Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 360 ｜ Scientism, COVID & the Vaccine

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Thursday. So I regret to inform you that I actually will

00:00:15.440 not be talking to Alex Brinson today. And I'm super, super sad about that because I was really

00:00:21.020 looking forward to that conversation, but we had some technical difficulties and some

00:00:24.640 miscommunication and unfortunately it just fell through and we're having to reschedule.

00:00:30.360 So I'm really sorry because I know that you guys were looking forward to that and I was excited

00:00:34.340 about it too, but I am going to still talk about the vaccine, the COVID vaccine and some of the

00:00:41.160 things that are going on surrounding COVID, but I won't just be talking about that. I'll be talking

00:00:45.360 about a couple more stories that I want to bring to your attention as well. And look, I know you

00:00:51.640 guys, a lot of you have told me, look, I'm so tired of the news and I get it. I get tired of

00:00:57.120 the news too. And I don't want to talk about stuff sometimes, but, um, and, and, you know,

00:01:02.340 I, I don't think that you should make the news in idle. I don't think that you should be spending all

00:01:07.180 of your time on Twitter or Instagram or any of that. But remember, this is not the time to look

00:01:12.240 away. This is when Biden is signing 30 plus executive orders, the highest number of executive

00:01:18.400 orders that a president has signed in this short period of time that are not in line at all with

00:01:24.980 the expectation of moderation and normalcy that people thought they were going to get by voting

00:01:29.840 for Biden. This is not the time to not pay attention. It's not the time to not pay attention

00:01:34.360 to the curriculum that is, uh, being implemented in your child's school. This is not the time to look

00:01:41.040 away from what's going on in the news. And while you can't make everything that's going on in the news

00:01:45.540 and idle and your hope and your rest and your peace, of course, does not rest upon what's going

00:01:50.500 on in American politics. And we understand that God is completely sovereign and totally on his throne.

00:01:55.900 Uh, we are still in this world. We still do have to pay attention to the problems that we're facing.

00:02:01.300 And like I always say, politics matter because policies matter because people matter. And so in order

00:02:08.800 to care about people, there are many ways that we can care about people. And I certainly don't think

00:02:12.960 the primary vehicle to caring about people is politics. Certainly. I don't believe that.

00:02:18.580 And I would say many people on the left believe that. I don't believe that politics and voting

00:02:23.460 for politicians is our primary vehicle, uh, to care for people certainly, but it is one of the ways

00:02:28.720 that we care for people because the policies that are implemented by politicians, uh, that we hear about

00:02:34.260 through the realm of politics and that we know about through the realm of politics and that have

00:02:38.460 influenced through the realm of politics. They affect the most vulnerable people. Um, they affect

00:02:44.500 children. They affect poor people. They affect our neighbors. And so if we care about the future

00:02:49.020 generations, if we care about the most vulnerable, if we care about our neighbor, one of the things we

00:02:53.940 have to care about is politics. And that means paying attention to the news. A lot of you guys ask me,

00:02:59.380 how do I make sure I'm getting accurate information? And unfortunately that's really hard.

00:03:02.660 One of the things I always encourage you to do on, um, on this podcast is to not just listen to me.

00:03:08.960 I do not pretend to be the arbiter of truth. I always strive to be as truthful as possible and

00:03:13.600 to tell as much of the story as I can. But I also tell you that I'm coming from a particular

00:03:18.280 perspective. Everyone is by the way, but I'm honest about it. I say I'm a conservative. I'm a

00:03:23.180 Christian. That's the worldview that I've got. Those are the, that's going to color the conclusions

00:03:27.440 that I come to and the moral implications that I draw out of particular stories.

00:03:31.780 You guys know where I stand on stuff. If you want to hear a different view,

00:03:35.180 sometimes I have opposing views on my podcast. A lot of times I do. Um, but also you can listen to,

00:03:41.000 uh, the other side. When I'm looking at one story, I read the Washington post. I read the New York

00:03:46.180 times. I read CNN. I read a national review. I read the blaze. I read the daily wire. I read Fox news.

00:03:53.420 And you almost have to look at every angle of just one particular story to know really what's going on.

00:03:58.960 I follow a variety of commentators, uh, for that reason. So that if something sounds really bad,

00:04:04.400 because one side is saying it's really bad, or one side is saying that something's really good.

00:04:08.840 Uh, my question is always, well, what's the counter to this? What's the argument? Why are other people

00:04:13.400 mad about this? Is one side misinformed? Either the side that's saying it's good or bad, or is it just

00:04:19.120 partisanship? Like what's going on? We just kind of have to ask discerning questions. We have to dig

00:04:23.780 beyond the headline, which is something that I try to do from a conservative Christian perspective.

00:04:28.560 But look, you got to fact check me. You got to look to the original documents. If it's a bill

00:04:33.040 that's being passed, if it's a court decision that's been decided, you can always read the

00:04:36.900 original text online and you can look at what different experts are saying who typically have

00:04:41.840 their own biases on it. But, um, you got to do your research yourself. And, uh, understandably,

00:04:48.240 that's, that's hard for people to do. And we're tired and we're busy and we don't want to do it.

