Ep 190 ｜ We're Too Obsessed with Our Pets
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
192.84557
Summary
In this episode, we discuss the obsession with dogs and pets that Christians have with them, and what the Bible has to say about it. We also talk about why it is not biblical to have an obsession with animals, and how Christians should view them from a biblical perspective.
Transcript
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Hey guys, welcome to Relene. Well, happy Monday. Did everyone have a great weekend? I hope so.
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And you're looking forward to Thanksgiving. Maybe you're not looking forward to Thanksgiving.
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Maybe you hate Thanksgiving. Maybe you don't have a good relationship with your family.
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And if so, I am thinking about you this holiday because I do know the holidays can be stressful,
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especially if you're going through a hard time. Maybe you lost someone that you love and this is,
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these are the first holidays that you are going through and you are not looking forward to it.
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And I'm with you. I don't want to pretend like holidays are always this easy, fun thing for
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everyone because that's not always the case. There could be conflict. There could be sadness.
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There could be all kinds of things going on. But I want you to know that I'm thinking about you
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and that I really will be. I don't just say this in kind of like a trite way, just to say,
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I really will be praying for you. I'll be praying for all the people that are dealing with any kind
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of conflict or chaos or sadness or loss or anything like that this Thanksgiving. I hope that all of you
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are looking forward to it. I hope that all of you are excited about it and all of you are going
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to enjoy it. But for any of you, even the one person out there who is not looking forward to it,
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I am thinking about you and I'm sorry. Know that it's over quickly. All of this stuff is difficult
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as it may be this year. It's all over quickly. And then you've got a new year. And that's the
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beautiful thing about seasons, about time that God has graciously given us is that when difficult
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things happen, there can be joy in the morning. There can be joy in the new season. There can be a
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renewal and we should all be very thankful for that. I do hope that we can all find at least
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one thing that we are thankful for this Thanksgiving. Even if you don't have any physical
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things to be thankful for, we can all thank the Lord for sending his son Jesus to die for us. So
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that's the ultimate, that's the ultimate thing that we can be thankful for. Okay. That's not what
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we're going to talk about today. We are going to talk about a touchy subject, but you know,
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that's what we do on this podcast. We talk about touchy subjects. We talk about things that make
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people mad. There's probably been at least one episode in the history of Relatable that has made
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you angry at one point. And that's okay. That's what we do. We talk about the controversial stuff
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because not enough people talk about it, especially from a biblical perspective. There are too many
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people that are scared to talk about the controversial things. And so Christians end up
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making their decisions on what to think about these things by listening to celebrities that have no
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biblical worldview at all. And so we try to tackle the stuff that I know that all of us are curious
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about, and all of us are wondering what the Bible has to say about them. And today it's animals and
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the obsession that we have with dogs and pets and all of that. And we are going to talk about what the
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Bible has to say about it. I am going to try my best to build a case biblically that it is not
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biblical, that biblically mighty Christians should not be overly obsessed with animals. And we will talk
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about what that looks like, why we have that obsession and how we should view animals from a biblical
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perspective. Um, I do want to give a little bit of a premise before we get into this, because like I
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said, this is a touchy episode, but we talk about touchy topics on relatable. That's part of why it's
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called relatable because I try to answer the questions that a lot of us have, but maybe are
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afraid to ask, or we just don't even know how to address. That's why I take your guys's suggestions
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so much because I care about the things that you're thinking, the things that you're concerned about,
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the things that you see in the world. And you're like, I just don't know how to fit this into a
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biblical worldview. I try my best from God's perspective, from a biblical perspective to do that.
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Do I get it wrong? Absolutely. Are there things that I don't know about a million bajillion things
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that I don't know, but we are learning together and we try our best to fit everything, um, that's
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going on in the world that we have to make sense of into, uh, God's word, or we let God's word inform
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the things that we think. Um, now there are going to be things in all of this, in the vast, in the vast
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plethora of things that there are to talk about. There are going to be things that you disagree with
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me on. Like I said, uh, I've probably said something or many things that you disagree,
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uh, on with me and that's okay. Every podcast that I love or commentator that I listened to
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has said at least one thing that I don't like that I, I, maybe I didn't like how they said it.
