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sci tech talk -

12/7/21 CAN A.I . Worship God?!

 📍 It's the, my Michelle live podcast, my Michelle live side tech talk, taking the gods story to a geeky place. Here's Michelle.


I love that taking the God story to a geeky place. And then Jeff's, Weibring jumps up on the screen there. I don't know what that's saying. Don't be offended. Geekness is coolness in my Michele live land today on my Michelle live. We're going to take. Artificial intelligence. Now I just got the inside line that there is a book that is in the editorial process by our guests talking about artificial intelligence.


And I'm excited about that because so much is going on it's as though technology is changing, improving, and doing more faster than we can almost. So we'll get some insight into what artificial intelligence is looking like today, but have you ever thought about this? What can't eventually artificial intelligence do?


Um, This weekend and you know, Sunday morning, do you really want to go to church? Maybe you could have artificial intelligence pop in and do a little worship for you. Maybe artificial intelligence could pray. So I don't really have to get on my knees. I, it could be two places at once. I don't know, but I say that because it's a real story.


Artificial intelligence has written the, this. Worship song. This is a story that we reported on w um, with my Michelle live, uh, the artists, the artificial intelligence artists is called Jaycee, wrote this song called biblical love. We're going to listen to it. Uh, that in just a moment, but let me introduce you to the man.


Who's got his finger on the pulse of artificial intelligence. Does it have a pulse now? Jeff's wavering. Jeff is a research scholar at reasons to believe he's a project scientist at UCLA. He's the author of many books. Like is there life out there? Who's afraid of the multi-verse and he's a freaking.


Flyer here on my Michelle live. Hey Jeff, thanks for joining in the conversation. 


All right, Michelle, I'm looking forward to this conversation because it's a scary and fun at the same time, both 


creepy, interesting and mind scratching, but, oh, hang with me as we talk about this today, because there is a God story and this that I think.


Inspiring and maybe just as equally scary in a way. I, I w we'll we'll get into it today. Do you mind if we play just a couple minutes of this song called biblical love, that was written by artificial intelligence. Uh, take a look if you are. Let's see if I can get it on the screen. We'll at least play it.


If you are listening, you can go to my Michelle live and both watch and read the transcript of this program.


No, you fall so hard.


She'd love the ground. Gravity don't make no sense when I


don't come up against yourself. When demons in your head get loud, I am here to help. And


maybe wondering where you'd never met you and you never found me. You'll never see you for the rest of your life. I want to have it all. I want to have it. And when you we'll stop there for just a moment, even the singer, the emotional singer is artificial intelligence. What is, what does God need us for anyway?


So let's talk a little bit about what this is, how it's created, Jeff, and then we'll get into some of the Ooh, deepest. 


No it is. And it's a, it's a, one of the AI's it's out there. It's a built in or by a Marquis brown enterprises out of Atlanta, Georgia. And, uh, you know, as you mentioned, the art artists, quote unquote, artist's name is JC.


And what's interesting about this is that it's a song. The song was composed and performed and everything was done by an AI. So there were no people in there saying, okay, let's make a song that does this, that or the other thing. Um, it, it just, there was an AI that was developed in. One thing that we always need to bear in mind with, uh, AI's that are out there today is they don't go out and make decisions and just kind of come up, think they're trained how to do things.


So you there there's been this, uh, training data set of what a song looks like. And I can imagine there's a bunch of different, uh, Christian worship songs that have been fed in to, and the AI has analyzed those and, uh, been able to then say, all right, to compose one. Found pieces of it or said, okay, well this, these are the themes that are there.


These are the common things. And then it's produced this song that is a written and recorded by the AI itself. And what I find fascinating and all this is I went and had a, uh, probably 10 people that I know listened to it. And absolutely none of them could tell that it was, 


I'll be.


All of them thought it was just a song. And he, I was like, that's pretty good. And you know, like that, you know, so it's, so it sounds just like a lot of the songs out there. 


Okay. That's true. But as we look at it, I want to look just a little bit deeper as I'm listening to this. Uh, Uh, maybe artificial intelligence can get better and better and better, but even as I'm listening to the song and as a songwriter, you know, it has its highs, it has its lows, it's emotive issues with it.


You know, it there's a rhyming to it there's flow. Um, and it sounds like a good song, but what it really does sound like is the Jesus is my boyfriend songs. You know, when you think of. Worship, you have a connection with God that I'm just hearing. I want to, you know, wake up next to you. I want to, you know, I want you there for the rest of my life.


It's like, yeah, Jesus is my boyfriend. I'm sorry to the people who created the AI and to the beautiful nature of the song. But can you really capture, uh, the. The power of the gospel, maybe you can, but I didn't really even hear it in this very well-produced. Congratulations, AI song, your thoughts on that.


Well, and that you've identified. One of the things that I think is problematic. And one of the things that I think is problematic has nothing to do with the AI doing this is that, um, You know, we're listening to these songs and the song. It sounds a lot like a lot of songs out there, but your kind of complaint is, and I agree with it it's that these are not songs that have a theological depth and where you're really engaging with God.


It's kind of an emotional experience. And so we've written an AI that can replicate the emotional or, or the music that evokes an emotion, but. Yeah, it seems to me kind of a sad statement on some of the worship music that's out there or what we call worship music right now. And I think. That's a little bit of a, to me, it would be a wake-up call say, Hey, wait a second.


As Christians, we ought to do more than this, or we can do better. God's called us to something better than this. 


That's a, that's a really good point because it is very emotional. And you, you don't know if it's written to, or about God or your, your spouse really, uh, or it's just a regular love song. God.


And that there's some truth to it. As we look at the power though, of music and even in particular hymns, um, maybe old hymns studies have been done with people who have suffered from Alzheimer's, who have. Lost much of their, their memories of the last few decades. They can't recognize children at times.


Uh, they, they don't remember big pieces of their lives and what a slow and miserable death to watch someone that you love slowly just be taken away from you. You see their body, but that connection has gone. But when. The, if they were church going folks, especially you play old hymns and suddenly they come alive, they can remember to play the piano.


They'll sing those hymns with you. It's like the light comes on and there's a power to the hymns as well. It is when it's infused. God's word, the gospel truths. It seems to steady. And I'm talking this, we're talking science here. So I'm talking study-wise, there seems to be a power to that. 


You know, it, your, your comments remind me of a discussion.


I was having with some missionary friends of ours. They were back from the mission field, uh, teaching in a Sunday school class and a comment they made that. Yeah, it has stuck with me. It's like, there's kind of two universal languages. One is music. One is stories and you know what? What's the. If I were to characterize it, it's like what they're saying in there is like, you know, we're designed for relationships and music and stories draw us into relationship, particularly when it comes to worship, it draws us into relationship with God.


And what's interesting about the fact that we're doing this with an AI, is that when John Newton was senior or yo composed, amazing grace, he was telling his story. And drawing people to a deeper connection with God through his story. Um, the JC doesn't have a story. He, there, there is no chance. There's no.


Soul, no spirit there that we're connecting with. It's replicated the features of a song, but it doesn't have the actual thing that drives the relationship of the song. And so it's kind of like we're, we're taking some of the pieces that God has put out there, but we're subverting the deeper meaning of them that were designed for relationship.


And we're making a song. By someone who has no capacity for relationship, it seems like we're fundamentally missing something and doing, um, let's 


see, uh, we it's like a form of godliness, but denying the power there. 


I think that's, that's kind of, yes. I would say that. And you know, it's, I was just kind of wrestling with that.


It's that, you know, my, my initial kind of beef with the song is that it's, it's a theologically light song. There's not much in the way of theology and it's kind of, I dunno, uh, Artsy, if you will. And I say that as a scientist is someone who doesn't know how to 


produce stuff, patchwork of different emotions that that one might feel.


So it's a patch. It, you can literally feel the patchwork of differing, uh, maybe worship songs that true. And so it is theologically void. And it's story void, it's testimony, void. Um, and when I say that that's a scripture verse of that, there's a form of godliness. They have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof and the power is.


In the N in the mission and, or I'm sorry, the, in the, uh, message I think of in revelation where it says that, uh, that the devil is defeated, uh, by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony. There's an idea that there's a God out there, like we're in. Christmas time and there's a Santa clause out there and they, they can be very much alike, right?


I mean, you've got this, this figure that knows you when you're sleeping or when you're awake and gives all kinds of wonderful gifts at this time of the year. You know, it's, it's, it's lovely. And you can write your letter to him. Like you write, say a prayer to God and there it is, but. We're denying the power in the gospel of God, infused in the body in embody incarnate, walking among us, sacrificing taking our sin that we so rightly deserved judgment for.


Uh, paying the penalty so that we can have a real relationship with God that powerful. The, I want to give it all to you. I want to wake up next to you that denies the power, the blood of the lamb and the word of the testimony. So I think in that there there's something. Yeah, we it's, it's something beautiful, but a little bit.


Well, and, and that's something that is a reflection of the state of how we think worship music ought to look right now. I mean, you go back and you sing how great though art or, uh, when I surveyed the wonders, I mean, there are hymns out there that have a theological depth and in principle there's, you know, this, so this was my thought.


It's like, okay, I don't like the song. Cause I think it's emotional earth. It's theologically, very light. You can go. I mean, that, that could be you, you could train it on songs that have a theological depth to it, and the AI will. Quote, unquote, learn. I'm going to use that in quotes, but you know, with learn how to have that theological message and, you know, in principle could learn how to give a theologically very rich song.


I think that would be much better, uh, you know, that that would in some way be proclaiming what the gospel has to say or, you know, what scripture has to say, but it still seems like you're missing this fundamental component that. Every all, all of this stuff we're dealing with. When the people who wrote the gospels, they were telling a story that they lived and actually happened.


Whereas there's nothing about the AI. There's no life to the AI. There's no 


the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony. You know, you might have a story about the, uh, the gospels or some of those theological powerful messages, but without that real testimony, that's where there's power as well.


But you bring up an interesting point that. Along the lines of where we are at in, in science, we're creating something in our image with artificial intelligence. So it goes beyond just the science to the fact that. Well, here we are created in the image of God. We are regurgitating to God. The very things that he's given to us in his word, when we worship him, what are we doing?


We are we're, we're taking what is inside of us. What's what's being infused and we're giving it back as a gift to God. It's. Artificial intelligence is just another way of looking at yeah, we're creating artificial intelligence in the image of. 


Well, and that's where I think, you know, it's, I think there are a lot of ways that we can use the artificial intelligence wrong, but you know, that we are creating AIS and in some sense doing it, our image.


But I think that that's part of that mandate that God has given us, you know, why do we treat. Fantastic paintings and other things like, you know, beautiful songs and incredible architecture and scientific advances is that's part of what God has commanded us to do to go out and rule over the earth and subdue it and, and to do it in a way that gives glory to him.


And then I think building AIS are as part of that mandate, there there's a, there's a. Uh, the AI is ultimately just a tool. It's how do we use the tool? And so that's one of the things, uh, you know, you mentioned my book, the title of the book is the peril. And the promise of AI is that, uh, there are, you see, I see people kind of fall into two classes.


One is who AI is awful. We could never do anything good at all they see is the apparel, but there's another class that all they see is the promise. And in reality, we've got to deal with both. And one of the questions I'm trying to teach myself how to do. Whenever I hear one of these that I really think just having an AI develop worship songs, I think that's just problematic on a number of levels because I think it's the, Burt's what God wants us to do in worshiping him, but that technology can be used for.


Good. And so how could we use this to, to do good? And it could be used to teach us how to. Right. Better music. I mean, you know, we we've built chess, AIS that can be hands down, beat the best chess player without even working up a sweat, uh, a computer sweat. But so what we do is now chess experts go study these to learn how to do, how to play chess better.


And so it's like, can we use those to do things better as opposed to allowing or using. Using it to make things more convenient for us so that we get distracted from what's really important. And that's a question, I don't know how you use AI song generation, but I do think how can we use this to do good stuff instead of bad stuff, if you will.


As a tool, it's a tool. Uh, when we see what's happened in the music industry, for example, technology has killed music to a degree. Everything sounds the same. We have basically six song writers that write for the most popular, uh, all of the most popular singers and performers. The dynamics is. Is modulated.


So you can be playing something really loud, but it just, you have this much dynamics. It's the same rhythms that you'll hear the same chord progression because it's cells it's, what's familiar to us. So we will tune into it as opposed to a lot of the songs that we saw that were popular in the seventies, for example, uh, that were.


Innovation crazy innovation, uh, unattractive artists that were just talented and people tuned into their music. They did interesting and unusual things. Well, now that's risky, you know, it's, it's become a money making machine. So we've used technology to same newness it to make everything homogenous. So while technology makes it really easy to mix a song, I can mix my own music at home.


It can also be a detriment when we rely on it. Instead of relying on the innovation, imagination, and uniqueness of this creativity, that's been programmed into us. 


I think that's a very powerful point. And you know, again, going back to the AI is the, is aren't thinking, Ooh, how do I make a better song? The AIS are programmed to accomplish a purpose of something.


And they'd been trained to do things in a certain way. And so most of the time, uh, well, I mean, you know, with the chess program, it's, can you. Other people who are playing chess, but, uh, with most of our AI's that we use, whether it's social media, it's driven towards how can we do things to generate engagement because engagement generates dollars.


And often you get unintended consequences from that. And so if we're using the AI to generate. A song that everybody wants to listen to. Well, you are going to one of the unintended consequences is that you're going to homogenize music instead of allow for the diversity and kind of force people to listen to new things.


And, uh, you know, I mean, I, I didn't listen to a ton of music or a lot of music when I was a kid, but I do know that if you want to listen to music, You had to listen to the radio station and certain things. You only got to listen to what they chose. And there was a unit, there was, everybody was hearing kind of the same base of music.


And so there, there were other different forces. Uh, I mean, obviously that had consequences of how we listen to music, but you would just need to think about the bigger picture, not, Ooh, can we generate music, but what are we trying to do when we generate music? And is this, and is the AI actually going to get us there?


Now do you, do you think that we can look at artificial intelligence just in, in this story of artificial intelligence, creating, uh, the first worship song 100% done by AI. Although not 100% because somebody had to program it that really speaks to a God story on a few levels that I want to get to. First of all, uh, this artificial intelligence, uh, JC it's being called didn't just one day, say, you know, I just feel like worshiping.


I just, I just, you know, I've been, uh, we were programming every day, you know, it's numbers and nuts. It's ones and zeros, ones and zeros all day long. I want to do something. I just feel this right. It didn't happen. It was programmed. It's amazing that we are still working with extraordinarily intelligent people that can look at an even more amazing intelligence, the human mind and say, yeah, it just kind of happened.


It just kind of developed it, just, you know, a bunch of, uh, ones and zeros got together. And eventually here I am. 


Well, and what I find, you know, in, in your discussion there, I find fascinating is the way it was described in one of the articles. It says, uh, you know, we've got the first gospel song written by an algorithm recorded by an algorithm.


And before by that's right. An algorithm. And as I've been thinking about artificial intelligence and just kind of pondering, you know, what's it going to do? What will it be able to accomplish? What I realize is this, is that everything I do. Has an algorithmic component to it. So when I was getting ready for the interview or our interview today, there were certain steps I go through.


I, you know, I want to make sure here's the points. I wanna make sure I understand the material know. So there's an algorithm to what I do. And, and if there's an algorithm to it, you can write a computer program, whether it's a, just a program or an AI type program, you can write it. You can write something to replicate that.


So everything I do has an algorithm to it, but nothing I do is just an album. 'cause in, in my interaction with you. Yes, I am. There's things I'm putting together, but I'm also working on building a relationship with you and a relationship is not an algorithm. And so deep. 


Think about that. Just ponder that as you're listening, watching, reading right now, Jeff and I have met on air for a few years.


It's been, it's been years. And there's little things that I know, you know, he has kids and, and we talked about what you did for Thanksgiving before we went on air. Uh, there's an emotive component now that we have technology to zoom basically and see face to face and, and you smile, it warms my heart.


Those are things. How do you write an algorithm for that? 


Well, and that's, that's the part of the problem is, is that we can write an algorithm to replicate the appearance of that. You know, I mean, you, you even made a comment when you're listening to this, it's got emotional highs and emotional lows in the song.


So it's doing the things to evoke that, but it didn't actually have the emotions. The AI didn't actually have the emotions. And so that one of my. Cautions or, you know, what I, what I suspect will happen. I caution people against it's like, you know, we're going to make AI that more and more mimic behavior.


And there's a, a segment where we so want the AI is to be human, that we're going to attribute human emotions and thoughts, and we're going to anthropomorphize them. We're going to humanize the AIS oddly enough, at the same time where I think we're dehumanizing people, you know, so, but there's. There are things I do to, you know, when you talk, I answer your questions.


When you say something funny, I smile, you know, sometimes I do it just because I want to encourage you sometimes. It's because I think it's funny, you know, there's all sorts of things because it's built around the relationship and I could systematize and make an AI that does every one of those, but it still doesn't have a relationship with you and 


they're still.


Missing. And I guess if you look at life in general and you look at the God's story, there's a lot of. There's a lot of information on the internet. There's a lot of, uh, teaching out there and you can see there's just something missing. That's where this story really leads me to. A deeper story, finding God on, on a deeper level, we can talk about God is up there and God is love, and God is this, and God is that.


And there's, there's dozens of religions out there that talk about God. But if you really want to get down to something deeper, all of that is just like an, uh, an algorithm by, uh, an artificial intelligence. It's just. Doing this, you know, just making noise, but there's something missing. 


I think, and again, I think the thing that's missing is that relationship.


And I remember reading a book, I'm pretty sure it's called unchristian and I'm drawing a blank on the oh, David Kinnaman. Um, and you know, he was looking at the different reasons. People walk away from the church when, you know, as they grow up in the church and then walked away. And he said, one of the aspects of that is that we've kind of made discipleship in a mass market fashion that we.


Kind of dumped information and you know, there there's this, there's this algorithm to training if you will. And he said, you know, you go back and you look and it used to be mentoring. And so, you know, To me, the biggest difference between I'm in a class learning and I'm being mentored by someone is there's that relationship?


Someone who's learning about me investing in me, not because there's this step-by-step process, but because they learn my. My strengths, my weaknesses, what I like, what I don't like. I'm learning that from the person, because this person presumably is deeper in their spiritual walk, has a deeper spiritual walk with God and they're drawing me into having that deeper relationship.


And so it seems like a lot of what's missing and all of the AI stuff. There's no way for that relationship to be there. And fundamentally we're created to be relational with other humans, but importantly, but primarily we're supposed to be in a relationship with God. And so that's why, you know, my question is how can we use the AI to drive us towards the relationship not and any place where an AI is diminishing the relationship we ought to not want.


We thought we just said need one, 


because I think we are, we don't know. Uh, we have some idea, but don't completely know the detrimental effects that it will have on the human psyche we're experiencing now. And a little bit of understanding of what social distancing has done to people with suicides, depression, anxiety, alcohol, and drug abuse.


We. Can't do that. We're not created for that. And it's, it's wreaking havoc on us. We see with artificial intelligence, sex bots, and people having, trying to have intimacy with a piece of machinery, which, uh, Is it horrific and I'm laughing because it's, it's so inane, but yet that's happening. And the more artificial intelligence, uh, tries to infuse human characteristics into these things.


The more people there are people who have petitioned to marry. Uh, a robot, uh, artificial intelligent in infused robot. This is the, I see detriment when to the human psyche, but it's all because we are looking for something deeper. We really are looking for for that condition. 


Absolutely. And then, you know, one of the things that I've recognized, you know, I've thought a lot about AI over the last couple of, you know, last few years is I've been thinking about what, what could I write?


And you know, what I, what I finally ultimately come to realize is that, you know, we're, we're when we're talking to AI, we're not talking the sentient, the datas, the, the visions, you know, all the, all the sentient AIS that, that pervade the, the science fiction world. We're, we're talking AIS that are really.


