WEBVTT 00:00:03.300 --> 00:00:06.120 It is the 13th of March, 2026. 00:00:06.120 --> 00:00:07.160 I am Corey J. 00:00:07.160 --> 00:00:09.920 Mahler, and this is At Any Cost. 00:00:09.920 --> 00:00:16.660 This is episode 20, a Q&A episode, and I really do not have any housekeeping. 00:00:16.660 --> 00:00:20.760 Just one little point before I get started on the questions here tonight. 00:00:20.760 --> 00:00:26.840 I'm also copying some questions over from the chat so that I can get them, if not tonight, at least. 00:00:26.840 --> 00:00:30.360 Next time, I don't know that I'll get that, at least all of them tonight. 00:00:30.360 --> 00:00:35.400 I have a number of questions prepared and ready to go. 00:00:35.400 --> 00:00:52.220 Insofar as the housekeeping goes, the one point is I know that I have been asked a number of times about the issue of beauty and the moral salience of beauty, particularly because of that one post on X that blew up and got 20 million views or something. 00:00:53.420 --> 00:00:57.360 At any rate, I wound up writing an article on that. 00:00:57.360 --> 00:01:03.240 I'm going to transcribe that hopefully tomorrow and then go ahead and publish that. 00:01:03.240 --> 00:01:11.360 That'll be my core answer to the issue of the moral salience of beauty, how that ties into these matters. 00:01:11.360 --> 00:01:14.240 So that will be an answer for those of you who have been asking about that. 00:01:14.240 --> 00:01:22.940 I'll probably also record something about it in the future, but the article will be the core of my answer to that. 00:01:25.580 --> 00:01:30.220 So getting into the questions here, pull up the first one. 00:01:33.100 --> 00:01:42.280 In today's political climate, it is evident that liberalism and race realism are incompatible, but this was not always the case. 00:01:42.280 --> 00:01:51.680 When we think of a nation like Australia and their federation in 1901, one of the first policies passed was the White Australia Policy. 00:01:51.680 --> 00:02:00.840 But the men of that time and the following prime ministers who endorsed this policy wouldn't self-describe as fascists or national socialists. 00:02:00.840 --> 00:02:08.140 The men of this time were quite liberal around trade, markets, civil liberties, democracy and other such things. 00:02:08.140 --> 00:02:16.800 Was the liberalism of that time something different from the incarnation today, or is it a category error to say that these men were liberal? 00:02:16.800 --> 00:02:26.260 Or is it the case that liberalism was intended for a white homogenous society, and when these parameters are not met, the system collapses in on itself? 00:02:26.260 --> 00:02:34.920 Additionally, is liberalism a political philosophy worth hanging on to or trying to reinvent or revitalize? 00:02:36.500 --> 00:02:44.960 Still just copying over a couple of questions here from the chat to make sure that I get those for next time. 00:02:44.960 --> 00:02:58.520 But insofar as liberalism is concerned, I think the fundamental problem is that it rests on the assumption of things that it destroys, in the fullness of time destroys. 00:02:58.520 --> 00:03:06.280 And this is similar to what we see with capitalism in the economic sphere, which capitalism and liberalism kind of go hand in hand. 00:03:06.280 --> 00:03:11.020 You have, one is, you even mentioned some of the economic aspects of liberalism. 00:03:11.780 --> 00:03:23.820 Liberalism is sort of the ideology or the philosophy of capitalism, and capitalism is itself also a bit of an ideology or philosophy, but more the economics of the philosophy. 00:03:23.820 --> 00:03:28.060 Obviously, they're related, you can't really extract the one from the other. 00:03:28.060 --> 00:03:46.160 But the issue with them is that they rely on all of this groundwork, all of these things that had been built up over a course of at least centuries, in Christendom, under a system that was very much not capitalist or liberal. 00:03:46.160 --> 00:03:57.980 And then relying on those things, they basically parasitize them and destroy them, and then eventually the system collapses because it can't sustain itself. 00:03:57.980 --> 00:04:02.560 It doesn't actually create the sort of conditions it needs to exist. 00:04:02.560 --> 00:04:08.320 It exploits the conditions that existed prior to it, due to other systems that preceded it. 00:04:09.620 --> 00:04:11.300 So, the short answer is no. 00:04:11.300 --> 00:04:20.560 I don't believe that trying to revive liberalism or bring back classical liberalism or whatever it happens to be is a good idea. 00:04:20.560 --> 00:04:32.760 There is a particularly noxious atheist on X who happens to be not exactly a neighbor, but he lives nearby close enough that he's sort of a neighbor for me. 00:04:32.820 --> 00:04:37.400 Forty minutes away, thankfully, decent distance, but that's his whole thing. 00:04:37.400 --> 00:04:42.620 That's his whole schtick is he's a classical liberal and wants to bring back those policies. 00:04:42.620 --> 00:04:47.620 And you can see exactly where those sort of men end up, where that leads. 00:04:47.620 --> 00:04:57.560 The sort of men who are pushing for classical liberalism are the ones who generally lead a dissolute life and want to encourage others to do the same. 00:04:57.560 --> 00:05:04.940 So, regardless of what it may have meant for those men, and for those men at the time, it did not mean what it means today. 00:05:04.940 --> 00:05:12.280 There's some overlap, of course, insofar as the economics is concerned, tons of overlap there. 00:05:12.280 --> 00:05:21.900 But insofar as the social policy and the morality and things like that, insofar as those are concerned, significantly less overlap. 00:05:21.900 --> 00:05:30.080 But like I said at the outset, I think the problem is that the system itself naturally leads to those consequences. 00:05:30.840 --> 00:05:42.300 I think that you end up there as just a natural outcome of pursuing liberalism, because what liberalism ultimately does is it tears down all of those boundaries. 