Conference on Answering Abortion Arguments with Scott Klusendorf Columbo Tactic Session 7

Kootenai Church

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All right We're gonna do two things in this last session. We're going to talk about how you can approach a guy like dr

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Zeke by asking good Columbo tactics and some of you this will be review for you others of you

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It will be new and then we're going to do something interesting. We're going to talk about three very uplifting happy topics

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Infertility death and dying in Genetic enhancements does that sound like a great way to end our time together today?

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I tell you so we're going to talk about those three things in just a moment. But first, what do you do with a guy?

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Like dr Zeke who is throwing out all kinds of assertions all kinds of things and you're thinking how do

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I answer all this stuff? And maybe you got a sense of that when you were watching these videos where there appears to be no

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Clear syllogism they're arguing. They're just throwing stuff out there. How do you respond?

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Well one of the ways you can respond like this in An effective way is to use what

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Greg Koukl calls the Columbo tactic How many of you remember watching the Columbo series on TV if you're under the age of 50?

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The Holy Trinity of Sunday night TV in the 1970s was Macmillan and wife

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Columbo and MacLeod I forget the order they came in I'm not old enough to remember I was only in third grade and I got sent to bed after Walt Disney every

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Sunday night But that was the Holy Trinity that mom and dad would stay up for Columbo is this disheveled detective for those of you youngins in the room.

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How many of you saw the Princess Bride movie? The old guy reading the story to the kid that was

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Columbo Peter Peter Falk He played the part of this disheveled detective who shows up on the scene and the crooks are thinking

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Oh, man, this is great. He'll never figure out that I did it and you know, he shows up He's got a wrinkled long coat on he's got a cigar in his hand

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I almost brought a cigar as a prop, you know I was gonna just try to really do this up and the crooks see him coming in there.

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They're going. Oh, man this guy He'll never figure it out and he'll just ask questions. Now. Where were you denied into 14th.

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Dr. Jones. Okay, okay And he starts to leave and then he'll turn around and go there's just one more thing bothering me about this

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And he'll one more that was a pretty good impersonation wasn't There's one more thing bothering me about this and you'll just one more thing them to death

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Until the whole case blows open You have to take as my friend

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Greg Koukl says a tip from lieutenant Columbo and learn to ask Some very good questions designed to reverse the burden of proof and put it back on the person making the claim

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So here are the three Columbo questions. You need to become adept at question number one What do you mean by that?

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What do you mean by that? Question number two and Usually they're in this order, but they don't necessarily always have to be in this order question one

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What do you mean by that question number two? How did you come to that conclusion? In other words, what's your proof?

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Question number three. Have you considered the implications of your view? What do you mean by that?

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How did you come to that conclusion and have you considered the implications of your view?

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These questions are not gotcha questions They're designed to further the dialogue and put that pebble in the person's shoe and give them something to think about you're trying to Get them to think clearly when they may not if you don't press them with these questions

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So let's look at that first question. How did you or what do you mean by that a number of years ago?

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I don't remember how long ago now For some reason I was watching

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Larry King. I don't know why moment of weakness, I guess and Larry King had as his guest

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Shirley MacLaine the actress and Shirley MacLaine and I don't say this in a pejorative way.

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I'm being true to what she would describe of herself She is a witch she would tell you that and the topic of the interview with Larry King was the new spirituality and Larry King says

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To Shirley MacLaine miss MacLaine, we need a new spirituality, don't we?

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Yes, Larry We do and why do you think that is miss MacLaine and listen to her answer?

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Because we all know the Bible's been changed many times Now Larry King who's 106 at that point is just nodding half on comatose, right

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I Would have stopped right there and leveled that first Columbo question

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Miss MacLaine, that's a very interesting comment. You just made you say the

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Bible's been changed many times How so? What do you mean by that in what way?

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Has Shirley MacLaine ever thought or even studied biblical criticism?

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Yes or no. She didn't have a clue She has no idea How we got the

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Bible we got she has no idea whether the text is reliable or not she's just Spouting something out and one question would have exposed her in what way?

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That's all he needed to ask But he didn't he just let it go Simply saying what do you mean by that in what way has the text been changed?

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She would have looked like a complete fool Instead he let it go. So the first question is to simply ask.

