The New Frontier of the Drug War: Hosts Sean McDowell and Scott Ray discuss a terrifying "quantum leap" in the drug trade where synthetic, lab-made drugs are being sprayed onto innocuous items like books and letters to be smuggled into prisons.

Public Prayer and Religious Liberty: The hosts examine the implications of thousands of Muslims praying publicly in New York City, balancing the Judeo-Christian roots of religious freedom with the need to maintain the right to disagree with different worldviews.

A Shift in Catholic Priorities?: Sean and Scott examine an Atlantic article suggesting the U.S. Catholic Church is pivoting from abortion to immigration as its most urgent issue, reflecting a broader trend in leadership messaging toward social justice and migrant care.

Meta and Youtube Negligence Lawsuit: he hosts break down a recent case where Meta and YouTube were found negligent for using addictive design features that caused mental health distress to young users.

Listener Question: Just War Theory and Iran: Following up on last week's discussion, the hosts discuss whether a war with Iran could be considered "Just War," noting that while Iran is an imminent threat to Israel, it is not currently one to the U.S. unless it acquires nuclear weapons.

Listener Question: Biblical Perspectives on Cremation: In response to a listener's question, Scott and Sean discuss the theological precedents for burial over cremation, answering whether or not that's a barrier to funeral attendance.



Episode Transcript

Sean McDowell: [upbeat music] Lab-made drugs, which can be carried undetected on the pages of a book, are transforming the drug war. Thousands of Muslims pray publicly in New York City about the primacy and exclusivity of Allah. How should Christians respond? Is immigration replacing abortion as the primary issue motivating American Christians today? And a landmark case finds Meta and YouTube guilty of harm through their platform and orders them to pay a fine to the victims. These are the stories we will discuss, and we'll also address some of your excellent 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 read The New York Times daily, but I would have missed this story about th-this new drug phenomena we're gonna talk about. On one level, it totally caught me off guard. On another level, it doesn't. But here's a few things so people are caught up here. It says, "For months, inmates had been falling ill at the Cook County Jail in Chicago. Officials said that they heard rumors that extremely toxic drugs were infiltrating the facility, but they couldn't figure out what was going on. In 2023, there was another inmate who had passed away from smoking paper laced with mysterious new drugs. In April, one more happened." Well, it turns out now that fringe chemists are ushering in a total transformation of the illicit drug market. Operating from what they describe as clandestine labs, they're churning out a dizzying array of new synthetic drugs, not only fentanyl, but also hazardous new tranquilizers, stimulants, and complex cannabinoids. Sometimes several unknown drugs appear on the streets in a single month. Many are so new they don't even have names yet. They're harder to trace than conventional drugs, less expensive to produce, much more potent, and far deadlier, is what people are saying. Now, in this article, they're comparing this to, like, the rise of the radio or computer or typewriter, how dramatic this will be, and these drugs are sprayed onto the pages of innocuous items like books, letters, documents, even photographs. And what happens is these sheets, some are worth, like, $10,000 a page and have had up to 10 synthetic drugs sprayed onto one page. They're torn into trips, into strips, smoked by inmates who describe as going crazed, exercising fits as if they are possessed, and they're just u-unable to stop it. So they found over 1,440 new psychoactive substances since 2013, and this stat, Scott, really got to me, is when the Nixon administration declared war on drugs as public enemy number one in 1971, 6,700 Americans died of overdose. Now annually it's over 70,000, which surpasses all American military deaths during the Vietnam War. And so according to this expert cited here, they're saying today is the most dangerous time in history, i-in the history of the world to be using drugs. So drugs, they're stronger, they're carried in smaller quantities, they're easier to smuggle, greater profits. One of these drugs is 20 times as potent as fentanyl. I mean, that's crazy. So these, especially in jails, they're struggling with this. So they're going to lengths of, like, should we outlaw paper being allowed in, which would be devastating to inmates being able to get paper from kids and loved ones. Even dogs can't sniff out some of these because they're so new and the technology is so strong. Now, there's other stuff in this article that I wanna circle back to, but give me your thoughts on this.

Scott Rae: Sean, it's alarming and terrifying at the same time. And this, in my view, is a quantum leap forward in drug manufacture, distribution, and a huge leap forward in terms of the difficulty facing drug enforcement officials in stopping the trafficking of these exponentially more dangerous substances. And part of, Sean, what I wonder about is what motivates people to take these kinds of drugs that they don't really know how potent they are? The risks are exponentially worse than, what we've seen with, you know, heroin and cocaine. In fact, the, in fact, I think the pl-plant-based, drugs like those seem almost quaint and out of date today. Because so much of the drug trade is now being done synthetically. It's cheaper. You know, you don't have to, you don't have to manufacture it from poppy seeds. You don't have to wait for poppy [chuckles] seeds to grow and mature.

Scott Rae: B- and I just, you know, Sean, on the one hand, I have, I have a lot of sympathy for people who turn to these to escape from, you know, the harshness of prison life or the harshness of life in general, who are so desperate for the high and for the escape that they actually don't care about the risks. O-on the other hand, you know, the idea that this could be actually,

Scott Rae: transferred to the streets-Is, is absolutely terrifying. And I think the enforcing drug laws, I think if these things hit the streets will be just unbelievably difficult. Because, you know, these, you know, these are... You know, you smoke something the size of, you know, a piece of paper the size of a credit card. And they're even smuggling in books in Amazon boxes and things like that that are laced with these drugs. And the, I think the prison system has assumed for a long time that anything that had a FedEx or UPS or Amazon label was clean and safe.

