, banning CFCs, which did have negative consequences for the 00:23:58.960 --> 00:24:00.160 ozone layer. 00:24:00.160 --> 00:24:01.760 No, I think that's a good measure. 00:24:01.760 --> 00:24:04.720 We're supposed to be good stewards of the environment. 00:24:04.720 --> 00:24:09.440 And so we shouldn't just reflexively disagree with everything the left says 00:24:09.440 --> 00:24:12.640 about the environment because every now and then they're right. 00:24:12.640 --> 00:24:15.920 You know, if they're out there saying that we shouldn't be littering, 00:24:15.920 --> 00:24:18.960 we don't disagree and start littering because we don't like the left. 00:24:18.960 --> 00:24:19.920 That's stupid. 00:24:19.920 --> 00:24:22.000 That would be at least as stupid as the left is on 00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:24.320 these issues, because they'll do things because they just hate the right 00:24:24.400 --> 00:24:27.840 right, so they'll do something because oh the right does the opposite, 00:24:27.840 --> 00:24:30.320 right? We shouldn't do that. 00:24:30.400 --> 00:24:30.720 But 00:24:31.680 --> 00:24:37.120 insofar as the environmental issues are concerned, and how do you determine 00:24:37.120 --> 00:24:42.640 which issues are Are fake versus which ones are real, which ones 00:24:42.640 --> 00:24:45.920 are being as a used as a political cudgel instead of as 00:24:45.920 --> 00:24:48.080 an actual concern. 00:24:48.080 --> 00:24:50.960 The left is always going to use things as a political cudgel 00:24:51.120 --> 00:24:52.880 because that's just how everything for them is politics. 00:24:53.120 --> 00:24:54.160 I've explained this before. 00:24:54.160 --> 00:24:56.080 Their whole life is politic. 00:24:56.080 --> 00:25:01.120 They don't have things that are more important to them than politics. 00:25:01.120 --> 00:25:06.880 Politics is their worldview, politics is their religion, politics is their reason 00:25:06.880 --> 00:25:08.160 for living. 00:25:08.160 --> 00:25:12.560 And so they're going to treat these things as a knife fight 00:25:12.560 --> 00:25:14.000 in a bar, right? 00:25:14.240 --> 00:25:16.720 Absolutely anything is a weapon to them. 00:25:16.720 --> 00:25:20.960 So do not use them as your index of morality. 00:25:20.960 --> 00:25:24.400 Now you can take cues from them, signals from them, right? 00:25:24.400 --> 00:25:27.760 If they support something, be skeptical, that's fine. 00:25:27.760 --> 00:25:32.560 But the fundamental answer, the baseline answer is look at the data. 00:25:32.560 --> 00:25:36.480 Look at the things that are incontrovertibly true. 00:25:36.480 --> 00:25:39.280 And so can you play games with statistics? 00:25:39.280 --> 00:25:42.880 Absolutely. But if you have the ability, this is one of those 00:25:42.880 --> 00:25:46.560 that's going to depend personally on you, but if you have the 00:25:46.560 --> 00:25:51.440 ability to look at their data and run the analysis yourself, do 00:25:51.440 --> 00:25:56.880 that. Look at their data, see if their data support their conclusions. 00:25:56.880 --> 00:26:00.000 If not, go ahead and reject it. 00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.560 These days, sure, you can run some things through an AI. 00:26:04.560 --> 00:26:07.520 To what degree you trust the AI not to have been programmed 00:26:07.520 --> 00:26:12.000 to give you a specific answer on a politically controversial issue? 00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:14.640 But you know, run it through three, four different AIs, see if 00:26:14.640 --> 00:26:15.680 they all agree. 00:26:15.680 --> 00:26:17.280 Maybe that helps a little bit. 00:26:17.280 --> 00:26:19.920 If you don't know how to run the analysis yourself, or find 00:26:19.920 --> 00:26:20.880 someone who does. 00:26:20.880 --> 00:26:24.160 If you have someone you trust who is good at statistics, have 00:26:24.160 --> 00:26:29.680 him run the analysis and then use that to draw your conclusion. 00:26:29.680 --> 00:26:34.000 But to address the specific issue here, other than of course, man-made 00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:36.000 climate change, which I just addressed. 00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:37.840 Microplastics are an issue. 00:26:37.840 --> 00:26:40.880 I think that is incontrovertibly proven at this point. 00:26:40.880 --> 00:26:43.200 I don't think really anyone 00:26:44.320 --> 00:26:49.920 of with any actual credentials and believability, has said they are not 00:26:49.920 --> 00:26:51.760 a real concern. 00:26:51.760 --> 00:26:55.600 And one of the horrible things is that we actually can't run 00:26:55.680 --> 00:26:59.520 sort of the usual experiment we would, because usually you need uh 00:26:59.520 --> 00:27:01.040 control, right? 00:27:01.040 --> 00:27:04.160 If you're running a drug trial, say for instance, you have one 00:27:04.160 --> 00:27:07.360 group you give a placebo, you don't tell them because then placebo 00:27:07.520 --> 00:27:10.400 effect and it winds up getting complicated, but you try to do 00:27:10.400 --> 00:27:13.440 a double blind, which just means that neither the individual receiving it 00:27:13.520 --> 00:27:16.800 nor the individual administering it knows, right? 00:27:16.800 --> 00:27:19.440 But you have a group that's given the drug, a group that's 00:27:19.440 --> 00:27:22.080 not given the drug, and then you compare the results, and you 00:27:22.240 --> 00:27:24.640 run that a number of times, you randomize things, you have all 00:27:24.640 --> 00:27:27.440 these safeguards in place Place. 00:27:27.440 --> 00:27:31.840 Our issue, we obviously can't run that experiment because that's considered human 00:27:31.840 --> 00:27:37.840 experimentation and unethical, generally speaking, partly due to IRBs and things like 00:27:37.840 --> 00:27:41.440 that after Milgram and the Stanford Prison Experiment. 00:27:41.440 --> 00:27:46.640 But we can't find a group of men anywhere in the world 00:27:46.960 --> 00:27:50.560 who do not have microplastics in their blood and elsewhere. 00:27:50.560 --> 00:27:54.640 We can't even run the experiment because we don't have a control 00:27:54.800 --> 00:27:58.240 group. Now of course we can look at magnitude of harm because 00:27:58.240 --> 00:28:01.760 we can look at people who have more microplastics, so the people 00:28:01.760 --> 00:28:06.240 who are warming things in plastic and then drinking them, those men 00:28:06.240 --> 00:28:08.160 are going to have more microplastics. 00:28:08.160 --> 00:28:10.720 So if you're a tea drinker, for instance, I don't have my 00:28:10.720 --> 00:28:14.320 tea tonight, I have coffee, but if you're a tea drinker, please 00:28:14.320 --> 00:28:17.760 do not use plastic for anything in the process. 00:28:17.760 --> 00:28:20.000 Heat your water and something metal. 00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.000 Drink your tea from something that is made of ceramic or glass 00:28:24.160 --> 00:28:29.520 or minus pyrex it's glass, so do not involve heat and plastic. 00:28:29.520 --> 00:28:33.840 That is a great way to induce introduce as many microplastics into 00:28:33.840 --> 00:28:35.920 your blood as you possibly can. 00:28:35.920 --> 00:28:37.680 Not great. 00:28:37.680 --> 00:28:40.080 Don't drink water out of plastic water bottles. 00:28:40.080 --> 00:28:41.120 Those are terrible. 00:28:41.120 --> 00:28:44.320 Not just for you, for the environment as well. 00:28:44.320 --> 00:28:46.240 Single use plastics are not a good thing. 00:28:46.240 --> 00:28:49.360 We should be trying to avoid those where we can. 00:28:49.360 --> 00:28:52.480 This is not a leftist issue where, you know, tree hugging not 00:28:52.800 --> 00:28:56.720 which quite frankly, that even is almost an insult because Saying someone 00:28:56.720 --> 00:29:00.320 cares about trees should be something with which we agree. 00:29:00.320 --> 00:29:01.600 That should be a right wing issue. 00:29:01.600 --> 00:29:04.160 We care about the forests and preservation of the environment and the 00:29:04.160 --> 00:29:08.640 green areas and making environments that are fit for human habitation, not 00:29:08.640 --> 00:29:12.400 just for cockroaches living in 15 story buildings, right? 00:29:13.280 --> 00:29:13.600 But 00:29:14.480 --> 00:29:20.080 microplastics are decidedly an issue and they are endoc endocrine disruptors. 00:29:20.080 --> 00:29:22.800 We know that for an absolute certainty. 00:29:22.800 --> 00:29:26.720 And so they do cause problems, not just for human beings, for 00:29:26.720 --> 00:29:27.600 other animals as well. 00:29:27.600 --> 00:29:29.040 They're particularly bad for fish. 00:29:29.040 --> 00:29:34.320 Fish and amphibians are very vulnerable to environmental pollutants in a way 00:29:34.320 --> 00:29:36.480 that some other animals are not. 00:29:36.480 --> 00:29:39.040 Of course, there is the issue of concentration as you go up 00:29:39.040 --> 00:29:42.080 the trophic levels, and humans are pretty high up. 00:29:42.080 --> 00:29:47.280 So predators can wind up getting very high concentrations of certain pollutants 00:29:47.280 --> 00:29:50.880 that are in the environment and have greater negative consequences because of 00:29:51.360 --> 00:29:53.360 that concentration effect. 00:29:53.360 --> 00:29:53.680 So 00:29:56.160 --> 00:29:59.680 yes, we have a very real problem with regard to microplastics. 00:29:59.680 --> 00:30:02.880 If you can avoid them by all means, do avoid them where 00:30:02.880 --> 00:30:04.400 you can. 00:30:04.400 --> 00:30:06.880 You can't avoid them completely. 00:30:06.880 --> 00:30:09.360 Because let's say you don't use any in your kitchen. 00:30:09.360 --> 00:30:11.840 All of your food was still shipped using plastic. 00:30:11.840 --> 00:30:13.680 It was processed using plastic. 00:30:13.680 --> 00:30:18.800 Unless you're growing absolutely everything at home and it never has any 00:30:18.800 --> 00:30:22.400 inputs from anywhere else and even then it's in the soil. 00:30:22.400 --> 00:30:25.520 So it's one of the things where you do what you can. 00:30:25.520 --> 00:30:27.200 Don't become neurotic about it. 00:30:27.200 --> 00:30:30.240 Don't let it control your life, don't become someone who is so 00:30:30.240 --> 00:30:33.760 crazy about the idea of plastic that you know you retreat you'd 00:30:33.760 --> 00:30:35.840 have to retreat to the woods and live in a wood cabin 00:30:35.920 --> 00:30:38.640 and even then can't really avoid it. 00:30:38.640 --> 00:30:38.960 So 00:30:39.840 --> 00:30:43.600 the thing that you mentioned, absolutely, that's a completely reasonable. 00:30:43.600 --> 00:30:46.240 And that's not just because of the cutting board is what I'm 00:30:46.160 --> 00:30:47.200 speaking of here. 00:30:47.200 --> 00:30:50.000 That's not just because wooden cutting boards are better. 00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:53.200 They're better in terms of bacteria and things like that. 00:30:53.200 --> 00:30:54.400 They're actually better than plastic. 00:30:54.640 --> 00:30:56.640 That's been clearly demonstrated now. 00:30:56.640 --> 00:30:58.480 They're also better for your knives. 00:30:58.480 --> 00:30:59.920 Plastic's terrible on your knife. 00:30:59.920 --> 00:31:02.080 You're just gonna wear out your knife and wind up cutting with 00:31:02.080 --> 00:31:03.360 a dull knife and that's dangerous. 00:31:03.520 --> 00:31:06.640 Keep your kitchen knives sharp as best as you can keep them 00:31:06.640 --> 00:31:09.200 sharp. Excuse me. 00:31:09.200 --> 00:31:12.640 But definitely go for the the wooden cutting board or if you're 00:31:12.640 --> 00:31:15.280 so inclined you can go for the glass or the steel, right? 00:31:15.280 --> 00:31:18.160 But for the sake of your knives, wood is probably the way 00:31:18.160 --> 00:31:21.040 to go. 00:31:21.040 --> 00:31:25.920 But the overall issue of how do we discern what is real 00:31:25.920 --> 00:31:29.360 and what is not is that we look at it for ourselves. 00:31:29.360 --> 00:31:32.800 We trust men on our side who have the competence to look 00:31:32.800 --> 00:31:37.680 at the issues, and we use what our enemies say, particularly the 00:31:37.680 --> 00:31:39.760 left on environmental issues. 00:31:39.760 --> 00:31:41.360 We use it as a signal. 00:31:41.360 --> 00:31:44.720 It's not irrelevant, but it's not decisive. 00:31:44.720 --> 00:31:48.640 Just because they advocate for it doesn't mean it's bad. 00:31:48.640 --> 00:31:52.240 Just because they advocate against it doesn't mean it's good. 00:31:52.240 --> 00:31:54.960 But it it it can be a strong signal. 00:31:54.960 --> 00:31:58.560 So maybe part of it is you're just looking at the the 00:31:58.560 --> 00:32:02.640 general standard when you're looking at anything in politics, Qibono, who benefits, 00:32:02.640 --> 00:32:05.680 right? Who benefits from this? 00:32:05.680 --> 00:32:09.760 If the only people who are benefiting from a policy are special 00:32:09.760 --> 00:32:14.000 interests that are aligned with the politicians enacting it, so say wind 00:32:14.000 --> 00:32:19.200 power or solar power, probably be a bit a little bit hesitant, 00:32:19.200 --> 00:32:21.520 a bit skeptical of those projects. 00:32:21.520 --> 00:32:23.600 I don't think solar power is bad. 00:32:23.600 --> 00:32:24.880 I think it's overhyped. 00:32:24.880 --> 00:32:27.120 I don't think it's ready for mainstream deployment. 00:32:27.120 --> 00:32:32.880 Wind power has severe negative consequences, particularly for birds and bats, and 00:32:32.880 --> 00:32:34.320 so I think it should generally be avoided. 00:32:34.320 --> 00:32:38.160 Also it's an eyesore and the return on investment period is so 00:32:38.160 --> 00:32:41.120 long that many of those will simply never see a return on 00:32:41.120 --> 00:32:42.160 their investment. 00:32:42.160 --> 00:32:45.440 So things like that you can definitely discern. 00:32:45.440 --> 00:32:47.760 These are just pork barrel. 00:32:47.760 --> 00:32:50.960 In some cases, pork barrel, in some cases a wealth transfer because 00:32:51.200 --> 00:32:54.320 sometimes we're funding those things in other parts of the world. 00:32:54.320 --> 00:32:57.360 But another rule of thumb when it comes to environmental issues, this 00:32:57.360 --> 00:32:59.040 is one I've long employed. 00:32:59.040 --> 00:33:03.040 If you are dealing with someone who talks about environmental issues but 00:33:03.040 --> 00:33:08.640 never critiques China, India, various other countries like that, the person is 00:33:08.640 --> 00:33:10.640 a political operative or a hack. 00:33:10.640 --> 00:33:12.400 The person is not serious. 00:33:12.400 --> 00:33:17.440 Because those countries are causing such a magnitude of harm in excess 00:33:17.440 --> 00:33:21.120 of what any Western country is doing that unless you address what 00:33:21.120 --> 00:33:23.520 they are doing, you're not serious. 00:33:23.520 --> 00:33:25.120 You're just anti Western. 00:33:25.120 --> 00:33:30.400 You're just anti-modernity, which not in the negative sense of the cultural 00:33:30.400 --> 00:33:33.200 and social things, but in the sense of just you want everyone 00:33:33.200 --> 00:33:35.920 to live in a mud hut without air conditioning. 00:33:35.920 --> 00:33:38.720 And those people you can ignore. 00:33:38.720 --> 00:33:42.560 Again, it doesn't mean the issues that they are raising are wrong, 00:33:42.560 --> 00:33:44.800 but it means that you don't want to use that person as 00:33:44.800 --> 00:33:46.160 a strong signal. 00:33:46.160 --> 00:33:50.400 This is a matter of wisdom, but you do have a lot 00:33:50.400 --> 00:33:53.360 of information at your fingertips and you do have ways you can 00:33:53.520 --> 00:33:58.880 you can filter and process that to make an informed decision. 00:33:58.880 --> 00:34:04.080 And I guess there's also worth noting if you have issues where 00:34:05.360 --> 00:34:10.160 the experiments themselves and the conclusions are physical. 00:34:10.160 --> 00:34:14.080 The conclusions follow necessarily from the data. 00:34:14.080 --> 00:34:15.440 That's a little more reliable. 00:34:15.440 --> 00:34:17.200 Microplastics would be one of those. 00:34:17.200 --> 00:34:21.520 Like we can measure the effects on the endocrine system of these 00:34:21.520 --> 00:34:25.120 microplastics and that's just that's just math. 00:34:25.120 --> 00:34:26.960 The math is not political. 00:34:26.960 --> 00:34:31.200 Until you give it to a statistician, of course. 00:34:31.200 --> 00:34:35.360 The next question is question number four. 00:34:35.360 --> 00:34:39.280 I may have been ambitious with 13 questions, but we will see. 00:34:39.280 --> 00:34:43.760 Question four is about culture and race. 00:34:43.760 --> 00:34:48.720 Can you explain how culture is downstream from race? 00:34:49.040 --> 00:34:53.760 This is one of those questions that of course is quite broad 00:34:53.760 --> 00:34:57.360 in scope, so I won't get into everything here, but I'll give 00:34:57.360 --> 00:35:01.360 sort of an outline of it, a basic answer. 00:35:01.360 --> 00:35:02.960 You know, you could think of 00:35:04.320 --> 00:35:09.520 the classical problem posed about evil, right? 00:35:09.520 --> 00:35:15.920 The question that particularly atheist agnostics mothers will pose, usually to Christians, 00:35:15.920 --> 00:35:20.800 but to most theists they'll pose the question of whence cometh evil? 00:35:20.800 --> 00:35:24.320 Right? What is the source of evil if God is the source 00:35:24.320 --> 00:35:24.800 of all things? 00:35:25.040 --> 00:35:27.680 And I won't get into that now because the answer, of course, 00:35:27.680 --> 00:35:28.240 is free will. 00:35:28.240 --> 00:35:31.280 I've got into that in previous episodes, but they think it's a 00:35:31.280 --> 00:35:35.440 gotcha. You can actually ask the same question here, and it is 00:35:35.440 --> 00:35:40.480 a legitimate question in this case, whence cometh culture, right? 00:35:40.480 --> 00:35:44.160 If they want to say, usually this is the left, someone like 00:35:44.160 --> 00:35:48.000 that, that race has nothing to do with culture. 00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:50.480 Okay, where did culture arise? 00:35:50.480 --> 00:35:53.040 What caused culture? 00:35:53.040 --> 00:35:55.440 What is the source of culture? 00:35:55.440 --> 00:36:01.920 It has to be something innate, because culture is something constructed to 00:36:01.920 --> 00:36:03.120 some degree. 00:36:03.120 --> 00:36:06.480 It's not like skin color, right? 00:36:06.480 --> 00:36:09.920 You don't have to say where'd skin color come from, because we 00:36:09.920 --> 00:36:11.280 didn't invent skin color. 00:36:11.280 --> 00:36:12.720 We didn't create skin color. 00:36:12.720 --> 00:36:15.120 It's not a social construct. 00:36:15.600 --> 00:36:19.760 Because it is sippic it is simply the phenotypical expression of the 00:36:19.760 --> 00:36:22.240 underlying genotypical reality. 00:36:22.240 --> 00:36:26.000 It's the expression outward of your DNA. 00:36:26.000 --> 00:36:28.960 So that's something that is concrete. 00:36:28.960 --> 00:36:30.880 That's something we don't really have to explain. 00:36:30.880 --> 00:36:34.480 The mechanism we may want to explain so that we understand how 00:36:34.480 --> 00:36:38.960 these things work, but culture is not like that. 00:36:38.960 --> 00:36:42.160 Culture is, in a sense, metaphysical. 00:36:42.160 --> 00:36:45.840 It is abstracted out a level from the physical. 00:36:45.840 --> 00:36:48.160 Well, what is the basis then in the physical? 00:36:48.160 --> 00:36:49.920 The basis is race. 00:36:49.920 --> 00:36:51.680 Because your race is 00:36:52.640 --> 00:36:55.200 a lot of different things, but part of it is your set 00:36:55.200 --> 00:36:59.360 of dispositions, the way that you are going to respond to certain 00:36:59.360 --> 00:37:02.160 things, the way you're going to view certain things. 00:37:02.160 --> 00:37:05.440 And we could mention things that are as trivial as, you know, 00:37:05.440 --> 00:37:07.360 Germans like sausage or beer, right 00:37:08.240 --> 00:37:10.000 That's cultural. 00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:15.200 But it has a partial basis also in your biology. 00:37:15.200 --> 00:37:20.160 Germans have more of the enzyme that breaks down alcohol than East 00:37:20.160 --> 00:37:26.400 Asians. Those cultures are going to have different interactions with alcohol because 00:37:26.400 --> 00:37:28.480 of that biological fact. 00:37:28.480 --> 00:37:31.520 You can think of what happened to the Amerindians when they were 00:37:31.520 --> 00:37:32.960 reduced to alcohol. 