00:04:51.960 But my point is that this is not the time to be apathetic. This is not the time to be ignorant.

00:04:56.100 This is not the time to look away. That's exactly what this administration and the Democrats in

00:05:00.560 Congress would like you to do. Because a lot of you voted for this administration based on what

00:05:05.080 you thought would be normal and decent and equitable and, you know, all those, all those buzzwords.

00:05:10.420 And you may be realizing, maybe not, but you may be realizing that some of the executive orders

00:05:15.020 that have been signed and the policy proposals that have been put forth in the past few days

00:05:19.700 do not align with all at all with any of your purported values. And so it's time to pay

00:05:25.240 attention, care about your kids, care about your neighbors. We got to pay attention. One thing that

00:05:30.020 we're also not supposed to pay attention to is COVID. We're not supposed to pay attention to the

00:05:34.440 fact that CNN took down their death ticker, um, after president Biden became inaugurated. We're not

00:05:41.020 supposed to pay attention to the fact that, uh, per day, California has more cases and more deaths,

00:05:46.620 uh, than they did, uh, when they originally closed down, uh, restaurants and outdoor dining. And yet

00:05:52.320 now they're opening up outdoor dining. The same thing is happening in other democratic states,

00:05:57.180 uh, like Michigan. We're not supposed to pay attention to that. Uh, we're not supposed to pay

00:06:02.480 attention to the fact that the New York times, the CDC has been saying president Trump, uh, has been

00:06:08.040 saying for a long time, pediatricians who came on MSNBC, uh, has been saying for a long time that,

00:06:13.600 hey, it's, it's safe to open schools. And yet the teachers unions and the public education system

00:06:18.220 said, no, we're, we're not going to open our schools. We don't want to, we don't want to

00:06:21.900 infect the teachers. We don't want the teachers to die. They had, um, all of these demonstrations

00:06:26.360 and these protests and all of these demands, the teachers unions to make sure the teachers

00:06:31.000 didn't actually have to, um, didn't actually have to go to school, even as private school

00:06:36.000 educators were, many charter school educators were, um, many public unions and, and some public

00:06:42.660 school teachers, uh, decided that they didn't want to do their jobs in person for fear of the virus.

00:06:48.420 Even though we have heard thousands of times that that's not where the virus is spreading,

00:06:53.320 that it's actually very difficult to transmit the virus between children and also between, uh,

00:06:58.880 children and teachers. It's just not happening very much. And there's actually a very low risk,

00:07:03.640 but there's a very high risk for kids not to go to school. The suicide rate has skyrocketed among

00:07:09.680 kids. The mental health problems, even for kids as young as five has skyrocketed hospital visits

00:07:15.360 for mental health problems for young kids has skyrocketed in the past year because kids aren't

00:07:19.900 supposed to be isolated because they can't learn in front of a screen. So kids are falling behind.

00:07:24.140 Not every parent has been able to stay home and to quit work and to teach their kids while their

00:07:30.880 kids are remote learning. The kids need their friends. They need their teachers. And while I wish

00:07:35.260 everyone would homeschool instead of sending their kids to public school, that's just not the reality

00:07:39.680 for some people. And so we're just creating more inequality. We're just creating more injustice and

00:07:45.060 more kids falling behind, but we're not supposed to pay attention to any of that because we were told

00:07:49.240 while president Trump was president, that if you wanted to open the economy at all, that you were a

00:07:53.280 grandma killer. Even while we had people in, for example, in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and governor

00:08:00.420 Cuomo, who sent COVID positive patients back into nursing homes, even though we have heard physicians

00:08:06.920 who speak to the New York Times saying, oh, well, we don't need to prioritize people over 65 more than

00:08:12.780 other Americans because people over 65 are predominantly white. But everyone who wants to

00:08:20.020 open up the economy, we're the grandma killers, even though elderly people in some cases in some states

00:08:26.760 for the sake of, quote, equity, that word that we talked about yesterday, are being passed over.

00:08:33.100 It's crazy.

00:08:43.580 We're not supposed to pay attention to the fact that Amazon, this is a story that just came out,

00:08:49.140 may have purposely delayed their announcement of being able to deliver vaccines,

00:08:56.760 for the government until Biden became president. We're not supposed to think or we're not supposed

00:09:06.140 to know that so much of this virus, the lockdowns, the policies that were enacted, the news surrounding

00:09:15.380 the vaccine distribution, that so much of it was politicized and so much of it had to do with

00:09:22.220 making sure that Trump didn't become president, to make sure the employment rate was high,

00:09:26.320 to make sure the economy was crashing, to make sure that people were disgruntled, to make sure that

00:09:31.260 people were isolated and sad and wanted to change and to make sure that normalcy was presented in

00:09:38.980 President Biden. I mean, you were gambling with people's lives for the sake of the election. I mean,

00:09:45.180 we're not supposed to know any of that or we're not supposed to say it and we're not supposed to pay

00:09:49.160 attention to the ever-changing narrative on vaccines. So obviously, in the beginning, we knew 15 days to

00:09:56.300 slow the spread. That's how this whole thing started. And President Trump, being the positive

00:10:00.900 and optimistic person that he is, being the salesperson that he is, said that we were just

00:10:05.860 going to have a few cases and then it was going to go away. Well, unfortunately, that's not what happened.

