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Glenn's Show Prep

WARNING: We are losing our youth to the progressive agenda

June 23, 2015
Staff

WRITER

here is a serious problem in this country, and it’s only going to get worse and worse. Addressing it could alienate neighbors, friends, and family members. But at some point, you have to stand up and say enough is enough. This generation of young adults is critical to the future of America, but they are being lost to the progressive agenda. It’s essential that today's youth be rooted in the principles that founded this country, yet we are willing to ship them off to schools and universities that tear down the pillars of faith and distort and diminish American history. Will you stand?

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it may contain errors:

Glenn: And I want to have a conversation with you about how I believe we're losing the youth in our country to the progressive agenda. No, beyond that. Beyond that. We're losing them to flat-out darkness. And we have to work together to save them.

I want to talk to you about something that I think is a serious problem and a serious problem that is going to get worse and worse. I think we're going to lose a lot of -- we're going to lose a lot of friends. And we're going to lose a lot of -- of our children. And we're going to lose them anywhere from high school to, you know, 30. And colleges will play a role. Schools will play a role. But our churches will also play a role. And it is because I think we're talking about things. We're trying to teach them. We're not doing. We have to do things. Our churches have to be involved and doing things. It's not enough just to meet in a building and talk for three hours or one hour or 20 minutes. It's not enough.

We have to be involved. We have to actively be engaged in the things that change the world. Actively be engaged in changing ourselves. Changing our families.

Too many of our kids are growing up and they're looking at us like we're hypocrites. And why? Why is that happening? Because times have changed. A, this is a different group. The millennials are different people. They're not like us. They're not like the generation that went before us, which is the checkbook generation.

This group of -- this generation that is coming up, these millennials, they want to change the world. They're as idealistic as we used to be. Except we played within the system. They didn't grow up with the system. Everything that they grew up with was a disruption to the systems that had been built by generations before.

They're the Napster generation. They're the Apple generation. They're the i Phone generation. They have disrupted from the beginning. So they're not looking for a system that is going to help them do it. They just want to do it. They'll do it themselves.

They'll gather together in their own groups, and they'll go. What do you mean you need -- you need permission to do this? You need permits to do what? You need to get the church council together. No, let's just do it.

Our kids are going to colleges, and our kids are being deprogrammed. They're being -- they're being brainwashed. University of Berkeley California -- and not all colleges are like this. But University of Berkeley California -- they are now saying that they have to ban phrases and ideas. Phrases like, I think the most qualified should get the job, is racist. And so they're banning that. Well, you ban not just words, but thoughts, the next thing you'll be banning is books. And the step after that is a bullet to the head. That's not hypobole.

That's historic fact. Pat and I were talking -- we both taught -- we both taught at school -- I mean, at church. And we both taught Sunday school. And we both taught the teenagers. Now we're seeing these teenagers go to college, and a few of them have been lost at college.

PAT: A college you would think is pretty darn safe too.

GLENN: Yeah. They're going to a college from their church, and at the college from their church, they're turning to atheists. How is that happening? How is that happening? There are real problems, and this is happening in all of our churches with all of our kids.

Now, I think there's two groups -- this, I believe, is the chosen generation. If you don't believe that, that's fine.

This is the chosen generation. I think this generation coming up is the most valiant, and they're going to be the ones that have to -- they'll be the ones that do it. The generation before mine screwed it up. My generation, beginning of my generation, we're the ones that now have to look at it and go, okay, jeez, how are we going to fix this? We're not going to be able to fix this. It will be the one coming up right now that will fix it. They'll fix it. But we still have to make sure that they're not listening to the generation that screwed it all up. They're listening to the ideas and the principles that are eternal that built us in the first place.

And those are very unpopular ideas. And they're going to become more so. And our churches will come under attack. Mark my words. I'm doing a roundtable today with constitutional experts and experts on the Supreme Court. We're going to talk about the Supreme Court rulings that still have to come out and the ramifications of those rulings. How are they going to affect our churches? I'm telling you right now, we will lose 50 percent of our membership in our churches.

And not because of some policy, but because there just won't -- they won't be willing to stand. And not against something, but for something. I'm not against gay marriage. I'm for right of conscience.

You can't tell me -- if I can't tell you who to love, that's fine. You can't tell me what my church must accept. It's a right of conscience. It's something that we all used to understand. You didn't go to war if you were Amish or if you were -- if you were some -- in a religion that preached against war. If you were a Quaker, you could not be drafted. Period.