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Maybe I didn't like what they said. Maybe I vehemently disagree. I can think of people in my head
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right now that I love that I'm a huge fan of that. I look to for insight in their perspective
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for wisdom, knowledge, all of that, who have said things that actually really offend me that
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legitimately offend me. And then I don't like, but that's okay. I have learned to sift through those
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things and to say, okay, I didn't like that. They said that one thing I didn't like that. They, um,
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that they disagree with me there. They said something that I don't agree with, but that's okay. I take the
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insight where I can. Here's what we need to be careful about, especially with something like this. And the
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reason why I'm saying this is because I got this reaction when I talked about, uh, this perspective
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on animals on Instagram the other day, we have to be careful that when someone says something that
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you disagree with to not characterize that disagreement as an attack on what you believe.
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It seems to me like in this day and age, there is a glorification of agnosticism. There is a glorification
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of not knowing. So people want other people to be content with moral relativism. They want other
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people to be content with saying, you know, I don't really know about this XYZ controversial
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subject, whatever makes you happy. You do you. That's what we're supposed to think. Unless we're of course
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on the progressive side of the aisle, unless we're liberals, then we're allowed to be very outspoken
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and very dogmatic about what we believe. But if it's anything outside of that, we're supposed to just
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pretend like we don't really know, like we don't really care, whatever makes people feel good. And that's
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fine. But when someone speaks up and says, actually, absolute truth exists, actually God has something
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to say about that. Actually God cares about this. And here's what the Bible says. Then all heck breaks
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loose. And we hear people saying that you're a bigot, you're self-righteous, you're a legalist,
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you are a Pharisee. You're trying to push your views on me. I get that a lot. People who come to my
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Instagram page, they take the time to listen to one of my five minute IGTV videos. And they say,
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why are you pushing your views on me? Well, okay, you came to my page. I have the right to say what
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I want to say. You have the right to not listen. But it seems to me, so I get this a lot, not just
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in relation to this animal topic, which I have learned in the past few days is insanely controversial.
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I've learned that you will do better saying you will get less pushback saying it's totally fine to
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kick toddlers in the head whenever you want to than saying, hey, humans are actually more important
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than animals, which is the case that we're going to make today. People will freak out. They will lose
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their minds. And what I've learned, not just in accordance to this, not just in relation to this,
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but just in general, is that there seems to be, especially it seems among teenagers, teens,
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teen girls who come to my page and say like, I don't like what you have to say. There's also this
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other mentality, this other layer of that, that I see so often in these comments from these
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young women coming to my page. You don't like what I have to say is it's not right that you're
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saying this. You don't have a right to say this. You're indoctrinating people. You shouldn't be
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allowed to say this. You shouldn't be allowed to force your views on people. To me, that is another
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level of intolerance that we're seeing from young people, that they have it backwards. They think that
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the First Amendment protects their right not to be offended rather than my right or anyone's right to
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free speech or religious exercise. There is definitely a mentality among young people that
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their feelings take priority above anything else. Someone actually commented, a young woman,
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teenager, by the looks of it, commented on my hearing testimony about abortion that I posted
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last week and started out her long diatribe by saying, I am honestly so offended by this speech.
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You should go back and listen to my speech. It's only offensive if you don't agree with what I have to
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say. There's nothing that is ad hominem about it. There are no personal attacks. There's really not
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an opinion in it either. It is really just, okay, here are the facts of what an abortion is. Here is
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the logic behind why abortion is wrong. And you, of course, can disagree with that. But she starts out
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by saying that I am highly offended by the speech and then goes on to give her argument for why abortion
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is okay, which is that embryos aren't human, that fetuses aren't human, which, of course,
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is completely nonsensical. So we cannot have conversations about controversial topics,
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which we should have conversations about controversial topics, but we're not going to
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be able to do that if society, if we are unable as individuals to resist hysteria when someone says
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something that we don't agree with. It's just not going to work. We're not going to be able to live
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in a free republic if we can't discuss issues without one side growing truly hysterical and so
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emotional to the point to where they're not making logical or scientific sense anymore.