00:10:12.440 And then we were told that, okay, it's not just 15 days to slow the spread. It's not just three

00:10:19.360 months to slow the spread. We're just going to have to wait until we have a vaccine and we don't

00:10:24.220 know when the vaccine is going to happen. President Trump said, we're going to have a vaccine by the

00:10:28.380 end of the year. We're going to do Operation Warp Speed and we're going to incentivize these vaccine

00:10:32.540 manufacturers to make a really good, effective vaccine in the quickest timeline possible.

00:10:39.780 And that happened. We were told it wasn't going to happen. Trump's critics said that he was lying.

00:10:45.680 There's no way that it was going to happen. And then it happened. And then Pfizer said,

00:10:49.020 oh, this had nothing to do with President Trump. This had nothing to do with Operation Warp Speed.

00:10:54.360 But it absolutely did. They were guaranteed, I think it was a billion dollars if they were able to

00:10:59.240 produce this vaccine. So of course it has to do with Operation Warp Speed. But again, not supposed to

00:11:04.280 pay attention to any of that. President Trump, we were supposed to blame every single COVID death

00:11:09.120 on President Trump while Joe Biden was tweeting, oh, I'm going to stop the virus. And because the

00:11:15.920 narrative had to shift away from, okay, once we have a vaccine, things will go back to normal

00:11:20.040 because then we started to have a vaccine. It was given credit to President Trump. And then we had

00:11:24.180 to hear what we're hearing now is that even if we have a vaccine, we're still going to have to wear

00:11:28.280 masks. We're still going to have to stay inside. We're still going to have to socially distance.

00:11:32.680 And we're also seeing from Joe Biden, he tweeted that, you know, I never said that I was going to,

00:11:39.020 I can't do anything about the virus continuing to spread for a few months. Hang on. That's exactly

00:11:43.660 what you campaigned on. That's what you campaigned on. You campaigned on stopping the virus. You said,

00:11:48.880 I'm not going to shut down the economy. I'm not going to shut down the world, but I am going to

00:11:51.960 shut down the virus through what? Distributing the vaccine that President Trump helped develop or his

00:11:57.460 administration incentivize to develop quickly and had already distributed. It was like a million

00:12:02.560 doses a day. And then Biden takes office and he says, oh, we have, we don't have any plan for

00:12:09.360 distribution because the past administration wasn't doing anything. That's not true. Millions of doses

00:12:14.460 a day were being distributed under President Trump's leadership. But once again, you're not supposed to

00:12:21.740 pay attention to that. What you're supposed to pay attention to is that President Trump was just

00:12:25.700 incompetent, that he killed tons and tons of people, and that he lied. And the economic problems

00:12:31.960 and the public health problems were all because of President Trump. And the more pro-lockdown you were,

00:12:37.380 the more you stayed inside, the more masks that you wore over your face, and the more you chastise

00:12:43.880 people for not wearing masks and for not staying inside and for sending their kids to school,

00:12:48.200 the more righteous you were. And finally, we have this savior in Joe Biden, and he's going to make

00:12:54.140 things normal. And eventually, he's going to take the virus away because he's going to take this

00:12:58.000 seriously, because he's going to force you inside your house, and he's going to force you to wear

00:13:01.480 masks. And this is exactly what we need. And he's going to be the one that's actually going to herald

00:13:06.240 the vaccine. We're just going to ignore the fact that it had anything to do with President Trump.

00:13:10.100 It's going to be his administration and his solid leadership that is going to make sure that we

00:13:14.880 finally end this virus, even while it's weird because we're getting the conflicting narratives,

00:13:20.960 even while we're being told, okay, yes, this is very, very serious. We don't know when things are

00:13:28.140 going to end. We don't know when things are going to go back to normal. We're going to get a worse

00:13:31.160 strain coming from the UK in March. Simultaneously, we have states like California reopening things back

00:13:37.720 up, opening their economy. Again, not due to fewer numbers, because the numbers are getting better in

00:13:43.260 places like California and other places that are opening up, like DC. But apparently, they're opening up

00:13:49.160 because they want the economy to be better. They want to play into this narrative that Joe Biden

00:13:53.360 is here and saving the day and everything is better. So things are kind of conflicting.

00:13:57.180 If you look at this political scene, when it comes to when it comes to COVID and in particular,

00:14:02.980 when it comes to this vaccine. So we're simultaneously hearing that it's very trustworthy and that if you

00:14:09.100 don't want to get the vaccine, or if you don't get the vaccine, then you are crazy anti-vaxxer.

00:14:14.080 If you have any questions at all, you shouldn't even be wondering about the trustworthiness of it.

00:14:18.280 You shouldn't even be doubting it at all, despite the fact that Kamala Harris, just a few months ago,

00:14:24.120 before she was elected, said that if this was developed under President Trump,

00:14:29.880 then she might have a problem with taking it. She said that just a few months ago.