If you were a Catholic, they didn't have that teaching. You cannot be forced to go against your conscience. And every American should understand that. That's a fundamental bedrock principle of being an American. What you choose to do is your choice.

You can't preach that I'm going to kill a bunch of people. You can't go out and kill a bunch of people. You can't do those things. But we have different ideas, and especially when it comes to religion, my religion is what -- is what motivates me. Some people, their religion, and I mean this sincerely, their religion is global warming.

They worship the planet as if it's God. Okay. I don't have a right to ban that. I don't have a right to tell them that they can't think that way. I can speak out against it, and they can speak out against my God. Okay.

Why don't we instead leave each other alone. Why don't we instead urge people to stand up for what they believe in. Why don't we instead urge people to have a reasonable debate, a real debate, not one with name-calling, but with actual facts.

One where both sides can go, wait a minute. Hang on just a second. I didn't know that fact. That might change my argument a bit.

Isn't that the way we're supposed to behave? Not banning ideas. Not banning phrases.

We're going to lose 50 percent of our congregants. And if we're not careful, we'll lose our children. If you don't go to bed at night -- I have a 9-year-old and a 10-year-old and two 20-somethings, and I will tell you, I go to bed every night, and I pray for them. I pray that they keep their feet on the right track. I know -- there are times that I break out in a cold sweat thinking about what my children are going to have to face in this life. And I don't mean destruction or anything else. I just mean life. It's not like I used to have to deal with.

The things that they have to deal with. The evil that is out there. God help us. And God help our children.

We can't do it alone. We have to stick together. We have to teach our kids the fundamental principles, but by living them.

Let me go to -- let me go to Travis in Wisconsin. Let's take some phone calls. Hello, Travis. You're on the Glenn Beck Program.

CALLER: Hi, Glenn. I'm a big fan. I really didn't care much about all of this politics and everything that's been going on in the world until I was right around the election when Barack Obama first came into office.

GLENN: Right.

CALLER: And began watching your television show and you talked about things like, they're distorting history. They're changing history. And all that stuff. I thought to myself at first, I thought, well, gosh, how can you change history? It's already happened. But when you talked about the reeducation and losing the youth and all of that, it makes perfect sense. I mean, I have a daughter, she's starting college this year. I've been involved in her education for years now, doing her homework with her, involved with what they're teaching her. She brought home assignments on global warming based on articles that were written in 1997. And they're teaching that stuff as though it's fact and it's truth. The other thing is, you know, the worst part of it all is college. She's starting college this year. And I'm going to stay involve with what they're teaching her.

GLENN: Good luck.

CALLER: Because true education and critical thinking is a threat to their ideology.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

CALLER: And that's what they're teaching in college, is the ideology of liberalism, socialism, Marxism, communism. These kids are being taught that they're smarter than everyone else because they have a college, quote, unquote, education. But a real education teaches critical thinking, weighing pros and cons before you make a decision. They're being indoctrinated into an ideology that, I mean, they -- they don't weigh pros and cons when they make decisions. They make their decisions based on the ideology and how it fits with the ideology that they've been instilled with.

Anyway, my girlfriend who's got a son who was raised going to church every Sunday, raised with conservative values. He spent $40,000 on a college education -- $45,000 on a college education. He's come out an atheist. He has -- he's come out a complete socialist liberal. And it's very difficult to talk to him because he doesn't even understand the principles that you're trying to talk to him about in contrast to what they've put in his head.

GLENN: I will tell you, Travis, thank you for your call. Is there anybody within the sound of my voice that if I said, hey, I'm going to destroy your kid. I'm going to undo everything that you have worked so hard to do. I'm going to undo it all. And I'm only going to charge you $45,000.

[laughter]

Would you pay that? We're looking at college at, what will they do for the kid?

PAT: Can I give you 50?

GLENN: You can give me 50. How about 75?

PAT: Okay. All right. That's even better.

GLENN: Okay. We're looking at college and what they'll do for your kids. Let's look at the actual results. What are they doing for your kids? What are the odds of them going in and being debt-free, of them going in and getting a great job because of that -- of that degree, and look at how they've done it. What they do is they bring you in, and they've taught the kids -- we have -- we have -- we've allowed them to learn that they're special. They're absolutely special.

