WEBVTT 00:00:00.300 --> 00:00:02.820 It is the 5th of June, 2026. 00:00:03.200 --> 00:00:04.220 I am Corey J. 00:00:04.220 --> 00:00:06.600 Mahler, and this is At Any Cost. 00:00:06.600 --> 00:00:09.800 This is episode 31, a Q&A episode. 00:00:10.480 --> 00:00:29.000 I do not have any housekeeping this week, so I will just get right into the questions, other than what I already noted in the chat, which is that I have to look over here and check in a tab for the chat, because for some reason, OBS has decided not to load the chat interface despite trying to reload it. 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:45.960 So anyway, question one for this week is actually not a question so much as a general topic, and the reason I'm going to call it a question is just so that the transcript will be cleaner and the AI that tags things will be able to find it more neatly. 00:00:46.280 --> 00:00:51.840 So question one is abortion and eugenics, and what are the Christian positions on these? 00:00:52.440 --> 00:01:02.020 So I think I'll actually start with eugenics instead, because abortion can be a form of eugenics, obviously, but it can also be a form of dysgenics. 00:01:02.540 --> 00:01:08.640 And in our current system, it's more dysgenic than eugenic, but that's sort of tangential to this. 00:01:09.580 --> 00:01:13.460 So the question is, is eugenics permissible for Christians? 00:01:13.460 --> 00:01:15.140 And the answer is simply yes. 00:01:15.600 --> 00:01:22.480 The question is not whether eugenics itself is per se permissible, morally permissible. 00:01:22.720 --> 00:01:25.000 The question is, what means are permissible? 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:27.300 Some means are permissible, some means are not. 00:01:27.820 --> 00:01:41.240 And the distinction that I've drawn, and I think the best way to think about it, is that active eugenics is morally impermissible, and passive eugenics is generally morally permissible. 00:01:41.240 --> 00:01:47.480 Or at least there's a question there about moral permissibility, where there's no question with regard to active eugenics. 00:01:47.960 --> 00:01:50.540 Abortion would be active eugenics. 00:01:50.620 --> 00:01:53.860 Euthanasia, so called, would be active eugenics. 00:01:54.580 --> 00:02:08.920 I'm not, of course, necessarily saying that's in all cases, because, for instance, I've pointed out there is an exception, say, for someone who is in extreme pain, you take the most extreme case, right, a burn victim. 00:02:08.920 --> 00:02:11.960 That's the one we use, because it's the hardest case. 00:02:11.960 --> 00:02:17.020 And if you solve the problem there, you've kind of solved the line drawing issue, to some degree. 00:02:18.040 --> 00:02:31.900 So, for someone who has severe injuries, for whom we can't really do anything about the pain, we have no hope of curing this person, certainly, he's just going to die a painful, slow death. 00:02:32.600 --> 00:02:36.620 We can give him enough pain medication that it will wind up killing him. 00:02:36.860 --> 00:02:38.500 The goal isn't to kill him. 00:02:38.820 --> 00:02:41.300 The goal is to do as much as we can for the pain. 00:02:41.520 --> 00:02:43.620 So, I don't think I would call that euthanasia. 00:02:43.800 --> 00:02:49.140 And if you wanted to call it euthanasia, then it would be morally permissible, because the intent there matters, right? 00:02:49.140 --> 00:02:55.380 You're not trying to kill the person, you're just doing everything humanly possible to deal with an impossible situation. 00:02:56.940 --> 00:03:01.180 But to highlight the kinds of eugenics that are permissible, right? 00:03:01.860 --> 00:03:08.960 Passive eugenics would be everything that doesn't run up to and then cross that line of basically killing people, right? 00:03:08.960 --> 00:03:13.460 Homicide is what we're talking about, morally impermissible under these circumstances. 00:03:14.220 --> 00:03:21.400 So, two forms of passive eugenics we should really talk about that are perhaps the most relevant. 00:03:21.400 --> 00:03:31.220 I know I've gone over some of this before, and I'll probably write a longer piece on it in the future, because it's an issue that keeps coming up, and it's been active on X and elsewhere for various reasons. 00:03:31.220 --> 00:03:32.960 I'm sure some of you listening know why. 00:03:33.660 --> 00:03:40.720 So, marriage is one, and then the other is sterilization, sort of opposite ends of the spectrum, really. 00:03:41.520 --> 00:03:54.440 Marriage is a form of eugenics, and this is something people don't tend to think about, they don't tend to recognize that it is eugenic, and so, when they hear eugenics, they instantly recoil, and they go, it's a bad thing, Christians can't do that, it's bad. 00:03:55.060 --> 00:03:59.860 Well, no, because Christians are actually commanded to engage in eugenics, because that's what marriage is. 00:04:00.700 --> 00:04:08.780 And so, having laws regarding who can marry whom is eugenic, as long as the laws are good, disgenic if the laws are bad. 00:04:09.140 --> 00:04:19.220 So, we ban, typically speaking, we've allowed it for various reasons, I've gone over in previous episodes, the Jews, incidentally, we typically ban first cousin marriage. 00:04:19.440 --> 00:04:20.700 That's a eugenic policy. 00:04:20.840 --> 00:04:24.040 We obviously ban incest, that's eugenic policy. 00:04:24.520 --> 00:04:31.000 And so, it would also be a eugenic policy to ban interracial marriage, because of all the various issues that follow on from that. 00:04:31.000 --> 00:04:34.280 See the Stone Choir series on race for more information on that. 00:04:34.820 --> 00:04:44.280 So, we have these eugenic policies related to marriage, and Christians don't object to those, because we recognize they're actually good, they're aligned with what God wants for us in this life. 00:04:45.020 --> 00:04:57.500 Because we have to recognize, sort of, the foundational matter, we are biological, we're mammals, we are living organisms, and so we are beholden to certain laws of physics, biology of this creation. 