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What do you mean by that by the way? This works very well when you are called a name when someone ignores your argument and they just call you a name

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Let's say they call you a religious political extremist. I've been called this before I did a debate in Canada at Carleton University and my opponent called me a religious political extremist

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So I asked her what do you mean by that? Well, the religious political extremist, that's somebody who thinks they're right.

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Are you saying I'm wrong? If not, why are you correcting me?

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Do you believe your position is right? So, let me see if I got this straight if I claim to be right.

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I'm a religious political extremist But if you claim to be right Well, you're just right

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In other words by simply asking what do you mean by that? You can clarify a lot of this nonsense.

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Now. There's another thing you can do with this question. That's very important It will prevent you from distorting your opponent's argument and that's good.

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You want to be honest with what they're arguing So make them clarify it. The second Columbo tactic is the mother of them all

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It's what Greg Kochel calls the absolute favorite

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Columbo question And it simply says how did you come to that conclusion? In other words, what's your evidence?

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So let's assume you're sitting in a class at We'll pick my school

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UCLA and you're in a Bible as literature class This is a class where they look at the

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Bible not as a theological document per se But rather just as literature and you're sitting there and and dr.

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Batten gets up there and he says now I want you to know That we all know the

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Apostles made up the story of Jesus rising from the dead In fact, all the miracles are made up as the

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Jesus seminar has showed us It's all made up stuff and you're sitting there as a student thinking.

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How do I refute this? Wait a minute? Who made the claim who made the claim?

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He did who bears the burden of proof he does put it on him and Here's how you put it on him

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Dr. Batten Interesting thing you just said that the disciples made up all the accounts of Jesus his miraculous

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Miracles and the rising from the dead I'm curious. How did you come to that conclusion?

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Now, dr. Batten may get clever with you He may pull the professor's ploy on you where he looks at you and says we'll prove

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I'm wrong Uh -uh, uh -uh who made the claim he did it's not on you to refute him

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It's on him to defend his own claim and you could just say well, dr. Batten.

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Listen, I'm not even claiming you're wrong here You made a claim. I'm just curious what your evidence is for it

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Make him defend his own claim and that question. How did you come to that conclusion is?

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Absolutely decisive in doing that now the third Columbo question is where you really

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Bring it home and show that they're going to pay too high a price for holding their view The third

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Columbo question the question that says have you considered the implications of your view is a powerful way to get the person rethinking things for example, remember the story of That student at the

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University of Maryland where he stood up and said I appreciate you You're you're scientific.

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You were reasonable. I liked your philosophy, but you'll never convince me that an embryo that doesn't have a brain

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Or that isn't self -aware should have a right to life Why would you think that an embryo that isn't self -aware has a right to life and I called his bluff by saying tell me

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Why do I have to be self -aware not to be killed? I followed that with the third

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Columbo question when he said to me touche I Said have you considered the implications of your view if self -awareness is what gives me a right to life?

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newborns fail that test and can be killed and So does grandpa who might be suffering from dementia in other words?

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He didn't want to go there with that It showed that he was going to pay too high a price for holding that view and that question

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Have you considered the implications of your view? Helped expose that a friend of mine

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Jojo Aruba does pro -life apologetics in Canada and He relayed to me a while back a situation that happened

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He was at a pro -life display where there were large Pictures of abortion being presented on a college campus and I don't even remember which one

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But these large displays like the one the students saw that you read Greg Dickinson who complained about these displays the students were there and a professor brought out his class to the display and they began a conversation with Jojo and The professor says he looks at the abortion pictures and he says those pictures are fake

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Jojo played Columbo on him Jojo said what do you mean by that? Tell me

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What do real abortion pictures look like? The guy had no clue

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He was a stammering idiot at that point. He had no clue he had just accused these pictures of being fake, but had no idea what real ones look like and After just letting that question hang there a little bit

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Jojo followed up with this Have you considered? That if you don't even know what real abortion pictures look like you have very little ground to claim mine are fake and if you further considered

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That if abortion is no big deal. Why are you bothered of pictures of it?

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Perfect execution of the Columbo tactic and I would encourage you to use it It is vitally important in the notes

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You're going to get you'll get a whole list of objections that you can respond to Using the

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Columbo tactic in my book the case for life I have a whole chapter on the Columbo tactic and I'll leave it to you to follow up with that I want to take our last 30 minutes and deal with the question of bioethics.