00:37:32.960 --> 00:37:34.240 They went off the rails. 00:37:34.480 --> 00:37:39.120 Alcoholism swept through their populations and caused massive problems. 00:37:39.120 --> 00:37:43.920 Because if they went drink for drink with a white man, the 00:37:43.920 --> 00:37:46.560 Amerindian would be under the table and the white man would still 00:37:46.560 --> 00:37:50.880 be going because they lack the enzyme to break down the alcohol 00:37:50.960 --> 00:37:54.080 because they're related to East Asian populations. 00:37:54.080 --> 00:38:00.000 So culture is intimately linked to your biology The way that you 00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:02.880 interact with other men is going to be a matter of your 00:38:02.880 --> 00:38:06.880 disposition. Your disposition has a basis in your biology. 00:38:06.880 --> 00:38:11.120 That is going to be extrapolated out and built over a course 00:38:11.120 --> 00:38:17.120 of not just generations, but also a wide swath of the population, 00:38:17.120 --> 00:38:21.040 a large number of men, all these connections built up, there's some, 00:38:21.040 --> 00:38:23.200 is going to add up to culture. 00:38:23.200 --> 00:38:26.240 There's no other source you have for culture. 00:38:26.240 --> 00:38:31.360 And so those who would argue for culture as some sort of 00:38:31.680 --> 00:38:35.120 nebulous thing that's just sort of floating out there and you can 00:38:35.120 --> 00:38:37.520 join it if you want or leave it if you want. 00:38:37.760 --> 00:38:41.920 What they're always arguing for ultimately is magic soil. 00:38:41.920 --> 00:38:44.960 They're saying that if you just, instead of soil, they're calling it 00:38:44.960 --> 00:38:45.520 culture, right? 00:38:45.520 --> 00:38:50.880 If you just take this nebulous cloud of culture and take this 00:38:50.880 --> 00:38:53.120 man and stick him in it or take the culture and drop 00:38:53.120 --> 00:38:56.400 the cloud on him, suddenly he'll be American, right? 00:38:56.400 --> 00:38:58.160 Doesn't matter what he was before. 00:38:58.160 --> 00:39:01.440 He was Thai or Ugandan or something else. 00:39:01.440 --> 00:39:02.320 Whatever he was before. 00:39:02.320 --> 00:39:07.600 Now he's American because you took the culture and suffused it into 00:39:07.600 --> 00:39:10.560 him. Well, one you can't do that. 00:39:10.560 --> 00:39:15.840 And two, that doesn't change the fact that the culture had to 00:39:15.840 --> 00:39:17.120 come from somewhere. 00:39:17.120 --> 00:39:19.600 So even if non-Western populations 00:39:20.640 --> 00:39:24.160 adopt some Western cultural practices, which certainly they do, look the rest 00:39:24.160 --> 00:39:27.280 of the world, they dress in a Western style to large degree 00:39:27.360 --> 00:39:28.320 these days, right? 00:39:28.320 --> 00:39:30.960 Blue jeans are universal now. 00:39:30.960 --> 00:39:38.080 Just because they've adopted some cultural practice doesn't mean they could recreate 00:39:38.080 --> 00:39:42.400 the culture that created the practice. 00:39:42.400 --> 00:39:45.520 It has become part of their culture, and that will change them 00:39:45.520 --> 00:39:46.400 over time. 00:39:46.400 --> 00:39:50.160 Because I'm not going to say this is a one-way street, right? 00:39:50.160 --> 00:39:51.520 This is a feedback loop. 00:39:51.520 --> 00:39:54.080 And it has to be a feedback loop, because otherwise it would 00:39:54.080 --> 00:39:57.120 not be propagated down through the generations. 00:39:57.840 --> 00:40:03.040 Because your culture influences your genetics, because your culture influences sort of 00:40:03.200 --> 00:40:09.040 decisions that you make, which ultimately will dis will influence marriage, child 00:40:09.040 --> 00:40:12.480 rearing, and things like that, which has genetic consequences. 00:40:12.800 --> 00:40:16.480 This is actually tied into a question later in the episode that 00:40:16.480 --> 00:40:18.640 I believe I will get to. 00:40:18.640 --> 00:40:24.320 So your culture is produced by your biology, by your race. 00:40:24.320 --> 00:40:29.040 Because the most salient biological reality for you is going to be 00:40:29.040 --> 00:40:29.680 your race. 00:40:29.680 --> 00:40:32.960 Yes, of course, also your sex, your genetic sex, because there is 00:40:32.960 --> 00:40:34.240 no other form of it. 00:40:34.640 --> 00:40:36.560 But also your race. 00:40:36.560 --> 00:40:39.920 Because you are fundamentally X. 00:40:39.920 --> 00:40:41.760 Insert your race here. 00:40:41.760 --> 00:40:45.200 You are fundamentally male if you are male, and most of my 00:40:45.200 --> 00:40:46.320 audience is male. 00:40:46.320 --> 00:40:48.560 But if you're female, you're fundamentally female. 00:40:48.560 --> 00:40:51.760 That is something that you are essentially. 00:40:51.760 --> 00:40:54.960 And it is those things that are essential that can produce these 00:40:54.960 --> 00:40:58.880 things that are abstracted out that level, these metaphysical truths. 00:40:58.880 --> 00:41:01.040 They have to have some sort of basis. 00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:06.000 The only alternative would be that if you wanted to say as 00:41:06.000 --> 00:41:10.560 a Christian, right, God created cultures as some sort of nebulous abstraction 00:41:10.640 --> 00:41:13.360 and then imposed them on people, I don't know how you'd build 00:41:13.760 --> 00:41:14.960 up that argument. 00:41:14.960 --> 00:41:16.560 I don't see it. 00:41:16.560 --> 00:41:19.440 I don't see it anywhere in scripture. 00:41:19.440 --> 00:41:21.120 I don't see it anywhere in history. 00:41:21.120 --> 00:41:24.400 I don't see any mechanism by which that would be done. 00:41:24.400 --> 00:41:30.560 So I think that culture is simply the natural product of various 00:41:30.560 --> 00:41:36.080 peoples over a course of generations, some cases thousands of years, entrenching 00:41:36.240 --> 00:41:40.400 and this cycling back for back and forth this 00:41:41.280 --> 00:41:45.680 feedback loop that you have with your biology and your culture. 00:41:45.680 --> 00:41:50.640 And so ultimately yes, it is the biology that produced the culture, 00:41:50.640 --> 00:41:53.680 but the culture influences the biology down through the years, which is 00:41:53.680 --> 00:41:57.680 why you can't just take someone and train him up in a 00:41:57.680 --> 00:42:01.840 different culture and have him be part of that group. 00:42:01.840 --> 00:42:04.000 Because he doesn't have the basis for it. 00:42:04.240 --> 00:42:07.760 You if you want to look at it in as sort of 00:42:07.760 --> 00:42:11.680 an analogy, look at it as hardware versus software, right? 00:42:11.680 --> 00:42:14.240 Or maybe better hardware versus firmware. 00:42:14.240 --> 00:42:17.760 Because right, not software can kind of run on various different kinds 00:42:17.760 --> 00:42:18.960 of hardware fairly easily. 00:42:19.600 --> 00:42:21.440 Firmware is specific. 00:42:21.440 --> 00:42:25.040 Firmware runs on a specific kind of hardware because it's designed for 00:42:25.040 --> 00:42:26.480 that hardware. 00:42:26.480 --> 00:42:29.200 That's sort of how culture and biology works. 00:42:29.200 --> 00:42:32.880 Biology is the hardware, culture is the firmware. 00:42:32.880 --> 00:42:36.400 Some Some of the higher level aspects of it can sort of 00:42:36.400 --> 00:42:39.840 be transferred, or trivial in some cases, like blue jeans, right? 00:42:39.840 --> 00:42:42.960 Can be transferred from one group to another, and you can get 00:42:42.960 --> 00:42:45.680 that cross pollination as it were. 00:42:45.680 --> 00:42:50.480 But the reality is that the production of the culture could not 00:42:50.480 --> 00:42:52.240 have occurred otherwise. 00:42:52.240 --> 00:42:55.680 The Ugandans would never produce German culture. 00:42:55.680 --> 00:43:00.080 The Germans would never produce Ugandan culture because it is a product 00:43:00.080 --> 00:43:01.680 of race. 00:43:01.680 --> 00:43:07.200 And I think that's basically the outline form of the argument. 00:43:07.200 --> 00:43:10.000 I will probably go into that in greater depth at some point 00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:12.640 in the future I'll make a note for myself. 00:43:12.640 --> 00:43:12.800 But 00:43:14.400 --> 00:43:18.000 I think that's sort of the outline, the skelet the skeletal way 00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:20.640 to look at this. 00:43:20.640 --> 00:43:24.480 So the next question Question Question 00:43:25.520 --> 00:43:32.480 five related to race For the great races of men is one 00:43:32.800 --> 00:43:36.880 over and against the others innately primed to receive the gospel and 00:43:36.880 --> 00:43:38.160 to put on Christ. 00:43:38.160 --> 00:43:42.800 If the flesh profits a man nothing, John six, of course, how 00:43:42.800 --> 00:43:47.200 should the aforementioned race understand the endowed gifts in light of the 00:43:47.200 --> 00:43:49.040 purpose of God? 00:43:49.040 --> 00:43:53.040 And so I will pull up that verse, but first I just 00:43:53.040 --> 00:44:00.240 want to comment that yes, the European race, the white race, is 00:44:00.400 --> 00:44:08.160 essentially primed to receive the gospel more readily, more thoroughly, more completely, 00:44:08.160 --> 00:44:09.840 than anyone else on the planet. 00:44:09.840 --> 00:44:12.240 There are a number of reasons for that. 00:44:12.240 --> 00:44:16.720 Part of it is that our mythology never strayed as far from 00:44:16.720 --> 00:44:19.520 the truth as the mythology of other peoples. 00:44:19.520 --> 00:44:23.520 And so we had a lot of echoes of Christianity in European 00:44:23.520 --> 00:44:26.480 mythology. It's going to vary a bit, of course, between Nordic and 00:44:26.480 --> 00:44:28.800 Germanic, Slavic, Celtic, right? 00:44:28.800 --> 00:44:32.560 These are not exactly identical mythologies. 00:44:32.560 --> 00:44:36.720 But you have echoes of it in these mythologies that make it 00:44:36.720 --> 00:44:42.480 easier to convert European populations to Christianity than say African populations that 00:44:42.480 --> 00:44:44.880 are just outright worshiping demons. 00:44:44.880 --> 00:44:48.640 Because for them you have to say everything you believe is wrong 00:44:48.880 --> 00:44:52.800 and in fact evil, and you have to completely abandon it and 00:44:52.800 --> 00:44:54.800 adopt this totally new system. 00:44:54.800 --> 00:45:00.000 For Europeans, it was a little easier because what's the the sales 00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:01.040 point there, right? 00:45:01.040 --> 00:45:03.280 Some of the things you believe are wrong. 00:45:03.280 --> 00:45:08.480 They've been corrupted over time, but you have these echoes, you have 00:45:08.480 --> 00:45:14.480 these commonalities, you have archetypal and typological relationships here. 00:45:14.480 --> 00:45:17.600 It is an easier transition for Europeans. 00:45:17.600 --> 00:45:20.080 And like I've said before, this is returning to the faith of 00:45:20.080 --> 00:45:20.880 our forefathers. 00:45:21.120 --> 00:45:25.600 It's the same for the Africans, because you could debate when exactly 00:45:25.600 --> 00:45:28.080 they fell off the wagon if it was Ham himself or later 00:45:28.080 --> 00:45:31.600 on. Ham was certainly not a great person, but maybe he had 00:45:31.600 --> 00:45:33.200 faith. Maybe he didn't. 00:45:33.200 --> 00:45:34.000 I don't know how. 00:45:34.000 --> 00:45:35.760 I don't know if he died in penitent or not. 00:45:35.760 --> 00:45:37.440 Scripture doesn't say. 00:45:37.600 --> 00:45:37.920 But 00:45:39.200 --> 00:45:43.440 That was the ancestral faith of everyone, because of course everyone's ancestor 00:45:43.440 --> 00:45:44.560 is Noah. 00:45:44.560 --> 00:45:46.800 He is the father of us all, and of course all the 00:45:46.800 --> 00:45:49.920 way back to Adam whose faith was also Christianity. 00:45:49.920 --> 00:45:54.000 But it was easier for Europeans because we had not strayed as 00:45:54.000 --> 00:45:58.560 far. But I would also like to pull up John six like 00:45:58.560 --> 00:45:59.520 I said, so let me 00:46:00.640 --> 00:46:03.680 pull up Lagos here. 00:46:03.680 --> 00:46:08.320 There's also the fact that while I'm pulling up Logos, just the 00:46:08.960 --> 00:46:12.160 biological reality that some things have have 00:46:13.280 --> 00:46:17.760 requirements. I could even tie this back into the mention of firmware 00:46:17.760 --> 00:46:19.120 versus hardware, right? 00:46:19.120 --> 00:46:22.960 Certain firmware is only going to run at least well, in this 00:46:22.960 --> 00:46:26.160 case maybe software, run well on certain hardware. 00:46:26.160 --> 00:46:26.400 So 00:46:27.920 --> 00:46:31.920 if you have someone who has an IQ of eighty-five, you are 00:46:31.920 --> 00:46:36.160 going to have more trouble explaining a hypothetical to him than to 00:46:36.160 --> 00:46:38.960 someone with an IQ of a hundred and forty five. 00:46:38.960 --> 00:46:41.760 The man with an IQ of hundred and forty five, if you 00:46:41.760 --> 00:46:45.120 explain an hypothetical that has six different layers to it, he's going 00:46:45.120 --> 00:46:47.200 to follow you and have no trouble. 00:46:47.200 --> 00:46:49.840 He may have questions for you, he may want you to prove 00:46:49.840 --> 00:46:50.640 some things. 00:46:50.960 --> 00:46:52.560 But he will follow you. 00:46:52.560 --> 00:46:55.520 The man with an IQ of 85 is going to get lost 00:46:55.520 --> 00:46:58.000 at step two at the absolute best. 00:46:58.000 --> 00:46:59.680 That's just the reality of it. 00:46:59.680 --> 00:47:02.080 So we can't say that 00:47:03.040 --> 00:47:07.200 there is no relevance with regard to the flesh, with regard to 00:47:07.200 --> 00:47:11.360 what we are, when it comes to belief, when it comes to 00:47:11.360 --> 00:47:13.600 the scriptures, right? 00:47:13.600 --> 00:47:17.120 Faith is always a gift, and so that 00:47:18.080 --> 00:47:23.360 in and of itself, at that point, taking nothing else into consideration, 00:47:23.360 --> 00:47:24.960 is just a gift from God. 00:47:24.960 --> 00:47:26.400 God can give that to any man. 00:47:26.400 --> 00:47:28.400 He can give that to a man with an IQ of sixty 00:47:28.400 --> 00:47:29.280 five, he can give it to a 00:47:30.240 --> 00:47:31.680 hundred and sixty five. 00:47:31.680 --> 00:47:33.760 God's not limited in that way. 00:47:33.760 --> 00:47:34.080 But 00:47:34.960 --> 00:47:39.040 the man with an IQ of sixty-five will never be a theologian. 00:47:39.040 --> 00:47:42.080 He is never going to be someone who teaches and defends the 00:47:42.080 --> 00:47:46.720 faith. And so certain races are not going to produce men who 00:47:46.720 --> 00:47:50.640 can defend the faith and keep carrying it forward for their own 00:47:50.640 --> 00:47:53.440 people. There are parts of the world that have an average IQ 00:47:53.440 --> 00:47:54.720 under sixty. 00:47:54.720 --> 00:47:58.560 They will never be able to maintain the Christian faith unless it 00:47:58.560 --> 00:48:02.880 is imposed by another group from outside and maintained by that other 00:48:02.880 --> 00:48:07.520 group. That is a biological reality, and so that is a reality 00:48:07.520 --> 00:48:08.800 of the flesh for those. 00:48:08.800 --> 00:48:09.600 For those groups. 00:48:09.600 --> 00:48:12.000 I think it's sixty three. 00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:15.120 Yes. And so John six sixty three. 00:48:15.120 --> 00:48:18.080 It is the spirit who gives life, the flesh is no help 00:48:18.080 --> 00:48:19.440 at all. 00:48:19.440 --> 00:48:21.440 What is that speaking about? 00:48:21.440 --> 00:48:24.800 This is the same sort of issue that comes up with Galatians, 00:48:24.800 --> 00:48:28.160 right? Everyone always likes to not everyone, in our circles at least 00:48:28.240 --> 00:48:31.040 now, but on the other side, the enemies love to bring up 00:48:31.120 --> 00:48:35.040 there's neither Jew nor Greek, there's neither slave nor free, there's not 00:48:35.040 --> 00:48:36.480 male and female, right? 00:48:36.480 --> 00:48:38.240 It's talking about soteriology. 00:48:38.240 --> 00:48:39.680 The same thing is true here. 00:48:39.680 --> 00:48:41.360 The flesh won't save you. 00:48:41.360 --> 00:48:43.440 No one is ever going to say well no one should ever 00:48:43.440 --> 00:48:45.840 say there are those who do, but they aren't Christian. 00:48:45.840 --> 00:48:48.720 No Christian is ever going to say that you are saved on 00:48:48.720 --> 00:48:50.080 account of your race. 00:48:50.080 --> 00:48:51.760 That's the Jewish position. 00:48:51.760 --> 00:48:54.960 They believe, Oh, I'm a son of Abraham, and so I am 00:48:54.960 --> 00:48:58.720 necessarily saved, because I am a descendant of Abraham, to which God 00:48:58.720 --> 00:49:01.280 says I can make sons from these stones if I were so 00:49:01.280 --> 00:49:02.800 inclined, right? 00:49:03.600 --> 00:49:06.160 You are not saved by your blood. 00:49:06.160 --> 00:49:11.280 Does that mean it has no effect, no interface with your faith? 00:49:11.280 --> 00:49:12.480 Of course not. 00:49:12.480 --> 00:49:15.840 Because Because you are the one who is given the faith. 00:49:15.840 --> 00:49:19.200 God didn't give the faith to a stone or an o an 00:49:19.200 --> 00:49:21.280 automaton or something like that, right? 00:49:21.280 --> 00:49:25.840 God gave the faith to a living flesh and blood human being. 00:49:25.840 --> 00:49:27.040 And so necessarily 00:49:28.240 --> 00:49:32.640 who and what you are and your capacity, your abilities, your attributes 00:49:33.040 --> 00:49:38.800 do have an interfaith, an interaction with your faith, with the Christian 00:49:38.800 --> 00:49:43.600 faith. But ultimately, you're not saved by your flesh. 00:49:43.600 --> 00:49:45.600 You're not saved by your blood. 00:49:45.600 --> 00:49:46.880 You are saved by your faith. 00:49:46.880 --> 00:49:49.200 That's what it means here when it says it is the Spirit 00:49:49.200 --> 00:49:50.080 who gives life. 00:49:50.080 --> 00:49:52.240 The flesh is no help at all. 00:49:52.240 --> 00:49:56.160 And so the baseline is that no, you're not saved because you're 00:49:56.160 --> 00:49:57.360 German or you're American. 00:49:57.360 --> 00:50:00.160 You're not saved because you're a son of Japheth. 00:50:00.160 --> 00:50:04.080 You're saved because you are given the free gift of faith by 00:50:04.080 --> 00:50:07.840 the Spirit, by the means God has instituted to give you that 00:50:07.840 --> 00:50:11.440 faith, the word and the sacraments. 00:50:11.440 --> 00:50:15.200 But, with regard to preserving the faith, with regard to relaying the 00:50:15.200 --> 00:50:18.560 faith to others, which with regard to defending the faith against the 00:50:18.560 --> 00:50:22.640 world and the devil, absolutely yes, the flesh matters. 00:50:22.640 --> 00:50:30.880 And that verse says nothing to the contrary. 00:50:31.680 --> 00:50:35.200 And I think I'll pull up one more verse actually while we're 00:50:35.200 --> 00:50:36.720 on this subject. 00:50:36.720 --> 00:50:41.520 Incidentally from Galatians. 00:50:41.520 --> 00:50:42.400 So Oh 00:50:44.480 --> 00:50:50.720 Galatians 17, I typed it right. 00:50:50.720 --> 00:50:53.280 For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the 00:50:53.280 --> 00:50:56.400 desires of the spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed 00:50:56.400 --> 00:50:59.040 to each other to keep you from doing the things you want 00:50:59.040 --> 00:51:00.320 to do. 00:51:00.800 --> 00:51:04.720 This starts to raise the question of what is original sin, what 00:51:04.720 --> 00:51:06.000 is the nature of original sin? 00:51:06.000 --> 00:51:10.480 Incidentally, it's the part of the book of Concord that I've been 00:51:10.480 --> 00:51:13.040 reading for the daily devotions, I also have it on my mind, 00:51:13.040 --> 00:51:20.080 but this is not saying that the flesh, period, is operating 00:51:20.080 --> 00:51:24.240 against God, because that would be Gnosticism and we're not Gnostics, right? 00:51:24.240 --> 00:51:27.760 And then of course, it wouldn't make any sense with regard to 00:51:27.760 --> 00:51:31.360 the resurrection because we believe in the resurrection of the body, or 00:51:31.360 --> 00:51:35.280 as it says, the flesh, in many of the translations, including in 00:51:35.280 --> 00:51:36.560 the Greek. 00:51:36.560 --> 00:51:37.040 And And 00:51:38.160 --> 00:51:38.480 so 00:51:39.760 --> 00:51:43.440 if you were saying that the flesh is wicked and then God 00:51:43.440 --> 00:51:46.560 raises the flesh on the last day, you would be saying that 00:51:46.560 --> 00:51:47.920 God raises sin. 00:51:47.920 --> 00:51:49.120 Well, that can't exist. 