Weekly Cultural Update: Legal Protections for Polyamory; Parents Suing Over Bad Grades; Is AI Able to Read Minds?; Parents May Face Jail for Saying No to Gender Transition

Episode Transcript

Sean McDowell: [upbeat music] West Hollywood approves domestic partnership registry for polyamorous people. Some parents are suing schools because their kids get bad grades. Has AI unlocked the ability to read minds? And could parents in the UK face jail time for saying no to gender transition? These are the stories we'll discuss, and we'll also address some of your questions. I'm your host, Sean McDowell.

Scott Rae: I'm your co-host, Scott Rae.

Sean McDowell: This is the Think Biblically weekly cultural update, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. Scott, I'm so glad you sent me this first story. I had tracked this a little bit and was aware of it, but some of the details here I think are very significant that we need to stop and think about. So this article, says, "West Hollywood has become," and this is in the LA Times, "has become the latest city to create a domestic partnership registry for polyamorous relationships, with the city's five-person city council unanimously approving the legal protections for alternative family structures. The ordinance, which was approved Tuesday, introduced by Mayor John Heilman, allows people to register their multi-partner relationships with the city, giving them rights to hospital visitation and additional tenant protections and other benefits." Now, it's not identical in scope to some with marriage and state domestic partnerships, but they say, "It's an important step to remove barriers to allow adults who are romantically or otherwise committed to more than one person who face limitations in housing, healthcare, et cetera." Now, what's really interesting is this Kristina Fialho, who's from the bisexual media representation kind of advocacy group, she says, "This law is just the beginning. I think it makes it possible for people to dream about a future they once thought was out of reach." now they have to meet certain basic requirements, which I found fascinating. Part of my question reading this was what limitations were going [chuckles] to be put on these groups? And one is that it has to be consensual and that they are not related by blood. Now, of course, the question is how far can they not be related by blood? But we'll keep going. This individual I cited earlier said, you know, it allows, it can help others, quote, "legitimize their relationships," which is very interesting. And then one bisexual woman who was interviewed about this said the registry option helps her feel protected. Now, one other point I'll throw in here and then would love your thoughts. This is not the first city to do so. So there's certain Massachusetts cities, Somerville and Cambridge several years ago, which is interesting that Massachusetts was ahead of this 'cause they were the first or one of the first in the early 2000s with same-sex marriage. We had Bay Area cities like Berkeley and Oakland. Oregon cities like Portland and Astoria as well as Olympia, Washington, have similar protections. So tell me what you make about this.

Scott Rae: Well, Sean, this is not a surprise.

Sean McDowell: Agreed.

Scott Rae: My question is what took so long?

Sean McDowell: Okay. All right.

Scott Rae: I'm surprised it took as long as it did.

Sean McDowell: Interesting.

Scott Rae: My other question is and what's next? Now, see, it looks to me like they are following the same playbook as the same-sex marriage advocates 10-plus years ago, and by incremental changes and hoping to sway public opinion at the same time. That this is just an alternative family structure. And I think, actually, they're actually being consistent with the autonomy basis for same-sex marriage.

Sean McDowell: Mm-hmm.

Scott Rae: Because they're, you know, limiting the number of partners that you have the autonomy to love and be committed to to one is completely arbitrary. And if autonomy really is the order of the day, then there's no reason why this can't be, you know, multiple people, not just, you know, maybe not just a threesome or a foursome, but multiple folks.

Sean McDowell: Mm-hmm.

Scott Rae: Now if... But I think to be clear, too, if marriage is the end game with the protections of marriage, then we've moved from, technically from polyamory to polygamy. So they're two somewhat different things. Now, it remains to be seen whether that will end up being a distinction without a difference- ... Which I say is quite possible.

Sean McDowell: Okay.

Scott Rae: Yeah, so the For now, this is just a registry. It's not a civil union. It's not a domestic partnership. It's certainly not marriage. But it's the easiest incremental step, first step that they could get.

Scott Rae: Now I think, you know, in my view, Sean, this is not a bad thing, that people who are in these arrangements, can't be subject to certain types of discrimination. I think it's okay. This is, I'd say no harm, no foul when allowing, you know, hospital visitation-

Sean McDowell: Okay

Scott Rae: ... You know, things like that. You know, and I think as long, you know, parents can authorize different people to do school pickups for kids. That's not unusual. It's not, doesn't have to be a parent to do that. So I, you know, I don't know enough about the housing and lease provisions to know what kind of difference that gun- that's gonna make. But my interest and what we've, what we've, we'll promise our listeners, is to keep track of what the next step is gonna be. And I assure you there is going to be a next step.

Sean McDowell: [laughs]

Scott Rae: Make no doubt about it. I, this is, I, this is precisely the same playbook. So anyway, that's just, that's a start. And well, I'm interested to hear. I although I think your take on this I think may be somewhat predictable.

Sean McDowell: Okay. Now I'm-

Scott Rae: Maybe maybe a bit like mine

Sean McDowell: ... I'm tempted to ask you, that we've done this for so many years, to give my take, but I won't put you on the spot. You can tell me if it's predictable or not. But I will say a few things about this Though some of the words jumped out to me, 'cause when this is passed, I'm asking why is this being passed? What's the justification being put forth? And I read this earlier, but I wanna kind of bring it together about quoting somebody who says, "I dream about a future that I thought was once out of reach. Second, to legitimize their relationship, and third, to help individuals feel protected." in many ways, this is about the feelings of people and their experience who are in these kinds of relationships rather than two things: what actually is marriage, why is the state in the marriage business, and what's best for kids? There's nothing mentioned here about kids. Now, there's a big difference between saying somebody who's in this relationship in a pluralist society like the US who says, "I want somebody else to pick up my kid at school." Like, that's something fine. You know, the parents can control that. But when you start legalizing and giving certain protections for, say, hospital visits, what comes along with that are certain protections in the home for other adults to be there and live there, and we know hands down this is not best for kids. Well, on a number of reasons, but even just on the level of the likelihood that a young person is going to be abused, it's another adult in the home who's not biologically related to them. So I'm back. You probably thought I was gonna mention this, but the reas- [laughs]

Scott Rae: I I knew, I knew kids were gonna be at the forefront

Sean McDowell: It had to.