00:04:58.020 --> 00:05:01.380 We don't get to ignore them just because we are also soul. 00:05:02.040 --> 00:05:05.480 Just because you have a soul, because you are a soul, doesn't mean that you're not also a body. 00:05:05.480 --> 00:05:08.120 You are that sum of those things. 00:05:09.160 --> 00:05:14.520 So, the second one, the second form of passive eugenics we're going over now is sterilization. 00:05:15.020 --> 00:05:20.380 And I think this is one that makes some Christians uncomfortable for various historical and other reasons. 00:05:21.160 --> 00:05:35.520 But it's actually something we engage in all the time, because most likely, those of you listening, currently have pets in your home that you have sterilized, or you've taken to have them sterilized unless you happen to live on a farm, then you did it yourself, right? 00:05:35.900 --> 00:05:40.360 Most of us these days don't do that ourselves, unless you work on a farm. 00:05:40.360 --> 00:05:42.380 Then you certainly have done that yourself. 00:05:42.420 --> 00:05:48.540 You've sterilized your own animals for eugenic purposes, or for various other purposes, right? 00:05:48.540 --> 00:05:58.160 For some cases, it makes the animal live longer, or have fewer health problems, or things like that, fattens them up in some cases for feed animals, things like that. 00:05:59.700 --> 00:06:08.680 The problem that some Christians will have, and I've had this discussion with a number of Christians, I think they're wrong, and so I'm going to present what I believe, and I think it is consonant with Scripture. 00:06:09.340 --> 00:06:11.720 Go ahead and test what I say against Scripture. 00:06:11.720 --> 00:06:12.840 I always encourage you to do that. 00:06:13.340 --> 00:06:33.280 I don't think humans are an exception, and I think that the fundamental problem there is that when you deny that humans are part of this system, or should be part of the system, you're sort of edging into saying that humans aren't really biological, that we aren't really a body. 00:06:33.740 --> 00:06:35.780 You're kind of edging into Gnosticism. 00:06:35.780 --> 00:06:37.480 You're maybe in the gray area there. 00:06:37.860 --> 00:06:39.500 I don't want to be in that gray area. 00:06:39.520 --> 00:06:47.500 So, I firmly recognize, I affirm, absolutely, human beings are animals, in a very real sense. 00:06:47.500 --> 00:06:55.940 We're more than that, but we're not more than that in a way that separates us totally from the animal kingdom, from being mammals and all that, right? 00:06:56.240 --> 00:07:00.360 We, not men, but women produce milk, we have body hair, right? 00:07:00.360 --> 00:07:02.460 We're mammals, all the classic things. 00:07:02.980 --> 00:07:11.320 So, I think that we are also subject to those laws, and we can enact those things with regard to other human beings as well. 00:07:12.120 --> 00:07:28.660 And I think that sometimes it's actually the more merciful option, because those who say that sterilization is impermissible, well, what are they going to do about those who have some sort of horrible genetic condition that will be passed on, or at least has a very high likelihood of being passed on? 00:07:29.300 --> 00:07:30.620 What will they do with those individuals? 00:07:30.620 --> 00:07:40.700 Well, they have to tell them, you have to be celibate for your entire life, which, of course, is a problem, because celibacy, like we've gone over many times, is not something you can choose to be. 00:07:40.840 --> 00:07:46.080 You can choose to be chaste, but good luck with that if God didn't give you the gift of celibacy. 00:07:46.080 --> 00:07:48.240 If He gave you celibacy, no problem whatsoever. 00:07:49.600 --> 00:07:58.080 Because that's the only way you're going to guarantee they don't pass those things on to a future generation, unless you're going to try and pair all of them off with someone who is naturally sterile, right? 00:07:58.940 --> 00:08:01.140 Which seems like a weird way to go about it. 00:08:01.900 --> 00:08:06.000 I think it makes much more sense for those who have these terrible conditions. 00:08:06.280 --> 00:08:07.000 We have to care for them. 00:08:07.000 --> 00:08:08.560 I want to be very clear about that. 00:08:08.560 --> 00:08:11.140 That's the real core problem here, right? 00:08:11.140 --> 00:08:16.120 You have people who argue for abortion and things like that, because they don't want to deal with the problem, right? 00:08:16.220 --> 00:08:23.480 The child is going to have Down syndrome, is the current controversy that's ongoing, or whatever, something even worse than that, right? 00:08:23.480 --> 00:08:30.480 Whatever disease it happens to be, we have to care for that child, assuming the child survives the pregnancy, the birth, etc. 00:08:31.360 --> 00:08:32.520 That is incumbent on us. 00:08:32.520 --> 00:08:33.680 That is a moral duty. 00:08:34.140 --> 00:08:37.640 We don't get to just kill people because they're inconvenient or costly. 00:08:38.480 --> 00:08:46.240 Now, there's a line somewhere with regard to heroic measures and wise use of resources, but you don't get to kill that person. 00:08:46.340 --> 00:08:48.480 That is very clearly crossing a line. 00:08:48.800 --> 00:08:53.980 But I think sterilization is fine, because then you don't pass on the problem to future generations. 00:08:54.140 --> 00:08:56.820 You don't continue to make the problem worse. 00:08:57.240 --> 00:09:13.780 And one of the things you can do that is a nice aspect of this, that's a mercy in this, is then you can pair off the people who have problems, let them marry, let them live as normal of a life as they can, but without passing on those problems to future generations. 