00:14:34.720 But now, people who still have hesitation, who are still wondering,

00:14:38.320 hey, you know, we've never had this kind of RNA vaccine before, or

00:14:41.980 hey, you know, this happened really fast, who just have questions, who aren't anti-vaxxers,

00:14:47.340 who might get every other vaccine, but may have a question or may have hesitation about

00:14:51.780 this vaccine. We are being told, wow, you're so stupid, you backwoods person who gets your

00:14:57.340 information from molliesantivaxhouse.com. You are being castigated, you're being chastised,

00:15:05.820 you are being thrown to the side for having any questions about it whatsoever, because it's

00:15:09.960 totally trustworthy, and you're supposed to trust science, and you're supposed to trust medicine,

00:15:14.220 and does White House trust science? But also, we're hearing at the same time from the WHO,

00:15:20.220 on the one hand, we heard from the CDC, pregnant women should actually, they use this stupid phrase,

00:15:25.240 pregnant people should get vaccinated. If you look at the CDC website, pregnant women should get

00:15:29.880 vaccinated, people or women who are breastfeeding should get vaccinated, even though they say there's

00:15:37.040 been no long, there's been no studies on pregnant women who have gotten the vaccine,

00:15:41.520 or breastfeeding women who have gotten the vaccine, and the long-term effects of that. There's been

00:15:45.560 no actual study of that, but they are using deductive reasoning to say it's probably fine,

00:15:50.640 but then the WHO, if you go to their website, they are actually recommending that pregnant women

00:15:56.500 not get the vaccine, which I think is interesting, and so we're seeing another conflict there.

00:16:01.440 So the WHO website says this, while pregnancy puts women at a higher risk of severe COVID-19,

00:16:08.500 the use of this vaccine in pregnant women is currently not recommended unless they're at risk

00:16:13.360 of high exposure, which is weird, because if it poses a risk to pregnant women, then does it not pose

00:16:20.440 a risk to pregnant healthcare workers as well, or are you just saying that the benefits outweigh

00:16:25.880 the risks? So it's a little bit odd, kind of the conflicting information that we're hearing

00:16:32.560 about pregnant women when it comes to the coronavirus, and also we're seeing some weird

00:16:36.260 things around the world when it comes to the vaccine. So over 2 million Israelis have had their

00:16:41.520 first vaccine shot, but their COVID numbers keep climbing. The Guardian said this single COVID vaccine

00:16:48.160 dose in Israel less effective than we thought. So according to CNN, Merck also announced

00:16:54.100 this past week that it's discontinuing the development of its COVID-19 vaccine candidates

00:16:59.860 after early studies showed immune responses were inferior to natural infection and other COVID-19

00:17:06.360 vaccines. Merck said it plans to submit results from phase one trials of its vaccine candidates

00:17:10.420 known as V590 and V591 for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Two COVID-19 vaccines from

00:17:17.600 Pfizer and Moderna have already been authorized for emergency use in the United States by U.S. Food and

00:17:21.080 Drug Administration. Both are about 95% effective after two doses. But I thought it was interesting

00:17:25.920 that Merck said, and they admitted, which honestly, this should give you more confidence in vaccines

00:17:30.780 in general, that they said, look, we're not even going to keep going with this because it's not as

00:17:35.340 effective as someone actually getting the virus. Now, that apparently is different than Moderna and

00:17:41.740 Pfizer's vaccine. But a lot of people were saying that in the beginning. A lot of people were saying

00:17:48.660 that, well, couldn't it be better just to get natural infection for people who are at low risk of getting

00:17:54.420 a very severe, severe reaction to COVID-19. And again, people were told, no, no, no, no, no. Now, I

00:18:02.920 understand. I don't think it's better for everyone to just get sick and to chance it rather than to get the

00:18:08.900 vaccine and not get it. But again, people were kind of bringing this up, what Merck is saying, and they were

00:18:15.700 shut down and told not to talk about it. But again, going back to Israel, so surge in infections

00:18:21.820 dampens optimism over a country's advanced immunization program, says The Guardian. Israel's

00:18:27.720 coronavirus czar has warned the single dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine may be providing less

00:18:35.600 protection than originally hoped, as the country reported a record 10,000 new COVID infections on

00:18:42.180 Monday. And similar things are also happening in the UK that the vaccine is being distributed. And

00:18:49.220 then people are taking a second look and wondering really how effective it is. The New York Times

00:18:54.040 wrote that why vaccines alone will not end the pandemic. The arrival of highly effective vaccines

00:19:00.520 in December lifted hopes that they would eventually slow or stop the spread of the disease through the

00:19:05.340 rest of the population. But vaccines alone are not enough, the model shows. And if precautions like

00:19:10.020 working remotely, limiting travel and wearing masks are relaxed too soon, it could mean millions more

00:19:17.300 infections and thousands more deaths. I would love to see the science behind that because you guys know

00:19:23.980 I'm not some anti-masker. I wear a mask everywhere that's required of me to wear a mask. I'm not going

00:19:29.260 to put up a fight about that. I'm voluntarily going into a business. If they require me to wear a mask,

00:19:34.020 I'm voluntarily riding on an airplane. If they require me to wear a mask, then I am voluntarily

00:19:39.760 choosing to meet their particular guidelines. So I'm not an anti-masker, but I also have not seen the

00:19:46.380 science that shows that COVID cases go down at the time of mask mandates or that COVID cases are decreased at

00:19:55.340 all by mask mandates. People have been wearing masks pretty pervasively in this country since June.

