Creation and Human Relationships - 180008

0:04 [Music] 0:30 welcome to the creator revealed I'm Tim 0:34 Standish and usually when I introduce 0:39 myself I say that I am a biologist but I 0:43 actually have a PhD in biology and 0:46 public policy and public policy is all 0:50 about laws and how people relate with 0:54 one another the rules by which a society 0:56 will operate well Tim I'm glad you're 0:59 here 1:00 to do this series with us and we're so 1:02 glad that you are joining us today we 1:06 will be talking about human 1:08 relationships if we look from the 1:10 biblical perspective God made us special 1:14 he made us in His image and he had a 1:17 plan and a purpose for our lives and he 1:20 made man to dominate the rest to go out 1:24 have dominion over the rest of his 1:26 creation and when we use that word 1:29 domination we do not mean to somehow the 1:34 Lord it over the rest of the creation we 1:36 mean caring for the creation God has 1:40 entrusted it to us but what about with 1:43 each other God God clearly defines the 1:46 relationship between humans and the rest 1:49 of the creation what about humans and 1:52 humans well here in Matthew we have a 1:55 record of something that Jesus Christ 1:57 Himself said he was talking about the 2:00 sacrament of marriage and he said this 2:03 haven't you read he this is jesus 2:07 replied that at the beginning the 2:10 creator made them male and female and he 2:14 said for this reason a man will leave 2:17 his father and mother and be united to 2:21 his wife and the two will become one 2:24 flesh so they are no longer two but one 2:28 flesh therefore what God has joined 2:32 together let no one separate so God 2:36 intended whether to be perfect harmony 2:39 in unity in human relationships 2:42 particularly but 2:44 wean us between Saudis between spouses 2:46 yes there is something beautiful and 2:49 glorious about that something that tells 2:51 us something about God in the 2:54 relationship between a man and a woman 2:57 something incredibly special and of 2:59 course we we use words like love to 3:02 describe that but then sometimes we 3:04 confuse love with sensual things with 3:07 lust or those sorts of things love is a 3:12 lot more than that especially when you 3:15 think of God's love it is other-centered 3:17 love and that's how we grow when you 3:20 when you grow in love I mean we don't 3:23 know it's other centered 3:26 self-sacrificing love true love is 3:30 putting the interests of another being 3:34 before your own and that's God's that's 3:38 God's that's God's love now I want you 3:40 to compare that or think about this in 3:42 the context of what James Rachel wrote a 3:45 few years ago he is talking about 3:47 morality from a an evolutionary 3:51 perspective and he says an evolutionary 3:53 perspective denies that humans are 3:55 different in kind from other animals and 3:59 one cannot reasonably make distinctions 4:02 in morals when none exists in fact you 4:08 can imagine why today we have some of 4:12 these strange and confusing ideas that 4:16 are being tossed around about how humans 4:19 should relate to one another 4:21 this is a source of that I don't want to 4:24 blame everything necessarily on this but 4:27 certainly if you say I am an animal and 4:32 therefore God has no dominion over me 4:39 there are no I can make up my own things 4:42 if I if I feel like doing something I 4:46 should just be able to do it because I'm 4:49 an animal there's this quick story yeah 4:52 I interviewed a gentleman who is a 4:54 sheriff who in Calvin or the 4:57 for you went to high school he worked 5:00 with gangs and he was meeting with a 5:03 group of boys that were 17 18 years old 5:05 and they had never heard the gospel 5:08 they'd never heard about Jesus and God 5:10 and when these young men understood that 5:15 they didn't evolved from an ape that 5:18 they were truly made in God's image for 5:21 a purpose he was able to rescue ninety 5:25 percent of them came out of the game 5:27 isn't that wonderful you know the gospel 5:29 is so transformative yes you can see the 5:34 way that God can in fact change people's 5:37 lives we are more than just subject to 5:42 however whatever we feel like doing at 5:45 any instant in time but this this 5:49 different morality has massive 5:53 implications in a society and the way 5:56 that people relate to to each other 5:58 let's jump back and just talk well see 6:01 what Charles Darwin how he applies this 6:04 not just to relationships between 6:07 individuals to individuals in a marriage 6:12 or something but how he see things sees 