00:09:13.780 --> 00:09:17.140 I think that is the most moral solution to the problem. 00:09:17.420 --> 00:09:25.400 And I don't think that human beings are exempt from the general rules we use to manage populations of other animals and creations. 00:09:25.400 --> 00:09:27.020 We are stewards of creation. 00:09:27.020 --> 00:09:28.340 We are the pinnacle of that. 00:09:28.780 --> 00:09:30.240 We have control over everything. 00:09:30.660 --> 00:09:35.240 I don't exclude us from that, because I see us as part of the system not sitting atop it. 00:09:35.960 --> 00:09:38.160 And I don't know how anyone could think you said atop it, right? 00:09:39.220 --> 00:09:44.380 You have to drink and eat and sleep and breathe, and you're very clearly part of this system. 00:09:44.380 --> 00:09:52.100 You're not so extraneous to it or external to it or above it that you are separated from it in any meaningful way. 00:09:52.620 --> 00:09:55.660 So I think that sterilization is morally permissible. 00:09:55.660 --> 00:09:57.620 It is a passive form of eugenics. 00:09:58.700 --> 00:10:09.260 And so, the other part of this that I would want to address, having addressed pretty much abortion and eugenics, sort of, essentially, right, in some... 00:10:09.260 --> 00:10:14.060 This is obviously a short version of the overall, not going into great detail. 00:10:14.060 --> 00:10:18.780 We went over it more in a few episodes of Stone Choir, so you can search the catalog for that. 00:10:19.320 --> 00:10:26.320 But the one other topic that I want to address before moving on to the next question is one that is uncomfortable for a lot of people. 00:10:27.780 --> 00:10:37.000 And it is very uncomfortable for people because it implicates a lot of people, and that includes Christians. 00:10:37.860 --> 00:10:41.040 And that is that hormonal birth control isn't abortifacient. 00:10:41.240 --> 00:10:47.460 And so the use of hormonal birth control is morally impermissible, period. 00:10:47.460 --> 00:10:53.580 It is always morally impermissible, which is one of the reasons, right, you have to do sterilization, not just birth control. 00:10:53.840 --> 00:10:54.860 There's no option there. 00:10:55.460 --> 00:11:00.580 So, even calling it birth control is kind of misleading, but you all know what I'm talking about. 00:11:01.260 --> 00:11:12.480 The issue with hormonal birth control is that it has a handful of different ways that it acts, a handful of different ways that it prevents pregnancy. 00:11:13.260 --> 00:11:16.660 Some of them are morally permissible, some of them are not. 00:11:17.440 --> 00:11:23.160 And this gets to sort of a fundamental issue here, and I'll give an illustration just to sort of draw this out. 00:11:24.320 --> 00:11:25.760 Say you have a die, right? 00:11:26.020 --> 00:11:31.320 And you roll it, and four of the options result in something. 00:11:32.580 --> 00:11:34.120 We can even abstract this out one more level. 00:11:34.120 --> 00:11:36.520 Four options result in something good, right? 00:11:36.520 --> 00:11:39.660 You get a cupcake or a coffee or something, whatever. 00:11:39.960 --> 00:11:42.580 Each of those four, totally fine. 00:11:43.900 --> 00:11:46.640 One's neutral, one is terrible. 00:11:46.920 --> 00:11:48.520 One of the outcomes is horrible. 00:11:49.020 --> 00:11:53.220 Are you going to roll that, having a one in six chance of something horrible? 00:11:53.220 --> 00:11:53.880 Is it happening to you? 00:11:54.960 --> 00:11:56.160 I think probably not. 00:11:56.160 --> 00:11:58.220 If you're a wise person, you're not going to do it. 00:11:58.640 --> 00:12:05.700 So, the issue with hormonal birth control, it's not a one in six chance, incidentally. 00:12:05.700 --> 00:12:07.120 It's smaller than that, thankfully. 00:12:07.580 --> 00:12:15.060 But some of the methods that it uses to prevent pregnancy are indeed abortion. 00:12:15.380 --> 00:12:16.340 And so it's murder. 00:12:17.420 --> 00:12:21.220 Now, I'm not going to go over the methods here. 00:12:21.220 --> 00:12:30.300 I have them, I went over them recently to remind myself, but I don't think I need to go over them, because I'll save that for maybe a longer piece of writing. 00:12:30.520 --> 00:12:38.900 But the ones that are the real problem, there's really two main ones that are a problem with regard to being a board of patient, and I'll just go over those. 00:12:39.440 --> 00:12:49.900 One is that it thins and causes atrophy of the endometrial lining, and that results in lower odds of implantation. 00:12:50.260 --> 00:12:52.780 Well, once you're talking implantation, right, it's a zygote. 00:12:52.780 --> 00:12:55.480 It's already a person, unique DNA and all that. 00:12:55.840 --> 00:13:10.500 And prior to that, it also has a negative effect on the peristalsis in the fallopian tube, which can impact both the ovum, so pre-fertilization, and the zygote, post-fertilization. 00:13:11.000 --> 00:13:16.980 If it happens with the zygote, it is also preventing implantation, which is, again, aborted patient, right? 00:13:18.060 --> 00:13:34.520 So the uncomfortable truth is that anyone who has used hormonal birth control, and that includes the men who have had sexual relations with women who were on that pill, you have engaged in behavior that is tantamount to murder. 00:13:35.200 --> 00:13:43.120 Now, it is not at the exact same level as murder, obviously, because they're in tant and some other things there. 00:13:43.120 --> 00:13:47.660 But if you risk an outcome, you are morally culpable for the outcome. 00:13:48.000 --> 00:13:55.960 So risking the outcome that is equivalent to murder is indeed to be morally culpable for murder. 00:13:56.760 --> 00:14:02.820 This obviously makes many uncomfortable, because this is something that is very widespread in our culture. 00:14:03.860 --> 00:14:08.160 And the numbers are, quite frankly, staggering. 