Our Consciousness

[0:00] assisted suicide. I put together a whole bunch of little letters which were outside there and I don't know whether people got a copy of some of that information. I know that that's much more interesting than what I'm going to say for the next half an hour, but set it aside for the time being. I'm going to talk about consciousness first and I come to this as a complete dilettante.

[0:26] My mother once said to me, Willard, you're a dilettante. At the time, I sort of knew what that meant, but I thought it meant you sort of skipped from one thing to the next without ever really learning very much about it. I think that probably still is the case, but I was delighted recently to learn that the word dilettante actually has more etymological roots in the word delight. You take delight in many different things than it does in the suggestion that you're a butterfly.

[0:58] So part of my joy recently has been to come across some really interesting ideas and I thought I could cancel. I could phone Bill and say, Bill, I've just decided that this is such a deep topic and so many eminent people have spent their lives on it. It would be imposterous and effrontery for me to show up and talk about consciousness today, but I thought, no, there are some books out there that I honestly have no financial interest in, which I'm recommending that I thought I should bring you some content from. And then if any of you are so moved, you can go off to chapters or whatever your favorite bookstore is and find these books. The first one is called Aping Mankind.

[1:44] This is by a good old self-proclaimed atheist named Raymond Tallis. And I think it's rather important that he's an atheist because it turns out that his defense of atheism is full of holes, but he's a really great guy, which leads you wondering why the defense? Why is he such a proudly proclaimed, self-proclaimed atheist? But Aping Mankind, the subtitle is Neuromania, Darwinitis, and the Misrepresentation of Humanity. And this, in other words, is a discussion of how in the world around us right now we are being bombarded by materialism. And I'm not talking about consumerism.

[2:28] I'm talking about the idea that there is nothing real except for what you can touch or what science can propose hypotheses about and then prove or disprove. So, in other words, there is a concept of scientism. And I don't know how many people have followed some of this stuff that's out there, but in the popular press, there are, at the moment, there is a strain of scientism which focuses on neurology and philosophy and any word that you can put Nero in front of. And this is largely because of an interesting new investigation technique called functional MRI. Now, magnetic resonance imaging, which many of you have probably had done on your own persons, is a very interesting way of looking at tissue, which uses a magnetic field to orient water molecules, and then can actually pick up the little squeak that comes out of each water molecule as it loses its orientation in that field. It emits a little bleep of electromagnetic energy, which can actually be picked up, and with the magic of a computer, it can be mapped, and a picture can be generated. And what's even more interesting is that because the MRI is picturing a density of water molecules in any part of the brain, let's say, you can see which parts of the brain light up, that is, become more active with certain kinds of activity. And so a few years ago, we had a guy named Dean Hamer announce that he had discovered the god spot in the brain. And that was, this is the same Dean Hamer, by the way, who made himself famous about 25 years ago by announcing that he had discovered the gay gene. He seems to have a thing for finding simple answers to complicated questions. So his whole idea was that certain areas of the brain light up in religious experience, or at least self-reported states of religiosity, that therefore, this must be the part of the brain that handles religion, handles faith. And in fact, there was one, I'm sorry, this is not in color, but brain regions activated by religious beliefs, and in color, the temporal lobe, the cratal lobe, and the frontal lobe all light up. Now, as you can understand, these are also regions of the brain which light up when you're eating a cheese sandwich.

[5:07] So, but this, this has been taken to be a compelling example of how we can look at the brain and, and deduce that this is where religion goes on. Then there is a bit of a, sort of a leap of reasoning, I guess you could say, because many of the people doing this research are neurological reductionists.

[5:31] they claim that all there really is, is the, is the brain, and the things that are going on in the brain.

[5:44] And so, they will, this is just an example, and I'm sorry this doesn't come out very well, but you see there's a bit of a darker color there and it's gone right here. And there's a bit of a, a lighter color there and it's dark right here. Now, you could just change those labels instead of clorazepam or adiban on the left. You could just, you could write atheist. And instead of scopolamine on the right, you could write devout Anglican at St. John's, Vancouver. And what, what your neurological reductionists are up to is saying, it's so obvious, look at the difference between these two patterns of activation on the functional MRI. Clearly, these religious people are simply lighting up different parts of their brains, parts of the brain, which must have evolved, by the way, because if people were religious, maybe they got along better. And therefore, natural selection simply selected for brains that had this, this tendency to go off like a little seizure whenever the concept of God came along. So, it's, that, that's sort of what we're up to.

[6:52] Um, so, you can, you can understand why, uh, it's, it's kind of ludicrous that I'm, I'm, I'm proposing to cover this topic in any way in the time that we've got, especially since I also want to talk about euthanasia. But I just wanted to tickle your, your, your brains with, with how interesting this all is. Because this is sort of the pinnacle of what, um, the cultured despisers of Christianity have to offer right now, uh, in terms of their, their conviction that science has taken us beyond the primitive beliefs of our ancestors. That we have, at long last, seen, we've been uniquely gifted in this, this century and the last, let's say, to see through the, the pretensions of religion and the, uh, the, the, um, uh, all of the, um, uh, I was going to say the tribal, but, uh, anyway, the, the, the primitive habits that go along with, with ascribing, uh, reality to a father figure in the sky. And, and so, uh, uh, uh, then what, what can we say to all of this? Well, I would,

[8:03] I would suggest that you keep your eyes open for all of this, because you're going to see more and more of it. Um, when, when a functional MRI lights up a certain, in a certain part of the brain, when a person is doing something, let's say eating that cheese sandwich, we, we are overlapping with parts of the brain which have also been used, uh, used for all of our other cognitive functions, including the function of thinking about God, praying, singing a hymn, or whatever. There is, um, there is about as much scientific validity in what is being put out in the popular press right now as there was in phrenology. Does everyone remember that the, the Victorian custom of ascribing certain traits to certain bumps on the skull? And I, I suppose if you had a very large bump in the skull that, that resulted from someone hitting you with an axe, you might be able to infer some, something like brain injury, but that would be, that would be, that's about all phrenology was good for. And, and similarly, although it's in, it's tantalizing to see that some people are gifted with bigger or smaller areas that, that, uh, govern certain things, it's tantalizing and it should lead us to have a certain amount of humility in the, in the face of trying to judge what people's characters are like and why their behavior is the way it is, that it is by no means approaching the kind of complete explanation that the, uh, those who are worshiping science would like to pretend.

[9:29] And so we see books with titles like Consciousness Explained. And the, the problem with these books and with, with this whole trend is that it involves a smuggling in consciousness into a statement about the physiology of the brain. So here, here's what goes on. Here's a, here's a schematic of what goes on. This is from Aping Mankind. When we perceive something, and the author Ray Talis is talking about a red hat. So here's the red hat itself. It has to be perceived. That is, that light has to bounce off the red hat. It has to go through the, the air and through your eye, hit your retina.

