Latest / Culture Brief - Christian perspectives on the week's biggest news, sports & pop-culture stories / Thwarted terror plots, Christa Pike’s botched execution, Russian plague & October sports updates | Ep. 89

Transcript

Thwarted terror plots, Christa Pike’s botched execution, Russian plague & October sports updates | Ep. 89 · Culture Brief - Christian perspectives on the week's biggest news, sports & pop-culture stories

0:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, I'm Connor Jones, and I'm Ryan Dunnison.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And this is Culture Reap, a Dimmison Foreign Podcast, where we navigate the constant stream of top stories and news, politics, sports, pop culture, technology, and so much more.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And we do it all from a Christian perspective.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, Ryan, welcome back, Dr. Dinnison.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for the chance to be here.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Set it for the conversation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you've probably heard Ryan on here before.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you've been listening for a while, you've come on.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Five, six times before, Ryan, you are our senior editor for Theology here at Dinnison Form.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You also write the fantastic newsletter, the focus that comes out every Tuesday, there are thousands of people reading that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Each Tuesday waiting for your deep dives into big topics, including something you're going to dive into with us today, that you wrote about this week.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think your newsletter's going to go out here in the next hour.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's, you've wrapped up writing that this morning.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So excited for everybody to read that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's I'm excited to get some feedback on it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I hope I do a good job with the tricky subjects.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I hope I do a good job with it
0:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you always choose tricky subjects.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You put yourself into these tricky situations.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's fair.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Which is good.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's a little point.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's called the focus because you're focusing in on one big tricky subject usually or one big story happening in culture, which is great.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And you do it from a great theological standpoint.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So we always appreciate that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Make sure you go to subscribe to the focus at dinnisonform.org slash newsletters.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you are interested in reading that, Ryan, you want to give us a quick rundown of what topics we are hitting on today.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we're going to start with, look at three different potential terrorist attacks, one in England, one in the Middle East, and then one closer to home here in Texas.
1:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we're going to pivot over to talk about Christopheik and just kind of everything that's going on with her and the failed, failed lethal injection and the larger issue of capital punishment and the death penalty.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then we're going to finish off with some lighter talk on October sports.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so it should be fun.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Let's jump into the brief.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The brief.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, let's dive into some of these heavy subjects and then we'll we'll we'll end with a little bit of a lighter note.
1:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's hit on the great month of October sports for sure.
2:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so the UK and the United States foiled a planned attack on the Royal Air Force base Fairford and Great Britain.
2:08
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a base where the U.S. has stationed B1 bombers and some other aircraft as well for quite a while, but specifically right now for the war against Iran.
2:15
[SPEAKER_01]: We are using that ours are launching pad over there on the UK island to launch these bombing
2:21
[SPEAKER_01]: to go hit targets in Iran, or we have been, we haven't done it in a few months, but in the early months of the conflict, this is where we've had our airplane station ready to go, and they're always sitting there ready to go.
2:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, because of that, Iran claimed it was a very specific target that's within the bounce of war, given it's being used for launching, as a launching pad for the war against them, right?
2:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So they said that in July, which kind of already raised alerts that, hey, there could be something that happens at this base in the UK,
2:51
[SPEAKER_01]: both put the base on super high alert.
2:54
[SPEAKER_01]: This is again, it's a royal air force base and belongs to the UK.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We just are allowed to use our planes there with our ally, but both both countries were like, we have intelligence suggesting something's coming in coming very soon.
3:06
[SPEAKER_01]: They put the whole base on high alert, all the communities around it knew this as well.
3:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So then a few night to go when a farmer nearby was driving around in the 12 a.m. hour saw three white bands just a few hundred yards from the entrance of the base just blocking a road.
3:20
[SPEAKER_01]: She called it into the police and the police obviously arrived and they arrested these five guys who were
3:27
[SPEAKER_01]: essentially they were arrested on terrorist type of charges around having explosives and all of that but they were later released on bail the next day It's like what that that's just seems confusing and shocking.
3:40
[SPEAKER_01]: How are you gonna release these five guys who
3:42
[SPEAKER_01]: quite possibly were about to perform some sort of attack on this base and on U.S. military assets.
3:48
[SPEAKER_01]: That seemed shocking, even Trump indicated he was a little surprised by it, and he had said previously after they arrested that they were being that the U.S. was surveilling these five guys already before this even happened.
3:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And so Ryan, you kind of wrote on this last week in your focus newsletter about the release of these men,
4:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Because right before your newsletter, you were put it together and news that are on the actual perspective attack what was fulfilled and then it was like right before you're about to send that out It was like they just got released.
4:13
[SPEAKER_01]: What can you tell us?
4:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Do we know why these guys were released?
4:17
[SPEAKER_01]: They could have kept them for us Well, I think it was a month
4:19
[SPEAKER_00]: if they would have to go back periodically to judges to get sort of renewed kind of renewed warrants and stuff to keep them, but they chose instead to hold them under a different law that meant they had to release them after 24 hours, but they could keep them under
4:35
[SPEAKER_00]: pretty close surveillance.
4:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it sounds like they kind of chose that option because that when they looked in the vans, they didn't find explosives.
4:43
[SPEAKER_00]: They found a bunch of gasoline and other stuff that could be sort of uses a component for a bomb.
4:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's unclear whether they showed up first and were waiting on someone else to come finish the bomb or what was going on with that.
4:56
[SPEAKER_00]: There wasn't enough evidence at the time to really hold them under that under kind of the based on what they could find.
5:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So instead, they chose to kind of release them.
5:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I think they said you're not allowed to talk to each other, which who knows how effective that is.
5:10
[SPEAKER_00]: But essentially, they were just, the hope is that they released them to in order to monitor them, see if anyone tries to contact them, see if it leads us into anyone else.
5:19
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah,
5:27
[SPEAKER_00]: still most both the U.K. and the U.S. government say that they were planning to attack on the base and now they're just out there on bail right.
5:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, not not great not great.
5:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, Shocking, and I found this quote from the Britain Head of Counterterrorism Police, and he said, I understand why this development will have come as a surprise to many, but I'd like to reiterate that it was an investigative decision in one which is grounded in experience and careful consideration of policing powers, which lead you to maybe think, they've got a plan here.
5:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll let these guys go for a reason.
5:58
[SPEAKER_01]: They believe that they can lead them to, like you said, to further conspirators, they can help them,
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[SPEAKER_01]: find out who like if they if they can follow them, tell them, surveil them in their release, they can maybe find out who is fully behind this if it was Iran or some other actor was their deeper conspiracy here.
6:16
[SPEAKER_01]: That's probably what's happening.
6:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I that quote from him leads it to
6:20
[SPEAKER_01]: seem like it's a strategic decision to let them go out on bond.
6:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Either way, it's still very surprising.
6:27
[SPEAKER_01]: But then after all these guys are released on bail, the British police have arrested two other people, since then, who are apparently connected to this thwarted attack as well, including a 22 year old dual British iranian citizen, which starts to lend a little more to, there's probably some iranian suspicions here in this hole.
6:44
[SPEAKER_01]: operation that was going on right and then another person arrested literally this morning right before you and I started recording here.
6:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know the full details on that.
