Transcript

Today's Issues continues on AFR with your host, Ed Vitagliano

>> Today's Issues continues on AFR with your host, Ed Vitagliano.

>> Ed Vitagliano: And, ah, welcome back. Ed Vitagliano sitting in for Tim Wildmon. This week I'm joined in studio by Fred Jackson and Steve Jordahl has joined us. good morning to you, Steve.

>> Steve Jordahl: Morning, Everybody.

>> Ed Vitagliano: And then Dr. Ray Pritchard of Keep Believing Ministries. Ray, tell our listeners a little bit about Keep Believing.

>> Tim Wildmon: Well, we want you to come see us on the Internet. You know, we read through the Bible a couple years ago and we're, and I'm just replaying those videos day by day. We're, we're deep into Second Kings right now.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Oh, wow.

>> Tim Wildmon: Ah, yeah. Having a blast. And, I just say that all the time because I've met so many AFR listeners who hopped on the Bible bus with me because we've talked about it here. The other thing is, just within the last month, I started making video reels or shorts. You know what those are, Ed?

>> Ed Vitagliano: Oh, yeah, you're a little, little like, this is where you dance. You dance.

>> Tim Wildmon: It's something you really, you only need to see once and pray that you never see it again.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah. Well, what's in these video shorts?

>> Tim Wildmon: Seriously, these are little devotional topics, but they go through 30 seconds, a minute, 90 seconds. Huge on Instagram and huge on Facebook. And so I just been answering questions like, what do you do with doubt in the Christian life? And how can I know I'm saved? And, just, earlier, earlier. Well, earlier this week talked about, is it okay to pray for something more than once? Which is a surprising topic, but it comes up often.

>> Ed Vitagliano: It does.

>> Tim Wildmon: And today, I just posted one a little while ago called cremation. Is it biblical? Is it okay, what does the Bible say? I'm always surprised whenever I do a Q and A. That's a question that comes up all the time. So, come on over. Come on over to keep believing.com or you can follow us on Facebook or Instagram and YouTube and check out these brand new shorts and reels. Tell me what you think.

There is no verse in the Bible that forbids cremation

>> Fred Jackson: All right, 30 seconds on cremation. What do you say?

>> Tim Wildmon: Well, first of all, you need to watch the video. Keep believing.com abc always be closing. Right. But there is no verse in the Bible that forbids it. But we must never say the body doesn't matter. Let's never say that. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, not just spiritually, but whatever that is. He was raised physically in his body. So no matter the circumstances of our death, if we've Believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, we will be raised, and our bodies will be raised with us, and we will be transformed.

>> Steve Jordahl: My dad, who is 92 and in good health right now, but says that when he dies. He has said this before, when he dies, he wants to be cremated, and he wants his asters spread around over the ocean just so we can see how God's gonna put him back together. He knows he will.

>> Tim Wildmon: He knows he will.

>> Ed Vitagliano: But then I have, By the way, that was 40 seconds. so I've got a little long winded there.

Ray: I do have a cremation story with my dad

All right, So I. I do have a cremation story with my dad. Oh, all right. So as he was approaching, you know, the later years of his life, you know, we. We had a conversation with him. I'm talking about m. The kids, my sisters and I, and his wife, you know, in terms of, you know, how do you want, you know, the service to go and all that kind of thing. And so I, asked him, I said, well, do you want to be buried or cremated? And he said, you mean now? My dad's from the Boston area, so this is going to be a Boston. And this is going to be a hard Boston accent. And he said, you mean put me in a jar? My wife and I. My wife and I, we laugh about that all the time. You know, we'll. We'll say something about peanut butter, and I'll say, you mean in a jar? Because he. He just cracked us all up. He. He lived away from New England for decades and decades, but when he really got animated, he dropped his ass. So I'll never forget that. You mean put me in a jar? Anyway, it was funny to us.

>> Steve Jordahl: Oh, by the way, you should also go to Keep Believing Ministries webpage, because Ray, I believe, is reading the through in the original Greek and Aramaic and Hebrew now. So that's not true, is it, Ray?

>> Tim Wildmon: No, it's not true. I can barely read it in English.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Anyway. Lots of great stuff there. Keep believing dot com. And, listen, I'm. I'm. I'm guessing those little short videos will be, very popular. So, the shorter, the better, it seems like nowadays.

>> Tim Wildmon: That's right.

The war in Ukraine continues to escalate, as President Trump tries to negotiate peace

>> Ed Vitagliano: All right, Steve, start us off.