Scott Rae: Yeah.

Sean McDowell: And this is the influence of Katie Faust in Them Before Us, she's been our program a few times, and says we look at these kind of movements from same-sex marriage, now to protections for polyamorous relationships, through the lens of adults and what they want to experience and be happy and feel protected, not through the lens of kids

Scott Rae: Right, with the justification that kids are resilient.

Sean McDowell: It... That's exactly right. And by the way, to make that point, that's what we are told when it came to divorce. Kids are resilient, what's best for parents, and then what followed after that, "Oh, there's a lot more damage and effects from easy access, no-fault divorce than we anticipated." So I just... I hope somebody hears this. I don't have a ton of confidence in this before it's too late, and I'd encourage people to behind this to say, "Let's ask first what is best for kids." And I'd like to see the data that kids flourish not only as not just better, but just as well as they do in a two-parent household. And before you can demonstratively, before you can give that, you've got to show that evidence demonstratively before we make such a radical shift to what we consider sanctioned relationships for the sake of the kids. So that's my general take.

Scott Rae: Yeah. You know, those three things you mentioned, what the supporters want, which is protection, a sense of validation-

Sean McDowell: Mm-hmm

Scott Rae: ... I forget the third, but, that that's exact... I mean, you could, you could have read those out of the same-sex marriage advocates more than a decade ago.

Sean McDowell: That's right.

Scott Rae: Because it's precisely the same thing. Now, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't want people to feel like they're stigmatized for some of the choices that they make. But I do think that we're we're entering into, I think, you know, the bringing- we're bringing complicated things into relationships that are complicated enough already, and the risk, I think is, for kids, is it is bringing something that will will destabilize the home front and the home environment for kids. Now, I think you're right. Let's see what the data is. We already know the data on marriage for adults.

Sean McDowell: That's right. That's right.

Scott Rae: That's pretty clear, that the biblical notion of marriage is actually the thing that contributes to longevity, to mental health, to life satisfaction, to kids flourishing better than any other family arrangement we've come up with. And so that's... The part about the kids is the disturbing part of this. And I, you know, and part of what makes me nervous about this, Sean, is that we probably won't have enough evidence on this until it's too late for some

Sean McDowell: That's right

Scott Rae: ... For some of these kids. And so, you know, I think this, is where it's going. In fact, I think this is... I don't, I don't know if this is, quite yet the same kind of runaway train that same-sex marriage was, but I could see it barreling down the same tracks.

Sean McDowell: It's certainly logically on the same slope. Whether it'll have the same cultural speed remains to be seen. I think there's a basic question we have to ask. Why has the state got behind natural marriage, man-woman marriage in the first place? Why does the state care about that relationship? And it was never about making somebody feel good. It was never about [laughs] them feeling respected from society. It was for the main reason that it's actually that natural union that produces kids and citizens that are most likely to be productive, healthy, not commit crimes as a whole. So the state has interest in that. Louise Perry's book, where she wrote The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, has a section in there specifically talking about how the monogamous molecule... Or molecule. [laughs] The monogamous... That's a separate issue. The monogamous model has positive implications for economics in a state. And so if we say, "What's the best economically for a state?" we'd say one man and one woman married to each other for life. You don't even have to use the Bible or natural law to get there. You just look at economics. This is going to undermine that. So the state should be against it if it's looking at the data of what's best for kids, the data of what's best economically. But I fear, as we saw at least in the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell, a lot of what drove this was just making people feel a certain way, and that concerns me moving forward.

Scott Rae: Well, that's quite consistent with our autonomy-driven culture.

Sean McDowell: That's right.

Scott Rae: That I have a right to feel the way I'm, feel like I'm entitled to feel. And the state and because that autonomy is so much a part of my identity, the state is obligate... It becomes a political issue that involves the state invariably. And I think the, this is, this is another area where the needs and wants of adults is taking priority over the interests of kids.

Sean McDowell: That's exactly right.

Scott Rae: And I think this, the onus, I think, is on the supporters of this to show that, you know, what these arrangements are not harmful to kids. I don't think they can do that. But, again, I think the sad part of this is that, you know, it'll take a decade to establish reliable data on this, and we'll have a, you know, we'll have a, you know, a small generation of kids who will have already been affected by this.

Sean McDowell: Two quick thoughts, by the way, and maybe we differ on this one, is you said you don't want certain people to be stigmatized. I actually think for the sake of the kids, certain relationships should be stigmatized, and there should be a sense of cultural shame if we're really asking what is best for kids first. So I don't really have a problem with that. I'm not judging somebody's heart, not trying to attack them, take away their rights to live that way. But if this is what's best for kids, best for society, I'd make a case that we should be in favor of that, and maybe at times stigmatize relationships that fall outside of it. But second, the other point here, I think your question, which I think is right, what's coming next, is kind of hinted at in this very article. It says, "They must meet certain basic requirements, such as the relationship is consensual." I don't see that changing anytime soon, that the state would be in favor of non-consensual relationships. But it says that they are not related by blood. My question is, why? Why stigmatize people who are related by blood? You could use all the same arguments here for them, and if they said, "Well, that might lead towards unhealthy children," then you also bring in the effect on kids that you and I have been talking about. But

Scott Rae: That, that's the reason

Sean McDowell: ... That's why they don't do it. And by the way, you know, we've talked about this. You can have sex without kids, and you can have kids without sex. So you could have this relationship and protect that harm from it. So I want to know why they're so bigoted and not in favor of people who are related by blood.

Scott Rae: Yeah, I think it's-

Sean McDowell: That's what I want to know

Scott Rae: ... It's the genetic risk to kids is what's driving that. Whether that's gonna change or not, you know, given how distant the relatives might ... Well, remains to be seen.