Scott Rae: And the idea that the prisons would have to outlaw all paper, which would be, you know, greeting cards from inmates' kids, correspondence, legal documents. They-- in fact, they traced some of these back to a law firm that had, that was complicit in this tr- you know, where they had the legal documents that inmates were reviewing laced with drugs.

Scott Rae: You know, so I mean, if I can see where the, you know, the prison officials, drug enforcement officials are just, they're throwing up their hands thinking, "How on earth do we keep up with this?" and so, this seems to me, this is really troublesome. And I think that, you know, we've, we've known about this for a couple of years, though just it hadn't been that long that it's gotten into more widespread use in the prison systems. I think, the DEA officials, the article points out they got one of the people who was the primary distributors of this, but it's ch- it's just much cheaper. And, you know, as you mentioned, the profits are astronomical off of this. And this is, this is, in my view, a very dangerous and alarming trend, and very troubling.

Sean McDowell: Now, you said if this hits the streets. It seems to me there's no if, it's only a matter of time.

Scott Rae: It's going to.

Sean McDowell: Okay. Yeah.

Scott Rae: I think, yeah.

Sean McDowell: I was wondering if you knew something I didn't know, but I think that's-

Scott Rae: Well, I know a lot of things that you don't know, but that's another subject.

Sean McDowell: [laughing]

Scott Rae: You set yourself up for that.

Sean McDowell: That is a fact well deserved. [laughing] Good stuff. All right. Man, I lost track. You got me on that one.

Scott Rae: Here, here's the other thing.

Sean McDowell: Okay.

Scott Rae: The other thing that worries me about this-

Sean McDowell: Yeah, please

Scott Rae: ... And I don't know that, I don't kn- this is something I don't know for sure, is if people, if people can be exposed to the, to the content of these drugs without lighting up and smoking it, if somehow they're exposed to this by touch-

Sean McDowell: Oh

Scott Rae: ... Or something, or, you know, it absorbs into the skin, something like that- ... Then we have the possibility of people being exposed to these drugs without their knowledge.

Sean McDowell: A kind of secondhand smoke, so to speak, but even way more potent.

Scott Rae: Way more potent.

Sean McDowell: Interesting.

Scott Rae: Now, yeah. Now if we have, if we have listeners who are involved in the drug enforcement business, I'd be, I'd be really interested to know if that's a possibility that they have, that they've thought about or if there's something down the line that, we ought to be concerned about.

Sean McDowell: And certainly if they have any reliable sources, send them our way would be great. I had a couple thoughts on this. My dad and I used to have debates about whether entertainment, movies, media reflect culture or shape culture. He'd lean more towards reflecting, I'd lean more towards shaping, but probably both are true. And I think that's the case with drugs here, because you asked the question, why would somebody take this? Well, in some ways that's going to reveal a reflection of the depth of brokenness and hurt and relational disconnection, loneliness, mental illness, whatever it is, we're at a crisis stage in our culture, and this is revealing this, but the technology's also going to foster it and make it worse at the same time. That's what I fear. Now, I did ask myself, you know, why am I surprised at this story? On one level, I did not see this technology coming, but on the other level, when I think about human nature and throughout history, how we've used whatever technology we have for good and for bad, this really shouldn't surprise us at all. I mean, I think of Romans 1:28-30, when it's talking about how everybody knows God exists. In the earlier passages, Romans 1:18-21, God reveals Himself in creation, but we suppress this in unrighteousness. It says, "They did not see fit to acknowledge God. God them up, gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done." And then it lists all these manners of unrighteousness people are filled with. It says gossipers, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil. That's human nature, and that's exactly what we see here. You think about the ingenuity which this article talked about, like the creativity and the mind and the training and the brilliance used for bad here. If it could be used for good, would be such a different story. I found a quote by Fyodor Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov, one of the great Russian writers, and he said, "A beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel." The creation of this technology is cruel, and it's devastating. The amount of suffering and bloodshed that's gonna result from this, I just get chills to think about it. Especially people in prison, in many cases, are really vulnerable to this emotionally and for other reasons. It's heartbreaking to think about.All right, so let's shift to this other story. This was actually not on my radar. You sent this to me, and I found it pretty fascinating at this cultural moment we're in, is this actually is from The Daily Citizen, a piece, sponsored by folks in the family. And they talked about how... They're asking the question how Christians should respond to thousands of Muslims praying in Washington Square Park in New York City. There's videos all over social media, many on their knees praying and boasting about the primacy and exclusivity of Allah. Now, interestingly, it- according to this article, it's estimated there were somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 Muslims in the latter part of the last century, 25 years ago. Now, there's an estimated 1.5 million today. And they draw out in this article, it's a piece of the conversation, that earlier this month and just six miles from the very place of these prayers, two ISIS-inspired terrorists tossed bombs made up of bolts and screws into a group protesting what they called the Islamic takeover of New York City. What do you make? How do you think Christians should respond to something like this?

Scott Rae: Well, Sean, I think it's... Yeah, just to be clear about the facts on this, the, those are just the number of Muslims in New York City. Just the met- the m- basically metropolitan, in the five boroughs.

Sean McDowell: Good. Good.

