Truth or Lies? Learn to Analyze Hot Topics Like BLM and AI

From the rise of AI to movements like Black Lives Matter, and whatever the next big issue will be, Christians face a world filled with compelling but deceptive narratives and trends. We believe this is a major weakness in the Church today—but it doesn't have to be. Christians must develop a comprehensive biblical worldview to navigate the pressing issues of our time with wisdom and conviction.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why we must look beyond surface-level branding to uncover deeper worldview assumptions
• The importance of examining a movement’s fruit and the beliefs of its founders
• The reality that good and evil run through every human heart—not between groups
• How modern ideologies often strip people of personal agency and responsibility
• The need for Christians to ask deeper questions about cultural norms and practices
• How cultural definitions of words often differ from biblical meanings
• Why critical thinking requires evaluating the worldview behind policies and movements
• The truth that the gospel is about more than personal salvation—it speaks to every area of life and culture

Want to learn more? Watch our 4-minute video on YouTube: "Why Does Your Worldview Matter?"

• View the transcript, leave comments, and check out recommended resources on the Episode Landing Page!

Transcript

Understanding Christianity as a Comprehensive Worldview

Scott Allen 0:03

We have to understand Christianity, our faith, not as a message of spiritual salvation alone. It certainly encompasses that and that's foundational to it, but it is a comprehensive worldview that's full of all kinds of principles that answer all the big questions about who we are, who's God, what happens after life, what's the purpose of life. We have to understand all of that. We've gotten out of the practice of doing that. We haven't valued that or seen that as important, much less saying that. That's not just important to me, but that's something that I actually need to steward, shepherd, try to bring into the culture around me, because it's what's going to change the culture in positive ways, because there's all sorts of lies, these destructive lies out there that are going to destroy it. So we have to actually go on mission with these things. We have a lot of work to do.

Luke Allen 0:58

Hi friends, welcome to Ideas have Consequences. The podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. Here on this show we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world, to all the nations, but our mission also includes to be the hands and feet of God, to transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected this second part of her mission and today most Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.

Scott Allen 1:38

Welcome again, everyone, to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. I'm Scott Allen, I'm the president of the DNA and I'm joined today by my two co-workers and friends, Dwight Vogt, Luke Allen, and we're keeping it in-house today. Guys, it's good to see you.

Dwight Vogt 1:53

Good morning.

Scott Allen 1:54

Scott, good morning to you as well. Yeah, we thought this morning we would talk about truth and lies. This is obviously a major theme of the DNA that truth exists because God exists, he's real, he created a real world and he created it in a particular way. He defines what is true and because he is good, his truth is good, and living in alignment with his truth leads to life, it leads to flourishing. And, of course, we have an adversary, satan, who steals and kills and destroys, and he uses lies to do that lies and deception. So it's important for us to be able to kind of navigate at any time between these things, and it's often very difficult to do and so we thought we'd just talk a little bit today about how, how do you approach that, how do you seek and try to live in the truth, understand the truth, discern it, if you will, in a culture that's full of lies, and often lies that are very difficult to see or difficult to discern. We have some thoughts on that and I'm looking forward to hearing what you guys have to say about that as well. Hopefully, what we'll do today is just give our listeners some tools, some ways of thinking, kind of how to approach this. Not that we're experts here. We are obviously learners and I have a lot to learn. I kind of thought one way we could approach this guys today is just by kind of looking at what happened here recently in the United States and in Western cultures more broadly and really I guess it's really around the world, but it's particularly in the West with a whole host of lies and deceptions that kind of, you know, can be bundled under what's now called woke ideology. This came into culture in a massive way in 2016, 18, 20, particularly just almost felt like a revolution, and it came right into the church as well. And that's what I kind of want to focus on, because you had a lot of ideas that many of them in very profound ways didn't align with biblical truth, but they came right into the church. How did that happen? How can we help Christians to be more kind of discerning? So we could look at any topic here or any kind of issue in the culture, but I thought this one might be a good way to kind of start and maybe to get us started. You know, I thought you know we often talk thank you, dara Miller about this idea of paradigm or worldview, kind of the deepest level of ideas, ideas that answer the big questions, paradigm, and that paradigm shapes principles, kind of general truths, and those general truths lead into policies and practices. You know, which you can kind of see At that level. It's not just what's in somebody's head, but it's what they're doing. You know, it's something that they are putting into practice, or they're saying they intend to put into practice in the form of a policy or whatever it is, and then yeah, and then the consequences of that you know. So this is a framework I think is really relevant to this topic as well.

Examining the Practices and Policies

Scott Allen 5:07

But you know, back to the woke ideology, you know when it first came in, I first became kind of aware of it when, with the arrival of a group called Black Lives Matter, and again, this was way before 2020. I mean, this must have been 2016. I remember first being aware of it when I forget her name now Michelle Higgins was invited to speak from the platform of InterVarsity Christian Fellowships, urbana, you know, big missions conference, and she was representing Black Lives Matter and that was the whole focus of her talk was on Black Lives Matter, black Lives Matter, and that was the whole focus of her talk was on Black Lives Matter. And I just thought you know, of course, what is Black Lives Matter and what it is just on the surface is it's a brand, right? This is a really clever brand because it's communicating, just, you know, on its surface, that black lives matter. Who could disagree with that? Right? Who would dare, actually, I should say, disagree with that? And that was the cleverness of it, because if you, you know, if you called it into question at all, you know, then that was going to put you in the position of being potentially a racist. So very clever, you know, if you want, you know, very clever form of branding.

Scott Allen 6:24

I thought that right away, I thought, wow, you know. But then I kind of was wondering, well, what's the issue? Because if I go to any group of people anywhere and I ask them the question do you think Black Lives Matter? I mean, I don't think I would ever run into a single one that would say, no, I disagree, black lives don't matter.

Scott Allen 6:43

Everyone agrees that black lives matter. So what's the issue that they're trying to? You know what? You know, this is clearly a kind of a social movement and organization. What are they? What's their issue? What are they trying? You know, they must assume that kind of the assumption behind it is there's a bunch of people out there that think black lives don't matter. So we've got to fight for this idea that black lives matter. I think at that level of marketing, branding Christians in the church never got any deeper than that. It was like well, of course we've got to support this movement because I believe that Black Lives Matter that's what it says. Black Lives Matter what do you think? In other words, they didn't ask deeper questions like what do they practice? What are their policies? What's the deeper thing? It just never got below the branding, the marketing, the packaging, yeah.

Dwight Vogt 7:32

I can tell you my own experience, as I just listened to you, scott.

Luke Allen 7:35

Yeah.