Tools, if you will, that we can program them, know we can teach them and train them to do certain things, but ultimately they're a tool like a hammer or a car or a dollar bill as a tool. And we can either use them to do good or we can use them to do bad. But now once you've had, once you started that discussion, now you've brought a worldview into the discussion.


And my contention is that if you will. To use AI. Well, it is such a powerful tool that we want. You better want Christianity to be true because that's the world view that allows us to use AI well, to get the benefits of AI and mitigate the detriments of AI 


and what that means. I want to hear about that.


Um, I don't care what your, uh, spiritual background is as you're watching or listening. If you are. At least a little bit, either intrigued or afraid of artificial intelligence. If you have that kind of healthy fear of, oh my goodness, what are we getting into? This is where you really have to think about your worldview and how we go forward because ethics and technology.


Uh, need to move in the same in the same right direction. In other words, as technology grows, our ethical standards should grow. What we see in our society is F uh, ethics, retreating, and technology advancing. If we don't have a marriage or a likeness in the power of ethics and technology, I think that we will see more of what you were talking about in your book, some of the advancements, but, uh, but also some of the, oh my gosh, are you kidding me of artificial intelligence?


Yeah, absolutely. And you know, what's, what's interesting is that, uh, you know, we talked about wanting the good and wanting to avoid the bad. That again, that's just a worldview issue. What's good and bad. You could have. That's where the world you comes into play. As you know, I kind of threw out my book. I look at four worldviews.


I look at the Christian world view. I look at the naturalistic worldview. I look at kind of the Eastern mystic worldview and the postmodern worldview. And just ask the question, um, you know, w w what is. Things like truth. You know, we, we think there's a truth. We think there's truth, or at least, uh, that's been kind of a dominant world or a dominant paradigm is there's truth out there.


And you find truth and align yourself with it. Well, today that view is under, under, uh, under attack because different worldviews view truth differently, um, is, are things of this world good or bad, uh, different worldviews have different approach for that. Um, should we tell, should we lie? Or biases. Good.


These are all things that different worldviews approach that differently. And my contention in the book is that if you want the worldview that actually says, Hey, we want to be doing things that take care of people and advance the technology. You really want the Judeo-Christian worldview to be correct.


Because all the other worldviews you're fighting your world view to get those things that we think are important, like individuals being important. Uh, you think a postmodern view, not all individuals are important and even in a naturalist worldview, not all individuals are employing. Whereas in Christianity, it's very clear that not only are people important, but every individual is important.


And so these are just the sort of things we need to wrestle with. And as you said, we need to think about the big picture. Not just assume that, oh, we're going to make it. And it'll all kind of work out because it can do a lot of damage before we figure out, uh, how to, how to make it work. Well, 


Jeff, what is your book coming out?


It is supposed to come out, I think October 20, 22. So just a little under a year 


from now. Oh, outstanding. And kind of exciting. Um, and in the meantime, we're going to see even more advancement in artificial intelligence. So it's going to be, uh, always very timely. It seems as though there's a, maybe a divine aspect that, that takes place in, in some of the books that I see that you all put out at reasons to believe.


It just seems to. Fit in perfectly with the times that we're in. Uh, we started the conversation talking about this artificial intelligence, writing a worship song, and I wanted to end on a God story note thinking about first Corinthians 13 that says if I speak in the tongue in the tongue, Of men or of angels, but do not have love.


I'm only a resounding gong or a claiming symbol. And I think if we substituted the word artificial intelligence and said if an are the official intelligence speaks in the tongues of men or of angels, but does not have love, it's only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol. It's just noise. 


Amen and amen.


I mean, really it, and that can be applied to just about anything that we do, whether it's technology, whether it's the music that we play. It's the words that we speak to one another, as we go to the holiday season, even more. 


If I can just say, you know, I think one of the things we need to watch is that whatever we do with AI, we keep it as a tool that we are doing now because AI is can't have love, but God has given us the capacity and in fact, commanded us to love others.


And so that's, that's the, that's where the AI can help us do what God has asked us to do better. 


I love that. Play a little bit of my favorite holidays. I came upon the midnight. There have lots, just such a beautiful song, Lu. I don't know if AI could have


and the power


to God for what he's doing, what was happening at


It's kind of an exciting time of the year because we pull out


so much, so much played in almost every. In the United States, there are up and down the radio dial. Maybe this Christmas time you continue and hear something that algorithms simply can't hear me. Jeff, thank you so much for being with us today. It's always a pleasure. Do you have some special plans for Christmas?


Uh, just hanging out with family, just enjoy the time to go through the adornments. And there are some traditions we have and just hang out with family and enjoy the adore the time and worship God 


while we're doing it. I love it.  📍 Real connection, real connection. Been fun, connecting with you. Thanks for joining us.


more,  📍 Sci-Tech talk@mymichellelive.com.

10/19/21 Mysterious signals from the center of the universe

 📍 It's the MyMichelleLive podcast. 


My Michelle live side tech talk, 


taking the God story 


to a geeky place. Here's  📍 Michelle.


Hey, thank you for  📍 listening to my Michelle live, where today we look deep into science technology for a deeper story. Maybe even the God's story today. It is a strange story because there are waves that are coming from. Outer space. What are they? What can they tell us? And do they reveal a deeper story?


 At 13 minutes past the hour? And right now all request. I know I've got my graduate on the phone. Hey babe, what would you like to hear? We all listen, Mike, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.


Oh, blast from Dre, right past 


the 


carpenters. They were talking about  waves coming from the center of the universe. We're going to take it on with Dr. Hugh Ross. He's the president and founder of reasons to believe he's written extraordinary books like beyond the cosmos, the creator and the cosmos, and many, many more Dr.


Russ, it's good to connect with you. Well, 


thank you for having me on your show. 


So these radio waves, the it's been being reported all over the globe and we're mystified because we don't know what it is. 


Repeating radio 


signal 


from the Milky way center, the heart of 


the Medicare rate galaxy. The galactic center is emitting.


Some unusual radio waves now have worked at space. Experts are saying they've detected unusual radio waves of radio waves, extraordinary signals that are unlike anything to mankind, constantly repeating. And it's something we've never heard before. 


Something we've never heard before. So as we get into this today, as straw members of the university of Sydney detected this strange signal, emitting from the center of the Milky way, the study or a study on the findings was published in the astrophysical journal.


This is just another thing that is captivating, the world what's out there. What could it mean when we say, uh, radio waves? Uh, we're not talking a station from some alien planet. Are we. 


No, we're not, I mean this, I mean, my background was in radio astronomy and, uh, I've got the paper right here and it reads quite differently than all the web articles that you see out there.


Tell people. Uh, and when you see a web article only trust those that actually give you a link to the actual paper, which is based in go to the paper and see what it says. And it actually is quite a fascinating paper. Uh it's right up my Bailey lake. I mean, this is kind of work I used to do when I was at Caltech and, uh, what's making it so interesting.


Number one is not right at the galactic center. So about four degrees away from the galactic center. Uh, but it is an object that's somewhere in the bulge of our galaxy and it's highly variable, but it's only in bidding radio wavelengths so far that we can detect as they look forward to x-ray wavelengths, couldn't see anything but board in the near infrared and couldn't see anything.


And that's, what's got us stronger is mystified. Why are we only seeing it at radio wavelengths? When you get to all the way to the end of the paper says, well, we haven't really done an exhaustive search. We need to keep looking and let's see, we can find more objects like this, but I'll tell you what really caught my attention.


Michelle is that this thing is highly circularly polarized. Twenty-five percent circular, polarization, 80% regular polarization. The only objects I know that back and have that degree of a circular and linear polarization are black holes and neutron stars. And so we already know that the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy is embedded in a cloud of comets and asteroids.


And the reason why we see tiny variations. In the super massive black hole at the center of our galaxy every hour or so the gobbles up, uh, one of these, a small comments or asteroids. So we're not getting huge flares. We're getting literally on a daily basis, sometimes on an hourly basis, these small flares.


And I'm wondering at this object that we're in, that has just been discovered as something similar, uh, you know, a stellar black hole. Which means that it's roughly the mass of a massive star, not millions of times, the mass of the sun, but a few times the mass of the sun. And it's embedded in a cloudless small objects that might explain the variability we see.


And if it's actually gobbling up gas of a certain. I characteristic, it could explain why it has such a steep radio spectrum and why we haven't detected anything at that. X-ray and, uh, uh, you know, infrared wavelengths now that's not an, a paper. Uh, that's just my conclusions as a radio astronomy or with experience looking at these objects.


I think that's what we're looking at. 


 Maybe we can start with what are radio waves. People think of radio waves and they think, , broadcast radio waves, , are, I think are actually fairly. Fascinating. There's the Maxwell and the equations that came out of like 90 18, rather 67.


It, it all comes down to the brilliance. Um, the extraordinary ability of man to look into what's happening around us, in nature, on our planet and beyond, and look at calculations and say, wow, there's something happening here. Let's talk about radio waves. 


Well, radio waves are part of light, the electromagnetic spectrum.


And so we have what we see with our eyes, which we call the visible part of the spectrum, uh, the shorter wavelengths to be ultraviolet and x-ray and gamma Ray. But if you go the other direction, uh, beyond what we can see with the eye, you go longer wavelengths that are infrared. Uh, and then you've got the millimeter wave lengths.


Where the wavelengths are Liberty, uh, millimeters in length. And then you've got the radio waves and the radio waves can either be rather short, like centimeter length, a wave length, or they could be quite long, several meters. And, uh, you know, and I was active doing observations. I did both the low and the high frequency, uh, radio, but I would tell late people it's just like looking through a teller.


I mean, we use a big telescope to collect these long wavelengths. This is simply another extension of the electromagnetic spectrum, but what we, as astronomers try to do when we find an interesting object like this is observe it over the entire range of the electromagnetic spectrum, that kind of I've already helps identify what it is.


And so far, this object is only showing us. And the radio part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Now, as the authors admit they haven't done an exhaustive search other way, whites. Now they're saying we need to do that and we need to see those other objects like this and, uh, you know, by him, right. That we're probably looking at a small black hole.


Uh, that's gobbling up gas, small gas clouds, or comments in it specific. We're going to find more of these objects and they should be most easy to find in the center of our galaxy and in the center of nearby. I think we ought to look for them in the Andromeda galaxy. Although as I read the paper, uh, the strength of the radio signal is what's called a , which means it's not that bright.


And so it could be a real challenge to detect it in the Andromeda galaxy. 


, you have, , your idea, your conclusions  what it might be. We can talk a little bit about what it definitely isn't and how we know what it isn't. , I know that with the broadcast of there's ways, Signals coming from the center of our universe is someone trying to contact us and people who are SEDI conscious, which is the search for extra terrestrial life are, uh, they have got their eyes wide open.


Ears perked. And, uh, one side of 


a technically sophisticated alien culture looked like artificially focused electromagnetic waves, and we've been leaking them into space for over 80 years. That means any planet within 80 light years of earth is receiving now signals like this are simple to generate and use and carry well over vast distances.


That's why SETI scientists believe alien cultures might be leaking them 


just. Just like we are, but, , these are artificial waves, so there's, there's a difference. So you know that, I'm sorry to say. It seems as though this is not, uh, E.T.Phoning home. 


It's not because the radio signals we're getting are quite random and you know, there's no structure to them that would be able to in.


Uh, message. And given that it's coming from near the center or a galaxy, I mean, we anticipate that there's going to be a, you know, small, black holes there, neutron stars, uh, that should be able to emanate this radiation. I mean, what I find fascinating is one reason why we know there can't be near.


Intelligence civilizations. They would have been so upset with us broadcasting the Beverly hillbillies for the last 50 years that they would have come to shut us up or they might've concluded. Well, I guess there can't be intelligent wife Invista, part of 


the galaxy. 


They may be watching the evening news, uh, w.


Y the, the center of the universe. You said the drama, the galaxy, we might be looking for similar signals, this location have anything to do with this? 


Well, you're going to have a higher probability of. Uh, stellar mass black holes and the center of a galaxy. So because you got a greater density of stars and you know, often black holes will form a where you got two stars and merged together to make a bigger star.


I mean, we already observed that with the gravity wave telescope, uh, where you get two neutron stars merging together, uh, to make a black hole. So I bet you're going to need high stellar density for that to happen. And that's what you have in the cores of galaxies. So that's a good place to look. And, uh, the reason I mentioned the Andromeda galaxy is that it's got a much larger supermassive black hole and it's called.


Uh, which is going to have a higher probability attracting in a stellar mass black holes. So that'd be another good place to look. And it's not that far away. Uh, the paper suggests that maybe we ought to look in the large Magellanic cloud. Uh, but the density of stars, there is nowhere near as high it's in the center of our galaxy or the Andromeda galaxy.


What fascinates you about this story? 


Well, what fascinates me about it is. This could be a new kind of object. I don't think it's really a new kind of object. That's that's got some people spanking. Maybe this is a brand new astronomical object that we've never understood before. I'm thinking what it really is.


There's a neutron star or a black hole. That's in an unusual inviting. Uh, you know, to have in an environment where it's surrounded by small gas clowns, that's what make it exciting. And I definitely like how they end their paper by saying, you know, this is a call to astronomers. Let's look and see what we can find other objects like this.


Let's actually look across to electronics spectrum and see, we can learn more about the subject because we've never seen anything like this before. Okay. Always excite to astronomers. Nothing. I remember when they found the first Pulser, I mean, that really generated worldwide excitement in the astronauts because we've never seen anything like this before.


This is our. To learn new astrophysics. And, uh, I'm not sure we're going to learn any new astrophysics again. What caught my attention is a high degree of circular polarized radiation. And this could actually impact origin of life research. And this is something that we've written about in our book origins of life is that if you want to get homo chiral, amino acids, or homo.


Um, uh, or by both sugars, which are essential to put together the proteins, the DNA and the RNA, the only naturalistic source we've found that can do that with any degree of efficiency is a circularly polarized ultra violet radiation. And so this may be one of those objects that has. However, so I wrote in the origins of life, trying to make the origin of life happened next to a black hole or a neutron star has utterly absurd.


The radiation out there is bound to destroy any molecular structure that has any meaningful, uh, no sporty or origin of light. I wouldn't be surprised if origin like researchers saying, Hey, wow, here's a strong ultraviolet or a circularly polarized. And we can tap into keep in mind though. They'd get to see whether there's any ultra violet, certainly polarized radiation.


We know that radio circuit polarized radiation is going to be of no help for getting all the molecules, amino acids lined up left-handed and the Ribo sugars. Right-handed. 


So w we can know that looking out in the universe actually helps us to look inward. It helps us to understand a little bit more of why all of this is how all of this happened.


Our earth is absolutely. Bogglingly extraordinary, diverse, rich with life. Humanity is a unique among the creatures that crawl on this planet. And from what we know thus far in, in the universe, when we study things outside of our planet, much like this mysterious new waves. Are we, are we learning something?


And that's that's, as you said that you have these, these guys who are saying, Hey, look, that's important. That's important for us to say, what could this mean? Right. 


Well, Michelle, I think by my next book is not out yet, but it's written, designed to the core. It makes exactly that theme that when you look at the large scale structure of the universe, Uh, are the super galaxy cluster in which we, that there is no other super galaxy cluster.


Like the one we're in that it must have those features for like to be posting. And you look at her galaxy cluster, same story. It's a galaxy cluster. Like no other it's unique in having the features we need, uh, for advanced light to exist. And, uh, it's all the way down the line. We live in a unique, uh, uh, you know, grouping of galaxies are galaxies.


Like no other galaxy we've ever seen. Uh, there is no galaxy far, far away the same thing, like our galaxy. Uh, and then we live in, what's called the local bubble inside our galaxy. It too has unique design features and basic I'm making the point. And my next book, no matter what size scales we look at from the entire universe, all the way down to what's inside the interior, the moon what's inside the interior, comets and asteroids.


I what's inside the interior of the earth of this. It's all extraordinarily fine tune to make possible. The existence of advanced light here on planet earth. And we need it. None of it's wasted. I mean, a lot of my peers think, well, look at this vast universe, uh, this was created a per us. It seems like such a waste.


It's not a waste. We need every bit of it in order to have advanced life here on planet earth, the whole universe exists so that we can have civilization here on planet earth.


I think what really blows me away, but you actually look 📍  at the fine tuning. I have to see is it's all designed to make possible billions of human beings to live on one planet at one time. So they can add the technology to be able to communicate a message of redemption to billions of people who can respond to that message.


That's something you see in the Bible that God begins his works of redemption before he creates anything. And that's what I've been communicating. My latest books. When we look at the universe on the largest scales, all the way down to the smallest scale, all the way down to the particles inside the atom, every bit of it is designed for the purpose of making possible the redemption of billions of human beings from their propensity for committing sin and evil.


We can know this because of  📍 consistency because there's order and consistency. There is a mathematics all in the universe and, and we see that. So I love that. You're talking about scale. You can get. Gail, you can get scale. We can talk with one of your associates there, a doctor  a microbiologist. You know, you run the gamut from the universe as a astrophysicist to a micro biologist.


So you're going to scale bear large to small and eat. One of those scales. You see the very story that you just told us, and it's a story of consistency. There's incredible consistency in the universe. I believe correct me if I'm wrong, Dr. Ross, but that's why we can look at a story like this with mysterious, uh, Waves now signals a mini-me from the center of the Milky way.


We can look at that and we can say, okay, based on what we know and consistency, uh, you can formulate ideas. This speaks consistency and order speaks to. An order giver just like programming and the computer speaks to a programmer. And am I drawing the right conclusion 


here you are. I mean, uh, you know, like if you were to compare Hinduism, Christianity into Islam has got 3 million plus gods are all involved in creation.


And so a core of Hindu thinking is that we look at the universe, it's going to be filled with all kinds of inconsistencies. Things are not going to be harmonious. It's all going to be mixed up. But if you've got a single creator with a single plan and purpose, you're going to see consistency throughout the whole spectrum of scientific investigation.


And I think that explains why we're seeing so many engineers and scientists. In places like India responding to the Christian aid because they're realizing, but Christian worldview has got the correct perspective on why the universe looks away. It does why the cell looks the way it does, why the Adam looks the way it does and why we see the same plan in order on the various tiniest scales of fundamental particles, all the way up to the large-scale structure of the 


universe.


It's astounding. We've come through an era that said science has killed God, but now we're coming to a place with more discoveries, more, uh, findings that actually point out that science is pointing to God 


of my. I mean every week I write a blog called today's new reason to believe basically making the point every single day, scientific research papers are being published.


They give us  📍 a stronger case for the Christian faith. You see this in Jovan songs, the more we learn about nature, the more evidence we'll find for the supernatural handiwork of the creator. And so that's my passion reading the scientific letters. Finding papers like this and helping people who are not scientists to see the connection, how this on a daily basis is giving us more evidence, uh, for the God of the Bible.


This story that we're talking about with these waves coming from the center of the galaxy, to me also point out something that is a bit uncomfortable in our era. You, and that's that, , we need to be humbled a little bit. We really do think we know what. 


Well, uh, when I first started studying astronomy as a seven year old, uh, we were able to see with their telescopes out to about 0.0, zero 1% of the entire observable extent of the universe.


Uh, today we're getting close to a hundred percent. However, we look at that extreme distances. All we can see are the brightest objects. I mean, I'm excited about the James Webb telescope being launched next. Because that's going to be the first instrument in the hands of astronomers. They'll actually be able to see individual stars just after the cosmic creation.


And so, but you know, that's not going to plumb the depths. I mean, you have astronomers joke that if we really want to understand unify Gilt theory, we're going to need a particle accelerator, 40 trillion miles long, and that's not going to be funded anytime soon. So there's always more to learn. As I tell my fellow astronomers, we don't have to worry about being an employee because we've discovered everything.