[10:22] It has to go from the retina up the optic nerve to the occipital area of your brain where the visual cortex sits. And at that point, something happens. In the visual cortex, the, as what we seem to see is that there's actually a physical arrangement of neurons that more or less corresponds to what we're seeing. In other words, if, if you're perceiving a straight line, there's actually a line of cells that are in a straight line on your visual cortex. They're not in like, not in the sort of straight line you would draw with a ruler, but they're, they're lined up next to each other. Excuse me.

[10:57] So there is neural activity. There is some kind of recognition that this is a red hat. Now, then there is a, a perception, and this is where the magic starts. So the, the strict materialists claim that they don't need to talk about it any further, that what happens in the brain is the end of the story. But in, in the science, in the philosophy of mind, and I'm sure there are people here much better than qualified than I to talk about this. There, there is a concept of intentionality, and that is that it seems that, once our brains have received the information, we turn our attention to that information, and we go searching towards it in some way. There's a mental posture of searching toward that information. And it, there is no current explanation of how that could arise from, uh, the simple firing of one neuron to the next. Most people here probably know about the little vesicles, or a little bubbles full of neurotransmitters, serotonin and noradrenaline and so forth, that sit at the ends of the nerve cells.

[12:14] And that are waiting for an electrical signal to travel down the nerve and trigger the popping of these little vesicles. And when they pop within a few milliseconds, the next neuron receives these chemicals across the gap called the synapse. And those chemicals plug into proteins on the next neuron, and that fires the next neuron off, and the electrical signal travels down that neuron. Isn't that amazing? But it's a physical event.

[12:49] And there is nothing in that physical event which explains, in the least, why there'd be a concept of self. I am seeing a red hat. In other words, if you flick a wall switch on and off, electricity is zapping back and forth across that gap in the switch. Would you expect an awareness of self to arise in that wall switch?

[13:13] Oh, I've got an electrical charge zipping through me. I now feel myself. I feel the switchiness of myself. You know, this is, shall we say, this is simplistic. This is, in some senses, a very childish way of imagining that things work, because it's a just-so story. Well, we perceive things, so this must be just the way that perception arrives. You know, we're conscious of things. This must be just the way consciousness is.

[13:45] The problem is, it's devoid of explanation. You are on as firm ground, if you say that God is placing every thought into your head, or God is preparing your brain with a God field which allows you to feel your own reality and your own self as you are imagining that that's just the way thought works.

[14:08] You know, you can see how unfulfilling that explanation is and how intuitively barren it seems. Now, I have heard that an alarmingly high percentage of the general population thinks that to see requires the emanation of some kind of rays from the eyes. Has anyone else heard that?

[14:31] People have been polled, and there's a folk physiology concept that for you to see requires something to come out of your eyes, not just the light to go in. And this group may have not ever, may have learned their science early, or may have heard enough about the eye that this idea never crossed their mind. But much of mankind thinks that there's something coming. I saw some survey taken somewhere in the States where 60% of people thought something had to leave your eyes in order for you to see something. Well, that folk physiology, of course, isn't true in the mechanical sense, as far as we can see. But it is true in the sense of intentionality, that you have to turn your attention to something, and that that turning of your attention to something, and realizing that the color red is something about the hat. There's an aboutness to the red and the hat that is absolutely not found in the mechanical reality of the firing off of the neurons in your brain. And no amount of a functional MRI is going to get us there. So I just wanted to let you know that those thoughts were out there.

[15:46] You have very heavyweight philosophers, guys like Daniel Dennett, who could argue me into the dustbin very, very quickly, who claim that there's just something called the intentional stance, and that you don't need to hypothesize anything beyond the mechanical reality to account for that. And I started to read some of his stuff, because Bill McKellen, who knows everything about everything, has a couple of Dennett's books, and I just didn't find them any fun. I'm only interested, I've got so little time, I only want to have fun when I'm reading. So, um, we'll definitely get, don't worry, we'll get to, uh, to euthanasia. But, um, the, the second book that I wanted to commend to everybody, this is like show and tell. Uh, when I was in grade four, I had a, I had a, a toy, uh, cowboy holster and gun that had some actual little bullets that fit into the, into the revolver. You know, this was 1964, they did that kind of thing. And I remember one day, uh, wanting to make a splash,

[16:47] I took one of these bullets to class and claimed that I'd found it on Nose Hill in Calgary. And you know, here's a bullet I found. The teacher was understandably alarmed that I was bringing live ammunition to class. But, uh, this is a little like show and tell. Uh, she didn't even, she didn't take it away from me. She just said, well, be careful with that. It just shows that, you know, times change. Uh, if I, if I held, can you imagine a kid holding up a bullet in class?

[17:16] You know, 9-1-1, you know, full lockdown, you know, get the team out. Um, second, second book I wanted to, to talk about was new proofs for the existence of God.

[17:27] So we've gone from an atheist who, uh, does a wonderful job of taking the, the, the material, the materialist to task. Because he says, although I'm an atheist, because it's the only logical position. And then he, and he has several, uh, if you, if you, uh, look Ray Tallis up on the internet and why I am an atheist, you see that, uh, he, he, he writes about it. And other people write about how full of holes is why I am an atheist and how reasons are. But, uh, a good atheist who can see through the shallowness of, of a neurological reductionism. So from, from an atheist, we move naturally to a Jesuit who, who is, uh, Robert Spitzer, who, who was the president of Gonzaga University. And he's now devoting most of his time to, uh, trying to improve, uh, education at the campus level. Because as he, as he put it, I, I heard him in a talk recently here in town, uh, for the Catholic Physicians Guild, um, the, the National Association of Catholic Physicians Guilds, which I was, uh, very kindly invited to. And, um, what he said is that when, when, when these kids hit university, uh, there's something like a 60% loss in faith by the time they've, by the time they've come out the other end. So they're presented with the, the same kind of, uh, materialist reductionism that we, that, that I've just been describing, uh, in one class after the next. There's no field which cannot sneer at the, at the antiquity of theistic ideas. So, um, so Spitzer says we have to, we have to, uh, uh, uh, let people know that, that the best science at the moment, new proofs for the existence of God. He's a physicist, by the way, and a serious physicist. He actually understands, uh, quantum mechanics, which is something that I think when, uh, in the 1920s it was said at one point, there, there are no more than a hundred, a hundred people in the whole world who understand quantum mechanics. And, and even now, I, as a percentage of the population, I have no idea how many people really understand the math, the wave functions and so forth. I don't, I don't understand that. And, and so, and so this guy does, and with a little effort, he will lead you through some of this stuff. And, and, uh, going from the tiny stuff, the quantum mechanics, he tends to go to the big stuff, the relativity. Now, um, maybe you have heard that there's a big problem in physics, and that is that it's hard to get the, the, the rules that govern the tiniest things, the, the weak and strong forces in the, in the center of the, of the atoms, for instance, to fit with the rules that govern big, huge things, galaxies and whatnot. And so they're struggling for a unifying theory. And one of those theories is, is, it's called string theory. Hands up, who's heard of string theory? Okay. So I, I would say that more than half the people here have heard of string theory. And this, this hypothesizes that there are tiny little strings of pure energy that are, that are about 10 to the minus 43, uh, centimeters long. Does that ring a bell? It doesn't really matter.