00:51:49.120 --> 00:51:50.240 That can't be a thing. 00:51:50.240 --> 00:51:51.360 That would be heresy. 00:51:51.360 --> 00:51:52.720 That'd be blasphemy. 00:51:52.720 --> 00:51:55.040 And so the flesh is not innately wicked. 00:51:55.040 --> 00:51:56.240 That's not what's being said here. 00:51:56.240 --> 00:52:00.160 It's saying the fallen flesh is wicked. 00:52:00.160 --> 00:52:01.200 Because of course it is. 00:52:01.200 --> 00:52:04.000 The fallen flesh has original sin. 00:52:04.000 --> 00:52:06.240 The fallen flesh is tainted. 00:52:06.240 --> 00:52:09.760 It is not that original sin is our essence, but it is 00:52:09.760 --> 00:52:13.760 a corruption of our essence, a corruption of the flesh. 00:52:13.760 --> 00:52:17.520 And so the same thing is true in the previous passage we 00:52:17.520 --> 00:52:19.680 read as what is being said here. 00:52:19.680 --> 00:52:23.120 The fallen flesh is against the spirit, and the spirit is against 00:52:23.120 --> 00:52:23.920 the fallen flesh. 00:52:23.920 --> 00:52:30.320 God will eventually restore us to unfallen, uncorrupt flesh, in which case 00:52:30.400 --> 00:52:33.280 it will no longer be contrary to the spirit, because it will 00:52:33.280 --> 00:52:36.240 obey us and do the things that we want it to do, 00:52:36.240 --> 00:52:39.680 right? That's what's part of being what uh part of what is 00:52:39.680 --> 00:52:42.880 being said here and said in other places as well. 00:52:42.880 --> 00:52:48.320 The fallen flesh wars against the things that you know in your 00:52:48.320 --> 00:52:51.360 mind and your spirit that you want to do, that you desire 00:52:51.360 --> 00:52:51.760 to do. 00:52:51.760 --> 00:52:55.200 There are desires of the flesh that are contrary to what you, 00:52:55.200 --> 00:52:58.320 speaking in terms of your mind and your spirit, would prefer to 00:52:58.320 --> 00:53:01.520 do. Because the fallen flesh has various desires that are going to 00:53:01.520 --> 00:53:03.200 pull you away from God. 00:53:03.360 --> 00:53:06.240 And part of keeping the flesh under control is not giving in 00:53:06.240 --> 00:53:10.000 to those things. 00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:12.160 I do see there are questions in the chat. 00:53:12.160 --> 00:53:13.440 I will at least write those down. 00:53:13.440 --> 00:53:15.840 I don't know that I'll get to them because again I have 00:53:16.000 --> 00:53:19.680 thirteen questions and I am not sure that I'm going to. 00:53:19.680 --> 00:53:22.240 In fact, I'm pretty certain I will not get through all of 00:53:22.240 --> 00:53:23.840 them tonight. 00:53:24.240 --> 00:53:26.240 The sixth question here 00:53:27.280 --> 00:53:32.480 How can something spiritual like millennia of pagan idolatry manifest in physical 00:53:32.480 --> 00:53:36.080 genetics over time, are the two simply inseparable as we are not 00:53:36.080 --> 00:53:38.320 Gnostics? Obviously. 00:53:38.400 --> 00:53:41.040 That's very much tied into the previous question. 00:53:41.120 --> 00:53:43.760 Yes, of course we are not Gnostics. 00:53:43.760 --> 00:53:44.080 And 00:53:45.120 --> 00:53:48.480 let me look at my notes here to make sure I'm not 00:53:48.480 --> 00:53:50.800 going to want to pull up any scripture before I switch back 00:53:50.800 --> 00:53:52.800 to not having it on the screen here. 00:53:52.800 --> 00:53:53.120 But 00:53:54.560 --> 00:53:59.040 this is one of those where it's actually sort of dull or 00:53:59.040 --> 00:54:04.880 mundane ultimately, because when you start talking about things like how Demon 00:54:04.880 --> 00:54:11.280 worship is going to cause these longitudinal problems for a race, for 00:54:11.280 --> 00:54:12.160 a population 00:54:13.360 --> 00:54:15.200 People start thinking of 00:54:16.080 --> 00:54:20.640 like Satan directly involving himself and doing something to these people, and 00:54:21.040 --> 00:54:24.080 you start thinking of things that are basically almost magic. 00:54:24.080 --> 00:54:25.200 That's not how it works. 00:54:25.200 --> 00:54:26.560 It's very mundane. 00:54:26.560 --> 00:54:31.440 It's like I said, practically it's disgusting, but it's practically boring. 00:54:31.440 --> 00:54:35.680 Look at the list of sins in the Old Testament in which 00:54:35.680 --> 00:54:37.680 the Canaanites engaged. 00:54:37.680 --> 00:54:42.080 Look at the sins that God said these are the reasons they 00:54:42.080 --> 00:54:44.720 are being vomited out of the land to use the language of 00:54:44.720 --> 00:54:49.520 scripture. These are the reasons they are being dispossessed. 00:54:49.520 --> 00:54:51.840 Many of them are sexual sins. 00:54:51.840 --> 00:54:56.160 And so, for instance, a lot of them were incest. 00:54:56.160 --> 00:54:58.880 That was part of how they worshiped their gods, it was part 00:54:58.880 --> 00:55:01.280 of just their cultural practices. 00:55:01.280 --> 00:55:05.600 And so well, what's the consequence of that over a course of 00:55:05.600 --> 00:55:08.640 not actually that long, even just a course of a handful of 00:55:08.640 --> 00:55:11.680 generations, certainly over the course of a handful of centuries, you know, 00:55:11.680 --> 00:55:14.560 the wickedness of the Amorites is not complete, give them four hundred 00:55:14.560 --> 00:55:16.720 years, sort of thing. 00:55:16.720 --> 00:55:20.640 If you do that for a period of centuries, you are going 00:55:20.640 --> 00:55:24.800 to have a very degenerate, in the biological sense, population. 00:55:24.800 --> 00:55:27.680 You are going to have severe genetic problems. 00:55:27.680 --> 00:55:31.280 One of those is going to be lowered intelligence. 00:55:31.280 --> 00:55:35.280 One of those is going to be lower self control, lower inhibition. 00:55:35.440 --> 00:55:40.720 Going to close my window because my dog is barking. 00:55:40.720 --> 00:55:45.360 Apparently Gizmo has something to say about something in the backyard. 00:55:45.360 --> 00:55:45.680 But 00:55:46.640 --> 00:55:52.160 these various degenerations that happen over time are going to lead to 00:55:52.160 --> 00:55:55.200 the problems I just discussed with regard to the Christian faith and 00:55:55.200 --> 00:55:58.800 how it can be propagated in a population and defended. 00:55:58.800 --> 00:56:05.520 So it's not necessarily the case that the demon worship itself causes 00:56:05.520 --> 00:56:11.680 this biological corruption and degeneration Rather, it is the types of worship 00:56:11.840 --> 00:56:15.360 that the demons command that necessarily causes. 00:56:15.360 --> 00:56:16.960 The demons know what's going to happen. 00:56:16.960 --> 00:56:18.720 They're doing it intentionally. 00:56:18.720 --> 00:56:20.720 And so that's why you have these things. 00:56:20.720 --> 00:56:22.000 And what else do you have? 00:56:22.240 --> 00:56:22.880 You have 00:56:24.080 --> 00:56:26.720 the sacrifice of the firstborn. 00:56:26.720 --> 00:56:29.360 Statistically, the firstborn is the most intelligent. 00:56:29.360 --> 00:56:31.920 Well, what's going to happen if you keep killing your most intelligent 00:56:31.920 --> 00:56:36.160 children generation after generation after generation? 00:56:36.160 --> 00:56:38.880 Doesn't take a genius to figure that one out, right? 00:56:38.880 --> 00:56:42.480 If you shave off an IQ point every generation, not going to 00:56:42.480 --> 00:56:45.600 take very long before you can no longer count to ten. 00:56:45.600 --> 00:56:45.920 So 00:56:46.960 --> 00:56:48.720 that's all it is. 00:56:48.720 --> 00:56:50.320 It is very mundane. 00:56:50.320 --> 00:56:54.960 It's just the consequences of biology and demons pushing a people to 00:56:54.960 --> 00:56:58.400 do things that are going to harm that biology over a course 00:56:58.400 --> 00:56:59.760 of generations. 00:56:59.760 --> 00:57:05.520 So no sort of grand Satan involving himself and using magic to 00:57:05.520 --> 00:57:06.240 corrupt people. 00:57:06.240 --> 00:57:12.720 It's just the harsh reality of biology. 00:57:12.720 --> 00:57:18.880 The seventh question, getting back into some scripture verses here. 00:57:18.880 --> 00:57:23.040 On the matter of God's omniscience and omnipresence, what is a good 00:57:23.040 --> 00:57:26.240 way to rectify that with the verses that at times in scripture 00:57:26.240 --> 00:57:27.200 indicate he is in a specific 00:57:28.160 --> 00:57:32.960 place, the temple, for example, or is petitioned and seems to change 00:57:32.960 --> 00:57:36.480 his mind or seem surprised. 00:57:36.480 --> 00:57:39.200 I'll go ahead and read the full question before getting to the 00:57:39.200 --> 00:57:44.080 specifics. Some examples of what I am wondering about Genesis eleven five, 00:57:44.080 --> 00:57:50.240 Genesis eighteen twenty through twenty-one, Exodus thirty-two, nine through fourteen, Mark thirteen, 00:57:50.320 --> 00:57:51.200 thirty two. 00:57:51.200 --> 00:57:54.960 This seems to indicate distinct knowledge between the members of the Trinity, 00:57:54.960 --> 00:57:58.800 but omniscience is I think generally considered to be an attribute of 00:57:58.800 --> 00:57:59.120 God 00:58:00.320 --> 00:58:03.120 on the whole. 00:58:03.120 --> 00:58:06.400 So I will put I will pull up those verses. 00:58:06.400 --> 00:58:10.720 Let me get logos here. 00:58:10.720 --> 00:58:13.120 Use the floating window again. 00:58:14.960 --> 00:58:21.280 So part of the answer is that scripture often speaks in ways 00:58:21.280 --> 00:58:23.920 that are comprehensible to human beings. 00:58:23.920 --> 00:58:26.720 Scripture has to do this, and in fact, all human beings have 00:58:26.720 --> 00:58:27.280 to do this. 00:58:27.280 --> 00:58:31.680 There are things that cannot be expressed in sort of an ultimate 00:58:31.680 --> 00:58:35.680 sense because they are beyond the understanding of men. 00:58:35.680 --> 00:58:39.360 You can think, of course, Romans six, I am speaking in human 00:58:39.360 --> 00:58:42.320 terms because of your natural limitations. 00:58:42.320 --> 00:58:46.400 Scripture does this in a number of places, and so when God 00:58:46.640 --> 00:58:52.400 is spoken of as seemingly changing his mind, he's not changing his 00:58:52.400 --> 00:58:56.800 mind. He is doing what he was always going to do, but 00:58:56.800 --> 00:59:01.200 God But God is able to take all things into account in 00:59:01.200 --> 00:59:02.800 eternity past, right? 00:59:02.800 --> 00:59:05.600 Because time is not linear for God. 00:59:05.600 --> 00:59:10.000 God is not greeting every new second as a new thing. 00:59:10.000 --> 00:59:14.320 Everything has happened, everything is done from the perspective of God. 00:59:14.320 --> 00:59:16.720 Because time does not bind God. 00:59:16.720 --> 00:59:18.240 God is not bound in time. 00:59:18.240 --> 00:59:20.800 He created time. 00:59:20.800 --> 00:59:26.560 This is related to I don't personally object to say prayers for 00:59:26.560 --> 00:59:30.480 at least the recently deceased, because there are those who are going 00:59:30.480 --> 00:59:33.280 to say, well, they died and then the judgment and it's over, 00:59:33.280 --> 00:59:37.360 and so you can't God's not bound by time. 00:59:37.360 --> 00:59:41.120 Does it matter if my grandfather died three days ago and I 00:59:41.120 --> 00:59:43.680 pray for him now versus if I prayed for him three days 00:59:43.680 --> 00:59:46.000 before he died? 00:59:46.000 --> 00:59:49.920 Maybe, because I think God probably does want you praying for these 00:59:49.920 --> 00:59:54.320 people before they die, but is there anything saying God can't take 00:59:54.320 --> 00:59:56.880 your prayer into account after the fact? 00:59:56.880 --> 00:59:58.640 From our perspective after the fact. 00:59:58.640 --> 01:00:00.080 It's not from his perspective. 01:00:00.080 --> 01:00:01.520 I don't think there is. 01:00:01.520 --> 01:00:03.040 Don't pray to the dead. 01:00:03.040 --> 01:00:06.160 I obviously object to that as a Lutheran, perhaps I'll get into 01:00:06.160 --> 01:00:08.000 that if I get to the question I have in the future 01:00:08.000 --> 01:00:10.960 here, but you can certainly pray for them. 01:00:10.960 --> 01:00:12.560 I don't think that's a problem. 01:00:12.560 --> 01:00:15.680 Don't go praying for, you know, all of your ancestors back through 01:00:15.680 --> 01:00:16.960 time and become obsessed with it. 01:00:16.960 --> 01:00:21.120 That's going to have other problems attendant to it, not the specific 01:00:21.120 --> 01:00:24.000 theological issue, but that becomes obsessive. 01:00:24.000 --> 01:00:29.600 To get to the specific verses here, though, pull up Genesis what 01:00:29.600 --> 01:00:30.000 is it? 01:00:30.000 --> 01:00:36.080 Genesis eleven five first. 01:00:36.080 --> 01:00:39.360 Actually I should pull that up in the Septuagint instead of in 01:00:39.360 --> 01:00:41.760 the ESV. 01:00:42.240 --> 01:00:44.800 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower 01:00:44.880 --> 01:00:48.320 which the sons of men had built. 01:00:48.320 --> 01:00:50.960 This is one that I've I know I've said it before, but 01:00:50.960 --> 01:00:52.640 I taught a class on Genesis. 01:00:52.640 --> 01:00:53.920 I have this in my Genesis notes. 01:00:53.920 --> 01:00:58.560 I like this one for a specific reason It's irony. 01:00:58.560 --> 01:01:02.800 This is God employing both irony and mockery. 01:01:02.800 --> 01:01:07.440 And so you call it perhaps mocking irony or ironic mockery, but 01:01:07.440 --> 01:01:09.200 what are they doing here? 01:01:09.200 --> 01:01:10.720 This is the Tower of Babel. 01:01:10.720 --> 01:01:14.240 Let us build a tower that will reach to the heavens. 01:01:14.240 --> 01:01:16.160 What does God say to them? 01:01:16.160 --> 01:01:20.080 Well, to see your little tower, I have to come down there. 01:01:20.080 --> 01:01:22.960 They're building up to God and God saying I have to come 01:01:22.960 --> 01:01:25.200 down to look at you He's just mocking them. 01:01:25.200 --> 01:01:26.640 It's irony. 01:01:26.640 --> 01:01:29.280 God doesn't actually have to go down and look at the tower. 01:01:29.280 --> 01:01:31.360 God knows exactly what the tower looks like. 01:01:31.360 --> 01:01:33.760 God knows how tall the tower is. 01:01:33.760 --> 01:01:36.080 He knows the tower is never going to get out of the 01:01:36.080 --> 01:01:40.560 atmosphere, let alone reach heaven, which is not just up high in 01:01:40.560 --> 01:01:41.600 the sky. 01:01:41.600 --> 01:01:43.360 He's mocking them. 01:01:43.440 --> 01:01:43.760 And 01:01:44.640 --> 01:01:48.160 this is similar to not in the sense of the mockery, but 01:01:48.160 --> 01:01:51.600 in the sense of God already knowing the answer to the question 01:01:51.600 --> 01:01:52.720 before he asked the question. 01:01:52.800 --> 01:01:55.520 This links into Sodom and Gomorrah as well. 01:01:55.520 --> 01:02:00.480 But you have in the narrative of the fall, right, God says, 01:02:00.480 --> 01:02:02.080 Adam, where are you? 01:02:02.080 --> 01:02:05.120 And then he asks Adam, Did you eat from the tree? 01:02:05.120 --> 01:02:07.360 Well God knows he ate from the tree. 01:02:07.360 --> 01:02:09.920 God's not asking him to get the answer. 01:02:09.920 --> 01:02:13.120 And an analogy that is often used here, and I think it's 01:02:13.040 --> 01:02:16.400 a very good one, certainly for any parents, when you ask your 01:02:16.400 --> 01:02:20.720 toddler who ate the chocolate, and the chocolate is smeared all over 01:02:20.720 --> 01:02:24.160 his face, are you actually asking the question? 01:02:24.800 --> 01:02:27.680 You're giving him a chance to admit to it. 01:02:27.680 --> 01:02:30.080 You're not asking because you don't know. 01:02:30.080 --> 01:02:32.720 God knew that Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit. 01:02:32.720 --> 01:02:34.880 And he knew it just as well as you know as a 01:02:34.880 --> 01:02:37.600 parent when the toddler has the chocolate smeared up one side of 01:02:37.600 --> 01:02:40.080 his face and down the other. 01:02:40.080 --> 01:02:43.120 That happens in a number of places in scripture. 01:02:43.120 --> 01:02:47.600 And go to the next one, Genesis 18, verse 20 01:02:51.360 --> 01:02:54.320 This is of course Sodom and Gomorrah, like I mentioned. 01:02:54.320 --> 01:02:58.480 And so in this narrative, then the Lord said the outcry concerning 01:02:58.480 --> 01:03:02.160 Sodom and Gomorrah has been increased, and their sins are very great. 01:03:02.160 --> 01:03:04.880 So when I go down I shall see whether they are perpetrating 01:03:04.880 --> 01:03:08.560 according to the outcry concerning them that is coming to me, but 01:03:08.560 --> 01:03:10.480 if not that I may know. 01:03:10.480 --> 01:03:12.000 God already knows. 01:03:12.000 --> 01:03:15.840 He's not going down there to see what they're doing, he knows 01:03:15.840 --> 01:03:17.040 what they're doing. 01:03:17.040 --> 01:03:19.680 Maybe they had a chance to repent here. 01:03:19.680 --> 01:03:24.880 The narrative does not really necessarily say one way or the other, 01:03:24.880 --> 01:03:30.000 but it is virtually always the case in Scripture, when God does 01:03:30.000 --> 01:03:32.400 something like this, or he sends a prophet, or whatever happens to 01:03:32.400 --> 01:03:35.360 be, the people have an opportunity to repent. 01:03:35.360 --> 01:03:38.240 The people of Sodom and Gomorrah chose to double down on their 01:03:38.240 --> 01:03:41.040 sins and do the most wicked thing they could think of doing. 01:03:41.840 --> 01:03:44.160 But they could have repented. 01:03:44.160 --> 01:03:45.600 They did not repent. 01:03:45.600 --> 01:03:46.960 That's what God's doing here. 01:03:46.960 --> 01:03:49.280 He's not going down to find out what they're doing. 01:03:49.280 --> 01:03:51.200 He knows what they're doing. 01:03:51.200 --> 01:03:54.880 There are times where God chooses to interact with his creation in 01:03:54.880 --> 01:03:55.360 a certain way. 01:03:55.680 --> 01:04:00.960 Sometimes you have a theophany, sometimes a Christophany, sometimes you know the 01:04:00.960 --> 01:04:04.960 angels show up, sometimes you have a prophet sent, sometimes it's a 01:04:04.960 --> 01:04:10.160 voice. God interacts with creation in different ways at different times. 01:04:10.160 --> 01:04:12.720 He knows the answer before he goes. 01:04:12.720 --> 01:04:15.520 He's not going to be surprised by what he finds. 01:04:15.520 --> 01:04:19.520 It is speaking in a human way, and in some cases, like 01:04:19.520 --> 01:04:23.040 the previous one, of course, it's mockery as well. 01:04:23.040 --> 01:04:33.520 Next one is Exodus thirty two nine. 01:04:37.120 --> 01:04:39.760 These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up from the land 01:04:39.760 --> 01:04:43.280 of Egypt, and now allow me, and enraged with anger against them, 01:04:43.280 --> 01:04:46.400 I will destroy them and make you into a great nation. 01:04:46.400 --> 01:04:48.400 This is the golden calf, of course. 01:04:48.400 --> 01:04:51.840 And Moses prayed before the Lord his God and said, Why, Lord, 01:04:51.840 --> 01:04:54.960 are you enraged with anger against your people whom you brought out 01:04:54.960 --> 01:04:58.480 of the land of Egypt, with great power and an uplifted arm? 01:04:58.480 --> 01:05:02.720 Lest the Egyptian should speak saying, with evil intent he led them 01:05:02.720 --> 01:05:06.000 out to kill them in the mountains, and to destroy them utterly 01:05:06.000 --> 01:05:07.040 from the earth. 01:05:07.040 --> 01:05:10.640 Stop the anger of your rage, and be propitious at the wickedness 01:05:10.640 --> 01:05:11.680 of your people. 01:05:11.680 --> 01:05:16.640 Remembering Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, your domestics, to whom you swore 01:05:16.640 --> 01:05:20.480 by yourself and spoke to them, saying, I will greatly multiply your 01:05:20.480 --> 01:05:23.760 seed as the stars of the sky in number, and all this 01:05:23.760 --> 01:05:26.800 land that you said you would give to their seed, and they 01:05:26.800 --> 01:05:28.560 will possess it forever. 01:05:28.560 --> 01:05:32.160 And the Lord was propitiated concerning the harm that he said he 01:05:32.160 --> 01:05:34.080 would do to his people. 01:05:34.560 --> 01:05:37.200 Now of course I could just appeal to the Septuagint here and 01:05:37.200 --> 01:05:41.120 write say that Moses' prayer was sufficient. 01:05:41.120 --> 01:05:44.800 And so the question though is did God change his mind? 01:05:44.800 --> 01:05:46.880 And the answer again is no. 01:05:46.880 --> 01:05:50.000 God knew what the people would do before they did it. 01:05:50.000 --> 01:05:52.640 God knew what he was going to say before he said it 01:05:52.640 --> 01:05:53.520 to Moses. 