That's not going to 


answer 


job security right there, there are some others, there's some other stories that are circulating about, uh, several asteroids, bigger. They say than the great pyramid of Giza as approaching the earth in the coming weeks. Uh, there's a general. Nidek storm headed for earth. They Aurora could actually be visible across the, the Northern us.


I mean, these are things that have been happening recently or will be taking place. And as we look out into the cosmos, uh, there's so much more to be worried about and afraid about. There's always, uh, an asteroid hurling itself to the earth or a. That is going to pass nearby. Could it be the end? Could it destroy us?


Like they say it destroyed the dinosaurs. When we look at the universe and we see again, that order and we see purpose, it also gives us a peace. 


Well, it does. I mean, Neil deGrasse, Tyson, he's an astrophysicist, who's an atheist. And he says, if you look serious of the universe, It's clear that it's out to kill us out there, but forget 


the universe before you finish.


Let's just bring it down to a micro level. We were talking about consistency. You could look out that the universe that think it's going to kill us. You could look out at the evening news and see what's going on in our planet or in our own neighborhoods. So. 


What I notice as an astrophysicist though, is that yes, there's all these dangers in the universe.


Uh, we happened to be in the one location at the one time in the history of the universe where we're living in the safest possible econ. And the safest possible location that tells me that somebody is taking care of us. Yes. The universe is a dangerous place, but right now we're at the safe proceed box.


We're now a hundred thousand year window that the history of the universe, um, it's really the only window where it's safe enough to global human civilization. And so, yeah, we're going to leave that window relatively soon, but right now, Conditions are really good. Someone's looking out for us. 


So you follow you, you believe that the Bible does run.


Obviously if the God created, the universe runs very much parallel with, with what's happening in the world with, with science, um, and where you see. A story, a bigger story, a deeper story, a God story. In the findings of the day, you see a God story in how everything is fitting together for a master plan. I wanted to end our time together with that master plan.


What all of this is saying to you and why it's important to each and everyone who is listening, watching, or reading today. 


Well, in a couple of days, I ain't going to be engaging a group of atheist scientists just answering their questions. And this is the question they have is like, what could all the bad stuff that can happen?


And I says, yeah, but look at all the good stuff that can happen. You know, let's look at it both ways and just recognize that indeed the entire universe is fine tune, not just to allow us to exist, but to eliminate evil and suffering once. And for all, because a lot of. These atheist scientists are asking that there's a God, why the children get cancer?


And I said, well, God's got a larger purpose. This is not the only universe. Christianity is not a one creation model. It's a two creation model. This is the very best possible creation that God could have created an order to eradicate evil and suffering once. And for all. While he enhances the human Frigo capability to express and experience love.


That was God's primary purpose in creating was to magnify the expression of his love. So in this universe, this creation he's on a quest to eradicate efficiently and rapidly, all evil and stuff. And that requires that we live in a universe with thermodynamics electromagnetism. You're talking about the electromagnetic theory of a while ago, a gravity, the strong and weak nuclear force, and I've written and why the universe is the way it is.


God designed these laws of physics to be tools in his hands to reward virtue, to encourage us to avoid. And also the point is that we need his help to be delivered from evil and suffering once. And for all. And the promise we see in the Bible, a moment that evil has been eradicated by God. This universe will fulfill this purpose and God's going to replace it with a brand new creation where there will be no gravity.


There will be no thermodynamics or electromagnetism. None of the bad things that are happening is universal ever happening. Uh, but if God were to put us in that realm right now, evil would run out of control. His goal is to eradicate evil first, then bring us into this ultimate creation. And you see this in John chapter 16, the last verse where Jesus says to his disciples in this world you'll have tribulation, but take heart.


I've overcome the world as a physicist. I like to paraphrase that verse in this world. You'll have thermodynamic. But take heart. I've overcome thermodynamics and yes, we do use the evidence in scripture. I've got occasionally performing a miracle to rescue people from the consequences of thermodynamics and gravity, but notice he doesn't on rare occasions.


Cause if we were to do it all the time, rescue us every time we get into trouble and that would prevent gravity and thermodynamics electromagnetic. Um, do you doing, but God intends it to do, to be a tool, to eradicate evil once and for all. So as Norman of plan is to allow us to experience the consequences of thermodynamics gravity, electromagnetic.


Only on rare occasions, only supernaturally intervene. And he only does that where supernatural interventions will actually have a greater effect on eradicating evil and allowing us to experience the laws of physics that govern the 


universe. Important thing to wrap our heads around because it is the biggest question that people ask where God is concerned.


If there's a God, why is there evil in the world? Right. It's funny to ask that question. When we feel it's perfectly fine to raise our fist to God, to curse God and to do our own thing, to have freewill, to make our own decisions. And I feel like, uh, excuse me for not giving a, a scientific explanation, but come on you tell your kid don't touch the hot stove.


They touch the hot stove. Why did you let me get burned? I mean, it really, you don't have to be as smart as. To figure that one out, sweetheart. It, we are, 


yeah. It's like, but people raise that objection are the same people and sign up for a challenging college level course. It was like, you know, if you sign up for that course, that professor is going to make you suffer.


But you know, they go for it because they know the suffering is brief and it's going to prepare them for a really rewarding. It's the same thing for us. God exposes us for just a few decades, uh, to gravity, thermodynamics and electromagnetism. Cause he knows it's going to prepare us for an incredible unimagined, the reward and the new creation.


So just like it's worth it to sign up for a college level course. That's challenging. Likewise, it's worth it to sign up for this light and you see that message in the Bible. God intends that our light here in this universe would be challenging, but just like a really good course. It's fun to take a challenging course.


And so we need to enjoy, uh, the training and experience we're going through in this light. 


I liked that and I wanted to end with the idea that there's God has intervened at times in. Existence in this universe, he did. So in the biggest way, by sending his son Jesus Christ to take our sins, to help us to be part of this grand plan to earn Radication.


What really destroys us and have a relationship with God, an intimate relationship with God, sign me up. I think one of your books in the future, if I could put my requested would be. The idea of what heaven might be like without gravity, without thermodynamics, without sin. What kind of struggle? Well, that's all we know is that life is struggle and overcoming.


What would that be like? So I I'm just saying that might be an interesting book coming. 


Well, I I'm, I'm ready for it. I mean, uh, what I like is the fact that, you know, we're going to be rulers and teachers over the angels as, because we get to go through the course, they get to watch us going through all this suffering they're going through.


It was preparing us to be governors, magistrates teachers, and the new creation. And that sense we are the epitome of God's creation because we get to go through this course of God's grace, as it says in the Bible, the angels watch the grace of God. We humans experience the grace of God. And because of that experience, we're being prepared for careers that the angels would not be able to put.


All right. I'm looking forward to that book. In the meantime, you might want to pick up this one. This one is actually one of my favorite books ever, but definitely by Dr. Ross, he has some great books out there. And if you go to reason's dot org, you can find them. I just really enjoyed talking. The, uh, trans dimension, geology of God, which gives a scientific look into the miraculous into our universe.


It, it just is all meaty and uplifting and it's like, God, geeky. I loved it. I do. I'll look forward to your next book and to our next conversation, you can find Dr. Ross Ana. Of great scholars, writings, blogs@reasons.org.  📍 Thank you Dr. Ross


more. Sci-Tech talk@mymichellelive.com.


Oh, that was so much fun. I love this show.

HUMAN ORIGINS & WORLDVIEW

It's the myMichelle life podcast, 


my Michelle live side tech talk, 


taking the God's story to a geeky place. Here's Michelle.


Hey, thank you for joining in today. This is what we call Sci-Tech talking and our side tech talk today. Oh, such important things like. You, I mean, after all, we can talk about the origins of the universe, the origins of life, but what about the origins of you and why do those origins matter? Where you turn on the evening news, you listen to the stories of the day you're on Facebook, debating the things so close to you, but did you think for one moment that the very things that you're talking about are effects.


By the science of the origins of you. Absolutely. And we're going to find out why with Dr.  from reasons to believe they are in our organization that looks into science. Uh, they publish on their page, dozens upon dozens of tantalizing, interesting, intriguing, uh, blog, postings, and papers that you can peruse through to.


To late your mind and think harder about what's going on in the world of science and how we see more and more how science reveals intelligent design and who that intelligent designer might be. And if that's the case, is there science that can show a little bit more about our origins? We'll find it out with Dr.


Fuz. Dr. Rhonda. Thanks for joining. 


Michelle. Thanks for having me. It's always fun to hang 


out. It's always fun to hang out with you. You are, I mean, you, , are one of the people who blow the top off of the idea that, , scientists are just geeky, you know? Yeah. You can't be fun to oh yeah, you are. And this conversation is going to be interesting folks, as we look at what's going on in the news now look, , the cosmos, the big bang, the universe.


, fuzz. These are all things that we can talk about on a regular basis. , we look at so much programming, mathematics, , equations, intricacies diversity in every freaking molecule of the universe, including all the molecules that make up Dr. Phys Ronna. So as we look at origins and we think.


If we put two and two together and we look at origins and we look at what's going on in the world, can we come up with, uh, an equation for what the heck is going on? 


Yeah, well, you know, I think when it comes to questions of origins particular, Questions about the origin of humanity. People might be interested in, you know, how do we explain where human beings come from?


Because after all we are, we're kind of interested in, in our own story, 


always interested in our own story. I mean, come on. That's the only story that matters. That's why we're talking about you today. That's why you're tuning in. 


Yeah. It's not just about us as individuals, but really it's about our species.


You know, what is really, you know, where does it that we came from, but many times up at that point and just see this as really of, of academic interests. They don't really, I think draw the connection between the fact that what we think about where we come from as a species, who are we really, as human beings is deeply connected to our, our origin story and that turn.


Has implications for how we live our lives, enhance what is happening in the world around us today. And so many of the, I think the, the issues that are most important to us ultimately, uh, really arise out of how we think about ourselves as human. 


Something we get to, and every my Michelle live asking that question about your world view, and it doesn't matter if you're joining us for Sci-Tech Tuesday or health.


Watch Wednesday. If we're talking news and views sports or entertainment. It doesn't matter. Your worldview matters in how you look at the world, how you interact with others. And as a society's buzz, , our worldview affects  everything from. The violence in Chicago to how we interact with mass mandates.


I mean, all of these things are literally affected by our worldview and our worldview. If you were to deconstruct, it really does come down to our views on origins. 


Yeah. And, and really in our world today, there are two prominent views that people have. Where we come from as human beings. One of them is a view that really has been shaped by the scientific community at large.


And it really traces its origin back to a Darwin's work, the descent of man. But this is a perspective that says, well, human beings are the product of an evolutionary history. And many people won't even think much beyond that other than, Hey. Yeah, we evolved like, like other creatures. The implications of that idea are really in my view, pretty profound because if indeed we are the product of evolution, it means that everything about us as human beings that we think is special or makes us exceptional, uh, is actually something that emerged through unguided undirected processes, where we're just the lucky happenstance of an, of an evolutionary history.


And we're no different than any other creature that exists. There's no. Inherent value or worth in human beings, more so than there would be in any other creature. And there's really no ultimate meaning or purpose for, for our existence. If we just, again are the product of evolution, the late, uh, Stephen, Jay Gould, who was, uh, an evolutionary biologist, uh, uh, had this concept that was very helpful here.


And he said, if you could rewind the tape of life and let evolution. Take place again, the outcome would be different every time because of the unguided contingent nature of evolution, meaning that re probably human beings wouldn't have existed. If we could rewind the tape of life and let evolution play itself out, we wouldn't have even existed.


And so that view really strips people of ultimately value and worth and meaning and purpose. I think when we, we, this view, which is shaped, how many people think about our origins really has implications, because what difference does it make? Then if we are going to abort a baby and unborn baby, uh, if indeed we just, the product of evolution, if we're really, you're no different than any other creature, that's a very good 


point.


, I'm intrigued by the idea that if you were to rewind time and. Roll the dice again for the universe and how everything played out. , every time you drill the dice, it would be a different outcome when you wrap your head around that.  I mentioned before the intricacies of life,  the, , absolute, crazy chance off chance that we happened to, , have a universe perfectly suited for life on one planet.


If we roll the dice and we see the chances of, I mean, I'm going to Vegas later today for the leagues cup. ,  I guess if we were to really be scientifically accurate, I could take a penny and walk out with all the wealth in the world FAS.


, when does it become mathematically impossible. I mean mathematically impossible for Michelle to walk into any given casino, put a penny down and instantly walk away with all of the accumulative wealth in the world, because I would say, and you can correct me if I'm wrong as a scientist.


That is about the equation. Of. The chances of life that we know it on this planet, just being by chance.  


Yeah. Well, you're, you're bringing up a really important point. And that is, you know, even though again, you, you know, even though, uh, you know, the, the, the scientific community really looks at human beings as just a lucky happenstance, when we really look at what the science is telling us, it's telling us.


Uh, a very different story. You know, we talk, I talked earlier about the origin of the universe. Well, something, you know, connected to that idea is that the universe appears to be exquisitely designed so that life is possible. And we see this in, in what's called the fine tuning of the constants of physics, where if any of those values that define the universe vary ever so slightly, in some instances, practically in perceptive, Life simply couldn't even exist.


And as the late Freeman Dyson once said, uh, he was a physicist. It's almost as if the universe had us in mind. That is, it almost looks like the universe is structured so that human life is actually possible. And even when we look at the earth again, it looks as if the, the design of the earth has such.


Again, the Addison mom's so to speak, but the earth seems to be structured in such a way that not only could humans exist, but that advanced human civilizations are possible. And so this is really a pointer to the fact that in spite of this scientific perspective, that human life has meaning is meaningless.


There's other indications that suggest maybe there is a fundamental purpose to the universe. And that fundamental purpose really is pointing to. To our, our advent and Ari existences as human beings, 


the universe, we think that the universe is purposeless. And in that  void, , an outpouring of news stories that kind of line up with that.


When you have no purpose, when there is really no rhyme or reason, and you have no value for life. Haven't we become kind of a, uh, uh, hypocrisy, a dichotomy  we need to make decisions because people's lives matter. But on the other hand, , life doesn't matter. So I'm want to take this down, from the universe to an individual level.


 One of the, Strictest abortion bans in the entire nation went into effect at the beginning of September. And this is coming from Texas. So I'm sure you've heard of Senate bill eight, SB eight, , signed into law by governor Greg Abbott. , . Empowers private individuals to Sue anyone who performs an abortion after the six week, six week of pregnancy.


 There's only three news stories in the entire nation. One's a missing woman. , the other is, , mandates and then this one. Three things going on through the world. So if you haven't heard of it, you're hearing about it.


Now, anyone who knowingly engages , that aids or abets the performance of, or inducement of an abortion,  so in light of that, we're seeing a renewed debate over abortion, abortion law.


, the idea that my body, my choice, and then that breaks down when it comes over here to,  vaccines, for example, , when is it your choice? When is it not? When is it your win? What is the value of human life? , this is why our worldview does matter because on one end you have people saying this is draconian.


, because this is gonna lead to Backstreet alley abortions. I really should be my body, my choice, , because my life matters, , on, but. A, an unborn child's life. We don't know, you know, isn't really a non-board, is it really a child? And when does it, does it become life? 


You know, you're, you're making, you know, just a succession of very good points today. Michelle, not that you don't do that every time we talk, but 


you know, you're just surprised because we're, we're doing this early in the morning and it's like, wow, she's got a morning person and she's almost making sense.


This is awesome. This might be good today.


You know, this idea of, of, uh, of a worldview is really very important and we really need to spend the time making sure we understand what our worldview actually is, you know, and because it's a fundamental set of beliefs about how the world is, and, and we interpret the world through that lens, but if we don't have a good understanding of our worldview, it leads to really inconsistency.


And so what you see happening is the message from science. Hey, human life really doesn't matter. It doesn't have ultimate meaning or purpose. There's nothing exceptional about us as human beings, but yet in our heart of hearts, we know that human life does have value. And, and, and so we see the struggle that people have between.


You know, rejecting the idea that human life is, is valuable and recognizing that human life is valuable because of that internal compass, I believe that that many people have, or we intuitively recognize the human life is of worth, or we try to create some kind of local meaning, or we try to, to, you know, we become very self centered.


In terms of how we think about value, where what's, what impacts me is valuable and what impacts you is less valuable to me. And so it becomes a power struggle over who gets to determine what is or isn't, you know, considered to be valuable or what human life has worth in, in meeting. And this is where I think the Christian worldview, when it becomes very important, The Christian worldview basically says human beings are exceptional, that we are.


We stand apart from all other creatures where the, the crown of creation to use biblical language, uh, and that we bear the image of God. And that's what gives us our meaning and worth and value. And because of that, not only do we, as individuals have purpose and meaning and value, because we matter to the creator who made us to be in a relationship with him, but other people who bear God's image have value as well.


And, and, and this is an insight that lines up with what we're saying. In the sciences, it it's consistent with the idea that there's design in the universe that the earth appears to be designed so that human life can exist. And that human civilization is possible. It suggests that a purpose that, that lines up with that, the Christian worldview, but so too, does this idea that that a number of anthropologists are recognizing now that human beings really are expecting.


That we seem to stand apart from all other creatures in, in ways that, that, that are consistent with what we would understand to be the image of God. And so what's encouraging to me is that the science is lining up with the Christian worldview. It's buttressing the Christian worldview. And I think if we embrace the Christian world, It allows us to live a much more consistent life where we, we are able to then recognize the value in other people.


And I would submit to you that many of the social issues we're struggling with right now would evaporate. Hm, this perspective was much more widespreadly Y dot dotted much more in a widespread manner in our culture. 


I see. So your worldview matters and I want to talk about origins of some of the statements that you made are fabulous, but I'm want to get into some of the science of it.


And we can do that if you're kind of new to my Michelle live, , Dr. Rhonda is a frequent flyer in this party and. To give you some background. , Dr. Ronna is, as I may have mentioned, vice-president, , at reasons to believe of research and apologetics, , he is a microbiologist. He has an extraordinary background.


I could take half the show, , talking about he's the author of many, many books. , and I say this a lot when you're on, , got to sit under, , you, giving a talk to fellow scientists and it was so fascinating,  I was, I was probably two paragraphs behind trying to catch up. I mean, there are some really deep, intricate, interesting mind-blowing things going on in the scientific realm where, , biology is concerned where even it ties into our origins.


And so I want to talk about some of that science that leads credence to the value of human life. 


Yeah, well, you know, you know, to, to me, uh, and there's a number of ways we can, we can go at this, but you know, to me as, as somebody who is, uh, you know, uh, uh, a molecular life scientists, you know, who, who deals with kind of the intricacies of the cell.


Uh, zygote, uh, you know, that results from the fertilization of, uh, of an egg and a sperm cell. That to me is the point in which human life begins. And it's the point where I think human person. Uh, actually begins as 


well. Wait, wait, that's a huge statement. How, how do you know that? How do you come to that conclusion as a scientist?


I mean, it's a couple of sale cells coming together. What. 


Yeah. Well, because the, the, the, that, that zygote, that fertilized egg is, is an entity that is unique. It is clearly it, you know, genetically speaking it, it is clearly a unique human individual at that point in time. But the zygote is a special type of cell that imbued within it is this potential to develop into a fully formed.


Uh, human being a fully developed human being. And there's not any other cell that exists that, that, you know, in any other human cell, I should say there's 210 different cell types that are part of our body. No other cell has that kind of developmental potential. And so to me, it's not only the fact that it's genetically speaking as unique individually.


But it's that developmental potential that it has to become a fully formed human being in any point in time that you would draw a line and say, well, at this point, it's not the human person. And at that point, following that it is a human person is strictly speaking arbitrary. There's no, there's no scientific basis for any kind of line drawn in the sand.


So you have people at the most extreme like Peterson. Uh, who, uh, is a bioethicist at Princeton university. He's an atheist and he's considered to be one of the leading utilitarian thinkers in the world today. And his view is that that sentience self-awareness is actually the quality that makes. Uh, an entity, a person, and he argues that technically speaking, you could actually commit infanticide up to two years of age, because up to that point, that that child doesn't have.