Scott Rae: You know, and I think some, I think understandably, see this as threatening, but I see this sort of fundamentally as a legitimate exercise of constitutionally protected religious freedom. And I think we need, we need to never forget that Muslims are our neighbors who we are called to love, called to share the gospel with, and they are entitled to whatever public influence they can maintain, just like any other interest group. Now, when their aims become, I'd say unconstitutional, when they, you know, g-get in... When they aspire to get into power and suppress some of the individual rights that the Constitution protects, then we have a... That's a different matter altogether. But that's why we have, that's why we have other checks and balances on interest groups to prevent those things from happening. I think, Sean, we also need to recognize there are fundamental differences between Islam and Christianity. Some are theological. Jesus is respected as a prophet, not worshiped as the Son of God. Islam denies the Trinity, so the view of God, I think, is very different. It's tempting to say that we worship the same God, though I think that's, I think that's theologically problematic. Muslims have no assurance of salvation. It's works-based, not grace through faith. Islam's a theocracy, where the law of Allah is automatically considered to be the law of the land in places where they can enforce that. And there are some places actually in Western Europe that have been sort of labeled as, I'd say, theocratic outposts, where they are predominantly Muslim communities that the authorities have allowed them to operate according to Sharia law. Now, I think some versions of Islam, I think, are inc- are in- just inconsistent with values of the West, such as democracy, free speech, individual rights. In some versions of Islam, the treatment of women is quite different than what you see in most of the West. And, but and I say some versions of that. Not, not all versions of Islam-

Sean McDowell: Sure

Scott Rae: ... Are so incompatible. And I think, Muslims historically, at least, have I think advanced their cause with resort to violence, and some versions of Islam advocate that today. Those are the, those are the parts that I think we need to be very concerned about. So I think as long as we recognize that, you know, there are, there are fundamental incompatibilities between Islam and Christianity, and so, and some of those incompatibilities are also reflections on how they view the traditions of the West, that we, that we, that we take as givens in the United States and, you know, parts of Europe today. Now, to be fair, there are some versions of Islam that are much more inclusive, much more peaceable, and that I think, I think fit in, fit in well with our democratic institutions. But I think it's just... I think you have to qualify that w- and by saying that some versions are not. And we see that more... We see that perhaps more in Europe than we do in the Muslim communities in the United States.

Sean McDowell: That's a great take, and honestly, very similar to how I was gonna approach this. I w- I would maybe just add a couple nuances in terms of my perspective here is I did write down, my first point was, is we need to be in favor of religious liberty for all, not just our religious liberty. It's not religious liberty for me but not for thee, but for all as a whole other faiths. But religious liberty is not an Islamic idea. It's not a Buddhist idea [chuckles] . It's not at its core a Hindu idea. It is deeply a Judeo-Christian idea. We see this in the Old Testament, of course, with the Exodus. Our friend Os Guinness has written extensively about how the framing of our very Constitution, our country, has ideas rooted in the Exodus itself, the book, and the actual Exodus.Uh, Deuteronomy 30 verse 19 is the famous, line where God says, "Choose life so you and your children may live." Choose this. Make a choice. We're not robots. Luke 18, Jesus lets the rich young ruler walk away. He gave him freedom. So I do wonder, I'm not gonna say America is a Christian nation, and you made a really important point that there is separation of church and state. We're not trying to have a theocracy as Christians, at least we shouldn't. We should be able to have a voice into the government, but we're not set up a theocracy as Islam does. But I would be curious how many of... I think it's 58 nations in the world are Islamic. How many of those would allow, in one of their biggest cities, for thousands of Christians to show up and pray about the supremacy of the Bible and Jesus and the triune God? My suspicion is, if not none, very few, which tells us that there's not a level of parity here. And so, yes, we're in favor of religious liberty for all, but we can't lose the sight that this is a uniquely Christian idea. And I agree with you to one element that certain strains of Islam are compatible with the American experiment, and some are not, at least in the way people practice it. But I would argue, we don't have time here, if we get back to pure Islam, what's in the Quran and the Hadith, it's actually not consistent with the American experiment, even though many Muslims live lives that are consistent with the American experiment. That's a distinction worth making. So yes, we wanna defend the religious liberty. Yes, they're our friends and our neighbors, and we love them, and Jesus died for them like everybody else, but we also have to maintain our ability and our rights to criticize Islam without being silenced or called Islamophobic. And there was actually a piece last week in The New York Times by the editorial board. It's called Trump's Hypocrisy on Religious Freedom. Now, I have no interest in the political angle here or whether Trump is a hypocrite or not. That's not my point. But what it says, it starts off, it says, "The Trump administration holds itself up as a defender of religious freedom," and then it points out areas in which they view that Trump and the Republican Party are hostile to Islam. So two things jump out about this. Apparently, this is just from the article, one representative said, in reference to Mayor Zoran Mamdovic, that he should be expelled from our country and that Muslims don't belong in American society. That is completely out of bounds and wrong, and no Christian should say that. That's not consistent with our faith nor with the American experiment. But then they cite this one representative who says Islam is incompatible with our culture and our governing system. Well, wait a minute. One is a criticism of Islam. The other one is saying expel them and Muslims don't belong here, and they both are placed in the category of being anti-Islam. That's a move I wanna say timeout, that's not okay. And this article goes through just saying basically there's Muslim principles of government, there's Christian principles, there's Jewish principles. They're kind of all the same, and I wanna say no, they're not. There are legitimate concerns about Sharia law being brought into the United States. Legitimate concerns. You mentioned England. Well, they didn't get there overnight. They got there through a long period, and now there's a lot of people, they were shutting down this past Christmas, some in different areas in Europe, some of these Christmas markets for fear of terrorist attacks. Is that the future of the U.S.? Well, somehow we have to maintain commitment to what makes our country great, loving our Muslim neighbors, but being able to criticize Islam and make a distinction between Islam and Christianity. That's what I think we have to maintain moving forward. Agree, disagree with anything I said there?