01:05:53.520 --> 01:05:56.880 God knew what Moses was going to do before he did it. 01:05:56.880 --> 01:06:00.240 God is doing what he was going to do all along, but 01:06:00.240 --> 01:06:03.120 God knew all of the things that were going to lead up 01:06:03.120 --> 01:06:04.480 to it. 01:06:04.480 --> 01:06:08.960 No give a trivial example, a lot of times interacting on social 01:06:08.960 --> 01:06:12.800 media, interacting particularly on ex usually these days, there are times where 01:06:12.800 --> 01:06:17.120 I will tell someone, at the beginning of a discussion, we are 01:06:17.120 --> 01:06:21.600 going to get To a point where I am going to say 01:06:21.600 --> 01:06:24.400 this and you are going to reply with this. 01:06:24.400 --> 01:06:26.080 And then it happens. 01:06:26.080 --> 01:06:31.600 That doesn't mean that I changed my mind, if it is something 01:06:31.600 --> 01:06:35.120 where the person had a chance to change and didn't, right? 01:06:35.120 --> 01:06:38.160 It doesn't mean that I caused it to happen, as some will 01:06:38.160 --> 01:06:41.120 try to argue because God's foreknowledge caused it to happen, right? 01:06:41.120 --> 01:06:42.720 They try to say that. 01:06:42.960 --> 01:06:46.560 It just means that I saw what was going to happen in 01:06:46.560 --> 01:06:48.480 the future before it happened. 01:06:48.480 --> 01:06:50.880 In my case, it's because I'm predicting it. 01:06:50.880 --> 01:06:54.080 In God's case, it's because he knows, right? 01:06:54.400 --> 01:06:59.280 So God didn't change his mind, it's speaking in a human way, 01:06:59.280 --> 01:07:01.840 and it's relaying a lesson. 01:07:01.840 --> 01:07:04.320 Prayer matters. 01:07:04.320 --> 01:07:09.280 Asking God for deliverance matters because God listens to our prayers. 01:07:09.280 --> 01:07:12.240 He listens to our prayers in the sense of he knows every 01:07:12.240 --> 01:07:16.960 prayer you're ever going to pray before you pray it, but you 01:07:16.960 --> 01:07:18.400 still have to pray it. 01:07:18.400 --> 01:07:22.240 God isn't bound in time, but you are, and so you respond 01:07:22.240 --> 01:07:27.920 to things as they happen, cause and effect are binding on you. 01:07:27.920 --> 01:07:32.560 And so you still ask for forgiveness when you sin. 01:07:32.560 --> 01:07:35.120 God's already forgiven you because he knows all of the things that 01:07:35.120 --> 01:07:39.040 have happened and ever will happen, but you being bound in time 01:07:39.200 --> 01:07:43.760 still do things in a sequence in time cause and effect. 01:07:43.760 --> 01:07:46.320 And that's exactly what's happening here. 01:07:46.320 --> 01:07:51.200 Moses is the one interceding for his people, of course. 01:07:51.200 --> 01:07:53.680 And then Mark thirteen thirty two. 01:07:53.680 --> 01:07:56.240 I could just say it because I know which one it is, 01:07:56.240 --> 01:08:00.160 but I'll pull it up so I get the exact wording. 01:08:00.160 --> 01:08:03.360 But concerning that day or that hour no one knows, not even 01:08:03.360 --> 01:08:06.560 the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 01:08:06.560 --> 01:08:10.880 This is of course speaking of the second coming. 01:08:10.880 --> 01:08:15.440 This gets into a relatively complicated area of theology, but 01:08:16.800 --> 01:08:23.200 I will give the overview of it. 01:08:23.200 --> 01:08:29.200 With regard to the humanity and divinity of Christ, because of course 01:08:29.280 --> 01:08:34.400 God is Christ is fully man and fully God. 01:08:34.400 --> 01:08:39.600 You have what is called the technical term in theology is communicatio 01:08:39.600 --> 01:08:44.320 idiomatum, which just means that means the communication of attributes. 01:08:44.320 --> 01:08:51.440 And so you have attributes that are properly pertaining to the divinity 01:08:51.680 --> 01:08:54.880 or properly pertaining to the humanity. 01:08:54.880 --> 01:09:00.880 And And Christ, the person of Christ, being fully God and fully 01:09:00.880 --> 01:09:03.920 man, has the properties of both. 01:09:03.920 --> 01:09:07.680 And so when we speak of Christ, we are typically speaking of 01:09:07.680 --> 01:09:12.880 the person, but there are instances in scripture where it speaks of 01:09:12.880 --> 01:09:17.920 the divinity or the humanity, not of the person, which is to 01:09:17.920 --> 01:09:21.600 say Christ who has the attributes of both. 01:09:21.600 --> 01:09:25.360 And so to make this a little more concrete, you have times 01:09:25.360 --> 01:09:28.320 in Scripture where it says that Jesus was tired, right? 01:09:28.320 --> 01:09:31.520 The woman at the well would be a good example, or the 01:09:31.520 --> 01:09:33.520 ship in the storm. 01:09:33.840 --> 01:09:39.200 God doesn't get tired, but the person of Christ, having the attributes 01:09:39.200 --> 01:09:43.040 of the humanity, can indeed get tired, and does indeed get tired 01:09:43.040 --> 01:09:44.560 in Scripture. 01:09:44.560 --> 01:09:48.480 Christ had to learn to speak Greek. 01:09:48.480 --> 01:09:53.120 God according to his humanity knew Greek. 01:09:53.120 --> 01:09:57.120 In his state of humiliation, which is to say during his earthly 01:09:57.120 --> 01:10:03.120 ministry until his resurrection and then his state of exaltation. 01:10:03.120 --> 01:10:06.480 Christ does not employ the full powers of divinity. 01:10:06.480 --> 01:10:09.520 It's not that he doesn't have them, because he does employ them 01:10:09.520 --> 01:10:12.080 every so often, when he slips through the crowd instead of letting 01:10:12.080 --> 01:10:15.920 the Jews stone him to death, various other times, when he calms 01:10:15.920 --> 01:10:18.640 the storm, for instance, the miracles. 01:10:18.640 --> 01:10:21.840 He does not employ the full power of the divinity. 01:10:21.840 --> 01:10:26.960 And so this verse is speaking of Christ according to his humanity. 01:10:27.280 --> 01:10:31.600 Christ, according to his humanity, does not know everything. 01:10:31.600 --> 01:10:34.720 He does not know the hour of the second coming. 01:10:34.720 --> 01:10:37.440 Again he did not know Greek when he was one. 01:10:37.440 --> 01:10:38.880 He didn't know Aramaic yet. 01:10:38.880 --> 01:10:41.600 He had to learn those languages. 01:10:41.920 --> 01:10:47.120 But according to his divinity, which he did not exercise fully during 01:10:47.120 --> 01:10:51.520 his state of humiliation, he did in fact already know these things. 01:10:51.520 --> 01:10:55.280 That is what is going on in this verse and other similar 01:10:55.280 --> 01:10:56.320 ones to it. 01:10:56.320 --> 01:10:57.600 And it is also 01:10:58.480 --> 01:11:03.200 the general theological point of how you have the attributes of divinity 01:11:03.200 --> 01:11:07.840 and humanity that are together in Christ, not fused in the sense 01:11:07.840 --> 01:11:12.640 of intermingled, but together in the person of Christ. 01:11:12.640 --> 01:11:15.120 And this is of course just exactly what we confess in the 01:11:15.120 --> 01:11:16.960 Athanasian Creed. 01:11:16.960 --> 01:11:19.680 In the older language of the English, I don't remember off the 01:11:19.680 --> 01:11:22.720 top of my head the modern English, equal to the father as 01:11:22.720 --> 01:11:26.880 touching his godhead and inferior to the father as touching his manhood. 01:11:26.880 --> 01:11:30.000 This is what the church has always confessed. 01:11:30.000 --> 01:11:34.240 With regard to his humanity, Christ is lower than the Father. 01:11:34.240 --> 01:11:37.600 With regard to his divinity, he is equal to the Father because 01:11:37.600 --> 01:11:40.320 the persons of the Trinity are equal. 01:11:40.320 --> 01:11:45.280 So I guess for a fuller explanation of exactly what Christians believe, 01:11:45.280 --> 01:11:47.200 just confess the Athanasian Creed. 01:11:47.200 --> 01:11:48.560 You can go ahead and read that. 01:11:48.560 --> 01:11:52.320 If you go to thebook of Concord dot org slash C three, 01:11:52.320 --> 01:11:54.480 it pulls up that one. 01:11:54.480 --> 01:11:57.280 Because Because of course there are three creeds and C one, two, 01:11:57.280 --> 01:11:58.480 and three will pull up the creeds. 01:11:58.480 --> 01:12:04.880 I just added that shortcut because it makes it easy for people. 01:12:05.040 --> 01:12:13.120 The next question is in a somewhat similar vein. 01:12:13.120 --> 01:12:16.000 Two questions really related to each other here. 01:12:16.000 --> 01:12:17.760 Question eight. 01:12:17.760 --> 01:12:21.760 You said in election in View of Headship, the Stone Choir episode, 01:12:21.760 --> 01:12:25.040 that God does not make anyone to damn them. 01:12:25.040 --> 01:12:30.640 Correct. How does that not contradict Romans nine twenty-two? 01:12:30.880 --> 01:12:34.320 Okay, we will pull up Romans nine twenty two because of course 01:12:34.320 --> 01:12:37.200 any time we deal with the scripture we should actually pull it 01:12:37.200 --> 01:12:41.040 up and look at what it says. 01:12:41.040 --> 01:12:43.600 And yes, I have no problem using the ESV for the New 01:12:43.680 --> 01:12:45.040 Testament as I pointed out before. 01:12:45.040 --> 01:12:47.120 There are some quirks here and there, but I'm aware of them, 01:12:47.120 --> 01:12:49.040 and I'll fix them when I read them. 01:12:49.040 --> 01:12:50.480 There aren't any here. 01:12:50.480 --> 01:12:52.080 I don't believe. 01:12:52.080 --> 01:12:55.200 What if God desiring to show his wrath and to make known 01:12:55.200 --> 01:12:59.360 his power has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for 01:12:59.360 --> 01:13:02.560 destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for 01:13:02.560 --> 01:13:06.960 vessels of mercy, which he is prepared beforehand for glory. 01:13:06.960 --> 01:13:09.840 I think that's sufficient the rest of the verse just sort of 01:13:09.840 --> 01:13:12.880 doubles down on what's said there, the rest of the passage rather. 01:13:13.200 --> 01:13:18.240 And so for this one, there are a number of points, most 01:13:18.320 --> 01:13:21.840 of them actually just grammar. 01:13:21.840 --> 01:13:23.840 First off, what is this? 01:13:23.840 --> 01:13:28.480 What grammatical construction do we have here in Romans 9? 01:13:28.480 --> 01:13:30.400 Well, it's a conditional. 01:13:30.400 --> 01:13:32.560 And we see that two different ways. 01:13:32.560 --> 01:13:35.920 It is a subjunctive, which is just a statement counter to fact, 01:13:35.920 --> 01:13:41.840 basically. Subjunctive has unfortunately fallen out of use in English, which is 01:13:41.840 --> 01:13:44.640 a very bad thing for a number of reasons. 01:13:44.640 --> 01:13:48.480 The most common subjunctive in English and the one that is still 01:13:48.480 --> 01:13:50.640 occasionally used correctly. 01:13:50.640 --> 01:13:55.440 If I were to do X, then Y. 01:13:55.440 --> 01:14:00.880 That is a statement of a hypothetical future, or it could be, 01:14:00.880 --> 01:14:04.400 if you phrased it in the past, a statement a counterfactual. 01:14:04.400 --> 01:14:09.920 So if I had done X, then Y, right? 01:14:09.920 --> 01:14:12.320 Well here we have that obviously, because what do we have? 01:14:12.320 --> 01:14:13.280 We have if. 01:14:13.280 --> 01:14:14.960 What if God? 01:14:14.960 --> 01:14:18.960 And yes, we have that in the Greek and it's very clear. 01:14:18.960 --> 01:14:22.240 So the first point is that this is not a statement of 01:14:22.240 --> 01:14:25.520 fact. This is a statement of what if? 01:14:25.520 --> 01:14:27.120 What if God had done this? 01:14:27.120 --> 01:14:31.600 Speaking about God's power and what God has permitted to do, and 01:14:31.600 --> 01:14:33.520 who are you O man to question God? 01:14:33.520 --> 01:14:37.840 Who are you as the clay to speak back to the potter? 01:14:37.840 --> 01:14:41.760 But it is not saying what God did, and there are some 01:14:42.320 --> 01:14:44.000 ways that we can see this. 01:14:44.000 --> 01:14:50.560 One of them, again, is the subjunctive, which is emphasizing this is 01:14:50.560 --> 01:14:51.920 indeed a conditional. 01:14:51.920 --> 01:14:56.480 Another is the active versus the passive, which many look o just 01:14:56.480 --> 01:14:59.440 sort of overlook in this verse, which it's kind of easy to 01:14:59.440 --> 01:15:02.160 do. But what do we have? 01:15:02.160 --> 01:15:05.760 We have the vessels of mercy, right? 01:15:05.760 --> 01:15:09.120 Which let's see if I can get logos to actually show when 01:15:09.120 --> 01:15:10.640 I highlight a word here. 01:15:10.640 --> 01:15:13.440 Well, it it shows that I highlighted the word, but it doesn't 01:15:13.360 --> 01:15:16.480 show the interstitial, so I will just have to read the interstitial 01:15:16.480 --> 01:15:17.360 for you. 01:15:17.360 --> 01:15:23.440 But prepared here is active, it is aorist, which is a tense 01:15:23.440 --> 01:15:27.040 we don't really have in English, but it's an aorist active indicative 01:15:27.120 --> 01:15:28.960 third person verb here. 01:15:28.960 --> 01:15:34.720 So it's saying God prepared active versus passive, right? 01:15:34.720 --> 01:15:37.920 I hope everyone knows active versus passive verbs. 01:15:37.920 --> 01:15:40.160 We do have those in English, right? 01:15:40.160 --> 01:15:41.680 That's very common. 01:15:41.680 --> 01:15:47.040 Well, what does it have here for the vessels of wrath? 01:15:47.040 --> 01:15:48.000 That's passive. 01:15:49.040 --> 01:15:53.040 God's not the one who prepared the vessels of wrath. 01:15:53.040 --> 01:15:57.120 God permitted the vessels of wrath to be prepared for destruction. 01:15:57.120 --> 01:15:59.600 That's what the passive here is implying. 01:15:59.600 --> 01:16:05.920 They prepared themselves for destruction, even inside of this hypothetical. 01:16:05.920 --> 01:16:09.760 God is the one, he is the active one preparing the vessels 01:16:09.760 --> 01:16:13.360 of mercy, because of course it is God who grants the free 01:16:13.360 --> 01:16:16.000 gift of faith, that can only be given by God. 01:16:16.000 --> 01:16:19.680 It can only be given by God's action through the sacraments, of 01:16:19.680 --> 01:16:22.240 course, including the word. 01:16:22.240 --> 01:16:22.560 But 01:16:23.440 --> 01:16:28.160 you have the passive here with regard to the vessels of wrath. 01:16:28.160 --> 01:16:30.800 The other aspect of this, the third point that I want to 01:16:30.800 --> 01:16:33.840 make, I don't want to go into too much depth with this 01:16:33.840 --> 01:16:37.200 one just because it will absorb so much time. 01:16:37.200 --> 01:16:41.280 It would need a standalone episode practically, but the other part of 01:16:41.280 --> 01:16:45.040 this verse that is absolutely essential you must notice when you read 01:16:45.040 --> 01:16:47.440 this, and now that I'm going to point it out, you'll never 01:16:47.440 --> 01:16:48.400 miss it again. 01:16:48.400 --> 01:16:50.560 You will never be able to miss it now when you read 01:16:50.560 --> 01:16:54.720 it. Endure it with much patience. 01:16:54.720 --> 01:17:00.560 Does that make any sense in a system where God created them 01:17:00.560 --> 01:17:01.760 for wrath? 01:17:02.080 --> 01:17:04.080 The answer, of course, is no. 01:17:04.080 --> 01:17:07.760 Because if God had created them for wrath, first off that would 01:17:07.760 --> 01:17:13.600 be active instead of passive, why would he endure with patience? 01:17:13.600 --> 01:17:15.680 There'd be there'd be no endurance there. 01:17:15.680 --> 01:17:18.560 God wouldn't be giving them time to repent 01:17:19.520 --> 01:17:22.720 because he created them for destruction. 01:17:22.720 --> 01:17:26.640 So God didn't create these vessels for destruction. 01:17:26.640 --> 01:17:30.560 This is a number of different layers here, but they all demonstrate 01:17:30.560 --> 01:17:38.080 independently independently together, God did not predestine anyone for damnation. 01:17:38.080 --> 01:17:39.360 That is not how it works. 01:17:39.360 --> 01:17:40.720 That is not what God did. 01:17:40.720 --> 01:17:44.560 And you have this in many other places in scripture. 01:17:44.560 --> 01:17:48.880 And the next question, because it is related here, so I'll just 01:17:48.880 --> 01:17:52.480 go straight to it, what are the main scripture verses that contradict 01:17:52.480 --> 01:17:54.960 or disprove double predestination? 01:17:54.960 --> 01:17:58.080 Again, this is one where I don't want to go into great 01:17:58.080 --> 01:18:00.880 depth because it will take quite a bit of time. 01:18:00.880 --> 01:18:03.680 This is something that of course has been ongoing between Lutherans and 01:18:03.680 --> 01:18:05.520 the Reformed for five hundred years. 01:18:05.520 --> 01:18:09.520 So instead I will just pull out about four different verse really 01:18:09.680 --> 01:18:11.920 five verses, if you want to count one of them as two 01:18:11.920 --> 01:18:15.440 different verses, same chapter, but separate a little bit. 01:18:15.440 --> 01:18:18.320 The first one, of course, is 2 Peter 3:9. 01:18:18.320 --> 01:18:20.080 So let me pull that up. 01:18:23.280 --> 01:18:26.560 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count 01:18:26.720 --> 01:18:32.560 slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, 01:18:32.560 --> 01:18:35.520 but that all should reach repentance. 01:18:35.520 --> 01:18:40.800 If you hold to double predestination, you must necessarily read this as 01:18:40.800 --> 01:18:41.120 God 01:18:42.320 --> 01:18:43.440 having lied. 01:18:43.440 --> 01:18:45.440 I don't see any way to avoid that. 01:18:45.440 --> 01:18:48.640 Because it says God does not wish that any should perish. 01:18:48.640 --> 01:18:54.080 If he has created some as vessels of destruction and predestined them 01:18:54.080 --> 01:18:58.640 to damnation, well that is desiring they should perish. 01:18:58.640 --> 01:19:01.280 I don't see any way to get around this without trying to 01:19:01.280 --> 01:19:03.200 play little word games with regard to 01:19:04.320 --> 01:19:08.080 wishing. But that doesn't make any sense because this is wishing or 01:19:08.080 --> 01:19:10.080 want, it's the same here. 01:19:10.080 --> 01:19:16.240 And whatever God wants in that sort of system that we're talking 01:19:16.240 --> 01:19:17.600 about, it's going to happen. 01:19:18.720 --> 01:19:23.360 So if God wanted all to be saved and you have that 01:19:23.360 --> 01:19:27.760 sort of determinist system, none would be lost. 01:19:28.400 --> 01:19:30.960 So you have to have free will to explain this, and then 01:19:30.960 --> 01:19:34.160 you also have to believe that God wants all to turn to 01:19:34.160 --> 01:19:36.400 him. He wants all to reach repentance. 01:19:36.400 --> 01:19:37.760 But not all do. 01:19:37.760 --> 01:19:41.680 It's not because God begrudged them faith, or God would not forgive 01:19:41.680 --> 01:19:43.760 them, or he wouldn't grant them repentance. 01:19:43.760 --> 01:19:50.320 It is because they persisted in their sin and refused to repent. 01:19:50.320 --> 01:19:53.360 The cause of damnation lies in man, not in God 01:19:55.520 --> 01:19:58.800 And then of course Ezekiel Ezekiel again I should pull up in 01:19:59.120 --> 01:20:03.440 the Septuagint instead. 01:20:03.440 --> 01:20:06.400 By my will do I actually will the death of the lawless 01:20:06.400 --> 01:20:09.680 one, says the Lord, rather than for him to turn back from 01:20:09.680 --> 01:20:12.160 his wicked way and live. 01:20:12.160 --> 01:20:15.920 And then of course God answers his own question at the end 01:20:15.920 --> 01:20:18.960 of the chapter, for I do not will the death of the 01:20:18.960 --> 01:20:21.200 dying, says the Lord. 01:20:21.200 --> 01:20:24.560 This is consistent from the Old Testament to the New Testament. 01:20:24.560 --> 01:20:26.720 God wants all to reach repentance. 01:20:26.720 --> 01:20:30.000 He does not want any to be damned. 01:20:30.000 --> 01:20:34.240 The next part is of course Ezekiel 33. 01:20:34.240 --> 01:20:38.160 Say to them, I live, says the Lord, I do not wish 01:20:38.160 --> 01:20:42.000 the death of the impious, rather that the impious turn back from 01:20:42.000 --> 01:20:44.720 his way, and he live. 01:20:44.720 --> 01:20:49.120 Again, consistent between the Old Testament and the New Testament, God wishes 01:20:49.120 --> 01:20:52.800 for those who are impenitent to reach repentance. 01:20:52.800 --> 01:20:56.560 He does not begrudge anyone faith, he does not want anyone to 01:20:56.560 --> 01:20:57.920 be damned. 01:20:57.920 --> 01:20:59.200 The next of course is 01:21:01.040 --> 01:21:04.960 probably helps if I pull up the New Testament in a resource 01:21:04.960 --> 01:21:06.240 that has it. 01:21:06.240 --> 01:21:08.320 Luke thirteen. 