Self-awareness it's it's it's not a sentience individual. 


Can I just intervene here and ask wouldn't that extend to, uh, people who, who are not necessarily self-aware because they have, uh, some kind of mental incapacity, um, would that happen? Like every Friday night at the bar down the street when people aren't self-aware I mean, where do you draw the line there?


Well, exactly. And again, you know, very good point because this justifies, you know, Peter singer is actually in favor of terminating, uh, the wives of individuals that suffer from severe disabilities because. That this is, they are living a life of undue pain and misery, or it justifies again, euthanasia. 


You know, that's really interesting when you think about that, because there have been, , many very famous, , disabled people who, without the aid of.


, electronic computer type driven devices. We would think that they were just sitting, you know, in the corner, , unable to interact with the world. And yet inside is brilliance. And you see that, , we've seen that with a lot of people, some very famous. That we may, we'll never meet that, , people who are on the spectrum who seemed to have no self-awareness and suddenly by interacting with computers, you can hear their beautiful voices.


You can hear , their interactive mind. So it's this, that statement while I'm no where near the brilliance, I would still challenge it , and say, that is one of the most arrogant statements. Ever heard because, you know, obviously he makes the cut, where do the rest of us? And then w w can you change that to say, well, if you're sentience and yet you're not woke, , when do we make it a potent political issue because everything's political, these, 


and part of the problem, part of the problem I have is I don't even know how to truly define what sentience is.


I mean, this is a real scientific struggle. Nobody can really define what it is or how do I measure it? How do I. That's someone is truly sentience or not, you know, and you know, if, if, if your two weeks before the cutoff point or you somehow not a person, but two weeks later, you. If 


it's strictly who's to say that the two year old or a one-year-old isn't sentient or aware, , just on a fundamental, basic level.


, that just sounds like, I guess I get back to arrogance. We know all. We have it all figured out. We've got this, , we've got all the science. There's nothing more to be learned. Just believe what we say. And, , this is what we now believe that. I mean, it just doesn't, it doesn't make sense to me.


I understand though. I don't mean to just be dismissive, Dr. Ron, I understand that. , they're trying to say that. , a child or a person or a disabled person, you know, they, they're not as aware as we are, but just sounds, I don't know. I'm trying to make excuses and be balanced, but it just sounds arrogant.


Well, I'm not doing my job today, 


, this is the outworking of essentially an evolutionary perspective worldview. 


Boom. 


Exactly. Because again, if you don't think human beings have inherent worth and value, If you think we're no different than any other creature, then you can come in as a person that is in power and you can put in place these arbitrary, you know, sets a delineators as to when somebody should be afforded human rights.


And when somebody shouldn't, but if you take a Christian worldview or you say every human being bears God's image, every human being has intrinsic worth and value. And suddenly dignity is afforded to every human being, regardless of. Functionality or capability because they are image bearers, they have inherent worth and value.


Or if you, you know, you think about this idea that you know, that the Psalmus writes about that you, you knit me together in my mother's womb or that I'm fearfully and wonderfully made that even at the very beginning of our existence is individual. God is individuals. God is there, you know, essentially present.


Giving incredible worth and value interacting with us at the very point that, that our wives begin. And so this view is going to place a very high value on human life and in a very high, you know, dignity to individuals who, who no longer are capable of functioning, but it's also going to, you know, really afford protection to, you know, to the unborn.


Yeah, 


fascinating how that works when you walk through it and you look at these two worldviews that we presented, you're talking about right now, FAS a worldview of the. Veneration of life. They appreciation of life. There's a beauty to that. There's a preciousness. Every life is precious, every life matters.


, and yeah, it matters once they've been born to, you know, that's one of the big arguments is for people who are. Anti-abortion , where do you care afterwards? Well, if they don't then yeah, there were their worldviews being messed up too. They're not being consistent. I get it. I'm with you on that, but there's a preciousness.


On, on the other hand, you have this disregard for human life. I mean, can you imagine taking, and it's happened a few times before in history, even in biblical history, taking all the kids under, , under the age of two and just putting them through. It's happened before on wide scale, you know, it's as though there's nothing new under the sun and we're just saying, yeah, that's fine.


Whatever. They're not sending you. They're not real people. It doesn't matter. Take that suckling baby from a mama and say that life doesn't matter that life doesn't have meaning. You just see the breakdown now wonder we can easily kill each other. We can talk to each other, like, like with such distain and hate on social media.


I mean, it just continues to, to be an outpouring of our worldviews. 


Yeah. And that's a very, very strong point. And you know, this is, I'm going to say something that's going to be a little controversial as somebody who holds her from life perspective. But you know, on one hand I'm thrilled to death with.


The, the abortion legislation in Texas that has been an active, you know, and I'm thrilled that the Supreme court, you know, on the fog to 40 vote, refuse to, to block the enforcement of the law. So I, I consider that to be a huge victory and I'm not a legal or political scholar, but, you know, I understand that, you know, there's a genius illegal genius to the way that legislation was crafted, you know, but to me, I, I am concerned about that legislation.


In this sense. I think there's a fundamental flaw in the reasoning behind that legislation, uh, scientifically and philosophically, because it essentially says that at the point that a heartbeat is detected, you know, abortion can no longer take place. But what you've done is you've said that you've created functionality as the delineator for when that, that, that, um, Child is actually considered a person, which means prior to six weeks, that that unborn child is not afforded protection.


Right. And it's because we we've used functionality, you know, and there's already people from a scientific perspective, challenging the legislation saying that, technically speaking at that point in time, it's actually not truly a heartbeat. It's just electrical activity. In myocytes that make up the heart tube.


It's only several weeks away later that you actually have valves and chambers and actually a rudimentary circulatory 


system. And then it gets into the debate of when is a heartbeat, when does a heartbeat heartbeat? This is, it's kind of not, it's interesting that you say that's your issue with it. I have a completely different issue with it.


That goes to me, it goes back to worldview as well is the brown shirt. You can, anyone can report it. You know, people looking over the fence and going, oh, I wonder who's having an abortion over there. Uh, you know, that's just, it plays into a disregard or disrespect and, and, uh, let's turn people in if they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing.


Um, that's one of the problems that I have with it, but I think that. It opening up this conversation again on abortion is important because you can be in favor of choice. I mean, nobody wants to see a woman and, and let's, let's just be honest. There's a lot of people who get abortions and, and go like, it's an abortion spa, you know, oh, I got an abortion.


Um, and then now I'm going to get my nails done. But the vast majority in reality are women who are faced with impossible. Situations, um, heartbreaking circumstances, um, financial devastation and wondering how can I do this? And so I don't want to just take abortion lightly. Um, I don't mind talking about the viability or the, the, uh, Of a couple of cells being, being live.


I don't mind talking about that because I find that to be true. But what is also true is the struggle of women, the struggle, uh, in, in our very fallen world, um, their lives matter to your life matters. If you're struggling with this issue, your life definitely matters. But sweetheart, as you're making this.


Choice. If you don't really understand if you're not given all of the information, if you're not looking at it in a. Okay, this is a human life, and I'm willing to take one that you have to live with those consequences that comeback we've seen in study after study and testimony after testimony, they come back and haunt you in many, many ways.


We're not giving you a choice because you're not giving, getting all the information in our society. And that's why this is important to your. Matters your life is precious. Your decisions matter, too. If you're going to make a choice, have all the information, or it's not a choice. It's coercion it's, um, it's, uh, jumping in and doing something and making a short-term solution to a long-term.


Issue. So, uh, having said that I'll get off my soap box and I want to get back into some of the issues surrounding what we do know now about life, because it really does matter. And having a worldview, not just an appreciation for life, but the worldview that says, Hey, there is a God and God. Cares. And he has a plan for you matters, um, fuzz.


This is where we get really personal, because this is a really personal issue. So forgive me, we've been friends and we've worked together a long time, so you'll indulge me. I'm sure. But my first born child, my son was a product of David's. And at that point, uh, at a very young age, that's where people say, you know, this is going to affect me for the rest of my life.


I'm going to be cursed with a child that I'm going to look at and see a violent act. And I want to tell you in my world, in my life, um, I chose his life. And that was the most wonderful thing I've ever done. I've never been more blessed than most precious, wonderful child something. So beautiful came out of something.


So heinous and I had to trust that. That God would help me and protect me and, uh, helped me. I couldn't even keep a plant alive. What the heck am I doing? Having a baby? Um, and somehow by the grace of God, he turned out to be, uh, my Magnum Opus, you know, a work of art, a, um, incredible human being. So. Yeah, I know.


I like to get kind of real because what's the point of being a talking head, but I don't want to tell you as you're going through issues and you're watching, I've walked that road too. I've had to make that decision myself. Um, and I want to tell you that if your worldview can, Tanes a living God who values life and how use you then you know that he's got you.


So. 


Well, you know, I appreciate you very much sharing that. That's well, that, that's an incredible story of, of really of redemption and this, again, circles back to this idea, we're talking about where, you know, worldview matters and in our origin story, it really matters because if we, as human beings are created in God's image, it means we're created to be in a relationship with God.


And yet we live in a world. Where we are alienated and distant from God we're alienated and distant from one another. And it's because of sin because as human beings, our tendencies to rebel against God. And yet this is the, the beauty of the gospel is even when we were, you know, uh, at odds with God, God was still reaching out to us and offering us hope and salvation, you know, through the person of Christ and the sacrifice on the cross.


I think a part of the gospel that we tend to, to overlook is th the redemptive power of God, you know, not only are we redeemed out of our sin, but the worst circumstances in our lives God can use and redeem them and out of what was an horrendous act of evil. Unbelievable, good can come in, you know, and, and this is the thing that amazes me time and time again.


Stories like yours, where it's just like out of the darkest point in a person's life that not only is there a glimmer of hope, but that there's this incredible flood of, of, of sunlight into the situation from God. And what, you know, again was, was evil, was dark. God turns into something of incredible beauty and, and that's the power of the gospel.


And that I think is what people are losing out. When they embrace it, a worldview that, that really denigrates and undermine. Human worth and value. 


How interesting we started out with talking about society and how society is losing out because of our collective worldview. Society is missing out on the value of life and we see it played out.


In every news story and battled out, because I think we have a sense of what life really is inside of us. I think we really do. And that's why, uh, we, we care so much on one end and then we seem to not, you know, it breaks down because of our worldview. So we talked about it on a big scale, and now you're saying, you know what?


It really matters in. Individual life in your individual circumstance where you are right now, what you're struggling with, what seems overwhelming, what is the burden of your heart, or even the guilt of, of decisions you've made in the past? All of those things are, um, changed at the foot of the cross.


That's pretty powerful. And here, you know, that's, that's fundamental. It's the illogical it's, um, empowering, but this is a science show. So it's, it's amazing how science can lead to conclusions like this. 


Well, you know, th the, the God who is the creator is also the God who is the Redeemer. In many respects.


You know, I would think that that not only should science reveal God's fingerprints to us, but when we look at the way the world works, I think there's even redemptive analogies within the creation. But so this idea of God, the creator and the Redeemer is, is inseparable. And so science should lead us ultimately to the foot of the cross.


Well, that's where we're at right now, the foot of the cross. Um, even as we're talking science, the, the origins of the world, the origins of you, your worldview matters a worldview without God. If there really is a God. A worldview without God breaks down really, really quickly, so much so that you need to shut out other information and not let it challenge your worldview because otherwise you're going to be faced with one that breaks down.


But if you come to a place where you're brave and you say, you know what, let's investigate it for no other reason just to prove it wrong. Boring it, God says, come let us reason together. He's not afraid of the challenge. Bring that challenge, investigate it for yourself. See if what we're saying is real is true and how that works in your cert situation, in your circumstance, in your worldview and how that plays out in the world around you.


It's worth investigating. To give you some aid that they give you some help. I would suggest going to reason's dot org. There are a lot of fascinating articles. There's many things you can learn. There's a lot of things that I go. Yeah. There's things I go, oh, no about that. But that's where you're allowed to ask those questions.


Incredible books. I, I have not read a book that has the last name Ronna on it. The first part, Dr. Phys, uh, Dr. Fazel, Rhonda, um, that I haven't been just fascinated by taking science to a whole new level. A spiritual level is pretty exciting. So, Dr. Ron, thank you very much once again for joining us. Thanks for all that you do there@reasons.org, go buy some books, uh, look up some articles and I hope we get to talk with you again.


Soon thing. 


Well, thanks for having me, Michelle. It's always fun.


more, Sci-Tech 


talk@mymichellewives.com

IS THE ARK STORY A MYTH?

It's the, my mission live podcast, 


my Michelle lime side tech doc taking the God's story to a geeky place. Here's Michelle.


Thank you. Big voice guy. That's kind of funny taking the gods. To a geeky place. Yeah, I guess we kind of are look, um, this is an interesting topic that we're taking on today. My Michelle live delves into science on Tuesdays and we'll do news and views, entertainment, sports, and so many other things. But our stint is looking for the God's story.


Is there a God, if there is, can we really see signs of him and what does he expect of us? Right. Right now we're in the midst of a global panic, a global crisis. You may say. And it's not really the first time, right? I mean, the world's seen catastrophes. It has seen plagues before, uh, There is however, this story, and it's usually told to kids and it's painted in cute little boats and animals pairing up and walking into the arc.


It's interesting. It's always been a little interesting to me that what could be considered the most. Devastating global catastrophe is something that we put in cute little banners and posters and kids' rooms. Um, you know, this is, this is a catastrophe, the arc Noah's arc. Now critics claim that there are major problems with taking the Noah's Ark.


Story, literally, you know, getting all of those animals on a boat, God killing off most of mankind. Nice. And even deeper. We're going to talk about. This story. If the Bible doesn't even get it right, what else can you not trust? I mean, what can you trust the Bible on? And that comes down to something. We talk about a lot, your worldview, your worldview matters, but if your worldview is built on something, that's just not right.


Well, you might want to examine your worldview, right? There's a new story as well. That. Leads credence to the critics that the Bible borrowed this idea of an arc from a Greek legend. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about with some of the problems with the arc are. We're going to ask the hard questions.


If you, um, if you're a believer, if you've got faith, then don't be afraid to have that faith challenge, because if God's God, he can take the heat. Uh, and I'm going to say that my guest Bodie Hodge probably agrees with me. God can take the heat Bodie, right? 


Yeah, I sure can. That's not a problem for no power for going.


I don't think God has lost an argument yet. 


Well, we're going to, we're going to give him a, what we would hope a run for his money. I don't think God will all be altered, but you know, for those of you who, um, have been considering, is there a gun. This Noah's story is an well, it's an issue. A Bodhi Hodge joins us today.


And let me just give you a little background into our friend here. He is an author. He's a speaker he's on staff at answers in Genesis, intimately involved in the creation museum, where they even have. AHRQ encounter. So who better to take this issue on with he's the author of some pretty spectacular books.


In fact, one comes to mind Bodhi, uh, attacks on biblical truth. Um, you're not a stranger to taking on some of the hard questions. So I'm delighted that you could be here to. 


It's great to be back on with you kind of exciting. Actually, I love the topic that you've got today, so pretty excited. 


You know, this is one of the biggest.


Uh, laugh at the Bible stories and, you know, scarf at the Bible stories. That's out there. Noah's Ark. And now, uh, there's been talk and there's been writings about Noah's Ark, actually just being borrowed. Like everything else comes, seems to come from a Greek, something from the Greek word, from the Greek tradition.


And now, you know, even the Bibles borrowing from Greek, come on. 


Uh, you know, if people would actually do their research for 30 minutes, they'd be able to realize that that's not the case. You know what I mean? I oftentimes hear that, oh, well the Bible borrows from the Greek. So the ancient Mary, so the Egyptians, but really what it is is these guys have accounts of the flood.


These guys have accounts of a Noah figure and we expect to find out that's actually a good confirmation of. The difference is the Bible records the true account by the power of the holy spirit, Moses. Now what happened? How is it that the Greeks have an account or the Babylonians have an account of the Chinese?


You're always people all over the world actually have these accounts. Well it's because the actual event did happen. And as it passed down through all these different generations, All of these different cultures. Well, of course, they're going to have a flood legend. The difference is they're not going to get it right.


They're going to substitute different names or mountains or places where they live. Uh, they're going to mess up the account. They're not going to get the shape of the art quite right now. They might be able to retain certain details here and there, but they're not going to have the true account. 


All right.


Uh, Bodhi. I think that is a fascinating idea because if the Bible is true, what you're saying makes perfect sense. But what proof do we have of that? Um, now I would add to the argument when. The Greeks, aren't the only society with an account of a catastrophe involving a world flooding and the salvation of mankind through a unique means.


Yeah, that's exactly right. In fact, uh, you know, for years I would say that there was somewhere in the neighborhood of at least 300 flood legends around the world in different cultures. Now I've been working with an expert, uh, Nicola gory NYCLA gory has been trying to document every single flood legend in the world.


And he has published his first volume. It's called echoes of air rock. So I'm going to kind of show you this book Echos of Ararat now this first volume just looks at north and south America and there are over 300, 400. Just in north and south America. So that's not even getting to Europe or Africa or Asia or all these other places where we already know that there's, there's, uh, quite a few in those places as well.


So he's working on all those now. That's pretty exciting. Now I actually wrote a book. Now, this one here, you know, I mean, he, it's a beautiful book. He's done all these different accounts and, and runs through him, you know, ever so briefly sometimes. Now I did one that was actually more for families. A lot of fun.


One. Now it's called the flood of Noah. I'm going to show that one up here, just a little bit. Laura Welsh. And I put this one together. Uh, bill Looney did the illustrations and it is a fascinating book to get to see all these different accounts it's got flips and, uh, opens all these different names for Noah, all these different names for Noah's wife, I and all of these different cultures.


And it is a fascinating research. So I absolutely love looking at this kind of thing. Do I expect to see the Greeks high one? Yeah, I sure do. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if there's several different Greek ones floating around out there, but one of them definitely hit the news here recently. 


Yes it did.


And, and yeah. I'm going to just tell you one of my pet peeves of the re recent maybe decade is that when something hits the news, uh, back in my day, when I first started broadcasting, it was such a badge of honor when they didn't know where you stood on an issue where you research the issue to make sure that it was true.


And you looked for the counterpoints and to see if there's more information out there to lead to the story. Now it's just about get it, report it, get it on, make it sensational. If it bleeds, it leads and then move on to something else without any accountability. And we've seen that a lot, uh, throughout this pandemic, especially.


Yeah. In fact, you, you nailed the right word. They're sensational. They want to be able to sell magazines or sell, uh, you know, time on the internet. You know, it's, it's kind of money driven. So they want the sensational headline. They want to be able to grab people and then move on. They go to the next sensation.


Yeah. So you're right. You know, a lot of people, they don't report the way they should report. And one of the things that I like to do, and I know a lot of different researchers here at answers in Genesis, we want to go back, let's go back and look at these original accounts. Let's, let's analyze a little bit further.


Let's go into the details about it and let's look at it a little bit better. And let's, let's have an honest assessment of what we've got here, whether it's a flood legend, whether it's an account of the tower of Babel or, or whatever it might be, let's document it and let's try to do it right. 


Well, let's take on.


For the sake of argument. I am absolutely going to ask these questions because yeah, I want to know. And again, this is important beyond just a story in the Bible. This goes down to worldview. If the Bible can't be trusted on there was arc, then what else? Can't it be trusted on? Maybe it has some nice little antidotes and that can make us feel good or have some really good ideas, but so do a lot of other things.


But if it is indeed. Define even what modern critics would say then like all the other truths that seem to come exploding out of the Bible in science, you've got to go, wait, there's something going on here. There's something deeper. So taking on some of the, the, the criticism of the story, um, number two in importance, Bodhi.