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We're gonna move from abortion To three areas in bioethics that impact all of us now bioethics is different than medical ethics

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Medical ethics is how a doctor relates to his own patient bedside manner. Some would say

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Bioethics is much larger. It's dealing with how Medicine should interact with various worldviews.

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What's the worldview behind our Medicine, what's the worldview behind how we treat patients bioethics is asking questions like this

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What makes humans valuable in the first place? When is it? Okay to withhold or withdraw treatment from dying patients?

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What about reproductive technologies? When are they? Okay, not okay It's asking bigger worldview questions and every one of us will have to deal with bioethics in our lives

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This is not abstract. You will deal with it. And the three areas we're going to look at right now are infertility end of life issues and Genetic enhancements these three issues are going to impact all of us

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Let's start with that first one. How many of you have known somebody who has walked through?

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Infertility, can I see your hands? Yeah, they're in our churches. It's a painful thing

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How many of you have walked a loved one through the final chapter of life? Where you've been the one having to make decisions about the care they get at the end.

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Can I see your hands? Yeah already in this room a lot of you This is real stuff to you and all of us have seen the superhero movies and the transhumanist

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Dogma that's out there that says we can reinvent ourselves Anyway that we want and there should be no restraints whatsoever

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What I'm gonna do in just a moment is give you a case study to discuss around the table

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So let me divide the room in a way that will help you do this So right here this aisle right here going

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Bonnie to the right to your left right there You are the dividing point. Okay right there

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Everybody this way right here. You are the infertile couples. Okay You right here

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You that denied the prize that you got you rejected the free gift you were given

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There is no hope for you eternally Okay So this so right up through this table here with the troublemaker that was giving

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Zeke all the headache right there You guys right here are the death and dying group. Okay, you guys over here.

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You're the genetic enhancers So let me give you your case studies You're gonna discuss them for about three to four minutes and then

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I'm gonna pull you back together We're gonna work through them from the biblical worldview you guys here you are members of a church you are leaders in the church and You would lead a small group and a couple has come to you in tears in their mid -40s

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They have been struggling with infertility for 20 years They're Christians.

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They want to have a baby of their own now before we just Come out with a pat answer and say well, why don't they just adopt?

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Have you ever thought about how painful it would be to hear that if you were struggling with infertility What is

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Mother's Day look like in a church where a couple is struggling with infertility? What is

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Christmas look like when all those little kids go up on the stage to sing and you don't have a little

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Johnny to Go up there Don't think that pain isn't real In fact in grad school at Biola my prof in bioethics

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Scott Ray had his wife come in and talk to us one day She had she had a double mastectomy dealing with breast cancer that almost killed her

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But they had struggled with infertility before that She told our class if she had to go redo one of those things infertility or cancer

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She'd choose cancer because infertility was far more painful for her to go through at the emotional level. This is real stuff so this couple comes to you and says

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We have been out to Los Angeles We went out to UCLA and there's a doctor out there

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Who is an expert in? Infertility and he has come up with a plan for us to have a baby of our own and we want to know if this

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Is okay to do biblically here's his plan His plan is he's going to give me the mom drugs that are going to multiply the number of eggs that are released in a given menstrual cycle and those eggs will be surgically removed and Fertilized in a test tube using a process called in vitro fertilization where the sperm and egg are joined in the test tube rather than the woman's body

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They're then going to Immediately test the resulting embryos for any kind of defects.

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They hope to fertilize up to 20 embryos They will then eliminate all embryos that show signs of defect and Immediately implant the remaining in her body up to 12

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Now the doctor has told them that hey, we realize you can't carry 12 embryos.

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No problem You'll miscarry a few but those you don't miscarry. No issue.

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We'll do what's called selective Reduction once we see how many embryos take we will go in and reduce meaning abort all those

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That you don't want leaving only the two that you want, but don't worry. These embryos are not conscious.

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They're not thinking They're not feeling they're not sentient beings. You're not doing anything wrong here then

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Once the woman gives birth They will have children of their own that are their genetic children.

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This couple wants to know from you biblically What are the limits? What can they do?

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Should they reject all reproductive technologies? Should they for example reject technologies like inter uterine insemination where we take sperm and insert it into The womb via a catheter and we give the mother hormones to release multiple eggs

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Hoping that at least a few take is that out of bounds? What about if we join sperm and egg in her body through a process called gift where we take sperm and egg?

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Surgically extract them from the two parents and place them together as neighbors inside the fallopian tube.

