Welcome back to
"The Liberty Insider."
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Before the break with
guest, Clifford Goldstein.
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We were talking Zombie Muhammad,
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and a crazy incident there
in Mechanicsville, Pennsylvania.
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And this is a
matter of free speech
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and we discussed
that at some length.
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Free speech has
amazing limits legally
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and thankfully that those-
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But to me it raises a bigger
question of religious liberty.
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You and I take it for
granted, we defend it.
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We look at the constitution,
we look at Bible text
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and so on, but what
is the philosophical
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and logical base
for religious liberty.
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Is it so self evident,
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is it one of this
self evident truth.
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Now, and that's where, you know,
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I mentioned in our
earlier show that I thought
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Jefferson's declaration
of independence was bit over
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the top, and you
know, we hold these truths
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to be self evident,
that all men are created
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equal and they
die with their creator
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with all these alienable life,
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liberty in the
pursuit of happiness.
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It all sounds nice, but
I am not really quite sure
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it is an unalienable truth.
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You know, it's
very obvious, in fact-
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It's not obvious
to most societies,
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because they don't
grant it naturally.
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Well, I mean you go back,
we talked here about Plato,
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you go back Aristotle.
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Aristotle was very much into
putting things in categories,
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you know, into categorizing
this, categorizing that,
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everything, I think
he got one of his things
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is called the
categories, and so forth.
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But he argued for slavery.
And she said it was natural.
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He said there are some
people amazed to this place.
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Well, there are some
people who are made to be slave.
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Some people are made to be,
you know, this higher level.
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And I think Plato, even bought
into some of that as well so,
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its not- Now I
better defend Plato.
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I think when they
were talking about slavery,
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as even in the
Bible, it was really well,
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what do they used
to say in the U.S.
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early days, it
was bonded servant.
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Yeah, that
peculiar institutions.
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Now, this slavery
where you got someone
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that you're holding by
force, you'll be mistreatment.
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You treat them less than human,
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but throughout a
lot of human history
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it was bonded
servants, people that did
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financially lost
independence over landlords,
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or were contractually
tied to an employer.
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Yeah.
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And what did Jesus say,
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the employer
always has with you.
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So I implying that
side of the argument.
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I can say yes,
society naturally stratifies,
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but that shouldn't
deprive a court slave,
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or person without the
same economic freedom.
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They shouldn't deprive them
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of their human
rights and values.
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But I think this
discussion of slavery
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when you get into ancient Greeks
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and so on, and even the Bible.
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It's not always the same
thing as the institution in the-
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Well, I wouldn't
have a slave to slavery,
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you could put it
different turn out, its still-
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Well, I don't know
about you, but I feel
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that I'm a slave to the bank
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when I have to
pay them mortgage.
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Yeah, well, but then you
can take it to flaws some ways.
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I'm a slave to the government
if I don't pay the tax,
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where do I end up.
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Yeah, but you
could put it to flaw,
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but I think lets
use the term in it,
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the way that we generally
know back in ancient Greek world
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that wasn't so much a
racial thing as it was.
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If you went-- they went to war.
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Those who lost,
they took the women,
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they kill the men, and
whatever they could take,
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you know, and they put
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and make him a
slave and so forth.
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But the point is,
the point is Aristotle
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who is probably a great
man, okay, to say the least.
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He looked around and a
good astute student of nature.
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He spend his life
studying the world.
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He argued that there
was an inherent, you know,
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inherent levels of
humanity and that there were
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certain people who
were meant to be slave.
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So it's not a natural thing
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that's right,
that's right there.
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Now there might be
something innate in humans,
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would strive for
freedom, they want freedom,
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and I believe that.
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And again to say, I do
think from our religious liberty
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perspective coming
from our perspective,
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we really can't
separate it from our theology.
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No.
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And that's where
I'm leading it to it.
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Because I mean if
you really want to argue,
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if you took a
totally atheistic worldview,
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say that a dog when in
worldview dog eats dog,
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survival of the fittest.
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You can almost argue
that slavery would be
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a natural thing, you know,
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that those who are
stronger over the weak
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dominate them and use
them to support themselves
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and to use them
to keep them going,
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so I think from
a--I mean I guess,
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I'm sure there is some
very articulate atheists,
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an evolutionists who could argue
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very well for their position.
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There's a philosophical
viewpoint that would be
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fairly not
synonymous, but agreed--
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agreeable to true
religious liberty.
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Ironically in my
view is Anarchism.
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Yeah, well, yeah, without--
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Without lure, without keep.
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Yeah, yeah, that's not really
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freedom though,
that's not really--
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No, but it's the freedom
that many people think of
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that innately we've a right
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to for absolute
self determination,
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no one can strain you.
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If you talk about the
first amendment before,
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but there are other restrains.
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There are restrains,
there are civil restrains,
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and even there are
heavenly restrains.