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We can't have conversations. We can't get anything done. And that leads to tyranny. Well, first,
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it leads to anarchy and anarchy then leads to tyranny, which, of course, we believe is the direction that
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the left is going. So when I talk about something, this is not an agnostic podcast. Okay, I'm just
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telling you right now. It's not an agnostic podcast. We don't believe in moral relativism on this
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podcast. We believe that there is absolute truth in every single episode that we do is in pursuit
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of that truth. Like I said, we get it wrong. We definitely get it wrong. Even though my effort
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and my aim is to bring everything back to God's word and to have God's word inform everything I do,
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I make mistakes. I am totally fallible. And when I do get it wrong, my hope is that I can be humble,
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correct my wrongs, correct my mistakes, and take correction and instruction from you guys.
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But we have to be able to hear something that we disagree with or that we don't like
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without accusing the other side or accusing me in this case of attacking you or attacking your
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position. There are all kinds of people who listen to this podcast who reach out to me on a regular
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basis and say, I don't have the same view as you, but I appreciate your podcast. I appreciate your
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views. I have atheists that listen to this podcast. I have liberals that listen to this podcast. I've got
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Catholics. I'm a Protestant. I've got Catholics that listen to this podcast. I've got Mormons that listen to
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this podcast. I have Muslims, Jewish people that listen to this podcast. And I have had people from
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all of those groups reach out to me and say, I disagree with you on XYZ, but I like hearing your
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perspective. I appreciate you guys so much. What I do not appreciate is when I say something and
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someone leaves a review that says, because you said what you believe as a Protestant or whatever,
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you're attacking Catholicism. Or because you said what you believe as a conservative,
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you're attacking progressivism, which yes, I have attacked progressivism, not progressives,
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but progressivism. But you cannot just say just because someone is building a case that you don't
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like, they are attacking you. You can be offended by all that you want to, but please allow yourself
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to, I do the same thing, open yourself up to valuable perspectives, discard the things that you
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don't. But I actually had someone leave a review the other day that said, I think I'm too sensitive
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for this podcast. That might be true. This is, like I said, it's not an agnostic podcast. It's
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not a morally relative podcast. It's not a podcast that's going to, on most things, on the important
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things, say, oh, it doesn't matter. You do, you think whatever you want to. On some things, yes,
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there's room for subjectivism. And I think Christians in good faith can discuss and debate almost all of
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the issues that we talk about. But we are in pursuit of truth. We believe absolute truth exists. And we
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believe that God is the transcendent moral lawgiver from which we get morality and truth.
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Okay, we're going to talk about animals. Let's go ahead and get into all of that. Since I have
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given you a large premise, because I know, I have learned, apparently, that this is a very
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controversial topic. You can email me and tell me all you want about what you don't like about this
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episode. But I think, I think that you are going to appreciate at least some of the perspective that
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I give, or at least what God's word gives. Because if we are Christians, that is where we land. So
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let me first say, I love animals. I do. I love animals. I love my pets. I love other people's
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pets. I love your pets, probably, unless you have an iguana. I don't know. I might like your iguana.
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I'm not sure I'm going to love your iguana, just to be honest. I love dogs. I love cats. I love
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bunnies. I love horses. I love dolphins. I like gorillas. I like elephants. I love elephants.
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I love animal videos. I love animal pictures. I love we rate dogs. I like doggos doing things.
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I like all the Instagram dog accounts. I follow the kitten lady. I like all of that kind of stuff.
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Okay. I like stories about animals. I want to hear about your animal. I want you to send me pictures
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of your animal. I love animals. Okay. So let me just tell you that straight up. But I know,
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and have always known that animals are not people. And therefore, because they're not people,
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they are not as valuable as people are. We love our pets. But when our daughter was born,
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they were relegated to second fiddle. They still get plenty of care. They still get plenty of
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affection and attention. They kind of keep each other company. But they don't occupy our affection
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and time the way that we used to. And that's okay. That is how it is supposed to be. That's a good
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thing. Our love for them doesn't even come within light years of our love for our daughter. And that
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is exactly how God means it to be. And yet culture seems to be headed in the opposite direction and
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instead prioritizes animals, not just the same as people, but even higher than people in some cases.