00:05:42.300 --> 00:05:45.520 It tears down Chesterton's fence, basically. 00:05:45.520 --> 00:06:02.060 It tears down everything that not only made it possible for that system to sit atop what it had not constructed, but also that makes it possible for the sort of society that can exercise that in a reasonable fashion. 00:06:02.060 --> 00:06:04.800 It makes it impossible for that to exist for any length of time. 00:06:04.800 --> 00:06:09.900 And in fact, it is the cause, it is the solvent that dissolves that society. 00:06:11.360 --> 00:06:21.340 I can't think of a single instance in which you can point to liberalizing things in our society and the outcome has been good. 00:06:21.340 --> 00:06:27.240 I don't think that liberalizing the interactions between men and women has led to anything good. 00:06:27.800 --> 00:06:33.420 I don't think liberalizing the fashion for women has led to anything good. 00:06:33.420 --> 00:06:37.540 I don't think that liberalizing behavior in public spaces has led to anything good. 00:06:37.540 --> 00:06:44.240 And everyone in this chat could go on and do that for dozens, if not hundreds of things. 00:06:44.240 --> 00:06:49.800 So those men were mistaken, I believe, in what they were pursuing. 00:06:49.800 --> 00:06:53.580 I don't think most of them were doing it for evil or nefarious purposes. 00:06:53.580 --> 00:06:54.920 I think they were simply mistaken. 00:06:55.580 --> 00:07:00.840 But we have the advantage of hindsight. 00:07:00.840 --> 00:07:02.420 We should not repeat their errors. 00:07:02.420 --> 00:07:07.720 We know that it was deeply unwise, that it was something they shouldn't have done. 00:07:07.720 --> 00:07:09.720 We shouldn't give it another go. 00:07:09.720 --> 00:07:13.700 That's sort of like saying, that wasn't real communism, right? 00:07:13.700 --> 00:07:15.800 Hear that all the time from leftists. 00:07:15.800 --> 00:07:18.760 And you hear people today trying to say, well, it's not real capitalism. 00:07:18.760 --> 00:07:20.560 No, what we have is real capitalism. 00:07:20.560 --> 00:07:24.140 It's just the natural evolution of capitalism. 00:07:24.680 --> 00:07:26.700 It's late-stage capitalism. 00:07:26.700 --> 00:07:28.800 It's late-stage liberalism. 00:07:28.800 --> 00:07:32.240 So, no, I don't think that we should try to pursue that. 00:07:32.240 --> 00:07:41.980 And I think that anyone who does, fundamentally does not understand the things that are facing us and what needs to be done to address those problems. 00:07:41.980 --> 00:07:48.500 Going back to, you know, late 1900s, first half of the 19... 00:07:48.500 --> 00:07:53.560 or late 1800s, first half of the 1900s liberalism, that's not going to solve our problems. 00:07:54.160 --> 00:07:59.900 In fact, given how bad things are now, it is just going to exacerbate them significantly. 00:08:00.980 --> 00:08:05.660 And of course, there's also a great number of malefactors who are pushing for it. 00:08:05.660 --> 00:08:07.200 I mentioned one. 00:08:08.500 --> 00:08:18.240 The next question, question two, is a related question, as soon as it comes up here. 00:08:25.897 --> 00:08:28.897 The tab is taking a second to load. 00:08:31.877 --> 00:08:35.557 At any rate, I remembered the question, so I will just go over it instead of specifically reading it. 00:08:35.557 --> 00:08:44.377 The question is about On the Jews and Their Lies, and which one, of course, now it loads, and which one you should purchase, basically. 00:08:44.377 --> 00:08:47.737 Which one is the best copy of it? 00:08:47.737 --> 00:08:49.537 I'll read the question now that it's actually loaded. 00:08:49.537 --> 00:08:53.057 I was hoping that you could speak about Luther's On the Jews and Their Lies. 00:08:53.057 --> 00:08:57.917 Unrelated to recent events, I started reading this from Luther's Works, volume 47. 00:08:57.917 --> 00:09:12.497 In this case, it is Luther's Works, the American edition, that is jointly produced by the LCMS, which is Concordia Publishing House, and unfortunately, ELCA, which is Fortress Press. 00:09:12.497 --> 00:09:15.517 Historically wasn't as bad of a collaboration. 00:09:15.517 --> 00:09:18.277 Now ELCA has gone so far off the rails. 00:09:18.277 --> 00:09:29.257 It's unfortunate that they're working with them, but thus far, they haven't done anything destructive to the American edition, so I guess pray that continues. 00:09:29.257 --> 00:09:37.077 I was speaking with someone about this, and he said that he had read it also, but after speaking further, I found out that we read different versions. 00:09:37.077 --> 00:09:38.597 Unfortunately, those exist. 00:09:38.597 --> 00:09:45.277 His version was only about 40 pages, whereas the one in the AE is about 170. 00:09:45.277 --> 00:09:59.537 I have heard that this is some, I've heard there is some disagreement on the text, whether it's from Luther, accusations ranging from that Luther didn't really write this document, to Luther attacking the prophets, Jeremiah in particular. 00:09:59.537 --> 00:10:06.797 I am about three quarters of the way through it myself, and I have not found anything that would indicate that this did not come from Luther. 00:10:06.797 --> 00:10:08.397 I agree on that point. 00:10:08.397 --> 00:10:15.897 I could see Luther being taken out of context, given his liberal use of sarcasm, particularly Germanic sarcasm, which escapes many when they are reading. 00:10:16.737 --> 00:10:21.297 Personally, I have found the text underwhelming, given the reputation it has. 00:10:21.297 --> 00:10:22.777 I think that's fair. 00:10:22.777 --> 00:10:38.357 Many think that because of the title, On the Jews and Their Lies, it's just going to be some full-blown polemic, just decrying the evils of the Jews and basically saying that, you know, we should destroy them, etc. 00:10:38.357 --> 00:10:42.717 If you want that, read his letters to his wife and his final sermon. 00:10:43.257 --> 00:10:48.537 But, insofar as On the Jews and Their Lies is concerned, it's primarily a theological treatise. 