Dwight Vogt 7:38

And I had the same. It's like, of course, black Lives Matter. I mean, yes, they matter, and my first thought was yes, and I lived in the 60s matter. I mean, yes, they matter, and my first thought was yes, and you know, I was through, I lived in the sixties, I saw, you know, we went through that whole period of of of race racism and the civil rights bill, and I was like yes, yes, yes. And and you know, I don't live in a I mean, I live in a white environment. So it was like, wow, okay, if there are still, if there's still racism, I mean there is racism and we should always be fighting against it. Yes, that's what I want to be about and I am about. So what's wrong here? But then there's a sense of well, wait, what is wrong?

Dwight Vogt 8:15

And something's in your heart, you go. Well, I'm not sure Something feels wrong. And at that point, because I'm in the DNA, because I know Darrell Miller, you start to go well, what's going on underneath?

Scott Allen 8:27

here. Yeah, what's under the hood. What's under the hood?

Dwight Vogt 8:31

And then I think of Daryl's glasses and I realize that, no matter who we are in the world, we have culture. We look through our cultural lenses, we look through our glasses, and I wear glasses, so I don't know that I have them on. I'm looking at you guys right now and I don't see my glasses, and so, by nature, I'm not analyzing what's under the hood, I just I look through my worldview, I look at life and I interpret it, but, that being said, I go. Something's not right here, and that's where I think, as Christians, we have the ability, through the Bible, god's word and his spirit, to go. Is there something going on here that's bigger than just the?

Luke Allen 9:08

obvious, which is I shouldn't be.

Dwight Vogt 9:11

racism is wrong and black lives matter, which they do, and that's where you go into. Well, now we're looking at what's the worldview that's driving it and what is at the essence of that worldview, and I think that's yeah, perfect.

Scott Allen 9:23

We need to be better at that. Yeah, we have to be, and I totally agree. So that's I think the first lesson is that whatever the packaging or the branding is be, especially if it sounds really good, like who could be against that? I mean, we're talking a lot more about diversity, equity and inclusion right now. Again, that's a packaging, that's a branding and it sounds really good. I mean, who in the world could be against being for diversity and equality and inclusion? I mean, come on, you know, but we have to. Okay, the principle biblically is that Satan disguises his lies right with In truth. What's that In truth? Yeah, in truth he does.

Luke Allen 10:04

Or just, you know, he comes across as an angel of light and so we should always be a little bit aware that, if it sounds really good.

Scott Allen 10:12

It might not be, you know. Let's look below the surface, as you were saying, dwight, and I think well before we go into, kind of, how we look below the surface, luke, any thoughts just on this kind of issue of branding packaging. Because I do think I think it really did pose a problem for a lot of people in the church. They just kind of bought it yeah.

Luke Allen 10:29

I mean, here's the fact of the matter. All great lies are probably 90% truth.

Luke Allen 10:33

You know no one's going to fall for the very obvious lies, so any good marketer knows that. Still try to hook them with all the good components. Yeah, I was actually writing about this yesterday Just the effects of the age of information on the way that humans process knowledge, you know, and ideas. And we truly live in the age of information, especially since social media's advent. Information's at our fingertips like never before in history. Um, we, it's just such an unbelievable overload and with all that, the temptation is to think, wow, I'm so smart because I know so much. And uh, proverbs does a really good job. I think, of differentiating wisdom from just knowing a lot, and there's a huge difference between listening to wise people and being wise yourself. Becoming wise, there's a huge difference between knowing a lot about what's going on in the world and being a critical thinker.

Luke Allen 11:34

There's a big difference between seeing something on the news and then internally processing. Is this right? Is this wrong? Where's the truth, where's the lies In the information age, what social media tries to do? Because social media, as we all know, is made up of short clips out of context, lacking nuance. It's all about catching your emotions and trying to force an opinion on you. If you don't stop and think and process what's going on here, what's the deeper meaning? You're just going to get caught up in the flow.

Scott Allen 12:00

Totally, and it's so easy to do that, and I like that you brought up emotions here, luke too, because the branding, that part of it, really does appeal to emotion. Oh, yeah. And it can be positive and negative.

Dwight Vogt 12:11

Every good lie appeals to the emotions, right, right.

Scott Allen 12:13

That's why we buy them.

Scott Allen 12:16

Yeah, and in this case I think it was almost a negative one that if I ever said that I was against Black Lives Matter, or even hinted at that, my friends would think I'm a racist. And that's a real fear, right? That's social stigmatization, I can't, you know. I remember when the whole Floyd thing came out and you had to post that Black Lives Matter thing on social media and if you didn't, your friends kind of called you out. Hey, I noticed you haven't posted this on your social media. We got calls from the DNA. How come DNA hasn't put up the Black Lives Matter symbol, you know, on its website or whatever it was? You know, it was just such fear of social.

Luke Allen 12:50

I've got to do it or else I'm going to be stigmatized. So yeah, anyway, sorry to riff on that a little bit. Yeah, I'm just thinking of other examples too, like we might talk about AI at the end of the discussion here and this whole talk about the potential of a future with universal basic income. That sounds great. That's good branding Universal basic income. There goes poverty right. That's kind of your first instinct.

Dwight Vogt 13:05

So we've raised one example. Yeah, let's go deeper, dwight, I'm just thinking, go ahead.

Scott Allen 13:13

If you don't mind, I'll lead us to the next level, because ultimately you want to get down to what is at the deepest level. What's the paradigm, what's the worldview? But the thing is you can't often tell immediately. But, like you were saying, dwight, you know you should. The first thing is you should question it, you should say something. I want to know what's going on deeper. What's going on deeper? And I see that it's doing. What's Black Lives Matter actually doing, where people are putting it into practice, or what policies is it championing? So that's the first level. You can actually kind of see that. And so two examples here. When I started thinking critically about it, I said the people.

Destructive Lies About Human Identity

Scott Allen 13:58

First, at the level of practice, one thing I noticed right away is that the proponents of Black Lives Matter, the big champions, also were putting into practice segregation, which I thought was very odd. They were practicing segregation, and so they wanted separate dorms, for example, for blacks and whites. They wanted separate graduation ceremonies. A lot of this was happening on college campuses, but it was spilling over. Even churches started saying maybe we should have separate services for blacks and whites, and so it was leading to a practice of segregation. And then, in terms of its policies. I just went on their website at one point. I, you know, went on the Black Lives Matter website to see what was it. You know, what was it promoting in terms of policy? And there I saw things like reparations. You know that blacks are owed reparations by whites because of slavery. That's a clear policy. I saw that, you know, the deconstruction of the family. That was kind of very clear and that led to a bunch of questions for me. Okay, that's the next thing. Okay, why? Why? So you know, when you ask that, why question, you're always going down deeper. And that's what you want to do go down deeper. Why is it leading to segregation? Why reparations? And then the answers that I was getting on that let's just take segregation here.