[20:31] 10 to the minus ridiculous, uh, centimeters, uh, long. And, uh, uh, and that, that everything's made up of these tiny strings. In various combinations, they form the subatomic particles and, uh, quarks and, and so forth. And so, uh, string theory is, is really, really interesting, uh, but not very provable. It hypothesizes things that are very hard to put to the test.

[20:53] But it's, it's mathematics of a degree that's, uh, uh, very high flown. And, uh, it hypothesizes, for instance, that there are 10 dimensions, not just the three, you know, height and depth and width and depth. Not just the three dimensions we're used to moving around in. There are actually 10 spatial dimensions plus time. So an 11 dimensional universe. This is string theory. And the, the, uh, the other, um, seven dimensions, by the way, are, they're so tiny and curled up, you can't see them. So, but apparently it hangs together for the mathematicians. And if I had 10 lives, I'd, I'd throw one of them into trying to learn the math that would understand why people are excited about string theory. The whole point being that, uh, Robert Spitzer understands, uh, string theory or understands the, the outlines of it and goes through some, some wonderful stuff about cosmology, about the universe and, and the possibility of, uh, uh, so string theory is at the small end. He goes through, uh, some of the, the cosmology, the big stuff at the other end. And, um, he shows that this is at the very least not incompatible with the existence of a God and really points towards the existence of a God. Now, remember that Nietzsche had a theory of eternal recurrence. Nietzsche said there's nothing new because the universe has been eternally happening all over and over again. And because it's been happening over and over again, an infinite number of times, the, all of the particles in this room were once in the past arranged exactly as they are now. And I was up here talking once in the past, exactly as I am now, because there's an infinite recurrence of, of the universe. That was Nietzsche's, um, uh, take on the whole thing, which is really amazingly, um, uh, prescient because we now have in cosmology the, the, the, the theory of the bouncing ball universe or the, the theory of universes that bud out one from the next in a continuous and, and infinite number. So the idea being that, uh, uh, the reason we exist is that there, there, there are an infinite number of universes and there just happens to be one that had the right conditions to produce people to notice that they exist.

[23:00] Okay? So that's why we're, that's why we're here. Because, that's, that's why we're noticing that we're here. Because we, of all the, the, uh, uncountable infinity of universes out there, um, that this is the one that happened to have the right Planck's constant and speed of light and all these other basic physical, uh, constants that allowed, um, carbon compounds to form and DNA to form and all the rest of it to the point where here we are saying, saying hello. So, um, what, uh, what one, uh, skeptical, uh, Catholic physicist says about this is that the materialists would rather believe in an infinite number of unprovable universes than one unprovable God. So the scramble to stay away from, from God seems to underlie a lot of this stuff. Um, anyway, Spitzer goes through some very interesting metaphysical proofs for the existence of God. I thought I'd just give you a tiny flavor of some of this stuff. Um, he talks, uh, uh, not about causes, uh, that is, everybody has probably heard of the idea that there's an unmoved mover at the, at the, at the root of all reality, an, an uncaused cause. He says that the word cause is the wrong one to use, but the idea that everything's got a cause, you know, I'm standing on my leg, which is on the ground, which is on the earth, and, and, uh, everything. There's a chain of causes that you can go, go through with any event or any object and say, this is what caused that object. So he says it makes more sense to talk about conditions which must be in place for a reality to arise. So any little given reality, like my fingernail, that reality had to have some conditions. It had to have the cells, uh, arranged in a certain way, and those cells had to have their own conditions and so forth.

[24:59] Now what he, what he points out is, oops, that's actually the wrong slide. I'm sure you caught that. Here we go. So we have a cat, and I'm sure you all, you all can relate to this. We've all, we've all looked at a cat, but what are the conditions which caused that cat to arise?

[25:24] Um, he is pointing out that you can, you can go through an infinite number of, of, or not an infinite, I haven't caught myself there. The cat is made of cells, and that, that you need just, not just the cells, but you need the cells in a certain arrangement. So the cells, the structure of cells. Cells made out of molecules, and the structure of molecules makes the cell.

[25:45] Molecules made out of atoms. Atoms have to be arranged in a, arranged in a certain structure to, to make a molecule. The atoms made out of protons, for instance, part of them. The structure of the protons is important. Uh, protons are made up of quarks, and there has to be some structure to those quarks. But the whole point being that, um, we need to show, to, to, to, to, um, for there to be a god, uh, there must be an un, a reality which has no conditions, which does, does not rely on conditions. And so he, he takes you through several pages of carefully laying it all out, and I tell you, it's, it's a little bit heavy sledding, but it's all written in plain English. Anybody who wants to take the time can go through this argument, which is structured in sections, and which has a lot to do with the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, and, um, some of the stuff which came from Plato and, and Aristotle, uh, who was, uh, Plato's pupil. Um, so, so the idea being that there needs to be a, a last condition, or a most fundamental condition, which underlies reality.

[26:58] Now, a materialist might say, well, no, there's just an infinite possible number of things that go back, and, and you never get to a point where there's an uncaused cause. Switzer, um, Spitzer says, it's wrong to talk about an uncaused cause, because that suggests that something would have to exist before it causes itself to exist, and that's just a, a circular argument that's not logical.

[27:21] But he says that there must be a reality which requires no conditions for it to exist. So, it's, it's, it's, it's words, but we're, we're juggling on the edge of where words can take us into meaning that's really quite, quite deep and quite profound. So, that's, that's some of his stuff, and I'll give you a little bit more of a feeling for it. Now, the, the question is, next, um, it, is it possible that in all the universe there is something, such a thing as an unconditioned reality. That is a reality that requires no conditions for it to arise.

[28:00] And, uh, what, what, uh, Spitzer is pointing out with this little, little game here is that, um, you, you can have the concept of a wave, the reality of a wave, you can have the reality of a particle. Those can be united in a, in a, another concept called the electron. Um, electrons and protons, although they, they basically exclude each other, they're unlike each other, can be united in something called an electromagnetic field. Um, the electromagnetic field is, at the, at this moment, is not something that we can unite with space-time or gravity.

[28:37] This is what strength theory is, is trying to do. And, um, and yet, there is a higher reality, um, and he's, he's, he's suggesting that this is God, um, which, which, uh, requires, uh, which, which has no, um, incompatible state, which has no other state, which is on the same level of simplicity as it is. And, and he points out that the unconditioned reality is the source of all reality. And if there is, uh, a thing called not X, um, which is something at the same level of simplicity as the unconditioned reality or God, but isn't that, that it, it, it couldn't, it couldn't possibly, well, he points out that it couldn't possibly exist. And, um, and I'm going to let you find out why. So, yes, that's right. I'm selling his book at the door.