6:52
[SPEAKER_01]: But somebody else has been arrested and connection with the whole thing.
6:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I ran for their part as denied naturally any connection to these threats or to these arrests or to any suspected attack.
7:04
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't think the threats fully disappeared because the United States had all of the B1 bombers.
7:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there were 15 stationed over there.
7:10
[SPEAKER_01]: fly back home this weekend.
7:12
[SPEAKER_01]: They pulled them out.
7:13
[SPEAKER_01]: They said you guys are going back to state side because we don't want any risk of any of these planes being hit by some sort of explosive or maybe an attack drone, whatever it might have been that they were planning.
7:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems the U.S. finds the threats to be very credible and not fully gone yet.
7:26
[SPEAKER_01]: The UK is also continuing to keep security up high.
7:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think they are still suspecting some sort of coordinated attack on some sort of asset there in the UK.
7:35
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... which is not great we don't love that uh... and some of suspect that i ran may have pulled together the technology that you crane actually use last year against rush or where they were able to launch uh... a basically a connected drone attack over in rush and territory behind enemy lines Ukraine pulled up in a very impressive drone attack that gave them uh... a big confidence boost last year i think there's last spring um... actually really after the lintiyat scolded by trump and the oval office uh... they pulled that card i was like
8:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe Ukraine still does have some some things up there sleeping.
8:06
[SPEAKER_01]: They did But I ran mind of taking notes from that operation.
8:10
[SPEAKER_01]: It was potentially going to try something here with that Yeah, so just I don't think we're out of the out of the Complete danger zone here Ryan do you have any less thoughts on this specific thwart of the tech?
8:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think you're right, there was clearly something else happening.
8:25
[SPEAKER_00]: What I'm kind of going to be watching the days ahead is, did they stop with the base in the UK?
8:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we've got a lot of troops, a lot of assets throughout Europe.
8:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Is this something where they just don't trust the UK to be able to protect the base?
8:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Or does this become something where they don't trust any of their European allies, protect our assets?
8:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And if that happens, what does that mean for deterring Russia?
8:49
[SPEAKER_00]: what does that mean for containing the fight in the round it's it's gonna be interesting to see what happens next
8:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm very interested to see, okay, so that's not the only thing that happened last week.
8:59
[SPEAKER_01]: You probably also heard, and we actually talked about it on last week's episode when I was sitting down with Cole Travis, the news had just been breaking about a playing that was attempted and attempted hijacking over near Israel, was actually over Saudi Arabia.
9:11
[SPEAKER_01]: At the time, this was the fly Dubai flight headed to Israel when the copilot attacked the captain and hopes basically of gaining sole control of the aircraft and attempting to crash it.
9:22
[SPEAKER_01]: killing everybody he wanted to kill everybody on board a picture people on the ground We have since learned that the copilot who was attempted to hijack the plane his name is Amam al-Hamami he's from the country of Oman and tea
9:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Basically, it was planning to crash into the terminal at Ben Gurian International Airport, which is if you've not been to Israel, that is the big international airport there in Israel.
9:43
[SPEAKER_01]: He was going to try to take this plane into the building there.
9:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So thankfully, that did not happen.
9:49
[SPEAKER_01]: That's because of several very heroic people, including the captain.
9:51
[SPEAKER_01]: He fought back and was able to crack the cockpit door open.
9:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So passengers were then able to get in there.
9:56
[SPEAKER_01]: A few heroic and courageous passengers managed to get in there.
9:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Subdu, the copilot, who was attempting to hijack.
10:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And they actually pulled the plane out of a 39 degree angled nose dive as well.
10:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this plane is just headed straight for the ground while all this is going on.
10:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't even know how they fought the G forces and what part gravity played here and all that.
10:14
[SPEAKER_01]: But they, they pulled it off.
10:16
[SPEAKER_01]: They got this guy out of the cockpit and they were just happy to be thankfully to other pilots on board who were off duty just flying between being fairied between flights that they were going to be flying later in the day.
10:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So they were able to take over the aircraft and do any emergency landing, which is also in
10:30
[SPEAKER_01]: because during that nose dive, which that 737 max is not designed to do, it lost parts of its tail.
10:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So there were parts of the blame missing and they managed to fly the aircraft for another hour to get it to an airport in Saudi Arabia for an emergency landing where they took care of all the injured passengers as well as the injured captain who had been stabbed multiple times.
10:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's now alive.
10:50
[SPEAKER_01]: He's been able to talk and speak with media about the whole sequence of events as well.
10:59
[SPEAKER_01]: but he's now speaking up about what was the plan here as investigators try to just interrogate him big time man so much happened there and I was shocked last week when we were sitting down or recorded by what the initial reports of the story were but it just got more shocking as we found out more details and wood videos from on board the plane from passengers showing the chaos and the scaringness of the moment
11:21
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not what you want to see, and I want to dive into like some of the security lapses that happened here that allowed this happen, but Ryan, I mean, I'd be what was your initial thinking when you were saying this news story coming out.
11:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It just sounds like something out of a movie, and who knows, maybe it'll become a movie one day, but some of those videos of parents trying to comfort their kids while the play and is knows diving are just as a father that's hard to watch.
11:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And another really interesting part of it is just, I mean, it's a flight that took off in the UAE, landed in Saudi Arabia, and just what that says about Israel's relationships with other countries that ostensibly were their enemies, not all that long ago, the fact that they're all kind of working together.
12:09
[SPEAKER_00]: understand so like situations like this can kind of go above and be on normal relations in terms of just the ability to cooperate and all that but still like there's there's some shifting politics and the Middle East that where countries that used to claim to be enemies are pretty friendly by comparison and it's going to be interesting to see where that goes to.
12:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're right.
12:31
[SPEAKER_01]: This obviously brings a lot of in the Middle East political dynamics to play, including just coordination between Oman, which is a country.
12:39
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of people don't really think about or talk about in the Gulf Coast or in the Gulf Coast, the Gulf region of the Middle East, but they are very crucial when it comes to the oil trade.
12:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're right there on the straight to form moves across from Iran as well.
12:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So they've actually been a part of negotiations between the United States and Iran.
12:56
[SPEAKER_01]: But this pilot was Omani.
12:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's where some of these security lapses start, uh, I've been reading from several security officials, both in Israel and in the US who have said that homami should never have been allowed to fly this plane into Israel for several reasons.
13:11
[SPEAKER_01]: One is Oman is does not have diplomatic official diplomatic relations with Israel.
13:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So,
13:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Currently, to fly to Israel, your nation of the airline that you are flying for must have diplomatic and your citizenship must be from a nation with diplomatic relations with Israel.
13:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, mom, does not have that.
13:28
[SPEAKER_01]: But a few years ago, the UAE did secure
13:32
[SPEAKER_01]: diplomatic relations with Israel.
13:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And so they started allowing UAE airlines and UAE that's United Arab Emirates, by the way.
13:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And their pilots to fly in.
13:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So this guy was flying for a UAE airline, even though he's from Oman, and Israel receives a manifest basically of every crew member, every passenger coming into the country on a flight.
13:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you've ever,
13:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Floating in Israel or if you ever do flying to Israel, they will know who you are.
13:54
[SPEAKER_01]: They will know your name.