00:10:48.537 --> 00:10:50.297 It is against the Jews. 00:10:50.297 --> 00:10:51.457 It is polemic. 00:10:51.457 --> 00:11:02.577 He does make frequent use of sarcasm in a particularly German way, but it's really not sensationalist like most people expect it to be. 00:11:02.577 --> 00:11:17.877 The 40-page versions, and the ones in that sort of vein usually run about that length, are basically sort of pamphlet versions of it, reduced down to often just the polemical bits, removing the theology. 00:11:17.877 --> 00:11:21.157 And those were popular decades ago. 00:11:22.197 --> 00:11:23.117 They're not very good. 00:11:23.117 --> 00:11:24.897 I don't bother with those. 00:11:24.897 --> 00:11:25.417 Why? 00:11:25.417 --> 00:11:28.077 The actual one's not that long. 00:11:28.077 --> 00:11:33.777 The full length of it, the Weimar edition, is about 65,000 words. 00:11:33.777 --> 00:11:37.297 And that's basically the equivalent in the AE. 00:11:37.297 --> 00:11:42.177 So if you are going to read it, the American edition is a good option. 00:11:42.177 --> 00:11:44.837 It is, unfortunately, not available for free. 00:11:44.837 --> 00:11:51.237 There is, insofar as I'm aware, no widely available PDF of it. 00:11:51.237 --> 00:11:53.477 No one has yet made that available. 00:11:54.517 --> 00:12:04.177 So you're going to have to pay the combination there, CPH, Fortress Press, I don't know how they divide it up, but however that works, 50 to 60 bucks. 00:12:04.177 --> 00:12:15.657 If you know someone who has a subscription to Luther's Works from, for instance, CPH, that person, he can order volumes at a discount. 00:12:15.657 --> 00:12:23.137 So if you have a friend, a pastor, someone who has that, your pastor might, if you're Lutheran, ask him to order you a copy, he can get it a little cheaper. 00:12:23.137 --> 00:12:31.437 So you can maybe get it for 45 or get it used for less, but unfortunately, they have not done what they should and made it freely available. 00:12:34.117 --> 00:12:39.797 So, yes, the volume is not going to be as sensationalist as you think. 00:12:39.797 --> 00:12:46.197 Yes, the American edition, volume 47, specifically, is probably the one you should read. 00:12:46.197 --> 00:12:49.557 There aren't major concerns about it. 00:12:49.557 --> 00:12:54.897 I am not fond of the man who edited that volume. 00:12:54.897 --> 00:13:07.097 I do not have any, I have not personally gone through and checked the translation against the German, but I don't have any hard evidence showing he played games with this. 00:13:07.097 --> 00:13:16.077 But I know that he was friendlier with the Jews than a Christian should be, certainly than a Lutheran should be, certainly the Lutheran editing this volume of Luther. 00:13:16.077 --> 00:13:19.357 But he's ultimately not the man who translated it. 00:13:19.357 --> 00:13:23.397 Bertram translated it, I believe was the gentleman's last name. 00:13:23.397 --> 00:13:28.717 The other man who edited it, the editor is the one who has some questions there. 00:13:28.717 --> 00:13:31.377 But again, I don't have hard evidence that he did anything wrong. 00:13:31.377 --> 00:13:34.437 As far as I know, the volume is reliable. 00:13:34.437 --> 00:13:41.937 I've read it, nothing stood out as wrong to me, nothing clashed with what I know from the German, so it's probably fine. 00:13:41.937 --> 00:13:50.757 If you are concerned about any particular passage, you can always just take the German and drop it into an AI and get a literal translation of the German. 00:13:50.757 --> 00:13:55.757 That's going to be sufficient to see if the editor played any games there. 00:13:55.757 --> 00:14:06.877 But basically, yes, that's the option you want if you're going to read it in English, and it's not going to be what people have built it up to be because it's a theological treatise. 00:14:06.877 --> 00:14:08.017 It's not just polemic. 00:14:08.017 --> 00:14:09.017 It has polemical elements. 00:14:09.017 --> 00:14:12.837 It is a polemic as well, but it's not exclusively that. 00:14:13.937 --> 00:14:18.917 But yes, to emphasize what I said at the beginning, to repeat it, I do believe that Luther wrote it. 00:14:18.917 --> 00:14:20.677 It sounds just like Luther. 00:14:20.677 --> 00:14:22.717 It sounds like his other polemics. 00:14:22.717 --> 00:14:25.057 You can read ones against, for instance, Henry VIII. 00:14:25.057 --> 00:14:27.617 He has a polemic against him in... 00:14:27.617 --> 00:14:28.577 That was a more recent volume. 00:14:28.617 --> 00:14:30.837 It's on my shelf, so I can't remember the number. 00:14:34.097 --> 00:14:39.457 The next question, I'm actually going to sort of punt this one, I guess. 00:14:41.177 --> 00:14:52.337 But I am in a position where I am increasingly asked to give counsel to people regarding a wide variety of issues, marriage, lack of marriage, addictions, anxiety, etc. 00:14:52.337 --> 00:15:02.797 Often these problems and the requisite counsel are relatively simple, but sometimes something complex comes up, and I am not as thoroughly equipped to deal with it as I would like to be. 00:15:02.797 --> 00:15:14.397 The trained and credentialed people to whom I would typically be advised to refer them, pastors, psychologists, therapists, are often questionable, and I feel I'd be doing them a disservice by doing so. 00:15:14.397 --> 00:15:19.177 Do you have any advice or recommendations for books or other resources that would be helpful? 00:15:19.177 --> 00:15:27.377 Both secular and Christian works on the subject are often reductive in the ways expounded in the Addicted to Psychologizing Episode of Stone Choir. 00:15:27.377 --> 00:15:34.217 And then the reason given, given the failings of the churches, this is a task that Christian men will have to more often bear. 00:15:34.217 --> 00:15:35.437 That's true. 00:15:36.737 --> 00:15:41.617 I'll say a few things about it, but I'm going to make a note for myself. 00:15:41.617 --> 00:15:54.797 This is something where it just makes more sense if I add this to the show notes, so that you can actually click through and find the resources that makes a little more sense than my just listing books. 