Tom Tillerman

“Always be ready to give a [logical] defense to anyone who asks you to account for the hope and confident assurance [elicited by faith] that is within you, yet [do it] with gentleness and respect.” — 1 Peter 3:15, AMP

I don’t know why she stayed, but I can speculate. Maybe she actually loves him? Maybe she takes her marriage vows and parental commitments seriously? Maybe she is even an excellent person of noble character, the kind who sticks it out through thick and thin and keeps her family together instead of responding to selfishness with more selfishness and causing further harm to her family. Just guessing, though.

@ThomasTillerman @unhealthytruth @PeterAttiaMD @grok WT actual F? Did his wife leave? How could she stay with him after this?

The following email is what I sent my team last night. I sent a similar version to my patients, also. *** You’ve put your trust, your credibility, and your hard work into what we have built together, and I take that responsibility seriously. You deserve a complete and honest account of what did and did not happen. I apologize that I did not get this out sooner, but I want to be thorough. The purpose of the DOJ releasing these documents is clear: to identify individuals who participated in criminal activity, enabled it, or witnessed it. I am not in any of those categories, and there is no evidence to the contrary. To be clear: 1. I was not involved in any criminal activity. 2. My interactions with Epstein had nothing to do with his sexual abuse or exploitation of anyone. 3. I was never on his plane, never on his island, and never present at any sex parties. That said, I apologize and regret putting myself in a position where emails, some of them embarrassing, tasteless, and indefensible, are now public, and that is on me. I accept that reality and the humiliation that comes with it. *** I want to start by directly addressing the email thread that I’ve been asked about the most. In June 2015, I sent Epstein an email with the subject line “Got a fresh shipment.” The email contained a photograph of bottles of metformin, a medication I had just received from the pharmacy for my own use. The subject line referred to the picture of the bottles of medication. He replied with the words “me too” and attached a photograph of an adult woman. I responded with crude, tasteless banter. Reading that exchange now is very embarrassing, and I will not defend it. I’m ashamed of myself for everything about this. At the time, I understood this exchange as juvenile, not a reference to anything dark or harmful. At that point in my career, I had little exposure to prominent people, and that level of access was novel to me. Everything about him seemed excessive and exclusive, including the fact that he lived in the largest home in all of Manhattan, owned a Boeing 727, and hosted parties with the most powerful and prominent leaders in business and politics. I treated that access as something to be quiet about rather than discussed freely with others. One line in that exchange, about his life being outrageous and me not being able to tell anyone, is being interpreted as awareness of wrongdoing. That is not how I meant it at all. What I was referring to, poorly and flippantly, was the discretion commanded by those social and professional circles–the idea that you don’t talk about who you meet, the dinners you attend and the power and influence of the people in those settings. What I wrote in that email reads terribly, and I own that. *** I met Epstein in 2014 through a prominent female healthcare leader while I was raising funds for scientific research. At that time, he was widely known in academic and philanthropic circles as a funder of science and moved openly among credible institutions and public figures. Between summer 2014 and spring 2019, I met with him on approximately seven or eight occasions at his New York City home, regarding research studies and to meet others he introduced me to. I never visited his island or ranch, and I never flew on any of his planes. When I was at his home, it was either meeting with him directly, meeting with small groups of scientists, doctors, or business leaders, and once at a dinner in 2015 with a number of guests including prominent heads of state. In retrospect, the presence and credibility of such venerable people in different orbits led me to make assumptions about him that clouded my judgment in ways it shouldn’t have. I was not his doctor, though several times I answered general medical questions and recommended other providers to him. Shortly after we met, I asked him directly about his 2008 conviction. He characterized it as prostitution-related charges. In 2018, I came to learn this was grossly minimized (more on this below). I was incredibly naïve to believe him. I mistook his social acceptance in the eyes of the credible people I saw him with for acceptability, and that was a serious error in my judgment. To be clear, I never witnessed illegal behavior and never saw anyone who appeared underage in his presence. *** In November 2018 I read the Miami Herald investigative article. I was repulsed by what I learned. Nauseated. It marked a clear and irreversible line between what I knew before and what I understood afterward. At that point, I told him directly he needed to accept responsibility for what he did. Hoping to provide the victims from the Herald piece with support, I contacted a residential trauma facility to understand what funding comprehensive care for many victims would require. (Those communications were between me and the facility and were therefore not part of the document release.) I spoke with him and shared that information and insisted that he fund their care, beginning with residential treatment and followed by lifelong therapy. In hindsight, even attempting to facilitate accountability was a mistake and once again reflected just how naïve I was at the time. Once the full scope of his actions was clear, disengagement should have been the only appropriate response. My intent does not change that, and I regret not drawing that boundary immediately. *** Nothing in this letter is meant to minimize the harm suffered by the young women Epstein abused. Their trauma is permanent. I am not asking for a pass from you. I am not asking anyone to ignore the emails or pretend they aren’t ugly. They simply are. The man I am today, roughly ten years later, would not write them and would not associate with Epstein at all. Whatever growth I’ve had over the past decade does not erase the emails I wrote then. I recognize that my actions and words have consequences for the people I care deeply about, including all of you. I regret the cost this has placed on you, and I take responsibility for it. I won’t ask anyone to defend me or explain this on my behalf. If you have questions or concerns, I’ll address them directly with you, my team.