00:20:03.200 And apparently, according to the numbers, it hasn't really helped. Remember, in March of last year,

00:20:09.060 crazy that that's almost a year ago now, Dr. Fauci said, please don't wear masks. The Surgeon General

00:20:14.340 said, please don't wear masks. And we were made to feel so stupid for going out and getting a mask.

00:20:18.840 Now, I secretly, we kept our masks because we had some surgical masks because I'm even, you know,

00:20:25.660 I'm worried about the flu and I didn't want to get the flu while traveling and all of that. I don't

00:20:30.480 even know if the mask protects you from the flu, but we had masks. And I remember thinking, well,

00:20:34.720 I don't want to give up these masks because it kind of seems like maybe it could possibly help if this

00:20:39.460 is like a respiratory thing and it's, it passes through large droplets. Wouldn't it maybe help if

00:20:44.580 we were wearing masks and they basically made us feel guilty for even thinking about wearing a mask?

00:20:49.760 I remember I had to travel during this time, like right before everything got shut down.

00:20:54.800 And I wanted to wear a mask on the plane after hearing about all of this. And I didn't because

00:21:00.180 I felt bullied by people like Dr. Fauci and the Surgeon General last March. And I didn't,

00:21:05.540 I was embarrassed to wear a mask. And now, of course, people have been saying since June,

00:21:10.100 wear your dang mask and you're a grandma killer if you don't. And now just the other day,

00:21:15.980 Dr. Fauci came up and came out and said, it's just common sense. Just two masks is better than one

00:21:22.400 mask. What? And I saw on CNBC, I thought it was hilarious. They said three masks, of course,

00:21:28.940 is going to give you, is going to be even more effective. Show me the study. Like show me the study.

00:21:35.820 If this really does pass through large droplets, okay, sure. Maybe I could see how three masks is

00:21:41.860 going to be more effective if you're trying to spit into someone's face than one mask. But show me the

00:21:48.660 data that says if people wear three masks, the COVID cases are going to go down. Is that common sense?

00:21:54.060 I don't think that's common sense at all. I mean, it wasn't common sense back in March when Dr.

00:21:58.300 Fauci said, basically, you're an idiot if you even wear a mask. But now we're being told to layer

00:22:05.620 up on masks. I am excited for when they say that we need to sleep in masks or when we need to wear

00:22:11.900 a plastic bag over our heads before we step outside and just breathe deeply. That's probably

00:22:16.080 going to be the next step in all of this, just to make sure we don't spread the virus. We have lost

00:22:21.580 all attachment to reality, all attachment to science, all attachment to data in all of this.

00:22:27.780 Everything has just become a political symbol. I'm not saying masks have no effect. There was a

00:22:33.520 big, I think it was a Danish study that was looking at the effectiveness of masks. And they basically

00:22:42.980 said, look, it's not going to protect you to wear a mask and it might not slow the spread that much,

00:22:47.420 but it might protect you if you have it from giving it to someone else. And so that's kind of what we've

00:22:52.420 known for a long time, that if you have it, maybe even asymptomatically, if that's another thing we

00:22:57.580 don't know, how really pervasive is asymptomatic spread, that's another thing everyone's gone back

00:23:04.180 and forth on and we don't really know. But if you do have it, and if you can spread asymptomatically,

00:23:09.980 then wearing a mask could possibly stop you from spreading the virus. That's the extent scientifically

00:23:17.560 of the protection that masks wear. So people who are wearing masks when they're in their car

00:23:24.340 are wearing masks when they're walking by themselves. Now, if you're wearing a mask in

00:23:28.120 your car because you're trying to be extra precautious or extra cautious because you are

00:23:33.180 delivering someone's food or something, I appreciate that. And I understand. But people who are just

00:23:37.660 wearing masks in their car are wearing masks when they're on a walk, wearing masks when they're outside

00:23:42.340 by themselves, wearing masks when you are a far distance away from everyone. That has no scientific

00:23:48.480 grounding at all. And so I'm so tired of people saying that we're following the science,

00:23:53.020 that we're following the facts. No, we're not. We're not. Not on any of this stuff. I am very

00:23:59.440 happy for the development of the vaccine and how quickly it came about. Obviously, there was a lot of

00:24:05.380 science and a lot of innovation, a lot of capitalism that played into that, that I think is a testament to

00:24:12.840 the power of the modern mind and modern technology that I'm very thankful for. And apparently,

00:24:20.840 it does work in making people who get asymptomatic, but they're saying it doesn't

00:24:27.220 actually necessarily stop the spread of anything. And so a lot of people are like, well, then why are

00:24:33.020 we even, why are we even doing any of this? If that's not the thing that's going to end all of

00:24:38.840 our social distancing and end all of our remote learning and end all of our mask wearing, then what

00:24:44.220 is? Because viruses are going to virus like the flu evolves. It changes into different strains every

00:24:51.420 year and we have to deal with it every year. People die from the flu every year. People die

00:24:56.680 from a variety of viruses every year. So what's going to stop it? Are we just going to have to live

00:25:02.240 with it? If that's the case, if we're just going to have to eventually live with it and understand that

00:25:06.520 not everyone's going to get the vaccine, some people are going to get the vaccine, but even if people

00:25:10.600 do get the vaccine, that it's still going to spread. We're not going to wear masks forever.