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: Okay. Now, at their most vulnerable point, when they move out away from mom and dad, and they're the most afraid and in a society that is pretty damn scary -- I don't know if I'll get a job. And I'll be in all this debt. What does the University say to them? You're so special. In fact, you're so special, you're smarter than mom and dad. You know things more than mom and dad. So when mom and dad have said, you have to buckle down. You have to learn these things. You have to learn these principles that we have -- they look at mom and dad, who are now no longer cool, they're looking at mom and dad who are sitting there and they're trapped in their dead-end life -- I don't want to live like mom and dad -- and they've gone to church with mom and dad, but that doesn't really affect mom and dad.

I see mom and dad breaking the principles that they talk about in church all the time. They're not really living it. They're not changing the world. They're not feeding the poor. They're not doing these things. You know what, this will feed the poor. These ideas, yeah, they're radical, but they will feed the poor, because I want to do something about it. And the way I can do it is I'm special. All I have to do is hold a sign up. All I have to do is create this new revolution. All I have to do is stand up for the things that have already destroyed us and gotten us into this debt because I'm special.

How much you willing to pay for that, mom and dad? $45,000 is not enough. I could find a place a little more expensive for you. Because what they're doing to your kids is absolutely fantastic. This is probably worth -- it's probably worth $100,000. $400,000 for four years. I mean, to really get it done right, you'll probably have to spend four years and 400 grand. It got to the point with my child, she wouldn't even talk to me on issues. We've always been able to talk about anything in my family. While she was at college, she wouldn't even talk to me. She would get so upset. She would be like, I can't even talk about it, dad. Can't talk -- where is this coming from? Hang on just a second. I've got the university on the phone. They want me to help them build a library. I can't wait to do that.

PAT: Which actually happened.

GLENN: It actually happened. After they had a rally against me at her university, they actually called to see if I could help them out --

PAT: So you were able to pay the 45, plus be disparaged, and have them hit you up for a big donation.

GLENN: I was lucky enough my daughter got a scholarship, so she paid for her own way. Congratulations. And I didn't have to pay -- I think maybe I paid a year.

PAT: So you just got disparaged, and they hit you up for extra cash on the side.

GLENN: Yes. Yes. And they gave me the opportunity to almost lose my daughter.

PAT: They indoctrinated her as well.

STU: So don't make us wait. How much did you give?

JEFFY: Thank you. How big is the library? How big is it?

GLENN: Oh, I gave them something quite large.

STU: I bet you did.

[laughter]

GLENN: I just -- I just want you to know, and I can't go into specifics here because humans are involved. People are involved. Friends are involved. But Pat and I have direct stories right now with kids who have been lost. And it breaks our heart. We don't even -- these are great, valiant kids. And it's not like -- you know, it's one thing to say, you know, I don't believe in mom and dad's church. I'm going to find another church. No, no, no. They no longer believe in God.

The Bubba Effect erupts as America’s power brokers go rogue

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

Something drastic is happening in American life. Headlines that should leave us stunned barely register anymore. Stories that once would have united the country instead dissolve into silence or shrugs.

It is not apathy exactly. It is something deeper — a growing belief that the people in charge either cannot or will not fix what is broken.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

I call this response the Bubba effect. It describes what happens when institutions lose so much public trust that “Bubba,” the average American minding his own business, finally throws his hands up and says, “Fine. I will handle it myself.” Not because he wants to, but because the system that was supposed to protect him now feels indifferent, corrupt, or openly hostile.

The Bubba effect is not a political movement. It is a survival instinct.

What triggers the Bubba effect

We are watching the triggers unfold in real time. When members of Congress publicly encourage active duty troops to disregard orders from the commander in chief, that is not a political squabble. When a federal judge quietly rewrites the rules so one branch of government can secretly surveil another, that is not normal. That is how republics fall. Yet these stories glided across the news cycle without urgency, without consequence, without explanation.

When the American people see the leadership class shrug, they conclude — correctly — that no one is steering the ship.

This is how the Bubba effect spreads. It is not just individuals resisting authority. It is sheriffs refusing to enforce new policies, school boards ignoring state mandates, entire communities saying, “We do not believe you anymore.” It becomes institutional, cultural, national.