01:21:08.320 --> 01:21:10.720 This is the final example for this question. 01:21:10.720 --> 01:21:15.120 O Jerusalem Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those 01:21:15.120 --> 01:21:18.480 who are sent to it, how often would I have gathered your 01:21:18.480 --> 01:21:22.240 children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and 01:21:22.240 --> 01:21:24.880 you were not willing? 01:21:24.880 --> 01:21:27.120 That means God is willing. 01:21:27.120 --> 01:21:34.160 This is God, the person of Christ, stating unambiguously that He wants 01:21:34.480 --> 01:21:38.720 all to reach repentance, that He wants them to repent, and they 01:21:39.280 --> 01:21:41.120 would not. 01:21:41.120 --> 01:21:44.480 You cannot read double predestination into this. 01:21:44.480 --> 01:21:45.760 You cannot find it. 01:21:45.760 --> 01:21:48.240 In fact what you find is a refutation of it. 01:21:48.240 --> 01:21:50.720 I know the reformed don't like to hear that. 01:21:50.720 --> 01:21:53.440 But I'm Lutheran and you should expect it from me, because of 01:21:53.440 --> 01:21:55.200 course I'm going to hold to that. 01:21:55.200 --> 01:21:58.320 But I also believe that even if I were not Lutheran and 01:21:58.320 --> 01:22:01.520 I were just reading scripture and looking at what it actually says, 01:22:01.520 --> 01:22:04.480 I would never arrive at double predestination. 01:22:04.480 --> 01:22:07.840 Because Because the verses that are used, the one in Romans to 01:22:07.840 --> 01:22:10.080 try to justify it, are hypothetical. 01:22:10.080 --> 01:22:12.800 They're not speaking out what God actually did, and even inside the 01:22:12.800 --> 01:22:15.920 hypothetical, they reject that interpretation. 01:22:15.920 --> 01:22:18.320 And then you have all the places where God says he wants 01:22:18.320 --> 01:22:21.280 all men to reach repentance, He does not want any to be 01:22:21.280 --> 01:22:27.440 damned. If you are saying, contrary to this, that God has not 01:22:27.440 --> 01:22:32.720 so much wanted them to be damned, but done it himself, destined 01:22:32.720 --> 01:22:37.200 them for it, fated them to it, then you are teaching something 01:22:37.200 --> 01:22:41.200 that is directly contrary to the words of God. 01:22:41.200 --> 01:22:44.000 In this case a literal quote from Christ. 01:22:44.000 --> 01:22:46.240 I don't see any way to justify it, I don't see any 01:22:46.240 --> 01:22:47.440 way to defend it. 01:22:47.440 --> 01:22:50.320 And again, I know the Reformed don't like to hear that, but 01:22:50.800 --> 01:22:53.280 take it up with God, take it up with Scripture. 01:22:53.280 --> 01:22:59.280 All I've done is read what he says. 01:22:59.280 --> 01:23:00.880 The next question 01:23:01.920 --> 01:23:06.720 perhaps less controversial for certain members of the audience. 01:23:06.720 --> 01:23:07.760 Question 10. 01:23:07.760 --> 01:23:11.280 Where do you place the value of house churches in comparison to 01:23:11.280 --> 01:23:13.680 denominational establishments? 01:23:13.680 --> 01:23:17.600 And do you think with the growing number of denominational churches disqualifying 01:23:17.600 --> 01:23:22.480 themselves? Unfortunately true, are house church is going to trend upward in 01:23:22.480 --> 01:23:29.520 popularity. I firmly believe, and I guess I can transition back to 01:23:29.520 --> 01:23:33.920 having the video full screen there, I firmly believe that having established 01:23:33.920 --> 01:23:38.080 denominational as it were churches is preferable. 01:23:38.080 --> 01:23:42.640 Just the same as I believe having a regular government is preferable, 01:23:42.640 --> 01:23:49.680 and having hierarchy is preferable and having things running normally is preferable. 01:23:49.680 --> 01:23:54.720 But these days we're not talking about what is preferable or what 01:23:54.720 --> 01:24:01.600 is optimal, but rather what is the best under prevailing circumstances Circumstances. 01:24:01.600 --> 01:24:01.920 And 01:24:02.880 --> 01:24:04.400 I don't think 01:24:05.360 --> 01:24:05.680 that 01:24:06.880 --> 01:24:12.080 joining any of the existing denominational churches is the best route. 01:24:12.080 --> 01:24:16.880 Now Now, that comes with the major caveat that many of them 01:24:16.880 --> 01:24:20.240 are congregationalist in terms of their polity, and so as I've said 01:24:20.240 --> 01:24:24.320 many times before, there are faithful congregations. 01:24:24.320 --> 01:24:26.560 The LCMS is a great example. 01:24:26.800 --> 01:24:30.160 The LCMS leadership is wicked. 01:24:30.160 --> 01:24:31.600 They are evil men. 01:24:31.600 --> 01:24:35.680 I will say that in completely unambiguous certain terms. 01:24:35.680 --> 01:24:37.360 They are evil men. 01:24:37.360 --> 01:24:39.280 They have done evil things. 01:24:39.280 --> 01:24:44.320 I won't state them specifically because quite frankly it invites a lawsuit, 01:24:44.320 --> 01:24:47.280 which should also tell you something about the reality of what is 01:24:47.280 --> 01:24:48.240 going on. 01:24:48.240 --> 01:24:48.560 But 01:24:49.920 --> 01:24:53.440 that doesn't mean they're all that does not mean all the congregations 01:24:53.520 --> 01:24:55.040 the LCMS are bad. 01:24:55.040 --> 01:24:56.240 There are some very good ones. 01:24:56.240 --> 01:24:59.200 I know some very good men who are leading those congregations. 01:24:59.200 --> 01:25:02.720 I won't name them, of course, because that just invites the Inquisition, 01:25:02.720 --> 01:25:05.760 Satan's Inquisition in this case to come down on them and their 01:25:05.760 --> 01:25:09.760 families, demonstrating which side is Christian, of course, how they treat these 01:25:09.760 --> 01:25:12.400 good men who have been in the pulpits in some cases for 01:25:12.400 --> 01:25:13.680 many, many years. 01:25:13.680 --> 01:25:16.800 But there are good congregations and you can find them. 01:25:16.800 --> 01:25:19.920 So So if you can find a good congregation, by all means 01:25:20.000 --> 01:25:23.120 join that congregation and worship together with the other saints and have 01:25:23.120 --> 01:25:23.840 that fellowship. 01:25:23.840 --> 01:25:26.720 That's an important part of being a Christian. 01:25:26.720 --> 01:25:30.800 But if you do not have a faithful congregation near you, don't 01:25:30.800 --> 01:25:33.040 join a faithless one. 01:25:33.040 --> 01:25:35.280 Do not be unequally yoked. 01:25:35.280 --> 01:25:36.400 Start a house church. 01:25:36.400 --> 01:25:38.640 A house church is better under those circumstances. 01:25:38.640 --> 01:25:42.160 So the question sort of has two answers. 01:25:42.160 --> 01:25:49.040 Is the organized hierarchical established church better than a house church? 01:25:49.040 --> 01:25:54.000 Absolutely. When everything is running well. 01:25:54.000 --> 01:25:54.320 But 01:25:55.760 --> 01:25:58.320 everything is not running well these days. 01:25:58.320 --> 01:26:02.240 And yes, I've seen some questions asking about where to find churches 01:26:02.240 --> 01:26:02.560 in 01:26:03.440 --> 01:26:05.120 various places. 01:26:05.120 --> 01:26:07.760 Usually for that, if you just sort of as an aside, if 01:26:07.760 --> 01:26:11.520 you need a recommendation of a church, DM me or DM Wo 01:26:11.920 --> 01:26:16.000 or DM Old Lutheran on X or we can also be reached 01:26:16.000 --> 01:26:16.560 on Telegram. 01:26:16.560 --> 01:26:17.200 That's the way to do that. 01:26:17.200 --> 01:26:21.920 So we can give a more personal recommendation instead of making a 01:26:21.920 --> 01:26:25.600 broad recommendation and making it easier for the enemies to find these 01:26:25.600 --> 01:26:30.400 men because there is a full scale inquisition underway in a number 01:26:30.400 --> 01:26:35.680 of denominations in the US and they are persecuting faithful men countrywide. 01:26:35.680 --> 01:26:35.920 So 01:26:36.880 --> 01:26:38.080 that's ongoing. 01:26:38.080 --> 01:26:40.240 That is an ongoing problem. 01:26:40.240 --> 01:26:43.920 But yes, house churches are going to trend upward in popularity simply 01:26:43.920 --> 01:26:47.120 because of the reality that there are so many faithless churches, and 01:26:47.120 --> 01:26:50.640 it is better to be in a small faithful gathering in your 01:26:50.640 --> 01:26:54.240 home, and again, join together with three, four other families, and by 01:26:54.240 --> 01:26:58.400 all means ordain a man, the most capable man among you, and 01:26:58.400 --> 01:27:00.400 then have the Lord's Supper as well. 01:27:00.400 --> 01:27:01.520 There's nothing wrong with that. 01:27:01.520 --> 01:27:04.800 So yes, things are going to trend in that direction. 01:27:04.800 --> 01:27:08.880 Question eleven is a related question, same person asking the question. 01:27:08.880 --> 01:27:14.160 Similarly with what we see with public schools versus homeschooling as of 01:27:14.160 --> 01:27:16.240 late. So are we going to see the same sort of thing? 01:27:16.480 --> 01:27:18.560 And I think yes. 01:27:18.560 --> 01:27:20.800 In some places the state cracks down on that. 01:27:20.800 --> 01:27:23.120 In fact it's illegal in some parts of Europe. 01:27:23.120 --> 01:27:26.640 They will come to your house and potentially take your children away. 01:27:26.640 --> 01:27:30.240 But here in the US, you do generally have the right to 01:27:30.240 --> 01:27:31.600 homeschool your children. 01:27:31.600 --> 01:27:32.880 There are some requirements. 01:27:32.880 --> 01:27:34.720 Make sure that you do follow those. 01:27:34.720 --> 01:27:37.840 They're usually not particularly onerous in the US and they're usually pretty 01:27:37.840 --> 01:27:38.960 easy to adhere to. 01:27:38.960 --> 01:27:41.200 And quite frankly, your children will probably be ahead of the public 01:27:41.200 --> 01:27:44.080 school unless you happen to be somewhere that has a very good 01:27:44.080 --> 01:27:45.520 public school. 01:27:45.520 --> 01:27:49.840 I had the great fortune of going to a public school that 01:27:49.840 --> 01:27:51.760 was still a very good one. 01:27:51.760 --> 01:27:54.160 My public school offered Latin, for instance. 01:27:54.400 --> 01:27:57.440 I went to one of the last few good public schools in 01:27:57.440 --> 01:27:58.720 the US. 01:27:58.720 --> 01:28:01.520 Probably not as good these days as it was then. 01:28:01.520 --> 01:28:04.880 But if you have a good public school, I think the same 01:28:04.880 --> 01:28:06.400 thing is true. 01:28:06.560 --> 01:28:10.320 I don't know where you'd find that these days, but is it 01:28:10.320 --> 01:28:13.680 better to have a public school that is good than only to 01:28:13.680 --> 01:28:15.200 have private school and home school? 01:28:15.200 --> 01:28:16.880 I think the answer is yes. 01:28:16.880 --> 01:28:20.800 Maybe part of that is the northern German Prussian blood speaking, but 01:28:21.520 --> 01:28:23.680 I am a firm believer in public school. 01:28:23.680 --> 01:28:26.160 I do think that it is a good thing, but the problem 01:28:26.160 --> 01:28:29.440 is it's a good thing only when the government running it is 01:28:29.440 --> 01:28:33.040 good. Our government is not good. 01:28:33.040 --> 01:28:36.800 I think that is probably the biggest understatement of this episode. 01:28:36.800 --> 01:28:39.680 Except for maybe some earlier things said about the Jews. 01:28:39.680 --> 01:28:41.040 Our government is not good. 01:28:41.040 --> 01:28:43.920 Our government is evil and so it is teaching evil in the 01:28:43.920 --> 01:28:48.560 schools. So yes, your children, if you can by any means manage 01:28:48.560 --> 01:28:53.920 it, should be in a private school or in a home school. 01:28:53.920 --> 01:28:55.600 Do what people have always done. 01:28:55.600 --> 01:28:59.120 Band together, particularly this is for the younger children, right? 01:28:59.120 --> 01:29:05.120 Have the women take partial t teaching duties and have one house 01:29:05.120 --> 01:29:07.520 be the house where you have your home school. 01:29:07.520 --> 01:29:09.840 There's no reason that you have to do all of it yourself. 01:29:09.840 --> 01:29:12.400 It's a completely ridiculous modernist concept. 01:29:12.640 --> 01:29:16.400 Maybe you have one person who is much better at math, have 01:29:16.400 --> 01:29:21.760 her teach the children math, or if the men in this group 01:29:21.760 --> 01:29:24.000 happen to have the time to do so, if they work from 01:29:24.000 --> 01:29:26.080 home and can take off a couple hours. 01:29:26.080 --> 01:29:29.120 Have them teach math or history or whatever subject. 01:29:29.120 --> 01:29:31.200 That is a great way to do this. 01:29:31.200 --> 01:29:34.800 Basically all you're doing is an informal private school. 01:29:34.800 --> 01:29:37.520 If you happen to have a good church that has a good 01:29:37.520 --> 01:29:39.520 school attached, all the better. 01:29:39.520 --> 01:29:40.720 Nothing wrong with doing that. 01:29:40.720 --> 01:29:44.000 There's nothing wrong with having your children go to a private school. 01:29:44.000 --> 01:29:47.120 Yes, you should still be teaching them things at at home as 01:29:47.120 --> 01:29:51.760 well, but it's not bad to have some of those duties taken 01:29:51.760 --> 01:29:53.280 on by others. 01:29:53.280 --> 01:29:55.760 We can't do everything, right? 01:29:55.920 --> 01:29:58.640 I've pointed this out before in sort of the 01:29:59.600 --> 01:30:03.360 excuse me, in sort of the trivial but extreme way, right? 01:30:04.240 --> 01:30:06.400 I don't know how to build this thing. 01:30:06.400 --> 01:30:08.880 I mean I under this I'm holding a fountain pen for those 01:30:08.880 --> 01:30:10.720 who will listen later via audio. 01:30:10.720 --> 01:30:13.920 I should probably hold it on the side where the mic boom's 01:30:13.840 --> 01:30:15.280 not blocking it. 01:30:15.360 --> 01:30:19.040 I understand almost everything that went into this pen, right? 01:30:19.040 --> 01:30:24.240 But at the same time, centuries of expertise went into making this 01:30:24.240 --> 01:30:27.680 thing. There's nothing wrong with delegating that to other men. 01:30:27.680 --> 01:30:31.440 And the same thing holds true with regard to the instruction of 01:30:31.440 --> 01:30:36.640 children, with regard to education, because I certainly don't know trigonometry as 01:30:36.640 --> 01:30:40.640 well as someone who teaches trigonometry day in and day out. 01:30:40.640 --> 01:30:41.760 I just don't. 01:30:41.760 --> 01:30:44.880 I have not done that particular area of mathematics in a long 01:30:44.880 --> 01:30:48.000 time. I know statistics pretty well, that I could probably teach. 01:30:48.000 --> 01:30:53.040 But geometry, trigonometry, probably even calculus at this point, it's been a 01:30:53.040 --> 01:30:53.840 long time. 01:30:53.840 --> 01:30:56.880 So there's nothing wrong with deleg if I had children who were 01:30:56.880 --> 01:31:00.320 of that age, there's nothing wrong with delegating that and having other 01:31:00.320 --> 01:31:02.240 men teach that. 01:31:02.240 --> 01:31:04.800 But as a Christian, you need to make sure that your children 01:31:04.800 --> 01:31:07.200 are not being taught by evil men. 01:31:07.200 --> 01:31:08.560 In particular, they're not being taught evil 01:31:09.440 --> 01:31:13.920 things. And so if you can avoid the public schools where they're 01:31:13.920 --> 01:31:17.120 going to teach your children about transgenderism and all sorts of other 01:31:17.120 --> 01:31:21.040 perversions, then by all means do so. 01:31:21.040 --> 01:31:24.960 And maybe that's going to require sacrifice on your part. 01:31:24.960 --> 01:31:28.880 Maybe you're going to have to cut back on hours in order 01:31:28.880 --> 01:31:31.920 to facilitate doing that with your children. 01:31:31.920 --> 01:31:35.760 And in many cases, assuming that you have a home where you 01:31:35.760 --> 01:31:38.560 have a wife, part of that's just going to fall to that's 01:31:38.560 --> 01:31:40.640 what your wife should be doing. 01:31:40.640 --> 01:31:43.200 Because she should be at home and she can set aside the 01:31:43.200 --> 01:31:43.920 time to do that. 01:31:43.920 --> 01:31:47.040 Because quite frankly, the amount of stuff that children actually learn in 01:31:47.040 --> 01:31:51.280 schools these days, what they actually learn, most what they're doing is 01:31:51.280 --> 01:31:52.240 wasting time. 01:31:52.240 --> 01:31:55.600 You can teach them the same amount in a couple, maybe three 01:31:55.600 --> 01:31:57.920 hours a day, and then let them play outside. 01:31:57.920 --> 01:31:59.360 It's better for them anyway. 01:31:59.760 --> 01:32:02.320 And your wife should be able to manage that. 01:32:02.320 --> 01:32:07.680 There's plenty of various resources out there that you can use for 01:32:07.680 --> 01:32:11.520 that. There's all sorts of things for teaching math and you know, 01:32:11.520 --> 01:32:14.400 all the basics that children are supposed to learn. 01:32:14.400 --> 01:32:16.400 And you can do that in relatively short order. 01:32:16.400 --> 01:32:20.000 So yes, I think that homeschools and things like that are going 01:32:20.000 --> 01:32:24.320 to become more popular just because it's a way to avoid subjecting 01:32:24.320 --> 01:32:36.800 your children to these various kinds of things 01:32:36.800 --> 01:32:40.400 I think I will actually get through at least the thirteen questions, 01:32:40.400 --> 01:32:44.960 which it was a little ambitious, but I'm fine with running over. 01:32:44.960 --> 01:32:46.160 Question twelve. 01:32:46.160 --> 01:32:49.280 Should my young daughters be covering their heads in church, or is 01:32:49.280 --> 01:32:50.800 that just for wives? 01:32:50.800 --> 01:32:54.640 That is for all women, because it is a sign of authority. 01:32:54.640 --> 01:32:57.040 Your daughters are under you. 01:32:57.040 --> 01:32:58.080 You are their head. 01:32:58.080 --> 01:32:59.600 You are the one who's in authority. 01:32:59.600 --> 01:33:02.080 And that is part of what marriage is. 01:33:02.080 --> 01:33:04.080 It's a transfer of headship. 01:33:04.080 --> 01:33:08.560 It is the father transferring the daughter to her husband. 01:33:08.560 --> 01:33:10.880 He becomes her head. 01:33:10.880 --> 01:33:16.160 So you still want that sign of headship for very young daughters, 01:33:16.160 --> 01:33:19.360 no, because it it just it is irrelevant, right? 01:33:19.360 --> 01:33:20.960 Under a certain age. 01:33:20.960 --> 01:33:23.840 I saw someone who commented on that on X. 01:33:23.840 --> 01:33:26.720 This one I pulled off of a thread on X, but 01:33:27.680 --> 01:33:30.000 a very short thread, but a thread. 01:33:30.000 --> 01:33:33.920 Someone said after puberty, I would say go for a little bit 01:33:33.920 --> 01:33:34.640 before that. 01:33:34.640 --> 01:33:37.920 And the reason for that is what are your girls going to 01:33:37.920 --> 01:33:40.080 become when they go through puberty? 01:33:40.400 --> 01:33:41.840 A little more rebellious. 01:33:41.840 --> 01:33:44.000 They're going to be a little harder to handle, they're going to 01:33:44.000 --> 01:33:45.760 be a little more argumentative. 01:33:45.760 --> 01:33:49.600 That's simply the reality of hormones and biology and the maturing brain 01:33:49.760 --> 01:33:50.800 and all that stuff. 01:33:50.800 --> 01:33:52.480 We're aware of that stuff. 01:33:52.480 --> 01:33:56.160 You are going to have an easier time maintaining that as something 01:33:56.160 --> 01:34:00.400 that you do you do if your wife routinely does it, and 01:34:00.400 --> 01:34:03.680 it is something they started doing, you know, a year or two 01:34:03.680 --> 01:34:05.600 before puberty onsets, right? 01:34:05.600 --> 01:34:08.880 You're going to have fewer problems in your life if you do 01:34:08.880 --> 01:34:09.760 it that way. 01:34:10.080 --> 01:34:13.120 So whatever it happens to be, start them when they're you know 01:34:13.280 --> 01:34:18.880 10, 11, 12, whatever age happens to be best for your circumstances. 01:34:18.880 --> 01:34:21.120 And make it something they enjoy doing. 01:34:21.120 --> 01:34:24.400 There's nothing wrong with women enjoying doing it, right? 01:34:24.400 --> 01:34:27.920 It's not that they do it and they dislike it and that's 01:34:27.920 --> 01:34:29.200 why it's good. 01:34:29.200 --> 01:34:32.400 Right. It's a sign of authority, but she doesn't have to hate 01:34:32.400 --> 01:34:36.160 it. So if you can make it something that your daughters enjoy, 01:34:36.160 --> 01:34:39.600 it's something that they do when they go to church and you 01:34:39.600 --> 01:34:42.320 know, I it would be good if we had it in society 01:34:42.320 --> 01:34:45.360 at large as well, but that's a little bit harder to sell 01:34:45.360 --> 01:34:46.880 these days and a little harder to do. 01:34:46.880 --> 01:34:51.120 But at the very least, make it part of their Sunday routine. 