Scott Rae: No, that's a great take on that. And I think that distinction between, you know, being critical of Islam and being Islamophobic, that's a, that's a helpful point. And I don't th- I don't think we wanna express hatred toward Muslims, but disagreement and hatred are two fundamentally different things.

Sean McDowell: Exactly. Good

Scott Rae: And we don't we don't wanna conflate those.

Sean McDowell: Good. Now, was that something new that you learned from me, or did you already know that, Scott? You actually don't have to answer that. I'm just messing. [laughs]

Scott Rae: Sean, I've learned so many things from you. I-

Sean McDowell: Oh.

Scott Rae: I can't imagine listing them all.

Sean McDowell: [laughs] You're, now you're trying to backtrack. That's okay. I'll, I'll choose to take that as a, as a fun compliment. Okay. We're shifting gears here. This article popped up in The Atlantic, and it reminded me of an article a couple weeks ago from Ryan Burge that kind of raises this question, is there a shift in Catholics and Protestants and Christians in America focusing on abortion being the primary issue of concern to immigration? So this piece in The Atlantic says the most urgent issue for the U.S. Catholic Church isn't abortion anymore. It says the most urgent issue now is immigration. Now, they said, after all, the catechism of the Catholic Church states that wealthy countries should welcome refugees and economic migrants to the extent that they're able. But now immigration dominates UF- U.S. Catholic leaders' public messaging.So the US Conference of Catholic Bishops published a rare special message decrying the Trump administration's, quote, "indiscriminate mass deportation." So they become vocal on this. Now, to give a little context is in 2004, the bishops debated whether to deny communion to John Kerry, the first Catholic presidential nominee of a major party since JFK, because of his support for legalized abortions. Again, according to this article, they say for the next 20 years, the bishops focused much of their public advocacy on right-coded concerns, restricting abortion, regulating other sexual, other issues of sexual and medical ethics, and protecting religious liberty. Now, they do say, former Pope Francis's opposition to abortion was unequivocal. But he also suggested that the church had become obsessed with abortion, and the pope devoted more time to promoting causes favored by liberals on the left, such as environmental sustainability and social justice. And for Francis, immigration was at the top of his list of concerns. Now, I thought it was interesting the way they end this article. They're talking about Pope Leo and asking on July 4th, 250 years of our country, will Leo be at home celebrating with his homeland in America? And this article says Leo's most powerful statement on the subject could come on July 4th. Despite the hopes of many American Catholics, Leo will not mark the country's 250th anniversary in his native land. Instead, he will spend the day on the Mediterranean island of, I might mispronounce this, Lampedusa, a way station for migrants seeking asylum in Europe. So basically, this article is arguing that the Catholic Church is shifting from abortion issues, what they call right-coded issues, to focusing on left-coded issues like the environment and immigration, and abortion is not the primary issue for them. Now, very quickly, Ryan Burge, who's demographically studying this, suggested five or six years ago that immigration was actually more significant in the way conservative Christians, mainly white conservative Christians, would vote over against abortion. Now, he's somewhat questioning that, but suggests there also might be a shift that's taking place there. What do you make of this story?

Scott Rae: Well, Sean, I think let's be clear about this to start with. The Catholic Church has not given up its opposition to abortion.

Sean McDowell: That's a good point.

Scott Rae: And I think their support for refugees and asylum seekers is consistent with the Bible's admonition to care for the least among us.

Scott Rae: And what I wanna, I think what I wanna emphasize here, 'cause what struck me right at the beginning is the sort of this, the temptation to, craft one's vote or political, affiliations around single issues. And I, in my view, there is no h- there is no moral hierarchy on the issues of the day.

Scott Rae: Now I think, I think for some issues, there are certain stands that are, that are more consistent with scripture and some that are less.

Scott Rae: But we, as we've said repeatedly, you know, no political platform is gonna be perfect 'cause none of them have biblical fidelity as their goal. And, we're... The, the Bible calls us to a set of moral obligations without putting a hierarchy on them. They are, they are obligations that we are to carry out simultaneously, not sequentially. They're, and then they're all, we're obligated to do these things sort of all at the same time. We're obligated to care for the unborn. We're obligated to care for refugees and asylum seekers. We're obligated to care for the environment. Now, you have to, you have to set priorities based on pragmatic things, but in terms of principles, we are called to these things all at the same time. And so I think what Ryan Burge found is for white evangelicals, immigration has risen in terms of emphasis and is more of a deal breaker than abortion. And I think, I think that may, that may reflect, I think, in the culture in general, a mo- a movement away from, at least in the political culture, a movement away from abortion advocacy because they see it, I think on both sides, they see it fundamentally differently in terms of principle, but also as a, as a, as a liability, politically. And that part, I think, is very troubling to me. So here, I think what the Catholic Church's new emphasis means for immigration policy is actually a completely different question than what the article addresses.