@unhealthytruth @PeterAttiaMD @grok While we’re at it: What is your evidence that “he was at the mansion with the children…for 10 full days”? You claim “alleged victims have come forward” and said this. Really? Who? And to whom did they “come forward,” exactly?

@unhealthytruth @PeterAttiaMD @grok Welcome back, Erin. What are your answers to my month-old questions? 👇🏻

@handre This is brilliant. Somehow, I never thought of this! I just took it for granted. X costs Y. But how do we know what Y is without a pricing mechanism? And how is one created without a market? And how is that market correct if not free?

Mises obliterated the entire socialist project in 1920 with one devastating insight: "Where there is no free market, there is no pricing mechanism; without a pricing mechanism, there is no economic calculation." The socialists spent the next century pretending this problem didn't exist while their economies collapsed around them. And yet here we are, watching politicians promise they can "fix" healthcare, housing, and energy markets through central planning. They can't even calculate the cost of their own programs correctly — how exactly are they going to allocate resources across an entire economy? Every Venezuelan breadline, every Soviet grain shortage, every Chinese famine was just Mises being proven right in the most brutal way possible. But sure, let's try democratic socialism this time. What could go wrong?

@NeilShenvi Some profs also ban Grammarly. I think it’s because it generates suggested rewrites?

I understand the negative reactions to AI to some extent, but I don't understand the arguments. Can someone explain why it's ethical to use spell-check or Grammarly to proof-read your paper, but why it's unethical to use AI to proof-read your paper?

I thought Scrivener was winning the debate until O’Connor cornered him on the slavery issue a bit. I’d really like to see a debate on this issue as it seems to be the weakest point in the thesis. Yes, abolition is inseparable from Christianity. But I haven’t seen anyone do a good job explaining the abolition arguments or why it seems that it took 2,000 to articulate them. If abolition is owed to Christian ideals, how do those connect throughout history? And how did pro-abolition Christians explain those troublesome passages in the Bible?

4. And more thoughts from @glenscrivener picking up on @TimONeill007 comments on the debate youtu.be/IFe3y0MN8s0?si… I love to see the show provoking these further conversations 🙂

There have been some really good response videos to the @CosmicSkeptic & @glenscrivener Uncommon Ground debate. Mostly from Christians so far…Here’s a 🧵 1. Glen himself unravels why he and Alex ended up talking past each other at various points youtu.be/8vEVOLSynho?si…

I guess I’m saying that I agree the Bible will always need apologists, but not for the reasons you suggest. It’s because people have unexamined presuppositions and general ignorance about the past. You could say this about any type of truth. For example, science will always need apologists. Does that mean it is somehow illegitimate?