01:34:51.120 --> 01:34:54.400 Just make it something that they do on Sunday, and I think 01:34:54.400 --> 01:34:57.600 it will be much easier for you if you start a little 01:34:57.600 --> 01:35:01.120 bit in advance, as it were. 01:35:01.120 --> 01:35:08.880 And then question 13 is a related question, again about headship. 01:35:08.880 --> 01:35:11.200 And then I will, I think, get through a few of the 01:35:11.200 --> 01:35:13.840 questions in the chat at least. 01:35:13.840 --> 01:35:17.120 As the head of my household, how much of an opinion should 01:35:17.120 --> 01:35:19.680 my wife get when we are trying to pick a church to 01:35:19.680 --> 01:35:20.640 go to? 01:35:20.640 --> 01:35:23.840 Here recently, I have been looking into some Lutheran churches as well 01:35:23.840 --> 01:35:25.760 as a Greek Orthodox church. 01:35:25.760 --> 01:35:28.560 It should be noted that my wife and I grew up as 01:35:28.560 --> 01:35:30.880 assemblies of God and Baptist. 01:35:30.880 --> 01:35:34.640 When I presented these to my wife, she had a few complaints. 01:35:34.640 --> 01:35:36.800 The complaints are enumerated. 01:35:36.800 --> 01:35:41.440 One, both Lutheran and Orthodox were too closely closely or they too 01:35:41.440 --> 01:35:43.840 closely resembled Catholicism. 01:35:43.840 --> 01:35:47.760 Two, she doesn't feel like she will have a personal relationship, nor 01:35:47.760 --> 01:35:50.240 will she be able to grow a personal relationship with God in 01:35:50.240 --> 01:35:52.000 those churches. 01:35:52.000 --> 01:35:56.240 Three, she also doesn't think our children will be able to learn 01:35:56.240 --> 01:35:59.520 if there is not a separate Sunday school service tailored to the 01:35:59.520 --> 01:36:04.480 children. Any advice on how to proceed to be greatly appreciated. 01:36:04.480 --> 01:36:07.520 I think I will start with the initial bit and then take 01:36:07.520 --> 01:36:11.920 the complaints in reverse order. 01:36:11.920 --> 01:36:15.840 So obviously I'm going to say pick the Lutheran over the Orthodox 01:36:15.920 --> 01:36:17.520 for reasons I've gone over before. 01:36:17.520 --> 01:36:23.120 We have the episode on Eastern Orthodoxy, and we have I have 01:36:23.120 --> 01:36:26.400 my article on a website on Eastern Orthodoxy. 01:36:26.400 --> 01:36:29.360 I don't know why you'd consider Greek Orthodox unless you're Greek. 01:36:29.360 --> 01:36:31.840 And obviously I have no idea because I don't know this man, 01:36:31.840 --> 01:36:33.280 I don't know anything about him. 01:36:33.280 --> 01:36:35.840 If you're Greek, then I guess it makes a little bit more 01:36:35.840 --> 01:36:39.920 sense. I would still object simply because I don't agree with their 01:36:39.920 --> 01:36:42.960 theology, but at the same time, most of the people attending an 01:36:42.960 --> 01:36:46.080 Orthodox Church don't know anything about their theology. 01:36:46.080 --> 01:36:50.080 You have some of the Theobros, as it were, or not even 01:36:50.080 --> 01:36:54.560 really that term, but you know, the the convertidox on X and 01:36:54.560 --> 01:36:59.600 elsewhere who get very into certain aspects of theology, but even they 01:36:59.600 --> 01:37:01.200 know it so shallowly. 01:37:01.200 --> 01:37:04.640 They just know one particular thing has become an obsession. 01:37:04.640 --> 01:37:08.960 So if you're Greek and your family has a very long history 01:37:08.960 --> 01:37:12.560 of connection to the Greek Orthodox Church, then 01:37:13.440 --> 01:37:17.360 I can't object as strongly to you participating in that church. 01:37:17.360 --> 01:37:21.280 Just don't believe the handful of false doctrines they teach. 01:37:21.280 --> 01:37:24.400 Believe the simplicity of the faith, and if it becomes a matter 01:37:24.400 --> 01:37:28.400 of conscience for you, if you believe you can no longer participate 01:37:28.720 --> 01:37:32.320 because of the false things they teach, then it would be incumbent 01:37:32.320 --> 01:37:33.520 on you to leave. 01:37:33.520 --> 01:37:36.240 But if you happen to have a church where they just teach 01:37:36.240 --> 01:37:40.560 the basics and ignore, you know, palamism and the 01:37:41.520 --> 01:37:47.040 energies distinction and hesitasm and all those various things that are not 01:37:47.200 --> 01:37:51.360 Christian, then sure, I think you're probably fine attending that church, but 01:37:51.360 --> 01:37:53.120 just recognize there are problems there. 01:37:53.120 --> 01:37:56.400 Again, I'm going to say Lutheranism is the better way to go. 01:37:56.400 --> 01:37:59.520 I'm sure that comes as a surprise to absolutely no one. 01:37:59.680 --> 01:38:00.000 But 01:38:00.960 --> 01:38:04.080 if you don't have a reason to attend the Greek church, which 01:38:04.080 --> 01:38:07.360 is say if you're not Greek, go to the Lutheran church. 01:38:07.360 --> 01:38:10.240 Those are the two you're considering, go to the Lutheran church. 01:38:10.240 --> 01:38:13.280 And the objections that she has, and I said I'd take them 01:38:13.280 --> 01:38:17.200 in reverse order, this one is going to of course be an 01:38:17.200 --> 01:38:21.760 answer that will be similar for many, not just Lutherans. 01:38:21.760 --> 01:38:24.000 Sunday school's not a thing. 01:38:24.000 --> 01:38:26.880 And the reason Sunday school is not a thing, and I'm just 01:38:26.880 --> 01:38:29.200 going to go ahead and say that Sunday school should not be 01:38:29.200 --> 01:38:29.840 a thing. 01:38:30.720 --> 01:38:31.680 Is that 01:38:34.080 --> 01:38:39.040 if you send them to Sunday school, are you really treating them 01:38:39.040 --> 01:38:41.040 as Christians? 01:38:41.040 --> 01:38:43.280 Because what is the divine service? 01:38:43.280 --> 01:38:45.840 And of course, I'm going to give a very Lutheran-flavored answer. 01:38:45.840 --> 01:38:47.840 But what is the divine service? 01:38:47.840 --> 01:38:51.680 The divine service is. 01:38:51.680 --> 01:38:54.720 I'll just go ahead and give the fully Lutheran answer, but the 01:38:54.720 --> 01:38:58.640 divine service is where you receive the gifts of God and then 01:38:58.640 --> 01:39:00.000 you return thanks. 01:39:00.000 --> 01:39:02.960 This is a sort of a fundamental difference from how many view 01:39:02.960 --> 01:39:06.480 it, because many view it as I'm going and I'm worshipping God 01:39:06.960 --> 01:39:10.400 and I'm giving him thanks and then maybe I receive something. 01:39:10.400 --> 01:39:13.760 That's not how Lutherans conceive of it, and I think Lutherans are 01:39:13.760 --> 01:39:15.680 absolutely correct in this one. 01:39:15.680 --> 01:39:19.120 You go to the divine service because that's where God has said, 01:39:19.120 --> 01:39:22.560 I am going to provide for you my gifts here. 01:39:22.560 --> 01:39:25.920 I'm going to do it in this way, and you come here 01:39:25.920 --> 01:39:27.280 and receive them. 01:39:27.280 --> 01:39:28.960 We should be thankful for that. 01:39:28.960 --> 01:39:32.720 If we had a king and the king said, If you come 01:39:32.720 --> 01:39:36.320 to my banqueting hall on Wednesday, you will get to be partake 01:39:36.320 --> 01:39:37.760 of a feast. 01:39:37.760 --> 01:39:40.320 Are you going to tell him, No, I'm going to come on 01:39:40.320 --> 01:39:44.240 Thursday, and I'm going to tell you that I want to say 01:39:44.240 --> 01:39:46.320 you're a great king, and then maybe you'll give me some br 01:39:46.960 --> 01:39:49.200 The king's going to hit you with a stick, and you're going 01:39:49.200 --> 01:39:50.880 to deserve it. 01:39:50.880 --> 01:39:55.840 God says he's going to give you things during the divine service. 01:39:55.840 --> 01:39:59.840 Go to the divine service, receive the things of God, and return 01:39:59.840 --> 01:40:03.360 thanks. Your children are Christians. 01:40:03.360 --> 01:40:07.120 Your children should be baptized because they're Christians. 01:40:07.120 --> 01:40:11.120 Your children should participate in the divine service, should be there to 01:40:11.120 --> 01:40:14.480 receive the gifts of God, and hear the sermon, and sing the 01:40:14.480 --> 01:40:18.880 hymns, and receive the liturgy, because they are Christians. 01:40:18.880 --> 01:40:22.480 And in fact, they are learning more from that than they would 01:40:22.480 --> 01:40:24.080 learn in Sunday school. 01:40:24.080 --> 01:40:26.560 Because most Sunday schools, what are they going to learn? 01:40:26.560 --> 01:40:28.960 David hit a big dude with a rock. 01:40:28.960 --> 01:40:30.640 Maybe that's what they're going to learn. 01:40:30.640 --> 01:40:31.600 That's not wrong. 01:40:31.600 --> 01:40:34.240 I mean it's good that they should learn, but you can read 01:40:34.240 --> 01:40:36.640 that level to them at home. 01:40:36.640 --> 01:40:39.760 Or you can read the actual scripture and explain it, depending on 01:40:39.760 --> 01:40:42.400 the capacity and the age of the children, right? 01:40:43.040 --> 01:40:47.440 Sunday school is just segregating out some chunk of the body of 01:40:47.440 --> 01:40:49.840 Christ and treating them differently. 01:40:49.840 --> 01:40:50.720 Don't do that. 01:40:50.720 --> 01:40:52.080 Your children are Christian. 01:40:52.080 --> 01:40:55.280 They should be sitting beside you in the service and seeing that 01:40:55.280 --> 01:40:58.800 they are participating in the very thing in which you are participating, 01:40:58.800 --> 01:41:01.360 because they are Christians as well and you should treat them as 01:41:01.360 --> 01:41:04.160 Christians. They're going to recognize that. 01:41:04.160 --> 01:41:07.840 There's There's also the aspect of it, and this is an argument 01:41:07.840 --> 01:41:11.360 for the liturgy and for not changing things too much over the 01:41:11.360 --> 01:41:16.880 years. If you've ever dealt with the elderly, particularly those who are 01:41:16.880 --> 01:41:19.120 in hospice care or similar, particularly if they have 01:41:20.240 --> 01:41:26.000 some dementia, some deteriorative disorder, write something like that. 01:41:26.000 --> 01:41:31.200 Those who are Christian and went to a liturgical church, fare the 01:41:31.200 --> 01:41:35.120 best. Lutherans in particular fare very well at the end of their 01:41:35.120 --> 01:41:42.160 lives. Lutherans die confident in their faith, without doubts, secure in their 01:41:42.160 --> 01:41:42.560 knowledge of 01:41:43.440 --> 01:41:47.600 of their election, secure in their knowledge of their faith, their place 01:41:47.680 --> 01:41:52.080 before God, and for those who have lost some of their faculties 01:41:52.080 --> 01:41:56.320 along the way, sometimes it is the liturgy that is the last 01:41:56.320 --> 01:41:57.600 thing to go. 01:41:57.600 --> 01:42:00.640 You can start playing parts of the liturgy or reciting parts of 01:42:00.640 --> 01:42:05.280 the liturgy, and suddenly the person who doesn't communicate at all, who 01:42:05.280 --> 01:42:07.920 has lost that ability to interact with the world, will start will 01:42:08.080 --> 01:42:09.600 start singing along. 01:42:09.600 --> 01:42:12.640 And I think that's completely invaluable and the only place you are 01:42:12.640 --> 01:42:16.720 going to get it is if you go to a liturgical church. 01:42:16.720 --> 01:42:19.200 I think that's a very good thing. 01:42:19.200 --> 01:42:19.520 And 01:42:20.720 --> 01:42:23.440 I think you should want that for your children, and you should 01:42:23.440 --> 01:42:24.320 start them young. 01:42:24.320 --> 01:42:25.600 That is a good thing for them. 01:42:25.600 --> 01:42:29.520 And you want to give them as much time as possible in 01:42:29.520 --> 01:42:32.640 order to build that up in their mind, to build up that 01:42:32.640 --> 01:42:37.040 spiritual bulwark, because the world is going to assault them. 01:42:37.040 --> 01:42:40.240 It's not that you're necessarily going to send them off to university 01:42:40.240 --> 01:42:43.120 and just, you know, toss them as a sheep to the wolves, 01:42:43.120 --> 01:42:46.160 right? But at some point they have to go out into the 01:42:46.160 --> 01:42:49.840 world. And the world is going to assault their faith. 01:42:49.840 --> 01:42:53.280 And I think you want to have given them the strongest possible 01:42:53.280 --> 01:42:55.360 defenses they can have against that. 01:42:55.360 --> 01:42:58.400 And part of the way you do that is having them participate 01:42:58.400 --> 01:43:04.720 in that divine service every single Sunday, year after year after year. 01:43:04.720 --> 01:43:09.680 So I don't think there's any real objection when it comes to 01:43:09.680 --> 01:43:10.320 Sunday school. 01:43:10.320 --> 01:43:14.160 They don't need to have a Sunday school because they're Christian and 01:43:14.160 --> 01:43:15.920 they have the divine service. 01:43:15.920 --> 01:43:17.600 They should participate in that. 01:43:17.600 --> 01:43:20.400 If you want to have something additional for them, you want to 01:43:20.400 --> 01:43:21.760 have something for the children. 01:43:21.760 --> 01:43:24.800 I don't think that's objectionable, but you have that in addition to 01:43:24.800 --> 01:43:26.240 the divine service. 01:43:26.240 --> 01:43:29.360 You go to Bible study, they go to Sunday school. 01:43:29.360 --> 01:43:30.960 You can do that, that's totally fine. 01:43:30.960 --> 01:43:34.160 But they should go to the service. 01:43:34.160 --> 01:43:39.360 The second objection is the personal relationship thing. 01:43:39.440 --> 01:43:43.680 That's going to depend on what exactly she means by personal relationship, 01:43:43.680 --> 01:43:49.120 right? If she means that she thinks that, you know, it is 01:43:49.120 --> 01:43:53.840 an emotional relationship that you have with God and that 01:43:54.800 --> 01:43:59.600 you know, if it's Jesus is my boyfriend, that's a problem that 01:43:59.600 --> 01:44:00.880 needs to be addressed. 01:44:00.880 --> 01:44:03.520 That is not what you're supposed to have with God. 01:44:03.520 --> 01:44:06.960 If it's that she doesn't think that you're going to have a 01:44:07.360 --> 01:44:10.800 walk with God, you're not going to develop in your faith over 01:44:10.800 --> 01:44:13.760 time, then that's just a matter of instruction. 01:44:13.760 --> 01:44:19.040 That's a matter of pointing out that it's not It's not going 01:44:19.040 --> 01:44:25.280 and feeling emotional when you sing these modern contemporary worship hymns. 01:44:25.280 --> 01:44:29.440 It's deepening in your understanding of what God has done for you 01:44:29.680 --> 01:44:34.480 and how you have that relationship with God, and what are the 01:44:34.560 --> 01:44:37.600 the contours of that relationship, right? 01:44:37.840 --> 01:44:43.920 And as far as that goes, I think quite frankly, the Lutheran 01:44:43.920 --> 01:44:46.400 church is going to be better off, the liturgical church is better 01:44:46.400 --> 01:44:50.240 off, because you're going to have the structured prayers and things like 01:44:50.240 --> 01:44:54.720 that that are very much a part of the Christian faith and 01:44:54.960 --> 01:45:00.400 that is totally absent from things like Baptist churches and other things, 01:45:00.400 --> 01:45:03.200 where I just don't find that depth there. 01:45:03.200 --> 01:45:10.640 I've never once heard anyone critique going from a non denominational 01:45:10.640 --> 01:45:16.640 or a Baptist church and becoming a high church Christian and saying 01:45:16.640 --> 01:45:19.040 that they lost depth. 01:45:19.040 --> 01:45:21.040 It's always been the opposite. 01:45:21.040 --> 01:45:23.840 And so I think that she will find that she has 01:45:24.720 --> 01:45:26.240 more on offer. 01:45:26.240 --> 01:45:28.480 She has a greater and deeper 01:45:29.760 --> 01:45:34.880 presentation and reality of the faith in that Lutheran church than she 01:45:34.880 --> 01:45:39.920 had in the Baptist Church or the Assemblies of God Church. 01:45:39.920 --> 01:45:42.960 And part of the way you can start that off is start 01:45:42.960 --> 01:45:44.720 studying the small catechism. 01:45:44.720 --> 01:45:48.640 You study the large catechism after you know the small catechism, and 01:45:48.640 --> 01:45:52.400 then you can together go over the things in the small catechism 01:45:52.400 --> 01:45:54.240 in light of the large catechism. 01:45:54.240 --> 01:45:59.280 Part of this is you taking that spiritual headship, you recognizing you 01:45:59.280 --> 01:46:02.080 have a greater duty to know this and to know it better 01:46:02.160 --> 01:46:04.960 and to lead her in it. 01:46:04.960 --> 01:46:05.600 And then 01:46:06.960 --> 01:46:10.880 insofar as the first objection, the third, given that I'm going in 01:46:10.880 --> 01:46:16.400 reverse order here, if she thinks that it's close to Catholicism, tell 01:46:16.400 --> 01:46:18.000 her two different things. 01:46:18.000 --> 01:46:20.960 One, yes, and that's not bad. 01:46:20.960 --> 01:46:24.320 Two, theologically, no. 01:46:24.320 --> 01:46:26.560 And that's what matters more. 01:46:26.880 --> 01:46:27.200 So 01:46:28.160 --> 01:46:32.880 in so far as the praxis is concerned, insofar as the look 01:46:32.880 --> 01:46:36.320 and the feel of things, yes, it's going to be at a 01:46:36.320 --> 01:46:39.280 high Lutheran church, because obviously there are some that are a little 01:46:39.280 --> 01:46:44.080 bit lower church these days, but if you have the full liturgy 01:46:44.080 --> 01:46:47.600 at a Lutheran church, it is going to look very Roman Catholic. 01:46:47.600 --> 01:46:51.360 And the reason for that is that the faith hasn't changed. 01:46:51.360 --> 01:46:53.440 The practices the faith hasn't changed. 01:46:53.440 --> 01:46:57.040 It is the same faith delivered once for all to the apostles. 01:46:57.040 --> 01:47:01.120 It is the same faith maintained by our European forefathers for hundreds 01:47:01.120 --> 01:47:02.960 of years. 01:47:03.200 --> 01:47:08.640 There were two different wings of the Reformation broadly speaking. 01:47:08.640 --> 01:47:13.040 There was the Conservative Reformation led by the Lutherans, and the Radical 01:47:13.040 --> 01:47:17.920 Reformation. The Radical Reformation threw the baby out with the bathwater. 01:47:17.920 --> 01:47:21.840 Those are the ones who smashed the organs and tore out the 01:47:21.840 --> 01:47:26.560 stained glass windows and removed the paintings and everything else. 01:47:26.560 --> 01:47:29.040 Nowhere in scripture is that commanded. 01:47:29.040 --> 01:47:30.400 Nowhere is that required. 01:47:30.400 --> 01:47:32.240 And so having a service that looks 01:47:33.200 --> 01:47:37.680 like what our forefathers would have recognized as a Christian service isn't 01:47:37.600 --> 01:47:38.320 a bad thing. 01:47:38.320 --> 01:47:42.320 That's a wonderful blessing from God that we still have it. 01:47:42.320 --> 01:47:45.360 But it is the doctrinal difference that matters. 01:47:45.680 --> 01:47:49.120 The reason we are not Roman Catholic is because we disagree with 01:47:49.120 --> 01:47:51.040 them on theology. 01:47:51.040 --> 01:47:54.640 It's not because we disagree with them when it comes to stained 01:47:54.640 --> 01:47:57.920 glass and organ music and decorating the church and all these things 01:47:58.560 --> 01:48:02.320 like that, you're going in for an audience with the king, it 01:48:02.320 --> 01:48:05.600 should look appropriate and you should dress appropriately. 01:48:05.680 --> 01:48:06.000 But 01:48:08.640 --> 01:48:11.440 it is that doctrinal difference that matters, right? 01:48:11.440 --> 01:48:15.280 You want to go somewhere that preaches the word in the fullness 01:48:15.280 --> 01:48:16.320 of the truth. 01:48:16.320 --> 01:48:19.600 You don't want to this is another reason again to avoid the 01:48:19.680 --> 01:48:23.520 the EO because you are going to find that they teach things 01:48:23.520 --> 01:48:25.440 that are not true. 01:48:25.440 --> 01:48:28.960 So So you have a split there with regard to that objection. 01:48:28.960 --> 01:48:33.040 Yes, it looks Roman Catholic, but that's because the Roman Catholics get 01:48:33.040 --> 01:48:34.560 a lot of things right. 01:48:34.560 --> 01:48:39.120 It's not because the less Roman Catholic you look, the more Christian 01:48:39.120 --> 01:48:40.560 you are. 01:48:40.560 --> 01:48:43.440 A lot of what Rome teaches and a lot of what Rome 01:48:43.440 --> 01:48:44.720 does is right. 