6:15 things working out for different 6:16 cultures or different races of people he 6:19 says I can see no difficulty in the most 6:23 intellectual individuals of a species 6:26 being continually selected and the 6:28 intellect of the new species thus 6:32 improved aided probably by effects of 6:35 inherited mental exercise I look at this 6:39 process as now going on with the races 6:44 of man the less intellectual races being 6:49 exterminated he's saying hey this 6:52 extermination of people whom he called 6:54 savages some of whom by the way were my 6:57 ancestors he sees that is the way it 7:02 should be that's that's how evolutionary 7:05 progress occurs no regard for the value 7:09 of life 7:11 obviously there can be no no no 7:14 possibility of racial equality in the 7:19 Darwinian view of things because it's 7:21 all about survival of the fittest some 7:24 people some groups some individuals some 7:27 something has to be more fit than 7:29 something else 7:31 so was Adolf Hitler a fan of Charles 7:34 Darwin oh yes 7:36 yeah we're actually going to get to that 7:37 yeah but I first I want to contrast this 7:40 with the biblical view which is rooted 7:42 in creation here's Paul and he's talking 7:44 to epicurean philosophers here people 7:47 who believed a materialistic view of 7:51 reality and he writes from one man he 7:54 this is God made all the nations that 7:56 they should inhabit the whole earth and 7:58 he marked out their appointed times in 8:00 history and the boundaries of their land 8:02 he's saying hey we're all descended from 8:05 one man Greek Jew slave-free 8:09 all those sorts of things Paul actually 8:11 lays this out very very clearly and this 8:15 is rooted in the idea of we're all 8:16 descended from Adam and we can all 8:20 become children of God by adoption by 8:24 the second Adam Jesus Christ Himself who 8:27 was it is the creator 8:30 so when you see somebody that's being 8:32 prejudiced because of the skin color for 8:35 example 8:36 really they have 99.9999% more in common 8:42 with that person they just have 8:44 something different externally you know 8:46 what's interesting there are a lot of 8:47 people who try to somehow all the 8:49 quantify differences like this and then 8:51 draw conclusions from it my view is this 8:55 hey you know what somebody who is of 8:58 African ancestry is just as human as I 9:01 am somebody who is of Asian ancestry is 9:04 just as human as I am God made us 9:08 diverse and we are all profoundly equal 9:14 it doesn't matter if we're eighty 9:17 percent the same we are human beings 9:21 and God make made all humans absolutely 9:27 equal in a very profound way his Paul 9:30 writing again he's writing here actually 9:32 to the Galatians and he says there is 9:35 neither Jew nor Gentile neither slave 9:37 nor free nor is there male and female 9:40 for you are all one in Christ Jesus who 9:46 of course is our Creator and Redeemer 9:48 it's it's a very very clear message 9:51 rooted in the biblical view of creation 9:56 let's now let's jump again back and look 9:59 at the sorts of things that that Darwin 10:02 was writing he says there is reason to 10:04 believe that vaccination has preserved 10:07 thousands who from a weak Constitution 10:10 would formerly have succumbed of 10:12 smallpox and you would think hey this is 10:13 only a good thing right now 10:16 Darwin equivocates on this and I'm 10:18 giving a short quote here so anyone 10:20 who's interested I invite them to go and 10:22 look here this isn't a book called The 10:23 Descent of Man look this up and read it 10:26 in context because you know he's 10:30 obviously struggling himself with this 10:32 how could this be a bad thing but he 10:34 goes on and he says thus the weak 10:37 members of civilized societies propagate 10:40 their kind no one who has attended to 10:43 the breeding of domestic animals will 10:45 doubt that this must be highly injurious 10:48 to the race of man ultimately 10:52 vaccinations are bad because because 10:55 they save you know the logic is 11:00 absolutely incredible Jesus Christ is 11:04 not willing that any should perish 11:05 that's the biblical view that's the 11:08 Christian view every human being we want 11:10 to do what we can do to save them 11:14 Darwinism is to a large degree about the 11:17 weak being eliminated 11:21 but look at and and of course viewing 11:24 human beings as animals but what happens 11:29 as we apply that in in in a logical way 11:33 I'm just going to give you this 11:35 example here but this is not unique this 11:39 is in a paper published in the Journal 11:41 of