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And that's just, that's not just me saying this. A vice ran an article last year titled why millennials
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are so obsessed with dogs. I mean, that's just true. We are obsessed with dogs. I mean,
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you can look at social media. There's a dog park on every corner. Millennials are obsessed with dogs
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and we're getting married and having kids later and later. The article discusses how we have taken
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animal obsession to the next level. I mean, man's best friend has been around for a long time,
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but millennials, we just, we have turned up the notch of animal obsession. So the article says this,
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none of my friends in their late twenties talk openly about the hopes of having a baby. Rather,
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we flinch when we see a child walking around out in public on its hind legs. I mean,
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this is just terrible. Um, it's a fluffy friend. We want one that'll love us, not drain our minimum
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finances and not get in the way too much. Oh, that's just that alone just makes my blood boil,
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but we won't get into that right this second. We'll get into that in a second. Um, so anthropomorphism,
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the attribution of human characteristics to animals has become the new norm. Our dogs and cats are,
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are so-called babies. There are two States, Illinois and Alaska. They are the first to consider
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the wellbeing of animals and custody battles. So that gives them rights as individuals. That's
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what they're called individuals rather than property. Uh, Tony Ellison is a senior staff
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attorney at the animal legal defense fund. And he told the journal, the new Republic that
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recognizing animals as persons entitled to rights has graduated from quote, a very fringe area of the
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law to very mainstream. Just in the last five years, hasn't everything become crazy in the last
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five years. Um, in her 2018 book, fellow creatures, there is a Harvard or Harvard philosophy professor,
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Christine course guard, who says, uh, the animals are just as important as people. Therefore they
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are worthy of many of the same protections under the laws that we have. Uh, this theory has actually
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become a full fledged reality for at least one animal, Sandra, the orangutan, who was given the
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status of a non-human person by Argentinian judge Alina Liberatore in 2015. That is true. You can look
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it up and she now resides in Florida and 2013, uh, the peer review journal Anthro Zeus published a
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study by Richard Topolsky. You guys have probably seen this question. It's been posed by PragerU plenty
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of times. Um, he is a professor at Georgia Regents university. He asked about 500 respondents to
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question. If a bus were bearing down on a dog and a person, and you could only save one, who would you
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save? A full 40% of respondents, 40% said that depending on how well they knew the person, they
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would save the dog. So if it was a stranger, they would definitely save the dog. I think it was, I
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don't know if it was their dog or a dog, but 40% of respondents said that depending on how well they
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knew the person, they would save the dog. That was 2013. So that was six years ago. My guess is that
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number would be a lot higher today. I would say that that number is well over half today.
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Um, the animals have become the center of people's lives. Social media accounts galore. Some of them
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I named and follow myself, um, are dedicated to videos of our pets. Google, if you Google the phrase,
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uh, humans don't deserve dogs, you will find a dozen articles and YouTube videos explaining why
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our animals, why our pets are better than we are and more important than we are. Uh, we have seen laws
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in the United States reflect this in 2019, New York passed a law that criminalized the declawing
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of kittens, which I don't think we should declaw cats, but just let me finish. Um, and legalized
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abortion through nine months. So the same year that they passed a law declawing kittens, they also
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passed a law legalizing abortion through nine months. Um, in the same year, the United States or this
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year, the United States made animal cruelty, a federal crime, uh, yet failed to pass a bill to protect
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babies who survive abortions. We're not even talking about babies inside the womb. Uh, let's first think
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of this from a practical perspective. We'll talk about the moral and the biblical perspective.
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Let's look at this from a practical perspective before we get into, uh, the other part of the
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analysis of what I consider this, uh, degeneracy. Uh, if humans are considered as important or more
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important as humans to the point of granting them personhood under the law, to the point of referring to
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them or thinking of them as individuals, thereby granting them the legal rights applicable to
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people, what is stopping someone from marrying their dog? And people will say, Oh, that's a slippery
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slope. Ha ha ha. But can you tell them, can you give me a logical basis for why, if we consider
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animals, people under the law, why someone wouldn't be able to marry their dog? Certainly you're not going
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to hear any arguments from the people who believe that there are really no sexual ethics at all.