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God doesn't, you know,
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the whole story of
the Garden of Eden.
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Adam and Eve were created free,
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but not to do
anything they want to.
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Also you're bringing in now,
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you're bringing in
the theological construct.
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If you want to bring
a theological construct.
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Of course, you got
to wobble, that's fine.
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We're gonna go that
way. We're gonna go that way.
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If you're gonna go from
a purely secular contra.
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As I said I've no
doubt, you can find
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some secular
atheistic, Darwin in evolution
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of people who would come
up think the dignity of man.
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Well, I'm not
sure where that comes
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from an atheistic worldview.
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I mean we're just
all on the, you know,
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as Richard Clarkin says,
we're just machines created
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to keep our
genes alive and so on.
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But now from a
theological perspective,
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but even here you're
really, that it's very hard to
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go to the Old Testament,
in it of itself at face value
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and get religious freedom
out of the Old Testament.
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Well, it's a theocracy like.
It's really like theocracy.
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Now you can go back
to, now I think in Eden.
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In Eden, well, I tell
you, you can go back further.
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For me one of the most
powerful verses in the Bible,
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verse that-that,
doesn't say haunt me, haunts me.
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But a verse I think about a lot
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is a description
of Lucifer in Ezekiel.
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"You were perfect in
your ways from the day
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that you were created."
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Now interested
enough that word created,
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that Hebrew verb there
Bara, is a verb that appears
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only with God as a subject.
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In other words a
number of different verbs
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in the Hebrew
Bible were created,
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made, form, done,
but only God Baras.
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Okay, it says it was a
Bereshit bara Elohim et
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hashamayim ve'et ha'arets.
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In the beginning
God created the heavens.
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You're pulling
linguistic lang to me.
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Yeah, we already
getting God creator.
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Some of our viewers haven't seen
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what I've seen in the morning.
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You know, we work
in the same building.
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And I've seen you
pacing, they're always with you,
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your Hebrew Bible.
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Yeah, yeah, yes
I do my worship--
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Analyzing it, I
know you know this.
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Absolutely.
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Yes, so the point is,
in the beginning, so, so,
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you were perfect in the
ways from the day that you,
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Lucifer was
created, created by God.
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Then sin was found in you
and you've to say with it.
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Till iniquity was found in you.
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But where did it come
from? So if here's a question.
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You got a perfect pain,
created b a perfect God,
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'cause God says, you
were perfect in your ways,
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a perfect thing
created by a perfect God,
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in a perfect universe in heaven.
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And yet it says,
Iniquity was found in him.
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How did that happen?
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Because the only way it
could be is that perfection
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includes the
potential for iniquity
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and included,
because an, an, an--
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But iniquity
still must be in action.
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If its something within
him, it had to have come
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somewhere and it
came to perfect him.
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It came from, well, I can't--
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we don't really
know it, but the point is
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God created a free being,
a truly, morally free being.
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And that true
freedom to be truly
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more he could
have created a robot
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or a zombie or
something like that,
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and it wouldn't
have so, so it's amazing.
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You got a perfect being
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created by a perfect
God in a perfect universe,
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and yet iniquity
was found in him,
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because that perfection
included the potential.
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You come down to Adam
and Eve on earth, perfect.
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God saw all that He
made, it was very good.
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So He got perfect beings
created by a perfect God,
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you know, in a perfect world
and yet Adam and Eve sinned.
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Adam and Eve sinned.
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How could that
have possibly happened,
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because that perfection
included moral freedom,
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that perfection
included the potential,
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the option to do wrong.
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And think to,
as I'm waxing here.
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Because Eve was deceived,
Adam was more of the --
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Well, well, do they
still, but think to.
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Why did God in
the biblical account,
00:09:02.06\00:09:05.89
why did he warned them
against eating from the tree
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unless, you know, I waste Kids,
00:09:09.29\00:09:11.26
I got two kids in College.
00:09:11.27\00:09:12.41
Now I never once remember saying
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to one of my kids, to my son.
00:09:14.80\00:09:16.93
He took the car keys, you know,
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you kind of grip
your teeth in here.
00:09:18.26\00:09:19.59
Given the keys oh,
mean that is common.
00:09:19.60\00:09:22.62
They puts you to-you
know, I want to talk,
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I want the car
things, because your hind,
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but I'll never said to my son,
00:09:26.65\00:09:29.01
son I don't want you take a
card to the moon this evening.
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Why because it wasn't
an option, it was a--.
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So why did God have to say
that Adam and Eve don't eat
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of the tree unless they
have the potential to do it.
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So it shows, so
what I'm saying is,
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in there is where and of course
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you can back to
the New Testament.
00:09:46.23\00:09:47.54
We can pick up
this another time,
00:09:47.55\00:09:48.79
you come back to
the New Testament
00:09:48.80\00:09:50.93
with Jesus in the whole
New Testament thing was.