medical ethics this is not in some 11:44 crazy fringe sort of thing these are 11:47 people who are taken seriously and they 11:50 write we claim that killing a newborn 11:54 could be ethically permissible in all 11:59 the circumstances where abortion would 12:01 be now I personally don't think that 12:03 abortion is ethically permissible so but 12:08 these people do they think that you know 12:10 if in their view if if this thing is not 12:14 fully human then it's okay to to destroy 12:17 its life there talk about an actual new 12:19 boy they're talking now about a baby a 12:22 baby that's been born and they say such 12:25 circumstances where it's okay to kill 12:27 this child such circumstances include 12:30 cases where the newborn has the 12:32 potential to have an at least acceptable 12:34 life but the well-being of the family is 12:36 at rest I you know say anymore yeah 12:42 Adolf Hitler you know these ideas about 12:45 destroying the weak if you're not strong 12:47 enough to protect yourself you don't 12:48 have rights a really horrifying Hitler 12:50 rate by means of the struggle the elites 12:53 that continually renewed the law of 12:55 selection justifies this incessant 12:57 struggle by allowing the survival of the 12:59 fittest Christianity is a rebellion 13:02 against natural law a protest against 13:05 nature take it to its logical extreme 13:07 Christianity would mean the systematic 13:09 cultivation of the human failure and we 13:12 know the outcome of this the slaughter 13:14 of the weak 13:15 the Bible says defend the weak and the 13:17 fatherless uphold the cause of the poor 13:19 and the oppressed rescue the weak and 13:22 the needy deliver them from the hand of 13:24 the wicked that is what we get and of 13:27 course Marxism also built off this 13:30 Darwinian foundation is all about 13:32 struggle and we know the outcome of 13:35 these things and yet what did Jesus say 13:40 he said you know when when I come this 13:42 is this is what the king will say calm 13:44 you her a blessed of my father take your 13:46 inheritance the kingdom prepared for you 13:48 since the creation 13:49 of the world for I was hungry and he 13:51 gave me something to eat I was thirsty 13:52 and you gave me something to drink and 13:54 so on it's all about caring and for the 13:57 weak it's not it's not about destroying 14:01 people who can't protect themselves so 14:04 what does this reveal about the creator 14:06 his existence has multiple persons but 14:11 one being is illustrated in the 14:13 Sacrament of marriage but in addition to 14:16 that his care for everyone is shown in 14:20 the way he defines our relationships 14:23 love care not power and destroying the 14:29 weak what we believe about the sanctity 14:32 of life about the value of life will 14:35 determine how we treat other people not 14:39 only in our personal circles but in our 14:43 government so please stay tuned because 14:44 we have a human rights attorney that 14:48 will be joining us to talk about 14:52 [Music] 14:58 welcome back to the Creator revealed if 15:01 we believe the biblical account of 15:04 creation and we certainly do then we 15:07 know that man was created special and 15:10 that means that human rights are rooted 15:14 in the Bible's account of creation well 15:17 certainly history has shown us that when 15:20 people take this particular 15:22 understanding of humanity created in the 15:25 image of God created equal 15:28 then with that understanding there are 15:31 all kinds of wonderful benefits that 15:33 come along with that we're going to meet 15:36 a lawyer now a lawyer who has practice 15:40 in the area of civil rights and 15:42 religious freedom as name happens to be 15:44 James Standish and he can and he might 15:47 just be my brother so I'm pretty proud 15:50 of him and we certainly have had some 15:53 very interesting conversations together 15:55 over the course of the course of our 15:58 lifetime so here's my brother let's 16:00 let's meet him welcome James thanks well 16:06 it's great it's great that you could 16:07 join us and we've been talking about 16:11 this this idea of human rights you're a 16:16 lawyer so tell us where exactly do do 16:21 our ideas about the creation sort of 16:24 feed into the laws that we have to 16:27 follow in a country like the United 16:28 States or really in many other systems 16:32 of law well as you know our idea of 16:38 human rights is first expressed in the 16:41 Declaration of Independence where it 16:42 says that were endowed by our Creator so 16:45 right from the very beginning the United 16:47 States and