01:48:44.720 --> 01:48:48.320 That's why the conservative Reformation didn't throw out the baby with the 01:48:48.320 --> 01:48:51.280 bathwater. We didn't say everything Rome does is wrong, we have to 01:48:51.280 --> 01:48:53.120 get rid of it all and start from scratch. 01:48:53.120 --> 01:48:57.040 No, we said we have a list of things to which we 01:48:57.040 --> 01:49:00.000 object, and you as the head of the household should go through 01:49:00.000 --> 01:49:01.840 that list and see if you agree. 01:49:01.840 --> 01:49:05.200 See if you agree with what the Lutheran reformers said about the 01:49:05.200 --> 01:49:08.000 Roman Church and why we disagree. 01:49:08.000 --> 01:49:09.120 But it's a list. 01:49:09.120 --> 01:49:10.720 It's not a very long list. 01:49:10.720 --> 01:49:12.720 We disagree with these things. 01:49:12.720 --> 01:49:15.600 Some of them are very important, some of them are core to 01:49:15.600 --> 01:49:16.240 the faith. 01:49:16.720 --> 01:49:17.040 But 01:49:18.240 --> 01:49:19.840 it's only these things. 01:49:19.840 --> 01:49:22.000 We don't think that it's bad to have music. 01:49:22.000 --> 01:49:23.840 We don't think it's bad to have statuary. 01:49:23.840 --> 01:49:25.920 We don't think it's bad to have stained glass. 01:49:25.920 --> 01:49:29.120 We don't think it's bad to have beauty in the church that 01:49:29.120 --> 01:49:30.960 worships a God who is himself 01:49:31.840 --> 01:49:34.880 the transcendental of beauty. 01:49:34.880 --> 01:49:38.400 So yes, we're going to look Roman Catholic, but we're not Roman 01:49:38.400 --> 01:49:42.160 Catholic, because if we agreed with them doctrinally, there would have never 01:49:42.160 --> 01:49:48.560 been any split there had been an actual meeting, if we'd had 01:49:48.560 --> 01:49:52.000 a council, then perhaps there would have been no split. 01:49:52.000 --> 01:49:56.000 But that starts to get into why that happened. 01:49:56.000 --> 01:50:00.480 But then finally, to answer sort of your first question, you are 01:50:00.480 --> 01:50:04.400 absolutely responsible for picking which church you attend. 01:50:04.400 --> 01:50:09.120 You can consult with your wife in the sense of feeling out 01:50:09.120 --> 01:50:14.800 why she is concerned, in the sense of her worries, what she 01:50:14.800 --> 01:50:17.600 wants. All of those are totally fine, and you should do those 01:50:17.600 --> 01:50:20.400 things. Your wife is another human being. 01:50:20.400 --> 01:50:21.760 You are her head. 01:50:21.760 --> 01:50:23.360 You are responsible. 01:50:23.360 --> 01:50:24.800 But she's still your wife. 01:50:24.800 --> 01:50:26.080 She's still your helper. 01:50:26.080 --> 01:50:27.840 You should care what she wants. 01:50:27.840 --> 01:50:28.880 How she's feeling. 01:50:28.880 --> 01:50:32.480 That's the biggest thing for women, of course. 01:50:32.480 --> 01:50:37.840 Those should be relevant to you, but they're not determinative. 01:50:37.840 --> 01:50:40.640 Because you are the one who is going to stand before God 01:50:40.640 --> 01:50:44.880 and have to answer, man, where is your wife? 01:50:44.880 --> 01:50:46.880 Because you are the one who is responsible to make sure that 01:50:47.520 --> 01:50:52.240 she has the true faith, believes the true things, and you are 01:50:52.240 --> 01:50:55.760 responsible to make sure your children also believe those things and have 01:50:55.760 --> 01:50:59.040 a true faith, because you are the head of the household, and 01:50:59.040 --> 01:51:02.080 so you have final say. 01:51:02.080 --> 01:51:05.360 She can talk to you about it, and you should talk to 01:51:05.360 --> 01:51:06.480 her about it. 01:51:06.480 --> 01:51:09.360 But you have the final say and you need to make clear 01:51:09.360 --> 01:51:11.120 to her those things. 01:51:11.120 --> 01:51:14.880 You need to say I have the final say on this because 01:51:14.880 --> 01:51:16.880 I am the head of the household. 01:51:16.880 --> 01:51:19.600 I have the final say on this because I am the one 01:51:19.600 --> 01:51:23.120 who will answer to God for what I do. 01:51:23.120 --> 01:51:25.520 She will have to answer to God for what she believes and 01:51:25.520 --> 01:51:26.400 what she does in this life. 01:51:26.400 --> 01:51:29.440 Women don't get off the hook, it's not you're scot free because 01:51:29.440 --> 01:51:31.600 you happen not to be a man. 01:51:31.600 --> 01:51:34.960 But as the head, you are held to a different and higher 01:51:34.960 --> 01:51:37.600 standard. So make it clear to her why you are the one 01:51:37.600 --> 01:51:39.120 who has the authority? 01:51:39.120 --> 01:51:41.520 Why you are the one who makes the decision. 01:51:41.520 --> 01:51:45.040 Quite frankly, for almost all women, she is going to be more 01:51:45.040 --> 01:51:47.680 comfortable with that because you are doing what you're supposed to do 01:51:47.680 --> 01:51:48.640 as a man. 01:51:48.640 --> 01:51:51.920 Women are going to test you, they're going to push boundaries, but 01:51:51.920 --> 01:51:54.880 if they find that you don't have a spine and that you 01:51:54.880 --> 01:51:56.880 are not willing to stand up and do what needs to be 01:51:56.880 --> 01:52:00.560 done as the man, that's when you're in some real trouble. 01:52:00.560 --> 01:52:02.880 So make sure you do what you need to do. 01:52:02.880 --> 01:52:05.680 You have the final say, you have to make this choice. 01:52:05.680 --> 01:52:08.160 Your wife does not get to make the choice. 01:52:08.160 --> 01:52:11.200 Even if she has some things that make her a little bit 01:52:11.200 --> 01:52:15.200 uncomfortable at first or she has some concerns, you can alleviate those, 01:52:15.200 --> 01:52:16.720 you can address those. 01:52:16.720 --> 01:52:19.040 But they are not dispositive. 01:52:19.040 --> 01:52:22.560 What she feels what she wants is not determinative because you are 01:52:22.560 --> 01:52:23.200 the head. 01:52:23.200 --> 01:52:25.200 You will answer to God for what you do. 01:52:25.200 --> 01:52:26.400 Or fail to do 01:52:30.960 --> 01:52:31.440 Let me 01:52:32.400 --> 01:52:34.560 go through the chat here. 01:52:34.560 --> 01:52:37.360 I got through the thirteen questions that I had on my list 01:52:37.360 --> 01:52:39.360 for the episode, but I will 01:52:40.240 --> 01:52:44.240 go through the chat now and try to get some of those. 01:52:44.240 --> 01:52:48.400 The first one, are you convinced Yahweh is a demon rather than 01:52:48.400 --> 01:52:50.480 just a linguistic error? 01:52:50.720 --> 01:52:52.400 That's going to depend on the person. 01:52:52.400 --> 01:52:58.640 I think for many people, it is just extremely stupid and a 01:52:58.640 --> 01:53:04.720 linguistic error, but I think that it if it is not originally 01:53:04.720 --> 01:53:06.960 the name of a demon, I think it is the adopted name 01:53:06.960 --> 01:53:10.080 of a demon that is in some way involved with the Jewish 01:53:10.080 --> 01:53:14.880 people. And I think that's very clear from what has been done 01:53:14.880 --> 01:53:20.400 in that name and under that name over a course of centuries. 01:53:20.400 --> 01:53:20.720 So 01:53:21.920 --> 01:53:24.720 I would definitely object to using it in any way. 01:53:24.720 --> 01:53:27.600 I would not I hesitated to read it. 01:53:27.600 --> 01:53:30.560 And that's not saying, you know, name magic or anything like that, 01:53:30.560 --> 01:53:30.880 but 01:53:31.840 --> 01:53:34.640 there are some ways that these things play out that we do 01:53:34.640 --> 01:53:37.840 not fully understand because God did not explain them to us because 01:53:37.840 --> 01:53:40.000 perhaps we don't need to know them. 01:53:40.000 --> 01:53:43.680 But I don't think that we should in any way be using 01:53:43.680 --> 01:53:47.120 the names of demons unless it is sort of in the sterile 01:53:47.120 --> 01:53:52.640 environment of you know noting that this thing existed or exists or 01:53:52.640 --> 01:53:55.840 is historically rel you know, for instance, I don't not read the 01:53:55.840 --> 01:53:58.000 name Baal when I'm going through scripture, right? 01:53:58.080 --> 01:54:01.120 Just means Lord, but it is the name of a demon. 01:54:01.120 --> 01:54:04.720 I don't not read it because it is that, but I'm not 01:54:04.720 --> 01:54:08.400 going to use it outside that context because I think it's unwise. 01:54:08.400 --> 01:54:11.120 Same thing with regard to Yahweh. 01:54:11.120 --> 01:54:13.280 We should not be using it, certainly as Christians. 01:54:13.280 --> 01:54:17.200 And we should be very skeptical of anyone who does. 01:54:17.200 --> 01:54:22.160 Usually those people are seeking to mislead you in some entirely predictable 01:54:22.160 --> 01:54:22.800 way. 01:54:24.320 --> 01:54:28.640 Someone asked about a top ten reading list I I don't know 01:54:28.640 --> 01:54:32.400 that I have that off the top of my head. 01:54:32.400 --> 01:54:37.440 People have asked before and I just have not actually compiled one. 01:54:37.440 --> 01:54:41.200 I've read so many books at this point, quite frankly, I have 01:54:41.360 --> 01:54:44.000 I don't even know how many volumes my own library because I 01:54:44.000 --> 01:54:47.280 never actually got through scanning them all. 01:54:47.440 --> 01:54:47.760 But 01:54:49.200 --> 01:54:52.480 I think it would largely depend on if we're talking about just 01:54:52.480 --> 01:54:55.200 any book or if we're talking about certain genres. 01:54:55.200 --> 01:54:58.000 If we're talking about fiction, then obviously Dune is going to be 01:54:58.000 --> 01:54:59.680 in my top ten. 01:54:59.680 --> 01:55:02.400 He's saying that a series should count as one, which I think 01:55:02.400 --> 01:55:03.360 is fine. 01:55:03.360 --> 01:55:05.840 Lord of the Rings is good, that was an example he gave. 01:55:05.840 --> 01:55:09.120 I actually think I'll say something controversial for some men, I think 01:55:09.120 --> 01:55:11.360 Tolkien is a much better writer than C.S. 01:55:11.360 --> 01:55:14.320 Lewis. It's just the reality of it. 01:55:14.320 --> 01:55:16.320 I don't think Lewis is bad. 01:55:16.320 --> 01:55:20.720 I would not put the space trilogy in my top ten. 01:55:20.720 --> 01:55:21.680 I just wouldn't. 01:55:21.680 --> 01:55:26.400 I know many men on our side are very fond of Lewis 01:55:26.400 --> 01:55:28.880 and fond of the space trilogy, but 01:55:30.080 --> 01:55:33.040 I just didn't find it that particularly compelling. 01:55:33.200 --> 01:55:36.000 It's not bad, just not my top ten. 01:55:36.000 --> 01:55:38.160 So I don't really have a top ten list. 01:55:38.160 --> 01:55:41.040 I don't know that I will ever make one, but I'll give 01:55:41.040 --> 01:55:44.880 book recommendations here and there, and I've done that for various genre's 01:55:44.880 --> 01:55:53.680 various areas of interest. 01:55:53.680 --> 01:55:59.840 Someone asked about the music used for Stone Choir. 01:55:59.840 --> 01:56:01.920 That one's actually very easy. 01:56:01.920 --> 01:56:04.800 I don't even know if it counts as a question necessarily, but 01:56:04.800 --> 01:56:05.600 I guess it does. 01:56:05.600 --> 01:56:06.880 Question 16. 01:56:06.880 --> 01:56:10.480 So if you go to Stone Choir and click on the resources 01:56:10.480 --> 01:56:14.400 page it gives both a download of the intro and outro and 01:56:14.400 --> 01:56:16.480 says which songs they are. 01:56:16.480 --> 01:56:17.840 It's two different hymns. 01:56:17.840 --> 01:56:21.600 Well, it's two different tunes, many different hymns in the one case, 01:56:21.600 --> 01:56:26.400 because one of the tunes is used across various denominations and one 01:56:26.400 --> 01:56:29.760 is going to be pretty much just Lutherans who know it, but 01:56:29.760 --> 01:56:32.000 they are both hymns. 01:56:32.000 --> 01:56:35.040 The outro is indeed from Martin Luther. 01:56:41.600 --> 01:56:44.880 Someone asked in regards to not listening to women, I understand to 01:56:44.880 --> 01:56:47.920 some extent, but is it okay to take your woman's opinion into 01:56:47.920 --> 01:56:49.360 consideration to discuss topics? 01:56:49.440 --> 01:56:52.720 I think I sort of answered that with the last question there. 01:56:52.720 --> 01:56:56.160 The answer of course is yes, and you absolutely should. 01:56:56.160 --> 01:56:56.800 Because 01:56:58.560 --> 01:57:02.560 your wife's desires and her thoughts and her feet particularly her feelings, 01:57:02.560 --> 01:57:05.040 that's just the reality of it, they do matter. 01:57:05.040 --> 01:57:06.640 They're going to matter for your relationship. 01:57:06.640 --> 01:57:08.880 They're going to certainly matter for her and her happiness. 01:57:08.880 --> 01:57:11.200 And that's going to influence your home. 01:57:11.200 --> 01:57:14.160 It's going to influence you, your children, everything else. 01:57:14.160 --> 01:57:17.360 So it's not that you're ruled by your wife, right? 01:57:17.360 --> 01:57:19.840 Because if you're ruled by your wife, that will make her extremely 01:57:19.840 --> 01:57:22.720 unhappy. So that's not good in any system. 01:57:22.720 --> 01:57:25.680 It's not good because it's bad to be ruled by your wife, 01:57:25.680 --> 01:57:28.400 and it's not good because being ruled by your wife will actually 01:57:28.400 --> 01:57:30.720 make Actually, make her unhappy as well. 01:57:30.720 --> 01:57:31.760 So don't do that. 01:57:31.760 --> 01:57:33.600 But can you discuss things with her? 01:57:33.600 --> 01:57:36.000 Absolutely. Be judicious. 01:57:36.000 --> 01:57:38.720 Don't discuss absolutely every topic with her. 01:57:38.720 --> 01:57:42.880 If you discuss the political if you are so inclined and you 01:57:42.880 --> 01:57:44.160 know about it. 01:57:44.160 --> 01:57:48.080 If you discuss the political reality of our situation with your wife 01:57:48.080 --> 01:57:51.280 in depth, you are just going to make her depressed and anxious. 01:57:51.280 --> 01:57:53.120 Don't do that to her. 01:57:53.120 --> 01:57:55.440 Save that for Save that for your male friends. 01:57:55.440 --> 01:57:59.680 That's something that is not really something that involves women. 01:57:59.680 --> 01:58:03.440 That is a male area because God has assigned it to men, 01:58:03.440 --> 01:58:08.480 so exercise your judgment. 01:58:15.200 --> 01:58:22.000 Someone asked about attending seminary, specifically about the LCMS and some others 01:58:22.000 --> 01:58:22.560 as well. 01:58:22.880 --> 01:58:25.600 If a man wants to become a pastor, but if you go 01:58:25.600 --> 01:58:29.440 to Concordia Seminary, let's say we'll skip the university part, if you 01:58:29.440 --> 01:58:32.400 go to a Concordia Seminary, you will have to learn Hebrew. 01:58:32.400 --> 01:58:35.680 So, should a young man not go to LCMS University and Seminary? 01:58:35.680 --> 01:58:39.440 I guess I could give really two answers to that. 01:58:39.440 --> 01:58:46.400 One is that you can go to another seminary, and then you 01:58:46.400 --> 01:58:50.160 can basically wave in, as it were, which was what attorneys would 01:58:50.160 --> 01:58:54.720 call it, but there's a process to become an LCMS pastor, despite 01:58:54.720 --> 01:58:57.680 not having gone to an LCMS seminary, if that's the route you 01:58:57.680 --> 01:58:58.720 want to take. 01:58:58.720 --> 01:59:02.480 So but insofar as becoming a Lutheran pastor, if you really want 01:59:02.480 --> 01:59:05.280 that education, I still think the LCMS seminary is going to be 01:59:05.280 --> 01:59:07.360 good for that. 01:59:07.360 --> 01:59:11.440 And learn enough Hebrew to pass the class. 01:59:11.440 --> 01:59:12.800 You know. 01:59:13.040 --> 01:59:17.040 I think anyone in this chat who learned a second language in 01:59:17.040 --> 01:59:21.600 high school probably understands exactly what I just said, because most men 01:59:21.600 --> 01:59:24.800 who learned a second language in high school learned enough to pass 01:59:24.800 --> 01:59:25.440 the class. 01:59:25.680 --> 01:59:28.640 And if I asked you a question in Spanish or German or 01:59:28.640 --> 01:59:31.760 French today right now, today, you probably would not be able to 01:59:31.760 --> 01:59:32.640 answer it. 01:59:32.640 --> 01:59:34.480 So do the same thing with Hebrew. 01:59:34.480 --> 01:59:35.840 Just get enough to pass the class. 01:59:35.840 --> 01:59:37.120 I think that's fine. 01:59:37.120 --> 01:59:38.320 Is it ideal? 01:59:38.320 --> 01:59:39.840 Absolutely not. 01:59:39.840 --> 01:59:43.760 But But it is the reality, and I think you're probably going 01:59:43.760 --> 01:59:47.920 to get a better education at that seminary, particularly if you can 01:59:47.920 --> 01:59:50.080 get the tuition covered in some way. 01:59:50.080 --> 01:59:52.400 So don't go into debt for this, but 01:59:53.360 --> 01:59:58.640 I think that's probably the best way to handle that one. 01:59:58.640 --> 02:00:02.000 Someone asked, how do you recommend dealing with unemployment? 02:00:02.000 --> 02:00:04.800 I think there are two obvious answers. 02:00:04.800 --> 02:00:07.760 That one is do whatever you can to get a job because 02:00:07.920 --> 02:00:11.280 for me For men, that's pretty important, just psychologically. 02:00:11.280 --> 02:00:13.600 I mean, it's important for a lot of reasons, but psychologically it's 02:00:13.520 --> 02:00:14.720 certainly important. 02:00:14.720 --> 02:00:17.600 But the second answer to that is perhaps more the sort of 02:00:17.600 --> 02:00:20.160 answer you're seeking. 02:00:20.160 --> 02:00:22.320 Don't be idle. 02:00:22.640 --> 02:00:24.320 Do something with your time. 02:00:24.320 --> 02:00:27.200 This is one of those areas that's going to be highly dependent 02:00:27.200 --> 02:00:28.960 on the type of man you are. 02:00:28.960 --> 02:00:33.120 Some men are very good at structuring their lives and 02:00:34.000 --> 02:00:38.480 Even if they have basically unlimited free time regimenting things and doing 02:00:38.480 --> 02:00:40.800 them, despite the fact that they could just sit on the couch 02:00:40.800 --> 02:00:43.440 all day and do nothing, you know, play Xbox or whatever it 02:00:43.440 --> 02:00:46.240 is. Excuse me. 02:00:46.320 --> 02:00:46.640 So 02:00:48.320 --> 02:00:51.120 make sure you have a schedule, basically. 02:00:51.120 --> 02:00:53.760 It doesn't have to be, you know, for 10 minutes I do 02:00:53.760 --> 02:00:55.200 X and then for 20. 02:00:55.200 --> 02:00:57.680 Just have time chunked out. 02:00:57.680 --> 02:00:59.760 so you work out. 02:00:59.760 --> 02:01:01.440 That should be part of your daily schedule. 02:01:01.440 --> 02:01:04.560 You work out for this period of time. 02:01:04.560 --> 02:01:06.320 You take the dog for a walk. 02:01:06.320 --> 02:01:08.160 You have lunch during this time. 02:01:08.160 --> 02:01:09.600 You read during this time. 02:01:09.600 --> 02:01:13.520 You know, have chunks of time where you do things, have that 02:01:13.520 --> 02:01:18.000 organized schedule, or you're probably going to fall into depression. 02:01:18.000 --> 02:01:20.240 That's the psychological reality for men. 02:01:20.240 --> 02:01:22.160 Men do not do well when they're idle. 02:01:22.160 --> 02:01:24.960 Until you get really old and you're retired, right? 02:01:25.040 --> 02:01:27.200 You even then, not great. 02:01:27.200 --> 02:01:30.560 Older men still should have some sort of schedule. 02:01:30.560 --> 02:01:32.160 It's going to be different for older men, right? 02:01:32.160 --> 02:01:34.320 You play bocce ball and then you play bridge in the afternoon 02:01:34.400 --> 02:01:38.640 or something, but if you just have open-ended free time and you 02:01:38.640 --> 02:01:44.880 do nothing with it, it is terrible for you, psychologically, morally, biologically, 02:01:44.880 --> 02:01:46.320 it's going to start to weigh on you. 02:01:46.320 --> 02:01:49.200 Don't fall into that trap. 02:01:49.200 --> 02:01:52.960 So So continue looking for a job, assuming that is I assume 02:01:52.960 --> 02:01:54.320 that is what's going on here. 02:01:54.320 --> 02:01:57.360 Continue looking for a job, but in the interim, make sure you 02:01:57.360 --> 02:01:59.440 are using that time to do something. 02:01:59.440 --> 02:02:02.080 It doesn't mean every minute of the day has to be devoted 02:02:02.080 --> 02:02:04.160 to doing something productive, right? 02:02:04.160 --> 02:02:06.480 Leisure time is also important. 02:02:06.480 --> 02:02:10.960 But don't let all of your time become not leisure, but at 02:02:10.960 --> 02:02:12.320 that point sloth. 02:02:12.320 --> 02:02:20.320 So make sure you maintain that that structure in your life. 02:02:20.480 --> 02:02:25.680 The next question did you consider joining a traditional Roman Catholic Church 02:02:25.680 --> 02:02:29.200 before you became Lutheran or were you fully convinced of Lutheran doctrine 02:02:29.200 --> 02:02:30.400 early on? 02:02:30.400 --> 02:02:36.320 I looked at a lot of different things before I became Lutheran. 