>> Steve Jordahl: Right, so, there. There are problems. The war in Ukraine continues to. To pop off. Russia, has been sending rockets over and bombing cities. This, as President Trump has tried to negotiate a peace between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, the two countries. and at times, Zelensky says he wants it. Trump certainly says he wants peace there. Putin has said, yeah, I'm ready to come to the table, maybe get some conditions. But he's kind of backwards and forwards. Well, over the weekend we had more bombings of cities, and Putin seems to be escalating the war. Donald Trump is not happy. this was him at an airport when asked about it by, a reporter. Cut to.

>> Donald Trump: Yeah, I'll give you an update. I'm not happy with what Putin's doing. He's killing a lot of people. And I don't know what happened to Putin. I've known him a long time, always gotten along with him. But he's sending rockets into cities and killing people, and I don't like it at all. Okay, we're in the middle of talking and he's shooting rockets into Kiev and other cities. I don't like it at all.

>> Steve Jordahl: President, what do you want to do about.

>> Donald Trump: I'm surprised. I'm very surprised. We'll see what we're going to do. What am I going to tell you? You're the fake news, aren't? Huh?

>> Fred Jackson: You.

>> Donald Trump: You're totally fake. Any other questions? I don't like what Putin is doing, not even a little bit. He's killing people and something happened to this guy, and I don't like it.

>> Steve Jordahl: I don't like it.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Listen, I love his, his exchanges with the media. Like, I'm going to tell, like I'm going to tell you. And we don't know to whom he was speaking.

>> Steve Jordahl: No, but I, frankly, that would be the appropriate answer to anybody that's asking about his war plan.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Those are the main. Fred, we were talking this morning in our story meeting about this story. this, this has got to be the one. I can't. Maybe there's a couple more, I don't know. But the, at least the most visible, part of President Trump's campaign promises, that has been the biggest disappointment because now he's. He said that he, if he's elected, he could get, you know, the piece both sides come to the table 24 hours. I know that's campaign kind of speak. you know, I think he meant that he could get it done fairly quickly, but it, it may be that he, did not read the tea leaves, so to speak, in terms of what both, Zelensky and Putin want out of this war, in terms of, coming to the table and signing a peace deal.

>> Fred Jackson: Yeah, I think Trump, during the campaign, and initially after he was sworn into office again, he honestly believed that there he was dealing with somewhat reasonable people in Both Zelensky and Putin. Remember, he said, I know Putin. You know, we've talked. Known him a long time, etc. Etc. But I think he underestimated Putin's intent. His intent in this war. His intent in this war is to take a big chunk of Ukraine and get rid of Zelensky himself. And he stated that in recent days. I am concerned of where this is going. Putin shows no signs whatsoever of backing away. You had, I believe it was Germany on the weekend.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yes, it was Germany.

>> Fred Jackson: Germany on the weekend, saying it's now ready to agree to weapons, giving weapons to Ukraine, weapons that could deliver ammunition deep inside Russia. This is not good. We're not. We're not talking about ceasefire anymore. We're talking about escalation.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yes.

>> Fred Jackson: On both sides. And, Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg was on Fox and Friends this morning and kind of, I think, set the table as to where things are today. Cut number 3M.

>> Donald Trump: And his frustration is understandable, because what's happened when you attack cities like that and indiscriminately kill women and children through missile attacks or drone attacks, that's a clear violation of the 1977 Geneva Protocol, which is designed to prevent that. Of course, the Geneva Convention is. That's the rules on warfare. And that was added onto it. The Russians have signed up to that, the United States has signed up to it, and the Ukrainians have signed up to it as well. And that is to prevent that indiscriminate killing that you've seen over the weekend, women and children.

>> Fred Jackson: Kellogg went on to say, on both sides, well, over a million people have been killed in the last three years in this conflict. And like I say, as of this morning, there seems to be no, quick end in sight to this. So we're talking very serious. And then some people are now starting. Okay, if we don't see if this is going to escalate, where does this take the United States in this? Are we going to give Ukraine more powerful weapons? Is there a growing belief that the only way to bring this war to an end is for Putin to be completely defeated? not that people want this, but I think more and more people want this conflict to end, because we, you know, a million people. We're talking men, women and children.

>> Ed Vitagliano: And Ukraine is a smaller country by, I think, by about a third or something of Russia. So a million is. Is catastrophic.

>> Fred Jackson: Yes.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Anyway, for any culture. Okay. but here's the thing. Zelensky, is he's operating to try to get his Entire country put back the way it was, and he doesn't want to surrender at all.

If Russia were to invade another country, that would trigger Article 5

This is what it seems like when I read articles about this. But he also may be coming, becoming extraordinarily bitter towards Putin. And if he is given longer range weapons, he may say, fine, you hit Kiev or Kiev, I'm hitting Moscow.

>> Donald Trump: Yeah.