Scott Allen 15:12

Was that the kind of the idea? If you ask people about that was well, if you get blacks and whites together in any social setting, eventually white people will. You know, they're just kind of going to use power and manipulation and coercion in often very polite ways, but they're going to get their way, you know. And so for blacks to have a, they need a space where it's kind of unpolluted by white people, who are always white. People, are always just kind of gaming the system to work things out in their favor, kind of gaming the system to work things out in their favor. And I thought, okay, wow, okay. So now we're getting down to the level of beliefs, some deep beliefs, right, just from that practice. The practice was segregation, but the beliefs were now starting to come into focus for me. And, well, before I go on to the beliefs, let's just talk about the practices and policies level there. Yeah, dwight, you're about to say something.

Dwight Vogt 16:09

Yeah, let me react to that. Scott. Again, I remember how I felt. Right, I thought, okay, there are different cultures. And having grown up in food for the hungry and the DNA and traveled globally and experienced culture, I was like, yes, cultures are great, cultures are wonderful. There are cultural expressions and we need to support them. And I thought so, the idea of a black culture expressing itself, or Native American or Hispanic culture expressing itself in my country. I said that's a good thing.

Scott Allen 16:36

Yeah, it's beautiful. That's a good thing.

Dwight Vogt 16:38

And I, you know, people say, well, we have to have mixed worship service. I'm going no, I actually like my worship service and it's different from some other. I mean, I don't go to an Anglican church or a Catholic church or a Pentecostal church. I go to my church because it's the culture I feel comfortable with. But then I went wait a minute, there's something this is more than culture and I thought this is actually creating a sense of division in my heart towards others when I hear this.

Dwight Vogt 17:04

It was creating division. You use the word segregation, which is division, for no reason.

Scott Allen 17:09

Yeah, that's what segregation is. It's just dividing, separating. It's just saying that person is not like me.

Dwight Vogt 17:13

Right, and that's different from that culture. It's not like my culture or that culture differs in this way. That's a different thing than human division.

Scott Allen 17:19

Yeah, and it went even deeper than that, dwightight. There was a whole level of not just different but but in the case of people with white skin, worse, you know, and well there was that whole there? Was that whole level of?

Luke Allen 17:31

they are, they are they're manipulative.

Scott Allen 17:34

They're power hungry, they that you know they're, if you get them if they have their way. They're just going to colonize the world and control everyone and so there was that level of, of, of, of not just different, but worse, and and not and and worse and better, right, Worse and better. That's what I was getting at. So worse and better. And then another belief was you can determine, you can put people into those groups of worse and better based on something like the skin color. Okay, I thought, whoa, okay.

Dwight Vogt 18:00

So now, that's what I'm getting at. It's like it's not just creating difference or identifying the difference. It's saying there is good and there is bad yeah, there's good, that's good and this is bad. You they're good, you're bad. And I remember a, an african pastor in sudan. We're talking and he realized that that there were tribal differences between his tribe and another tribe in south sudan, but he had grown up to know that that difference was bad. That tribe was a bad tribe, his tribe was a good tribe.

Luke Allen 18:26

So this is not just difference.

Scott Allen 18:28

And I think that's.

Dwight Vogt 18:29

I felt that happening.

Scott Allen 18:30

You felt that no, well for sure. And now you have to begin to. This is where the discernment about the truth comes in, because you have to ask the question yeah, there is right. What is true about this? You know what? What is the dividing line between good and evil?

Scott Allen 18:45

is there is there good and evil in the world, you know? Is there good and bad? What? How? How is that divided? Because this is this is, you know, this is saying, yes, there is good and evil, but it's dividing it in a particular way. And is that the right way that we divide good and evil? I mean that, that so we have to ask questions of truth and lies at this point here, like yeah, that's where then you enter what I would say is a worldview level of thinking. You're into the worldview level now.

Dwight Vogt 19:10

Does the Bible say this ethnicity is bad and this one's good? No, no, no, no, no, ever no, it does not, it never says that?

Scott Allen 19:18

No, what does it say? That's a lie.

Dwight Vogt 19:21

Now we can say that's a lie right when you divide good and evil based on ethnicity, that's a lie.

Luke Allen 19:25

And not only is that a lie, that's a very deadly lie.

Scott Allen 19:27

Let me just say that's one of the most deadly lies in world history. Go ahead, Dwight, yeah.

Dwight Vogt 19:31

No, yeah, no. The Bible says that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.

Scott Allen 19:39

Who can know it?

Dwight Vogt 19:40

truth, that's the truth, because you're part of the Allen clan, you're a good heart, and I'm part of the vote clan, so I'm a bad heart, you know.

Scott Allen 19:46

Yeah, that's a really demonic lie. Let me just kind of underscore that. And I was seeing that like, oh, this is a demonic lie that's coming up into you and it is because, once you think that way, if you allow that thought to get into your head and that becomes part of the reality that you live on, the consequence, the obvious consequences you're going to look to destroy the Houthis are going to destroy the Tutsis, the Nazis are going to destroy the Jews. That's just what you do, right, that's what happens.

Dwight Vogt 20:14

That is the essence of anti-Semitism. Exactly, it's not based on oh, that Jewish person does this and thinks this way, it's like no, they are bad, they're a Jew, and so Hitler said we should kill them.

Scott Allen 20:27

So for the Christian, we have to go okay, this is not just a lie, this is a really deadly lie, and we have to set ourselves out to kind of oppose it, you know, to counter it. And again, luke, what's the truth that we're trying to counter this one with?

Luke Allen 20:46

I mean, what do we need to say clearly on this one? That all humans are created in the image of God.

Scott Allen 20:49

Yeah, and then you know right, there's, we are also all sinners. You know right, that line, as Solzhenitsyn said, that divides good and evil runs through every human heart. So we don't draw that line between groups. And that's what I was seeing with this Black Lives Matter, is they're drawing the line between groups and not through every human heart. And I thought, okay, this is really dangerous here, yeah.

Dwight Vogt 21:10

And it is both of those truths, I mean, that's the strength of the truth that, yes, everyone is evil and everyone is an image bearer of the holy God, the creator of the universe.

Scott Allen 21:19

Right. So there's that lie. I think another lie that then comes out of this one is that people can be, let's just say, determined what's the word I'm looking for? Their identity can be entirely understood in terms of these kind of external factors. Like all that I need to know about you, I can understand, through your skin color, all that.

Scott Allen 21:43

I need to know about you. I can understand through your skin color, and that is also, you know, just kind of a very dangerous lie, right? Or your gender, or whatever it is right. That's all that matters about you, and particularly about you. Know, when it comes to defining you as good or evil, then you know. What we have to say as Christians is what's the truth? Right, yeah, there is a diversity. We have a diversity of gender and sex, and all this diversity that God created, right, but that ultimately doesn't—and here's the—what's the truth on this one. That doesn't define us. That shapes us, right, we're shaped, but we're not defined by those things. We're defined by the fact that God made us in his image, as you said, luke. I mean, that's the deep defining thing that we're children of God, created in his divine image. All of us, regardless of those I call those secondary kind of things.