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Um, if humans are just animals, as animal rights activists say, there are a lot of people who make
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that statement and vegans often say that too. Uh, what really is your logical argument for saying
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that people can't have a romantic relationship with their animal? Uh, because there's also the
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argument from the same group that animals basically have all of the same abilities and capabilities and
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functions that humans do. They're just nicer than humans. If all of this is truly the case,
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what is going to logically or legally stop people from entering into unholy matrimony with their
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gerbil? That's what I want to know. Um, I posed this question to someone who was messaging me on
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Instagram. They were offended by me saying that people are more important than animals on Instagram,
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which I did last week. And they were saying that this is wrong and the animals are people are people
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or animals rather. And I said, okay, why can't an animal and a person get married? Why can't they be in a
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romantic relationship? They didn't have a response to that. They said, that's just weird. That's not
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normal. Well, that's not, that's not actually an argument. There are lots of things that weren't
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normal 10 years ago. We weren't even talking about transgenderism two years ago. And there are things
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that are considered normal now. So it's not normal really doesn't argue against the logic that inevitably
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seems to be coming together from considering animals as persons or as individuals. There's a kitten
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rescuer that I follow. She sells t-shirts that say love knows no species. And I know she doesn't mean
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it in a weird way, but it did strike me as soon as I saw it as strange. I thought, is this the new
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love is love? Actually, this is why love is love has always been such a stupid phrase. Love is not
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love. There are lots of different kinds of love that should not be considered love. This should be
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considered perversion. A 50 year old and a 10 year old who say that they're in love, that shouldn't be
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considered love. That should be considered wrong. Love has a definition. And as we Christians believe,
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it is best defined by the embodiment of love, the creator of love, the arbiter of what love is and
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what love isn't, which is God himself. And we'll get into more of that in a second. So that's one
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practical outcome of elevating animals to the point of personhood. Another is how it affects humans.
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If animals are individuals and even legally people, hunting is considered murder. Is someone going to get
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the death penalty or go to life in prison for killing an animal, for hunting an elk? Milking cows would
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be considered an assault. Are we going to have to get consent from our animals to be able to scratch
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their belly? I mean, I wouldn't want someone to come up to me and scratch my belly because I'm a human
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being. If we consider them people, what's our what's our legal relationship with them now? Honestly, a lot of
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animal rights activists would be totally fine with seeing eating animals or killing animals as assault
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and murder. But it has serious implications for how we live and what we eat. And these are serious
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negative implications because people around the world actually need meat to survive no matter what
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a vegan activist tells you. Also, we have to kill animals in order to feed certain animals like cats
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and dogs. So my question is, how would all of that work out? There are a lot of questions that come
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with ascribing personhood and individuality to animals. And on a practical level, regarding animals as
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people is completely nonsensical. It doesn't make any sense. There are too many conundrums. There are
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too many contradictions. There is there are too many problems with that. There is a reason why the
00:21:36.500
species have been separate and why we care for them. And while you're why you're never going to
00:21:40.780
listen to a podcast of a dog talking to you about whether or not we ascribe personhood to people
00:21:47.080
like or to humans, there's a reason for that. There's a difference. Now, let's talk about this on a
00:21:52.700
biblical level. The way we obsess over animals today is a symptom of godlessness, is a symptom
00:21:59.400
of godlessness. Let me explain. Christians know something that the secular world does not, that
00:22:05.900
human beings and human beings alone, according to Genesis, are made in God's image. That means humans
00:22:12.760
alone have a soul. That means humans alone live forever. That means always in all cases, a human is
00:22:19.020
more valuable than an animal because they are an image bearer of God. Even a person with physical
00:22:24.600
disabilities, mental disabilities, or a human in a coma, or a human seconds after conception has more
00:22:30.900
inherent worth than the winningest racehorse in the world, strictly because they were made in the image
00:22:38.620
of God. God gave Adam the responsibility of naming the animals, stewarding the earth. Animals were made
00:22:44.800
by God for us, not the other way around. So as Christians, we can discuss and debate the virtue
00:22:52.260
of veganism. We can talk about how to best care for the earth and how to care for animals, which is
00:22:56.720
something that we should be doing. We can talk about the just punishment for those who abuse animals,
00:23:02.320
but we cannot make the mistake of elevating non-humans to the place of image bearers. Jesus uses animals as a
00:23:09.660
parallel to humans and multiple parallels or multiple parables to emphasize the higher value
00:23:15.880
that people have than animals. Matthew 12, 11 through 12 says this. He said to them, which one of you who
00:23:21.820
has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? Of how much
00:23:27.660
more value is a man than a sheep? Now, that's not the point of this. He's actually talking about the
00:23:32.940
Sabbath and what we can do on the Sabbath. But he makes the point of how much more value is a man
00:23:40.160
than sheep. This is the God of the universe, the God who created us, Jesus himself saying this.