Kedah human rights in the 16:50 idea that we're all equal children of 16:53 God very interestingly as you'll also 16:56 know around the same time as the United 16:58 States had went to its revolution and 17:02 then adopted his constitution the 17:04 country of France 17:05 going through a similar revolution but 17:08 they did not anchor their rights in the 17:10 idea of the creative God and their 17:14 Revolution ended up as a bloodbath and 17:18 it's actually their revolution that has 17:21 been more commonly followed over the 17:23 years than the American Revolution we 17:25 think of the Marxist revolutions we 17:27 think of the fascist revolutions all of 17:29 those are anchored in a secular idea of 17:34 the rights of the people and the rights 17:37 of the state a very different idea one 17:40 of the things that's interesting Tim and 17:42 Shelly that I at least I find 17:43 fascinating is in addition to the United 17:47 States idea of human rights we have 17:49 article the Universal Declaration of 17:53 Human Rights that came out after the 17:55 Second World War 17:56 through the United Nations process and 17:59 what is interesting is over the years a 18:02 number of regimes have critiqued the 18:04 United Nations Human Rights declaration 18:09 because they say it is anchored in a 18:13 judeo-christian view of the world and 18:16 therefore is not applicable to societies 18:19 that are not anchored in that same 18:23 worldview and in a way they're right 18:26 there's overwhelming evidence that 18:28 Christians and Jews work together to 18:31 formulate the Universal Declaration of 18:33 Human Rights and in a way they correct 18:36 to say those rights may not apply to our 18:39 culture because we don't buy the 18:41 premises of those rights obviously 18:44 people argue back what but but then how 18:47 would we respond then - let's say 18:50 atheists who say well look we don't need 18:53 the Bible we don't need any God we can 18:57 just sort of be good and white why isn't 19:00 that enough well the first question is 19:04 to those who say my religion is to be 19:07 good or we can just be good without the 19:09 Bible is this what does it mean to be 19:13 good for some of us it means the 19:17 statement to be good 19:19 respecting other people's rights to be 19:22 to follow their own faith traditions it 19:25 means following the freedom of speech 19:27 permitting people the right to assemble 19:29 etc for other people the idea of 19:32 allowing that level of freedom is a 19:34 dangerous thing that results in 19:36 behaviors beliefs that they disagree 19:38 with and therefore think are objectively 19:40 wrong simile for some of us we believe 19:43 that that good involves protecting life 19:47 both at the beginning of life and at the 19:49 end of life for others there's no 19:52 nothing good about that it's just matter 19:55 and matter doesn't have innate rights it 19:59 just has a utility and if it's unwanted 20:04 then it should be able to be terminated 20:07 so we were talking they would be talking 20:11 about the kinds of things that we hear 20:14 philosophers or or ethicists like Peter 20:17 Singer then talking about this kind of 20:20 utilitarian idea exactly and you know 20:26 once again this goes to the heart of you 20:29 can't say let's just do what's good 20:32 because what is good what is love etc 20:36 these are really the basis of a 20:39 discussion and if you have a different 20:42 view of where you're getting the 20:43 definitions from you're going to come 20:45 ultimately to different outcomes and you 20:49 and I both lived in Southeast Asia 20:50 during very tumultuous times we know 20:55 that people who were part of Pol Pot's 20:58 Cambodia for example they thought they 21:00 were creating an ideal world and if 21:03 you're creating an ideal utopia you're 21:06 right to kill those who stand in its way 21:10 it's the same philosophy two bros Pierre 21:12 who during the French Revolution went 21:15 through if you're standing in the way of 21:17 human perfection eliminating you 21:21 benefits everybody so there's a 21:23 utilitarian analysis that says you 21:26 should do it on the converse side there 21:29 are those of us who believe if you're 21:30 created by God you have 21:33 inalienable rights that is those rights 21:35 cannot be taken away and those rights 21:37 include the right to Liberty and life 21:41 and even if there is a utility in ending 21:47 someone's life that utility cannot be 21:51 pursued because the right supersedes the 21:54 utility okay so translate that what that 21:59 means is as I understand it what that 