Luke Allen 22:33

Hey guys, I wanted to tell you about one of our most helpful resources here at the Disciple Nations Alliance at least in my opinion and it's a video about how to understand what a worldview is, why it matters and the importance of understanding a biblical worldview.

Luke Allen 22:48

Luckily for you, this video is only four and a half minutes long and it is available for free right on our YouTube channel, and it is titled why Does your Worldview Matter? So if you have a few minutes right after this episode, or you can really just pause this episode right now and go give it a watch, I think you'll really find it helpful again in understanding what a worldview is, why it matters and the importance of understanding a biblical worldview, because unfortunately, as Christians, we don't just automatically get a biblical worldview when we become Christians, so it's something that we need to be discipled in and grow in as we learn to start to see everything through biblical principles. Again, that video is on our YouTube and it's also linked in the description. Thanks again, guys, for your time today and I hope you enjoy the rest of the episode.

Dwight Vogt 23:36

And it's underpinned by reality, I was involved in the outreach summer missions program at Biola and I'm sure you guys went on missions as well. The most interesting thing, not funniest but people would come back from working in refugee camps or working in villages and poverty situations and they'd go and for different cultures and they'd go and they're just like me. I realize that person is just like me. I'm going. Yep, we're all just like me.

Scott Allen 24:04

Exactly.

Dwight Vogt 24:05

And that was like a mind blower. It's like, oh God is right he really did make all of us in his image.

Scott Allen 24:10

But what did they mean, dwight, just unpack that a little bit, because clearly they're not just like you. Well, no, what they meant?

Dwight Vogt 24:16

was that the essence of being human?

Scott Allen 24:20

is there's something deeper.

Dwight Vogt 24:22

It's what God made us the clothes the food, the ethnic customs, exactly, we're human beings, first and foremost, yeah, made in the image of God, and so we reflect his character, we reflect his nature rational, emotional, physical, spiritual, and think about how good these truths are because they create a unity, a foundation for community, for respect, right.

Scott Allen 24:47

You know, regardless of all the differences, you can have this. You know this deeper and more profound respect and love for people you know, and yet appreciate diversity. And yet appreciate diversity. Exactly, exactly.

Scott Allen 25:00

And holding those two things together again is just one of the great beautiful pillars of a biblical worldview and very—no other let me just say it really starkly no other worldview holds them together. No, no, no, you have to go one way or the other, exactly exactly. And that's what—back to the Black Lives Matter thing—that's what it was doing. So it was— you know it was defining people based on these secondary characteristics of skin color and defining them in moral ways. You're bad, you know, you're good. And this is where I think a lot of people in the United States started really getting first. I mean the upset, like you know, especially when it came to education, because this was getting taught to kids. You're teaching my kid that they're good or bad based on skin color. Like that's so wrong, you know so good. Bad based on skin color Like that's so wrong, you know, so good.

Eliminating Human Agency and Responsibility

Scott Allen 25:52

One other worldview implication that came out of this one was, you know, the idea that you know we talked about a few. Right, you could kind of lump people together sociologically. You know, in terms of these external factors, you know, like skin color, that good and evil, the line that separates good and evil, doesn't run, you know, through every human heart. We're not all fallen, but certain groups are evil and certain groups are good. Those are two profound lies. A third one that came out of this as I started looking at it was this whole area of if you are black, then you are an innocent victim and all the difficulties that you face, the challenges, the difficulties that you face because of that, are all due to somebody else's actions, their oppression in your life, and it may not even be overt, it may be very subtle. You know things that you can't hardly even call coercion, but it really is. That's kind of the critical theory idea.

Scott Allen 26:51

There's this something, and what I was seeing there, luke and Dwight, was this eliminated any kind of sense of responsibility or agency. In other words, if you were in a really difficult situation, you could say it's because of my skin color and somebody else did it to me and there's nothing I can do about it. Somebody else has to change. In order for you know my circumstances to change, those evil people need to give reparations or whatever it is they need to do. They need to take the first step.

Scott Allen 27:22

I can't do anything, and I thought that is such another very satanic, destructive lie, right? So, yes, oppression exists, yes, people get a bum rap and all sorts of bad things can happen. But this idea that you have no agency, and in fact this one bothered me. I'm sorry, I'll let you guys talk, but this one bothered me a lot because I love the history of African Americans in the United States. It's been a hard history. They were enslaved for 200 years so they got a bum rap, you know for sure. But the heroes for me of the black American history were people like George Washington, carver, booker T Washington.

Luke Allen 28:05

Yeah.

Scott Allen 28:05

Booker T Washington, thank you. There was a group of black people who, despite the fact that they had really been dealt a bad hand, their thought was we can make choices that will lead to a better outcome for our own lives and for our posterity. And they started making simple choices and they really believed in human agency and they believed in God, you know, and that we ourselves we don't have to rely on. They thought we don't have to rely on white people. We ourselves can make choices that will improve our outcomes in the future. You know, that was what made them heroic is that, even though they were really in bad circumstances, they believed that they could make choices that would change things. And I thought this new movement is eliminating all of that. It's saying there's nothing you can do, you are completely passive and require people, other people to change before things can get better for you. Such a wrong way of thinking.

Luke Allen 29:05

That's a really, really evil way of thinking, especially since they were bringing a lot of this through the education system, telling young kids that lie. What's even the point of education? What's the point of any type of self-improvement?

Scott Allen 29:17

Yeah, just to make you bitter. It only embitters you against these so-called oppressors, right? Yeah, it's interesting.

Dwight Vogt 29:25

I wrote a short blog on that for the DNA website here last year because I was thinking about that particular consequence of that lie, which is passivity or victimization.

Scott Allen 29:42

Just this idea that all the bad it's something that somebody else has done and there's nothing I can do to change it.

Dwight Vogt 29:48

Exactly, it's the loss of dominion the loss of agency.

Scott Allen 29:52

The loss of being human. In many ways right.

Dwight Vogt 29:54

Well, because agency is so tied in. I mean it's five verses in—no, it's not five verses, it's 27 verses into Genesis 1, the first page of the Bible, God says have dominion.

Dwight Vogt 30:04

Rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air and plants. You know the creatures on the ground. And in Psalm 8, rule over all the works of my hand. So agency is fundamental to being human. It's fundamental.

Dwight Vogt 30:22

And then I thought about well, okay, this is undermining that. It's undermining agency. You no longer have agency. You are now dependent on people around you to change the culture, change the structure, change the power base so that you can breathe and you can live, you know. But then I thought it's interesting, because that Satan you wouldn't think of him being on the attack against that first commandment in Genesis 1, but he does it with animism, he does it with socialism. I mean, if you think about communist Russia, it was like you no longer had agency. You were dependent on the state to decide when to farm, how to farm, what to farm, how much to farm. You know they were the decision makers, you weren't. And then, with animism and your fear of spirits, it's like you don't decide, the spirit decides, and so you have to appease the spirit, but you don't know how. And you do your best and you're just at the whim.