13:54
[SPEAKER_01]: They will do a background check on you.
13:56
[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to check everything that they can before they ever let you into the country as a deterrent and as a security measure to prevent terrorists from getting into the nation.
14:05
[SPEAKER_01]: That said, that's the first security lapse.
14:07
[SPEAKER_01]: But then he was also actually grounded by his previous airline, which was Oman Air.
14:11
[SPEAKER_01]: They had
14:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Omani intelligence had found him searching radical websites, and so once they found that out until the airline the airline grounded him moved him to an office job, but they never fired him.
14:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So then when he left that job in 2024 to go to fly Dubai, that airline did not see any major red flags, though they still should have in our required to run it past Omani government.
14:33
[SPEAKER_01]: checks, they did not do that, but they also didn't see any red flags because he was never fired.
14:37
[SPEAKER_01]: They just thought he was coming for a new job in the UAE.
14:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So those are just some of the security lapses that happened on the aviation side.
14:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's still unknown if this was a fully solo act, it did it solo on the aircraft, but maybe he had some sort of planning assistance or financial assistance to help make this happen, or maybe somebody helped him get around some of those checks.
14:54
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't know, Trump.
14:56
[SPEAKER_01]: said this week that based on what he's hearing, he could have seen and working with Iran on this.
15:01
[SPEAKER_01]: But we don't fully know.
15:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And then last but not least, closer to home, there was another thwarted tech here in Texas.
15:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, we're Brian and Irbase.
15:09
[SPEAKER_01]: This was a foiled plan to
15:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It sounds like it was going to be a mass shooting type of event by man going to the Capitol building in Austin.
15:18
[SPEAKER_01]: They arrested him last Wednesday.
15:19
[SPEAKER_01]: He had the attack plane for Thursday.
15:21
[SPEAKER_01]: A friend noticed some weird stuff and called it into the police police resmotted arrested him.
15:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Found him loaded with a whole bunch of weapons planning this attack, which is really
15:30
[SPEAKER_01]: scary.
15:30
[SPEAKER_01]: It's frightening, right?
15:32
[SPEAKER_01]: That's, you're supposed to be comfortable going to work, comfortable at home.
15:36
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's just not always the case here.
15:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And this man was a planning apparently planning this attack at a frustration over the state of Texas and the direction of the country as a whole.
15:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Palestinian cause is what has been noted as his motive behind the plan to attack.
15:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Thankfully, thankfully, all three of these attacks were thwarted.
15:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's amazing.
15:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a lot of people that probably gets credit for intelligence agencies, law enforcement, even people who like a farmer who notices three sketchy vans or a friend who notices hey, this guy is something that's off the walls here with this guy.
16:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to call this in.
16:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if it turns out to be nothing, he's better to be safe than sorry.
16:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just grateful that no loss of life happened to any of these attacks.
16:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm grateful that no damage happened.
16:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess damn it should happen to the plane, but no damage happened to our military aircraft and the UK and everybody on that aircraft was able to come home to their families, thankfully.
16:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's thanks to a few very courageous heroic people, including one of the guys who tackled that copilot, he also pulled back the controls on the 737 to pull out of the diet.
16:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you imagine?
16:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I just can't, and he said he gave credit to the fact that he's watched
16:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Basically detail how you pull a plane out of a nose of them like do you with the perfect person to be there in that moment.
16:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Thankful for that.
16:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but Ryan, I mean, just three attacks planned and thwarted in one week is, I feel like it's first time in a while.
16:55
[SPEAKER_01]: We've been at least made aware of that happening.
16:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes I think attacks are foiled or thwarted and the public never knows about it.
17:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's intentional.
17:02
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, whatever law enforcement agency or CIA or FBI makes something.
17:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Not happen and catches the culprits before it ever happens and we never even know about it But this time these are three that were close to happening and did not and now we know about all of them
17:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
17:18
[SPEAKER_00]: It makes me think this is maybe not the most spiritual reference, but it makes me think of the first men in black movie where Tommy Lee Jones looks learning to Will Smith, why they keep everything quiet.
17:28
[SPEAKER_00]: It is like the only reads, the only way these people go on with their lives is they don't know what's happening.
17:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And I wonder how often that's the case where there are things that the people that are in positions to stop them just have the grace and not let us know.
17:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it is amazing that these three things that happen so quickly that there could be so close to causing devastation, potentially at least.
17:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And still just end with a good result.
17:54
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I'd prefer not to think about how often things happen that we don't know about, but that would be out there.
18:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's just a good reminder of how the best way to approach this life is just to be ready for the next one.
18:08
[SPEAKER_00]: because eternity could be as simple as someone not grab in the controls in airplane and time, or someone not floating the police.
18:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And we have no way of knowing.
18:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you're right.
18:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I think this is a, these all servers are reminded that our enemy
18:24
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... sneaks around and makes plans to surprise attack us this could be an enemy here on earth that is a geopolitical enemy there are our foes and war or whatever it is if it's iron or if it's a terrorist if it's um... whatever the enemy is they are out there to strike fear in our hearts that's their hope that's what nine eleven is about
18:44
[SPEAKER_01]: doing as much damage in death as possible, but then also striking fear in the hearts of America like, oh, you thought you were in this invincible dome, you're not.
18:53
[SPEAKER_01]: We can get to you if we really want to.
18:55
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what the intention was there.
18:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Thankfully, we've never had an attack even close to that large since then, but they do happen, smaller attacks tend to happen, and obviously mass shootings are
19:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I think their intention is always to make a scared and not live our lives abundantly the way that Jesus says, we should make sure you think Ryan of John 1010 that says that the thief comes only to steal kill and destroy.
19:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
19:24
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what Jesus said.
19:25
[SPEAKER_01]: He came so we can have abundant life, not be a shell of ourselves scared or fearful.
19:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Not just of things in this world, but also spiritual warfare, which is
19:34
[SPEAKER_01]: very much so something we should be aware of.
19:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We should be diligent in aware of all these threats in our lives.
19:40
[SPEAKER_01]: We should also not allow us to consume us and make us live in fear.
19:46
[SPEAKER_01]: That's that's something that can be tempting is like, oh, I'm just shouldn't even go outside just like it always something could always happen to me.
19:52
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not a good way to live either.
19:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's not fully trusting in God.
19:56
[SPEAKER_01]: But like I said, we should be diligent.
19:57
[SPEAKER_01]: We should be aware.
19:58
[SPEAKER_01]: We should certainly be diligent aware of the devil's prowling around.
20:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, he would try to nose dive our lives the same way that plain nose dive, right?
20:07
[SPEAKER_01]: He wants us to nose dive, but God has given us all that we need to save that nose dive.
20:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Pull it out, pull the controls back, get back on the right path, get back at the right altitude, right?
20:19
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... he surrounds us with love and peace and he puts people in our lives like for instance those heroic passengers those people were there uh... who are those people in our lives when we are no diving and when things are don't seem like they're going right and we are just not allowing ourselves to fully trust and listen to god who are those people in your life that are support system they will be there in the highs and the lows and they are going to help pull you out of that no stack um... those people that got us placed in your life
20:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Thankfully, I mean, that's my his grace that we have these sports systems family friends, uh, and maybe it's co-workers, whoever it is that are your supporters in there.
20:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and he views in six, I would just say lays out a really good blueprint for this, uh, of how we can stand firm in the face of the enemy's threats.
21:01
[SPEAKER_01]: We put on the whole armor of God.
21:02
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what Ephesians 6 says.
21:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Verse 10 specifically says, finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.
21:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Then it follows up with that and lays out those pieces of the armor of God that prepares us for the fight, the belt of the truth, the breastplate of righteousness, and the shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and one of the most important ones, the sword of the spirit.
21:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, that armor that allows us to maintain a powerful spiritual defense in the face of
21:31
[SPEAKER_01]: fear threats and the enemy whatever that enemy is and specifically the devil who is our enemy and wants to take us down Well, we put on the whole armor of God and fight back.
21:42
[SPEAKER_01]: That's that's our challenge as Christians, you know in our daily life Absolutely, and that's a good reminder.
21:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean that's you can't put on the armor once he attacks starts It really doesn't do much good until it's on you and so it's a good reminder that that's something we need to be prepared to do every day
21:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I've constantly have to remind myself of that too.
22:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually turned that passage a lot because it's so easy to just go about your day and leave your armor at home.
22:08
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, not put it on, like, well, if you could put on your actual physical clothes, you should also put on your spiritual clothing as well and wear that out because you will be attacked each day.
22:19
[SPEAKER_01]: It will look different.
22:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes it will be small things.
22:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes it'll be really big things that feel like they
22:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Just weigh you down and are gonna take you down, but you you can put on that armor of God and lean into his his peace and his love his scripture And you'll find the strength to come out of it.
22:34
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, Ryan.
22:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's dive into what you want to discuss here Another really soft topic the death penalty
22:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's one that's been the news a lot last few days, especially, but it's a story of Christopheight, who in 1996, she was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death.
22:53
[SPEAKER_00]: After she lowered someone who was taking some classes with her into the nearby forest that kind of said they were going to meet up, she was going to sell a weed, I think, is what's kind of how she got her there.
23:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And then she and her then boyfriend who was 17 at the time, and therefore was not given the death penalty.
23:11
[SPEAKER_00]: for being part of this but they just tortured and killed her and ways that I'm not going to account because I'm trying to forget to be honest.
23:19
[SPEAKER_00]: The details of that are pretty gruesome and if you read them, it's because of one of the clear why she was on death row.
23:26
[SPEAKER_00]: But like 30 years later her time had finally come to an order for her since then to be carried out.
23:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And it took, but it did not go well once that started.
23:36
[SPEAKER_00]: It took more than seven times to try and get a needle to one of her veins, in order to deliver the leaf of fluids, the drugs, they had to give her two full bags, or two full doses of the drug because it hadn't killed her.
23:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And then eventually she was basically just put into a coma, but still didn't die.
23:57
[SPEAKER_00]: She's actually
23:58
[SPEAKER_00]: the first person to ever survive a lethal injection where the drugs are actually given.
24:03
[SPEAKER_00]: They fail, as we're going to talk about in a minute, they fail way more than other times.
24:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Other forms of execution, but the other ones, those other failures, are just it takes way too long for the person to die.
24:14
[SPEAKER_00]: They suffer terribly in the process, but they have always ended in death.
24:17
[SPEAKER_00]: She's the first time that someone, since they adopted this in 1982, that someone's been given these drugs and not died for more.
24:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they ended up rushing her into a hospital where she, as of this recording at least, she's still in that coma and doctors aren't sure if she wakes up.
24:32
[SPEAKER_00]: They suspect she'll have brain damage if she does.
24:34
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's a big mess, isn't it?
24:36
[SPEAKER_00]: But the way as it's all put it for the single, when you said a team of doctors is currently trying to keep a woman alive so the Tennessee government can try to kill her again.
24:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And that just kind of sums up the situation pretty well.
24:49
[SPEAKER_00]: But another crazy part of this, though, is that the same doctor who oversaw Pike's botched botched execution, was tasked with carrying out the sense for Tony Carrotters earlier this year, and Carrotters also survived.
25:01
[SPEAKER_00]: They couldn't find the veins in order to be able to start the fluids, so he never actually received the drugs.
25:07
[SPEAKER_00]: They kind of called that off before they started giving the actual lethal injections.
25:14
[SPEAKER_00]: but still he was given a one-year reprieve and governor Billy the governor of Tennessee Ordered an independent investigation of what went wrong with Christopheik and But he's also said that they're suspending all executions that remained of the year until they figure out what's going on and how to fix it
25:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And the problem, though, is that this is not strictly something that Tennessee messes up.
25:37
[SPEAKER_00]: This is something that we're seeing with lethal injections around the world around the country.
25:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's really kind of led to a renewed discussion about capital punishment in general.
25:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And the way that it's carried out, but kind of when you first saw the story, we'll be your thoughts.
25:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I just, any time I read about these botched executions, I just don't understand how this can happen.
25:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it baffles my mind, and I've got a question for you here, because I think you've done some research on this, because this is what you're writing about for the focus today.
26:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So I know you've been looking at this for the past few days, prepping your newsletter.
26:07
[SPEAKER_01]: uh how like you got one job if you're gonna do this you better do it right or else it will lead to a lot of backlash and it potentially I'm not saying it should or should not but it potentially could enter the end the death penalty in your state so like Tennessee having two Bosch executions in one summer
26:25
[SPEAKER_01]: is pretty bad.
26:26
[SPEAKER_01]: This is embarrassing for everybody involved.
26:29
[SPEAKER_01]: It's potentially going to, you know, fall into the constitutional aid, the amendment, which says you cannot have cruel and unusual punishment.
26:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, that's what lawyers have always argued, even with lethal injection, if the idea is lethal injection, it's supposed to be the most peaceful way to serve an execution, and it's supposed to just put somebody into a peaceful death.
26:49
[SPEAKER_01]: this shirt doesn't sound like it and I know that there's probably some reasons for that uh... that's what i ask you here about a second riot but i just think that the the lawyers for her immediately started uh... there are appeal process right like this was cruel and unusual punishment she was uh... thrashing around on the the table and everything which there were reporters there there are witnesses there are always witnesses for this
27:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So they're the ones who were able to tell us, they tried twice.
27:12
[SPEAKER_01]: They tried for a long time, and it just was not going through.
27:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And now, oh yeah, like you said, she's in a coma.
27:17
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not ideal for really anybody, including her.
27:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it's just, it's not great.
27:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's my question, Ryan.
27:25
[SPEAKER_01]: We've talked a lot about here at Denson Form, youth in Asia and how against youth in Asia we are, which is where you voluntarily put somebody to death, who is maybe ill or terminally ill or elderly and some countries are doing this to the most vulnerable people, special needs people and elderly people who don't wish to be put to death, but they are.
27:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Nonetheless, the youth and Asia thing, nobody ever talks about botched youth and Asia, so what ever talks about like, oh, this could have gone very wrong.
27:52
[SPEAKER_01]: This person was in deep pain.
27:53
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't actually die.
27:54
[SPEAKER_01]: It seemed like that's always successful.