00:14:08.160 --> 00:14:09.080 I won't go over them right now. 00:14:09.080 --> 00:14:10.820 I'll save them for an article. 00:14:10.880 --> 00:14:15.040 But that is an issue that the Church has been negligent in addressing. 00:14:15.040 --> 00:14:23.640 We need to be stronger on that issue, because we are, as a society, committing infanticide on a scale that is incomprehensible. 00:14:27.460 --> 00:14:31.100 Question two is a little bit of a change of pace. 00:14:32.620 --> 00:14:40.260 I recently began to shift my thinking on enemies and allies, thanks to processing the work done by you and Woe. 00:14:40.960 --> 00:14:47.140 Previously, my lines were such that someone who was actively not a Christian couldn't be really an ally, even if some aims were shared. 00:14:47.620 --> 00:14:49.280 Now I see how someone like Mr. 00:14:49.280 --> 00:14:55.600 Taylor, though I believe agnostic, may actually be a better ally than most Christians, especially most pastors. 00:14:55.840 --> 00:14:57.340 Your thoughts on this, please. 00:14:58.420 --> 00:15:02.400 So, first, I'll use the specific example of Jared Taylor. 00:15:02.400 --> 00:15:04.360 Jared Taylor is good on many things. 00:15:04.360 --> 00:15:05.880 He's bad on the issue of the Jews. 00:15:06.540 --> 00:15:07.380 It is what it is. 00:15:07.900 --> 00:15:16.440 He's done good work, he's still doing good work, he's a nice man, he's a good man, and holds a conference not too far away from here. 00:15:17.680 --> 00:15:20.320 But he is not good on the issue of the Jews. 00:15:20.600 --> 00:15:26.700 So, there are some men who are bad on one specific issue, and good on a lot of other stuff, and it's just how it goes. 00:15:26.700 --> 00:15:33.360 I can think of some other examples as well, some I've spoken with recently, and they're just bad on certain issues but good on others. 00:15:33.920 --> 00:15:36.140 That's his Achilles heel, as it were. 00:15:36.480 --> 00:15:41.820 But the more general issue, can we work with those who are not staunch Christians? 00:15:41.820 --> 00:15:42.940 The answer is yes. 00:15:43.640 --> 00:15:52.300 Now, ultimately, what form things should take in the end stage, assuming God gives us the victory, right? 00:15:53.340 --> 00:15:55.280 Those men will have to make a choice, right? 00:15:55.680 --> 00:16:00.020 Leave or become Christian, because we owe that to God. 00:16:00.760 --> 00:16:05.260 You cannot permit false religions to stay in your lands. 00:16:05.660 --> 00:16:07.040 That is an affront to God. 00:16:07.500 --> 00:16:12.800 That is one of the reasons God so frequently destroyed Old Testament Israel, because they permitted that. 00:16:13.260 --> 00:16:27.220 If you permit false religion, if you permit the worship of false gods in your lands, you are cursed by God, or at least you are inviting God's curse, and God will give you what you want in that case, and that should be not what we want. 00:16:28.940 --> 00:16:30.300 So, can we work with those men? 00:16:30.300 --> 00:16:32.700 Yes, but eventually, they are going to have to make a choice. 00:16:33.080 --> 00:16:50.180 And I think for many of them, it will be a relatively easy choice if it's made from a position where the church has been restored to teaching true Christianity and is again, masculine assertive and things like that, instead of the corrupt, decadent churches we have today. 00:16:53.640 --> 00:16:56.660 Question 3, Praying for Christ's Return. 00:16:57.860 --> 00:17:04.580 I know we are not to worry too much about the end times and that we should live each day as if Christ were returning tomorrow. 00:17:04.840 --> 00:17:10.920 Are Christians allowed to pray for Christ's return to end the fallen world and all of the horrible things going on? 00:17:13.340 --> 00:17:14.940 I think there are really two answers for this. 00:17:14.940 --> 00:17:21.600 The first answer and sort of the core answer is yes, obviously, because we pray for it every day, thy kingdom come. 00:17:22.120 --> 00:17:26.280 We pray for it multiple times a day, depending on how often you pray the Lord's Prayer, right? 00:17:26.280 --> 00:17:33.080 If you pray it before every meal and when you wake up and when you go to sleep, then you're praying it at least a handful of days a few times a day, right? 00:17:33.420 --> 00:17:36.880 You are praying for Christ's return when you pray thy kingdom come. 00:17:37.660 --> 00:17:39.340 So, obviously, it's fine. 00:17:40.080 --> 00:17:41.020 God taught us to do it. 00:17:41.020 --> 00:17:45.300 It's the prayer the church has used all along for thousands of years. 00:17:45.320 --> 00:17:47.620 It's practically the prayer of the church, so yes. 00:17:49.120 --> 00:17:55.520 But I would add the caveat that don't make praying for Christ's second coming. 00:17:55.520 --> 00:18:04.900 Don't make that sort of focus your core aspect of how you pray and your prayer life and how you look at the Christian faith, right? 00:18:05.120 --> 00:18:12.520 Because there are many passages about the troubles of the day being sufficient for that day, things like that. 00:18:12.940 --> 00:18:21.880 So, focus on your tasks at hand, what you have to do with the day as it stands, with an appropriate level of planning for the future, right? 00:18:21.880 --> 00:18:24.440 We're not living purely in the present. 00:18:24.440 --> 00:18:26.500 That's something for those with an IQ under 80. 00:18:27.260 --> 00:18:41.640 So, focus on the tasks at hand with appropriate planning, but don't make an obsession with regard to the end times or eschatology, anything even approaching the core or the majority of your faith or your prayer life. 00:18:42.200 --> 00:18:50.500 But of course, it is entirely fine to pray for the second coming, the return of Christ, and the end of the wickedness of the world and a restoration of those things. 