Scott Rae: Because the moral admonition to care for the least among us, including migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, is one thing. But what that, how that works itself out into a coherent immigration policy is gonna be a completely different conversation.

Sean McDowell: All right. So I think maybe we've hit an area where you and I disagree, and I'll be honest with you, Scott. When I disagree with you on ethical issues, given that you've written the book, Moral Choices, coming up on its [chuckles] fifth edition, I have a little fear and trembling, not to mention that you're my elder, so, you know, I'll let that one sink in a little bit for fun.

Scott Rae: Well, let's le- yeah, we can pass on that latter one,

Sean McDowell: But on a more serious note, so why should we care about immigration? Why should we care about abortion? Because immigrants and because the unborn are both made in the image of God. That's what motivates James to talk about what is true and pure religion, caring for widows and for orphans, in a time in the Greco-Roman culture when people were viewed intrin- i-i-instrumentally for their value, not intrinsically. So you and I agree 100% on that. But here's where maybe we see things a little bit differently, is you said there's no moral hierarchy in terms of how we approach dealing with some of these moral issues from a political standpoint. It seems to me that there is-

Scott Rae: In, in principle.

Sean McDowell: In principle, okay. So let me state my difference, and then you can tell me if I-

Scott Rae: Go for it

Sean McDowell: ... Misunderstood your point. So that's fair. Is I think in principle there is a difference because you can't even migrate or be an immigrant if you don't first have the right to life, which is the, one of the most basic human right that we have, is the right to life. And the unborn... Now, immigrants are often vulnerable, that's true, but the unborn are even more vulnerable. They are the most conceivably vulnerable beings on the planet. And so even things like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to migrate seem to me downstream from the freedom and the right to life, the most basic human right. So it should be a hierarchy there before the other issues in my mind. Now with that said, does that mean you become a one-issue voter? Well, not necessarily, because partly the question is, how consistent is this candidate going to be? Is this national politics? Is it local politics? Like, there's pragmatic questions that emerge from it. But in principle, it sure seems to me that the right to life is a more moral hierarchy above any of the other issues that are downstream from it. Agree or disagree?

Scott Rae: Well, I think it, I think you're right to say that it's, that it is, it is the right to life is the most basic fundamental right that we have. But I'm not sure it follows from that therefore protecting the unborn is v- is the issue that trumps everything else, and it ought to be emphasized at the expense of other things. Now, I think we should never back away from our advocacy for the unborn, but I'm ver- I'm very troubled by people who consider that the only issue that matters in the support or rejection of particular political candidates. And I think, yeah, I think you can, you can acknowledge that the right to life is a, is a, is the primary right that we have, while at the same time affirming that it's not the only priority that we have. And my point is that the moral obligations that the scripture gives us are s- are simultaneous. We're called to, we're called to do all of these things as a society and as the body of Christ all at the same time. It's not, it's not, you know, this, then this, then this sequentially. That's the point I'm making with this. So I, you know, I would never support anything that backs away from our advocacy for the unborn, but it's not the only thing that matters. And I think the ar- the argument to suggest that it is the only thing that matters is incomplete.

Sean McDowell: That's fair. I think, you know, we could have an entire conversation about this pragmatically, and I think, I don't know too many people would say it's the only thing that matters. I think even some of the most staunchest pro-lifers would say it's the main thing that matters in terms of emphasis and focus and voting. But clearly, biblically speaking, it can't be the only thing that matters. So it seems to me the mistakes are to say it's the only thing that matters, like your point. But I think it's also a mistake not to say there are certain primary rights when we have certain resources that matter before others, and we've gotta secure that right first. Seems to, from my perspective, a mistake to not approach it that way. But I suspect... Go, go ahead, jump in.

Scott Rae: Well, I th- I think the question is then what necessarily follows from that? And I don't, I don't think a strict hierarchy of issues in terms of their importance necessarily follows from that, because we're c- we're called to, we're called to pay attention to all of these things all at the same time.

Sean McDowell: All right. So I gotta... I do have a quick thought. I guess that is where the debate and discussion comes in.

Scott Rae: Yeah. And, and I think-

Sean McDowell: Like Wilberforce clearly-

Scott Rae: Yeah, and that's, that's a, that's a pragmatic, I think, primarily a pragmatic consideration, I would say, not a principled one.

Sean McDowell: I think that's where we differ, 'cause I think William Wilberforce took a principled position against slavery 'cause it was the greatest evil at that time. That's what motivated him in part, and he's like, "If I fight for 27 things, it's not gonna be done. But I'm gonna find the primary evil of this day in principle and fight for it." It might have been not pragmatic for him to do so. That's where I think we have to pick and choose. If you try to do everything, you do nothing. So I guess, again, I think this is maybe where we differ. I think it's in principle and pragmatic concerns when it comes to some of these moral issues. Maybe that's a different philosophy of-

Scott Rae: Well, I don't... I cert- I certainly d- I don't fault Wilberforce for making the choices that he made. But I also, I don't fault, I don't fault the Catholic Church for emphasizing immigration at this particular, you know- ... Political and societal moment. Now they're not... Just to be clear, again, they're not backing away from their opposition to abortion whatsoever, but I think they're seeing something that is, in their view, pragmatically more pressing at the moment, like Wilberforce did with slavery.