A country cracking from the inside

This effect can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. In the rise of fringe voices like Nick Fuentes. In the Epstein scandal, where powerful people could not seem to locate a single accountable adult. These stories are different in content but identical in message: The system protects itself, not you.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf. That does not mean they suddenly agree with everything that person says. It means they feel abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to be trustworthy.

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

A republic cannot survive without credibility. Congress cannot oversee intelligence agencies if it refuses to discipline its own members. The military cannot remain apolitical if its chain of command becomes optional. The judiciary cannot defend the Constitution while inventing loopholes that erase the separation of powers.

History shows that once a nation militarizes politics, normalizes constitutional shortcuts, or allows government agencies to operate without scrutiny, it does not return to equilibrium peacefully. Something will give.

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

In a healthy country, this is where the media steps in. This is where universities, pastors, journalists, and cultural leaders pause the outrage machine and explain what is at stake. But today, too many see themselves not as guardians of the republic, but of ideology. Their first loyalty is to narrative, not truth.

The founders never trusted the press more than the public. They trusted citizens who understood their rights, lived their responsibilities, and demanded accountability. That is the antidote to the Bubba effect — not rage, but citizenship.

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Do not riot. Do not withdraw. Do not cheer on destruction just because you dislike the target. That is how nations lose themselves. Instead, demand transparency. Call your representatives. Insist on consequences. Refuse to normalize constitutional violations simply because “everyone does it.” If you expect nothing, you will get nothing.

Do not hand your voice to the loudest warrior simply because he is swinging a bat at the establishment. You do not beat corruption by joining a different version of it. You beat it by modeling the country you want to preserve: principled, accountable, rooted in truth.

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Grim warning: Bad-faith Israel critics duck REAL questions

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The melting pot fails when we stop agreeing to melt

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Texas now hosts Quran-first academies, Sharia-compliant housing schemes, and rapidly multiplying mosques — all part of a movement building a self-contained society apart from the country around it.

It is time to talk honestly about what is happening inside America’s rapidly growing Muslim communities. In city after city, large pockets of newcomers are choosing to build insulated enclaves rather than enter the broader American culture.

That trend is accelerating, and the longer we ignore it, the harder it becomes to address.

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world.

America has always welcomed people of every faith and people from every corner of the world, but the deal has never changed: You come here and you join the American family. You are free to honor your traditions, keep your faith, but you must embrace the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. You melt into the shared culture that allows all of us to live side by side.

Across the country, this bargain is being rejected by Islamist communities that insist on building a parallel society with its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own vision for how life should be lived.

Texas illustrates the trend. The state now has roughly 330 mosques. At least 48 of them were built in just the last 24 months. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone has around 200 Islamic centers. Houston has another hundred or so. Many of these communities have no interest in blending into American life.

This is not the same as past waves of immigration. Irish, Italian, Korean, Mexican, and every other group arrived with pride in their heritage. Still, they also raised American flags and wanted their children to be part of the country’s future. They became doctors, small-business owners, teachers, and soldiers. They wanted to be Americans.

What we are watching now is not the melting pot. It is isolation by design.

Parallel societies do not end well

More than 300 fundamentalist Islamic schools now operate full-time across the country. Many use Quran-first curricula that require students to spend hours memorizing religious texts before they ever reach math or science. In Dallas, Brighter Horizons Academy enrolls more than 1,700 students and draws federal support while operating on a social model that keeps children culturally isolated.

Then there is the Epic City project in Collin and Hunt counties — 402 acres originally designated only for Muslim buyers, with Sharia-compliant financing and a mega-mosque at the center. After public outcry and state investigations, the developers renamed it “The Meadows,” but a new sign does not erase the original intent. It is not a neighborhood. It is a parallel society.

Americans should not hesitate to say that parallel societies are dangerous. Europe tried this experiment, and the results could not be clearer. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, entire neighborhoods now operate under their own cultural rules, some openly hostile to Western norms. When citizens speak up, they are branded bigots for asserting a basic right: the ability to live safely in their own communities.

A crisis of confidence

While this separation widens, another crisis is unfolding at home. A recent Gallup survey shows that about 40% of American women ages 18 to 39 would leave the country permanently if given the chance. Nearly half of a rising generation — daughters, sisters, soon-to-be mothers — no longer believe this nation is worth building a future in.

And who shapes the worldview of young boys? Their mothers. If a mother no longer believes America is home, why would her child grow up ready to defend it?