00:18:50.500 --> 00:18:54.980 But obviously, that will happen in God's timing, regardless of how you pray. 00:18:55.700 --> 00:18:59.000 But there's nothing wrong with praying for that, and certainly we all do every day. 00:19:04.204 --> 00:19:05.544 Let's see the next question. 00:19:09.164 --> 00:19:12.804 Question four, making sense of the timelines. 00:19:13.944 --> 00:19:18.784 How do you as a Christian make sense of the timelines archaeologists and paleontologists propose? 00:19:18.784 --> 00:19:20.364 Is there a conversion formula? 00:19:20.884 --> 00:19:31.384 I know creation is approximately 7,550 years old, but I don't know how to account for the claims of 12,000-year-old human settlements without assuming they somehow survive the flood. 00:19:33.044 --> 00:19:36.724 So, artifacts and things could survive the flood, first off. 00:19:37.664 --> 00:19:39.084 There's nothing preventing that, right? 00:19:39.084 --> 00:19:42.524 The flood didn't completely efface and atomize everything. 00:19:42.524 --> 00:19:44.104 Some things did survive indeed. 00:19:44.924 --> 00:19:53.064 No human civilization survived the flood because all the humans died, but artifacts could certainly survive, just like all the sea creatures survived, right? 00:19:53.844 --> 00:19:55.024 The fish didn't drown. 00:19:55.484 --> 00:19:59.284 There's a reason Noah didn't have to take all the sea creatures onto the ark. 00:20:00.044 --> 00:20:01.444 God took care of that on his own. 00:20:02.244 --> 00:20:09.184 But the core answer here really is that radiometric dating is fraught with errors. 00:20:09.184 --> 00:20:10.744 It is completely unreliable. 00:20:10.764 --> 00:20:27.224 And this has been demonstrated time and time again, where they date things that are known to be extremely young, and they date them really old, or things that are taken from the exact same site, even the same piece of something sometimes, and dated to wildly different dates. 00:20:27.224 --> 00:20:28.904 This happens all the time. 00:20:29.084 --> 00:20:37.044 There are too many assumptions that go into radiometric dating, and radiocarbon is usually what we're talking about for things that are this young. 00:20:37.284 --> 00:20:43.564 There are too many assumptions that go into it for it to be reliable, and all the times it's been demonstrated not to be reliable. 00:20:43.884 --> 00:20:48.684 We went into this in greater detail in the episode on the age of the Earth. 00:20:48.964 --> 00:20:55.424 Now, for that, we were using the Maserati timeline, and now obviously, we would say that it is the Septuagint timeline you should use. 00:20:55.944 --> 00:21:04.764 But it ultimately doesn't matter what years, and we've mentioned this as well, because it's the arguments that matter in that episode, not the specific dates, right? 00:21:05.384 --> 00:21:16.104 Because if you're talking a difference of a handful of thousands of years, that's not the same problem as someone's telling you billions or millions or whatever it happens to be. 00:21:16.384 --> 00:21:23.044 Now, it's worth mentioning here, and I'll mention it because not everyone has necessarily read the article. 00:21:23.464 --> 00:21:25.564 I'll see if I can pull that up here. 00:21:26.664 --> 00:21:28.584 I have an article on this on my site. 00:21:28.584 --> 00:21:31.544 Let me figure out where Brave has gone on my computer here. 00:21:32.124 --> 00:21:44.244 And there is a way to explain the difference in how old the Earth is versus how old it appears to be, right? 00:21:44.944 --> 00:21:46.584 And there we go. 00:21:46.984 --> 00:21:50.384 It's this article here, geochronologically speaking. 00:21:50.644 --> 00:21:54.444 And so the age of the Earth is both young and old. 00:21:54.704 --> 00:22:05.864 And the explanation for that is very easy, typically for the sort of men who are listening to me on this sort of platform, because most of you have probably played a civilization building game, right? 00:22:06.744 --> 00:22:14.624 And when you're playing civilization, for instance, you can choose the age of the planet when you spin up your new world. 00:22:15.184 --> 00:22:16.064 Is it that old? 00:22:16.164 --> 00:22:18.124 Well, yes, in a sense. 00:22:18.644 --> 00:22:24.024 But no, in the sense of if you're talking about tracing back the timeline, right? 00:22:24.064 --> 00:22:27.284 Seconds old versus how old it appears to be. 00:22:27.684 --> 00:22:33.984 God made the earth and the entire universe old, because that's what he wanted to do. 00:22:34.644 --> 00:22:45.204 And the best way you can look at this, for sort of a microcosm, an easy example in scripture, he didn't place Adam in the garden as an infant or, you know, a zygote, right? 00:22:45.484 --> 00:22:55.624 Immediately after he would have been conceived in the way that God created him anyway, he was a full-grown adult, because God made him a full-grown adult. 00:22:55.624 --> 00:22:58.244 So how old was he when he was placed in the garden? 00:22:58.664 --> 00:23:04.784 Well, he was zero, but also whatever age he was when God made him, whether it's a hundred or... 00:23:05.084 --> 00:23:18.764 The timeline lines up very neatly if you assume at certain ages, like 70, but he was a full-grown, mature adult man in the garden, despite being chronologically, in a sense, zero years old. 00:23:19.104 --> 00:23:28.084 So the real answer is that the scientists are simply trying to erase God, and they're doing it with tools that are not reliable. 00:23:28.084 --> 00:23:30.844 So you can just ignore them. 00:23:30.844 --> 00:23:41.484 Yes, in some fields, obviously, that's going to make things more difficult for you, particularly if you're working in, say, archaeology, but there are Christians working in those fields. 00:23:41.484 --> 00:23:43.164 Christians started those fields. 00:23:43.624 --> 00:23:50.204 They didn't find any problems with their belief in Scripture, literal belief in Scripture, and the work they were doing. 