00:15:54.797 --> 00:16:07.977 And also, I want to spend the time to look at it a little more thoroughly, since I have kept up with the psychology literature and those things to some degree, but I haven't been heavily invested in that in 12 years or so. 00:16:07.977 --> 00:16:12.697 So I would like to do a refresher before I give too many recommendations on that. 00:16:12.697 --> 00:16:23.357 Yes, I answered previous questions about modalities that are permissible, or at least not entirely suspect, when it comes to psychology and therapy and things like that. 00:16:23.357 --> 00:16:25.477 That was in a previous Q&A episode. 00:16:25.477 --> 00:16:26.597 So it's related to that. 00:16:26.597 --> 00:16:30.877 But as far as specific resources are concerned, I'll put that in the show notes. 00:16:30.877 --> 00:16:33.557 I'll try and go over that this coming week. 00:16:34.957 --> 00:16:42.717 But just sort of a basic starting point for a lot of people, just recommend some changes in behavior. 00:16:43.697 --> 00:16:50.177 A lot of the stuff where you're going to run into it, just go do some exercise. 00:16:50.177 --> 00:16:51.317 It's particularly for men. 00:16:51.317 --> 00:16:53.617 Lift something heavy, go for a walk. 00:16:53.617 --> 00:17:00.577 Your mental health is going to be so much better if you just get in a little bit of exercise and then lift something heavy. 00:17:00.577 --> 00:17:02.357 It's pretty simple. 00:17:02.357 --> 00:17:07.637 A lot of this stuff seems really complicated and really difficult, and some of it is. 00:17:07.637 --> 00:17:10.177 I won't say that it isn't, but a lot of the system is really simple. 00:17:10.997 --> 00:17:18.037 God made what it takes for men to be happy a pretty short list of things and relatively achievable. 00:17:18.037 --> 00:17:22.717 Part of it is you need to be in decent physical shape, not, you know, great physical shape. 00:17:22.717 --> 00:17:25.597 If you can achieve that, by all means, go for it. 00:17:25.597 --> 00:17:32.517 But get in a little bit of cardio, lift something heavy, do something you enjoy. 00:17:32.517 --> 00:17:39.437 Don't spend all of your time staring at the anxiety box, whichever one it is you prefer, your iPhone, your TV, whatever it is. 00:17:39.517 --> 00:17:42.637 Because go out and do something else. 00:17:42.637 --> 00:17:47.157 Those are sort of the baseline recommendations, and those things are free, practically. 00:17:47.157 --> 00:17:48.917 That's where you want to start. 00:17:48.917 --> 00:17:53.197 And then from there, obviously, you can make recommendations out of God's word. 00:17:53.197 --> 00:17:57.337 You know, God cares for the sparrow, certainly he cares for you, and things like that. 00:17:57.337 --> 00:17:59.137 You're aware of those things. 00:17:59.137 --> 00:18:02.217 So that's some of the Christian approach. 00:18:02.217 --> 00:18:12.017 But for specific resources for reading on it and understanding some of the underlying theory and things like that, I will, again, put that in the show notes. 00:18:13.637 --> 00:18:17.497 So look for that in the coming week or two. 00:18:21.217 --> 00:18:23.817 The next question is question four. 00:18:31.804 --> 00:18:33.764 I don't know why my form is being a little slow. 00:18:33.764 --> 00:18:35.844 There we go. 00:18:35.844 --> 00:18:44.124 For those of us who aspire to marry one day, which should be most men, how should we go about navigating laws regarding marriage? 00:18:44.124 --> 00:18:51.324 For example, what is your opinion on prenuptial agreements in light of the 80% of divorces being initiated by women? 00:18:51.324 --> 00:18:58.624 Is it permissible to be de facto married, rightly ordered without involving the state in your marriage, for example, getting a marriage license? 00:18:59.604 --> 00:19:03.004 Do you think it would be worth moving to a state with better marriage laws? 00:19:03.004 --> 00:19:15.364 For example, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Arizona permit covenant marriages that enable the married couple to legally waive the possibility of no-fault divorce, permitting divorce only in cases of adultery or abandonment. 00:19:17.164 --> 00:19:24.044 Yes, it is definitely better if you can be somewhere that has better laws. 00:19:24.044 --> 00:19:27.124 That doesn't mean you necessarily move just for that, you know. 00:19:29.064 --> 00:19:35.904 California is going to be a great example, since I'm a California attorney, and I used to live in California. 00:19:35.904 --> 00:19:41.924 California marriage laws are really bad in terms of how they are enforced. 00:19:41.924 --> 00:19:43.344 On the books, they're not as bad. 00:19:43.344 --> 00:19:46.744 This is actually a really significant problem in California. 00:19:46.744 --> 00:19:49.944 On the books, California's laws are often pretty good. 00:19:49.944 --> 00:19:55.504 Sometimes they have some cruft in things that have been added in recent years, but they're generally not that bad. 00:19:56.404 --> 00:20:03.144 It's the enforcement, because the courts are insane and the judges are evil. 00:20:03.144 --> 00:20:17.804 So you're going to have to go to an attorney who specializes in the law in your state with regard to this, because there will be things you can do in some states that you cannot do in other states. 00:20:17.804 --> 00:20:23.144 And so what is permissible in a prenuptial agreement is going to be a matter of state law. 00:20:23.984 --> 00:20:28.784 It's not a matter of, there's no national standard for that. 00:20:28.784 --> 00:20:33.264 I do not object to prenuptial agreements per se. 00:20:33.264 --> 00:20:37.664 I would object to the inclusion of certain things in them. 00:20:37.664 --> 00:20:47.744 And so that's going to be a matter of ensuring that the covenants, the specific clauses in the prenuptial agreement are consonant with Christian morality. 00:20:47.744 --> 00:20:52.204 And so just as an example, your state may or may not permit this. 00:20:52.324 --> 00:21:03.464 But if your state permits it, by all means have a prenuptial agreement that says, in the case of infidelity, the party at fault gets nothing. 