00:25:14.920 Like, I know that people do that in some Asian countries, but we're not some Asian countries.

00:25:19.580 Like, we're not going to do that forever. Kids can't remote learn forever. We can't be isolated

00:25:23.880 forever. You can't go to church virtually forever. Once again, progressivism and progressive policies

00:25:30.000 get human nature wrong. You are a whole person. That's what I've said from the beginning. You are an

00:25:34.500 entire person. You're not just a body. While I do want to protect people from getting sick as far as

00:25:39.920 we can, I know people who have gotten COVID. It's been very serious that they've almost died. They've

00:25:46.000 been on the verge of death. They've had to go to the hospital. They've been hooked up to, or actually,

00:25:50.080 I don't know anyone personally that's been hooked up to a ventilator, but they've gone to the ICU.

00:25:54.480 They have been released and they've gotten worse and they are on bed rest and all of the stuff.

00:25:59.680 I know people who have gotten it really, really bad. I know people who have had really mild cases

00:26:04.520 as well, but I'm aware of how severe it can be. And I want to protect people from that.

00:26:08.480 I don't want old people to get it. I don't want immunocompromised people to get it. I don't

00:26:12.160 want anyone to die from this. And of course, I'm going to be as respectful and as loving and as

00:26:16.560 sympathetic as I possibly can and take any reasonable and data-driven scientific precautions

00:26:21.780 that I can to protect other people from that. But people aren't just a body. There's a reason why

00:26:26.940 suicides are so far up, why overdoses are so high up. There is a reason why kids are struggling

00:26:35.700 mentally and emotionally right now. There's a reason why people are struggling spiritually and

00:26:40.120 mentally right now. Because we're not just bodies. We're not just these materialist beings as secular

00:26:45.780 humanism thinks. We have souls. We have hearts. We have minds. We have a million different needs

00:26:51.400 that we have to cater to that are only found sometimes through in-person fellowship and community

00:26:57.500 and time that's spent with family and friends and church and counseling and school and all of these

00:27:02.100 things that make society survive and thrive. We can't survive like this, especially not in America.

00:27:07.580 We're not the same as Asian countries. We're not the same as other cultures. We have our own culture.

00:27:11.760 And part of that is community. And people will take the precautions that they need to take to protect

00:27:16.520 the vulnerable people around them. But when we are constantly seeing competing narratives about

00:27:22.020 lockdowns and school closures and wearing masks and the effectiveness of vaccines, and when things are

00:27:28.660 so politicized and they're not driven by science, from the White House to the media to Dr. Fauci,

00:27:34.320 of course, you're going to get a lot of frustrated people. You're going to get a lot of conspiracy

00:27:38.580 theories, unfortunately. And it's going to be very counterproductive if our goal is actually to keep

00:27:44.520 people healthy and to keep society going. Now, I want to talk a little bit more about this question

00:27:52.280 of vaccines. Because I've been getting a lot of questions from you guys. When am I going to talk about

00:27:57.580 this? When am I going to talk about the, when am I going to talk about whether or not Christians

00:28:03.680 should get this vaccine? And here's the problem. Well, here's why people are asking that. It's not

00:28:07.880 just because of vaccines in general, okay? So people who are listening to this, I'm not talking about

00:28:12.980 anti-vaxxers, people who are against vaccines in general, who think all vaccine manufacturers are

00:28:18.920 out to get them and are filling their bodies with poison and are causing all kinds of mental

00:28:24.900 disabilities and fetal, you know, deformities and things like that. I'm not talking about those

00:28:30.820 people. The people who are asking me if Christians should take the vaccine are okay in general with

00:28:36.540 vaccines. They're okay with modern medicine. They're not non-medical interventionists, but they're

00:28:42.380 looking at some of the stuff and they're asking some questions, which I think is good. Like, isn't that

00:28:48.700 part of being pro-science is asking questions? Like, can we honestly say that the medical community has

00:28:54.540 always gotten things right? No, of course, of course not. I mean, we know that for a fact that

00:29:00.240 some vaccines we thought that would work and then they caused adverse reactions that were really bad

00:29:05.340 and it was pulled off market. There have been several vaccines in the past 30 years, or I would

00:29:09.820 say a couple that I can think of off the top of my head, three that I can think of that off the top of

00:29:14.520 my head where it had to be taken off market after it was realized that people were having very adverse

00:29:19.600 reactions. There was the original rotavirus vaccine, which was really not that long ago,

00:29:26.340 about 20 years ago, it was causing problems like intestinal blockage in the infants that were taking

00:29:35.180 this vaccine. And so they had to reformulate it. They had to take it off the market. The same thing

00:29:40.000 with a certain kind of DTaP vaccine. I think it was in the 80s and 90s and then before that in the 60s and

00:29:46.260 70s, it was, I think, a kind of flu vaccine that was causing a lot of Bell's palsy that had to be

00:29:52.900 taken off the market. And so it's okay for people to ask questions, like to just look throughout

00:29:58.540 history and say, okay, there's been some problems. There was one point that people were saying that

00:30:02.620 it was fine for women who were pregnant to drink alcohol and to smoke cigarettes. Like there was a

00:30:08.680 time that, you know, we didn't have sunscreen because we didn't know that UV rays could be damaging

00:30:14.420 to your skin. There have been times, and if you know anything about the history of birth in the

00:30:21.000 United States, you know how many times people have been wrong. The medical community has been wrong.