[29:35] Okay. So, um, I think, I think, uh, since I want to say a few words, um, about, uh, about, uh, uh, the, the current euthanasia thing, um, I think I'm going to leave it at that, uh, for, for some of this exciting stuff. And the reason why, um, I would highly recommend that we're in such a skeptical environment, such an anti-religious environment, that we all need to, to bring ourselves up to speed about what's out there. You know, what is it that's got the, the academic world, um, swooning over, over string theory and, and anything at all which they think can leave God out of the picture. We need to educate ourselves about what's out there so that we'll understand that, that first of all, our faith can be strengthened by understanding that, um, if anything, science is pointing us towards God. And I don't know about you, but my faith needs all the strengthening it can get. And so, uh, I, I think that that's helpful. And, and I think that

[30:38] God made, gave us brains. We might as well use them. And, and when there's something like this that's pointing towards him, I think he's giving us an invitation to, to, uh, to, to look into it.

[30:49] And, and I would round out these three books. If you only had three books to read in the next two weeks and you were saying, oh, I must, really must have. Then, then the third book I'd get is, is, uh, Richard Baucom's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Because that's, that's a wonderful look at the, the, um, reliability of the New Testament in, in terms of the idea that, um, everything that, that is written for us, uh, in, in the, um, in the New Testament is a, is a, an eyewitness account or taken directly from an eyewitness. And Baucom is, is, uh, has done a good job of doing some ordinary forensic journalism as to what, um, what you could expect from an oral tradition, what you could expect from the written tradition in first century Palestine. And he has, uh, page turner kind of things that just keep you flipping, like tables of the frequency of, of, of, uh, of given names in first century

[31:55] Palestine. You know, who knew that Simon was that, that popular? Or that, uh, do you know the most popular female name in first century Palestine? Salome. Yeah.

[32:07] That we can, we, we can see from, from the scholarship of the time. You know, interesting stuff. So I, uh, once you've had an atheist tell you that, uh, they haven't figured out consciousness, uh, or, or, or anything else about the brain really other than, uh, what, than a lot of amazing stuff about the structure of the brain. Once you've had a Jesuit tell you that there are, uh, new proofs for the existence of God, you, you could say, okay, well that handles off the God part of it. Uh, what about Jesus? You know, what's, what's important? If we're Christians, what's, what's reliable and important there? And other than the ring of truth that comes from studying the, the, the, uh, uh, the, the scriptures, um, themselves, I think, uh, something like, uh, Bakken's book is, uh, is, is commendable. So, uh, that, that's that. And, um, maybe I'll just turn that off. Um, now I just, just wanted to, uh, leave a second for speculation or, uh, I was, I was joking earlier this morning that I just wonder if there's ever been one of these sessions where someone puts up their hand and says, you know, I don't think you know the first thing about what you're talking about. But, uh, at which point I'd have to say, no, it's not that bad.

[33:26] Yes? I just want to say one thing, uh, it's, this has been going on for a long time and the way you describe it's, you know, you have had a great talk. Uh, but I did want to say that Stephen Hawking has a new book, uh, where we don't have to invoke God now, but for the, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Yes. Uh, for the cause of the interest. And then, um, uh, there's, uh, uh, uh, uh, Deepak Chopra has been writing for a long time. Yes. On the errors of religious, of, of, uh, faith. Yeah. I mean, most of these errors of faith are errors of the followers of the faith, right? Yeah. I mean, to, to, if, if, if you've got a bunch of mathematicians who are, you know, out drinking one night and then they break into a jewelry store and steal something, you know, that doesn't seem to call mathematics into question. Yeah.

[34:23] I was thinking of a book, uh, called How to Know God, and she, he just goes through, is just page after page of, uh, the scientism and, and the reductionism. Right. Uh, and, uh, if you, if you want to, the Stephen Hawking thing, uh, there, you can Google, Google this, but it's called the worst birthday present Stephen Hawking ever had or something like that.

[34:47] Did you, have you seen that? I haven't seen that. Okay. This is a, this, I think he's a Russian physicist who showed up at Stephen Hawking's birthday party and read a short paper that completely trashed Hawking's, the sort of thing that only, uh, insensitive, uh, you know, sort of child prodigy physicists could do. But anyway, if, if you Google worst birthday present and Stephen Hawking, it'll come up. And he basically points out that Hawking doesn't know what he's talking about. You know, the guy, obviously he's a great mind in his field of mathematics, but they're, uh, you know, even great minds can go badly, badly wrong. Remember that, that Einstein spent decades looking for a way to unify, um, his theory, the theories of, uh, quantum mechanics and, and, um, and, and, uh, general relativity. And, um, you know, what, what can I say? There, there is a tendency, of course, among the general population to sort of, uh, you know, we are not worthy that these great people have spoken and they don't believe in God. Therefore, I guess we're on thin ice or we should be a bit sheepish about it all. So, yes. I wonder how we can respond differently, but like you said, it was your conclusion or, or this guy that spoke at his birthday party that Hawking doesn't know what he's talking about. When it comes to the question of, of this, the, uh, origin of the universe. Yeah, but so how does the average person, um, not put up his hands and say, this guy is way more intelligent than me. Therefore, what have I got to say against him?

[36:27] I, I, I think the point, Sam, is that, uh, the, that, that he might be really more intelligent in his narrow field of mathematics, but look at what Noam Chomsky has to say about, uh, you know, world politics. Here's a guy that had a brilliant insight into, into the way that certain grammatical structures seem to be programmed into a baby's brain. And so we're listening to him about macroeconomics.

[36:50] You know, it's unfortunate, but doctors, you know, worst culprits of all. Oh, Dr. So-and-so says that we should do X and Y. It has nothing to do with sore throats or, you know. My, my uncle, John, who was a, uh, an acerbic old Scott who had no use for, he had, he had almost no education, but he was a very bright guy. He used to say about doctors, ah, he says, nothing but band-aids and perjadives. But, you know, if somebody's talking about something other than, than band-aids or perjadives and, and they're claiming some authority, you've got to say, well, okay, it's, the thoughts have, have to always be taken on their own merit. And when things are put in a way that's too darn complicated to understand, you've always got to wonder whether people understand it themselves, really, you know. Or if they, if they weren't interested in making it understandable for me, um, I don't think I'm, I, I don't think I have time to listen to their, their wandering on, you know. So, yes.

[37:51] So what I would applaud, uh, about your presentation, Will, is that you're pointing to the fact that science is extremely remarkable description.

[38:02] Yes. And we are stuck at the question of causality and of explanation. Yes. So that, although this, this careful description, uh, all scales from the cosmic to the micro scale.

[38:20] Absolutely. It allows prediction. Yes. Allows healing. Yes. Allows all kinds of manipulation. Wonderful stuff. Yeah. It does not come to the question of explanation.