00:21:03.464 --> 00:21:09.744 The children go 100% to the party not at fault, if your state permits that. 00:21:09.744 --> 00:21:10.904 Your state may very well not. 00:21:10.904 --> 00:21:14.424 It's probably kind of likely that they will have some caveats there. 00:21:14.424 --> 00:21:19.184 But things like that are perfectly permissible, because that's how it should be in our laws. 00:21:19.184 --> 00:21:33.584 So what you're doing is, as a matter of private law, which is all a contract is, it's private law, as a matter of private law, you're filling in the gaps in the public law, and you're bringing it more in line with the moral law insofar as you are able to do so. 00:21:33.584 --> 00:21:36.064 That's perfectly permissible. 00:21:36.064 --> 00:21:42.904 But no, you can't include in your prenuptial agreement, if I decide I don't like you anymore, I can just tell you to leave and you get nothing. 00:21:42.904 --> 00:21:44.764 That's not morally acceptable. 00:21:44.764 --> 00:21:46.304 You can't do that. 00:21:46.304 --> 00:21:53.124 So it's going to be a matter of what your state permits, and then what is in line with Christian morality. 00:21:53.124 --> 00:21:56.104 Just make sure that you line up with both of those. 00:21:56.104 --> 00:22:02.364 And again, you're going to have to involve an attorney because this is going to be specific to your state. 00:22:02.364 --> 00:22:09.404 Yes, I recognize that's sort of the general advice you get from most attorneys is, get an attorney's advice, right? 00:22:09.404 --> 00:22:13.804 But that is the reality for certain parts of the law, particularly this one. 00:22:15.224 --> 00:22:18.944 So I would like to comment on the divorce rates. 00:22:19.064 --> 00:22:25.604 As well, because the divorce rates look a lot worse than they actually are. 00:22:25.604 --> 00:22:35.584 And the reason they look worse than they actually are is because the people who are pushing the narrative hate marriage, they want you to despair. 00:22:35.584 --> 00:22:40.564 Only ever look at the statistics for first marriages. 00:22:40.564 --> 00:22:42.204 That's the game they play. 00:22:42.204 --> 00:22:51.544 Because what they'll say is they'll say, oh, this giant percentage of marriages end in divorce because it's the woman who's had 15 husbands. 00:22:51.544 --> 00:22:53.844 They don't throw out the outlier. 00:22:53.844 --> 00:22:58.564 So if you're going to look at those data, make sure you're looking at first marriages and maybe second marriages. 00:22:58.564 --> 00:23:02.404 Don't include the people who've had six, seven marriages. 00:23:02.404 --> 00:23:07.364 That's going to throw off the actual relevant answer. 00:23:07.364 --> 00:23:11.364 Because those people are horrible outliers, and you don't want to include them. 00:23:11.364 --> 00:23:24.044 Because unless you're going to be the kind of person who is going to have seven marriages, then that's not really particularly relevant to you that the person who has a sixth marriage often also gets divorced and has a seventh. 00:23:24.044 --> 00:23:32.024 So just recognize they play games, so those statistics, it's, you know, the standard thing, lies, damned lies and statistics, right? 00:23:32.024 --> 00:23:35.364 So you have to be aware of how they play these games. 00:23:35.364 --> 00:23:39.384 And that is very much done with the marriage and divorce rates. 00:23:42.584 --> 00:24:04.344 With regard to marrying but not being married in the eyes of the state, so in other words, going and having the church ceremony, but not being married according to what the state considers a marriage, I would generally say you should avoid doing that unless there is... 00:24:04.344 --> 00:24:08.344 I won't give a categorical blanket, no, you must not do that, it's always wrong. 00:24:09.244 --> 00:24:21.304 If the state is so evil and corrupt, that the best thing you can do is not have the state involved at all, the state's going to involve itself anyway, just so you know. 00:24:21.304 --> 00:24:28.604 But if you can minimize that involvement under those circumstances, I don't think that that's morally impermissible. 00:24:28.604 --> 00:24:36.924 You know, if you're in the Soviet Union, and somehow it's going to decrease your odds of being sent to the Gulag, then by all means, don't tell the state. 00:24:38.004 --> 00:24:59.964 But most of the time, under current circumstances in our country, in the United States, it's not really going to benefit you in any significant way to have the church, which the church may not even sign off on your marriage if you don't go through the proper process so-called. 00:24:59.964 --> 00:25:03.104 It's not going to benefit you significantly, if at all. 00:25:03.104 --> 00:25:10.984 In many cases, it may actually make things more difficult for you and harm you in terms of the outcome you want to achieve. 00:25:10.984 --> 00:25:19.244 In a lot of states, it's not going to protect you with regard to personal property or anything like that, if you should happen to get divorced. 00:25:19.244 --> 00:25:26.304 Again, a question for an attorney who's actually versed in your state law, since I do not know the law of marriage in every state. 00:25:26.304 --> 00:25:29.104 I've never practiced that sort of law. 00:25:29.104 --> 00:25:37.004 But odds are not going to significantly benefit you, not going to be something that you necessarily want to pursue. 00:25:37.004 --> 00:25:42.744 And I don't think that our circumstances are bad enough to make it compelling that you should do that. 00:25:42.744 --> 00:25:57.904 I think follow the ordinary procedure, do the thing that is considered the right way to do it, and take advantage of pre-marriage counseling if it is available, and you have a good pastor. 00:25:57.904 --> 00:26:02.264 Talk to couples who are in your church and have been married for 40, 50, 60 years. 