22:03 what that would mean then is hey really 22:06 when when you're talking about things 22:09 like the value of somebody's life if 22:12 that if if one person's life if you 22:16 judge it to have less value than 22:18 somebody else's life then it's okay to 22:21 kill that other person is okay for that 22:24 person whose life is less valuable to be 22:28 dealt with differently there is no 22:30 equality between people you are not 22:34 equal just because you're human so a 22:38 smart rich person might have more value 22:41 than a poor sick person and for our 22:44 viewers and and those who are listening 22:46 who believes this well this is a widely 22:50 held belief but pence James could call 22:52 it on me in our lifetimes many people 22:57 that believe that that's how we got Pol 22:58 Pot in Cambodia it's how we had the 23:01 about the estimate somewhere in the 23:03 range of 30 million people died during 23:05 Mao's rule of China it's what happened 23:08 in the Soviet Union with tens of million 23:11 if you add up all the people killed 23:13 during the Communist era there are 23:16 estimates vary but they go as high as a 23:18 hundred million people that's even more 23:20 than fascism but fascism and I also 23:23 believe the same thing we're building a 23:25 utopia here on earth therefore anyone 23:29 who's in the way of getting to that 23:31 utopia which will be good for everybody 23:33 anyone who gets in the way of that 23:36 should be eliminated and in fact that's 23:40 the moral thing to do because our 23:43 because we don't view the right to life 23:46 an ultimate right we view it as balanced 23:50 against the right of the state and 23:51 progress and all the other things that 23:53 that these are sort of regimes and and 23:56 and philosophies projected it's not 24:01 about other than here in the in the free 24:03 world what happens when society you know 24:07 starts to embrace these kinds of ideas 24:08 but let me ask this a quick question 24:10 this would be the rationale for genocide 24:13 then right it is rational thinking it's 24:18 irrational 24:19 yeah exactly it's a rationale for 24:21 genocide but not just genocide 24:23 it's a rationale for gulags is the 24:28 rationale for a secret police it's a 24:30 rationale for all of that restriction on 24:32 people because those people are the 24:34 enemies of progress and if you confident 24:37 where progress is going and you can 24:40 identify people who stand in the way the 24:42 idea is that those peoples rights must 24:45 be sacrificed for a society's progress 24:48 essentially how do we see it in Western 24:51 countries today because we know that 24:52 Western countries are becoming more 24:54 secular and that secularism has an 24:57 impact on that political process I the 25:00 way you see it most close most clearly 25:03 is in the disrespect for human life 25:06 particularly at the early human life and 25:09 late human life so you're talking there 25:14 about abortion and euthanasia then yes I 25:19 to words yeah well we we have to wrap 25:21 things up thank you so much for joining 25:23 us James it's been a real pleasure I 25:25 could talk all day but we've got the 25:27 rest of our lives together we've got to 25:30 get on with this program but thank you 25:32 very much for taking the time and 25:33 joining us thank you James 25:35 you know Shelley talking with James and 25:39 being reminded of that time when we were 25:41 growing up in Thailand and the slaughter 25:44 that was going on in the country right 25:46 next door 25:47 millions millions of people slaughtered 25:51 it's tempting for for us living living 25:55 in a relatively peaceful country to 25:58 imagine 25:59 our ideas about the creation you know 26:02 they don't have very much practical 26:05 practical value but in reality this 26:08 society that was founded on that 26:12 principle that that it is self-evident 26:15 that all men are created equal and as a 26:19 consequence of that that human beings 26:22 have unalienable rights that means it 26:25 doesn't matter whether the person is 26:27 rich poor old young fit ill it doesn't 26:31 matter those rights cannot be taken away 26:34 from a human being what value yes isn't 26:37 that what a blessing there is in living 26:40 in a society like in the framework of 26:42 our government is really based on the 26:44 laws of God and it's just something that 26:47 it is it's a human thing that means it's 26:49 not perfect 26:51 it does you bringing in those principles 26:54 that's why I thank God every day that I 26:57 wake up in a free country 27:03 [Music] 27:25 you