I get your point, and some of it is fair. But I think you might be misreading the need to defend it. It’s not because it’s “bad” in some absolute moral sense. What would that even mean? It’s because it looks “bad” from a modern, Western perspective. Much of apologetics is trying to get people to understand history through ancient eyes, not modern ones. I think Scrivener made this point. We impose our sensibilities without interrogating where they came from, and we assume we’re at the end of history and somehow have the moral authority to judge these things rightly.

Is God 'okay' with slavery? @glenscrivener (author of 'The Air We Breathe') argues that Christianity paved the way, uniquely, for the abolitionist movement, whereas @CosmicSkeptic (host of the Within Reason podcast) takes the view that the Bible condones slavery, and that Christians contributed just as forcefully to anti-abolitionism. ⛓️✝️ ▶️ Watch or 🎧 listen to the full debate, on my new show Uncommon Ground! 👉 justinbrierley.com/uncommon-groun…

A few other things to keep in mind: It has been estimated that as much as 25% of the early church WAS slaves, and they were treated as brothers and sisters in Christ. Also: Church fathers baptized slaves. Slaves received communion. Slaves could be martyrs, bishops, and saints (e.g. Blandina, Callixtus, Felicitas) That latter saint (Felicitas) is especially noteworthy because she was martyred alongside a Christian noblewoman (Perpetua), yet they are equally venerated in the narrative as spiritual equals.

@NBrasing @JusBrierley @glenscrivener @CosmicSkeptic Which part are you saying Christians didn’t argue? They certainly affirmed the new covenant and the central idea I am talking about (neither slave nor free in Christ).

It does say something like that. Again, I think it’s the “not your property” idea that trips people up because it reads a modern idea with modern baggage into an ancient text. But my real point is about the gospel: It doesn’t work like that. Rather than trying to be some new list of moral rules, it undermines the entire premise of sinful human power dynamics. That is, after the cross, treating anyone like “property” in our modern sense of the word is just fundamentally unsound. No specific rules required.

Yeah but it could’ve had the Gospel PLUS say, “People are never to be considered the property of someone else. You may hire someone under voluntary employment to pay off a debt, but they will be your responsibility… not your property.” If the Bible had only said that, and not have those… less fortunate verses… then the Bible would be representing anti-slavery as clearly as many apologists do. But as I mentioned above, it misses the opportunity to do it that effectively. For whichever reasons.

@NBrasing @JusBrierley @glenscrivener @CosmicSkeptic One obvious point O’Connor missed there, one that I wish Scrivener had made, is that after the cross, there is a new covenant people. Which means believing American slaves were covenant people. Which means even on O’Connor’s reasoning, abolition is biblical.

@JusBrierley @glenscrivener @CosmicSkeptic When Alex pointed out that God only freed the Hebrew slaves, and then went on to say non-Israelite slaves could be owned, Glen LITERALLY waves it away with his hand, and a "I wish it weren't so".

@TheApe_Theist @JusBrierley @glenscrivener @CosmicSkeptic So to the challenge, “I’m not sure why the Bible couldn’t have just delivered that message soundly,” I reply: It did!I The message is called the gospel.

This addresses your critique. Rather than just continue with more proscriptions (which the Bible teaches will always be insufficient anyway), Jesus enters and subverts the whole philosophical basis for human inferiority, as Paul explains in his letters. If we are all brothers and sisters in Christ, and fellow slaves of One Master, then every power dynamic is redefined all at once.

More nuanced, perhaps, but I don’t think Noll would disagree with Scrivener. I guess the better question is whether Noll would agree that abolition would have been “unthinkable” without Christianity. Or reverse it. Would he agree with O’Connor that technology or economics would somehow have led to abolition?

@JusBrierley @glenscrivener @CosmicSkeptic Noll's is a better & more nuanced take than Scrivener, I mean

@iosif_lazaridis “The Good is not over God, because God is not a being among beings.” (and scene)

@iosif_lazaridis (Now Thomas joins in) Thomas: “Quite right. And if the Good is the cause of all being, then it is not a property among others. It is subsistent Being itself. That is precisely what we mean by God.”