00:26:03.624 --> 00:26:21.404 Make sure that you are purposeful in what you are trying to do with that marriage, and that both you and your wife understand, your future wife in this case, understand this is for better or worse, in sickness or health, until death do us part. 00:26:21.404 --> 00:26:24.984 Make sure you're both on the same page, understand exactly what it is you're doing. 00:26:24.984 --> 00:26:28.504 That's going to go a long way toward resolving these issues. 00:26:28.504 --> 00:26:30.564 Part of it is just choosing the right person up front, right? 00:26:31.784 --> 00:26:33.104 That's the reality of it. 00:26:33.104 --> 00:26:40.384 That doesn't make it easier to do, but you can take some steps to try and sort of hedge your odds, right? 00:26:40.384 --> 00:26:46.764 To make it more likely you've chosen a woman who's going to make a good and loyal wife. 00:26:46.764 --> 00:26:52.824 And for the women listening, you've chosen a man who's going to make a good and loyal husband, right? 00:26:52.824 --> 00:26:54.904 Take advantage of the resources you have available to you. 00:27:01.027 --> 00:27:05.447 I did see someone ask about taking questions from live chat. 00:27:05.447 --> 00:27:10.527 This is not actually going to be one of the numbered questions, since I'm just answering it in passing. 00:27:10.527 --> 00:27:15.567 Of course, the transcript will go ahead and number them wrong. 00:27:15.567 --> 00:27:17.407 But yes, I do look at the chat. 00:27:17.407 --> 00:27:26.727 I often will take them and then answer them in the future if I do not have time to get to them tonight, because I try to keep this around an hour. 00:27:26.727 --> 00:27:29.727 I often run over, but I try not to run over by too much. 00:27:30.527 --> 00:27:38.887 In part, because the transcript then runs over, and then I have to split the transcript on the form in other places, and it just makes it a little bit more of a mess to handle. 00:27:38.887 --> 00:27:49.787 But the next question, question number five, this issue has been bothering me for some time. 00:27:49.787 --> 00:27:53.447 For reading and scripture memorization, I use the ESV. 00:27:53.447 --> 00:28:01.887 Do you know why the choice was made not to capitalize the pronouns which refer to God when they were producing that translation? 00:28:01.887 --> 00:28:09.467 In either formal or casual writing, shouldn't the pronouns which refer to God be capitalized to be the most reverent we can be? 00:28:09.467 --> 00:28:12.167 This has bothered me for years. 00:28:12.167 --> 00:28:24.747 That actually bothers me as well, and I think it's obvious from my writing that my personal preference is certainty to capitalize all of the pronouns and pretty much all the nouns that refer to God. 00:28:27.967 --> 00:28:32.547 So, this has really two different answers. 00:28:32.547 --> 00:28:39.907 The one is the answer they always give and sort of the practical answer, and then the second is the real answer, right? 00:28:40.967 --> 00:28:49.207 The first answer is that capitalizing the pronouns that refer to God is actually relatively novel. 00:28:49.207 --> 00:28:58.127 I think the earliest translation that did it in English goes back to maybe the 1800s, maybe the 1700s. 00:28:58.127 --> 00:29:00.187 It's not very far back. 00:29:00.187 --> 00:29:04.247 Notably, the 1611 King James did not. 00:29:04.247 --> 00:29:13.267 And so, people who are reading the King James and saying, well, the King James, yes, your King James does, the original did not. 00:29:13.267 --> 00:29:24.747 Of course, you go back far enough and English turns back into German, and then it's capitalizing things again, because German capitalizes nouns, but not pronouns, which is another thing worth noting. 00:29:24.747 --> 00:29:33.647 In Luther's translation, for instance, in Luther, no one is going to accuse Luther of being irreverent with regard to his view of the transcendent God, right? 00:29:33.647 --> 00:29:37.907 He didn't capitalize God's pronouns, because German doesn't do that. 00:29:37.907 --> 00:29:49.027 Now, he did write the German equivalent of the Lorde Herr in all caps, which I believe is part of how we wound up with that convention. 00:29:49.027 --> 00:29:55.627 When translating the Lorde in the Old Testament, it is in small caps in many English Bibles. 00:29:55.627 --> 00:29:58.167 I believe that was following Luther's... 00:29:58.167 --> 00:30:05.307 Basically, he started that convention with his first translation of the scriptures into German. 00:30:05.307 --> 00:30:23.787 So insofar as the capitalization in the ESV and other such translation is concerned, the reason that the translators will give for not doing so, there are four or five, but the two core reasons, the two most important, most salient reasons. 00:30:23.807 --> 00:30:28.427 One, it's just not something that we really have historically done in English. 00:30:28.427 --> 00:30:35.767 It was something that people started doing, but it doesn't go back very far, and they just stopped doing it. 00:30:35.767 --> 00:30:39.327 And then also, there is no style guide that recommends it. 00:30:39.327 --> 00:30:43.527 They love to appeal to that, you know, take that or leave it, whatever that's of a value to you, right? 00:30:44.767 --> 00:30:52.527 If you're following a style guide, then you follow the style guide, unless you make your own subversion of it, right? 00:30:52.527 --> 00:31:00.667 The other reason they'll give, and this one I actually find more compelling, but I don't find it sufficiently compelling to change my stance. 00:31:00.667 --> 00:31:10.647 They will say that if you are deciding to capitalize or not capitalize a pronoun, you are in addition to making the translation choices, right? 00:31:10.647 --> 00:31:13.007 Which the translator has to make translation choices. 00:31:13.887 --> 00:31:15.887 That's another layer. 00:31:15.887 --> 00:31:28.327 You're now actually making some theology choices, because, for instance, there are some places in the Old Testament where you're going to have to decide if the angel of the Lord is an angel or Christ. 