Sean McDowell: But of course, there's ways around that, so... But anyways, I think we've made our point. Let's move on to this next story that also [laughs] it surprised me in one way, but it didn't. When I came across this in the Wall Street Journal, it says the parents suing schools because their kids got bad grades. Now, this is a story out of Palo Alto, California. When this individual saw a report card saying her son needed to work on, quote, "cooperating with others," the Silicon Valley mom demanded it be changed. When the school district declined, she called a lawyer. Now, if this were only one case, I would not have picked this, but the article gives a number of different cases of people not happy with either a grade that they get or something put on a report card that they complain against. So when what began last fall as a playground spat between third graders, so we're not talking high school ... [laughs] elementary school here, Scott, has escalated into a courtroom brawl. A lawsuit filed in October, this individual calls the teacher's comments inaccurate and unsubstantiated, asking a judge to order the district to rehear her case. There was a time when parents disciplined children, the article says, for bringing home bad marks, bad grades. Today, they often make a more adversarial, they take a more adversarial approach, educators say, leaning on teachers and administrators to change grades in disputes that can even spill into court. So apparently, four in 10 American teachers report facing pressure from moms and dads to change grades, according to a 2024 study. But what's interesting is affluent parents, teachers noted, were far more likely to complain. That's an interesting piece of this. There was a story earlier this year we didn't talk about, but it was on my consideration list, that in Nashville, Tennessee, there was a teacher of the year became an internet sensation when she quit. Her resignation letter accused district officials of fabricating a grade to appease an irate parent whose child had repeatedly failed to turn in an art assignment in Hardcastle's class at John F. Kennedy Middle School. Now, I don't know all the details about this, but if that's true in the way it was reported, part of me goes, "She is a hero. Good for her for standing up for this." So there's other examples. Again, I'll just give one more. In a recent case, the, this founder of a CEO of a Silicon Valley AI startup sued the Palo Alto School District after AI detection software flagged an essay his son turned in as 76% AI. 76%. The 10th grade English teacher let him redo the assignment, which by the way, is already going over the top [laughs]

Scott Rae: Yes

Sean McDowell: ... Probably more generous-

Scott Rae: Yes

Sean McDowell: ... Than you should, and then he redid it, but got a worse grade, interestingly enough. And this guy fights back with a 1,100-page packet that eventually gets a lawyer, and we see the, where these kind of things are going. And the article says it's not just in Palo Alto. This is a trend that seems to be seeping out. What's your take on this?

Scott Rae: Well, Sean, my first question on this was, whose responsibility ultimately is it to educate my kids? It's not the school's. It's my wife and I. It is, it, we are ultimately the ones who are responsible for our kids' education. Now I get it. You know, you've had your kids in private schools.

Sean McDowell: Yeah.

Scott Rae: You pay tuition for that. You have an expectation that you'll get your money's worth.

Sean McDowell: Sure.

Scott Rae: Or you, or you walk away and go to another option. My kids all went to public schools. I still pay for public schools every year with property taxes. Even-

Sean McDowell: So do I, by the way, I

Scott Rae: Understand.

Sean McDowell: [laughs]

Scott Rae: That yes, that's another story for another day. You know, and my last kid graduated from high school and-

Sean McDowell: [laughs]

Scott Rae: ... You know, more than a decade ago.

Sean McDowell: Fair enough.

Scott Rae: And I think there is some accountability when you pay for an education that you have a right to expect. I say even indirectly. But this strikes me as helicopter parenting that is, in my view, is crippling a kid's ability to face life on their own. I love what the, you know, the Hardcastle teacher you describe. You know, she put it like this. There's no accountability for students, so they learn that it doesn't matter what their work ethic is. That's what an important lesson. She said that, she said, "That's going to be a tough lesson when they get into the real world and realize it doesn't work that way."

Sean McDowell: Yeah.

Scott Rae: And I think it's super important, I think, for kids to learn that life is not always fair.

Scott Rae: And that sometimes life's not fair, it's not your fault. But, you know, equipping kids to persevere through adversity is one of the most important lessons that they need to learn because that's what, that's what the real world is like, I think more so now than ever.

Scott Rae: You know, we, I, we, you know, I suspect, you know, some of our listeners can relate to this, you know, having a teacher that has, you know, had it out for one of your kids, you know, who treated them unfairly. And you know, we had that happen with one of our kids. We never thought about intervening. Not to mention we never thought about suing. You know, that never crossed our mind. But it never, it never occurred to us, though we, though we were annoyed with it never occurred to us to intervene with that. And I would say an elementary school notation on a kid's report card is not gonna impact their college admission.

Sean McDowell: Oh my goodness.

Scott Rae: And I would say even the article points out that the, you know, what's driving this is the restricted admissions now to more elite colleges. Think you and I would suggest that the, that attending an elite college is definitely overrated- ... As far as your career and life prospects go. And I would say there are, you know, there are a number of Ivy League schools that I would never send my kids to, for what they're, what they're gonna get.

Scott Rae: Now, I don't, I don't want to be in a position where I am shielding my kids from adversity. Now, I granted, you know, I don't, I don't want them, I don't want them to make, you know, life-altering mistakes at that age if I can help it, and if I can help soften the blow of some of those, I think that's probably worthwhile. But I think shielding them from most adversity that they will face is counterproductive for the lessons they need to learn to grow up effectively.

Sean McDowell: Well said. Agree with that. I I have so many different thoughts of this. I'll narrow them down. One is I I kinda think this is what happens when accomplishment gets ahead of character.

Scott Rae: That's a good word.