Scott Allen 31:07

You're just totally at the mercy of these much more powerful forces. That's the idea. There's these powerful forces out there and you can't do anything.

Dwight Vogt 31:13

You're at their utter mercy. These huge lies throughout the world are undermining human agency.

Scott Allen 31:18

Yes, and that's always demonic, isn't it?

Dwight Vogt 31:21

It's always demonic, it's always demonic, and I'm surprised that Satan wants to. Well. And then sometimes he goes the other extreme. He says, well, I can't undermine it, so I will distort it so badly that people are destroying things. They're using agency for horrible purposes. So he's really against that. I mean because that's so fundamental to who we are as human beings.

Gospel vs. Biblical Principles

Scott Allen 31:41

Now we're talking here, guys, at the level of worldview. We're talking at that deep level of truth and lies, and we're much deeper under the hood. Right, we've gone way beyond Black Lives Matter and we've said what's under the hood. Let's start with what are we observing? Right, I don't know what they believe, but let me just start with what I'm observing. They're doing Segregation. What are their policies? You know, let's fight for reparations, whatever it is. You can see those. That's not too hard to look at. But then you got to ask the next question why? What's driving that? What's their worldview?

Scott Allen 32:15

And then you have to ask and this is really key, you have to ask how is it and how is it different from the truth, from what we understand in the scriptures, the biblical truth? And I think, guys, if I could just observe I don't think the church is—we've kind of lost the skill of doing this I think evangelicals, you know, when we think about our mission, it always comes back to the gospel, preach, the gospel. It's the gospel, gospel is going to change things. Again, i—of course, right, I'm going to always agree with that vehemently.

Scott Allen 32:47

But not everything can be reduced to gospel, gospel, gospel, because if you think that way, you don't think in terms of principles. What are the principles coming out of Genesis 1, 2, and 3 that shape what it means to be human? If you're not used to thinking at that principle level, then it's easy for these lies to kind of sneak right through and you never ask the question how is it different from what the Bible teaches? Because when you think of what the Bible teaches, your first thought is gospel. You know that's it, gospel.

Dwight Vogt 33:14

I remember a friend in Food for the Hungry who worked in Bolivia as a missionary this is like 30 years ago and he had gone with his wife to a tribal area, the Altiplano or something, and had success in planning a church, and they were converted. And then he realized that he had a church, or it was a church of Christian animus, yeah, and they—.

Scott Allen 33:40

In other words, they believed the gospel.

Dwight Vogt 33:41

They believed in the death and resurrection of Christ and his atonement for sin, but they still viewed the world as animus, and so they were fearful, they were lack dominion, they were making sacrifices, they were spending on celebrations to appease the spirits, whatever. And he thought I have to go back to Genesis 1 and teach them. God created the heavens and the earth.

Scott Allen 34:04

You have to teach more truth than just the gospel. You have to teach these basic principles of reality about God and what it means to be human. A lot of it that comes out of Genesis 1 and 2.

Luke Allen 34:13

Exactly, dwight yeah, yeah, and you're talking about the gospel of salvation there, not, you know, gospel, that's a hard word. We kind of should define it before we toss it True true Luke.

Scott Allen 34:21

I'm referring to the gospel of salvation, because that again there's Christians that argue, even to this day, that that's the sum total of the Christian message.

Dwight Vogt 34:29

Well, I have a thought on that.

Scott Allen 34:32

Yeah, go ahead.

Dwight Vogt 34:33

You got two minutes. We do. Yeah, I'm always wondering. You know, in the church today we do exactly that the gospel, the gospel, the gospel. We're a gospel church, we're gospel-centric, and yet Jesus spoke the gospel of the kingdom in the King James Version. And then you realize well, it's because Jesus spoke the good news of the kingdom, which makes sense. If you think of worldview as good news, that makes sense. But we create a special box for the good news of the death and resurrection, the atoning work of Christ, which is a super big box, super big box, but we take it out of the death and resurrection, the atoning work of Christ which is a super big

Dwight Vogt 35:07

box For our spiritual salvation. Super big box, Right, but we take it out of the good news area and we put it into this gospel box and then we exclude the other good news of Scripture.

Scott Allen 35:14

Well said, Dwight. Exactly, that's the problem is we exclude all this other good news. We don't even hardly think about it. Do you know how?

Dwight Vogt 35:22

that happened, how, when Tyndale translated the New Testament from Greek into Old English, or whoever did it, the Old English it was the word for good news was goad spell, which was good news, and as the Bible, as Old English, you know, we don't say goad spell anymore, we say good news. So as English evolved, like every language does, the translators of the Bible took goad spell and created God instead of goad, because it sounded like God and spell. They kept and just created the word gospel. So it became a separate word, a new word that was just about basically the death and resurrection of Christ. Anyway, it's all good news.

Luke Allen 36:03

It's the best news. It's great news. It is the good news. That's interesting. So it's great news, it is the good news. That's interesting. So in the original Greek you're not going to find a part-for-part version of the word gospel.

Dwight Vogt 36:12

No, it's euangelion is the word across the New Testament. Wherever you see gospel or good news, it's euangelion. It's one word which is an important word, anyway, absolutely. Side note to you.

Scott Allen 36:22

Well.

Scott Allen 36:23

I think, when we are not used to—if we reduce the Christian message to just a message of spiritual salvation, a restoration of our vertical relationship with God, which is central, foundational. But if we reduce it and we say there's nothing else, then we lose the ability to think in terms of biblical truth in other areas. Biblical principles, biblical truth. And so when we lose the ability to think critically in that way, when the lie comes in about, let's say, human agency, something like that that we're talking about, we're not even used to thinking oh, how does the church or the Bible teach on that? We just don't think about it.

Scott Allen 36:56

So it comes right in, you know, to the church or whatever it is. You know the line that separates good and evil. That's a principle, right? If we're not used to thinking at that level of deeper principles, those lies can come in. Yeah, you know, maybe we can divide good and evil between skin color groups or whatever it is. You know, and it's crazy to think that Christians can think that way, but they can't you know, just like in the same way that those animists on the Altiplano Dwight that you were talking about could be saved.

Scott Allen 37:24

Animists on the Altiplano Dwight that you were talking about could be saved, go to church, but still be in their minds. Animists, we're, no different.

Dwight Vogt 37:29

Again, part of that is because our worldview becomes our glasses. We don't see it. Yeah, it really is. It's the lenses we look at light through.

Luke Allen 37:38

Go ahead, luke, you were going to say something. Well, this is getting to where I thought we were going to go today, more so, uh, with the discussion of as the people in thailand were christians, they understood salvation, they understood that, you know, their sins were forgiven, but they were still animus in the way that they saw the world, in the way that they went about their work and their family and all the other areas of life that they couldn't exactly clearly connect to christ's work of salvation.

Luke Allen 38:03

and we're the exact same way here in the united states exact same way we are christian materialists, we're christian post-modernists, we're christian darwinists. What does that look like? It looks like when.