I think it's really important in this age that we learn to question, we have surrendered our, our ability to question and said, well, we're just going to trust that, that guy's gonna tell us the truth. You know, if God says, come let us reason together, test me, try me, prove me. If God's not afraid of question, then by golly, there better not be.


Standing today that says, Nope, just take my word for it. This was, this was it. And we, we shouldn't be afraid to question. So question number one, Mr. Bodie Hodge. The arc was, was built and the Bible accounts that there was no rain, right. It was like, whoa, what's the stuff falling from the sky. That seems a little bit unlikely.


Now we do know that the Bible says that there was a cloud covering over the earth. And so there may have been differing conditions over the earth, from what we know in science. Can you. Can you shore up that, that idea that, that there was a cloud covering that somehow they broke and there was rain for the first time.


Well, you know, I know different creationists actually debate over that particular subject. Was there rain before the flood was or not? There's there, there's actually a lot of Christians on both sides of that. I think there's a lot of confusion over because in Genesis chapter two, I want, it's looking back on the account of creation and it's talking about, um, you know, the original perfect creation.


You know, there was no rain at that point. Uh, there was no one to work the field. Uh, the waters came up out of the ground and was watering yet a little Springs things like. Now the, the problem is, is some people take that and they presume that moved forward, just because we don't see any examples of the Bible talking about rain until the time of the flood.


Although we had to be very careful of that. Um, because remember there was no man to work the ground either, and yet we know that God created Adam and he made he. And so then they move forward. They're able to work that ground now. So there were some changes going on from Genesis chapter two, we have the fall in Genesis chapter three, where God first.


So things change. So there might've actually been rained before the flood, but definitely not rain. Like what we saw right here at the flood. This was, uh, it, it was a different word that they actually use for the daily, which, I mean, this is, this is something massive. It's not used elsewhere in the old Testament.


I live in Seattle. So understanding a dozen different words for Ray, honey, you got me. I get it. 


I'm telling you. Oh my. But yeah, I mean, with the flood, this was some serious rain. The Springs of the great deep burst forth, the windows of heaven were opened up, you know, Uh, you know, massive amounts of clouds that could be figured, or they end up people still debate over that one as well.


But either way it was random, like what we would say, cats and dogs. And it did it for a long time. Uh, you know, we have the 40 days and nights, that's really just the initial rain and the flood. That's when the park raises up on those 40 days. And then the rain continues all the way up to the 150 a day.


That's. First stop that rain. And we see that prevailing stage of a flood started to come around and go the other direction. So, yeah, it was a massive. Um, you know, we actually find an incredible amount of evidence for the flood out of all these different aspects, uh, and elements throughout the Bible. The flood is probably the one that we have arguably the most evidence for.


And here's why I say, 


are you kidding me? Come on. You know, this is one of the most disputed, one of the biggest stories that people say, you know, there was a. Story done Bible, not true. Move on next. And you're telling me the arc a story and, uh, has more evidence than pretty much anything else. 


Hmm. Yeah.


Here's why, here's why I'm going to say that. Bring it rock layers that contain fossils. The vast majority of those are from the flood of Noah's day. And we're in a culture where people don't realize that. So they're looking at all this other walking around on this evidence, they're digging in it, the coal that we dig out of the ground, this was from the flood of Noah's day.


These rock layer, some pain brand, literally all the way up to things like the Eocene and the Maya Miocene. These were laid down in the flood of Noah's. They know it's floating around, up above it. When these rock layers are being laid down. So we find these, all of the worlds, some of them are mild. It's all over the place.


And that is evidence of the flood of Noah says that's what we expect to find in a, in a worldwide global flood over the course of about a year, we expect to find billions of dead things buried in rock clutters, laid down by water over there. So boom, there it is. It's right there. We're walking around 


and yet we have attributed that to some kind of global devastation.


We don't know what could it be? You know, part of the ice age, could it have been part of, uh, uh, meteors hitting the earth? Uh, you know, what happened to the dinosaurs? Uh that's uh, Interesting question. Um, could a global flood have wiped out the dinosaurs and why didn't the dinosaurs, uh, make it through Noah's arc?


You know, he was like, yeah, no dinosaurs. I mean, was that like speciesism? We don't like, we don't take your case. 


Well, here's the thing. All the land dwelling, everything animals died by the a hundred and 50th day, the flood. So I mean, these, they were all of that. All the dinosaurs were running around at that point.


They're dead. They're laid down in rock layers. We named those three rock layers, Cretaceous, Triassic, Jurassic rock. So that's where those are pretty much buried. Now we're dinosaurs onboard Noah's Ark. Yes, they were. Now I know as soon as I say that, probably have listeners out there going, okay. Dinosaur Noah living at the same time, let's back up for just a moment.


Dinosaurs are land animals. They were made on the sixth day of creation. Not a problem for an all powerful God man was made it on the sixth day. So they lived at the same time. That's a new idea to a lot of people, because most people like me went through a state school system. We'd been to the secular museums.


We've watched the secular videos that are all over the internet or that we were shown in schools that told us that gun stores that out millions of years ago. So those are actually competing worldviews. They're two different worldviews. I want people to realize we're looking at the same evidence. We'll look at it.


The same model. The differences, the interpretation of those rock flyers, those rock layers were laid out in time of the flood. Yes. The dinosaurs that were land dwelling, everything they were on board. The art, uh, Noah most likely took the juveniles, the smaller ones. They easily fit on board. If you do the calculations, they came off the Ark and they've died out for the same reasons that everything else was done.


I have 


a question as well. Now there have been beyond creationists. There have been secular scientists that have said that the atmosphere of the earth has changed and its development. And, and thus there is evidence of what's called gigantic racism. Um, I'd like your thoughts on that because gigantism, is this idea that things were bigger back then?


For some reason, if yeah, there you go. Just like bow day. Um, and let's just reference the Bible. If man lived to be nine freaking hundred years old, then. Live to be hundreds and hundreds of years old. And interestingly enough, when you're looking at a certain species, they never stopped growing through their development.


So that gives an interesting look into not only, uh, dinosaurs, but an understanding. Of maybe them being interactive with man. That's the first question. And the second part is, yeah, but we know, we know that man and dinosaurs didn't co-exist 


okay, well, let's go to that first one when it comes to gigantism.


Okay. We have, we have all sorts of examples of different creatures that live pretty good size. In fact, the largest creature that ever lived currently lives today. And that's the blue whale, you know, that's a massive preacher, but we do see some pretty big, we see big dragonflies, we see large mammals summer, uh, almost the size of like a Volkswagen beetle.


You know, some of these, uh, just different mammals that you would not expect to be that big dinosaurs are a great example of that. And you know, what thing is going back closer to a perfect world. Um, you know, we expect things to work a little bit better. Their genetics were probably better. They could handle perhaps more variability before the flood, after the flood.


We only had a limited number and only a certain number of those genetic traits survived through the flood, onboard the arc. So, you know, we might have more limitations. Um, you know, you're right. There are certain animals, certain species that I think have a lot of reptiles, you know, they'll just grow throughout the duration of their whole life.


You know, if they lived a lot longer than. So, you know, there is that possibility on certain creatures as well, but you know, it comes down to genetics and genetic bottlenecks. Now think of something else. Now, dragonflies are a good example. You know, some of these dragonflies, I mean, they're, they're literally like huge they're they're they were big in the fossil record.


We actually have an example of one here at the creation museum on display. So I look at that and I'm like, okay, I'm used to these little dragonflies, but here's something to think about, you know, the world before the flood in the world, after the flood, we're very. Hm, the world before the flood was a lot warmer people.


You know, if you think about Adam and Eve, God told them to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and they didn't work clothes. They should have been able to fill the whole earth, their descendants without wearing any clothes. That's a lot better climate if you just think about it. So even after the curse, um, you know, the world was more conducive to a better.


Now we have what we call more extreme. So we know a lot more high mountains. Things have shifted around continence and shifted, and now we get more extremes, a lot more cold, a lot more, uh, super hot dry areas, things like that. We're much more limited, uh, to a certain degree. Now think of something like that.


Dragon. Nothing comes off. It needs to grow really big before it lays eggs. Guess what winter is going to come before it gets a chance to mature to be able to lay those? Eh, so the ones that are going to survive are going to be the ones that are smaller, that get to a big enough size to lay their eggs, to keep going the bigger ones aren't going to survive before it gets cold in a lot of areas.


So you can just see how some of that gigantic cause can actually be removed from the genetic population. But even after the flood, we do see examples of some giant creatures. You know, there were some pretty good size mammas, uh, think of Goliath. Um, you know, I mean, there were, there were, uh, a lot of giants in the land of Canaan, uh, even Moses be noted that, that way of the land of giants.


So, I mean, we even see it within the human population to a certain degree as well. Okay. Let's move on to the second question. Cause that's the big one, humans and dinosaurs, uh, you know, I actually wrote a whole chapter on, did humans and dinosaurs live. And of course, when you start with God's word, they were both made on the sixth day.


That's not a problem. Now we see a lot of confirmations of that. In fact, the word dinosaur, a lot of people don't realize this dinosaur is a new word. It actually defines dinosaurs in a particular way. They are land reptiles that have one of two hips structures so that it raises its body up off the ground.


So if it spans on rents than it is a dinosaur, that's why things like crocodile. Uh, they're not considered dinosaurs because their likes come out to the side and their belly naturally in the ground. So dinosaurs are uniquely defined, but it's a new word. Nobody would use the word dinosaur until about the 1840s and the 1840s.


That's when they came up with, it means terrifying or terrible lizard. But what were dinosaurs called before that in cultures all over the world, what will they have been called? If somebody would have seen one, what would they call it? Well, the most common answer is dragon. Dragon is an ancient name. We even find, uh, uh, the word dragon is in the king, James old Testament, 22 times.


It's in the old Geneva Bible 24 times. So it's all over back there. Uh, it's two different words with, uh, Hebrew translators into English or various languages translate to 


culturally. We see the word dragon threw out many, many completely separate cultures. 


Absolutely all over the place from China. Uh, south America, we see it in the middle east.


We see it in Europe, it's all over the place. Uh, we see examples of these creatures being considered real creatures, right alongside other creatures, ancient flag of Wales. They still use it today, has a dragon on it. Uh, the old Chinese flag had a dragon hunting. It's more of a long slender dragon. There they're different dragons, but they were still a dragon, uh, creatures.


Yeah, you could just call it a, a dress. So, I mean, yeah, we see a lot of examples of this throughout history, where they were recorded, uh, either as a petroglyph or a scientist is analyzed it, or it's mentioned right. There might be other creatures where these creatures looked a lot, like what we would call dinosaurs if people had drawn.


Okay. And, and I have come across in my years, so. Really stunning, uh, hard. You can put your hand on that evidence. And I remember, I think it was around 2005 when, uh, Mary Schweitzer of North Carolina state university found collagen fibers in Fossella in a fossilized leg bone. And I, I want to say it was from a T Rex.


So I seem to remember it was by accident that they, that they had a T-Rex bone. And it, they couldn't get it out of the site, so they had to break it and then breaking it. They saw, you know, this is soft tissue. And so they're stuck. How could soft tissue be in something that is, you know, millions and millions and millions of years old, uh, could T-Rex have been.


Existing, uh, in the time of man, I mean, this is like, wow. Tell me from, from a scientific point of view, now, the Michele point of view, what this means, 


right? You would've thought those researchers would have said, wow, maybe this thing isn't as old as I've been led to believe, but they didn't do that instead.


They just like, oh, wow. I guess red blood cells. And this soft tissue really can last 65 to 68 million years. You know, a lot of people now have cracked open dinosaur bones. I know some creationists that cracked open a, a triceratops whore, and they found soft tissue in there as well. They even found crystal and material inside of a vein.


I mean, it's just incredible, uh, you know, thinking about that from a biblical viewpoint, it makes sense of this. If these things were buried a matter of thousands of years ago in the. And uh, with the conditions the way they weren't. Yeah. I can reserve some of that sort of stuff and we can still have it to this day of the last 65 million years.


I mean, that's just, it's almost incomprehensible to think that something like that can last, uh, one of the things that Mary Schweitzer described, you know, it was, you know, they could actually smell it. It gave off a smell, which indicated that it was. That's not something I want to smell. 


I'll take her word for it.


It was off it out or so, um, you know, it goes to show, you know, something was going on there a little bit more than what they thought. 


All right, whatever your worldview is. Um, if you are really going to take this, that idea on scientifically, it is best served that you really open up and say, okay, what could it be?


I mean, even at, if you're going to be. Honest creationist. You have to look at the evidence and say, well, could this be, you know, you know, does the Bible really line up when you do that? As you mentioned, you know, God hasn't won a lost an argument yet God has not lost an argument yet. You're just, you can't be afraid of that because you want to know that what you stand on is a solid.


From foundation. One other issue, before I ask you another hard question where they arcs concern Bodhi is, uh, have we not found fossils, uh, of, uh, or imprints of dinosaurs and humans next to each? Is, is that a myth or is that a truth? 


You know, I'm actually studying that right now because I'm working on a book where I'm dealing with a lot of those subjects and, you know, it's almost like you're preempting me.


Um, but you know, there there's been over different 20 different trackways where people have claimed that there is some sort of a human or a dinosaur footprint they're in the same layer. Now, as we look at that, most of those examples, I don't give a lot of credence to, I just want, I want people to understand that writeup.


Uh, there are a few that are kind of disputed, but there are some, that's definitely not a, one of the things that we've seen. Uh, you know, there was a famous track way down in Texas down the flexi river. I've actually been down to the site and, you know, there's some that kind of looks like human footprints and some dinosaur footprints in there.


Now, those human looking footprints. Okay. You kind of look at this in the mud. I said what he wrote, it would rewrote into a three code. So, what you were seeing was this three toed, dinosaur stepping into the mud, pulling out and keep going. And you're seeing the upper part of the leg better. And that kind of resemble the human corporates.


Uh, stuff like that. So what I would encourage people to do whenever it comes to any of those types of trackways, that really needs to be researched, that needs to be documented in a peer review process that people battle it out and do it right before we jump all over it. The Bible 


says as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.


I quote that a lot in this age because we. Act as though science is settled in some ways. And then other ways it's like, well, you're not, you're a science denier, you know, stop it. Just debate it out. It's fine. Because in doing that, you, you really do get to the truth. Thank you for doing. Thank you because, uh, you know, it doesn't feel right to me to hear someone talk about, well, the Bible is true and you know, I heard this story and so it becomes sensationalism or two coin not to coin to use a coin phrase, fake news.


And so that's not something we want to do. So I want to ask another question of the improbability of the arc. It's a desert area. People say, you know, where'd they find all of this gopher wood come on. 


Okay. We got think before the flood is a lot different than after the flood. So, you know, when we look in the middle east, you know, it landed in the mountains of error, but not necessarily now air rat, but then people are arguing over what is Mount air rat.


There's ancient mountains called Mount air. That's different than what we told them on the earth today, but that's a different discussion, but the point is before the flood, it was. There's a lot more wood. Um, it's much more lush, like set Adam and Eve originally. I should've been able to fill the whole earth without wearing any clothes.


So it was probably a much better climate altogether. Now go for one. What exactly is. Oh, well, I guess you could go for wood, right? I mean, that's the joke. We all throw out there, right? It's probably an old joke, but, uh, go for what, you know, people debate it. Is it a particular type of a tree, you know, think of a Walnut tree or an Oak tree is a particular type.


Where is it the way the wood was work? You know, we have Prestwood and plywood, things like that. A lot of researchers think go for what is a way that it was processed and put together a number of ancient ships that we pulled out of Mediterranean sea. They had these processing methods. That was absolutely incredible.


It blows our mind looking at it today. Like, wow, that was pretty, pretty incredible. The way they did that. We lost a lot of that technology over the years, but where did these ancients get that? Uh, ORC researcher, Tim love it. He's one of them that helped design the Ark counter and the design that we have today, he did a lot of ancient ship research.


And one of the things he suggested was, well, no, a live 350 years after the flood shin with 600 years, 500 of those years after the flood. So they were alive for a long time to pass on incredible ship building techniques. And so he's thinking they passed on some of those techniques to some of these early.


And that's why some of these ancients had some pretty incredible, uh, ways of working the wood and he thought, well, maybe that reflects the way it was done in Noah's Ark. And there's a lot of truth to that that sure is possible. So I think, uh, I would probably lean more in the direction of the way the wood was processed, as opposed to particular.


But I don't think there would have been a problem finding any of it. There's probably plenty of wood around. 


Yeah. We make this. It's almost, it's a little bit embarrassing when we make these overreaching. Well, you know, it's a desert area. You're not going to find w you know, to, to think that the world has not changed.


And, you know, almost, you know, 6,000 years, um, is, is a bit naive. Uh, but isn't it also a bit naive to think that you could. Every species of animal on the Ark. I mean, the dimensions alone is one of the biggest critics of how all these animals bid on the arc. And I love asking you this question because it's like, yeah, I've heard it like a billion times.


Um, 


I I've heard it so much. I know Ken ham has heard it so much that that's actually one of the chapters in our book, the flood of evidence. Um, we actually did corny chapters. And so one of those chapters actually goes through how'd you fit those animals on board, the yard. And there's first off, let me clarify, clarify a couple of misconceptions that people have.


Uh, the way we define animals today are our species. Okay. Species, the way it's defined today as a modern mess up, there's actually a huge problem called the species problem mountains. Uh, for example, uh, there's a whole bunch of dogs, species. We've got Wolf species, coyote, species dingoes. Okay. But all of these dogs can also be interbreed with each other, which means technically there's only one con.


Now notice I use the word kind versus a word species. Yes. Okay. The Bible uses the word kindness. The Hebrew word means. Basically as a rule of thumb, if animals can breed together, they're part of the same kind. So Noah only required two dogs on board, the art, not all these, what we call species today of different dogs.


Those two dogs come off the arc as they go around to different parts of the world. Their genetic information is filtered and we define them as a red Wolf or a coyote or a Dingo or a domestic dog or whatnot. Um, but yeah, he only needed to onboard. So we're not taking all of these, what we call modern day species on board, the art we're taking all of the original kinds.


Now I know there might be Spanish listeners out there, the word in Spanish for kind as the words, peace. So that really confuses them because there's the modern name species. And then there's the Hebrew word mean, which says translated to species and a lot of Spanish Bibles. So also in the Latin book, Uh, but those are basically two different definitions of the word species in case we have people listening on that one, uh, just to clarify, but you know, if you actually do the research on the kinds they would fit easily onboard the art.


Can you take two of each kind seven of the cleaning type, take those on board, the art. In fact, based on the dimensions of Noah's Ark, based on the research we did down at the Ark encounter, all the animals in their cages would have fit on just one of the three decks onboard. So there's plenty of space to hold what needed to be on.


Okay. So let's reiterate that, um, when we're looking at kinds, uh, recently there was a study and, uh, articles written on the species within talking about regressive DNA within kinds that show that, um, uh, One type of dog, uh, could, uh, has, are, has all of the makeup of all the other kinds. And then, uh, they environment micro evolution changes within time, uh, develop.


And so we have, we have coyotes, we have. Chihuahuas, which some don't even consider dogs, but we won't go into that. I'm sorry to all owners. They could be precious. I get it. Yeah. Perch, pooches. Um, there lies within our, that DNA that the ability for expansion, which I think. A brilliant design feature because that gives you adaptability, not being doomed to, okay.


I'm a hairless Chihuahua and you know, the climates of the earth or my environment has changed. Well, that's just, it I'm done. We have the ability to, to change. And I think that's spectacular. We see that, that ability. So within that, based on modern science, you're saying that. Just having two of each kind, uh, is absolutely plenty to replenish.


So I think that's one of the biggest 


arguments. So it'd be enough to replenish all these different kinds, uh, you know, on the earth after. You know, there's considerable variability within those genetics. There's also, you know, the ways you can turn on and off certain genes and things of that, that trigger certain things.