Sean McDowell: This is a clear example of, like, accomplishment, success in the world's eyes, job, pay is more important than virtue and character. Then parents are gonna come and sue in third grade to get the end results that they want rather than thinking through, "This is a chance to help my kid deal with conflict, help my kid deal with disappointment, help my kid deal with failure." I remember there are plenty of times where my parents talking, they're like, "You know what? This is kind of the way life is, and it's not right what happened to you, but it's not the only time it's gonna happen. How do we-"

Scott Rae: Right

Sean McDowell: "... Put this before the Lord? How do we do this?" And even non-Christians, [laughs] like they might not put it before the Lord, but you've got to learn that you can't control everything in life, and things are unfair. So in some ways, I see this kind of as a sign of the times that, A, we want to control so many different things, and we think we can control so many different things. And it's like we're living through our kids and committed more to the end outcome of our kids getting the best college, best pay, best job, more than the kinds of people they become. This follows from it

Scott Rae: ... Because it reflects better on the parents-

Sean McDowell: Yeah, I think that's-

Scott Rae: ... When that happens

Sean McDowell: ... I think that's a huge, a huge piece of it.

Scott Rae: Let me, let me ask you something.

Sean McDowell: Yeah.

Scott Rae: Did you ever have parents call you about grades that you gave their kid, when you were teaching in high school?

Sean McDowell: Well, I appreciate you asking high school, 'cause I've had one parent reach out to me in 14 years at Biola. Not grad students. I've never had one. I would lose my mind if it was a grad student. And I just kindly said, "Thanks for caring. Please have your child..." Or I didn't say child. "Please have your son or daughter reach to me directly." Bam, it was done. High school, Bible's a little different than, say, like my wife taught math. 'Cause Bible counts at some private schools, but not at, like, certain UC schools, so there's a little less vested there. But I can tell you there-

Scott Rae: Did she have people calling her about math grades?

Sean McDowell: Oh, yeah. She certainly faced pressure to change math grades and to compromise, and, she just refused to do it because she's a principled-

Scott Rae: Mm-hmm

Sean McDowell: ... Math teacher. She prepares and refused to give in. I think what happens is here's a, here's a ... Analogy. Like my son's 14 years old, and the idea of giving him a phone anytime with whatever restrictions are lacking, kids want it as soon as they can. It's so much easier to just give the phone and not fight the battles and be told you're the worst parent [laughs] ever. And all our kids, I love them to death. We have amazing relationships, but they told us that at different moments 'cause they were some of the last in their class at a private-

Scott Rae: Right

Sean McDowell: ... Christian school to get a phone. I think what's happening is there's more and more parents who are speaking up, demanding certain things, and as this article says, it tends to be in places where parents have more money 'cause they probably have more resources, and probably in private schools, and it's easier for administration, it's easier for teachers to just give in and not fight those battles. That's why this teacher who literally, I mean, I don't know all the details, but if you're teacher of the year and you're like, "The administration is pressuring me to change a grade, that goes against everything I stand for as an educator. I'm out," if all those facts are true, that person's a hero. That person is a hero to me.

Scott Rae: I've had, I've had one parent call me.

Sean McDowell: Here? [laughs]

Scott Rae: Here.

Sean McDowell: Okay.

Scott Rae: For an, for an undergrad student, and, the student attended, he attended class on the first day and on the last day.

Sean McDowell: Oh my goodness.

Scott Rae: And in fact, he showed up on the last day, he showed up at the end of class, not at the beginning, but at the end, didn't turn in any work, didn't show up any of those times in between, and came to me at the last, at right at the end of class on the last day, begging me to let him complete all the work for the full semester during finals week.

Sean McDowell: Wow.

Scott Rae: And of course, I said no. I said, "For one, I think that's sort of, that's physically impossible to do that." But then that afternoon, his mom called me, and I thought, "Oh, great. This is exactly what I don't need today." But I got the surprise of my life when she said, "Don't under any circumstances let him get away with this."

Sean McDowell: Good for her.

Scott Rae: "Throw the book at him because he's-"

Sean McDowell: Wow

Scott Rae: ... He's been pulling this stuff all his life, and nobody's calling on him, calling him on it."

Sean McDowell: I love that.

Scott Rae: And I thought, "Hooray. Some, a parent who who gets it right." And, he's, you know, he had developed some really destructive habits, you know, thinking that he could, you know, basically ignore, you know, the consequences of not doing work, you know, when it was due and all the, all the way through the semester. And he'd obviously pulled this off with several other classes in high school.

Sean McDowell: And they didn't wanna fight it and just let it go. That's probably what it is. My parents and I didn't always like it at the time, but they would assume the teacher was right as opposed to a, well, third grader or a 12-year-old or a high school student, unless shown that the teacher was out of bounds. And there's a few times where I go, "Okay, this teacher's wrong. I got your back." But they would give the benefit of the doubt as the authority and back up the teacher insofar as it was reasonable. I wish every parent would do that rather than we're seeing an increase, if this article is right, on people, especially with resources and funds, demanding that teachers bow down to them and see themselves as, you know, just, "I get what I want, and I have power over you 'cause I pay tuition." That's nonsense. That's ridiculous, and I think you're right, undermining character of somebody in the long run. All right, good word. We're gonna shift radically to this article in The New York Times-

Scott Rae: [laughs]

Sean McDowell: ... That totally caught my mind, and it sounds like it caught yours as well, about whether AI is now enabling us to read minds. And this actually dropped right before we recorded this, and the, it's an opinion piece. It says, "The possibility we could one day read one another's minds is more real than ever, thanks to rapid advancements in AI. The technology's moving fast, and the paranoia that science may open up the inner recesses of our minds to manipulation no longer seems outlandish." Now, this individual gives an example that he was at, he or she was at Cornell University, he, and spent three hours over two days strapped into this MRI-type machine that shows changes in blood flow in the brain. And then individual boring pictures were shown to him, pictures of, like, trees and cars and airplanes, and then they would assess how his blood flow shifted in light of these images. Well, it turns out that they wouldn't have known this, but this individual was in art school, and he was taught to kind of slow down and deliberately look at certain pictures and draw out of them. And while he's in this machine, it elicited more of a neurological response than would have been typical for a boring picture. And he says, quote, "This rattled me." He's like, "Wait a minute. How could they know some of my own thoughts?" Now, right away, we're noticing a huge disconnect here I want to circle back to.