00:30:27.040 For example, women who had VBACs in the late 90s, so that is vaginal birth after cesarean, in order to

00:30:34.080 induce their labor, they were given something called side attack. Well, side attack, you're not, now we know,

00:30:39.740 you should not be given if you are trying to have a vaginal birth after a cesarean delivery because

00:30:45.560 it increases your risk a lot of having a uterine rupture during birth. That was happening in the

00:30:53.460 late 90s. That's not even that long ago. And so the medical community had to realize, okay, we were wrong

00:30:59.540 on that. We didn't test that correctly. We had a false hypothesis or whatever it is, and now we

00:31:04.660 changed it. So the advancements in modern medicine have not been hindered by curious people, have not

00:31:12.860 been hindered by people's skepticism or curiosity about what the medical community has said or even

00:31:17.960 about vaccines. It's actually been advanced that way. That's good. Like, we should be asking questions,

00:31:22.860 so please don't shut down questions, real legitimate questions about things like vaccines. That's why I

00:31:29.140 talked to two people. I talked to Paul Offit a couple years ago, and I also talked to Dr. Bob Sears,

00:31:35.700 and I asked them about both sides of the vaccine debate, not from a Christian perspective, but

00:31:40.960 just in general about the efficacy and the safety of vaccines. And they had two different approaches,

00:31:46.200 and I wouldn't say Dr. Sears is an anti-vaccine guy, but he's more vaccine hesitant and is more

00:31:52.180 sympathetic to people who are anti-vaccines. And of course, Paul Offit is very pro-vaccine,

00:31:56.360 has helped in the manufacturing of, or in the, not the manufacturing, but the research and the

00:32:02.260 development of vaccines. So I wanted to give two different sides to that because I think there are

00:32:07.380 quite a few sides to it. And I just hate that this is, yet again, one of those conversations that we

00:32:12.260 are being told in so many circles not to pay attention to, that we shouldn't ask questions,

00:32:16.620 that we shouldn't talk about it at all, that we should just nod our heads and accept whatever Big

00:32:20.920 Brother says in regards to COVID, in regards to the lockdowns, in regards to what the politicians say,

00:32:27.300 in regards to the vaccine, in regards to what Biden says. And I'm just saying, I think it's okay

00:32:32.400 for us to approach things critically. And I don't like conspiracy theories. I really don't. And I try

00:32:37.940 my hardest on this show to stop conspiracy theories before they grow wild, or while I still can,

00:32:46.560 I don't have all the power in the world to do that. But so I'm not talking about conspiracy theories.

00:32:51.180 I'm not talking about going off the deep end. I'm just talking about thinking and speaking

00:32:53.840 critically about this kind of stuff. So from a Christian perspective, the COVID vaccine. Now,

00:33:00.360 the reason why people are talking about the ethics of this and the biblical morality of this is because

00:33:07.560 the vaccine structure relied upon the cell line of HEK-293, which originated with an aborted baby.

00:33:17.500 Now, this was an aborted, a baby that was aborted back in the 1960s, I believe, in the Netherlands.

00:33:27.780 And so there are Christians who are saying, yes, it's totally fine to get the vaccine. And there are

00:33:33.540 Christians who are not. So I want to read you two different sides of this argument from two people

00:33:37.360 that I really, really respect, two Christians that I respect. So Albert Moeller, he argues in his

00:33:45.440 podcast, The Briefing, he argues that, yes, it is okay for Christians to get this particular vaccine.

00:33:53.280 This is not the only vaccine that was derived from fetal cell lines. So he says on his podcast,

00:34:00.200 a horrifying wrong was done in using, obviously, the fetal cells for the development of vaccine.

00:34:06.060 But he says that does not mean that good cannot come from harm, even as it is a good tainted by

00:34:12.740 the realities of a sinful world. This idea is expressed for Christians as the doctrine of

00:34:16.920 double effect. Some actions have more than one effect. For Christians, the primary intention

00:34:21.560 must aim at virtue and good. The intention behind an act must never seek harm or evil or any moral

00:34:27.100 reality and outcome against God's will. We must never be complicit in intending sin. And certainly,

00:34:31.900 this applies to every dimension of abortion. But Albert Moeller says, the Christian also

00:34:37.360 acknowledges a potential double effect for every moral act can lead to consequences not intended,

00:34:42.360 but unavoidable. If the abortion of even a single human baby was required for this vaccine,

00:34:47.320 or if abortion derived materials were included in the vaccine, Christians would be rightly outraged.