27:57
[SPEAKER_01]: What is happening here in these prisons where like, because this is not the first time this has happened in the last even decade, other states have had this happen to why, as well, even here in Texas, we've had botched executions through Lithuanians.
28:08
[SPEAKER_01]: What's happening?
28:09
[SPEAKER_01]: What's making this go wrong?
28:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was really curious about that too because it seems like when I go to get a blood draw, they have no issues finding veins.
28:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I know everyone's a little different, but there's people that do this for a living day in a day out that they're really good at finding veins.
28:24
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think part of the problem and the reason that it's now with the 8% of lethal injections don't go the way they're supposed to.
28:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And so nearly one out of 10.
28:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And part of it is because around 2010, a human rights group in the UK called reprieve, started pushing pressure on companies that were making a lot of the drugs that are used in these, in these leafland injections.
28:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're putting pressure on these companies to stop providing them with their prisons.
28:46
[SPEAKER_00]: and eventually all the companies cave because the public backlash and the bad PR.
28:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when prisons want to buy the chemicals that phone these drugs that they get to lethal ejections, most of the time they have to go through like through compounds factors where they kind of piece it together after market.
29:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's never kind of the same exact composition.
29:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes they get expired chemicals in there.
29:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the drugs themselves don't always do what they're supposed to do, because the companies that make them and provide them to, like, in Canada, when you get youth in Asia, you're getting the good stuff, I guess.
29:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I see people in law it.
29:20
[SPEAKER_00]: In terms of the lethal injection, in terms of quality, consistency, they know what they're getting.
29:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're administered by doctors.
29:26
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not the case, and most of these.
29:29
[SPEAKER_00]: There's actually a couple states in the US that forbid doctors from taking part in lethal injections in capital punishment because the official stance of the American Medical Association as well as the American Nurses Association is that to take part in taking a life through capital punishment goes against the doctor's take and so they actually tell their physicians do not do this.
29:52
[SPEAKER_00]: to the point that the only reason we know the name of the doctor in Tennessee that oversaw this is because in a previous execution someone let it slip and so it's he's the same one for most of these and but typically the doctors have anonymity because they're according to their licensing to the group to licenses done they're not supposed to do this.
30:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's the other difference between the death penalty and youth in Asia, is that with youth in Asia, you've got doctors who are trained to do this administering the drugs.
30:23
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got drugs that have been built and developed specifically in order to take a life.
30:29
[SPEAKER_00]: and with the death penalty.
30:31
[SPEAKER_00]: None of that's typically the case.
30:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So you've got prison guards or other people with a prison that have been theoretically trained on how to place an IV, but are not experts at it, and having a gotten enough experience to be proficient at it.
30:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Trying to find veins among people that often times like part of what happened Chris DePyke is that her veins were just
30:49
[SPEAKER_00]: already damaged, it's where they think what happened to her is that when they put the vein in and they started the chemicals, the chemicals are so caustic that it ruptured her vein and started spreading her the tissue around it rather than getting into her blood stream and that's why it didn't kill her.
31:02
[SPEAKER_00]: But in general though, that's one of the biggest differences is with youth and Asia, the medical community is behind it and supporting it with death penalty they're not.
31:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the differences you've got prison guards and people
31:17
[SPEAKER_00]: are not supposed to do that.
31:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Are not trained to do this in the same way, Dr. Wood, being the one who's primarily in charge.
31:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And with his anasia, he's got doctors and nurses and the whole medical establishment pushing for it.
31:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's actually very helpful context because I was just curious about the whole thing with like what what since the two parts sounds like it's primarily the medicine and the medical field just not wanting to take part in in death penalty execution to which You know I understand they do basically their code of conduct when you go into the medical field is we will try to save a life anybody's life doesn't matter who it is.
31:52
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what we do we protect life.
31:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, which leads you know to some of the questions that I would love to ask you about what the Bible says about
32:00
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, what is the sanctity of life aspect here?
32:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Because as Christians, we stand firmly on the fact that all life should be protected in the womb.
32:08
[SPEAKER_01]: We stand firmly on the fact that youth in Asia should not be allowed and should not be legal.
32:13
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I was putting to death innocent people.
32:16
[SPEAKER_01]: But the Bible does offer some insights on how to handle people who do murder, which is a...
32:22
[SPEAKER_01]: kind of a different ball game, especially with scripture.
32:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So I would love to kind of dive into that.
32:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And I also just want to call out one of the things with the death penalty that is really difficult for many people to grasp and some of that I really struggle with too, right?
32:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure you do too, is how many innocent people have been put to death.
32:42
[SPEAKER_01]: believe you know a jury found them guilty or there is false evidence prevented out a presented out a trial and this is what the innocent project if you ever heard that goes through they try to find these cases where something illegal was done by a prosecutor's office or judge or somebody on the jury or whoever was or false witness that takes back their testimony
33:02
[SPEAKER_01]: that happens more frequently than you think and there are these people on death row who like they are fighting to say there's no proof that they actually did this murder and there have been people who have been executed who were later exonerated after their death because they were in the settlement oh wait it wasn't them and then they they find the right person who actually did the murder um i think that's one of the at least in the united states like legal justice system it's not a perfect system and so there are people who are put away
33:29
[SPEAKER_01]: to go on death row who were never guilty of such a murder.
33:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
33:33
[SPEAKER_00]: All the deaths by one of the main pushes with capital punishment is to at the very least refine who is eligible for the death penalty.
33:42
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the best articles I read in the process of writing the focus for this week talked about how
33:47
[SPEAKER_00]: If you just, if they just refined and narrowed the list of crimes that were eligible to receive, the death penalty, that would go a long way toward helping with the number of innocent people that are killed.
33:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Because at the end of the day, I mean, if it's one a year, one a decade, like, where do you draw the threshold of innocent lives taken in order to say that this needs to change or this needs to stop?
34:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's a hard question to answer.
34:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to have
34:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, and, you know, it is tough because if the idea of the death penalty is one, it's supposed to serve full justice for a family, and friends, like if the idea is it's a life for a life, some would say that is full justice.
34:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And some family members, that's the only way they see justice being served when their family members brutally murdered, they're like, well, then I want them to lose their life too.
34:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, others are like, that's not right.
34:36
[SPEAKER_01]: We'd rather them live just because they took our family members or loved ones life, doesn't mean
34:39
[SPEAKER_01]: we want them to die as well.
34:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It depends on each person, but then also, you know, definitely serving as a deterrent.
34:46
[SPEAKER_01]: If you know that this is a possible punishment, are you less likely to
34:51
[SPEAKER_01]: you know do this terrible heinous crime I think we'll never know fully how many people opted to not murder someone because they were scared they may be put to death for it um ideally that does happen but it's um it's just a tough subject and I would love for you to just tell us Ryan like what does the Bible speak into with the death penalty because we're supposed to protect the sanctity of life right but then also is there is there scripture saying justice
35:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and we'll link to some articles in the show notes that go into this in greater depth.
35:23
[SPEAKER_00]: But, um, a lot of the passages that are cited are, for example, John Genesis 9 5 3 6.
35:28
[SPEAKER_00]: It says, uh, it says, for your lifeblood, I will surely demand an accounting, I will demand an accounting from every animal from every man to I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man.
35:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Whoever sheds the blood of man by man, his blood shall be shed.
35:41
[SPEAKER_00]: for the image of God has God made man.
35:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Then Leviticus 24, it talks about how if anyone takes the life of a human being, he must be put to death, and then that's usually paired with Romans 13, 1, 2, 5, where Paul talks about the role of the government, and the key verse there is where he writes, but if you do wrong, be afraid, for he speaking to the government does not bear the sword for nothing.
36:05
[SPEAKER_00]: He has God's servant, and an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.
36:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And so all of that kind of is usually taken together to support the idea that God allows for a system of death penalties, a system of capital punishment in the case of murder, in the case of especially heinous murders.
36:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Now he has chosen the government rather than people as the ones that are meant to carry that out.
36:29
[SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, a lot of that is countered by people that say Genesis 9 is descriptive of the way that humanity functioned at the time of Noah, but not prescriptive for the way it should always function, same with Leviticus passage.
36:41
[SPEAKER_00]: That Jesus doesn't re-establish the death penalty passages in the same way that he does a lot of the other Leviticus codes.
36:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And even then, those who argue that Paul's reference to the sword Romans 13 pertain to punishment rather than execution.
36:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And the basic idea is that with a lot of these, there's examples of
37:05
[SPEAKER_00]: God establishing this as a deterrent.
37:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And as a wave to in order to keep revenge from getting out of hand.
37:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of these codes were also, like when it says an eye for an eye on a tooth for a tooth, that kind of idea was a developed in order to allow punishment.
37:22
[SPEAKER_00]: It was developed in order to put a restriction on punishment.
37:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of this is the same way.
37:27
[SPEAKER_00]: If you kill someone, you should expect to die, was the Old Testament with kind of combating the temptation for if you kill someone, you should expect them to kill your entire family.
37:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And so a lot of even this Old Testament, these Old Testament laws were written in a context to preserve life by limiting the degree to which people were allowed to take retribution.
37:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And God himself showed mercy to Moses when he killed somebody.
37:51
[SPEAKER_00]: He showed mercy to David when David orchestrated Rai's death.
37:54
[SPEAKER_00]: He shows mercy throughout a lot of the Old Testament where people commit crimes that according to the little vittical code would be what it would cost in their lives and then God shows them mercy and doesn't kill them.
38:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's an open quote, all that to say, in terms of what the Bible says about capital punishment is tricky.
38:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And it really is a situation where I think it's too complicated to say cut and dry, this is what the Bible says.
38:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the Bible allows it in principle, but it doesn't require it.
38:24
[SPEAKER_00]: It does mandate that if it's going to happen today, the government should be the one carrying it out.
38:28
[SPEAKER_00]: We are not licensed to go out and seek revenge and take someone's life because they committed murder.
38:35
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the government's job.
38:36
[SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, there is a biblical argument for it.
38:40
[SPEAKER_00]: There's also no biblical mandate in order that we do it.
38:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's lives in this grave where we really do have to pray about it.
38:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Just to see kind of what is the best way to do this.
38:50
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think one of the guiding principles we can't afford to lose sight of is that even those who commit these heinous crimes are still people made in the image of God.
38:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And if we ever get to the point that we have to dehumanize them in order to
39:03
[SPEAKER_00]: find their punishment palatable, then it's probably a pretty good sign that we're going too far with their punishment.
39:08
[SPEAKER_00]: If you look at what happened to Christopheek and the suffering that she endured and walked away and your damn takeaways that she deserved it, then I think you've lost sight of God's heart for people like Christopheek.
39:22
[SPEAKER_00]: He still wants them to be safe.
39:23
[SPEAKER_00]: He still loves them.
39:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if he finds their actions upon
39:27
[SPEAKER_00]: weren't even if he if he if his word gives room for their actions to bear the consequences of costing them their lives then but we can't lose side of the fact that these are still people and we can't lose side of their humanity and the midst of all this and I think if we can keep that in mind and going back to that idea that one of the most important things with capital punishment with the death penalty and how this should be
39:49
[SPEAKER_00]: facilitated is it has to be humane, it has to, we can't treat them worse than we would and wasn't a slaughterhouse even, even their kill, they're put out of their, they're put to death is mercifully as possible in a lot of cases.
40:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think if, if we have a lower standard for people than we do for cattle, then we've crossed into a very, very important line that we can't afford to cross.
40:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a way to have this discussion even that can move in towards sinfulness.
40:18
[SPEAKER_00]: if we ever take delight in the idea that someone that is made in the image of God is dying, then we can find a sense of justice in it, but it should always fill us with the sense of sadness as well.
40:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's one of the main things that as we're having this discussion and debating what is the biblical approach to this?
40:37
[SPEAKER_00]: The thing the Bible is abundantly clear on, is that both the victims and the people that kill them are made in the image of God and
40:45
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to retain an understanding of their humanity if we're going to have this conversation.
40:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, man, you're right.
40:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all It is a very just tricky subject And it's it's hard to find the exact line.
40:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I do know that I think in America That there's quite a few polls showing that the majority of Americans you're not support the death penalty for a variety of reasons Even including some of what we said about the innocent aspect of it
41:07
[SPEAKER_01]: But some believe that it's not up to anyone on earth to decide when someone else should die, whether it's murder or an execution.
41:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And I am reminded too, our Lord Jesus was executed.
41:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Innocently, I might say.
41:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Like he was put to death in a broken justice system, where Pilots said, let the people choose and the people chose him.
41:27
[SPEAKER_01]: which was both tragic, but also led to the most beautiful story in the world, which I'm grateful for.
41:33
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a tough subject, and we should mention also that even just this week, the president, president Trump announced that he's going to allow Nidal Hassan, the man who killed 13 other people at Fort Hood, 13 other soldiers back in 2009.
41:48
[SPEAKER_01]: He's going to allow him to be executed by firing squad.
41:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So even to what you said earlier, Ryan, like sometimes also about the methods of execution
41:57
[SPEAKER_01]: in states and legislatures can debate on different methods and some states allow lethal injection and other options and they allow the the prisoner to actually choose and you can opt for different things but you may see a change here if anything just substantially in different methods being allowed such as a firing squad which it's hard to know how that would possibly fail.
42:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I think has like 100% success rate so but not every state allows it for there's even talk of
42:22
[SPEAKER_00]: integrating AI into firing squads to make sure that they're lovely.
42:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's bring in on things like that's the show.
42:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but there is like it is I think it's a conversation worth having for rather than just a soon because most people assume that lethal injection is the most you mean because the first drug given knocks a person out so that you can't see them suffering.
42:41
[SPEAKER_00]: But what they found is that the drugs that knocked them out don't always do the full job.
42:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes they just paralyze them
42:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think it's a good, it's worth going back to ask me personally.
42:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm still in favor of the death penalty in some cases.
42:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it should be a tool of government can use.
43:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad they're using it less and less and I think there's definitely room for improvement in the system.
43:06
[SPEAKER_00]: But...
43:07
[SPEAKER_00]: If we ever lose sight of the fact that these are still people made in the image of God that are dying, then I think we've Worst standing in cinnest at that point as well.
43:16
[SPEAKER_00]: So I hope they've added it out of the way.
43:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Well any time I see a new story or get an alert to, you know, so it's always said to be actually curious tonight.
43:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's it's sad.
43:24
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, oh man, it's
43:25
[SPEAKER_01]: it's still the end of a life, no, no matter what heinous crimes they did, some of them did really terrible things.
43:32
[SPEAKER_01]: But you're right, God, God would do anything to try to get to them.
43:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And some of them come to Christ before they're executed, and they repent of their sins, and they live in a guilt written state of what they did previously.
43:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And they asked for forgiveness from the Lord, but also the people in that
43:50
[SPEAKER_01]: person's family that they murdered, you know, sometimes they get it too.
43:53
[SPEAKER_01]: The family will forgive them and they recognize this is a new person and they were overcome with really terrible things whenever they perform the murder.
44:00
[SPEAKER_01]: The other part of the whole thing is that just timeline it takes to get to these executions.
44:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you're talking about decades, most of the time, this one's 30 years after the actual murder.
44:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's, you know, things change over time,
44:18
[SPEAKER_01]: the whole system for court injustice and appeals and all the different circuit court to goes through and everything it's I don't know it's messy which it's created by humans so it's always going to be messy there will always be failures and faults in it.
44:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Ryan, thanks for just taking us through that there's so much to continue, thank through, and even pray through, and especially if you're listening to this and you have some sort of influence in government or you work for a nonprofit that works in the justice system.
44:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
44:48
[SPEAKER_01]: What do we need to know?
44:51
[SPEAKER_01]: What are we missing?
44:51
[SPEAKER_01]: What are we not thinking about?
44:53
[SPEAKER_01]: but love to hear that.
44:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can always shoot us a message at Coltabreefe at dinnisonform.org, email us there or follow us on Instagram at Coltabreefe podcast.
45:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have received some messages recently that I'll definitely read here in the upcoming weeks, but we are a little strapped for time here.
45:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to dive us into the next few things just in our check-in section.
45:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Ryan, we are seeing another potential outbreak in Russia this time and when I say outbreak I mean yeah disease a viral outbreak per se they are calling this a plague not a word you love to hear makes me think of the black plague of you know the dark ages that killed I think like a third of Europe at the time so
45:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Play is not a fun word.
45:32
[SPEAKER_01]: This is in the Siberian city of, and I'm going to say this completely wrong, and I'm sure there's a really good Russian accent that you can put to this, but, or kutsk, or kutsk, something like that, you know.
45:43
[SPEAKER_01]: This anti-plague researcher there died this past week from a quote pneumonia of an unknown cause.
45:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And then Axios worked the news on Sunday and reported that the White House is monitoring this plague situation, which nobody knew about.
45:57
[SPEAKER_01]: It was once Axios got worried that the, hey, the White House is aware of something going on in the city and in Russia.
46:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Now there are apparently hundreds and if not thousands of people who are under quarantine, the city is starting to get like pretty locked down.
46:08
[SPEAKER_01]: They're checking everybody's temperatures flying in and out of the city.
46:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Does this sound familiar at all?
46:13
[SPEAKER_00]: a little bit and the worst ways, but yeah, yeah, good times.
46:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and I've read from several different doctors who have said they're a plague is different than like a COVID type of thing.
46:24
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no way you can have any sort of antidote per se or like a
46:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I ain't going to be a vaccine this time if this breaks out any further, but it also should be a harder spread, but it also is more deadly.
46:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So take the pros and cons of everything there and let's just spread that this goes away fast before we start finding ourselves in another situation.
46:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I think everybody just has a little PTSD this time.
46:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Like if this was a story in 2019, we wouldn't think that much of it.
46:50
[SPEAKER_01]: But we didn't think much of it last time either in 2019, but something started out breaking China.
46:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So,
46:54
[SPEAKER_00]: uh... no doubt this one is a it's the pneumatic version of the bubonic version that was in the dark ages and so that's it he's right to spread humid human but it also means it's bacterial rather than uh... the kind spread by fleas and so for the most part antibiotics if they take them or if you catch early enough knock it out
47:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, the only the scariest part is if she was at a lab where they were trying to develop antibiotic resistance strains or work with those then that could be a problem.
47:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, because what I read that that's strange of it starting to be more resistant, but that's what I saw what this was some sort of they were trying to build a strip which why are we building antibiotic resistance strain to what I mean what it was supposed to be a weapon did this
47:33
[SPEAKER_01]: it may it baffles my mind some of these decisions in these places um yeah anyways rush is not allowing information to get out naturally there is censored state and so they are trying to keep everything as under wraps as possible and prevent people from freaking out there uh but as soon as they got to the US media on Sunday through this report uh people started really looking into it and now we're getting more information
47:54
[SPEAKER_01]: more leaked information videos out of Russia, but this would be embarrassing for that nation who's already in a pretty embarrassing war, and would not like to have a plague breaking out on the other side of their nation over on the far east end of Russia.
48:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, let's look at sports real fast, because there are quite a few things happening here.
48:15
[SPEAKER_01]: every big sport is going on.
48:17
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got even hockey.
48:18
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got basketball and B.A.
48:20
[SPEAKER_01]: starting soon in a fellow college football full swing here.
48:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And then MLB is in the playoffs.
48:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I have.
48:25
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're watching this, you'll see.
48:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got my world series had on from 2023.
48:29
[SPEAKER_01]: When the Texas Rangers won the world series, that was an awesome time.
48:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like game one.
48:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Best game I've ever been to live best sporting event.
48:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I've ever been to live.
48:37
[SPEAKER_01]: It was awesome.
48:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We did not make the playoffs.
48:39
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the sad part here.
48:40
[SPEAKER_00]: But nonetheless, we live in 2022 sometimes.
48:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, what's that?
48:44
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not too far away.
48:46
[SPEAKER_01]: You're sorry.
48:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's true.
48:49
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got NHL news.
48:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Ryan, do you know Alex O'Betchkin?
48:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I followed his career a little bit.
48:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not a huge as hockey fan, but I remember when he and when he first came into the league and he and the on the space on his name, the Pelican star.
49:05
[SPEAKER_00]: We're kind of like going back and forth trading MVP award.
49:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, City Crosby on the PS.
49:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so that our member is younger career.
49:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I kind of lost track of him.
49:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess is he.
49:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I see I bet him a better.
49:18
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, well, he is now.
49:21
[SPEAKER_01]: We talk about it last year when he broke this record.
49:22
[SPEAKER_01]: He broke the record from most goals scored ever in the NHL.
49:25
[SPEAKER_01]: He broke Wayne Gretzi.
49:27
[SPEAKER_01]: The greatest hockey player all time.
49:29
[SPEAKER_01]: He broke his record that was 894 goals at the time.
49:33
[SPEAKER_01]: He had 895 that night broke the record big celebration ever.
49:37
[SPEAKER_01]: He's now at 929.
49:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe
49:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And some miraculous say he can reach 1,000 before he retires, I don't think that's going to happen, but either way, 929 goals in a career is insane because I've scored approximately zero in my time here on Earth.
49:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So, congrats to him, bringing prepared to retire after his 20 second season.
49:55
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the news there.
49:56
[SPEAKER_01]: He is announced as a retirement.