Sean McDowell: Okay. Fair enough. I- we will let our listeners decide. That was very, that was very helpful. This next story's really probably the biggest story of the week that popped up on both of our radars, and it's all over social media. And this piece from The New York Times I'm gonna pull from, it says, "Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case." Now, a jury found the companies harmed a young user named, KMG, with design features that were addictive and led to her mental health distress. So the focus here was on Meta, formerly Facebook, and YouTube, saying that they had certain design features built into them that were addictive and led to her, it was KGM, not KMG, led to her mental health distress, a jury found earlier this week on Wednesday. And of course, the question is this a landmark decision that could open social media companies to more lawsuits over users' well-being? Meta has to pay 4.2 million and YouTube 1.28 million, which is really a drop in the bucket compared to what they make probably daily. But this is considered the bellwether case. By now it's a 20-year-old woman, again, KGM. She accused the social media company of creating products as addictive as cigarettes or digital casinos, citing features like infinite scroll, which by the way, if you take a phone and you scroll down it's actually similar to the same activity that you do in a casino when you pull down, [chuckles] what do you call it? Like, try to win the jackpot. There's actually a similar physical kind of, process that you go through. And the argument is that these features led to anxiety and depression. There are thousands, one estimate said about 3,000 lawsuits filed by teenagers, school districts, state attorneys against Meta, YouTube, TikTok, Snap, which is owned by Snapchat. There was another ruling this week which is interesting. It's part of the underlying story. A New Mexico jury in a separate case, this was just against Meta, found them liable for violating state law by failing to safeguard users of its app from child predators, and they are ordered to pay 375 million in that case, which is much more than a drop in the bucket. People are comparing this to the lawsuits against Big Tobacco, which I had forgotten these numbers, but the company reached a 206 billion master settlement with more than 40 states in 1998. That's probably 300 billion, I don't know, maybe double that today. I don't even know what that would be. What's interesting though is that this lady, now she's identified as Kaylee, lives in Chico, California. She began using social media at six and claimed the sites caused personal injury, including body dysmorphia and thoughts of self-harm. Now, this raises a ton of questions, Scott, about culpability that's here. Did you see this come down? Were you thrilled? Were you ambivalent? What, what was your take on this ruling?

Scott Rae: Well, Sean, I see this as a landmark case, like you describe it, and a slap on the wrist at the same time. Because this, I think, is actually parallel to the McDonald's coffee case that was-

Sean McDowell: Oh

Scott Rae: ... Adjudicated a couple decades ago where a-

Sean McDowell: Yeah

Scott Rae: ... Elderly woman spilled McDonald's, quote, "commuter coffee" on her lap and had skin grafts and third degree burns. And she, you know, she won, you know, a punitive damages that seemed outrageous at the time, but the way the jury calculated those punitive damages was based on one day's coffee sales for McDonald's.

Scott Rae: And so it really was, it was really a slap on the wrist for them. Now I think just to be clear, the ba- in these types of cases, Sean, the jury decides liability and then it also decides two different types of damages, compensatory to compensate for injuries and damage, and then punitive damages are to send a message to the company. And the total compensation, it was actually roughly three million in compensation and 2.1 in punitive damages against Meta, and not even a million dollars punitive damages against Google. That, the, you know... And I... My guess is that Google makes probably $900,000 an hour.

Sean McDowell: [laughs]

Scott Rae: And the, and the... What's unusual about this is the punitive damages were actually less than the compensatory ones. So the message that they were sending was muted, I think, to say the least. Now, w- here's, I think, what it... We'll see about what comes next, and that's the key question in my view, because will this be a domino effect? This could actually be a landmark case in that it's the first of a whole bunch of dominoes to fall-That would set up a s- class action suit like the tobacco companies and eventually settled for. And so I think we just have, we just have to wait and see about that. You know, that's my primary take on this, is it-- I don't think it's in-- At this point, I don't think it's anything necessarily to get too excited about.

Sean McDowell: Okay.

Scott Rae: We'll see where the appeals go, and the punitive damages were hardly anything.

Sean McDowell: Now, Scott, I'm not sure if this caught your attention or not, but the lawyer who was defending KGM, Mark Lanier-

Scott Rae: I'm familiar

Sean McDowell: ... Interestingly enough. Did you catch that?

Scott Rae: I did.

Sean McDowell: Did you pick up on that?

Scott Rae: I did.

Sean McDowell: Okay, good. I thought I could teach you something today, man. You're just a step ahead of me.

Scott Rae: Oh, you have, you have already.

Sean McDowell: [laughs]

Scott Rae: No.