00:34:51.880 But this is not the case with the COVID-19 vaccine. He says the vaccine can be taken by pro-life

00:34:56.980 Christians with legitimacy. So he says Christians need to understand that no step in producing these

00:35:02.200 vaccines had any direct involvement in an abortion of a single child. There is also the issue of

00:35:08.120 proximity. The further you go in history, the harder it is to keep a clear line of culpability

00:35:12.800 and morally significant events. That said, the good news about the COVID-19 vaccines is that even these

00:35:18.580 cells, most importantly from HEK-293, were used to create the basic shape of the vaccine.

00:35:24.120 No fetal tissue was actually used. So he's saying that, yes, it uses this line from the 1960s in

00:35:33.120 the Netherlands. And yes, we oppose abortion, but there was no actual fetal tissue that was used in

00:35:39.540 this particular vaccine. And I think he also goes on to argue that while the act of an abortion was wrong

00:35:46.900 and using the cells from this aborted baby was wrong, there is good that is now able to come

00:35:54.540 out of this several decades later and that Christians are able to take the vaccine with

00:36:01.200 integrity because of that. And the farther and farther we are removed from the original act of

00:36:06.760 abortion, the more difficult it is to make the case that someone is actually morally responsible for

00:36:12.400 actually taking the vaccine. I don't know if he would also argue, but it sounds like this is where

00:36:17.780 he could possibly go, that there is something redemptive and there is actually something good

00:36:25.560 that is coming and something life-saving that is coming from an act, abortion, that we see as

00:36:30.780 egregious, that we know to be murder. And so that, I think, is what he is saying in double effect.

00:36:36.920 Now, John Piper, someone else I very much respect, would disagree with this. He says that we should

00:36:43.540 not take the vaccine that was derived from those fetal cell lines because, number one, we should

00:36:50.680 never do evil that good may come. He cites Romans 3.8, some of Paul's adversaries accused him of doing

00:36:56.780 evil that good may come. Paul responded to this that it was a slanderous charge. So it's bad to do evil

00:37:02.180 just that good may come. Now, I think Albert Moeller would probably say that someone is not actually

00:37:09.400 doing evil by taking this vaccine, but actually that God is making something good out of something

00:37:16.680 that was originally sinful. John Piper goes on to say, we value Christ and his kingdom more than

00:37:24.240 security or health. And he says, we testify to the sanctity of life. He also says, God blesses

00:37:30.640 principled action in his name. So he says, look, people aren't going to understand why you're not

00:37:35.880 taking the vaccine, but we can have no part in what Ephesians calls the unfruitful works of darkness.

00:37:40.800 Like we can have no part in any kind of industry or any kind of process that props up the abortion

00:37:47.040 industry or seems to sanction abortion or seems to justify abortion or say that abortion was a necessary

00:37:54.660 evil for the good consequences that came. That is John Piper's argument. Both of these are solid

00:38:00.280 Christian men. They're solid Christian intellectuals. They've thought a lot about

00:38:04.140 this subject, but they land in different places. Whereas John Piper would say that it doesn't matter

00:38:10.020 the effect of something like the vaccine. If it was derived from fetal cell lines, then Christians

00:38:16.060 shouldn't have any part of that because we shouldn't have any part of evil. Whereas Albert

00:38:19.840 Moeller, I think, I hope these are accurate summaries of their arguments. He would say, look, I mean,

00:38:25.900 it's a gracious blessing that something good is coming out of something that was derived from a

00:38:32.520 baby that was evilly and tragically aborted. I understand both arguments very well. And I know

00:38:40.180 you guys are dying for my opinion. You guys ask me about my personal opinion on this all the time.

00:38:44.900 I will refrain from giving it. And I would, I'll put these two articles in the description of this

00:38:52.560 episode because I do think that it's something that you need to think through yourself. And just

00:38:57.000 one thing I would encourage you once again is to, um, it's to not feel bad for asking and not feel bad

00:39:03.340 for, for thinking and not feel bad for using your brain and doing your research. Now, again, we have

00:39:09.460 to be careful. Don't go down the, don't go to either extreme, one of conspiracy theory and the other side,

00:39:15.820 which just refuses to ask questions or even open the hood, uh, to look beyond what we see.

00:39:22.360 Again, uh, there is a temptation in all of this crazy time to not pay attention to things,

00:39:27.840 to just look away, to not ask questions, to not know what's going on. But for the sake of our

00:39:34.740 neighbors, for the sake of our kids, for the sake of ourselves, we have to pay attention and we have

00:39:39.740 to ask questions. And I know that I barely scratched the surface of what's going on in this

00:39:44.580 podcast. And, um, that's why I don't think, uh, I should be your sole source of information that you

00:39:50.500 should go beyond this podcast and you should think for yourself. That's what I hope that I empower and

00:39:55.140 encourage you to do is to think and to ask good questions and for us all to critically think and

00:40:00.260 for us to help each other as we navigate through this crazy post-truth, contradictory, chaotic

00:40:05.980 world. Thankfully, Christ is our anchor and his truth is our anchor in all of this. Um, okay.

00:40:11.680 Thank you guys so much for listening. We will be back here on Monday.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - January 28, 2021

Ep 360 ｜ Scientism, COVID & the Vaccine

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