[38:32] Well, that's right. And what this fellow says is that Darwin has a lot to say about the, the, the, the, the, the beings of finches or the development of the eye. I mean, I used to, I used to sort of be enthusiastic about intelligent design. I, I would say intelligent design mark one, which was, was 25 years ago when people were just saying, look at the eye, it couldn't have happened. Too many things have to fall into place all at once. It must have been. Well, no, you actually, you can show that, that, that, um, that, that the eye probably evolved independently several times over the past couple of hundred million years. I mean, science can show you that. It's marvelous. It's wonderful.

[39:06] So that, so you have to be a bit, uh, uh, the whole point is Darwinitis is taking the insights of Charles Darwin and putting, extending them far beyond where they have any warrant, where, where there's any, any possibility that they really have something to tell us in, in the fields where you now have Darwinists discussing, um, uh, social organization and, and, uh, altruism. You know, there's a big, oh, altruism obviously just arose because, um, uh, when the altruistic gene, uh, happened randomly to pop into an early, uh, you know, Neanderthal's brain or something, um, that tribe survived more because the altruistic person was, uh, better and, and they all got along better and they sang, uh, a primitive version of Kumbaya around there, Pleistocene Campfire. And, and so, uh, the whole, the whole point being that that's, that there's more just so stories happening there than you can shake a stick at.

[40:03] You know, well, we, we do this. Well, it must have evolved that way. You know, we do that. Well, we evolved to do that. You know, we evolved to brush our teeth. It doesn't really matter. Harvey. Charles Taylor. I think the faithful sometimes need maybe a short little picture that defends them. Charles Taylor helps me immensely when he says rather rhetorically, um, if you look at nature really carefully, the one thing you would never find there is scientific method.

[40:29] Scientific method is a, is a product of human reflection, of culture, of history. There's a battle here between the humanities and a materialistic science as well. Uh, we're not alone in this battle. We're, yeah. History is swept away. Aesthetics are swept away. Absolutely. Well, it's, no, it's neuroaesthetics. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing really was known until scientific method arrived in the world. Now that, if that isn't an idolatry, nothing is. Well, yeah, it's, it's, it's just, it's a bit brash, isn't it?

[41:02] Sheila? Well, picking up on what Harvey has said, um, the idea that things have to be proven in a certain way, in a certain formula, leaves out the, one of the, the educational, um, knowledgeable experiences that Christians do have a lot of experience with. It's called revealed truth.

[41:23] Mm-hmm. And some of our favorite people, like St. John and St. Paul and so on, uh, who were intelligent people and could put a coherent story together. Right. And did pursue facts where facts, uh, of that concrete kind were available, still believed in that and used it. And, and we too have experiences like this. And I guess I'm wondering why we aren't better about telling people that we have proof of God, because this is the way he works in the lives of people who trust him. Yes. It's entirely arbitrary to say that the entire realm of experience that the scientist knows he has that can't be proven through, through, uh, uh, uh, the inductive method or whatever. It's just, just doesn't exist. Yeah. It's, it's just arbitrary. And, and, and it misses the greater part of reality. I mean, it's sort of like dark matter, which is supposedly takes up most of the universe, but we can't see it or something. But, um, when you, when you say about the St. Paul, you know what really happened to him on the road to

[42:29] Damascus? You know, and you actually hear that. This guy had a seizure, a temporal lobe seizure, you know, it's so obvious because, uh, temporal, stimulating the temporal lobe, uh, gives delusions of, of religiosity to people. So that's, uh, that, that's what the, uh, that's what they have to say about all of this stuff. And they can't prove that either. Of course they can. But they go, oh, they all nod wisely. Mm, yes. Uh, it's just a seizure, seizure.

[42:57] Yeah. I have, I suggest you take these, that poor brain, put it back in its goal and ditch it up. But I do have a, a realistic suggestion that goes back more than a hundred years.

[43:11] Mm-hmm. And that is, William Gaines' variety is a religious experience. Mm-hmm. It's quite secular, but it, uh, it takes religious experience seriously. Mm-hmm. And it's a precursor to both sides of the conversation in some ways. The other general comment about how do you perceive, or understand these minute little things, or the many dimensions of the string of various parts of it. Yes. We have a handicap. Mm-hmm. That we're mere mortals. And we live in a Newtonian physics world. Mm-hmm. And we really have no relationship to this theoretical physics of the 20th and 21st century. Yes. It's true. It's true. And some people do.

[44:01] They're all with the physics department. Yeah. But at least, you know. It's true. I, I think you're absolutely right. I think Newtonian physics, which was such a leap at the time, what did he say, you know, if I have seen further than other men, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants. And it was such a leap at the time. That was Newton, wasn't it? Or was it somebody who was referring back to Newton? It was Newton. And, but we've absorbed that.

[44:23] And we can sort of, we have this feeling for the tug of gravity and the elliptical orbits of the planets and so forth. And it's entered, I think, our popular culture. But you're right.

[44:34] We are not there when it comes to the idea that you could have spooky action at a distance, as it was called, where you could send a photon down a tube. And now physicists, please help me with this. But you can, you can have a little splitter where you can, you can send, you can detect the photon as either a wave or a particle. And whichever you decide, while it's in flight, you can decide whether you're going to detect it as a wave or a particle. And then it'll turn out that way. I mean, there, there, there are, there are some amazing examples of apparent connection between particles at a distance, which suggests a communication between the two of them that is in a field that unifies them that's, that's unknown to us. So, you know, maybe, maybe a hundred years from now or 200 years from now, it'll be old hat to people that there's an uncertainty principle and that the, you know, you can't know the, the position and the velocity or whatever's of the particle at the same time. And yes, Phil.

[45:37] Well, I'm wondering, I'm really looking forward to reading that, or looking at that book, Aking Land of Conn, because I'm wondering if actually we're on the verge of some real improvements in philosophical thinking about materialism. Thinking, for instance, of Thomas Nagel, who is a committed materialist, but he tells us the reasons why. He says, um, he says, just that I cannot believe in God. And therefore I am proceeding as though everything had only a materialist at God. But he's so honest about it. Yes. And there's other writers who are on the edge of that. Do you think this may catch on? Well, it's, let me tell you, I have an honest declaration.

[46:20] I think it, I think it's just so much fun that it's got to catch on. It's just, I see atheism at root as a failure of the imagination. And sometimes a fearful failure of the imagination.

[46:31] Harvey? There are philosophers who officially are unbelievers in any religion, but they call themselves believers, and they've been dubbed, and they accept the title, they're believers in Mysterion.

[46:44] Mysterion. Mysterion. They say, we will never know how the physical world and the non-physical world overlap. We have no way of even asking the question. Okay. So there is unbelief which also recognizes mystery. Huh. Well, George Edgerton should sign them up to donate to his book, his boat, I should say. George has a boat called Mysterion. Oh, there you go. They stole it from the boat. Yes, exactly.