Some are dominant, some are recessive. So there's a lot of things going on in there to give a lot of variability. Um, it's, it's a fascinating subject actually, when you think about it, because yes, God designed these original creatures to be able to survive in the world. He knew there was going to be a fun.


He knew they'd have to survive it and come up. Um, you know, so that's not a problem for an all powerful God, it'll be able to record it in such a way. Um, now also keep in mind though, too, that God is the one who designed the original environment. And even after the flood, through the flood, God is still involved in designing those environments.


So, you know, there's a lot of aspects that sometimes people want to leave God out of. But now God has been intimately involved on both sides of that equation. So that's pretty fascinating. 


I like it. So, uh, we're going to go into part two of our interview with Bodie Hodge, as we talk about the likeability or the, the, uh, of Noah's Ark to kids, but the, uh, in compatibility with science, we're seeing that.


It's not. So if you missed part one, you may, we talked about. Uh, we just got through talking about the likes of, uh, kinds of animals that within animals, there's the ability for dogs to, uh, mutate or to become into, uh, wolves or, uh, sheep dogs. And so having those kinds, it's very easy to see how. It's from that point of view, how all of the animals could fit on the arc.


We've talked about changes in the environment and even, uh, signs throughout many, many hundreds of accounts in other cultures of the arc. Uh, and as we're talking about the arc, even the, uh, availability of wood, well changes that have been even documented through science and the earth kind of account for what could be desert today.


Wasn't it. They've been flourishing once we know that we see that account biblically with Israel, I'm going to ask you what you have found in your years of, of study and your experience with VR. What are some of the most powerful criticisms? The ones that you went? Whoa, that's interesting. Let's dig into that.


Well, you know, years ago, I would say the number one argument people wanted to bring against the. I was trying to fit all those animals on one of the arc. And I know we've talked about that a little bit, but let me go back historically. Uh, because you know, researchers have studied this subject for a long time.


Now with the Ark encounter, of course, we dove into it in a detail that I think very few have ever really done, but a you go back in the past, there was a researcher named John Woodman Rappi he wrote a very technical. Uh, and in that book, he used the smaller arc and the maximum number of animals to see if they would sit on board the yard.


Now, the Bible gives dimensions for the arts 300 by 50 by 30, but if then cubits and a lot of people have no idea. What is a cubit cubit? Elbow to fingertip. Now in the Bible, there was actually two cubits. There was a shorter, a common cubit narrows, the older or the Royal cubit, which was a cubit plus a hand branch out a little bit extra.


So you had a long and a short cubit basically, and different cultures had slightly variations on their Cuba's. Well, the king that was in charge usually though Cuba was the official cubit, at least during their rain. So you get these variations. Well, what John wooden, he did, he used the shorter cubit so that all I know is arc is the shorter heart.


Okay. So it's a smaller art. And then he wanted to put the maximum number of animals on board, the art. So what he did instead of doing a family level, order, family, genus and species, right? Most of the kinds equate closer to a family level. There are. You know, uh, you know, the elephant kind goes up to an order.


There's others that go down to a genius. Well, he decided to do it. So let's just take them all at a genus level, sort of bring a massive number of animals on board, the yard. And with that calculation, he had just under 16,000 acres. But he was now going to try to fit onboard this art and he brought fresh food and he brought fresh water on board in the yard.


If I wouldn't say anything about the water, they could have possibly harvested it. They were in a Florida fourth. 


Okay. I'll give you that. 


And here's what he found. 74% of that. 74% of it was used to hold the animals, the food and the water from maximum number of hours. So they would easily fit on board yard.


So I would say that right there was probably the biggest argument that the secular has brought for a long time. Once John Goodman wrappings research came out and they became familiar with it, they're like, okay, fine. You can fit the animals on the yard, but then they still didn't have. Yeah, what they want to do is they say, well, there's no way this little square, uh, you know, it looks like a rectangular art could possibly survive the flood.


Well, now everything's suddenly shifted. They started looking at the structure of Noah's art and then all of a sudden we started seeing people research. There was a Korean study done by a lot of people. Most of the people involved in the study, I think were non-Christians. I know the head of it was a non-Christian and they looked at the length, width and height, the dimensions of Noah's Ark.


And they said, is this stable? Is this a good structure? Is it bad? And they found that it was right in between. Okay. Think of a triangle here right in between is Frank stability and comfort. The arc sat right in the middle. It was incredible. And it makes sense. Why all these ocean going vessels? Uh, you know, throughout history and even modern times use the same ratio of Noah's Noah's Ark something very similar to it in the ocean going vessels.


So that right there saw part of it. But then they said, but if the arc is rectangular, so short corner right there, boy, the water is going to hit it and it's going to start leaking right in those corners. And so then a researchers like Tim Lovett stepped in. Well, you're I, you know, those are, you know, it was a ship.


It probably didn't this look like a rectangle, right? So he started rounding those corners. And the question is, how much do you round it? And look at some of the other features, the window about them, things like that, that a lot of ancient ship had. And that's where he came up with what we call the Lovett design.


That's what the Ark encounter looks like. It's based on the love of design, you can see it rounded, uh, you know, it'd be able to naturally take the wind and the waves, which certain agents shifts were able to. So we've pretty much answered. Most of those questions people have. About Noah's Ark and I'm still struggling to find some that are really tough about it, at least at this 


stage.


Well, I think that there's, uh, a host of other like fascinating questions that arise from that. When you think of the intricate design, I mean, we look at it through modern science. We have. Thousands of years of learning, we have the wealth of all human knowledge in our hands. And so we could say, well, this design, you know, this, that, how do people just barely crawling out of caves and grunting at each other?


Create such an extraordinary, right? I mean, you, you have to go wait a minute. This is pretty advanced stuff. Uh, it shows a G. Level to be able to understand that even if it was designs sent from God himself still to be able to measure, I took woodworking in school Bodhi. And if it weren't for the guys in my class who kind of helped me all a lot, I would not have passed it on.


Do bid, you know, I mean, some who may be watching may say, wow, you know, I I'm just saying, you know, I can do, I can't do, I couldn't even build, you know, a little, a little box, let alone an arc. So it takes a level of understanding. And I think that comes into play with my, this question that I wanted to ask you.


Um, the idea of Adam and Eve one, man, one woman, you know, we look at that today is like, you know, you have kissing cousins and people are going, Ooh, you know, come on. You're, you're going to have mutant children. There's a problem there. But those two ideas. Uh, kind of marry well in the biblical worldview, because if you were talking about a fallen world where everything came out, uh, from God's creation as, wow, this is good.


I did good if it's basically what God's saying. Yep. I think good. Uh, you're looking at mankind who were in and animals in a perfect state. Probably brilliant. Healthy, maybe larger or, or more robust. We know as we've gotten healthier, uh, mankind has gotten stronger, lived longer than, you know, 50, a hundred years ago.


So that I think comes into play in the arc story as well. When people say, well, you can't have offspring breeding offspring. 


Yeah. Where do they get that idea though? That's the problem that actually comes to the. Um, you know, you're not supposed to marry your close relation that comes from Leviticus chapter 18.


So is that the contradiction? I mean, they had to after the arc, 


so that's right, but notice Adam and Eve live before Leviticus chapter 18. No one has family. They lived before Abraham lived before it. Abraham actually married his half sister. So. Uh, Moses, his father married his aunt jock Tibet. You see prior to Leviticus, chapter 18, which was given by Moses after the Israelites came out of Egypt.


That's when they said no more close to intermarriage, but if we look at this from a big picture, Adam and Eve in perfect genetic strand, they should've been able to have children. And those children should have be able to have children with each other without very many genetic tests. Okay. As soon the curse, you know, the more we have that, every time we have a generation, we, we make more mistakes.


Uh that's what happens, uh, you know, like my wife and I, our kids probably have more genetic mistakes than what we do. And so, you know, it moves forward 


that you called them a genetic mistake. 


I'm telling yo

AI & THE GOD STORY w/ JEff Zweerink

It's the, my Michelle live podcast, my Michelle live side tech talk, taking the gods story to a geeky place. Here's Michelle.


Hey, this is Sci tech talk. I'm Michelle Mendoza and you're listening to my Michelle live. You're watching my Michelle live. You may be reading my Michelle live, but wherever you are, you know that the topics of the day that we take on well, we go deeper. We look for a deeper story, not just what's going on, not just maybe some of the implication.


But we dig too deeper. Meaning we look for the God's story. This is what we call site tech talks. So in our site tech talk today, what a story. So you know him as a techno king, Elon Musk is making more promises and we're going to be talking about that, but let me introduce you to the man of the hour, from reasons to believe he has written.


Extraordinary books. Um, he's an astrophysicist. He is a brilliant speaker and he is a frequent flyer here. Uh, my Michelle live Jeff Zoe rink from reasons to believe. Thanks for joining us. 


Hi, Michelle, looking forward to our conversation today. This is just fascinating 


stuff, right? It is exactly. I want to see if I can find, , this picture.


I think in this case, a picture is worth a thousand words.  It kind of sets the stage for everything that we're going to be talking about yesterday. You know, him as the techno king, as I have mentioned, he is on top of everything from going to Mars to driverless cars. And now,  Elon Musk was speaking at a Tesla all day event. And in this event he was talking about artificial intelligence, the dreams that they have, that they would like to achieve.


A I, well, then he promised that they would have a, um, an AI robot that would be available as well, just in the kind of we'll reveal it, but it's not ready for consumer stages next year. That's astounding. I'm going to get the picture in just a moment, but set the stage for us. 


Yeah. So as you said that, you know, you on Musk was a, you know, he's done a number of things all the way.


I think he goes all the way back to PayPal, uh, things that he is developed and marketed and, uh, has, uh, generated quite a bit of wealth, which allows him to explore a lot of interesting. 


 , one of the things he's working on and, you know, it's kind of an interesting juxtaposition because, uh, Elon Musk is on record of saying that AI may be one of the greatest threats facing humanity.


Uh, and at the same time he's working on developing these AI driven cars. Do you know where the cars drive around and make decisions of how to do everything and are in principle? What do you want? I think what he wants to get to is get to a place for the cars. Yeah. Controlled by humans that the technology just takes care of getting around.


So he wants to now shift that set that basically that kind of technology over and say, Hey, let's build a humanoid like robot that can do repetitive, redundant, dangerous tasks. So the humans no longer have to do them. And so that's what he's trying to develop and produce, uh, in the next year. And I think, uh, if I give the specs, it's like a five foot, 825 pound humanoid looking robot.


That's going to do all these dangerous and repetitive tasks. So the humans no longer have to. 


Okay, what's funny about this is that, uh, what you saw on the screen was a robot walking out very stiffly, uh, about, as you said, five foot, whatever, a black screen over what would be a face and w. Wow. Thank you.


Kinda cool. Walking out there, then it starts breaking into dubstep. Come on, come on. All right. That says an awful lot because, um, Elon Musk is an entrepreneur and I would even go as far as saying he's like a modern day ring leader at the circus, and that was quite a circus act. It was not. The AI prototype.


It was just a guy in the suit. Don't pay attention to the, the, the band behind the curtain. Uh, this is a, a fascinating look at what could be absolutely what could be and okay. We're going to get rid of the dancing monkey there. It's a great look at what could be Jeff, but, uh, it's a dancer in the suit and Tesla has had a.


Uh, let's say history of having big dreams and over promising and under delivering what needs. 


Well, I mean, he has done that, but in some sense that doesn't really surprise me for, uh, you know, I'm just drawing a blank on the term, but these are kind of these visionary people of what could we do. They cast this big, Hey, let's work on this.


And quite honestly, if you don't do that, you don't get enough people excited enough to work on it, to see whether it works. And, uh, inevitably some of those things just aren't going to pan out, but, you know, yes. I've been on a lot of things where he's promised and delivered to. So I don't know which class this is going to fall into, but 


put it in in perspective.


I mean, I want, I want to just set the stage because we, um, we can get caught up in the hype. Now Tesla did have. Driverless this driver list kind of a software and it is fabulous in some ways, but in some ways it can't stay, stay away from parked cars and ambulances in a parking lot. Um, there was a cyber truck armor glass demonstration at one of these events that resulted in two broken windows on stage.


And. You know, we're already seeing why you saw the dub step kind of a guy, but you know what Disney itself has had extraordinary animatronics. They have not gotten to quite the AI stage yet, but having gone to Disney as a little girl, and then going just last year, their animatronics have gone. Whew. You have to do a double-take.


It's pretty exciting. And I even want to see if I have a picture here of, uh, Boston dynamics. They have been doing some pretty extraordinary things. I don't know why I have so much problem. There we go. There we go. Um, they have been doing some extraordinary. Things with robots. This is a robot that is doing a little bit apart where he's running and doing kind of a jump over a table.


It's, it's really extraordinary. It looks like a guy in a big robotic suit. So he's going against these, these ramps running around. So there's all of these, some pretty impressive things. Are happening in the robotic AI world. And yet we're getting pretty excited because we have the ringleader who is very good at selling great ideas.


And he's a dreamer, but you're right. He does have some amazing things, Jeff, that have already come into being. So I want to balance that because as you look at this story, Jeff, a lot of people are saying. Yeah, well, I think it was Carl Barry. Who's a lecturer in robotics and engineering and yeah.


University of central Lang caster called it horse. Well, something that doesn't smell well, he said, he said something along the lines of, you know, it's just another big hype look, I'm saying all this to say that. Yeah. A lot of people are naysayers. Dreamers, keep dreaming and do extraordinary things. And he is doing extraordinary things, but there is a deeper story here, and that is the Bible says that kind of alludes to in the tower of Babel.


You know, if they put their mind to it, meaning man, there's nothing they can do. 


No. And I think that's a kind of an important point, you know, and I, you know, kind of your point about the, whether he's going to produce this or not, you know, whether he does this within a year, that's a, you know, is he over promising and going to under deliver that kind of misses the bigger point that inevitably this is going to happen because at the end of the day, uh, Maneuvering around is largely just an algorithm.


And so we can build, I mean, we build robots it's that go around and get stuff out of depart or go out of various departments and put them in packages and ship them out. And so we do, you know, people have built stuff like this, you know, the, the new thing is that it kind of looks human and it's going to do specifically some human tasks.


And so this there's almost a. Well, I don't know whether it must we'll do it in a year. There's kind of an inevitability of stuff like this happening. And so it does kind of raise the question, is this a good thing for us to be doing or not? Um, and you know, th that's what I find fascinating about AI and all of this technology is that at the end of the day, I would argue all this technology as a tool.


The question is how are we as people going to use this tool? And that requires a level of responsibility. And maturity that I'm not entirely sure we as a people have yet. And I think that's where a lot of that picture of who God is and what, and are we going to follow him or not? And my comment that I would make of my statement that I would make is that if we want to use this, well, we really need to act like Christianity is true.


Obviously. I think it's true, but if we really want to use it, well, we need to act like it's true. 


Okay. W what's the importance in that? What is the importance in a worldview as we travel down the road? Closer to more unimaginable technology. 


Well, so I'll give one example here. Uh, you know, the, what, let let's say Musk does what he says.


He's going to do human tasks. One of the goal he wants to do with that, or one of the things he says it's going to come out is that we're going to eliminate the need for work. That work just becomes a choice. You can either do it or. Now the question is, is that a good thing for humanity? And so I can go back and look at what scripture has to say.


You know, you look in scripture, Genesis one describes God, creating the universe and fashioning earth and ultimately putting, you know, land and light and sky and all the things in he built animal, or it makes animals and puts humanity on there. And then Genesis chapter two talks about. How the creation of humanity worked and God created fashioned Adam out of the ground.


And what's the first thing he did. He said go out and tend the guy. And so he gave him this huge job for Adam to do. And he said, go out and name all the animals. And he gave him a second huge job to do. And they said, you know, Adam ultimately realized that he was alone. And so he, God created Eve and said, now here's your, here's your wife and instituted the institution of marriage.


And it's like these big things where Adam is designed, I would argue that God. In that description is saying we are designed to work. So if we build all this technology and we say, all right, we're going to eliminate the need for work. We're going to cause big problems. And so this is where world do matters because it's not clear to me in a naturalist worldview, whether work is a good thing or not, or in an Eastern mystic worldview is work a good thing or.


Uh, we're in a postmodern world has work a good thing or not, but in a Christian world, you work as a good thing. And we need to make sure that whatever we do with our technology, if we're designed to work, that we make sure that there's good and productive and meaningful work for people to do. 


Okay.


Because it kind of comes down to that site tech question that you see in every science fiction movie, what could possibly go wrong? 


Possibly. Yeah, there they're just movies littered with what could possibly go wrong. I mean, that's, that's basically Jurassic. The drastic park series is, Ooh, we think we've got at this time and then something new goes wrong.


Part of this, we can already see play out. You mentioned a worldview being very important to how you proceed. There are ethics that you have to take into consideration. And if you don't have a rule book, if you, then you don't know how to play the game, right. And anything, what could possibly go wrong? What could not possibly go wrong?


Look at where we. Today, for example, we have more technology that can make tasks easier and easier. I love that technology. I love things that make things easier. I use them all the time. However, we are fast. We are less healthy. Um, now we live longer, but that has less to do with our technology and more to do with, we realize that, yeah, you may have to watch your hands and take a bath more than the once a month, understanding that there are germs.


They aren't these, uh, as scientists of the day believed, uh, there. People were crazy who believed in those invisible things that could be transferred between humans. Now we know there are germs. That's why science should be challenged. And we're seeing the challenge to science. What can we do? How far can we go?


But without those ethics, without a rule book, without understanding how we were made, it's hard to in turn, make things and have it work. In in unison there's sometimes you can't unring a bell. 


No, that that's a great point. And you know what I mean, kind of to two scenarios I would give, you know, one is, you know, we, when we first discovered, uh, or, you know, going back to your issue of kind of medicine and what we do when we first discovered germs, we realized that there are things that cause disease.


And so it's not all bacteria. And if we took that simplistic approach of, Ooh, bacteria are bad, we ended up doing things to kill bacteria, but the reality of it is bacteria do a lot of good things. It's kind of our misuse or where things go wrong is where bacteria cause harm. And so we need to have a more complete picture to handle that well, and, and, you know, kind of, uh, a place where I'm not sure we used our technology well, Um, you know, we all carry around these little cell phones, these computers in our pocket, and we're, we've got social media, which in principle is a great way to communicate.


It expands our ability to communicate with people, but if we're not careful and I, and I think this may have happened is that we can now substitute the depth of in-person relationships for a. Plethora of electronic relationships and again, yeah, for designed to be in physical relationship with people.


And again, I think that's a worldview issue where Christianity says we are designed for relationships. We better make sure that what we're doing with our technology, if we want to be healthy, that it builds relationships. And doesn't ultimately 


I'll think about that when we're making decisions. Social distancing.


And don't say, you know, don't end her act somewhere in there. We have the , we need less, we cause problems in another area. Uh, and if you bring up the cell phone here, we have. Our hand, the wealth of human knowledge, essentially right here. And yet I have to I'll share something that I posted on Facebook. I just re posted meme.


If you think you're smarter than the previous generation, 50 years ago, the owner's manual of a car showed how to adjust the valves today. It warns you not to drink the contents of the battery. So yeah, sometimes we think we're so advanced, but in reality, you know, what do we really know? 


Well, there really is a difference between knowledge and wisdom and, you know, kind of, uh, th the way I look at this is, you know, we, we've got, we're building this technology like there, I don't know whether Musk is going to deliver on his humanoid, uh, uh, robot, but at some point we're going to do that.


But, you know, I mean, I'd take a car, a car, I use cars all the time and we assume that cars are always good. Um, the reality of it is a car is a tool. If I go out and give my car, allow my five-year-old kid to drive my car, I'm now being irresponsible because there's an evidence damage. That's going to come from that.


And so what I have to do is I say, no, I've got this powerful tool. I need to make sure I'm using it more responsible. The more powerful the tool is the more responsible we have to be with it. My kid can have their little toy hammer go around pound all they want. The moment I give them a real hammer or a Jack hammer, they can now do tremendous damage.