Sean McDowell: Well, I wanted to make sure it was the right Mark Lanier, because there's a few lawyers with that name. And so I went to the website, and the title says Social Media Addiction Lawsuit Trial Lawyers. So this is the firm that was representing KGM. Well, the founder, it turns out, we interviewed him on his book, Atheism On Trial, April 24th, 2022. He's an outspoken Christian and he's an apologist, written multiple books. This is on his website. Christianity On Trial, he's written. Daily devotionals on prayer, which is fascinating. And, he's the founder of the Christian Trial Lawyers Association, has the massive Lanier Theological Library. So really cool to see somebody who's an apologist out here defending, this case, and, you know, it made it, made it a small world for me at that moment. But here's kind of the question at play here, and I don't have this settled in my mind, is Lanier presented, the jury internal company documents from Meta and YouTube that showed tech executives knew of and discussed the negative effects of their products on children. So they were aware of this. They knew it had negative effects. They discussed it and apparently ignored it. So to me, if there's not some culpability that's there, I don't know what would be there. And he argued that things like the infinite scroll and the algorithmic recommendations, autoplay videos are designed based on the construction of our brains to hook, in particular, young users. So I think some amount of punishment, punitive damages should be on these companies. Now, I don't know how different Snapchat and TikTok and Meta is from YouTube. I'm not sure. I need to see some of the details here. I use YouTube. I love it. It's like TV. Now they have YouTube Shorts, and they do wanna get people hooked, so I just don't have privy to the information to make all of them guilty the same. But I do have some questions about whether YouTube is in the same category. But the defense, met a counter by saying mental health issues were caused by family abuse and turmoil, and that it was not a social media company's, you know, job to regulate this. And I don't think that's an entirely ridiculous defense. I don't know why this girl was allowed to be on at six years old and nine years old and post stuff. I don't know the parents. I've no interest in piling on people. When it comes to blame, it seems like we can make this black or white and say, "Here's the evil companies. They manipulate us. They have all the blame." Or some people are like, "Nope, it's completely the parents." I'm like, wait a minute. I think there's some degree of both that's going on here. How we parse that out, I have no idea how to do that, but I think we need to keep both of that in mind because we have primary responsibility for our kids. The scripture places it on the home. Scripture places it on the church family, and all the studies show, going back to 1972, according to Christian Smith, that the primary influence on kids is the parents. So we can't lose that without, like, shaming and piling on parents. I think there's some of both going on. Do you agree with that?

Scott Rae: I think the jury actually helped us parse that out, because the, in awarding punitive damages, the level of, the amount of punitive damages reflects the level of culpability that the jury holds the companies to. And I think the fact that this was basically a slap on the wrist suggests that they held, th-that there were other contributing factors that they saw that limited the co-

Sean McDowell: Oh

Scott Rae: ... The company's li-liability.

Sean McDowell: Okay.

Scott Rae: Now I could be, I could be wrong about that legally, but in general, I think if they h- if they were holding the company 100% responsible for this, the punitive damages would've been much higher. So a-and in general, that's what juries are asked to do. They're asked to partition responsibility and assign a l- the punitive damages reflect the level of responsibility that they assign to the company. Now, they don't disclose what they assign elsewhere because that's not part of their task, but that's, that's invariably part of the deliberations that come up. My question, Sean, is a little different.

Sean McDowell: Okay.

Scott Rae: And that is do, does it genuinely have addictive features? And the jury decided that it did. And I think I, this is, this came out in Los Angeles Times this morning, that, according to a Brown University neuroscientist, Justin Brewer, the algorithms are designed to exploit the strongest type of reinforcement learning known to human beings, what's called intermittent reinforcement, where you don't know in advance if you will get the reinforcement for use.... Of the product. Unlike tobacco, where the reward was consistent and expected. And as social media also, the difference between that and social- and tobacco is social media is constantly being redesigned to better capture and to better hold people's attention. So my hope is that some of this might lead people to evaluate their own social media use. You know, I'm not saying everybody needs to quit cold turkey.

Sean McDowell: Sure.

Scott Rae: But the Bible's clear, Sean, that our output reflects our input, and our input into our minds affects how we think, how we behave. And you know, Paul admonishes us in Philippians 4 to think on things that are true and noble and right and pure and admirable and praiseworthy. And, and the Bible's also clear that, you know, out of the mouth speaks that which fills the heart. And our output reflects our input that we take in.

Sean McDowell: Well said. You know, since you mentioned this is your question, I do think one difference between tobacco and this issue here at play with social media is tobacco is a purely physical product. But social media, although we're interacting with it physically, it affects our brains, and it appeals to our minds. So I wonder, how many of these exact same features will we find in the apps that try to hook people on gambling? And my suspicion is it's so ironic that this story comes out in March when I'm seeing commercials everywhere for sports gambling, and no one's, that I'm seeing, is criticizing this as much as social media. And I bet you'll find the exact same level of technology there. Maybe I'm wrong. What about pornography? I mean, the, Meta's defense is right in the sense that when it comes to depression and anxiety, it's not like you can have a physical cancer brought on solely by something physical. And actually, as I think about it, maybe some things like stress [chuckles] could potentially bring that on, too. That's not, that's not really the case that it's solely physical. These are complex things. There can be relational brokenness. It can be my worldview. It can be lack of sleep. These are complex things, and that's how people have resisted calling porn addiction an addiction and laying blame on pornography. Well, these porn creators... And by the way, interestingly enough, the 43-year-old founder of OnlyFans-

Scott Rae: Right

Sean McDowell: ... Died this week. I about guarantee you they used the same kind of mechanisms to hook people on pornography we see in social media. So I do wonder, why are we picking on this issue and not gambling? Why not pornography? Now, there might be answers to that. Maybe it affects kids. Maybe some of it is it's easier in these issues to blame something else, [chuckles] and gambling and pornography hit a little home for some people. I don't know the answer to that.

Scott Rae: Fair enough.

Sean McDowell: But that's my question. And not only have we opened up the door for other lawsuits, but have we opened up the door for culpability in areas like gambling and pornography that in the past it's only been physical things? If so, I say amen, let's go. I'd like to see that go further, personally.