Scott Rae: Mm-hmm.

Sean McDowell: But just one more example. There's this Alex, Huth, Alex Huth, who's doing some research. He spent this past several years building systems that reconstruct language from brain activity. In one demo, a participant silently narrates using only thoughts a story being heard in a podcast, while a screen shows an AI model textually reconstructing the narrative based on the person's MRI data, so like the brain blood flow we talked about earlier. In another one, they they watch clips of an animated video of a dragon in the scanner, and AI uses the neural activity to describe through text the action in the clip on a second monitor. Now the individual goes through other examples here that we don't have to walk through, but points out, for example, like how you can point lasers at the brain of a mice and make them, quote, "see certain things." And since they're similar between mice and human beings, could they manipulate our brains and make us see things? Which raises the question, could we then see things and manipulate our brains? Could you, like, reverse engineer somebody's brain or mind? That's where the concern comes into play here. Now, I think they're hugely overplaying their hand and concern in this, but give me your take on this.

Scott Rae: Well, I I think this is both exciting and terrifying at the same time.

Sean McDowell: Oh, so it does concern you. Okay.

Scott Rae: I say exciting because of what we continue to learn about the brain.

Sean McDowell: Okay.

Scott Rae: Terrifying because my private thoughts may no longer be entirely my own- ... If this continues to develop like they think it will. And so I want-- my questions are, you know, what does this cons- do to our concept of a right to privacy, religious freedom, rights of conscience? I think it potentially threatens them and gives new meaning to the idea of thinking out loud.

Sean McDowell: [laughs]

Scott Rae: Which which you may actually be thinking out loud without verbalizing things. And I think, you know, again, this is under the assumption that it does develop like they think it's going to. It takes away something, I think, significant about being human, which is being in process, thinking through things, sort of discipling our thoughts. You know, I wonder if it could help people reach into their subconscious to, you know, to treat PTSD or to get at deep wounds. So maybe a bit-

Sean McDowell: Mm-hmm

Scott Rae: ... Like what I, maybe I'd refer to it like hypnosis on steroids. So, you know, something like that. So again, there's this is just in its infancy, and where it goes, I think is up for grabs at the moment. But, you know, one of the researchers here called it his Oppenheimer moment. When he, started connecting the dots in the same way Robert Oppenheimer did when he realized what the atomic bomb was actually capable of doing. So we'll-- I think we'll see. And I think there's... You know, I wanna hear your take on this, but I got a little bit more to say about, you know, where, how we might think about this metaphysically-

Sean McDowell: Oh, okay, good

Scott Rae: ... In terms of the brain and the mind and, you know, things like that. But-

Sean McDowell: I suspect our-

Scott Rae: You're on first

Sean McDowell: ... I suspect our thoughts are similar on that. So I think in this very first experiment at Cornell University, when he is thinking about what they assumed would be boring images, and has more of a reaction to that because of the way he was trained in art school, this shocked him, or by his own admission, says this rattled him 'cause it made him think, "Wait a minute, can they kind of read my mind?" Well, to me, the only way they would know what is actually happening in his mind and why it reacted this way is by asking him. [laughs] There's no other way they would know this. They couldn't read the brain and go, "Oh, you were trained in art school to think differently about this." They're reading flow, like blood flow, and when it increases, they know that the person is being stimulated in some fashion. What you can't see from the blood flow is the content of that or why that's causing it, and that's because blood flow in the brain is accessible from third person from the outside, but first person awareness of the content of my thoughts is only known by the individual soul, and you can only figure this out by asking me, and I reveal that to you. It seems to me that what's different here is now AI can do a better job than we've ever been able to to associate certain blood flow reactions and that in ways we maybe couldn't discern or in numbers we couldn't assess before to give us better odds at correlating what's going on, but still not reading somebody's mind. And I don't think that barrier will ever be crossed if there really is a soul and we have first person awareness in the way I described it.

Scott Rae: Right. And that, you started me down the path I was gonna go

Sean McDowell: I thought maybe so [laughs]

Scott Rae: ... Anyway. But I think it's really important to recognize that our, we are not our brain.

Sean McDowell: That's right.

Scott Rae: And the mind and the brain are two different things. The mind is the place where we have this, you know, first person experience. And we have, you know, we have capacities associated with remembering and feeling and intending things and even consciousness, that first person awareness and experience. And, so it's, you know, what happens in the brain when I experience love, for example, they can, they can tell, they can tell us more about how the brain reacts to that. But from that, it's a huge jump to understand what it means to experience love, in that first, in that first person experience. Now, the, brain, you know, the brain is the means by which we actualize many of the capacities of our soul. That's true. But if we, if we lost half of our brain function, we wouldn't be half of a person. We would be a whole person who's lost half of their brain function, and that's a real, that's a really important distinction because I think we often, I think, use the brain and the mind interchangeably.

Sean McDowell: That's right.

Scott Rae: And metaphysically, they're not the, they are not the same thing.

Sean McDowell: And by the way, before you keep going, we've actually seen people lose, like, half of their brain, but they don't lose exactly half of their mental capacity.

Scott Rae: That's also true.

Sean McDowell: Sometimes the mind can compensate in ways which means we can't be reduced just down to the brain.

Scott Rae: Yeah, no, we, I, we had a, we had a patient that I consulted on their case with who was in a, in a very serious, in a very serious accident. They suffered a, they suffered what they thought was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. It actually destroyed part of the brain, but what it did is it triggered something else in the brain that seemed to alleviate a lot of her depression. And she was, she was much happier, impaired, but much happier. And so I think the mind actually did compensate-

Sean McDowell: Huh

Scott Rae: ... For what was, what was diminished now in the brain. Anyway, I think you know, neuroscience can investigate the question about what happens in the brain when I experience love or something else, because it can associate, it can identify the neurological processes that associate with love or whatever the emotion is. But the second, what does it mean to experience love, raises lots of philosophical questions that the neuroscientists can't really answer about consciousness, objective experience, meaning, intentionality. Those, and those are, those are two radically different things.