So it's my job to make sure they have the responsibility to handle it. I think that's what we need. That's the approach we need to adopt with technology. We've got this incredibly powerful tool that can do great things or it can do great damage. That's going to be hard. 


It's going to be our choice. And that's where the worldview really does matter.


That deeper story really does matter. Otherwise, we are just kind of floating around, making this up as we go of, if you think of the world as a, as a massive ecosystem, everything that we introduce into this ecosystem. It affects its balance. Right? So, uh, there's, there's an interesting line that we dance with in the world of faith.


I think I want your thoughts on this, Jeff, that one person. I believe God is in control. So I'm not sitting there panicking thinking the end of the world is near. And, uh, if we do this the whole world, yeah. We're we, we have the ability to mess with our environment. We have the ability to, to, uh, affect the way our, our air is.


We need to be. Better decisions. But ultimately I do believe that God is directing and uses all things together for good for them that love the Lord and are called according to his purpose, according to what the Bible says. So I'm not all, I'm not in a panic. I'm not thinking when 2012 rolled around it was going to be the end of the world.


Uh, if you're, you were old enough to remember in Twan in 2000, uh, all of the computers were going to shut down. The grid was going to go down. It was going to go into, you know, we're all going to revert back into caves or something. You know, I'm not worried about that. But what I am worried about is that we do have a delicate balance and we create, we can create some kind of chaos.


And so that. Having faith that God's in control, but also hold, um, are you thinking this. 


No, no. And I think that's, that's a profound way of looking. I, I, you know, I mean, I just go look at climate change and it seems like, uh, the way we talk about that is to air on two extremes. One extreme is, ah, that's no big deal.


We don't have to worry about it. And theologically speaking that misses the point that God has given us stewardship of this creation we are called to under. The flip side of that is we're going to destroy humanity. And that misses that God has created this world. And to think that we're powerful enough to destroy what he has created really kind of puts us in the place of God.


But th th that, that middle ground, that balanced approach says, yes, God's in control and he's called me to do something to take, to, to manage it well. And so how do we do that? And I see the same. Playing out in these sorts of technology issues, we can take one approach of who technology is bad barrier, head in the sand.


And we miss the benefits that that technology brings. We miss that Tylenol will get rid of a headache. We miss that I can actually drive 60 miles to go see a beautiful site because of the technology. So, so we're going to miss the benefits, the technology brains. On the flip side, we could just. Well, let's just every technology's good.


Let's go ahead and do it. And what we're going to do is cause a lot of damage 


because we don't have the ethics because as I've said, oftentimes our moral compass is spinning out of control. And so if we don't have some kind of ethical restraint, this the sheer scary, experimental, weird Nurnberg, are you kidding me?


Stuff that man can do is. The charts in the name of science. Now, how do we know that this dance that we're talking about is accurate? I, I would look to, to science and say, can you see where we're at in the universe? Can you see the precarious position of the earth? Uh, just the, the wrong or right. Uh, amount of space debris could knock us out of orbit or, uh, just the, uh, the slightest change in our relation to the sun could destroy all life on earth.


Uh, the delicate balance of how much water we have and how the water interacts and, and the, uh, oxygen levels that we have. We are finding more and more. We mentioned this a lot on the show that we are unique, likely in all the universe and all of the universe is set the way it is in order to support life as it is on this planet.


It's becoming more apparent that that could indeed be the case. So our precarious position and our ability to make it through the years without other distraction is more than miraculous. The numbers are off the charts. What'd you say. 


Yeah. And, you know, I would actually argue that when we look at the choices we're facing or the scenario or the situation we're facing now, it really does reflect how God has, you know, the way the Bible describes creation.


I mean, you look at the way, God created things and, you know, even going back to the garden of Eden, God put Adam and Eve in this idyllic place made basically put every possible. Uh, scenario or every possible help in place so that they could choose well, but that didn't negate the fact that there is this big danger that, you know, that there's Satan, that came in and wanted to, uh, wart God's plans.


And so God, wasn't scared of the potential or, you know, the damage that could be there he's in control, but he also puts humanity in this rather dangerous situation. And so he gave them the ability to live well, but it's also. But we look out, we look out in the universe and yes, I agree. There's all of this balance.


There's things that have to be just right. And I think that points to God's signature, but in the midst of all of this danger, God has also orchestrated things. So that life on earth is resilient, robust, and abundant beyond almost what we could possibly imagine. Right. You know what I mean to kind of draw the analogy.


It's like, God knows how things work. He's he's orchestrated, he understands everything and he set it up so that it works so that the best happens and it minimizes the damage and it minimizes the, the, the, the, the wrong and the evil that could happen. And, you know what I mean, it may be hard to understand in our, in our world, but when you look at it, Christianity really robustly answers all those questions.


And so if we look and say, What world do. You says there's a truth that we can pursue that, that, that there is a right and a wrong that good and bad and evil makes sense, which we all kind of intuitively know. Christianity is really the world view that anchors that, and it will give us the foundation for handling not only.


Whether we produce a humanoid Android, but whether we make this, that, or other, how we do law enforcement and all the other ways that AI technology is going to impact our lives, it gives us a foundation for using that in a way that advances our relationships help us live the way God's designed. And so we can flourish as a human civilization instead of create a bunch of damage, which we, I, I have the suspicion that's likely what we're going to do.


Well, yeah, I think about, uh, what Elon Musk said during this AI convention, where he was, uh, presenting the idea that he'd have this ready by next year, which seems pretty ambitious, a prototype by next year. Uh, but he said that what we're, we're going to make sure that within its programmings of, uh, uh, average human cutout run it and don't power it.


And he said there was kind of this awkward line. Yeah. And the audience like, oh yeah. I mean, you think of what could again, possibly go wrong. Uh, there, there are times where we can create our own fearful. Uh, possible demise. So that balance between God's in control, but man does stupid and we live with the consequences.


God doesn't always protect us from all the consequences. Uh, you know, we, we're still investigating whether this Corona virus came from a laboratory and Wu Han because there happens to be a Corona virus, laboratory and Wu Han. So we would be remiss in thinking. W that's a weird coincidence, isn't it? Uh, just an example of, we don't know, we, we don't know in that case and it is being investigated, but man, does things think maybe even thinking they're going to be doing good and what man seems to do for good can suddenly turn for evil when we're not using a properly.


Parameters that do come from a world, a proper worldview, a worldview that really has a bite, a worldview that has a congruent, uh, con continuous efficacy in all realms, not just, oh, it seems to work. And now I want to talk about, oh, go ahead. I want, I want to hear 


that idea of looking, does it work here and not thinking how it fits in the bigger picture?


I mean, I really liked looking at the stuff that must does, and I'm kind of, I'm actually kind of rooting that he, that he does some of these things, but you know, I mean, you look at his cars and you can say, you know, they're, they're phenomenal. They drive very well, except for when they don't, when they hit the parked car.


And th there's, there's something in us that tends to not look at the big picture because I mean, yes, having a car that drives around and runs into things as bad. Um, but the reality of it is humans drive around and run into things to them. We don't say, oh, well, let's just make humans not drive. What we do is we say, how can we grow?


So that the, the number of accidents minimize well. So now really the accurate comparison is do these self-driving cars. Caused less damage than human drives, human driven cars. And that's a, that's a question. We, I don't think we have a good answer 


challenge. It, it gets better. Problem is in our world.


Another problem with our secular worldview is that if we really believe something, we. Disallow challenge. Um, and so things can't get better. Uh, we can see that with science. So it's, subtled science. Well, you know, science isn't settled, you gotta, you gotta poke it. And product people wants didn't believe in germs.


They didn't believe that the earth revolved around the sun. They didn't believe that the earth was round and not flat. It needs to be challenged. Cancel because you don't like the answer. We're, we're seeing that with vaccines, there are problems, but if we don't talk about it, they will never get better. I believe vaccines can do wonderful things, but if we don't challenge it, it won't get better.


And we're we're canceling. So when you, 


if I could say notice even the language you're using. It's one. I think we basically agree on, at least in the west is like, if we don't challenge it, won't get better. There's this idea of there's a truth that we can actually measure things against. 


Oh, you got me.


Yeah. You're actually your, 


your, your articulating a world view that most of us have, but we don't actually think what world do you actually grounds that there's a better, that there is a right way and a wrong way to do things. And, and that's where I. I don't think Christians have done a good job of articulating why Christianity is kind of unique and being able to ground all those things that we think, 


because it's in the name of the organization that you're a part of.


And that's reasons to believe the Bible. The Bible says, God says, come let us reason together. Right? He wants to reason. Um, he's says a Malakai concerning tithing. Uh, test me, try me, prove me on this. What God says. Go ahead and test me. Come on. Okay. He doesn't quite say it like that. Sorry guy. That was a river.


That's just Michelle isms, but God, isn't afraid of a challenge. Science. Shouldn't be afraid of the challenge. And as we continue to see more science fiction becomes science reality. Jeff, uh, the final thing I wanted to, to talk about is artificial intelligence, right? We've touched on this before on the program, but as AI continues to develop and wow us, and then sometimes make us roll our eyes.


Like, yeah. That's that's, it's not there yet. How far does it go before it is? Actually sentience, that's a big thing. You know, how far does it go before people are marrying robots? And if like we see in, in Hollywood movies and why can that never really. 


Well, I would, I mean, if you asked me my personal belief, I do think that that sentient AI, I don't think we're ever going to get there.


Now, what I don't know from a Christian perspective is, has gotten doubt us with the ability to pass that sentience on to other things. I don't have an answer for them. Theologically. That's a fascinating question. So God might've actually done that, but you know, you, you raise, it raises an interesting point.


When do we start marrying them? I don't. I think that's just the wrong way to think about it. God has designed, 


you know, there's people out there who would do it, you know, there's, there's a woman in England that married a bridge. So I'm just. I 


agree, but the fact that people will do it, doesn't make it a good idea.


I still think we are, 


but this story of the world, there's an, you could just wrap it up right there. Come 


on. But, uh, you know, when, when it comes down to it, what I think is going to be very problematic is that I don't know that we're ever going to create that sentient AI, but our AI technology will get to the place where it will mimic it so well that if we.


Think rightly about it, we're going to attribute. Human sentience and self-awareness to it that it doesn't have. But I, I do think, you know, we, we need to be prepared that there's an inevitability about AI. We will get increasingly sophisticated AI. That's going to mimic human behavior in all different ways.


And if we don't think rightly about it, we're going to cause a lot of damage to people. Uh, that could, that could be avoided if we just think 


rightly about, we think rightly about it. And that's where it comes down to the God story today. And this a story concerning the advancement of artificial intelligence and maybe the endowment of artificial intelligence in.


In a robotic state that could be in a household near you. Getting back to that God's story. Jeff, when we have the right real world view, we can put things in perspective. And when we realize that there is a consistency in the biblical worldview, artificial intelligence, Is a perfect example, no matter how advanced we get, no matter what kind of awesome artificial I can't tell is that Jeff, or is that his robot double?


I don't know. I can't tell anymore. No matter how far we get down that road, we are still not creating anything new. The Bible says there's nothing new under the sun. Think about this for a moment. Did you realize everything that we have? Absolutely. Everything that we have in our advanced extraordinary technology is based on something that was already miraculous and created by God.


I'll give you the final word. 


I just think that is a powerful truth that we often miss, that we are, in some sense, we say we're inventing things. The reality of it is we're discovering what God has already invented. And, you know, I just, when I look at creation, the ability to study things scientifically that flows out of who, how God has created.


The important things in life, the relationships we have that flow out of how God has created us, the idea that there's a right and a wrong how we think ethically, uh, that actually flows out of how God has created us. And so when you ask what world do you. Buttresses and anchors and provides a good foundation for all the things that we think are truly important.


It's the Christian worldview. And I, that's why I love working for reasons to believe and developing those reasons to help people see that the God of the universe, he created everything. He wants you to be in relationship with him. And that's what I want to tell you. They had, 


there you go. You can go to reasons.org.


We'll have a link on my Michelle live, as you do. There are so many articles you can just get lost in supplement what your kids are learning in school, especially in science, uh, from extraordinary scholars, pick up their books. The books are so well-written. Informative and interesting, well researched, but also relatable to everyday people like me and you possibly.


And for those of you who are on a higher level of intellect, you'll love it too. So you can go to reasons.org and continue to think about something deeper as we drone along through life. As we worry about what's going on around us. There is indeed in science fingerprints of a designer and that those fingerprints point to a loving God, a biblical God and that biblical worldview, you have a deeper hope.


And if that's the truth, And it's turning the light on for you. Research it for yourself. Don't take my word for it. Research it for yourself. Try to disprove the Bible, try to disprove what's out there. It comes with a warning, great people have done it. And they have found themselves confronted with the reality of an amazing God that is there to change your life and to give you hope.


In that if you're listening and you find that hope like us share us comment, complain, whatever it may be, whatever you do, just get the word out. Yeah. There is hope. And there is a God story. Jeff's Weaver is with reasons to believe. Jeff I'll catch it next time. It's always a great pleasure. It's always fun to talk with you.


How is, how is such a geeky stuff? Object. Just so much fun. I think it's fun anyway. Cause I'm geeky, but you bring it up a whole nother level. Next level. It. All right. 


Thanks. I appreciate it. Always enjoy our conversations. Definitely did it 📍 


more. Sci-Tech talk@mymichellelive.com.

wITH BODE HODGE

It's the, my Michelle live podcast, my Michelle live side tech talk, taking the gods story to a geeky place. Here's Michelle. I love that. Thank you. Big voice guy. Yeah. We're taking the God story to a geeky place. Uh, we call it Sci-Tech talk. It's part of the, my Michelle live podcast where every podcast, we may have a different bent.


We may be looking at the world from different information, but we're all, we're still digging. For the answers, a deeper story, what we call the God story, if there's a God, well, what's he doing in all of this and what does he expect of you and I, and what does he figure that you and I might need to know?


There's a big story there. Is going to concern a lot of people. And in 2018, it probably concerned, you know, quite a lot of people, but, , when he come to 2020, and all of the folks who were schooling their kids at home, some through the education system, some just pulling them out. Well, you're going to really find this interesting and the rest of us.


We might need to know this information as well. Look, there's a committee. , Members of parliament in the UK that are calling for a national registration of homeschool children in England. , they say it's unacceptable levels of opaqueness. So we're going to shed some light on it today. And yeah, that's for my friends in the UK, but you know, Canada, us, you're saying, ah, come on UK.


I think it has some serious significance for all of us. So we're going to take it on with Bodhi Hodge. , Bodhi is a writer. He is a researcher and he is a master resource from answers in Genesis. I didn't have answers in Genesis time for answer. It's time for it. The answer is Bodhi Hodge. I am so delighted to have you with us.


, we've interviewed in the past, and this is my first time getting to chat with you. Like almost face-to-face so like 


seeing each other. Yeah. Yeah. It's really exciting. It's great to be on the show. 


So where are you? Are you at your home office? Are you in, , answers in Genesis? 


I am. I'm at the creation museum.


That's where my office is. I, you know, with answers in Genesis, you know, we're known for the creation museum as well as the full-size Ark encounter, which is just incredible places to come. Yeah, it's been, it's an 


exciting now. And it's, it is actually a very great resource for a lot of parents, especially homeschooling parents.


And look, I'm going to tell you this right now. I have said this for years. If you have any interaction with your children, you know, we're all homeschool parents. We all have to supplement. We all teach our children. The things that they learn in school, even if they are learning, reading, writing, and arithmetic, there's so much more to life that they need to learn.


And so we're homeschooling parents and the Ark encounter answers in Genesis has a creation museum. Those are fabulous resources for more to science that we're not learning often. 


That's right. Let's try. We'd love to dive into the authority of scripture. , helping people look at every subject, whether it's philosophy, history, science, , we want people to start with God and his word is that absolute authority.


When they look at all these subjects, even with what's going on in our culture, because our culture has become increasingly secularized. And so that's actually, uh, having a go at a lot of parents, it's having a go at a lot of churches and a lot of people, they don't know where to get answers. They don't, they they're struggling with like, how do I deal with these.


The creation museum, the Ark encounter, and a lot of the resources that we're involved with really do help give you those 


answers on this particular podcast. Science Sci-Tech talk every broadcast. We are revealing new discoveries, new things that science has brought to light. Every one of these issues can blow you away.


When you see the. Evidence of not only intelligent design, but I'm going to go a step further. It shows intelligent design, but we can often see the fingerprints, the characteristics of the designer. These are things that we aren't necessarily learning in school because w and I, because we are very one dimension.


We want to teach one theory, and this is a theory, not a lot. And one theory only, , where, , our origins are concerned. And this leads into our story today. , we, I, I almost wonder if our one dimensional thinking this is, this is settled science this is all that we're allowed to take on and talk about has led us to where we are today, where we can not question where science is settled.


Science is now. Subtle that has to be poked and prodded and challenged even by ridiculous ideas from crazy Christian people like you and me, and that's how science gets better. So do you think that that one dimensional thinking has led us to maybe some of the problems we're facing today where the conversation of science is concerned?


No, I think they're definitely interrelated. I don't think that's a, I think most people can understand that, especially when you understand the history of what's happened with science and the state schools, uh, you know, whether it's in the United Kingdom or Australia here in the United States, when, when Christianity was essentially kicked out of the classroom, Religion wasn't kicked out.


It was actually replaced with the godless religion known as secular humanism. You might think of atheism, agnosticism, secularism. That's what dominates in there right now. And so when people are looking at things like science, they're thinking in terms of that particular worldview. And so all of a sudden Christianity is thrown out.


In fact, all other religions are thrown out. Except for that one, it seems like. But sometimes those other still creep back in, you know, whether it's agonism or, or what have you, you know, some new age, things like that, but Christianity has largely been thrown out of the car and that affects our world. When we look at science, when we look at some of the issues in our culture, um, I mean, we are totally under attack and sometimes we've got to step back and go, okay, why is it like this?


What happened? And what can we do? And, uh, that's where we're re you know, that's what we're doing right here in this podcast. Right now, we are, we are dealing with this sort of thing. 


Yes. And I wouldn't look at it from a secular mindset for a moment that without when we, when we start saying, okay, there is no, , anything religious, religious based in schools, we.


Take away from kids, the opportunity to hear different ideas and from those different ideas, see how we can co-exist you know, that famous bumper sticker that you see. It's kind of non-existence, it's not co-exist it's I exist. And, , I pretend like I tolerate everybody else because it's just not happening that and.


Understanding from a science, even the secular scientific point of view. If you don't have challenges to current science, you have stagnation. 


Try. That's how science works. Science is actually a methodology that, you know, like you said, it's gotta be poked and prodded. Uh, science has never something that's settled.


If somebody thinks science is settled and they don't understand science, the very nature of science is observable repeatable. And then repeat the process over and over again. It never really ends. And see a lot of people don't get that. Um, you know, most founders of science were actually Bible-believing Christians, you know, who believe that God has held the world in a particular way, which makes their own repeatable science possible.


You know, you might think of a Gregor Mendel or a boil or Isaac Newton. I mean, there's so many Faraday. Uh, these guys were great scientists because they looked at the world in light of what God had to say. Now we're in a culture where God has largely been thrown out and now people are starting to be trying to do something.


And they don't fully grasp science because they're not looking at it from the correct worldview. And so they're coming out. They're okay, this is settled. This is settled. This is settled. Whether they're saying it's big bang, everything came from nothing. Whether it's millions and billions of years, that's called geological evolution.


Whether it's my biological evolution, the status, you know, everybody, uh, that shown up everything that's alive today, ultimately came from some sort of single cell at Oregon. You know, those are actually part of a worldview nobody's ever observed a repeated the big bang or millions of years, where that we evolved from some sort of single celled organism nobody's ever observed a repeated that.