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Would that be wrong? Are all reproductive technologies wrong or only what this doctor is suggesting?

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Or is what this doctor's suggesting? Okay, why or why not? Would you say that it's right or wrong you guys clear on what your case study is going to be here

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All right, are your minds fertile to be able to take this on and deal with it? That was a bad joke All right over here to this group

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The death and dying group hold off. Don't discuss just yet you're a small group leader at your church a

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Grieving wife comes to you and says my husband Greg Is in the final what appears to be the final stages of cancer and He's 51 years old and the doctor is now telling us that very soon

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Treatments aren't going to help him and in fact Greg doesn't want any more treatments. He is prepared to die he feels that further treatment is not going to help him and he'd like to stop treating it and Furthermore the doctor has informed us that probably within a couple of weeks

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We will have to ratchet up the level of morphine to control his pain when we ratchet up that level of morphine

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We can foresee death Possibly being hastened not that we intended but we can see it.

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Is it okay to withhold? Treatment that no longer helps Greg including food and water at the final stage

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Where it would only prolong his agony or are we obliged to always resist death?

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No matter what is pro -life Christians and this grieving wife wants to know

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What the Christian thing to do is in that situation and she's asking you

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What's the right thing to do here? Can we ratchet up his morphine? Can we withhold treatment that no longer helps him?

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What's the right thing to do? We're pro -life We we don't ever want to be about death, right? What is the right thing to do in that case?

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Are you guys clear on what your case study will be? All right genetic enhancers You are a graduate student at Stanford University first mistake.

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You should have gone to UCLA at Stanford University your academic mentor is a world -renowned

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Geneticist he has come up with a germline therapy germline therapies not only impact you they impact

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They impact your descendants forever This germline therapy that he has come up with will radically enhance your cognitive abilities

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You will have a photographic memory You will learn at ten times the speed of any of your classmates your ability to retain information

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Grasp it learn it execute on it will be unparalleled and he is urging you to take it

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He says it's safe for you. It's not going to kill you, but it will impact your descendants Are there reasons?

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from a biblical worldview to resist or Yellow or red flag you might say this idea this treatment.

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Are there reasons why? From a biblical worldview that might not be the thing we should do as Christians are there dangers to enhancement therapies?

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This is not repairing anything wrong with you. This is Dramatically leaping you forward in your cognitive ability and it turns out your professor is a transhumanist guy

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Who really wants to see the human race take a leap forward in its evolutionary? Development and he thinks you're the perfect one for it and he says to you you could be the next person to cure cancer

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With this treatment, you'll probably be the one who can break through with your cognitive abilities and do it

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Should you do it or are there some real cautionary flags? Okay, you guys clear on what you're doing.

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Yes The effects on the future generation is they will too will be enhanced just like you that gets passed all the way down Okay.

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All right Ready get in your groups in your tables Discuss the case study if you're at a table alone, or you two want to double up with these guys you can

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Go you got four minutes. Go tell me what you're gonna do Two minutes

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One minute, all right, we are having enhanced discussions here.

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This is good One of the reasons I bring this up Every summer at summit ministries in Colorado where I teach at a

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Christian worldview conference for high school and college Students to help prepare them for challenges they face in the university environment

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I ask a question. How many of you prior to coming to summit have ever had your church?

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speak biblically on the issue of infertility death and dying and genetic enhancements

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Out of a hundred and eighty students a session We get two to three that have heard any kind of biblical teaching on this

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This is stuff that the world is out thinking us on and we need to be prepared to think biblically as Christians So let's start with the infertile couples over here.

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I feel like I'm Benny Hinn pronouncing things on people. This isn't good infertile couples, what did you come up with as The way you would advise this couple, what would you say to them as their leaders in their church?

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This is not good starting out. Okay, go ahead. What would you say? Okay, so right out of the gate this guy, right?

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This guy has proposed something that's going to involve Intentionally killing innocent human beings.