00:23:45.520
In Matthew 6, 26, he says, look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into
00:23:50.820
barns. And yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Are you not
00:23:58.720
human being of more value than they? Humans have more value to God than animals do? This is clear
00:24:07.000
throughout the biblical narrative. God made us in his image. God's plan of redemption through Christ
00:24:12.200
saves us, not animals. The fact that so many people, Christians included, get this wrong,
00:24:18.720
shows how important it is to ensure that every aspect of our worldview is based on God,
00:24:24.460
the giver of truth, the creator of the universe, the maker of order. It shows how important it is
00:24:31.620
for us to make sure that we are getting our wisdom, our knowledge in how we view every subject from the
00:24:37.340
word of God. If there is one word that describes our current age, it is this, disordered. It is
00:24:46.560
disordered. People's view of sex is disordered. People's view of sexuality is disordered. People's view of
00:24:52.800
gender is disordered. People's view of life in the womb is disordered. People's view of animals is
00:24:58.160
disordered. People's view of the family and children is disordered. How the majority of people view the
00:25:03.640
world today is disordered. It is chaos. It is backwards. It doesn't make any illogical sense.
00:25:09.320
And everything, every single thing that we see wrong in our society today is a symptom of ignoring the
00:25:15.480
fact that God created the world. The most cataclysmic worldview-defining verse in the Bible is
00:25:22.580
this. Genesis 1.1. God created the heavens and the earth. Because if God created the heavens and the
00:25:31.020
earth, then he alone has the authority to say what is and what isn't. He alone has the authority to
00:25:37.860
assign value, to give roles to humans as a whole, to give roles to men and women specifically, to animals,
00:25:44.460
to plants, to the sky, to all of creation. He is also then the author of salvation. He is over all of it,
00:25:52.400
all of it is his jurisdiction. He created all of it. He is in charge. He sustains all of it with the
00:25:59.380
power of his word. Nothing exists without God's active permission. God is in charge of it all.
00:26:06.680
He defines and assigns and we are to fulfill and obey. When we're talking about the definition of
00:26:13.260
marriage, we're talking about the definition of gender, the differences between men and women,
00:26:17.780
how government should function, how human beings relate to one another, how we should treat children,
00:26:22.840
the role of the family and of parents. We look to God because he created these things.
00:26:28.300
Our over-obsession with animals is another symptom of a disordered worldview that is based not on the
00:26:34.960
will of the God of scripture, but of the feelings of the God of self. Our fixation on pets,
00:26:41.860
especially involuntary replacement of human relationships, is selfish. Saving your dog
00:26:49.200
over a human stranger is a self-serving choice, not a compassionate one. The death of that stranger
00:26:55.960
likely affects hundreds of people. So her husband, her children, her parents, her co-workers,
00:27:01.260
her siblings, her church, her friends. The death of your dog affects you and maybe a few other people.
00:27:07.560
While sad, it is sad. I will cry when my dog dies. While that is sad, you'll be able to get another
00:27:15.120
dog. Her kids, that stranger's kids, will not get their mom back. It is not a coincidence, in my
00:27:21.840
opinion, that our infatuation, over-infatuation with animals seems to have grown at the same time
00:27:27.680
that this whole self-love epidemic has taken center stage. This big reason why we choose pets over
00:27:34.240
people is because pets are easier, both physically and emotionally, than people are. Anyone who says
00:27:39.420
that they're not has not had children. Yes, they require a certain level of responsibility, a certain
00:27:44.720
level of money and care, of course, and it's okay to be responsible for them, but not nearly as much
00:27:51.980
as a child or even a friend or a significant other. We don't have to worry about betrayal or rejection
00:27:58.920
or judgment or being pressured to go out when we want to stay in. In exchange for just a tiny bit of effort
00:28:05.180
and commitment on our end to our pets, they give us unindeed loyalty, unindeed love, a friend to watch
00:28:11.260
Netflix next to. We get the good end of the deal. We will never have to give up any bad habits for our
00:28:18.080
dogs. We will never have to examine our vices for our cats. We can be almost as self-centered as we want
00:28:24.820
to be and our pets will love us just the same. Why? Because they don't know how not to. They love
00:28:30.240
the person who feeds them. They love the person who pets them. They're not interested in our
00:28:34.420
personalities or our hobbies or our dreams or our deepest desires. They know us only instinctively.