[47:12] Well, there you go. So you want to call it Mysterion. I don't, I don't think it really matters. And you've got to have some sympathy for these universal religion people, you know, Michael Ingham and all, they're trying to find the, the, you know, the unifying principle. They want to all get together and not fight. Because they, they say, we all sense something. Well, at a certain level, they're right. We all do sense something. There are some ways we can get together with, with, with, in, in, in, in goodwill with, with other religions and other people who are searching after the idea of God. At least they have the curiosity to search.

[47:45] And the way the secular world is going, we're going to have more in common with, with, you know, the Sikhs than we have with the, you know, the materialists before too long. So, so, so, so, so I, I, I think that, at least it's starting, it's moving in that direction. Yeah.

[48:05] Are we going to get a chance to hear how to do in Granny before getting away? I was, I was told that I, as long as I was wrapped up by one or two in the afternoon. So I, the reason I, I, I spread those materials around is that those, those, those, who, who didn't get a chance to get some of the handouts. I only have 30 of them and I, I don't know if we have more than 30 people. But, in any case, these are handouts I've been, I've been putting out for the audience to pick up when I've been debating assisted suicide and euthanasia with Wanda Morris, who's the head of the Death of Dignity Association in Canada. So Wanda Morris has got a very, a very appealing shtick. And that is that we've all seen someone die in horrible pain. The way you die should be your choice. If you are against changing the law to remove assisted suicide as a crime, then you are anti-choice. And there are some, there is some pain that only death can, can cure. So that's her whole story. And it's very, very appealing, especially the choice idea. You have somebody at the end of their life very vulnerable. Who are we to impose our values on them that they cannot have a physician kill them? You know, and the whole point is that I just wanted to say, because it's kind of interesting, that there are some arguments that work in convincing people that they should be suspicious of euthanasia and assisted suicide. And other arguments that don't work at all. And it's interesting the ones that don't work at all. One of them is the sanctity of life. It doesn't work. Because your sanctity and my sanctity, oh you know, sanctity is schmanktity, you know. Whatever your sanctity is, it's not the same as my sanctity. And my sanctity of life is that I should die in a way as dignified as I have tried to live. You know, there's so much baloney that's thrown out there that sanctity has lost its meaning. Dignity doesn't work anymore. Dignity has been reduced to meaning social embarrassment. If I'm ever placed in a position of social embarrassment, you know, then I should have the right. And then all of society should rally around and lift the poison to my lips because I've lost dignity as I define it. And I should have the right to have medical help to kill myself. So that dignity doesn't work. The handicap thing doesn't work. The disabled community. You know, members of the disabled community are being devalued by our talk about how you should kill yourself the moment you're in horrible pain or the moment you can't walk. A lot of these people haven't walked their whole lives and they've lived lives of value and it doesn't work. Because there are members of the disabled community who speak out for assisted suicide and euthanasia. They're infected by the same thought patterns.

[50:48] It would be patronizing to assume that they weren't. The same thought patterns as the rest of society. So we don't have that. We, we, you can't have the churches saying assisted suicide and euthanasia is wrong. You can't have the churches because churches are now not a critical mass of the culture. And the reason that Oregon and Washington State passed referenda, which they call a ballot initiative, they passed referenda to allow doctors to write a suicide dose. The reason that those referenda passed was that the other side was able to characterize the anti-euthanasia forces as being a bunch of pedophile priests trying to shove their ideas down your throat.

[51:31] So there was a raw appeal to religious bigotry and it worked beautifully. It just worked beautifully. Because the rest of the culture was waiting to hear that there was something the church was trying to ram down their throats that they could just say, get lost. So for this reason there's a, a ballot initiative coming up in Massachusetts this fall, in November I believe. And the big fear is that the Catholic archdiocese down there doesn't get it. And they're having their priests preach against assisted suicide and euthanasia. Bad idea unless the message is very, very carefully crafted.

[52:06] If it's that, you know, this is against our religion, they're, they're going to lose. You do, in Washington State and in Oregon, if all the Catholics had voted against assisted suicide and euthanasia, it, it never would have happened. They had Catholics voting for it. They had been so swallowed up by the, by the general euphoria that this was the way to, to solve serious end of life problems.

[52:28] So what things actually do work? What we've discovered does work is elder abuse as an issue. We are in the middle of the biggest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history.

[52:41] There was a, there was a, a, a 42 trillion dollar prediction made in 1998, I believe, that by 2052, I don't know, I can't remember why they chose that, that 42 trillion dollars was going to change hands in the United States alone, over all that time. So, and we know what the land values are like around here, and we have people sitting in houses with their estates dwindling.

[53:06] And we, and we, and most people intuitively understand that, that the care of the elderly can be expensive. You can have, um, heirs that are, well, uh, uh, an acquaintance of mine was visiting, uh, someone who is married to a man whose mother is going to be giving him a lot of money when she dies. And the acquaintance said to the wife, what does he do for a living? And the wife said, he's a waiter.

[53:36] And so, we see a lot of this going on, a lot of people waiting. And, and so the potential for elder abuse is out there.

[53:48] We know that most elder abuse happens in inside families. And it's usually financial, that's the commonest category. But there's emotional and physical abuse as well. And that's why I wanted you to all go to the website, EPC.ca, EPCBC.ca, sorry. And if you, if you're interested in this, and it's, and it's mentioned on some of the materials, it says, go to www.epcbc.ca. That's the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition of BC.ca. There's also an EPC.ca, which is the National Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. It's got lots of interesting stuff on it. And that's a guy named Alex Shadenberg down in, near London, Ontario. So, um, uh, anyway, we've got, we've got a Supreme Court case coming up soon, and you're going to be hearing more about this.

[54:33] Great. Well, um, when I worked in a hospital, I was on an inter-hospital ethics committee. Now, I don't have the kind of background in philosophy that would give me a basis for arguing ethics one way or the other. But I have to say, I was really appalled at the number of people who wanted to decide on the quality of life for somebody else whose life they knew very little or nothing about. In other words, they were putting themselves in a position of that person and saying, this is worth living, this is not worth living. Now, are we still doing that?

[55:08] Oh, absolutely. We have some safeguards against it. There's a... What would you advise me to do? Yeah. If I don't want to be treated for pneumonia when I develop Alzheimer's, I would like a gentle death, please. Uh-huh.

[55:20] Not necessarily a pill, but, you know, it isn't the what of death that bothers many people in my age group. It is the how. Okay. Yeah, exactly. I'd like...

[55:31] There are two parts to your comment. First is the disabled community. There's one group called Not Dead Yet. And if you wanted to go to their website, you'd see their reasoning. The Not Dead Yet group are people who are tired of going into emergency rooms with whatever disability they may have, having perfect strangers make snap judgments on their quality of life, and then be refused a respirator when they could have a recovery from an aspiration pneumonia or something like that. So, this... I was absolutely appalled to notice a few months ago that Sunny Hill Hospital, which is a children's hospital for children who have serious disabilities, was sponsoring a talk, an annual named lecture after a law professor who died eight years ago.

