They've Come to Replace Our Kids! - Dale Partridge
Episode Stats
Words per minute
148.75934
Harmful content
Hate speech
2
sentences flagged
Summary
In this episode, I discuss the growing trend of pet idolatry in our culture, and how it is a symptom of a rapidly decreasing value of human life. According to the World Animal Foundation, the market for pet care around the world is worth $207 billion, but the rest of the world spends $123 billion per year on pets.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
We have a culture essentially that has literally designed itself to offer things like human
00:00:06.660
abortions and pet adoption for basically free, right?
00:00:11.800
So you can kill a baby and adopt a pet for basically free, while hospital birth of a
00:00:18.880
child and human adoption is like tens of thousands of dollars.
00:00:23.600
So what we have is a society that rewards people with convenience and the removal of
00:00:29.600
financial barriers when it comes to killing children and acquiring a pet for its citizens.
00:00:36.820
And it burdens those same civilians when it comes to adopting or caring for children. And so we have
00:00:44.180
something that's going on even systematically in our culture. Essentially, what I'm trying to say
00:00:49.420
here is that in America, we are disincentivizing a culture of children and promoting a culture of
00:00:58.780
pets. That's really at the core of our societal ethos right now, or our legal system, or our
00:01:07.620
financial system, or our social system at the very least. And so we have things that are changing
00:01:14.160
all around us in regards to pets. We have pets on planes and in grocery stores now. We have pets
00:01:18.700
in strollers and we have pets in car seats now. We have pets with insurance policies and annual
00:01:25.380
dental work. We have doggy daycares. We have dog sitters. We have vegan dogs. We have pets named
00:01:33.160
after their grandparents. That was a real thing I saw online. We have dogs that take Xanax and
00:01:38.920
organic supplements. We have pets that have birthday parties. We have people calling themselves
00:01:45.420
dog moms and dog dads and referring to themselves or their pets as fur babies. On top of that,
00:01:52.680
we actually have a market. I think the global market share that I saw online for pet clothing
00:01:58.280
was $5 billion for pet clothing. And so to not see the culture's movement to view pets as the
00:02:06.800
replacement for children is just utter blindness. I mean, this is certainly happening right before
00:02:13.120
our eyes. Doug Wilson said in a video on this topic, he says, quote, people are projecting
00:02:19.820
onto their pets sentiments and affections that ought to be rendered toward a child, end quote.
00:02:26.800
This is certainly what we're seeing. We have a culture that has elevated animals to a place of
00:02:32.500
intrinsic value or esteem that is reserved strictly for humans. And it's not that we should
00:02:39.580
reject the care for pets. We like pets. The problem is not the animal here. But what we're
00:02:45.760
having is that people are prioritizing them over children and then raising them to this
00:02:53.600
societal status where they have equal care, protection, and dignity before the law or before
00:03:02.740
at least the cultural theme of the day. And what this does is it actually makes,
00:03:09.460
When you elevate animals to be essentially the same as humans, you essentially say that
00:03:18.600
And that's really what's behind this way of thinking for this community that's pushing
00:03:25.640
Bible-believing Christians are not the ones that are aggressively driving the movement
00:03:33.020
It's really the liberals and the atheists that are doing that.
00:03:49.820
Humans will experience the resurrection of their bodies.
00:03:59.140
I don't believe every animal that ever lived on earth
00:04:02.960
because we have the restored heavens in the earth.
00:04:08.300
I believe that God will actually have animals in the new heavens and new earth, but I don't think
00:04:13.180
it's going to be the animals that we had on this earth. And so, this is important to just see as
00:04:19.220
an overarching theme because our death cult culture is rapidly decreasing the value of human
00:04:26.240
life. And one way that they're doing that is by elevating the life of animals to be essentially
00:04:33.080
equal to the life of humans. In a study mentioned by Dennis Prager, 40 to 50% of people said that
00:04:40.340
they would save their dog over a stranger in a life-threatening situation. Again, this just
00:04:47.580
simply illustrates the misprioritized station our culture is nurturing around pets. And it shows,
00:04:58.340
again, us rendering those sentiments and affections that Doug was talking about toward animals in an
00:05:05.800
improper way. According to the World Animal Foundation, the pet care market is worth $207
00:05:12.360
billion around the globe. But the US citizens radically, actually, this is a fun fact,
00:05:18.820
outspend the rest of the world on pets. $123 billion per year we spend on pets. The UK pet
00:05:26.880
owners, I believe this stat is right, only are spending about $7.5 billion. That was double,
00:05:32.860
however, since 2005 in the UK. China spent $31.89 billion. Europeans spent around $21.2 billion.
00:05:41.860
And Australians spent $30.7 billion. But again, we have $123 billion per year that America is
00:05:50.960
spending on the pet industry. I also heard a quote that there are now more pets in Portland
00:05:56.720
Oregon and Seattle and San Francisco than there are children. That obviously makes sense. That
00:06:01.940
shouldn't probably shock anyone because nobody's getting married anymore. Nobody's having kids
00:06:05.820
anymore because we are living in a society that is incredibly selfish. And so it makes me think
00:06:10.760
of a quote by Leonard Ravenhill, who said this probably 70 years ago. He was born in 1907. So
00:06:18.600
in the middle of his ministry, I'm thinking is maybe in the 1950s, but he says, quote,
00:06:24.120
quote, today, Christians spend more money on dog food than missions, end quote. Honestly, I would
00:06:31.560
not be shocked to learn that the average Christian spends more money on their pet than they do giving
0.76
00:06:38.660
to their church or giving to the poor or supporting missions or other parachurch ministries around the
00:06:46.800
world. Pets have truly become an idol in this generation, and it has certainly influenced
00:06:52.860
Christians in the church because we're not questioning why we're doing some of these things
00:06:57.300
in the culture. Previous generations would look at this as radically strange, odd behavior.
00:07:05.440
People are literally satisfying their need for love, this desire for love with their pets. They
00:07:12.600
become essentially the replacement figures of spouses or children, or in some cases, God. They
0.67
00:07:19.680
literally wake up, the priority of their day is to care for their dog and to receive love from
00:07:26.320
their dog and to give love to their dog. And again, they're reprioritizing where that love
00:07:34.380
should be focused upon something that is not the object of right affection. And so this is a
00:07:45.040
multifaceted problem. So I know that you're thinking about all the reasons why these things
00:07:49.220
happen. And I'll talk a little bit about that in a second. But 1 John 2.15 reminds us, it says,
00:07:55.020
quote, do not love the world or the things in the world, end quote. Now, I'm going to make a case
00:08:02.280
that things in the world could include creatures that were made that are not humans. I'm thinking
00:08:09.760
that things in the world could include a cat or a dog. It is a creature, and we shouldn't be
00:08:15.300
worshiping or idolizing the creature ever, all of our affection and worship and focus should be