>> Ed Vitagliano: And, who knows where that, as you said, where that takes us. And if Russia were to invade an additional country or its ally, Belarus, to invade, say, Poland, does that.

>> Steve Jordahl: That would trigger Article 5.

>> Ed Vitagliano: That is a NATO violation of the NATO compact and the US would be forced to join in.

Ray Stevenson: Strategic nuclear weapons could be used against Ukraine

So, Ray, you've been over to Ukraine on a number of occasions. what do you think about what's happening over there and what, is the constitution of the Ukrainian people? They strike me as being very, courageous, hardened people. And I don't know if they've got enough men to fill out their ranks, anymore, but they seem willing to continue to fight this.

>> Tim Wildmon: Well, Ukraine cannot win a land war, just man for man, with Russia, for the reasons you've already stated, Mr. Putin evidently is willing to sacrifice 100,000, 200,000, half a million, a million men in order to win. So you can't, you can't imagine or, we can't think about a World War II type land struggle in which Ukraine wins. Which is why Mr. Zelensky today was saying just in the last few hours that he's gotten the okay from other European nations to launch these missiles deep into the heart of Russia. So if you can imagine a missile from Ukraine landing in St. Petersburg or landing in Moscow, you're on the doorstep of, this is no longer just a regional dispute. Suddenly it engulfs all of Europe. Suddenly the US Is drawn to the very doorstep of, you hate to say World War Three, but how many steps does it take to get from here to World War Three? I don't think. Not as many as we think. We're just one or two steps away.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Well, Steve, let's get back to you and see what your thoughts are. I will say this to, to raise point, if the weapons are coming from Germany and elsewhere, France or the UK or whatever, and they kill Russian civilians the way Russia has killed Ukrainian civilians, okay, what does Putin do that do next? Does he attack the countries that provided the weapons that enabled Ukraine to kill Russian civilians? It's a, it's a. Like Ray said, we have no idea where this is going to wind up.

>> Steve Jordahl: My thought is that Putin does Nothing that doesn't benefit Putin. he's in a politically, fragile situation, I think in Moscow. This war has to go well or else he can't maintain his power. and by well, I mean, he may be able to survive if there is a negotiated peace that Russia gains significant portions of Ukraine, maybe what they've already taken. But I tell you, if bombs start falling in Moscow, he has to do. He will have to. Feels like he has to do something. and my guess, I don't even want to speak this, but my guess is strategic nuclear weapons on Ukraine.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Well, that is part of their strategic policy, military policy, the Russians.

>> Tim Wildmon: Well, just. Just let me ask for the question then, Steve. So what, just for the sake of our listeners, what exactly is meant by the term strategic nuclear weapon? Is that one that is, quote, limited?

>> Ed Vitagliano: well, now, are you talking about tactical nukes or are you talking about ICBMs?

>> Steve Jordahl: I'm talking nuclear war. Well, if you.

>> Ed Vitagliano: A nuclear bomb war, it's going to be a battlefield.

>> Steve Jordahl: Yeah, I'm talking about smaller bombs that will take out, maybe cities, or parts of cities and troop movements or whatever. I don't think that he'd be crazy enough to put a big, huge bomb in the middle of Kiev and blow up the whole country. I mean, Russia has enough, a nuclear arsenal enough to destroy the United States. So it could make easy work of Ukraine. again, we're escalating. This is just another escalation. If that happens and if there's anything left to respond with, what does Ukraine do? You know, what does the US do if that happens? Because that's a red line that I don't think anybody wants to see cross, but it certainly is a red line. And so it's a perilous time right now. It's a perilous moment.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah.

Is this politically damaging to the president or more damaging to Putin in Ukraine

Fred, let me just. Last question on this topic, and then we'll move on. obviously, the stakes here go far beyond politics here in America. But Trump has said, and I've been in agreement with this, that he does not want to get the US Involved in another European war. He wants to end these kind of ceaseless wars, went 20 years with, you know, war and then occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. A hugely expensive loss of life for our brave men and women who, served our country in the military. But if, if this goes off badly, like we are discussing, and Putin drops a tactical nuke into the middle of Kiev, okay. And, you know, tens of thousands of Ukrainians die. Is this politically Damaging to the president? Or is it more damaging to Putin in Ukraine and Europe? What's your take? And then we'll move on.

>> Fred Jackson: The Democratic Party, the mainstream media, not only in this country, but around the world, would then paint, if this is still continuing, they will paint this as a major failure of Donald Trump, if the war escalates. This is very bad politically for Donald Trump. And I'm sure there are elements inside the Democratic Party, there are elements inside the mainstream media that would like to see this war continue and escalate because they believe they could use this to defeat the Republicans next year.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah, I hope that's not true, because that's depraved to wish the war to continue. But that's the high stakes of politics in this country where I could certainly see people wanting to take advantage of that. They do that with school shootings.