[56:20] The talk this year, their speaker was Joseph Arvey, who is the lawyer for the euthanasia cause in this BC Supreme Court case, the Carter-slash-Taylor case.

[56:32] Now, here was Joe Arvey in a children's hospital being introduced by... in a fawning introduction.

[56:43] I can tell you that I've rarely heard an introduction more adulatory than... it was given by a woman who's... who then mentioned that she was on the ethics board at Sunny Hill, and that's how the invitation had been extended.

[56:57] This woman is an absolute gung-ho Joe Arvey fan, and talked about how she had wanted to work with him when she was a young lawyer. She obviously just adores the guy. She believes everything he has said in this case, and she's on the ethics board at a children's hospital.

[57:12] So, you know, I think that the... the lunatics are running the asylum as we speak, or as, you know, what was it that... After virtue... was it an after virtue where he said that, you know, we worry about the barbarians being at the gate when they've been actually ruling us for some time?

[57:29] Yeah. You know? So, you're quite... but the second part of your... of your question is, last September, the BC government put out a new... a new... a new... a set of... regulations concerning... the... the awarding of authority to others over your own care.

[57:48] The best thing you can do is have a trusted friend or relative, and sign a representation agreement. Mm-hmm. So, they know what your wishes are, and... and... you don't have to anticipate all of the zillions of possible combinations of events that might happen in the future.

[58:04] And say, well, if this happens, I want this. If... you just can't do that. No. When you get there, you might well want to be on that respiratory. You might want to be treated for that pneumonia. How do you know?

[58:15] But if... and... and... but you might not be capable at that point. So, when I worry about people signing... signing... I've forgotten the terminology now... advanced directives. Okay?

[58:26] You can... you can go to a website and download all these forms now, and believe me, there's a dizzying number of them. But one of them can be an advanced directive where you specify, if I have a dementing illness, I'm in a long-term care facility, and I contract low-bar pneumonia, I refuse antibiotics.

[58:43] You could write that in there. And you will not be considered competent to change that, if you are truly demented and in the long-term care facility. But you might be competent enough to... to find that you've actually enjoyed life in the place.

[58:57] You want to go on, but they're not going to give you antibiotics. You signed this a few years ago. So, you can... you can... you can... you can... um... what... uh... fetter your future actions...

[59:09] by... by signing the wrong thing, or being too expansive in the way you sign an advanced directive. You really need a friend... ideally a friendly relative who really cares about you, to... to be your proxy decision-maker when you're in... when you're in trouble.

[59:25] Yeah. Well, I've got one of those. Yes. That's very important. And... and so that... that's your best defense. And I would say all of the talk about living wills... living wills might be a good way of discussing the things that could happen to you in the future.

[59:38] And living wills might be a good way of talking to your children about what you want to do. But in terms of having a... having a sort of an official document that is a living will, should everyone have one? Should everyone have one? No, I don't think so.

[59:51] I... I... I think some people feel better if they have one. In which case, go ahead. Personally, I'd rather just have a family that cares about me. Yes? The thing that was interesting to me, going to hear some of the debates and... um... you know, the...

[60:05] pro-euthanasia side is using as their cover that in our culture we are not speaking about death.

[60:16] We have become distanced. I... I have still... you know, I'm almost 60 and I still haven't seen a person die. In... another time in history that never would have been the case. So, we have become distanced from the reality and materialism itself distances us more.

[60:33] And they have couched themselves as being the ones... Yeah. The go-to people. They... and... and in... in fact... and her manner, which you say she actually got rid of a bit as... as the debate...

[60:45] as the debates went on, because Wils had to debate this lady a number of times now. Her manner was so obsequious in that kind of... they're... they're children. We will open this topic for you of death.

[60:58] Because people shun talking about it. And as we're aging, people do want to actually engage with those questions... Yeah. With their families.

[61:09] And do not know how to do it. That's right. And I think that that's another thing that we... that would be helpful is... somehow being able to do that as a Christian community again.

[61:20] And... and... and... and... and... you know that... that... recognizing that there is the reality that none of us can get... you know, death and taxes.

[61:31] Yeah. Well I think that's... that's true. And they... the thing is, they try to suck people into their... their world view by first inviting them to come and... and get a free... free living will. Living will. You can download it from our website.

[61:42] You know what? You can go to the government website and... and read up on advanced directives. And you can go to a... an anti-euthanasia website and... and... and... and see... or a pro-life website and see a sample living will if you really want one.

[61:53] But they are trying to position themselves as the experts on... on end of life... um... processes. And... you know, clever. But the... what comes with this price that they're... they're very death focused.

[62:04] Very control focused. I heard you offer... I... I think it was... three arguments that weren't good. Okay. And then... And one that was good... Okay. One that was good was elder abuse.

[62:16] There... there are two more. There are two more. There are two... yeah. Very... very briefly... I'm... I... I... Bill I'm doing my best. I've got nine minutes. Oh, nine? Yeah, you said 20 after, right? Okay, five minutes then.

[62:31] One... one is that the other side is offering control at the end of life. And we can quite... quite honestly and... and with... with a lot of empirical evidence, we can point out that it's... it... it... it... you should be skeptical about anyone who claims to be enhancing your control over the end of your life by giving special protections and powers to people who could kill you.

[62:54] In other words, there's a... there's a disconnect there. We're actually handing over a whole bunch of power to the state and to the medical profession. So you have the same people who say, you know, you can't trust doctors to do the right thing at the end of the life... of life.

[63:06] They throw people on these machines to keep them alive forever. You know, they don't listen to the family. They're arrogant. They're arrogant. But let's give them the right to kill us and be protected in law from a charge of murder. You know, so there's a... we can point out that it's... it's... there's something delusional about trying to enhance your... your... your control at the end of your life by, for instance, as they do in Oregon and Washington State, allowing your heirs to sign you up for the suicide dose.

[63:32] Allowing your heirs to be the ones who are delegated by the doctor to give you the suicide dose. You know, once this... once the lethal dose leaves the pharmacy, there's no oversight. You know, the death doesn't have to be witnessed.

[63:43] If the person struggled, who would know? So... so the whole idea that... that really what you're doing... What I suggested after that talk the other day to Joe Harvey was, you know, isn't it sort of like...

[63:54] He... he said, you know, this... if we change the law, it's just gonna allow this tiny number of cases of people. Just a tiny, tiny number. But it'll improve the quality of life for so many other people, because they'll... they'll have the comfort of knowing the option is there.

[64:07] Well, and I suggest, isn't that... isn't that like the comfort people get from being able to keep a loaded gun in the house to defend themselves? You know, that... what are the... what... what percentage of those loaded guns actually kill people by accident who are in this... in their own families, you know?