Scott Allen 38:13

But we believe the gospel and we want to, we want to witness to our friends, you know.

Luke Allen 38:17

But for example, when you bring up health and fitness, what's a christian view of health and fitness? You'll get a lot of people are like, oh can't even be.

Scott Allen 38:25

Yeah, you don't even know what you're talking about. What does the Bible have to say about health and fitness? Nothing. It's all about the gospel of salvation.

Luke Allen 38:32

And if they do give you an answer, it's going to be an answer from another worldview. It's going to be you know, maybe this.

Dwight Vogt 38:40

Well, what is the answer, Luke?

Scott Allen 38:41

Well, what are some principles that connect to that question?

Luke Allen 38:45

I love this question. That's something I've thought a lot about. Yeah, I mean, well, if I go out and I ask people on the street around me, I'm going to get answers like well, it's for my self-betterment, it's for my mental health. It's for my, you know, feel comfortable in my own skin. Very me, me, me, me me. It's this hyper individualism obviously behind that, A lot of those kind of we all know those kind of answers, right, but what's the Christian answer?

Luke Allen 39:12

Well, you got to go we were talking to Bob Moffitt a few weeks ago. He's big on teaching. Okay, if we're going to learn how to grow as humans into the fullest sense of what a human it should be, the ideal human, let's look at Jesus.

Scott Allen 39:24

He was the ideal human.

Luke Allen 39:25

How did Jesus grow it? It should be the ideal human. Let's look at Jesus. He was the ideal human. How did Jesus grow? It, tells us in Luke 2, 52,. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature in favor with God and man. It doesn't just say in favor with God.

Scott Allen 39:33

It says other categories, like there's only one relationship, my relationship to God, and nothing else matters. Exactly, he grew in wisdom.

Luke Allen 39:40

You're in stature. That's physical fitness, nutrition, all that he grew in favor with God, spiritual favor with man, social. So you, physical fitness, nutrition, all that he grew in favor with god, spiritual favor with man, social. So you have to take into account all of those if you want to become the full human as christ modeled for us. So with that is you know, respect the temple of the holy spirit, respect your body, and do so not for only your own good, even though you should, because your body was given to you by god. It's an art piece that he made, that he asked you to steward and take care of um, but also so that you can help others better. And um, nutrition, fitness, all of that is going to help you be more of a engaged, you know, active, vivacious human that'll serve people better.

Scott Allen 40:17

So yeah, just that simple thought that you know I'm pumping iron here, not just to you know, it's not for selfish ends so I can look really great and attract the babes, but so that I can be strong and ready to protect my family, right? Or something like that maybe. Yeah, go ahead, I was just thinking.

Dwight Vogt 40:32

You know, jesus grew in Luke 2, 52, in those four areas. But then you have to also realize that there's also a purpose behind that. It's not just that he would grow in a nice way, but for why? And you alluded to that already because he came here to seek and to serve the lost. So he came to serve and to love.

Luke Allen 40:53

And yet it's sad when you look around the American church, the amount of you know, I mean we've had people in the DNA come to the US and their takeaway of visiting the US is oh my gosh, you guys are so unhealthy here. You know. Gluttony in the church is completely overlooked.

Scott Allen 41:09

It's not even called a sin. No one names it.

Luke Allen 41:11

People make fun of it and it's just because we don't have this view of the whole human and we look right over it, because we're focused on this one piece. And yet it's yeah, it's called a sin in the Bible.

Dwight Vogt 41:27

And we should have a Go ahead, dwight. It relates to education too. Why do we go to school? Do we go to school? Because, well, we're going to get a good job and we're going to have a good house, and we're going to have a couple of cars, maybe buy a boat. Nothing wrong with all those things. The good things of the world are to be enjoyed as well. But that's not why we get an education. We get an education because God created us to serve and we're here for that purpose. So how are we going to serve the world and use our gifts if we don't educate ourselves and develop?

Scott Allen 42:02

So I think, to summarize what we're saying here, guys, if I could, is we have to understand Christianity, our faith, not as a message of spiritual salvation alone. It certainly encompasses that and that's foundational to it, but it is a comprehensive worldview that's full of all kinds of principles that answer all the big questions about who we are, who's God, what happens after life, what's the purpose of life. We have to understand all of that. We haven't done that. We've gotten out of the practice of doing that. We haven't valued that or seen that as important, much less saying that.

Practical Ways to Discern Truth

Scott Allen 42:36

That's not just important to me, but that's something that I actually need to steward, shepherd, try to bring into the culture around me, because it's what's going to change the culture in positive ways, because there's all sorts of lies, these destructive lies out there as we were talking about with the Black Lives Matter thing that are going to destroy it. So we have to actually go on mission with these things. We have a lot of work to do, but again it starts with we've got to begin to think biblical, you know, from kind of a worldviewishly. Get below the branding. Again, the branding is often very slick and it's very appealing. Get below that, look under the hood. What are the practices? And then, what's driving those practices? What's driving those policies? What are the deeper beliefs behind them?

Scott Allen 43:21

And how do they differ from biblical truth, the biblical principles, and then contend, you know, contend. I think one other piece of the puzzle in terms of thinking critically is, you know, just the definition of words as well, right? So in this case of Black Lives Matter, they used the word justice all the time social justice, justice, justice. So then you had to ask how are they defining that word and how is that definition different than what we get from the Scripture? Because the Scripture uses the word justice and it defines it in a particular way. So that's just another piece of understanding kind of sifting through truth and lies is getting below the level of just the word itself, to how is it being defined, if I could put it that way?

Dwight Vogt 44:06

Yeah, I think you made a good point of that in this last book. You just wrote yeah, because what you're talking about, scott, is words at their essence become our worldview, and our worldview is our words.

Luke Allen 44:17

Correct, exactly.

Dwight Vogt 44:20

And if we don't and that can that's probably the worst form of deception, when you can shift a person's worldview by shifting their definitions of words. And my question to you, scott, is how do you? What's your advice to the average person that says, okay, there's lies on this world. We don't know them because we wear our lenses, you know? For me it was like something's not right here and so we just go look deeper. What's your advice?

Scott Allen 44:45

How do we become?

Dwight Vogt 44:46

aware of these, and how do we then?

Scott Allen 44:48

Well, like I say, dwight, I think that it's hard to get down to the deepest level. You can't see it. We use that illustration of the tree and the worldview. Roots are under the ground. You can't see them, but you can see the practices. And so start with that. What do I see? What's being done, what are the behaviors, what are the practices, what are the policies? That you can see, but then ask questions about it why? Why? Homelessness is a huge issue here right now in Bend, and I can see the practices and the policies that the government is using related to that. I can see it. But then you have to ask the question why? Why those practices, why those policies? And then this is where we have to just get better. As Christians, we have to think worldviewishly. How is it different? How are those ideas, those principle ideas, different from what we would learn in the scriptures, and how would that lead to a different set of policies and practices? What would that look like if that was lived out? Yeah, go ahead.