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world. If we lose confidence in our own national identity at the same time that we allow separatist enclaves to spread unchecked, the outcome is predictable. Europe is already showing us what comes next: cultural fracture, political radicalization, and the slow death of national unity.

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

America welcomes Muslims. America defends their right to worship freely. A Muslim who loves the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and wants to raise a family in peace is more than welcome in America.

But an Islamist movement that rejects assimilation, builds enclaves governed by its own religious framework, and treats American law as optional is not simply another participant in our melting pot. It is a direct challenge to it. If we refuse to call this problem out out of fear of being called names, we will bear the consequences.

Europe is already feeling those consequences — rising conflict and a political class too paralyzed to admit the obvious. When people feel their culture, safety, and freedoms slipping away, they will follow anyone who promises to defend them. History has shown that over and over again.

Stand up. Speak plainly. Be unafraid. You can practice any faith in this country, but the supremacy of the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian moral framework that shaped it is non-negotiable. It is what guarantees your freedom in the first place.

If you come here and honor that foundation, welcome. If you come here to undermine it, you do not belong here.

Wake up to what is unfolding before the consequences arrive. Because when a nation refuses to say what is true, the truth eventually forces its way in — and by then, it is always too late.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking: AI-written country song tops charts, sparks soul debate

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

A machine can imitate heartbreak well enough to top the charts, but it cannot carry grief, choose courage, or hear the whisper that calls human beings to something higher.

The No. 1 country song in America right now was not written in Nashville or Texas or even L.A. It came from code. “Walk My Walk,” the AI-generated single by the AI artist Breaking Rust, hit the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, and if you listen to it without knowing that fact, you would swear a real singer lived the pain he is describing.

Except there is no “he.” There is no lived experience. There is no soul behind the voice dominating the country music charts.

If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

I will admit it: I enjoy some AI music. Some of it is very good. And that leaves us with a question that is no longer science fiction. If a machine can fake being human this well, what does it mean to be human?

A new world of artificial experience

This is not just about one song. We are walking straight into a technological moment that will reshape everyday life.

Elon Musk said recently that we may not even have phones in five years. Instead, we will carry a small device that listens, anticipates, and creates — a personal AI agent that knows what we want to hear before we ask. It will make the music, the news, the podcasts, the stories. We already live in digital bubbles. Soon, those bubbles might become our own private worlds.

If an algorithm can write a hit country song about hardship and perseverance without a shred of actual experience, then the deeper question becomes unavoidable: If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

What machines can never do

A machine can produce, and soon it may produce better than we can. It can calculate faster than any human mind. It can rearrange the notes and words of a thousand human songs into something that sounds real enough to fool millions.

But it cannot care. It cannot love. It cannot choose right and wrong. It cannot forgive because it cannot be hurt. It cannot stand between a child and danger. It cannot walk through sorrow.

A machine can imitate the sound of suffering. It cannot suffer.

The difference is the soul. The divine spark. The thing God breathed into man that no code will ever have. Only humans can take pain and let it grow into compassion. Only humans can take fear and turn it into courage. Only humans can rebuild their lives after losing everything. Only humans hear the whisper inside, the divine voice that says, “Live for something greater.”

We are building artificial minds. We are not building artificial life.

Questions that define us

And as these artificial minds grow sharper, as their tools become more convincing, the right response is not panic. It is to ask the oldest and most important questions.

Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of freedom? What is worth defending? What is worth sacrificing for?

That answer is not found in a lab or a server rack. It is found in that mysterious place inside each of us where reason meets faith, where suffering becomes wisdom, where God reminds us we are more than flesh and more than thought. We are not accidents. We are not circuits. We are not replaceable.

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

Being human is not about what we can produce. Machines will outproduce us. That is not the question. Being human is about what we can choose. We can choose to love even when it costs us something. We can choose to sacrifice when it is not easy. We can choose to tell the truth when the world rewards lies. We can choose to stand when everyone else bows. We can create because something inside us will not rest until we do.

An AI content generator can borrow our melodies, echo our stories, and dress itself up like a human soul, but it cannot carry grief across a lifetime. It cannot forgive an enemy. It cannot experience wonder. It cannot look at a broken world and say, “I am going to build again.”

The age of machines is rising. And if we do not know who we are, we will shrink. But if we use this moment to remember what makes us human, it will help us to become better, because the one thing no algorithm will ever recreate is the miracle that we exist at all — the miracle of the human soul.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.