00:23:50.204 --> 00:23:56.184 So there's no reason to believe these things were as old as the archaeologists and the paleontologists claim. 00:23:56.784 --> 00:23:57.604 They're just not. 00:23:57.604 --> 00:24:00.484 We don't have the tools to make those judgment calls. 00:24:00.944 --> 00:24:02.304 It would be nice if we did. 00:24:03.424 --> 00:24:11.604 It would be great if radiocarbon dating were actually reliable, and we could simply look at it and say, this is exactly how old this thing is, because we tested it and it showed that old. 00:24:11.724 --> 00:24:12.544 But it's not. 00:24:12.684 --> 00:24:13.924 We don't have those tools. 00:24:14.484 --> 00:24:15.644 I don't think we ever will. 00:24:15.644 --> 00:24:26.044 I don't think there's a conceivable way, given the limitations of physics and our current environment, universe, really, to actually create tools to test the age of things in that way. 00:24:27.604 --> 00:24:40.104 At the absolute best, maybe you could test a parent age, but even that, I think, is very dicey, which is shown by the fact that we have these instances where radiometric dating is used, and it gives numbers we know are wrong. 00:24:40.464 --> 00:24:40.804 Right? 00:24:40.804 --> 00:24:50.644 When you test a chicken carcass that you know you put in your backyard five years ago, and it says it's 5,000 years old, you know the tool made an error. 00:24:50.644 --> 00:24:56.384 You know it's wrong, and so you know it's not foolproof, and perhaps not even errorproof, which is what I would say it's not. 00:24:59.384 --> 00:25:03.204 The next question, question five here. 00:25:07.104 --> 00:25:09.964 Do you hold a cyclical view of history? 00:25:09.964 --> 00:25:23.424 If so, and we are in a civilizational winter, is there any way for us today to return to something like medieval or Reformation era Christendom, summer or autumn, without going through the decay of winter and the violence of spring? 00:25:25.484 --> 00:25:37.344 I don't know that I would say I subscribe to a truly cyclical view of history, but at the same time, I wouldn't say my view is entirely not cyclical view of history, right? 00:25:37.684 --> 00:25:46.064 I think perhaps the way to look at it is, I don't know who originally said it, it's usually attributed to Mark Twain and others, but it's one of those quotes, right? 00:25:46.864 --> 00:25:48.784 History may not repeat, but it rhymes. 00:25:48.844 --> 00:25:52.824 I think that's probably closer to the truth, and the reason for that is pretty simple. 00:25:53.644 --> 00:25:54.984 Human beings are human beings. 00:25:55.664 --> 00:26:00.704 We are going to behave in certain ways and do certain things because we are that way. 00:26:01.324 --> 00:26:03.724 And so, you're going to see rise and fall. 00:26:03.724 --> 00:26:05.224 You're going to see these cycles. 00:26:05.224 --> 00:26:06.844 You see it in the Old Testament, right? 00:26:07.024 --> 00:26:18.364 You get every so often, fairly rare in the case of the Jews, but a faithful ruler rises up, and then maybe his son is faithful, and then you get less faithful, and less, and less, and less, and then apostate, right? 00:26:19.044 --> 00:26:20.424 That's sort of how things go. 00:26:21.924 --> 00:26:34.964 That happens also with regard to the secular, as it were, with the rise and fall of empires, but if you look back through history, it's not like you can predict it exactly, like a hundred years this happens, and the next hundred years this happens. 00:26:35.704 --> 00:26:43.144 The Greek empires, the Roman empire, these various empires down through history, the Persians, didn't last the same number of years. 00:26:43.144 --> 00:26:48.444 Some lasted significantly longer, some lasted significantly shorter periods of time. 00:26:49.504 --> 00:26:58.804 They had similarities in why they fell, but it's not exact across those empires, so I think it's closer to say that it rhymes, right? 00:27:00.184 --> 00:27:09.724 But with regard to our current civilization, no, I don't think that we have to go through some sort of deep, I don't even think we can, honestly. 00:27:09.984 --> 00:27:22.804 But I don't think we have to go through some sort of deep and desperate and terrible winter, and then the necessary process of indeed violent rebirth that happens in the spring in this sort of system. 00:27:23.384 --> 00:27:24.524 I don't think you have to do that. 00:27:24.524 --> 00:27:26.544 I don't think it has to follow this pattern. 00:27:26.884 --> 00:27:29.984 I think that you can skip seasons as it were. 00:27:30.164 --> 00:27:46.744 And I think we see instances of that happening in history where you'll have some civilization where it's starting to decay and then it resurges, or where it's fallen into the winter stage and it resurges without that necessarily in this outlook violent spring, right? 00:27:47.644 --> 00:27:57.784 I think that we don't even have the option, sort of speaking in more concrete terms in our case, I don't think we have the option of that winter and then the spring resurgence. 00:27:57.784 --> 00:28:02.724 I think we have to win or the outcome will be truly catastrophic. 00:28:02.744 --> 00:28:09.404 So I don't think that sort of cycle is even an option for us, even if you assume that it is how things actually function. 00:28:12.584 --> 00:28:15.684 Question six is about adoption. 00:28:19.084 --> 00:28:26.064 How do you feel about white families that adopt third-world children and bring them into their nation and family? 00:28:26.224 --> 00:28:30.424 Would you feel the same way with white families adopting white children? 00:28:30.424 --> 00:28:32.884 So I'll answer these in reverse order. 00:28:33.504 --> 00:28:34.444 Adoption is fine. 00:28:34.444 --> 00:28:41.324 There's nothing wrong with adoption, and it is a very good way to solve some problems that are just part of being human, right? 00:28:41.784 --> 00:28:46.124 Sometimes parents die, and that's the most obvious example. 