49:57
[SPEAKER_01]: He will be missed the NFL.
49:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, man.
50:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Cowboys won.
50:01
[SPEAKER_01]: We're in it.
50:02
[SPEAKER_01]: We are two and two, baby.
50:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So technically second place the somehow the giants are three and one.
50:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't know how the giants keep going.
50:13
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all, but they do.
50:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
50:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I just kind of just take them from the start, especially now the Jackson Darcher.
50:18
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm more worried just as long as we stay with the Eagles, I like our chances.
50:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, the Eagles, the Eagles look a little rough.
50:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm feeling good.
50:26
[SPEAKER_01]: If the Cowboys can look a little good and the Eagles look really bad, it's just a good time.
50:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but
50:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Just to mention here, we do have some 4-0 teams who just wrapped up week 4, the Kansas City Chiefs, Minnesota Vikings and San Francisco 49ers are completely undefeated.
50:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Not entirely surprising other than the Vikings, they are kind of a shocker there.
50:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm more surprised by these teams who haven't won a single game.
50:46
[SPEAKER_01]: We have these winlists.
50:47
[SPEAKER_01]: teams, the Miami Dolphins, Tennessee Titans, Houston, Texans, L.A. Chargers and Tampa Bay Buck and Ears, and if you told me those last three, at the beginning of the season, I would have been shocked that they were all Owen four.
50:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Baker Mayfield, Justin Herbert, just not showing up to games, essentially.
51:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he's there, but he's like just a skeleton on the field.
51:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the Houston Texans were like a Super Bowl favorite man.
51:06
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of people picked him to go to the Super Bowl and they are Owen four.
51:09
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll set up an incredible defense.
51:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Every other team, whoever you cheer for, hopefully you're cheering for the Cowboys, but if you're not, your team is somewhere in the middle and there.
51:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's just a wide open field for who's going to make their way on to the playoffs and Super Bowl.
51:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Now doubt, it's going to be a fun to see how the season plays out, but I mean, it's four games then you start to see some trends that become more predictive for the rest of the season.
51:30
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's two and two with a close loss that was I'm going to say coaching a clock related against Baltimore than I'll take.
51:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
51:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So.
51:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we should be, don't even get me started.
51:43
[SPEAKER_01]: We should be three in one, but whatever.
51:45
[SPEAKER_01]: That's, that's, we could talk to the coaches about that later.
51:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And then of course Ryan, I really want to ask you about baseball because this is your sport, this is what you live eat and breathe.
51:54
[SPEAKER_01]: We are in, as we're recording, you know, the divisional series of the playoffs here for the MLB.
52:00
[SPEAKER_01]: This is where the teams are playing a best of five series.
52:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's eight teams left total as of this moment that we're recording on Tuesday.
52:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Some teams could be kicked out by the time this comes out on Thursday morning.
52:11
[SPEAKER_01]: But are there any teams we should be paying specific attention to in these playoffs if anybody's like I have a tuned in this season I haven't tuned in to the playoffs yet, but I would like to now that it's October baseball.
52:21
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the best time of baseball.
52:22
[SPEAKER_01]: What team should we be paying attention to?
52:25
[SPEAKER_00]: there's some really fun stories left.
52:26
[SPEAKER_00]: The rays are one of those teams that's like perpetually amazing, but never seems to get all the way.
52:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this would be a great year for them to like they're up to nothing on the Yankees when we're as we're recording now.
52:40
[SPEAKER_00]: They're looking really solid.
52:41
[SPEAKER_00]: They finish with one of the best records in American League.
52:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they would be a fun team.
52:46
[SPEAKER_00]: The other team out of the American League though that I'm really followed was a white
52:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And now they're looking like they may have their have a legitimate shot that are up on the guard over the Guardians 2 nothing.
53:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And what are the things I would love so much to see happen is if they make it to the ALCS, I really want the Pope to throw out the first pitch at some of one of these games.
53:10
[SPEAKER_00]: It's my mouth that the Pope will give us in the bullpen and just make his way and then just I would be fantastic just to see the response there because he's a huge white
53:19
[SPEAKER_00]: But on the national league side, the Brewers are great story, the Padres are another one of those teams that just seems to always be on the cusp, but never quite over.
53:29
[SPEAKER_00]: The Dodgers are actually the only team that's in a 1-1 series, and so far this round.
53:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And there are two time World Series champions going for a 3-peat, but they just looked tired.
53:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm just kind of rooting for any one of the American League at this point other than Yankees.
53:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Part of the reason I'm rooting for the race is because they're playing the Yankees and I hate the Yankees.
53:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's kind of, that's oftentimes the rage is hard in the play outs.
53:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I root for whoever is opposing the teams that I don't like.
53:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And so right now that's the race.
53:58
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's going to be a fun world series.
54:00
[SPEAKER_00]: You'd like to regard those just some great teams left and some amazing players.
54:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And what's fun about post-season baseball is just every pitch
54:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's been a fun playoff so far and I'm looking forward to seeing how it ends.
54:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're right, the playoff baseball is just something else.
54:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the breweries, I was watching that game the night against the Patriots or the Patriots, oh my gosh, the pod drays, nothing to do with the Patriots.
54:25
[SPEAKER_01]: No, the San Diego Padres, when they hit the single lock-off home, it like the walk-off, and it was incredible.
54:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love those moments in these baseball stadiums here in the playoffs.
54:34
[SPEAKER_01]: This is true of really any sport but when the stadiums completely sold out,
54:37
[SPEAKER_01]: and it's full and everybody's amped up and you're in this moment of high-intensive pressure and this batter has to hit it or this pitcher has to get the strike out for their home crowd to go wild and they do and they're like literally louder than the commentators on the TV like those make for some pretty epic moments, you know, I love that and the breweries said that the other day they seem like the hot team coming into the offices and they may just pull it off man I don't think they've ever had a championship before so this would be awesome for them.
55:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I could be wrong in there.
55:05
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're a brewer's fan, correct me if I'm wrong on them having a championship, but I don't think that they have.
55:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think they have either.
55:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
55:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Ryan, this was a fun episode kind of, at the beginning was a little tough.
55:17
[SPEAKER_01]: We had some tough topics.
55:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm glad we were able to talk a little sports here.
55:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But thanks for joining us and taking a time to just kind of dive into some of the really intricate things with these terrorist attacks, but or thwarted attacks really.
55:28
[SPEAKER_01]: and the death penalty and capital punishment and all that there is to think about there as Christians and believers and how we can be praying about it, how we can be thinking about it, how we can discern that, really go out and take that into our spheres of influence as well and guys everybody, thank y'all for tuning in this week.
55:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Ryan, thanks for joining us.
55:46
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, y'all have a band-tastic week, and we'll see you next week.
55:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for joining us on this week's episode of Culture Reef, a Dinnison Form podcast, all articles and videos mentioned in this episode will be linked in the show notes.
55:58
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to help us reach more believers with truth in today's chaotic culture, please share this podcast around and leave a five star rating review.
56:05
[SPEAKER_01]: All episodes are produced by Sound of a Rose.
56:07
[SPEAKER_01]: For more information you can visit Sound of a Rose.com and see you next Thursday.