00:28:40.760
In this is both their charm, the reason why we love them and why they're so awesome, but it's also
00:28:46.800
their inherent inability to satisfy us like other humans do. Let me be clear about this. God does care
00:28:54.600
for animals. Of course he does. We read in the passages in Matthew that God meets the needs of
00:28:59.760
animals. He sees them and he hears them. Job 38, 41 says this, who provides for the raven its prey
00:29:06.620
when its young ones cry out to God for help and wander about for lack of food? That is a rhetorical
00:29:11.800
question, but the answer is God. He also has something to say about how we treat animals. Proverbs 12, 10 says
00:29:19.660
the righteous care for the needs of their animals, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.
00:29:24.220
The righteous care for the needs of their animals. We know that people who abuse animals are very
00:29:30.580
likely to end up being murderers. There is something wrong and again, disordered if we view animals
00:29:36.580
strictly as people, as people, well, yes, but as also if we view animals as things to be abused
00:29:45.960
and really just used or exploited, we can talk about better conditions for dairy and beef cows. I'm open
00:29:56.500
to having that conversation. That stuff actually does break my heart. We can talk about problems
00:30:00.820
with factory farming. I do believe that cruelty goes on at these farms, that it's reprehensible. I believe
00:30:06.240
that God actually cares about that. Our kindness should absolutely include animals, but animals are
00:30:12.100
still subjugated to our rule. It should be a compassionate rule, but it is a rule nonetheless.
00:30:18.520
They are ours to use and to care for, and because they are less valuable than we are in God's eyes,
00:30:24.120
yes, we are permitted to eat them. There is certainly no biblical mandate against eating animals in the
00:30:30.800
Bible. The Bible does not speak to the virtues of veganism. That's just not an argument that you're
00:30:39.380
going to be able to make that our compassion for animals has to extend to not eating them. God is
00:30:44.780
clear. Human beings are more important, more inherently valuable than animals are, and that
00:30:51.300
needs to be reflected in our life. If we are putting off children strictly for animals, if we are denying
00:31:00.460
obligations and responsibilities to people in exchange for animals, there's a problem for that. Abortion should
00:31:07.140
break our heart a lot more than animal cruelty. Our time would be better spent at homeless shelters than
00:31:12.840
animal shelters. And again, I'm not saying that you shouldn't volunteer at all. I'm not saying that you
00:31:18.560
shouldn't spend any money or spend any time helping animals, but it should not replace, supersede,
00:31:25.540
or come even close to the tangible, monetary, time-wise, compassion, and help and service that you are
00:31:32.980
giving to people that does not reflect God's heart. If God's heart is more for people than it is for
00:31:37.900
animals, then our hearts should be too. That means the things that we care about, the things that we
00:31:42.500
cry about, the things that we donate to, the time that we spend, the thoughts that we have, the
00:31:46.440
responsibilities that we are given, we are obligated to our fellow man a lot more and a lot more seriously
00:31:54.140
than we are to our animals. I hope all of that made sense. Again, I know a little controversial,
00:32:00.280
and I'll probably get some pushback on that. Feel free to let me know. This is what I believe
00:32:05.420
to be a very clear and easy subject, honestly, for us to approach from a biblical perspective. I don't
00:32:13.120
really see how you can make a biblical argument to elevate animals to the same place as human beings,
00:32:21.120
but I am, of course, open to your perspective. I've had conversations, got tongue-tied conversations
00:32:26.980
about this with other people recently, and I am happy. I'm happy to converse with you.
00:32:33.740
Thanks for listening. Love you guys. I will be back here on Wednesday, and then it's Thanksgiving.