00:28:46.124 --> 00:28:47.444 You have to do something with the children. 00:28:47.824 --> 00:28:55.124 I think that adoption is generally better than just making them wards of the state, which is sort of the only other option, morally permissible option, right? 00:28:55.884 --> 00:28:58.404 Some ancient civilizations would have done other things. 00:28:59.284 --> 00:29:07.304 As far as cross-racial adoption is concerned, I think at the absolute best is foolish, and usually it is worse than that. 00:29:07.304 --> 00:29:09.484 Usually it is pernicious, even malicious. 00:29:10.204 --> 00:29:26.744 The reason you shouldn't do it is that ultimately what you're doing is you're stealing that child away from his or her culture, removing the child from what should be his patrimony, and taking him to an alien land and then parading him around like a trophy. 00:29:26.744 --> 00:29:27.844 They always do that. 00:29:28.104 --> 00:29:32.704 And you can see in their behavior that clearly they're doing it for the show. 00:29:32.704 --> 00:29:34.604 They're doing it for the good boy points. 00:29:34.604 --> 00:29:38.504 They're not doing it because they actually believe they're doing a good thing by and large. 00:29:38.504 --> 00:29:40.104 I'm not saying there are no exceptions to that. 00:29:40.964 --> 00:29:44.384 So, no, you should adopt within your own nation. 00:29:44.384 --> 00:29:48.224 And also, there are plenty of children who need to be adopted. 00:29:49.044 --> 00:30:08.164 It's not even an issue that should be discussed, because if you had absolutely no orphans in your society, every single child had a good home, and then maybe you could start talking about, okay, what do we do with helping our neighbor across the way, right, across the border, across the ocean, whatever it happens to be. 00:30:08.724 --> 00:30:09.924 We're not in that position. 00:30:10.164 --> 00:30:13.044 We won't be in that position anytime in the foreseeable future. 00:30:13.384 --> 00:30:20.044 And so, as long as there are children to be adopted in your own nation, you absolutely must preference them. 00:30:20.444 --> 00:30:23.144 Because again, it's those concentric circles of concern, right? 00:30:23.604 --> 00:30:26.624 Those who are closest to you, God has placed closest to you. 00:30:26.624 --> 00:30:27.964 You owe them a higher duty. 00:30:28.364 --> 00:30:37.684 So, you can't decide, oh, I just want to go over here and help these alien children, and then ignore all these children who are actually my own flesh and blood. 00:30:37.684 --> 00:30:38.484 You can't do that. 00:30:38.724 --> 00:30:40.164 That's immoral, it's anti-Christian. 00:30:40.164 --> 00:30:41.704 It is a wicked thing to do. 00:30:42.764 --> 00:30:44.024 So, adoption is just fine. 00:30:44.024 --> 00:30:49.424 Adoption is a good thing, but don't adopt children from random countries around the world, and then bring them here. 00:30:49.424 --> 00:30:55.804 You're just causing problems for everyone in order to say, look at how good I am, which is demonstrating you're not good at all. 00:30:58.224 --> 00:31:02.664 Going to look through the chat here, make sure you don't miss any questions. 00:31:09.309 --> 00:31:10.029 Let me see. 00:31:13.629 --> 00:31:16.209 Okay, I, question seven. 00:31:16.209 --> 00:31:26.929 I am really trying to embrace traditional Christian morality, but having immense trouble with Deuteronomy 22-28, and cannot help but think this command is incompatible with Western morality. 00:31:26.929 --> 00:31:27.389 Okay. 00:31:28.309 --> 00:31:35.129 So I'm going to copy the question first, so I don't lose that, and then I will pull up Logos here. 00:31:41.905 --> 00:31:45.085 It really helps that we have scripture instead of the confessions. 00:31:46.185 --> 00:31:48.825 Hey, it opened a deuteronomy for me, that's nice. 00:31:51.665 --> 00:32:05.285 But if someone finds the girl, the virgin, who is not engaged, and after he forces her, lies with her, and he has discovered, the man who lay with her shall give her fifty silver didrachmas to the young woman's father, not to her, to the father, and she shall become his wife. 00:32:05.285 --> 00:32:10.585 Because he humbled her, he shall not be able to send her away for all the time. 00:32:11.725 --> 00:32:15.425 And let's look at, I'm not going to go into the Greek right now. 00:32:15.425 --> 00:32:22.025 I would do that usually if I were studying this on my own, but for the sake of the episode, I'm not going to take the time to do that. 00:32:22.025 --> 00:32:25.225 I'm not fluent in Greek, so it actually would take me a little time to do that. 00:32:25.925 --> 00:32:26.525 Let's see. 00:32:29.465 --> 00:32:31.545 So, 22, not 28. 00:32:35.525 --> 00:32:35.945 Okay. 00:32:42.183 --> 00:32:49.603 So it's essentially the same, and it's good to compare the Nets and the Lexan, because sometimes Nets picks weird archaic terms that don't make any sense. 00:32:50.183 --> 00:32:54.183 Quite frankly, some of their translation decisions are bewildering. 00:32:54.183 --> 00:33:03.203 They'll leave things untranslated, just basically transliterated into English from the Greek, and I've had to look some terms up, because they weren't English words. 00:33:03.203 --> 00:33:04.563 But at this case, we don't have that. 00:33:05.843 --> 00:33:10.883 So the question is basically one about sexual morality and things like that. 00:33:11.303 --> 00:33:16.663 And I would start off by saying, these are not binding laws on us. 00:33:16.783 --> 00:33:21.243 This is civil law for Old Testament Israel, not binding on us. 00:33:21.723 --> 00:33:26.563 So we can take these things to be sort of a recommendation. 00:33:26.563 --> 00:33:32.403 We can take them into consideration when drafting our laws, but we're not beholden to them. 00:33:32.583 --> 00:33:35.503 We're beholden to the moral law, and that's it. 00:33:35.503 --> 00:33:43.643 The moral law, the Ten Commandments, the times where God says something, is an abomination to him, not an abomination to the Old Testament Israelites. 