Sean McDowell: I love that. You know, it's interesting, Tuesday night I was out with, some of the Living Water guys, Ray Comfort's ministry, and Mark Spence out at Huntington Beach Pier. We go set up a booth, invite people to the mic, and have conversations with them. It's amazing evangelism. And a girl, 18 years old, came up. She had a snake around her neck.

Scott Rae: [laughs]

Sean McDowell: All black, piercings, and we had a wonderful conversation, and she was an atheist. And one of the things that she kinda got at is just material things are all that's real. I said, "Do you think you have free will and make choices?" She said, "Of course." I said, "How do you explain that in material terms?" Because material things are acted upon by the environment. It takes a self to think and choose to act within its material environment, and it's hard to reduce things like thoughts and ideas and beliefs down to matter. They're actually immaterial. And she pushed back. She's like, "Well, you know, certain neurons can transform into thought." I said, "Slow down."

Scott Rae: [laughs]

Sean McDowell: You're saying so quickly something physical into something non-physical and immaterial. It sounds easy if you say it quickly, but that's a metaphysical gap that you can't just assume. Like, if you shuffle red beads around, you're not just gonna get blue to show up. There's an objective difference there, although from matter to something immaterial, it's greater than from red to blue. And at the end, she kinda saw that, and that's what this article makes it sound like. We're kinda close, and we're making you know, positive steps with AI. But there's one line in the article that I think is right. It says, "Dr. Huth cautions that this is just a superficial interpretation of signals from the brain." In other words, brain reading, not mind reading, and it's prone to errors. So I think AI will help us get far better at reading the brain and studying it from the outside and making more and more remarkable connections. And maybe in some ways it feels like with AI, it's like, oh my goodness, I'm really talking with a person. Maybe it'll get to the level that it can just make such powerful predictions. But I don't think it's ever actually reading the mind. It's drawing correlations from physical signals.

Scott Rae: Yeah. Non, non-physical things don't emerge from physics and chemistry.

Sean McDowell: Exactly.

Scott Rae: So the immaterial doesn't emerge from the material. That's a metaphysical boundary I don't think will be crossed.

Sean McDowell: And it's akin to something from nothing. That's really, in many a ways, what it is. But all right, we wanna keep studying and covering AI issues 'cause the world is changing-

Scott Rae: Every week

Sean McDowell: ... So quickly, my goodness. This one, I had heard, Al Mohler talk about this on his briefing, but this article is just, it's certainly concerning, that parents could face jail for saying no to gender transition, Prime Minister warns in the UK. So according to this article, "Parents who refuse to pay for their child's gender transition or try to persuade them against it could face five years in prison under Labour's proposed conversion therapy ban, two former senior figures at the equalities watchdog have warned." legislation, the legislation was so broadly drawn that parents acting in good faith could face criminal prosecution for ordinary decisions about raising their children. So there's these new legislations that are being proposed. Nothing's been passed, and the criticism is it's so broad that it opens up the door for this kind of punishment for parents. They said they warn that refusing, for example, to finance gender reassignment treatment, declining to use a child's preferred pronouns, or attempting to dissuade them from transitioning could be, based on this legislation, be treated as abusive conversion practices. And they're warning that this has huge implications for freedom of speech, religious liberty, and family life. And this legislation was drafted in June, and it's ongoing, but I, the moment I heard this talked about and saw this article, I was definitely concerned. What's your thoughts?

Scott Rae: Sean, I'm glad I'm not a parent of a teenager in the

Scott Rae: ... That might be struggling with this. I, this is terrifying. And I think you're right to point out it's not, this is not the law yet, but it's in the pipeline, and I have a hard time believing that it will pass in its current form.

Sean McDowell: Hope you're right.

Scott Rae: And yeah, I hope I'm right. This would be an unprecedented state intrusion into the rights of parents to parent their children, according to their values and the way they best see fit, stifling parental authority. It gives a chilling effect on conversations parents should be having with kids who have trans leanings or trans questions. Now, the law already, the article points out the law already protects individuals from threats or abuse, but this goes further than that. So one of the things you can't do, you can't teach the Bible's view of gender at home or in a church without running afoul of this proposed UK law. And I think this could criminalize good faith conversations between parents and their kids. You know, if, my son or daughter came to me with questions about this, I'd wanna, I'd wanna know, "Tell me, you know, what's driving this? What are you thinking about this?" but any kind of pushback to what they're thinking and feeling could be taken as running afoul of the law.

Sean McDowell: So I tried to ask this question, like, what are the chances something like this comes to the US? Feels like we've been talking about this for at least a dozen years, some of these concerns started to bubble up, and there's been some bills, not exactly like this, but some in California that at times have concerned us, some kind of ongoing in Colorado right now. But, there's a few big differences between the UK and between the US. And before I jump to those, it kind of hit me that the Cass report, [chuckles] which was from their, the UK version of kind of the National Institute of Health, massive report basically concluding that this social experiment that we've done with kids, and not only just transgender surgery, but transitioning your names and pronouns, the evidence for it being effective to mitigate the mental health and other emotional concerns is lacking for the very same country for this report to come out of, and this was not like-

Scott Rae: A little surprising

Sean McDowell: ... A Christian religious group.

Scott Rae: Yeah.

Sean McDowell: There's internal tensions that are going on, and I don't know how they will reconcile this and bring it to the surface, but it reminds me here of there's sometimes some very strong competing voices of people trying to win the hearts, and minds, and law of the country. But I think a couple big differences is some of these, according to this bill, the way it could implicate a church and/or home, it sure seems like we have protections within the United States to protect from this. We've seen cases about, and you and I have talked about difference between religious freedom and kind of, or freedom of religion and freedom of worship. Freedom of religion is the ability to live out your faith in public through your business. Sometimes what's called freedom of worship is the ability to live out your faith in your home or in your church.