Dwight Vogt 45:52

And that leads you naturally to what does it mean to be human for the homeless person, and how can we help them become human?

Scott Allen 46:01

So on that particular issue, it all kind of revolves around that you know, I would say Well, dignity agency Agency. That you know, I would say Well, dignity agency Agency, yeah, you know, is a huge one.

Dwight Vogt 46:11

Is this practice, then, addressing and helping and supporting human agency? Yeah, that's what we need to get to Right.

Scott Allen 46:20

I mean, we could talk in depth about this issue in the same way we just did about Black Lives Matter. That might be good. I think the purpose of our podcast today isn't so much to go into depth on all of these issues, but to kind of lay out a kind of a framework for how people can begin to think and, Luke, I know you wanted to.

Scott Allen 46:39

we've got a little bit of time left, right now AI is just a huge ballooning thing, and I think we're watching kind of the same thing that we saw with Black Lives Matter kind of repeating itself with AI this huge new thing in the culture. Now it's coming into the church and you've got Christians kind of like, wow, I'm so excited, this is so wonderful. And others are like, oh my gosh, this is end times, it's going to doom us. You've got all these kind of reactions to it. So the question then becomes how do we begin to think about it? And I think that's the. You know, that's a, you know. I know you want to have that discussion. I want to do that too. Honestly, I don't know the answers, but I feel like I've got a framework for beginning to think about it.

Scott Allen 47:15

And I wonder if we could start talking about that just a little bit in our last bit of time here.

Luke Allen 47:20

Yeah, I was kind of wanting to keep digging into practical ways of how we can do this. Unpack you know things around us and try to infer or figure out the world view that's backing it yeah, I think if we could do this briefly, unpacking, just kind of like how do you unpack a new concept like ai right um, and then we definitely will dedicate a full episode to this in the future and trying to do more of a worldview analysis on it but, when you guys look at ai, you know it's a kind of perfect example, actually, because all the time, as christians, we're going about culture, especially nowadays when there's just we live in such a time of, you know, political polarization and just like things that demand our attention, in a way, and you have to feel like you have an opinion on um confronting us left and right.

Luke Allen 48:00

Um, this is one of those. It's not as polarizing as black lives matter, but it's it's still. How do we think about this? Should we get on board? Should we approve of this? Should be concerned of this?

Dwight Vogt 48:10

um you know how would you?

Luke Allen 48:12

guys go about that kind of just give us like a simple six to ten steps I think it works, the framework, the framework works.

Scott Allen 48:17

What's the branding, what's under the hood, what's the policy practice, and then you can get down to that level of paradigm. So I think we can apply all of that framework to something like artificial intelligence, and definitions too. I mean I almost start with that one when I think of artificial intelligence, just because you've got two words there artificial intelligence. What do they mean by intelligence? That would be a question. And how is that different than wisdom, let's say? I mean, those are questions. And what do they mean by artificial? I understand artificial. When I think of artificial, the first thing that comes to my mind funny enough, is vanilla, because there's real vanilla right that you get from the vanilla bean.

Scott Allen 48:56

It's genuine and it's expensive. And then there's real vanilla right that you get from the vanilla bean. It's genuine and it's expensive. And then there's the stuff that I buy in the grocery store. That's artificial. It's some kind of a chemical, like you know, simulation of it that tastes kind of like it, but it's artificial right.

Dwight Vogt 49:11

Oh, the worst is maple syrup, Scott yeah.

Luke Allen 49:13

It's even worse. Well said, the real thing is so much better, right. It's even worse. Well said, artificial the real thing is so much better, right. It's just expensive. It's kind of true though that works here. It's kind of a cheap knockoff that looks like intelligence. It is intelligent in a way, but it's not actually intelligent in the fact that it's not creating anything new.

Scott Allen 49:34

Well, it begs the question what's the genuine here in this case, luke? Where does genuine intelligence.

Luke Allen 49:38

What is the?

Scott Allen 49:39

genuine yeah, genuine intelligence. If this is artificial, what's the genuine intelligence?

Luke Allen 49:43

well, there's only one genuine intelligence I can create something out of nothing and create true ideas out of nothing and since after him, everyone's just been recreating what he's already created. So that's god.

Scott Allen 49:54

So so just beginning to ask questions about the words kind of gets you into, I think, a critical thinking about what is intelligence?

Dwight Vogt 50:01

I've never actually asked that yeah, I sort of have.

Scott Allen 50:05

But then we can go down to that level of what do we see? How is it being put into practice? You know what? What do we see? Because now we're all kind of beginning to see that you know, and. And then there's policies too. There's a lot of policies that are kind of coming around this as well. So we can think of that. And again, I know we don't have time to do a deep dive in this. I'd like to and let me just be honest, I'll put my cards on the table when we get down to that level of worldview on this one it's fuzzy for me, but I'm really I see enough down there that I'm very concerned about Like wow, we've got some really demonic kind of worldview ideas. I bet when I get down to that level I'm going to see some things that are really wrong and really destructive. But I haven't done that deep dive yet.

The Challenge of Artificial Intelligence

Dwight Vogt 50:51

I mean maybe a little bit, but not yeah, maybe you should, scott, and then come back, because even now you've raised the question for me. I've always thought of AI, really, as I mean there's views of transhumanism and it'll take over the world and it'll run our lives, but then I see it practically as just a tool, ai as a tool. But then you're saying, no, the very word artificial and intelligence tells us something else and I'm thinking, yeah, you need to write an 11th word the definition of intelligence, scott, from a biblical worldview.

Scott Allen 51:23

I mean, here's just what I'm seeing on the surface is well so well. First of all, you have to understand, I guess, a little bit about how this is working, and I don't, but it seems to me that it's just. It works based on this very rapid computation and kind of summarization of all that's out there in the ether, you know, on the internet.

Scott Allen 51:43

Um and humans created what's that that humans created? Yeah, that humans created and that you can query it? Um, and a lot of the, a lot of the, a lot depends on that, like the people that I know that are querying it to chat, gpt or whatever it is. Um, if you, if you, well, first of all, it's, it's super powerful when it comes to like a, like a set of information, usually mathematically, like, like, I think, of chess, right, there's, there's, mathematically, a set number of moves you can make in that chess game, right, and so it's a defined set, and then it could just, it can see all of that you know, and compute the outcome of every one of these moves, like super fast, way faster than we can right. So, in that sense, it's smarter, it's I mean, I don't even like using it's not smarter, but it it's a lot faster when it's a defined set that's mathematical, let's say um, yeah, beats us every time right.

Scott Allen 52:36

And then so there's that's mathematical. Let's say, yeah, beats us every time, right. And then so there's that piece of it, it's a tool. Yeah, it's a tool. And then there's this. You know, if I query it like, I find it very fascinating to query it about what do you mean by discipling? What do we mean by discipling nations? Or you know something? That is a question that we ask all the time, because it'll actually go out and find stuff that we've written.