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That's a no -go right out of the start exactly, right So here's what I want to do in the course of this discussion

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I do not believe all Assisted technologies are wrong But they have to fall within biblical fence posts and the first biblical fence post is the one you just nailed

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It has to respect the status of the embryo as an image bearer any

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Infertility treatment that intentionally destroys an instant human being will be out of bounds for the

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Christian That means any treatment that involves screening of embryos for defects Which are nothing more than search -and -destroy missions is going to be off the table for the

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Christian exactly, right? What else would you say to this couple? Regarding their struggle with infertility

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Look into some of the options. So for example an option that doesn't involve Giving the mother more embryos than she can reasonably carry if the parents take personal

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Responsibility for every embryo conceived and they either don't put themselves at risk for major multiple

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Pregnancies through the hormone drugs or they don't have leftovers on ice as long as they take personal responsibility for each embryo

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Then we could be in a morally. Okay zone. Is that what you're you're saying?

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Yeah I think that's another good principle that goes with the status of the embryo. What else in the infertility group?

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Would you say to this couple? Yeah There's a problem with can you trust your provider?

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For example, I've had Medical staff that I've heard of that told

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Christian parents. Oh life doesn't begin at conception It begins at implantation and they're in I don't know if it's intentional ignorance or what?

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But they're wrong about that life begins at fertilization not implantation You've got to be able to trust your medical provider to give you accurate

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Information and that may not always be the case in this case. This doctor is misleading this Christian couple.

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That's that's a big deal another principle another Benchmark, not only must we respect the status of the

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M unborn we can make room for common grace Common grace has to do with knowledge that God has given man to reverse the impact of the fall is

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Infertility one of the impacts of the fall Yes, so knowledge we have to reverse it is not automatically wrong now

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It can be wrong, but it's not automatically wrong It could be part of God's common provision to sinful human beings like you and I to help reverse some of the impact of the fall

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Just like we get knowledge to fight cancer and other health related issues third biblical fence post

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Procreation is to happen within marriage This is why surrogacy is problematic we're often in well

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What we're doing is we're introducing a third party to the marital unit So let me give you biblical grounds for this

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God gives the command to be fruitful and multiply to Adam and Eve in the context of a one -man -one -woman permanent marriage

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When Jesus and the Apostles speak about marriage They don't point to the polygamous patriarchs and kings of the

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Old Testament They point back to the garden in the one flesh union of man and wife in a permanent union that is the context for the command to be fruitful and to multiply and surrogacy

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Introduces a third party to that marital unit. I like what Maggie Gallagher says.

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She says sex makes babies Society needs babies babies deserve a mother and a father

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She's right about that They deserve to be born within that marital unit and that seems to be the biblical norm

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We see in Scripture. I say more about this in the notes But at least you get the idea a fourth principle and one of you nailed it over here

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I forget which one the couple must take personal responsibility for every embryo that's conceived

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These children deserve to be born they should not be left on ice. I remember a very painful event

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I had once where I went and was asked to Just debrief a group of 30 couples all of whom had major numbers of embryos left over on ice and now they were in their mid -40s and wondered what they should do with all these embryos they

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No longer could reasonably carry Christian couples should not put themselves in a position where they have these leftover embryos

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These embryos deserve a mom and a dad and then finally We're gonna come to a point and again, there's more on this in your notes

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There comes a point where we will trust in God's sovereignty There does come a point where we want to say look

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I cannot make having a child of my own an idol I cannot do that. I don't have a right to a child.

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They are gifts that we receive But I don't think as Christians we need to say to couples struggling with infertility right out of the gate

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Well, why don't you just adopt God has another way for you? We may arrive at that point

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But along the way there may be some other options and as long as they fall within these biblical fence posts

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We're in good shape. So good work infertile couples. Let's give it up for the infertile couples. All right death and dying group

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What are you gonna do with Greg? What about withholding treatment? We're pro -life.

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Should we always resist death? What advice did you give? Greg's grieving wife.

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What did you say? What about withholding treatment? Let's start there. Is it okay to withhold treatment?

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What might those circumstances be? We're not obligated to give treatment that is going to have no impact at all on the patient So if the treatment is either going to prolong their agony or do nothing to help them

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Withholding it is not wrong Like it would be with someone that the treatment could help.

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Okay, what about The idea that we're pro -life and we should always be promoting life.

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Does that fly in the face of that? Any of you think it did? No, as Christians this life is a good isn't it?

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But is it an ultimate good? What's the ultimate good for a Christian? resurrected bodies

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Union with Christ While death should never be aimed at it doesn't follow we must always resist it

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Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane Did not rush out to meet the soldiers But he also didn't run from them.