Scott Rae: Yeah, only.

Sean McDowell: Only, right. But even, I don't even know how much that is a case in the UK. Like, even if we just had religious, [chuckles] let me say it again, freedom of worship, it still would push back on a bill-

Scott Rae: It would

Sean McDowell: ... Like this in the United States, even if we don't have a robust religious liberty. But right now, I think one of the big things holding this at bay is just the conservative Supreme Court that we have that has time, and time, and time again upheld religious liberty. So some of the cases right now, again, that we're seeing being pushed forward I think are likely going to be struck down. But I'm concerned for my friends, and brothers, and sisters in the UK if this gets pushed a little further and accepted. Now, I'm with you. It certainly in its form I don't think it would get passed. But what kind of form could it get passed there? I honestly don't know the answer to that.

Scott Rae: Yeah. Well, and we, you know, we've, when we talked about the Cass report too, we hailed that as a move back toward common sense. And what we pointed out was that the Cass report was sort of the capstone on a number of other countries in Europe moving away from what we've referred to as the gender wave. This strikes me as, an attempt to sort of double down on an approach that the Cass report clearly rejects. Now, in the US, this is, this may be one similarity to between the UK and the US. In the US, when the Cass report came out, we, the US trans advocates, they doubled down on the, on the strategy they've been pursuing, and did not, it looked to us like they just didn't take seriously the findings of the Cass review. So I think the the groundwork in the US may be a little more fertile for something like this than it, than it might be in the UK, given what they've sort of approached this already in more of a common sense way. Now, you're right. They don't, they don't have religious freedom built into their constitution in the same way that we do. So there's, you know, I think there's, there's privacy concerns too, I think, that are, would be different here than in the UK. So I think we'll have to see the final form that this, that this, comes out in. You know, we've, you know, we've talked about this a number of times before, that, having challenge, having, giving kids pushback-

Sean McDowell: Mm-hmm

Scott Rae: ... On some of their trans leanings, I think makes, can make a lot of sense given what we know about minors who undergo these gender treatments before puberty's complete or without a mental health evaluation. You know, you're right. I think what we've discovered, the Cass review discovered is that, the, efficiency, the effectiveness of the gender treatments to deal with the underlying mental health conditions has been a bit of a bust.

Scott Rae: And we shouldn't expect that, you know,

Scott Rae: the gender dysphoria is the the fruit not the root. ... Of, deeper mental health problems that often go unaddressed.

Sean McDowell: That's right, yeah.

Scott Rae: So I, you know, I can't, I can't imagine that this will be passed in its present form, and I think we'll just, we'll have to wait and see-

Sean McDowell: I think, I think you're right-

Scott Rae: ... What it's gonna look like

Sean McDowell: ... On that. One fascinating thing is I heard Richard Dawkins this week, who's from the UK, and I don't know if these comments were this week or just posted from earlier, where he's been very against certain narratives and ideas tied to the T in transgender, and said things like, "We need to teach young people that their biological sex is who they are and help align their gender identity." These are my words, but from what I understood, his point.

Scott Rae: Yeah.

Sean McDowell: Align their gender identity with their biological sex. And so now we're in agreement with somebody who, for 20 years, was the most vocal critic of a Christian worldview. If you had told me this when I was here at Biola or Talbot, I'm not sure I would've seen that one coming.

Scott Rae: Yeah. No, he even said very clearly, you know, sex is binary.

Sean McDowell: Very clearly.

Scott Rae: And he, and he basically, he basically called people who hold that there's gender fluidity, he basically called them fools- ... In his sort of unique way. [laughs]

Sean McDowell: He doesn't, he doesn't mince words.

Scott Rae: [laughs]

Sean McDowell: That's for sure. All right, now we're gonna shift to questions, but before, so just gotta remind you, we would love to have you-

Scott Rae: Hear

Sean McDowell: ... Come study with us at Talbot School of Theology. We have more students, more programs than I think we've had in a long time, and we would love to train you in theology, Bible, Old Testament, ethics, family and marriage, apologetics, and so much more on campus, either in Phoenix or in Southern California, or online. All right. As always, we've got some great questions, Scott. So let's start with this first one, and this, Indriel says, "I'm a missionary and writer serving in Taiwan, and I've been wrestling with Psalms 37:19, which says, 'The righteous will be satisfied even in famine.' Yet faithful Christians have starved or been murdered, including victims of persecution in Nigeria. If this assurance does not hold for them, on what basis can I trust it for my own family? Does interpreting it as a general wisdom principle or ultimate vindication preserve the promise or explain away its plain meaning?"

Scott Rae: I think the... I would opt for a different translation of this. The ESV puts it, I think, differently, and I think in a way that I think is more accurate. It says, "They are not to be put to shame in evil times. In the days of famine, they have abundance." I think it's referring not to the kinds of scenario he's describing here, but it refers to provision in terms of food and, you know, and sustenance in times of national famine. So that God will provide for the righteous even when there's a, there's a famine that's afflicted the land. That's what I think it's referring to. I don't think it has to do in general with persecution, because the New Testament's very clear that those who are in Christ should expect to be persecuted. So I I don't... God doesn't promise to protect us from persecution. The Psalm he's describing does promise to protect the righteous from famine.

Sean McDowell: That's good stuff. I I'll be completely honest how I answered this one, is I used Logos [laughs] like all the time, and what it does is it has this AI feature that searches my entire library and kind of gives a remarkable response.

Scott Rae: Yeah, that's good.