00:33:44.083 --> 00:33:47.203 I've made that distinction before, so I won't go over it again here. 00:33:49.043 --> 00:33:50.903 This is civil law, different thing. 00:33:50.903 --> 00:33:54.163 And the ceremonial law is the third type of law, also not binding on us. 00:33:54.163 --> 00:33:59.803 We don't have to do temple sacrifices, and we don't have to throw the blood of goats on an altar sort of thing. 00:34:00.343 --> 00:34:02.263 Christ, once and for all, done. 00:34:02.743 --> 00:34:05.863 So no third temple, the Jews should stop trying to do that. 00:34:06.923 --> 00:34:08.523 Tangential topic for another time. 00:34:09.223 --> 00:34:24.303 But the question is, right, this seems uncomfortable, because this is a man who is overpowering a woman and lying with her, and, you know, he has to pay the bride price and then gets to marry her. 00:34:24.743 --> 00:34:26.803 That seems uncomfortable to Western morality. 00:34:27.743 --> 00:34:29.503 In part, yes, it certainly is. 00:34:29.503 --> 00:34:30.483 This is a different culture. 00:34:30.483 --> 00:34:32.963 Shemites are very different from Japhethites. 00:34:33.183 --> 00:34:36.503 The Middle Easterners and the Near Easterners are not the same as we are. 00:34:36.963 --> 00:34:39.363 So this is civil law for them, not for us. 00:34:40.203 --> 00:34:48.743 But there's more to that, to this verse, that unless you are very familiar with the Old Testament, you're going to miss some of the things here. 00:34:49.223 --> 00:34:53.103 One, the father has a veto with regard to marriage. 00:34:53.543 --> 00:34:58.323 So if the father says no, the woman doesn't have to marry this man. 00:34:58.603 --> 00:35:05.723 So if the father is accepting the bride price, the father is saying, this is not actually a bad man. 00:35:06.183 --> 00:35:09.303 Maybe there was some untoward stuff going on here. 00:35:09.703 --> 00:35:13.143 But this is not necessarily speaking about violent stranger rape. 00:35:13.403 --> 00:35:16.483 There are other things in between. 00:35:17.103 --> 00:35:19.743 There are extremes here we're dealing with with spectrum. 00:35:19.943 --> 00:35:23.343 That's at one end, it's what Western ears hear when reading this. 00:35:23.563 --> 00:35:28.723 And then obviously, there's fully proper marriage and all that, at the other end of the spectrum. 00:35:28.723 --> 00:35:30.063 And then there's a lot of stuff in between. 00:35:30.243 --> 00:35:31.363 There's a lot of gray area. 00:35:32.203 --> 00:35:36.683 Don't find yourself in the gray area if you can avoid it, and you should be able to avoid it. 00:35:37.103 --> 00:35:39.143 But part of the other problem is here, right? 00:35:40.003 --> 00:35:41.023 Finds the girl. 00:35:41.943 --> 00:35:47.283 This is speaking about a woman who is off doing something she shouldn't be doing somewhere she shouldn't be, typically. 00:35:47.443 --> 00:35:50.663 Maybe not in all cases, but this is a woman who's off wandering around, right? 00:35:50.663 --> 00:35:57.323 You can think of the instance in the Old Testament where one of the Deborah, right? 00:35:57.523 --> 00:35:58.443 Or Dina, rather. 00:35:58.443 --> 00:35:58.803 Sorry. 00:35:58.803 --> 00:35:59.263 Dina. 00:35:59.843 --> 00:36:00.923 The rape of Dina. 00:36:00.923 --> 00:36:04.283 It's not necessarily what we would call rape in modern terms. 00:36:05.003 --> 00:36:20.583 She was off acting like an unsupervised woman, and in that culture, that implies certain things in availability, which again, different culture from us, not what would happen in Western culture, not what should happen to my understanding, how I believe things should be. 00:36:21.843 --> 00:36:22.883 But I'm a European. 00:36:23.483 --> 00:36:24.463 I'm not a Shemite. 00:36:25.243 --> 00:36:31.843 So what happened there was not what we would call under our laws, rape. 00:36:32.323 --> 00:36:43.443 It was something less than that, perhaps something still inappropriate, not something we would condone, but not something that we would punish with sort of the full force of the law for rape. 00:36:43.823 --> 00:36:47.823 Different thing, same sort of thing is in view here in large part. 00:36:48.563 --> 00:36:53.043 So, because there are other parts of scripture, right, that deal with punishing rapists. 00:36:53.423 --> 00:36:55.263 There are other parts of scripture that deal with those. 00:36:55.263 --> 00:37:00.823 So if you have parts of scripture dealing with that, this one's not dealing with the exact same thing. 00:37:00.823 --> 00:37:07.663 It's dealing with a different thing, which is why he's paying a bride price instead of being stoned or something like that. 00:37:08.243 --> 00:37:10.463 And why, again, the father has the veto. 00:37:10.463 --> 00:37:16.903 The father is the one who's signing off on this and saying, no, this man is actually fine for my daughter, which is how it's supposed to be. 00:37:17.343 --> 00:37:19.203 That we should actually have in our society. 00:37:19.363 --> 00:37:20.643 The father should have a veto. 00:37:20.643 --> 00:37:31.563 The father, we should go back to the traditional way where you ask a woman's father if you can marry her, because he's the one who gives her away, because he is her head, he's the one who has that control. 00:37:31.983 --> 00:37:33.383 Scripture is recognizing that. 00:37:33.383 --> 00:37:53.483 So the basic, sort of the bottom line point here for Western Christians, civil law not binding on us, different culture, not what we would call violent stranger rape, something less than that, something we would still consider inappropriate and probably punish in our society, and we're free to do that, because this is not binding on us. 00:37:53.483 --> 00:37:54.983 Our laws don't have to mirror this. 00:38:07.063 --> 00:38:16.603