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He accepted his fate There comes a point where the patient is dying and further treatment is not going to help them

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It's not going to do them any good Forcing it on them is not a pro -life principle

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Withholding it is not a violation because you're not causing death. What's killing the patient at that point their underlying sickness?

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They're underlying disease their pathology. That's what's killing them withholding the treatment isn't doing it

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This is different than Terry Shivo where her husband Intentionally withdrew her feeding tube to starve her to death with the intent of killing her everybody clear on this distinction

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But here's where we need to be very careful physicians are starting to become philosophers and They are making distinctions they are not equipped or qualified to make a

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Doctor is qualified to tell you a treatment is not going to help the patient He is not qualified to tell you the patient's life is no longer worth living.

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That's a philosophical issue He is no more qualified to answer that than you are and yet doctors today are becoming philosophers making decisions about whose life is worthy of living and who's

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Who is worthy of care and who isn't they're not qualified to make that that what about morphine though?

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What about ratcheting up the morphine? What did you think of that? Excellent distinction.

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What are we aiming at by ratcheting up the morphine? Are we aiming at death if so?

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We're essentially practicing a form of euthanasia, right now why our doctor assisted suicide in euthanasia wrong doctor assisted suicide is where the doctor gives the patient a

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Dose that will kill them. They take it on their own Euthanasia is where the doctor intentionally kills the patient with an injection usually

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When we are aiming at death We are violating the biblical syllogism that we are never to shed innocent blood and we would be wrong

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If that's what we're aiming at but you're right we foresee death, but we don't intend it What's killing the patient is their underlying pathology?

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We're trying to make him as comfortable as he can while he dies from his illness. Our goal is to Respect the life he has

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Not intentionally kill him anybody else on the death and dying side Here we're all gonna face this all of us with our parents with grandparents with ourselves

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And we better be clear biblically what our goals are in my case I do not want any doctor making a value judgment about the value of my life

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They're not to do that and I want every reasonable means Available to keep me alive, but if I'm dying

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I don't want extraordinary means that are not going to help me and yes If you need to control my pain control my pain

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It's okay for dying patients to sleep before they die, but we must never kill them

39:21

We will always care never harm. Good job death and dying folks. Let's give it up for him. All right, finally

39:30

Yes Yeah at the final stages

39:40

Let's say there there are cancer patients that I know of and have heard of we're forcing

39:45

Nutrition on them at the very end is not helping them their body cannot process it any longer

39:52

They're dying from the cancer that is ravaging their body. There's no intent to kill them by withholding this

39:58

You're simply recognizing their body can no longer hot handle it and we're talking here at the final hours

40:04

We're not talking here weeks out. We're talking at the very end and I've actually asked some

40:10

Doctors who deal with end -to -life issues if I'm correct about this and they say yeah There are cancer patients at the very end

40:17

We're forcing nutrition on them is really cruel and unusual punishment at that point their bodies can't process it same thing

40:28

That's what they're saying Now again, let's be clear. We're talking final hours

40:34

Maybe day not weeks out and not with intent to kill and not all patients are that way, but there are a few kill

40:48

You're wrong, correct your intent matters, okay genetic enhancers

40:54

What did you tell this graduate student at Stanford other than lousy choice of school?

41:06

Sure, but should we wade into something?

41:37

We believe is immoral by punting to God's sovereignty that somehow he'll correct it if it's not right.

41:49

Mm -hmm So you were unclear whether in your mind you're you're wrestling with is it okay or not, okay?

41:57

Is this right or wrong? Okay this technology is Going to affect the subject forever and all of her descendants forever.

42:07

It's a germline therapy What about it?

42:12

The doctor is claiming in my scenario that there's no harmful effect on the patient subject

42:20

He's claiming that can you imagine the sermon you could get

42:47

From a cyborg Yeah Okay, but what are some possible yellow flags here?

42:55

Are there any? Okay two questions

43:14

What do we mean by better and What do we mean by human?

43:20

How many of you remember the six million dollar man show with Steve Austin? Remember the music would start up and the voiceover all the people are dating themselves right now in terms of age, right?

43:33

The speaker would come on the music would start remember the theme we can make him we can rebuild him

43:40

We can make him better. We can make him faster. What was the third one?

43:46

I forgot stronger We can make him better. What do we mean by better?

43:53

Who decides what better is What is the secular culture always say better is cognitive ability pretty much

44:05

Why is that better and not a virtue like love? What's that?