00:31:28.327 --> 00:31:40.007 And if you don't capitalize things other than basically proper nouns referring to God, then you don't have to make that theological call. 00:31:41.427 --> 00:31:47.927 I understand that, because often translators are not going to be the one who should be making that theological call. 00:31:47.927 --> 00:31:50.607 Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't. 00:31:50.607 --> 00:31:58.447 I think that when a proper English translation of the Septuagint is made, those calls will have to be made at that time. 00:31:58.447 --> 00:32:00.187 I think that's the right way to do it. 00:32:00.187 --> 00:32:08.947 And I think, incidentally, angel of the Lord, angels should probably be capitalized in many of those cases, because it's very clearly, to my mind, referring to Christ. 00:32:09.267 --> 00:32:12.567 And so, it is referring to God and should be capitalized. 00:32:12.567 --> 00:32:15.747 I think it is a proper sign of reverence. 00:32:15.747 --> 00:32:18.947 It is something that English permits us to do. 00:32:18.947 --> 00:32:25.387 You can't do it in German, because capitalizing pronouns would make you kind of seem insane. 00:32:25.387 --> 00:32:36.547 Because either you follow the modern orthography and don't capitalize them at all, or you follow the older orthography and capitalize them all. 00:32:36.547 --> 00:32:37.407 You do one or the other. 00:32:38.527 --> 00:32:41.167 It would be a weird hodgepodge system if you tried to do it in German. 00:32:41.167 --> 00:32:42.467 English doesn't have that problem. 00:32:42.467 --> 00:32:46.747 This is an instance where English provides us the flexibility to do this. 00:32:46.747 --> 00:32:48.407 I think we should do it. 00:32:48.407 --> 00:32:56.047 We sort of randomly capitalize nouns and things sometimes in English, when we want to show a certain sort of emphasis on things, right? 00:32:56.047 --> 00:33:01.987 If you're talking about the establishment and you want to imply some things, you capitalize the E. 00:33:01.987 --> 00:33:06.687 So I don't think capitalizing the pronouns for God is at odds with English grammar. 00:33:07.207 --> 00:33:09.207 I think it's permitted by English grammar. 00:33:09.207 --> 00:33:10.707 I think it is a sign of reverence. 00:33:10.707 --> 00:33:13.107 I think it's something we should do. 00:33:13.107 --> 00:33:18.447 And then the second point, the real reason, many of them are theological liberals. 00:33:18.447 --> 00:33:22.607 Ultimately, what they're doing is trying to downgrade the status of God. 00:33:22.607 --> 00:33:26.247 They're playing games with the text insofar as they can get away with it. 00:33:26.247 --> 00:33:28.467 They're doing it for nefarious reasons. 00:33:28.467 --> 00:33:37.527 A lot of times they're just spineless liberals, but they are doing it for wicked reasons, not because the Chicago style manual tells them they have to. 00:33:37.527 --> 00:33:45.967 That's the excuse they give, but the real reason is that they don't hold God in the high esteem they should. 00:33:45.967 --> 00:33:48.907 And they should never have been in a translation committee. 00:33:48.907 --> 00:33:52.107 So, you have their reasons, and then you have the real reason. 00:33:52.107 --> 00:33:53.947 I'm not saying all of them are wicked, of course. 00:33:53.947 --> 00:34:02.107 There are some translators who try very hard to be faithful to scripture, but there are a lot of men who do it for the academic prowess, and they're not good men. 00:34:11.863 --> 00:34:18.583 The next question here, I guess, shifting gears a little bit, tangentially related. 00:34:21.063 --> 00:34:24.983 I was wondering if you had any insight into speed reading courses. 00:34:24.983 --> 00:34:34.843 I know you have had to do a lot of reading for your legal profession and on theology, and about 15 other subjects, yes. 00:34:34.843 --> 00:34:39.463 I have to do a lot of reading for work, most of which is skim worthy for me to get the gist. 00:34:39.583 --> 00:34:43.503 I also want to read faster to go through other material. 00:34:43.503 --> 00:34:57.503 So insofar as speed reading is concerned, this is actually an issue that I looked into a lot back when I was doing psychology in undergrad, and then also interested in it up through law school. 00:34:57.503 --> 00:35:11.143 But I went back and looked at the current state of the research to make sure that what I remembered was consistent with what they have found, and it's been consistent over a course of decades now. 00:35:11.143 --> 00:35:14.403 Speed reading by and large is snake oil. 00:35:14.403 --> 00:35:20.283 Not entirely, so before anyone gets angry at me about that, or get angry at me, I don't really care. 00:35:20.283 --> 00:35:31.723 But the claims of a thousand words a minute, two thousand words a minute, you get even crazier claims, and you get the people who are just sitting there flipping pages, saying they read the page, right? 00:35:31.723 --> 00:35:35.663 As it barely hit their retina, they read it. 00:35:35.663 --> 00:35:36.863 Complete nonsense. 00:35:36.863 --> 00:35:39.503 It's not something human beings can do. 00:35:39.503 --> 00:35:42.003 Is there maybe a weird outlier out there? 00:35:42.003 --> 00:35:43.323 Sure, Asperger's exists. 00:35:43.323 --> 00:35:46.343 Like maybe that guy is out there somewhere. 00:35:46.343 --> 00:35:50.243 Most people can see some sort of improvement. 00:35:50.243 --> 00:35:53.583 There are different levels of how quickly people read. 00:35:53.583 --> 00:35:59.523 Basically, they correlate almost exactly with level of education, at least they did historically. 00:35:59.523 --> 00:36:04.083 Now, because of the weakening of admission standards and things like that, they no longer do. 00:36:04.083 --> 00:36:06.943 It's partly a correlation with intelligence, but not entirely. 00:36:08.523 --> 00:36:16.283 Someone with some university education, if I remember correctly, is going to be around 250 to 300 words per minute. 00:36:16.283 --> 00:36:17.363 That's sustained. 