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Your Jesus died on the cross,
because He gave us freedom.
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You know, in other words.
And if He made us zombies.
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If He made us that we
could not choose to sin
00:10:00.65\00:10:02.80
then Jesus would never
have gone to the cross.
00:10:02.81\00:10:04.73
Because freedom is
relative. Of course. Of course.
00:10:06.00\00:10:08.39
What's that song,
freedom is just another word
00:10:08.40\00:10:10.34
for nothing left to loose.
00:10:10.35\00:10:11.34
Yeah. Janis Joplin.
00:10:11.35\00:10:12.34
Freedom's just another word for.
00:10:12.35\00:10:13.89
I'm not gonna sing it for you.
00:10:13.90\00:10:15.06
But, but especially
well in the Old Testament,
00:10:15.07\00:10:17.86
but then in the
New it says this,
00:10:17.87\00:10:19.76
"When you are free from sin
which inhibits your potential.
00:10:19.77\00:10:23.80
When Christ frees us from that."
00:10:23.81\00:10:25.84
Then it says,
"You become His slave."
00:10:25.85\00:10:27.56
You're really not
absolutely, morally,
00:10:27.57\00:10:30.92
conceptually free
even in the Bible.
00:10:32.83\00:10:35.11
Well, again it totally
depends on what your concept
00:10:35.12\00:10:37.46
of how you understand freedom.
00:10:37.47\00:10:40.48
If you understand freedom,
you could do whatever you want
00:10:40.49\00:10:42.66
whenever you want
with anyone you want
00:10:42.67\00:10:44.70
anyway you want
regardless of the consequences.
00:10:44.71\00:10:46.91
That's the license, you know--
00:10:46.92\00:10:48.49
Yeah, yeah.
That's not the Biblical--
00:10:48.50\00:10:50.52
But I think the way I see it,
00:10:50.53\00:10:52.31
civil is man sort of
administering his own affairs.
00:10:53.41\00:10:56.69
In the absence of the theocracy.
00:10:56.70\00:10:59.11
But as--as an
individual, other men
00:10:59.12\00:11:01.94
have no right to restrict your
00:11:01.95\00:11:04.92
interchanging
relationship with the Creator.
00:11:04.93\00:11:07.03
That's the root of--
00:11:07.04\00:11:08.06
Well, that's the
root of religious except--
00:11:08.07\00:11:10.29
In your
relationship with the Creator,
00:11:10.30\00:11:12.19
you are not absolutely
free to do anything you want.
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He's given you construct.
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'Cause that's
just called God's law.
00:11:16.63\00:11:17.99
So the point is
freedom is a gift.
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Freedom is a gift
that God has given to us
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but if it's through
freedom, it comes with risks.
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And as I've said
before the greatest example
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of seeing what that risk was
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and the cost of
that risk was the cross.
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I mean so sacred was freedom,
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rather than take
that risk from us,
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take that freedom from
us, Jesus went to the cross.
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That's why we need that.
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Think very carefully about
what we do with the freedom
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that was given us at
such an incredible price.
00:11:48.26\00:11:51.04
One of the most
extraordinary scenes
00:11:51.05\00:11:54.24
in the Bible is
where faced with Jesus
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and His claims for the divinity,
00:11:58.09\00:12:00.60
the high priest
ripped his robes.
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It's an extraordinary
scene because the Old Testament
00:12:03.82\00:12:06.93
was quite specified that
if a high priest ripped his
00:12:06.94\00:12:10.49
robes like that he
was to be put to death.
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In the face of what
he saw as a blasphemy,
00:12:13.51\00:12:16.72
the high priest
himself was committing
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an act of rebellion against God.
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I think a lot of the
behavior that we're seeing
00:12:22.79\00:12:25.78
in the world sometimes
exemplified by Muslims,
00:12:25.79\00:12:29.07
sometimes by
Christians and others,
00:12:29.08\00:12:30.99
objecting to
discretions of their faith
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coming to that same
realm, it's never good
00:12:34.08\00:12:36.81
when someone knocks our faith,
00:12:36.82\00:12:38.94
but it's never good
or excusable to react
00:12:38.95\00:12:43.13
in a way that's
outrageous and violent.
00:12:43.14\00:12:46.24
Religious
freedom to a large degree
00:12:46.25\00:12:48.66
in a civil construct
exist on charitable respect
00:12:48.67\00:12:53.13
shown to other people of faith.
00:12:53.14\00:12:56.00
God is the judge
at the end of the day.
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"Vengeance is
Mine." Says the Lord.
00:12:58.12\00:13:00.10
We are called
to show toleration,
00:13:00.11\00:13:02.54
respect and understanding
00:13:02.55\00:13:04.79
of other people
of different views.
00:13:04.80\00:13:07.21
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:13:08.47\00:13:11.10