44:13

Can't change that with DNA Let me ask you this have you ever been around Down syndrome kids

44:23

Aren't they some of the most loving people you've ever met I Mean they don't have any barriers.

44:30

They're gonna throw their arms around you no matter what Why is it always cognitive ability and who gets to decide that and to get to your point?

44:39

Why do we want this enhancement? Is there something subtly there?

44:46

That we are saying what God has made me is not enough. What gives us value as human beings

44:54

Our cognitive abilities I will get you in just a minute our cognitive abilities

45:00

Or something we do functionally or whose image we bear Is there something going on there where we want this cognitive?

45:10

enhancement or any Enhancement because we feel we got a habit to have value when the biblical view is we have value in virtue of whose image

45:19

We bear not because we can do something better than someone else Okay, go ahead

45:38

Well, that may be what you call better, but what is who are the people making these decisions?

45:45

They're not Christians They're secularist with a materialistic worldview defining human value based on like this doctor at Stanford Based on cognitive ability being the thing that is better That is good and who gets to make that decision these are not being made by people with a

46:04

Christian worldview in reference They're being made by secularist and the problem here is we're getting a view of human value that is functional in nature not being or not

46:17

God given in nature. It's not based on whose image we bear It's on our abilities our functional abilities and that's a problem.

46:24

How many of you saw the movie Wonder Woman? You can raise your hand.

46:29

We're not gonna pray for you If you saw the movie if you saw the movie Wonder Woman, okay I don't know if you remember this scene

46:38

The movie for those of you that haven't seen it spoiler It's set in the context largely of World War one and at the end of the movie

46:48

Wonder Woman who's this enhanced creature who can walk right through the trenches of the two battle sides and deflect bullets like She's you know swatting ping -pong balls

46:59

Wonder Woman At the end of the movie is walking through Trafalgar Square in London And she's there with all the people that are looking at the boards

47:08

Trying to figure out where their loved ones were who were sent off to war It's part celebration that the war is over in part kind of a somber reality that wow there's a lot of us that aren't here anymore and she's wandering through the crowd in Trafalgar Square and she looks completely lost and Here's my take on that scene

47:30

Wonder Woman at that point Despite all her enhancements is in a world where she no longer fits

47:40

She no longer fits She can't relate to the world where God has placed her.

47:45

She can't she's not able to be just Accepting of the givenness of life.

47:51

She's something different than everybody around her. She doesn't fit in that world What was the first temptation of humanity?

48:10

enhancement now Admittedly, this is not as black and white in every area as we might like it to be what counts is enhanced to think about this as Christians and Unfortunately because I'm out of time.

48:29

I cannot enhance this lecture with additional material So I'm gonna have to quit but these are questions

48:35

We have to think of and the thing that concerns me most about this is who is deciding what better is

48:43

Who is deciding what it means to be human? Those two questions are being thrown to the side while we rush headlong into Enhancements involving cognitive ability with no forethought given to what's going to be the implication of this

48:58

All right. Good job enhancers. Can that question wait to the Q &A or do you want to throw it up right now

49:03

Q &A? Throw it out real quick. You've got 30 seconds Yes It gets a fuzzy the reason it gets fuzzy is the line between repair and enhancement is not always brutally clear

49:26

For example our braces repair or enhancement What about cosmetic surgery?

49:33

What about if I'm wanting to regrow hair? Is that repair or enhancement? I'm trying to say that you need to be enhanced.

49:41

No I'm sorry. I couldn't resist Boy I'll tell you

49:49

Things are getting just a little bit hairy here. This is not good. I'm sorry. Oh, that was really bad.

49:55

Oh And just I'm gonna I'm not gonna say anymore last point. Yeah.

50:29

Yeah, there are ethical uses of stem cells and unethical uses of stem cells if we're killing embryos to get stem cells

50:38

We're clearly out of bounds for the reason this group pointed out But if we're talking about adult stem cell therapies that don't involve killing the donor

50:45

Then I think we we have a whole different ballgame in front of us So yes, it is.

50:51

We got to be careful there as well So what we're gonna do right now is our next session is going to be

50:56

Q &A and how is this gonna work? Are you coming up or am I just answering questions or all right, so we're gonna be up here.

51:03

Are we taking a break? Send your cards in and we're gonna go over the questions

51:09

And how long a break do they get 15 minutes 10 minutes.