Scott Rae: Hear, hear. That's a good-- That's a great take on that.

Sean McDowell: All right. We've got some great questions, actually. I don't even know. Some of these [chuckles] are so thoughtful, Scott. We certainly can't get through all of them. But let me start with this first one. It says, "In our March 20 discussion on the ethics of assassinating Iran's leaders, we concluded that such activities can be justified." But what this individual says is we didn't talk about the war as a whole, because if the war in Iran is not, according to just war, then the assassinations are not just. And that's true in part. There's been some really good conversations about this, like John Stonestreet on Break Point had some very good conversations on this. So I wanted to take a different angle here. But do you wanna weigh in and give some thoughts on that, Scott?

Scott Rae: Well, here's... Yeah. My, my basic thought is th-the just war criteria i-i-involves the decisions to go to war in the first place, and there has to be a legitimate, imminent threat to your, to your nation or your community, self-defense to their security. And in my view, Iran is an imminent threat to Israel and has been since, you know, the, at least the last 30 years, but not to the United States at present. Unless Iran acquires nuclear weapons. Then I think that changes everything. But I think we've got competing claims here. I mean, if we, if we did as much damage to their nuclear facilities as was claimed l- in six months ago, if we did, then I think the justification for the war is thinner. If it turns out that, you know, we d- we didn't do quite the damage, then maybe the justification is a little bit stronger. But I do, I did not and do not see Iran as a, an imminent threat to the United States in the same way that they are to Israel.

Sean McDowell: Okay. Fair enough. This could open a huge can of worms, we don't need to go into.

Scott Rae: And we'll probably, we'll probably get some grief from all sides on that.

Sean McDowell: Yeah. And that, and that's fair.

Scott Rae: Which is okay.

Sean McDowell: You, you stated your argument. I think I'll, I, we can leave this one at that for now. But thanks for weighing in. That's great. And by the way, you've got a section of this on your updated Moral Choices. When does that come out, by the way?

Scott Rae: June.

Sean McDowell: Comes out in June. Okay. So-... Lengthy section on just war theory, and it's updated and excellent. Looking forward to that come out. Okay, one more question here. This is a question about cremation. The person attended a memorial service for a family member who was cremated, and attendees were invited to scatter the ashes in a designated area. Cremation has become popular. Some incorporate ashes into this. I'm skipping over the question, but the really, some of the details. The question is, "What instruction can we gain from the Bible concerning the proper way to dispose of the dead? Does it matter? Is cremation a pagan practice, and if so, should Christians attend a service for someone who has been cremated?" What do you think?

Scott Rae: Well, I think, to answer the question, the, what instruction can we gain from the Bible concerning the proper way to dispose of a deceased, I think the answer to that is not very much.

Scott Rae: As long as there's respect for the dead. I'm not aware that cremation is a pagan practice, and I certainly don't see any reason to, not to attend a service of someone who has been cremated. I just don't think the Bible gives us much on this. But at the end of the day, Sean, I think if God can create bodies out of nothing originally like he did, he can recreate them out of nothing. And I think we should be very clear, too, that we are more than our bodies, and our souls outlive our bodies. And Scripture indicates that for, that we will, for a time, be disembodied between, the time between our death and the Lord's return when he will inaugurate the general resurrection of the dead.

Sean McDowell: I appreciate this question. As you know, Scott, I'm working on a book on the theology of the body, and I tend to think that our Catholic friends get this better than a lot of Protestants do. I think we're affected by a kind of gnostic worldview, and so many people just assume we can cremate, bury, there's no difference, relevant difference that is there. And I think, you know, I don't know that I would call it a sin or it's certainly not a barrier to resurrection. And of course, many Jews had thought about not if somebody's cremated, but if somebody was burned to death, clearly God-

Scott Rae: Right

Sean McDowell: ... Could recreate him anyway.

Scott Rae: Right.

Sean McDowell: So it's not [laughs] a limitation on God's omnipotence, that's for sure. But when we talk about the body, there's certain things like burial aligns with the Christian hope of the body being planted to rise again. Burial recognizes a certain dignity of the body as the temple that we care for. And so there's certain precedents historically speaking and biblically that would lean me away from creat- cremation. Now, would I go to a service like this? I don't think it would be a barrier for me to go, but when I think through myself and my own practices and a biblical worldview, I think the little that we have of leans against cremation. There's no positive evidence for that. We have theological precedents for burial, so I think that's the wiser move for Christians to take as a whole. That's my take on it. Scott, we've got other questions here, but I think we can hold off on those until next week. Good discussion, my friend.

Scott Rae: Yeah.

Sean McDowell: As always, we, I think we made some good headways, and hopefully you've learned at least-

Scott Rae: I learned, I learned a lot of things from you today.

Sean McDowell: [laughs] I love it. Fun, my friend. I'm already looking forward to next week.

Scott Rae: Hear, hear.

Sean McDowell: 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, where both Scott and I teach classes. We've got master's programs. We would love to have you join us in person or online. Again, theology, Old Testament, New Testament, Bible, marriage, spiritual formation, philosophy, apologetics. To submit comments or ask questions, please email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu. And if you would just take a moment to give us a rating on your podcast app, it would actually help more than you may realize. We appreciate you listening, and, we will see you Tuesday when our regular episode airs. In the meantime, remember to think biblically about everything. [outro music]