Sean McDowell: So I'm not gonna pretend this is my own [laughs] feedback. But basically, the first part says essentially what you were saying. It says, "However, the assurance in Psalm 37:19 should be understood within the Psalm's larger framework. It's not a guarantee that the righteous will never experience hardship, but rather that their fundamental security rests in God's character and covenant faithfulness. The promise addresses spiritual and material sustenance during trials, that God sustains those who trust Him even when external circumstances appear dire. This makes it a promise of reliance, not exemption from difficulty." I think that's

Scott Rae: True

Sean McDowell: ... Especially when you remember this is within the wisdom literature-

Scott Rae: Mm-hmm

Sean McDowell: ... And how that genre itself is going to function differently than, say, a direct promise Jesus gives to all His followers. You don't see Jesus repeating this. In fact, Jesus, and I think the New Testament makes it very clear, that sometimes it's God's will that we will suffer. I think of like 1 Peter 3:17. And I, you know, when we read verses like this, we always gotta keep it in context, gotta keep it in light of the Scripture as a whole, and you know I did my doctoral work on the apostles, and I read through the entire New Testament just trying to pay attention to when it talked about we would suffer, either just health or be persecuted for our faith, and it was like a drumbeat through almost all of the New Testament, and just reminding me that sometimes I miss the cost of following Jesus, even though there is a certain general promise within Psalms 37.

Scott Rae: No, good word.

Sean McDowell: So, all right. So this one is, related to our episode recently on, Sharia with our friend Ibrahim. It says, a few questions here. We'll address what we can. It says, "Besides voting against candidates who are sympathetic to Islam, what would you recommend as a means of preventing Islamic ideology and practice in America? Should we write to our congressmen to make them more aware of the rising threat?" Let's just focus on that one.

Scott Rae: I would say yes, and you should send them Aiman's book on the contrast between the Islamic documents and the US Constitution.

Sean McDowell: That's a very simple, straightforward response. I'd say a few things. Number one, educate ourselves. So if you're listening to this and you missed that episode, we talk a lot about, Aiman, our friend, who grew up in the Middle East, and his awareness of even the smallest changes of Sharia law is probably higher than your concern and my concern, drew it to our attention, but walks through how we as Americans tend to think, oh, there's a separation between church and between state, and that is not built into Islam. It is and was from the beginning a political movement that is all-encompassing. And he walks through specific rules and laws in the Hadith and in the Quran in which Sharia law is inconsistent with democracy. And so we had a couple people write in and say, "This sounds like hysteria," and our point is to say, we're not hysteria here. We don't think Christian, [laughs] you know, either the church or the state is going to turn Islamic, but these things are always subtle and small. And like you said a couple weeks ago, even in certain pockets when this is allowed, there can be consequences such as what we've seen in the UK.

Scott Rae: Hear

Sean McDowell: All right, let's move to the third one here, I think. It says, "In response to episode on fine-tuning, I wondered how we got here in the first place. So many scientists who fundamentally changed our understanding of the nature of the universe believed in God. What brought us to this landscape in our culture that views the existence of an intelligent designer as laughable? Is the scientific data actually the cause of this shift or something else to blame for this shift?"

Scott Rae: Well, I say two things. I, it's not clear to me that the intelligent design is still laughable-

Sean McDowell: I agree with you

Scott Rae: ... In scientific communities. So that, you know, I, you know, the stuff you've done with Steve Meyer that we posted on the return of the God hypothesis-

Sean McDowell: Mm-hmm

Scott Rae: ... I found very compelling. However, the way we got there is it's more philosophical than scientific, and it reveals the hegemony that's the way I say it, of naturalism. Because belief in God in the midst of a naturalistic scientific culture was seen as implausible. And our job, I think, as apologists, is to make Christian theism plausible again, and in my view, the fine-tuning argument is one of the best ways to do that.

Sean McDowell: I agree. I I totally agree that it's far more philosophical than scientific because science relies upon certain philosophical assumptions, and historically what science meant was the search for the truth in the natural world. But that has shifted for reasons we won't go into, and Stephen Meyer tells this story really well in his book, The Return of the God Hypothesis, is that science is the search for naturalistic explanations, which rules out an intelligent designer from the beginning. I

Scott Rae: And that little "istic" part-

Sean McDowell: Oh

Scott Rae: ... Is a big, that makes a world of difference.

Sean McDowell: It's huge. And I'd also say there's a difference in intelligent design in cosmology and in physics than in biology. So in biology, it's not laughable. The idea that God created and challenging evolution is still considered as offensive and ridiculous and creationist from a whole lot of voices, even though I think we've made some progress. You don't hear the same in physics, in cosmology because of fine-tuning, the origin of the universe. There's much more of an openness to there, and there hasn't been the same political, cultural debates over that as there has been over evolution. But hopefully that helps. Scott, good stuff, my man.

Scott Rae: Love it.

Sean McDowell: We will be recording next week from the Evangelical Theological Society, a big conference that nerds like you and nerds like me [laughs]

Scott Rae: That's right

Sean McDowell: ... Who love theology get together.

Scott Rae: And I'm actually interviewing a specialist on the fine-tuning argument-

Sean McDowell: Oh

Scott Rae: ... With new developments in that.

Sean McDowell: Good. In fact, we are going there. I, we're actually gonna divide and conquer and each do about five or six interviews, 'cause some of the leading theologians, biblical scholars, philosophers in the world come together. So for our regular episodes for a while, you're gonna hear some extra special conversations from people with cutting-edge research in their fields tied to how to think biblically about those things. Well, this has been an episode of the podcast Think Biblically, conversations on faith and culture brought to you by Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. We have programs, like I mentioned before, in theology, Bible, apologetics, spiritual formation, online, in person. Please keep your comments and questions coming. You can email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu. If you haven't yet, please take a moment and give us a rating on your podcast app. Every single one helps. We hope you consider sharing this with a friend so we can help others think biblically. We really appreciate you listening, and we'll see you Tuesday when I have a unique interview with Randy Kay, who had a life-changing near-death experience, and he's written a recent book called Heaven Encounters, where he carefully vets 140 accounts of near-death experiences that point towards the afterlife. In the meantime, remember to think biblically about everything. [upbeat music]