[64:21] At one point in the States, there was... there was about... there were more... there was more than one child dying from a gunshot-related accident every day at some place in the States. You know, so... so the idea that there's more safety at the end of life, there's more security, more choice, more power, by... by handing over this... this... this... uh... right to the state.

[64:42] And yet he... and yet he... at the same time, he says, remember, we're only talking about voluntary... um...

[65:48] Decentnessia for competent adults. And in the same... at the... and... and if you look at the amended statement of civil claim for this court case, they leave it open in there, that... that whether we should be extending this right, this privilege, to the demented, you know, who haven't asked to be killed.

[66:05] Sorry, Phil, you have... Well, is... is the Holland experience another argument? Some of us were listening to Margaret, some of you, yesterday. Yes. The Holland experience should be a major warning to us, but the other side has learned how to spin that.

[66:18] They say that 97% of people in Holland trust their doctors, higher than we are here. Well, if they didn't have a society like that, they probably wouldn't have been able to get away with euthanasia for the last 25 years because people have an excessive respect for the medical profession in Holland, Germany as well.

[66:37] They have a very great deference toward the medical profession. But in Holland, we've seen a 50-year-old woman euthanized because she was sad at losing her sons.

[66:49] She was perfectly well. We have an active conversation in Holland right now that if you're over 70 and tired of life, you should have the right to euthanasia.

[67:00] We've seen a woman in her 20s with anorexia euthanized because she felt she didn't want to go on. We've seen at least 22 babies killed under the Gruningen protocol, which is a list of rules you follow if you're going to euthanize a baby.

[67:16] These are babies with spina bifida and other things that we would consider to be treatable, and you wouldn't just kill the child. But there are newborns. And in one survey, the parents weren't even involved in some of those decisions because it was thought to be implicit that they would want the child to be euthanized.

[67:36] So we have an extension of the indications, a constant enlargement of the indications for assisted suicide and euthanasia. And in Washington State, it was put forward in a news article a few months ago, and maybe it is time to start talking about euthanasia for the demented elderly.

[67:53] This is being put out seriously. This isn't like a self-parody. We told you we wouldn't, but ha ha, now we are. Will, I know you're drawing for a close. Could you give us some science reductionism talk and a euthanasia talk.

[68:05] Surely you intuit, or do you more than intuit a bridge between these two things? Well, I think that we're talking about essential meanings, the meanings of existence.

[68:18] And the people who are behind the humanist societies who are behind the big push towards euthanasia, it's not that there are no Christians who have been won over by the rhetoric and say, you know, we just can't make people suffer.

[68:30] We can't force them to suffer. That's the way it goes. Even though almost all suffering is manageable by good palliative care. The humanists truly, in the atheistic form, there is no point to suffering.

[68:49] Therefore, minimizing suffering and maximizing control is the reason of their lives. But that's another argument that really doesn't work. Saying that, you know, a lot of good things happen when people suffer through the last bit of their lives.

[69:03] You have families that are brought together and all this other stuff. We know this is true. But don't try telling other people that. They'll say, oh, gosh, you want to suffer, you go ahead. Have all the suffering you want at the end of life, but just don't try to impose that on me.

[69:15] So that doesn't work. And I just, in deference to, it's a joke, Joe? Joe. Yeah, it's a joke. In deference to Joe, I want to say that there is another thing that does work.

[69:26] The loss of control at the end of life. And also the suicide contagion thing. People understand that we have a problem with suicide. And they understand that you lower the level of social inhibition against suicide by endorsing some suicides in the society.

[69:42] We've seen that time and time again. Copycat suicides. Copycat disabled child killings. This was documented every time Robert Latimer was in the news after he murdered Tracy.

[69:53] Every time he came up, his case came up for review. Every time there was an appeal. There was a little spike in the killing of other seriously disabled children across Canada. And that was all Dick Sobsy at the University of Lethbridge documented that.

[70:05] Which is kept quiet in the press. You didn't see a big splash about that. Yeah. Child killings up because Latimer is in court. Latimer is lionized as this hero. Two minutes.

[70:15] Two minutes. I'll try to be curt with you. Thank you so much for what you're doing. My brother-in-law's father died on January 16th.

[70:27] Ten years ago he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. They could see him declining. So he was in full-blown advance Alzheimer's. Last summer my brother-in-law who is a retired Air Canada pilot.

[70:43] He followed in his father's footsteps. Herb the deceased. He trained in December 1940 and January 1941 on a Tiger Moth and a Fleet Finch.

[70:56] If you know anything about planes they're both biplanes. My brother-in-law flew a vintage Fleet Finch which his father had flown in 1940-41.

[71:09] My brother-in-law phoned his mother who was at the seniors home last July and told his mother what he was doing. And my brother-in-law could hear what was going on in the room.

[71:25] And his mother told Herb what the son was doing. What was he doing? Flying this Fleet Finch that Herb had flown in 1940-41.

[71:38] Herb who wasn't very conscious came out with, Great! There was a timely pause. That's right.

[71:49] There's moments of lucidity that shine out of dementia at times. It's very touching. Especially with music. And then he said, You tell him to be careful.

[72:01] That meant so much to my brother-in-law. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. What are we throwing away? People would throw away years of life. What I'd say when it comes to this suicide contagion thing, there are a couple more little things that can work.

[72:15] But when we know that there's a problem with teen suicide, I think the rhetorical challenge I would throw out there is, if we can save one teenager's life by not relaxing the laws against assisted suicide, it'll be worth it.

[72:30] Absolutely. You know, and most people are brought up short by that statement. So if we can save one teenaged life, but this other side, I tell you, at the root of it all is a radical nihilism where they want a suicide to be available to anybody who chooses it.

[72:47] Anybody. At any age. I tell you. Sick or well. The thing that horrifies me is the potential. When you think about it, it's the matter of convenience.

[72:58] And I have heard that there was one case that it was an ADHD boy who was just causing the busy parents too much trouble.

[73:09] And they found a reason. Well, you know, as crazy as that sounds, I don't put anything beyond the realm of possibility.

[73:20] Just people are like that. We all know. Well, the analogy, oh, I'm over two minutes. So I'll keep my analogy to ten minutes rather than that. I promise I'll stop talking, but I like to say, if you have an island where there are no snakes, there just happen to be no snakes on that island, and somebody says, well, we want the right to keep snakes.

[73:48] You know, we think snakes are wonderful. The rest of the culture on that island has the right to say, no, we don't trust you to keep snakes. We don't believe you'll keep your snake in the cage. We don't believe that your snakes won't affect the rest of us in some way.

[74:02] And so I think that's where we're at with this whole assisted suicide euthanasia thing. We have the right to be free of that contagion in our society. And so it's not, the rights aren't all one way.

[74:13] It's not all that a tiny knot of suicide fanatics get the right to change the law. We have the right to say no. Our equality of life would be impacted by that, would be badly affected.

[74:26] We have the right to say no. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.