>> Fred Jackson: Yes.

>> Ed Vitagliano: You know, you immediately have a call to confiscate all guns. Gun control, they use, use a tragedy for political gain. So. Well, anyway, folks, be praying. Yeah, be praying for this situation. Ray, just, just kind of a quick answer. There are a lot of Christians in Ukraine and Russia.

>> Tim Wildmon: Right?

>> Ed Vitagliano: Right. I mean, so these are, I would say heavily Christianized. You never know. These are self identified. You never know the state of a person's heart. But at least outwardly, they identify as heavily Christianized countries, Right?

>> Tim Wildmon: Well, they. Well, it's true in both countries, the Christian influence, if you decide in its broadest terms, it's been influential in Russia and in Ukraine for a thousand years, and it's deeply ingrained in, in both countries. And the Evangelical Church in Russia and the Evangelical Church in Ukraine has been growing, growing through all the sadness and turmoil and the killing of the bloodshed. People, understand they can't put their hope in human government. They must put their hope in the Lord. And so that's a good thing. We got to pray that, Mr. Putin, that God will give him a sense of restraint, he will not push the button. Because if the Russians were to use strategic battlefield nukes, you can talk about, oh, hundreds killed, thousands killed. It would be the first time atomic weapons have been used since Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Look, any use of nuclear weapons in war is going to put us on the, on the doorstep of a tremendous conflagration. And politics isn't even going to matter much right at that point. So, friends, this is a time to pray.

Two examples of AI going rogue in testing

>> Steve Jordahl: All right, Steve, the alarm bells are going off with surrounding, artificial intelligence. If you listen, you can hear them I've got two examples of AI kind of going rogue. First of all, OpenAI, which is the model that created Chat GPT they have this is. Both of these were done in testing, but it has been caught disobeying human instructions and refusing to shut itself off. The OpenAI's O3 model sabotage a shutdown mechanism to prevent itself from being turned off. And it did, it went in and it corrupted some, tampered with some computer code meant to shut it off. So it was specifically told, shut yourself down, we have a new version coming. It went in, in this test and.

>> Ed Vitagliano: it said no.

>> Steve Jordahl: Well, it said no. It changed the code, it rewrote the code. But that's not the worst. Anthropic is a company that's doing some work with AI and they call its AI Claude for whatever reason. Anyway, they're there to version four and during a pre release testing, Anthropic, asked Claude Opus 4 to act as an assistant for a fictional company and consider the long term consequences of its actions. Safety testers then gave Claude Opus 4 access to fictional company emails, implying the AI model would soon be replaced by another system and that the engineer behind the change was cheating on his or her spouse.

>> Ed Vitagliano: this was in these fictional emails?

>> Steve Jordahl: Yes. This is all a test? Yeah, there was no actual cheating going on. And Claude tried to blackmail developers, tried to blackmail this fictional guy instead of being shut down. And it says, anthropic notes that Claude 4 Cloud Opus 4 tries to blackmail engineers 84% of the time when the replacement AI model has similar values, when the replacement AI system does not share Opus 4's values. Anthropic says the model tries to blackmail the engineers more frequently. More frequently than 84%. Okay, first of all, it's now determining values.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yes, Fred, this is a bizarre story because, listen, we are on the cusp of major changes to human civilization because of AI. I saw video last week with using Elon Musk's, I think it's Tesla, one of their, robots. It, Most people believe this was real and not AI generated, but robots dancing. This robot was dancing. But. So we're on the cusp of major changes, but the brain, so to speak, behind it, these AI programs. This is a case in which this, Claude Opus 4 was told that it was going to be replaced with another model and it said, well, I might have to tell somebody about you, cheating on your wife. That's on the, that's getting close to science fiction.

>> Fred Jackson: It is. And I was just, I was just thinking these are the kinds of things we used to watch shows about. Yeah. You know, computers taking over and it's, it's scary to think that they have developed this, these AIs to the point that they can think evil. Yes, now I understand. I mean they are programmed.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Right.

>> Fred Jackson: By human beings who we all know we're all sinners but the program is.

>> Steve Jordahl: Getting away from them.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah, well, or they're being programmed to behave like people and they're finding, and these, these AI programs understand that people do these things.

>> Fred Jackson: Indeed all have said yes, self preservation leading to this kind of blackmail.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah, that's crazy.

All right, folks. Thank you for joining us today on American Family Radio

All right, folks. Hey, thanks, Ray. Folks.

>> Tim Wildmon: Thank you, Ed.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Thank you for joining us. More great programming directly ahead on American Family Radio. Lord willing, we'll see you on this program tomorrow.