Scott Allen 52:58

That's out there on the internet and then come back with this like powerful little summary of that.

Scott Allen 53:03

Or you could even compare it, like I've noticed people comparing how does discipling nations, what does it mean to disciple nations, and how is that similar or different from what Nancy Peercy wrote about in her book Total Truth? Like, those answers that you get back are really fascinating, often really helpful, but you're giving it like a defined kind of set of information to look at. But when you get down to the deep questions of worldview, this is where I get more nervous, like if you just queried it and you asked it. Like one of the deep worldview questions is what does it mean to be human? Or who is God? What is God? I don't know. What answers are you going to get? You know?

Luke Allen 53:40

And are those biased towards what they think you're going to like to hear?

Scott Allen 53:42

Well, maybe, luke, and if that's the case, then couldn't you query it to say, without biasing it, in favor of what you think I want to hear, what is God? See, this is where I think we're going to run into problems with it, because it's going to come up with something that people have thought about that. But the only true source of wisdom and knowledge about this thing comes from the Holy Scriptures. Right, I mean, that is the ultimate font of wisdom, because it comes from God himself. It's his revealed word.

Scott Allen 54:15

But AI is going to differentiate, it's going to deviate from that, you know, at different points, right?

Luke Allen 54:20

so at that deep worldview level almost, exactly because you're running into one of its blind spots, which is ai cannot do morality, ai does not know love. Ai cannot do goodness those, but those are deep worldview things there, right? Yeah, exactly. Well, like people are freaking out that it's speaking, it's going to become its own mind of its own you know, person, kind of a human, human being, like kind of person like you can talk to it like a human, because it's forming thoughts so quick that it seems like you're talking to a sentient human being.

Scott Allen 54:50

Yeah, just pause there for a second, because what there's an idea behind that that's really profound. And the idea behind that is that there is no—I mean the worldview idea is there is no God. We are evolved creatures and consequently we ourselves, human beings, are just computational beings and creatures, we're just material, computational beings. If that worldview belief is true which it's not, but if it is true, then of course you could create potentially a computer, a system that is in every way just like us, because that's not. But if it is true, then of course you could create potentially a computer, a system that is in every way just like us, because that's all we are right. And then the answer to that is, or the response from the Christian to that, is that's a lie. We are not just materially evolved creatures, right, we are creations of a God. You know we're made in His image. You know we can't be reduced to just matter in motion, computational beings. If we could, then you could potentially create an ai that was sentient.

Luke Allen 55:44

If you will go ahead, luke yeah, that's another way to dig into the worldview behind something is look at the creators, look at the founders what's their worldview?

Scott Allen 55:51

where are they exactly?

Luke Allen 55:52

yeah and a lot of these guys are really excited about this idea of the post-human, which is this sentient being that's going to transcend humans and become our kind of like next evolved state. You can't do that, so good luck trying, but you're so right, luke who are those people that are really the key players, the key thinkers in this.

Scott Allen 56:11

Just like we were talking about Black Lives Matter, you could identify the three ladies that founded that organization. Who trained them? What shaped them? How did they think that's really key at getting at truth, and so we would have to do the same thing here with artificial intelligence, people like Elon Musk and all of these people in Silicon Valley and other places. Right, what's their worldview? What's shaping them? I don't know. That's where I don't know, but those are the questions I would ask exactly.

Dwight Vogt 56:44

I think that's the next podcast we should probably invite an ai expert to talk to us as well, that'd be nice.

Scott Allen 56:47

Yeah, I really, yeah, I, I, I would love to to go deeper on this. I um go find a move I have an idea of someone. Yeah, yeah, okay, we'll have to get him on I know there's a, there's a book, um, and a christian who's done. I'm trying to think of his name.

Conclusion and Next Steps

Scott Allen 56:59

The book is called dark aeon and it came out about a year ago. Um, a christian who's thought very deeply, and I thought I would use him as a kind of a sherpa, kind of a guide, you know, uh, not that he is going to have everything perfectly sorted himself, but sometimes it's helpful to get these guides. You know who've done, who, they've gone ahead of you, they've done some thinking, written books, and I thought that that's a book I need to read, you know for sure, and we all do, because we this artificial intelligence is massive.

Scott Allen 57:26

It's going to have huge changes for us all.

Dwight Vogt 57:29

Give me the name and I'll buy the book it's called dark aeon by joe allen, and joe allen?

Scott Allen 57:34

yeah, joe, exactly. He often writes at Federalist and other places.

Luke Allen 57:38

Aeon A-E-O-N. What's the subtitle of that book, Luke? Transhumanism and the War Against Humanity Wow.

Scott Allen 57:45

Yeah, I thought that I've heard him talk. He's really a deep thinker, he's done a lot of research and I thought he'd be a good Sherpa kind of guide to kind of get into this version but, anyway, it's on my reading list.

Dwight Vogt 57:59

God.

Scott Allen 58:02

I think our time's up. I think you're right. Yes, Dwight, do you have other things you got to get to today? Well, this has been a fantastic discussion. Guys are really appreciated being able to kind of talk these things through with you and, again for our listeners, thank you for tuning in. I hope it's been helpful for you as well. We have to get better at this. We are not experts ourselves, but we're just trying to learn and grow ourselves in this. So, anyways, thanks for tuning in and we look forward to having you back on another episode of Ideas have Consequences. The podcast of the Disciple Nations.

Luke Allen 58:32

Hey guys, thank you so much for listening to this episode.

Luke Allen 58:35

I hope that this discussion was helpful for you.

Luke Allen 58:37

Like we were saying right there at the end, we will continue this discussion on AI on next week's podcast here on Ideas have Consequences, so stay tuned.

Luke Allen 58:46

If you guys could give me 30 seconds of your time before we wrap up today, I recently noticed that a majority of you guys listening have not subscribed or followed this podcast on Apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you're listening to this podcast right now. So if you wouldn't mind just heading over to the podcast app that you're listening on and tap that follow or subscribe button. That really helps us as we continue to try to grow this show, bring on more interesting guests and put more of our time and attention into bringing you new topics each week. Like I said during the commercial, if you would like to learn more about a worldview, and specifically a biblical worldview, and, as such, become more aware of the competing worldviews around you and therefore become more aware of the lies or sins that you might be complacent in because of those worldviews, then I would highly recommend going and checking out our short video on our YouTube that is called why Does your Worldview Matter.

Luke Allen 59:32

It's about four and a half minutes long and it really does do a great job of explaining this concept to you in simple terms, and if you've already seen it, then I would encourage you to share it with a friend. Again. That video is linked in the show notes or you can just go search it on YouTube. That's it, guys. Thanks again for your time today. We always really appreciate you guys for spending your time with us here on Ideas have Consequences. Thank you.