00:36:17.363 --> 00:36:20.583 And there's a difference between sort of burst and sustained. 00:36:20.583 --> 00:36:23.763 So reading a short article is different from reading a thousand page book. 00:36:24.583 --> 00:36:33.303 The sustained one is going to matter more, given what you're saying about reading, and just generally this sort of question, the couching of the question here. 00:36:33.303 --> 00:36:36.463 So if you can get up to that 300 words per minute level, that's pretty good. 00:36:36.463 --> 00:36:38.363 That's about what you want to hit. 00:36:38.363 --> 00:36:40.683 Are there individuals who can go higher? 00:36:40.683 --> 00:36:41.543 Sure. 00:36:41.543 --> 00:36:58.043 If you take some of the reputable courses, and there are some that are reputable because they're actually based on psychology, understanding of how human beings process things, short-term memory, how your eyes move across the page is actually really important. 00:36:58.043 --> 00:37:06.283 You could maybe get 10 to 20 percent improvement in your reading speed, which it's not nothing, but it's not a miracle claim, right? 00:37:06.283 --> 00:37:11.663 You're not tripling or quadrupling or whatever your reading speed. 00:37:11.663 --> 00:37:13.823 You can see some benefit from that. 00:37:13.823 --> 00:37:19.523 But beyond that, I think just some practical recommendations may serve you even better. 00:37:20.783 --> 00:37:47.283 And the state of the research basically shows that the training for speed reading is about as beneficial or perhaps even slightly less beneficial than the metacognition, which basically means understanding how your brain processes the things that you read, and then how to take what you've processed and store it in a way that will be retrievable in the future. 00:37:48.023 --> 00:37:54.903 So, understanding those things is probably a better starting place. 00:37:54.903 --> 00:37:56.603 So, that would be one of my two recommendations. 00:37:56.603 --> 00:38:04.483 The other would be, do what is within your power to do to improve your attention span. 00:38:04.483 --> 00:38:07.263 That's not obviously a personal attack. 00:38:07.263 --> 00:38:12.703 We all have shortened attention spans these days because of the hell rectangle, right? 00:38:12.703 --> 00:38:26.643 Because of all the screens in our lives and all the other things that are designed to give you that dopamine hit and to make you want to click next, next, next, and just never stop staring at it, you know, doom scrolling, whatever you want to call it. 00:38:26.643 --> 00:38:43.003 If you can pull yourself out of that morass, then by all means, that's going to help you with reading because part of the reason modern readers have so much trouble maintaining a reasonable speed of reading is because they're getting distracted constantly. 00:38:43.003 --> 00:38:53.143 If you read ten words and then stare at your phone, you're not going to get as much done as the person who can sit for an hour and just read, which is something human beings used to be able to do. 00:38:53.143 --> 00:38:57.483 So improve your attention span, focus on metacognition. 00:38:57.483 --> 00:39:08.443 If you can find a reputable course, maybe consider doing a little bit of it just to get that, you know, 10, 15 percent boost, but don't expect to read a thousand words per minute. 00:39:08.443 --> 00:39:35.283 Even under ideal laboratory conditions with men who are already very good at reading quickly, highly intelligent, trained men, they could only get them up to like 600, 700 words per minute, which is fast, of course, but it's not the crazy claims of the speed reading programs, and it's under laboratory conditions for a limited period of time. 00:39:35.283 --> 00:39:36.843 You're just not going to achieve that. 00:39:36.843 --> 00:39:46.143 So if you can hit that 250, 300 words per minute sustained, by all means consider that a good achievement, and that's probably enough. 00:39:46.143 --> 00:39:50.183 Then the other practical recommendation is just, you're going to need a hierarchy. 00:39:50.183 --> 00:39:56.763 Prioritize the things that are actually worthy of your time, and don't read the things that aren't. 00:39:56.763 --> 00:40:02.783 You get men who think that as long as they're reading, they're achieving something, you may be reading complete crap. 00:40:02.783 --> 00:40:05.123 You may just be wasting your time. 00:40:05.183 --> 00:40:08.383 So, why? 00:40:08.383 --> 00:40:12.803 Focus on the things you need to read, and set aside the things you don't, right? 00:40:20.480 --> 00:40:24.800 The next question, definitely shifting gears a little bit here. 00:40:24.800 --> 00:40:30.800 I'm gonna open up a couple so that I don't have this tab loading issue going on. 00:40:34.460 --> 00:40:38.200 And I do see people asking about taking questions and things. 00:40:38.200 --> 00:40:40.020 And yes, you can just ask them in the chat. 00:40:40.020 --> 00:40:42.400 I will likely notice them. 00:40:42.400 --> 00:40:45.300 If I don't, then please put them on the form. 00:40:45.300 --> 00:40:46.780 Question about the gift of celibacy. 00:40:46.780 --> 00:40:48.100 This one comes up every so often. 00:40:48.980 --> 00:40:52.920 I have heard you mention the gift of celibacy and how rare it is several times. 00:40:52.920 --> 00:40:55.160 If you're willing to share, do you have that gift? 00:40:55.160 --> 00:40:58.960 No, I do actually like women, so no. 00:40:58.960 --> 00:41:08.860 That would certainly make focusing on reading and things more convenient and easier, because women are very distracting as every man who does not have the gift of celibacy knows. 00:41:08.860 --> 00:41:13.460 So as I pointed out, just go over the basic of the gift. 00:41:13.460 --> 00:41:21.340 You know if you have it, because if you have ever been tempted by a woman, you don't. 00:41:21.340 --> 00:41:22.960 Because that's what the gift of celibacy is. 00:41:22.960 --> 00:41:30.860 It's God removing that desire from you, so that you can just 100% focus on whatever it is you're doing. 00:41:30.860 --> 00:41:40.420