02:02:36.320 --> 02:02:38.720 I wouldn't say settled on Lutheran because that's not how it was, 02:02:38.720 --> 02:02:42.720 but convinced of Lutheran doctrine. 02:02:42.720 --> 02:02:45.680 I I've gone over this before, I'll go over it again. 02:02:45.680 --> 02:02:48.320 I grew up sort of half Lutheran and half not. 02:02:48.320 --> 02:02:51.520 Half Lutheran because I attended an LCMS school, and so I went 02:02:51.520 --> 02:02:53.200 to chapel and things like that. 02:02:53.200 --> 02:02:57.840 And half not because my parents were not Lutheran. 02:02:57.840 --> 02:03:03.440 They went to a ironically, perhaps, Lutheran descended church, but it was 02:03:03.440 --> 02:03:07.200 a covenant church, and so it was largely non denominational. 02:03:07.200 --> 02:03:09.440 You can even figure out which one it was in southern California 02:03:09.600 --> 02:03:11.920 won't be that hard to find if you know the rough area 02:03:11.920 --> 02:03:13.520 where I lived when I grew up. 02:03:13.520 --> 02:03:18.400 But actually you can probably just find it very easily. 02:03:18.400 --> 02:03:20.320 So I started off that way, right? 02:03:20.320 --> 02:03:22.800 And so uh really what I sort of did is returned to 02:03:22.800 --> 02:03:24.400 Lutheranism, kind of. 02:03:24.400 --> 02:03:27.680 But you know, like I said, half and half not. 02:03:28.160 --> 02:03:32.240 In undergrad is really the end of undergrad is when I started 02:03:32.240 --> 02:03:34.880 taking theology more seriously and looking at it because up to then 02:03:34.960 --> 02:03:39.760 I was really political science and sociology and psychology and various other 02:03:39.760 --> 02:03:41.600 fields like that. 02:03:41.600 --> 02:03:43.840 That was my interest at first. 02:03:43.840 --> 02:03:47.920 Then I still have great deal of background in that stuff. 02:03:47.920 --> 02:03:53.120 But I started reading more theology, and I actually read a lot 02:03:53.120 --> 02:03:54.800 of Reformed theology. 02:03:54.800 --> 02:04:00.080 It's probably not now, because now I've read more Lutheran, but up 02:04:00.080 --> 02:04:02.720 to that point, and up to the point where I decided to 02:04:02.720 --> 02:04:07.760 become firmly Lutheran and actually you know go through the process in 02:04:07.760 --> 02:04:10.240 a Lutheran church, become a member and all that. 02:04:10.560 --> 02:04:13.680 I read more Reform theology than probably anything else. 02:04:13.680 --> 02:04:16.960 But I did read Roman Catholic, and I did read from the 02:04:16.960 --> 02:04:22.080 Baptists and the Puritans and many others, and I was not convinced 02:04:22.080 --> 02:04:28.640 by any of it except for Lutheranism And this is a similar 02:04:28.800 --> 02:04:31.760 thing that I hear from many of those who will tell me 02:04:31.920 --> 02:04:36.320 I'm Lutheran now, and they'll tell me one of two reasons usually. 02:04:36.320 --> 02:04:42.080 One is I read the book of Concord, and it agrees with 02:04:42.080 --> 02:04:46.320 Scripture. I compared it to Scripture, and I found it said the 02:04:46.320 --> 02:04:47.040 same things. 02:04:47.040 --> 02:04:51.200 I was convinced by it because it sounds like Scripture. 02:04:51.200 --> 02:04:54.320 And then the second is I tried to argue with Martin Luther 02:04:54.400 --> 02:04:55.520 and I lost. 02:04:55.520 --> 02:04:58.320 I hear that one pretty frequently, too. 02:04:58.320 --> 02:05:00.640 So I think that's very reasonable. 02:05:00.640 --> 02:05:04.720 If you read Luther and you read the book of Concord, and 02:05:04.720 --> 02:05:07.840 you find that it agrees with plain reason and agrees with the 02:05:07.840 --> 02:05:10.480 Word of God, then by all means become Lutheran. 02:05:10.480 --> 02:05:12.720 I'm not going to say you have to become Lutheran just because 02:05:12.720 --> 02:05:13.920 I think it's right. 02:05:13.920 --> 02:05:16.240 I think that a man should be convinced to some degree, because 02:05:16.240 --> 02:05:18.480 it is a matter of conscience. 02:05:18.480 --> 02:05:23.920 But I have found that Lutheranism is the most consistent with Scripture. 02:05:23.920 --> 02:05:26.960 I believe everything it teaches about Scripture is true. 02:05:26.960 --> 02:05:31.120 I don't believe there are errors doctrinal errors in the Book of 02:05:31.120 --> 02:05:34.000 Concord, which is why I'm Lutheran. 02:05:34.000 --> 02:05:36.880 But no, I did look at a lot of other things before 02:05:36.880 --> 02:05:42.000 I eventually turned to reading Martin Luther in the Book of Concord. 02:05:42.000 --> 02:05:46.240 Other than obviously, I knew the small catechism because you memorize it 02:05:46.240 --> 02:05:47.920 when you go to a Lutheran school. 02:05:47.920 --> 02:05:51.040 So I did have that little bit of background in Lutheranism. 02:05:55.920 --> 02:05:59.600 The next question. 02:05:59.680 --> 02:06:03.840 Try to keep a running note tally here so that I can 02:06:03.840 --> 02:06:06.640 add this to the show notes. 02:06:09.360 --> 02:06:11.840 Have you ever spoken with Joel Webin? 02:06:11.840 --> 02:06:14.320 If not, are you going to be doing so or would you 02:06:14.320 --> 02:06:17.600 ever like to do an interview with him in the near future? 02:06:17.600 --> 02:06:19.520 I have not spoken with him. 02:06:19.520 --> 02:06:24.480 I don't know that I would object to doing an interview, but 02:06:24.480 --> 02:06:27.440 I have a feeling that he probably would. 02:06:27.440 --> 02:06:27.760 And 02:06:28.640 --> 02:06:31.840 there are a number of reasons for that. 02:06:31.840 --> 02:06:34.080 I'm not going to say anything concrete 02:06:34.960 --> 02:06:37.520 because I don't think it would be appropriate for me to say 02:06:37.520 --> 02:06:43.760 it here and now, but I have not spoken with him no. 02:06:43.760 --> 02:06:47.200 But again, I would not object to an interview because generally speaking, 02:06:47.200 --> 02:06:51.120 I don't object to talking to anyone who is at least vaguely 02:06:51.120 --> 02:06:52.480 on side. 02:06:52.480 --> 02:06:52.800 So 02:06:54.640 --> 02:06:59.520 last year I issued a blanket open door policy as it were, 02:06:59.520 --> 02:07:03.520 I basically said anyone who wants to invite me onto a podcast 02:07:03.520 --> 02:07:05.840 show, whatever it happens to be, as long as you have some 02:07:05.840 --> 02:07:08.800 sort of audience, you know, I didn't want to open the door 02:07:08.800 --> 02:07:11.520 for the person who spins up a YouTube channel and five minutes 02:07:11.520 --> 02:07:13.280 later says, Hey, you want to have a chat? 02:07:13.280 --> 02:07:17.440 I put some reasonable restrictions on it, but I basically said I 02:07:17.440 --> 02:07:18.880 will say yes. 02:07:18.880 --> 02:07:22.320 That's no longer open because it was really just for that period 02:07:22.320 --> 02:07:24.160 of time, but it it kind of still is. 02:07:24.160 --> 02:07:27.520 I'm not going to object to talking to most men. 02:07:27.520 --> 02:07:30.960 Because I think that it is useful to hash out some of 02:07:30.960 --> 02:07:31.680 these issues. 02:07:31.680 --> 02:07:35.760 I know that we stopped Stone Choir because we had already addressed 02:07:35.760 --> 02:07:38.800 basically all the core issues, which I still believe is true. 02:07:39.040 --> 02:07:42.320 I do this because I believe that men still want to have 02:07:42.320 --> 02:07:46.960 some answers to certain questions and clarification of certain things that pop 02:07:46.960 --> 02:07:50.080 up every, you know, almost weekly. 02:07:50.080 --> 02:07:52.720 But I think it's reasonable to have this as well. 02:07:52.720 --> 02:07:56.080 But what we set out to accomplish with Stone Choir was accomplished 02:07:56.160 --> 02:07:58.320 and therefore the catalogue was closed. 02:07:58.320 --> 02:08:01.360 That doesn't mean that there's nothing left to be discussed. 02:08:01.360 --> 02:08:05.040 And so I don't object to having these discussions with other men, 02:08:05.040 --> 02:08:08.320 and no, I would not object to talking to him. 02:08:08.640 --> 02:08:11.520 Perhaps if there were other men in the area I'd start up 02:08:11.520 --> 02:08:14.720 the Tisheraden podcast again, but they'd have to be other men in 02:08:14.720 --> 02:08:17.280 the area who like to drink beer, so I don't know if 02:08:17.280 --> 02:08:19.280 that'll happen in the near future. 02:08:23.120 --> 02:08:24.400 The next question. 02:08:24.400 --> 02:08:28.800 Hi Cory, I recently saw Wo denounce Theonymy as a modern heresy. 02:08:28.800 --> 02:08:31.680 The elevator pitch sounds similar to CN. 02:08:31.680 --> 02:08:34.160 Do you share this view and if so, what is the key 02:08:34.160 --> 02:08:37.520 difference if any from CN? 02:08:37.520 --> 02:08:42.080 That's going to depend very heavily on the man who is advancing 02:08:42.080 --> 02:08:47.760 theonomy because insofar as I've seen from the reformed camp, I've seen 02:08:47.760 --> 02:08:51.280 a bunch of different formulations of it, and I can agree to 02:08:51.280 --> 02:08:54.720 various degrees with the various formulations. 02:08:54.720 --> 02:08:57.360 So I don't know that I could give a blanket answer. 02:08:57.360 --> 02:09:02.320 It would have to be a particular formulation of theonomy. 02:09:02.320 --> 02:09:02.640 And 02:09:03.760 --> 02:09:06.960 then I could give a concrete answer as to I agree with 02:09:06.960 --> 02:09:08.800 this, I disagree with that sort of thing. 02:09:08.800 --> 02:09:12.000 So it would depend on the specific man. 02:09:12.000 --> 02:09:16.320 But I would have to see to what Woe was responding to 02:09:16.320 --> 02:09:17.680 see why he called it a heresy. 02:09:17.680 --> 02:09:18.880 I would probably agree with him. 02:09:18.880 --> 02:09:21.120 I trust his judgment on these things. 02:09:21.120 --> 02:09:21.840 But But 02:09:24.240 --> 02:09:26.560 I don't know to what he was responding. 02:09:26.560 --> 02:09:28.480 I didn't see that one. 02:09:28.480 --> 02:09:31.920 The X algorithm has a great way of hiding things from you, 02:09:31.920 --> 02:09:35.920 even when you follow someone and have notifications turned on. 02:09:49.840 --> 02:09:53.040 The next question, how do you get single guys to not seek 02:09:53.040 --> 02:09:55.600 a female that is based? 02:09:55.920 --> 02:10:00.240 I don't know it's bad to find a woman who agrees politically, 02:10:00.240 --> 02:10:04.960 but I think that if guys are going to make that a 02:10:04.960 --> 02:10:10.800 requirement, they have not necessarily set up politics as an idol, but 02:10:10.800 --> 02:10:14.080 they're in error with regard to judgment. 02:10:14.080 --> 02:10:15.760 Because this is not an area that 02:10:16.640 --> 02:10:16.880 is 02:10:18.480 --> 02:10:18.800 really 02:10:19.760 --> 02:10:21.520 an area for women. 02:10:21.520 --> 02:10:22.160 And so 02:10:23.040 --> 02:10:26.880 it's more important that you find a woman who is going to 02:10:26.880 --> 02:10:30.720 take care of the home is going to be a wife and 02:10:30.720 --> 02:10:34.960 mother and is going to submit to you as her head, then 02:10:34.960 --> 02:10:38.480 finding a woman who already agrees with you on everything. 02:10:38.480 --> 02:10:41.760 If she agrees with you on some certain core things, that's great 02:10:41.920 --> 02:10:44.960 because it means that her father raised her right and the world 02:10:44.960 --> 02:10:46.720 didn't corrupt her. 02:10:46.720 --> 02:10:50.080 But she doesn't have to agree with you on everything at the 02:10:50.080 --> 02:10:51.840 outset, and she's not going to. 02:10:51.840 --> 02:10:54.480 So I think you're looking for the wrong things if you're looking 02:10:54.480 --> 02:10:56.720 for politics first in a woman. 02:10:56.720 --> 02:10:58.400 That's kind of odd. 02:10:58.400 --> 02:11:01.360 You're looking for the wrong thing in the wrong place. 02:11:01.520 --> 02:11:04.480 You know, don't look for a dog that speaks French, right? 02:11:04.480 --> 02:11:06.000 It's not how you choose. 02:11:06.240 --> 02:11:09.520 It's not to insult women or to insult dogs, or maybe the 02:11:09.520 --> 02:11:13.840 French. But you're looking at the wrong things and you're looking in 02:11:13.840 --> 02:11:15.760 the wrong place for them if you were trying to find a 02:11:15.760 --> 02:11:19.280 woman who is in the parlance of the right based. 02:11:19.280 --> 02:11:21.840 Look for other things that matter more. 02:11:21.840 --> 02:11:23.360 And the rest will follow. 02:11:23.360 --> 02:11:27.360 Because if she submits to you as her head, then by and 02:11:27.360 --> 02:11:30.000 large, she's not going to care about politics. 02:11:30.000 --> 02:11:33.440 Because that's not going to be what she is doing in the 02:11:33.440 --> 02:11:37.680 home. She is going to have plenty to do with children and 02:11:37.680 --> 02:11:38.400 running a home. 02:11:38.400 --> 02:11:42.080 And quite frankly, women are a lot happier when they don't think 02:11:42.080 --> 02:11:45.680 about politics, because politics, like I said earlier, just makes them depressed 02:11:45.680 --> 02:11:46.800 and anxious. 02:11:46.800 --> 02:11:50.480 So you probably don't want her to be that deeply involved in 02:11:50.480 --> 02:11:54.240 it because it comes with a cognitive and psychological burden. 02:12:04.720 --> 02:12:07.120 I know I have run a little bit over, but I will 02:12:07.200 --> 02:12:09.600 see if there are any other questions in the chat that I 02:12:09.600 --> 02:12:18.240 can answer quickly, 02:12:22.800 --> 02:12:23.040 I think. 02:12:23.680 --> 02:12:29.840 Would you consider an appearance on Kevin Deanna's show identity politics? 02:12:29.840 --> 02:12:33.200 He seems to be sympathetic to the takeover of some churches by 02:12:33.200 --> 02:12:37.360 modernity and expressed an interest in having you on. 02:12:37.760 --> 02:12:43.440 I am not off the top of my head familiar with him, 02:12:43.440 --> 02:12:47.920 I don't think. 02:12:48.240 --> 02:12:48.560 But 02:12:49.840 --> 02:12:53.520 if he's a guy who's on side, I don't think that I 02:12:53.520 --> 02:12:58.240 would necessarily object to having a chat with him. 02:12:58.240 --> 02:13:00.640 But like I said, I I don't think that off the top 02:13:00.640 --> 02:13:02.080 of my head. 02:13:02.080 --> 02:13:04.880 Wait, are you just talking about if you're just talking about the 02:13:04.880 --> 02:13:07.760 V Dare guy, then yeah, I know him, and I obviously wouldn't 02:13:07.680 --> 02:13:08.560 object to talking to him. 02:13:08.560 --> 02:13:10.640 I thought you're talking about someone else. 02:13:10.640 --> 02:13:14.640 But if we're just talking about the the V Dair guy, then 02:13:14.640 --> 02:13:17.200 yeah, no, I I know him and I'd have no trouble talking 02:13:17.200 --> 02:13:20.960 to him. 02:13:20.960 --> 02:13:21.280 So 02:13:24.400 --> 02:13:26.560 any fiction recommendations beyond Dune? 02:13:26.560 --> 02:13:28.240 I don't know that I necessarily have one off the top of 02:13:28.240 --> 02:13:35.360 my of my head for that. 02:13:38.640 --> 02:13:41.520 I guess I will keep that in mind in case I read 02:13:41.520 --> 02:13:42.720 a fiction book that I find particularly 02:13:43.600 --> 02:13:47.360 good. I have not been reading that much fiction these days, so 02:13:47.360 --> 02:13:50.560 I don't have as many recommendations, I guess. 02:13:53.440 --> 02:13:53.760 So 02:13:55.120 --> 02:13:58.720 I have recommended something with regard to fiction that I will go 02:13:58.720 --> 02:14:02.240 ahead and reiterate here for those who are interested though. 02:14:02.240 --> 02:14:08.720 If you want to and I guess, you know, necessarily disclaimer and 02:14:08.720 --> 02:14:10.000 whatnot, but 02:14:11.200 --> 02:14:16.240 if you want some sort of familiarity with or insight into the 02:14:16.240 --> 02:14:23.680 Jewish mind with regard to what they think of as their making 02:14:23.680 --> 02:14:26.240 a better world, right? 02:14:26.240 --> 02:14:31.040 Tikunolam. If you want sort of an insight into what they believe 02:14:31.040 --> 02:14:36.560 that would look like, then you can read the foundation series by 02:14:36.560 --> 02:14:42.800 Asimov, because Asimov himself was indeed a Jew, but he made the 02:14:42.800 --> 02:14:49.840 Spacers basically their version of the paradise on earth they'd like to 02:14:49.840 --> 02:14:52.800 create, the utopia they'd like to build. 02:14:52.800 --> 02:14:56.240 And you can I'm not saying watch the T V series, I've 02:14:56.240 --> 02:14:58.400 seen some clips of it and I think it's garbage compared to 02:14:58.400 --> 02:14:59.520 the books most likely. 02:14:59.520 --> 02:15:00.640 The books aren't bad. 02:15:00.640 --> 02:15:03.040 Like he c he was a decent author. 02:15:03.040 --> 02:15:06.480 So, but you know, cum granusalis, he was indeed a Jew. 02:15:06.480 --> 02:15:10.720 But you're going to get an insight into that view of the 02:15:10.720 --> 02:15:15.680 world. So So, yeah. 02:15:15.920 --> 02:15:19.040 I think if you want that sort of insight and you like 02:15:19.040 --> 02:15:22.320 that kind of sci-fi, that's probably a pretty good reading recommendation for 02:15:22.320 --> 02:15:23.680 certain men. 02:15:23.680 --> 02:15:28.560 And it will give you that psychological insight into the Jewish mind. 02:15:28.560 --> 02:15:31.600 Whether you want that or not, that's sort of the question. 02:15:31.600 --> 02:15:34.800 If you don't want that, then don't read it. 02:15:41.440 --> 02:15:41.760 I 02:15:43.440 --> 02:15:44.240 excuse me. 02:15:44.240 --> 02:15:48.560 I think that is probably going to be it for this episode. 02:15:48.560 --> 02:15:51.120 I've already run a little bit long, but I was just trying 02:15:51.120 --> 02:15:55.440 to get through the the questions in the chat instead of having 02:15:55.440 --> 02:15:58.240 the backlog increase as it were. 02:15:58.240 --> 02:16:00.800 So I think I got through pretty much all of the questions. 02:16:00.800 --> 02:16:03.120 If I missed your question, which may very well be true as 02:16:03.120 --> 02:16:06.160 I was scrolling through the chat, then by all means please submit 02:16:06.160 --> 02:16:08.960 the question on omnifora.com. 02:16:08.960 --> 02:16:14.400 That should be linked in the description, regardless of on which platform 02:16:14.400 --> 02:16:16.400 you happen to be watching right now. 02:16:16.400 --> 02:16:18.320 And it will also be in the show notes. 02:16:18.320 --> 02:16:21.520 I try to do these streams on Thursdays. 02:16:21.520 --> 02:16:25.520 They often wind up being Fridays instead. 02:16:25.520 --> 02:16:31.200 But I then release the audio afterward, and I try to release 02:16:31.200 --> 02:16:35.840 the higher quality audio when I remember to hit record here on 02:16:35.840 --> 02:16:37.840 my end anyway, which is not always true. 02:16:37.840 --> 02:16:42.080 But I release high quality audio only for those who want it. 02:16:42.080 --> 02:16:45.360 It's of course available still on YouTube and X so you can 02:16:45.360 --> 02:16:47.120 view it after the fact. 02:16:47.120 --> 02:16:51.440 But the questions are preferably submitted through the forum because it makes 02:16:51.440 --> 02:16:53.280 it easier for me to organize them. 02:16:53.280 --> 02:16:56.160 If you submit them in the chat or elsewhere I try to 02:16:56.160 --> 02:17:00.160 compile them, I have an ongoing list of them on the forum. 02:17:00.160 --> 02:17:03.360 So if you do not see your question there, that means I 02:17:03.360 --> 02:17:04.560 probably missed it. 02:17:04.560 --> 02:17:07.200 So please submit it and then I will add it to the 02:17:07.200 --> 02:17:08.160 growing list. 02:17:08.800 --> 02:17:11.840 Thank you for those of you who submitted questions and for all 02:17:11.840 --> 02:17:15.120 of you for taking the time on a Friday night to listen 02:17:15.120 --> 02:17:16.400 to me answer them. 02:17:16.560 --> 02:17:20.960 Always glad to take the opportunity to answer your questions and clarify 02:17:20.960 --> 02:17:24.560 whatever it happens to be, whatever the topic or the question. 02:17:24.560 --> 02:17:29.440 So until next week, I guess I will see you all hopefully 02:17:29.440 --> 02:17:30.640 Thursday next week. 02:17:30.640 --> 02:17:33.120 I'll try to hit that for once, it'd be the one out 02:17:33.120 --> 02:17:34.320 of three, but 02:17:35.840 --> 02:17:38.800 Make sure that you attend church on Sunday, and I will see 02:17:38.800 --> 02:17:40.240 all of you next week. 02:17:40.240 --> 02:17:42.000 May God bless you until then. 02:17:42.000 --> 02:17:43.360 Have a nice evening.