So it's not actually science, that's part of a worldview. And that's where we need to understand that's where this debate is. It's not say science versus the Bible. I've heard that over and over again. Uh, science actually comes out of a biblical worldview. It's science because of the true, but when it comes down to it, what's going on in our school systems.


What's going on out here in our culture is a battle over two different schools. 


And instead of battling, we should see , what works, what goes with science, battle it out. That's teaching kids how to have scientific minds now, because of that, we have parents who have in the past, pulled their kids out and said, you know what?


They're not kidding. We want them to get now that's been happening for years, but then we add things like critical race theory. That is so not only controversial, , but really teaches kids that some kids are ingrained with hate. It was,  uh, teaching that never should have made its way into the lower grades from it.


It's fine. Maybe as you debate it in, in adulthood, but it had no business had been school. We have issues of, uh, helping kids to discover what sex they are. Okay. How scientific is that? 


That's exactly right. You nailed that right there. Um, because science is actually coming under attack even in the state school climate.


And even a lot of the atheist scientists, you know, they're even lamenting this thing. Oh, there's a problem with this because you know, when it comes to say gender know you've got male and female, you've got X, X, Y Y people are throwing the science. Even on the secular side, they're throwing the science out to go with this.


Uh, we're seeing the same sort of thing when it comes to things like critical race theory. They're, they're, they're, they're just throwing out the science that there's actually one race we've mapped the human genome. There's one race. We've known that, uh, you know, whether people have darker skin or lighter skin, you got more melanin, you got less melon and we're all one race, which means we're all sinners.


We're all in need of Jesus Christ, no matter what we look like, but you know what that science has even been through. So, uh, you know, I, I stand side by side with a lot of my atheist colleagues who I've worked with over the years and we can oftentimes do what we call operational science, human of the observable, repeatable science.


We can do that side by side and we agree on things like gender. We agree on things like that. There's one more. But what's happening in our cultures is even that science has been thrown out where we're even the secularists are sometimes going, what's going on. Even the science now has been thrown out because of some of these other worldviews that the kids are being taught 


and boom, you, you get to the point right there of kids being able to have multiple worldview.


Working congruently battling it out, uh, at times, but looking for what is most plausible that enlivens the mind that empowers science. And since we are not doing that, a lot of parents are saying, okay, and this is not just Christian parents, uh, parents of all differing face and no faith at all. Are have pulled their kids out then COVID hits.


And a lot of parents were home working with their kids and yes, it could be mad named, but they found, you know, we can do this. Some were, the light was turned on and they said, what are they learning? And what aren't they learning? How are my kids going to be set for the rest of their lives when we're not really getting to the heart of reading, writing, and arithmetic.


So a lot of folks. I have either pulled their kids out or considering it. And in fact, as we take on this, uh, this UK issue, according to research by the BBC that was published in July, uh, just of this year, the number of children registered for home education in the UK rose 75%. The first eight months of the current school year.


That is huge. Now a lot of that of course was, um, social distancing, staying home, but there's been an, a massive rise. So now the. The folks up there at the top are saying, well, you know, we need to know how many kids are at home. And we need to know if they're really getting, uh, all of the benefits and education that they're getting in school to, which I think I can understand that to a degree, but there's this also little snide voice in my head.


That's saying, dude, Graduate people who can read, write and do simple math. First, you take care of you first, before you start worrying about me. I don't know if I'm just getting the line. There you go. There you go. Boom. Where's my mic to drop here. It is. There you go. Drop the mic. Come on. And so there's some, there's some, uh, legitimate, well, we want to know how many kids are out there.


We want to know, you know, what we want to protect them. Um, But there's also some concerns. Um, I'm going to put this up on the screen for those who are viewing. No one else will be able to see it. So you may want to go to my Michelle live to watch the video, but answers in Genesis has put out a.


Interesting article on this UK lawmakers are calling for now a national list of registered home schools. That's one of the very few articles that if you Google, you can find here in the us, which to me is kind of a travesty as well, because it affects all of us. Wouldn't you say, Bodhi? 


Yeah, absolutely.


And in fact, you know, you might, it sounds noble that they want to know what's going on in the homeschooling community. But the whole reason they're in the homeschooling community is because they've said we've had enough of the government system. Now a lot of people have been fed up with it for years leading up to this, I think COVID was more of the triggering point when the government started to put restrictions on the school, then a lot of parents said, okay, now's the time.


And so they were yanking them out. We're seeing that in the United States, we've been seeing it in various parts of the way. The UK, I mean, they had 40,000 just in 2020, I, during a portion of the school year. So I mean, people were pulling out now all of a sudden the government's going, oh, well now we don't have control over that.


You know? And it was a few homeschoolers out there that like, ah, it's not a big deal, but now they're like, well, we want to be able to control that as well. That's what was going on in their minds. So now they're asking for this national registry now, I don't know if you know much about the history of registering things like this.


Uh, let me just tell you what happened with a lot of Christians. Just a few months ago, they were in Afghanistan and Afghanistan. They asked her it's and a lot of the Christians were required to read them. Made him really nervous like, whoa, wait, this reminds me of what's happened in Nazi Germany. If you look at that history and knowing the Judas were forced to register and start wearing different things 


here in the United States in some regards now, but that's another topic.


Yeah. That's a whole nother topic, but now we're seeing, what's played out in Afghanistan and now we see people being hunted down. Now we're looking at this and they're like, Hey, we want the homeschoolers to register, boy. You're right. Red flags should be going off all over the place. Going to hold on a second here.


This isn't your. Stay out of the home. 


Yeah. And, and so we're where you have people who have already kind of thrown up their hands and said the government, you know, they're, they're not doing the job that they're supposed to, and that's not, that's not taking away from spectacular, amazing teachers who are out there.


I've had them, I've seen them. I know them, but there are some, but, but even great teachers recognize that in some cases, There's some holes and great teachers have often said, you know what? I'm going to homeschool my own kids. So understandable. We have places in Australia. You mentioned where the parents were told to bring children into a huge Coliseum.


I'm sorry. You can accompany your children. We have them. It's okay. We're the government we're here to help. Right? Those famous words. Um, they were a mass inoculation. Three of those. I'll be at thousands of kids, a very small portion, but three died. Now we say that's a very small portion until it's one of your children that, that dies.


Did you have a choice? You know, in, in Australia it's become almost a police state. And, and that has little to do with education, but a lot to do with a mindset of government that says we know what to do with your kids. We've got. And so parents have, have said I'm not so trusting. So there is a trust factor of with kids at home there, but Bodie there's kids who are going to fall through where, you know, parents just don't care.


They're not going to be properly educating. So is that really such a big. 


That can be a problem, but you know, that's, it's almost going to be on an individual basis, you know, w what we've typically seen in the past is a lot of the homeschool kids when they go to college. Uh, they're actually some of the top.


Or they, they tend to usually almost, always, not always, but 


almost always they consistency and an excellence. Maybe, uh, maybe not in college, but oftentimes in college, but in jobs, in getting jobs, the statistics have played out that homeschool kids have. Big advantage in some ways, I'm sure that that kids in mass education have some advantages as well, but you can't overlook exactly what you're saying.


Yeah. And you know, that's important because here, all of a sudden, now the government wants to get involved in something over in the UK. And let's, let's just be honest. The history of when the government gets involved in things, they tend to be less quality. Um, you know, and there are exceptions to that.


Don't get me wrong, but at the same time, you know what, this is in the home. You know, w w where's the reach, um, you know what I mean, w just the parents' rights and all this, you know what I mean? This is an attack on parents' rights with their own children, but you got to understand in a secular concept in a secular state, the mentality is that the Supreme authority is the government, not God, but the.


And so people want to place this, uh, uh, emphasis on the government. Of course, a lot of people in the government, they like that. So they want to control all aspects of society even within. Yeah. 


So the concern is not just that. Look, you want to list a people. What are you whining about Michelle? What are you whining about?


Bodie? Come on. You just, you want to know what kids are at home? Kids are going to school. We want to know that they're really getting an education that they're not home getting abused or just sitting there or watching cartoons all day. Although in some cases, some of the schools around the country and some of the statistics, they may get a better education from just watching Sesame street all day.


I don't know. Maybe that's that's too much of a slam. 


Hey, you know what though, but let's turn this around though on him. Let's turn it around on him. You know, there's a lot of parents who say, I want to know what's going on in the classrooms, in the state schools. And guess what? There are so many schools and teachers going.


We're not going to tell you. And in fact, they're telling their kids not to tell the parents we've been seeing news items left and right on that. So here we have the government saying, we're not going to tell you. What your kids are learning. And yet here, they're turning around and saying, we want you to tell us what you're, you're teaching your kids.


It's a two 


way. I, I w I'm over here looking at my screen because I, I saved an article and I'll see if I can pull it up. But there was a young girl who had testified. It's kind of almost gone viral in front of the school board saying that she was made to feel really uncomfortable because her. Teacher told her you can't share this information with your parents.


And what was this information? Was the teacher giving a, a test to see if you can understand what gender you are. And a little boy was saying, well, I don't get it. And he said, she said, well, you know, this is the system. I understand your gender. And you have to tell us what gender you feel you are. And he said, I don't understand that.


Can I take it home and talk to my parents? No, you are not allowed to take it home. You're not allowed to tell your parents, not even tell your parents that we're doing this. And the girl went home and said, I didn't feel comfortable. You're supposed to, and she testified. You're supposed to trust your parents.


You're supposed to feel safe with your teachers. I didn't feel safe. I felt like I was doing something wrong. You're always told my mom said you could talk to me about anything what's going on here. That's not okay. That's that's just not okay. 


Yeah. And, and they're, they're doing more and more of that in the schools, you know?


Uh, so many of this aspect of gender and LGBT, all of these types of things are being taught to kids younger and younger ages. Now, I want you to realize these are underrated kids that are now being taught about sex by their teachers in a classroom. Okay. Now, what do we normally call it? Well, you know, those are people that we would normally get labeled as a child predator.


Somebody comes up to a kid on the street and starts talking to them about that. And 


we're not just talking about sex, what gender you are. We're talking about, uh, graphic details. And some of that is. Taught in school. Well, they gotta learn it somewhere. Yeah. Well, you know, in our oversexed society, I'm not so concerned that they're going to find out what's going on, but that really is my job of what we're, you know, we're not, we're seeing kids that don't know how to be in, in relationships when they grow up.


We seen kids at camp balance checkbooks. There's so much that if you were concerned that kids aren't learning, you might want to start there. So in those things. I know that a lot of the audience is going. Yeah, there's that frustration level for many of us, regardless of the faith issue, regardless of the God's story in their own lives, Bodhi, uh, what we're seeing now, An increase in government wanting to know everything.


My health records, uh, you know, to be able to have maybe a passport card to, uh, you know, maybe we register our kids in Washington state and, you know, there really hasn't been a big issue, but if we start to see a. Con, uh, I guess more control. We start to see more of, no, you have to teach your children, this, this, this, and this.


And yes, we do have that. There are standards, but where do those standards start to cross Bodhi into the, uh, into some of the realms we've been talking about? 


Right. Yeah. And that's the question, you know, where, where do you limit the government on these types of things? Um, you know, how as far, can they reach into your home?


How far can they reach into your family or your local Christian school or whatever it might be and you know, what they keep doing it, but what we need to do, you know, like there's a lot of people out there listening to us, watching us right now. And they're like, well, where can we get some answers to this sort of thing?


We've actually put out some resources here recently. Uh, to help give you answers to deal with this at a family level right there in your own home, you can, you can work with these things with your own kids instead of letting the teachers do it. Um, one resource that we just put out it's literally hot off the press is a, it's a book called the gender and marriage war.


I don't know if you guys can see that I'm going to hold it up here. Uh, myself can handle and Avery Foley are the general editors on this book, the gender and marriage. This really goes through what's going on with the whole gender revolution. We're seeing it in the schools. What does it even mean? What's the new definitions?


How's the stuff being imposed. How can you respond to it? The other thing that it's actually a fairly new book out as well. And this was Ken ham by himself. It's a book called will they stay. Teaching kids how to face the secular giants that are out there because the kids are the ones that are under attack and yeah, all of us are under attack, but the kids are coming under attack left, right.


And center. They're getting it from the schools. We're getting it in the state. Museums are getting it in the secular media where we're seeing it all over the place. And these kids are sometimes going. W w what do I do? Where do I turn to? You know, sometimes they turn to the parents and, and that's good when they turn to the parents, but sometimes parents go, where do I get the answer to give to my kids?


That's the type of book they need to read. Will they stand how to get these dancers? And I really is. These are powerful sets of resources to give the kids the answers to deal with what's going on with the rubber hits the road. 


I want to challenge folks to. Uh, are concerned about, uh, this kind of diverse of learning.


Uh, there are a lot of folks, there's a big movement of people and we see it in every area with government and issues, Bodie that are very concerned about, uh, diversive learning. Instead of, you know, this is, this is what's that, that term settled science and you're going outside of the box, uh, yet. Again, if we are not challenging things do not get better.


We've seen this with concerns with the vaccine, for example, uh, regardless of what side of an issue you're on. If you get it or not, if we're not talking about it, if we're canceling right. Even the most ridiculous claims, we don't have the chance to disprove it. We don't have a chance to let it weigh out.


That's some of the concern I wanted to, there's two things I wanted to get to in our final couple of minutes together. Uh, one is some of the other concerns because, you know, registering where we registered to vote. We register for, you know, our, our driver's license. What's the real big deal. Are there other concerns that maybe we should have the, the light turned off?


And, uh, more of what we can do. I know there you have those two great books and we'll put links on to them, uh, at answers to Genesis for people to purchase them. Uh, but there's, you also have a big education, uh, wing that that has a load of reasons, sources for parents. So let's get to the problem and then we'll get to more of the solution Bodie, 


right?


Definitely. This is one step they want to registration. What will happen next? Yes. Why? When they have a registration list, what can they do with them? That's sometimes the question you need to ask, are they going to start sending stuff and saying, you've got to start using these books. You've got to start using this material.


You're not allowed to use this as soon as they get their foot in the door. And this sounds like a nice little innocent foot in the door. Yeah, here's my name? It's on a registry. What am I going to use for it for? So they're, they're probably gonna use it for, uh, all sorts of things. Um, number one, uh, you know, they can come right into your home and know exactly what you're teaching.


Maybe the next step is, well, now we want you to register all the, the, uh, books that you're using. We want to know, um, what kind of activities you're doing, actually, we're going to have you start working with a local school to do your homeschool. I mean, you'd be surprised where that can lead now. Of course, that's a slippery slope.


Where's it going to go? I mean, I'll say you can't be adamant about that, but at the same time, that's what we think. 


You know, I know it can sound a little conspiratorial and come on, you know, no one's interested in doing that, but if you're not thinking down those lines and there's no push back, then there's no resistance to the government.


So they're completely unleashed and we can see how far that goes. So you need to be aware it is happening in the UK. They're looking at it right now. Um, That it could be a national list in the United States. It could be a national listing, Canada, wherever you're listening. Is that really where we want to go?


And what will they do with that list? You should be thinking about it now. But part of the solution really is at the gods story Bodhi, and that is. Uh, government can think, well, we are we're the, the, the Harbinger's of knowledge, we can educate your kids. We're the enlightened, we're the technocrats. We can do what you can't.


You're just lowly parents. What do you know? But the Bible says something different. 


That's right. Uh, you know, God is the absolute authority when it comes to, to all matters. The government. Is an authority underneath of the Lord and savior Jesus Christ. So they are a lesser authority. Guess what people in governments come and go, and they have a for ages pass now, but you know what?


The Lord, Jesus Christ still sits on the throne. And that's something that we as Christians can take, take heart in and take note of, you know, in the Bible, you know, there's a, a really neat passage just says, the gates of hell will not overtake the. And sometimes we, we feel this immense pressure from all around us and we feel, oh, wow, we're being attacked.


How do we defend this? How do we defend this? Sometimes we need to step back and be still and know that God has gone and God is in charge. And even though we may see these little things going on all around us, Sometimes we don't see the bigger picture, but the Lord does. And that's where we need to place our faith in every 


instance.


And finally answers in Genesis. You have a lot of very sources, not just a couple of books, but a ton of books, uh, differing programs. Immense help. I mean, I homeschooled and, uh, there, wasn't what there is now. And the world makes it really easy for even someone like me. Like, I can teach you to play guitar, uh, but, but it makes it really easy for, you know, just regular people to infuse into their kids, such a dynamic.


Education that when they're sitting in front of an employer in the future, they know how to make eye contact. They know how to have a conversation. They have an idea of who they are. They know how to talk to people who are not just in their age level and do dope listening to the same music. Right. They know how these are some of the attributes of kids that come out of the homeschool community.


But answers in Genesis. I wanted to give that resource to a lot of folks and I'm telling you, this is interesting. I found out that there is a big contingent of, uh, people of different faiths and atheists that utilize the resources for homeschooling for as homeschoolers at answers to Genesis. Is that true?


No, it wouldn't surprise me if there are some out there doing that. Um, you know, you've been involved in so many educational resources, just hop on the website, answers in genesis.org. There's a tab for, uh, education and there's some mints amount of stuff. Some people use it just to educate themselves. Um, you know, a lot of our conferences, you can get continuing education credits and so forth, you know, for, for adults.


But then we have all sorts of, uh, uh, Sunday school curriculum VBS, which got, uh, just material after material that, that homeschoolers use. And of course there's some other really good homeschool. Uh, uh, people that are out there as well, you know, and we don't want to detriment that, you know what I mean? We, we in fact have used a lot of that 


ourselves.


Well, yes, because if you're teaching differing worldviews, and this is for people who don't come from a Christian worldview, if you're teaching different worldviews in your home, it helps your child to sort through and to find out what really weighs out with science. What is really true. Don't be afraid of a different worldview, bringing it on, you know, even in the Bible, God says, test me, try me, prove me.


He, you, right. I mean, he says, come on. Let's reason together. If God's not afraid of a little challenge, why should we. 


Exactly. Exactly. So, uh, you know, that that's really exciting. I love, uh, you know, being able to, uh, you know, tell people, Hey, there's a huge homeschooling market. There's huge Christian school markets.


I know we didn't hardly talk much about Christian schools, but you know what Christian schools come under attack, but a lot of Christian schools using the same types of materials that a lot of the homeschool parents are using as well. You know, so, I mean, we're seeing these attacks and a lot of different lines.


But, uh, yeah, let's, let's get into it. Let's look at the different worldviews. Let's get back and, uh, look at, look at science, a logically and from a philosophical and a historical perspective. There there's so much that can be learned. And I wanna encourage people to dive into science, to study. You know, I've got a science background myself.


I actually have a bachelor's and master's in mechanical engineering. I specialized in material science and I love that. Uh, you know, so I still utilize that, uh, you know, from time to time, but really I love theology. I love Bible. I love history. Those are the kinds of things. When it all comes together, it really is 


powerful.


It's a powerful thing. And that's why we take science and technology on and to my awesome audience. Thank you for. Thank you for listening. Thank you for opening your mind to more. Thank you for not just towing the line, but asking those hard questions. If you're someone who's a believer in the God's story has come alive in your life.


Don't be afraid to talk to other people and learn more about what you believe. Let go ahead, bring on the challenge. Don't be afraid of it because in doing so and bringing on that challenge, you teach your children critical thinking skills that can help them the rest of their life. And it gets to the most important thing.


Is there really a God out there? Can we see it since we've elevated science to the ultimate authority? Does science tell us about where we came from, if it's their intelligent design and who that intelligent designer is. And I say, yes, and that's why we do Sci-Tech talk and have people like Bodie first time to talk with them almost face to face.


And it's so exciting. Bodhi gotta come back on soon. It's been so much fun. You are, you are, oh, have always been interesting, but you have this virus vicious. And as you can tell you, you, you work with education because, you know, You can't have that  and not have it and try to teach kids or, or to connect with people to learn because they kind of glaze over.


Um, so I appreciate you and your passion. 


I appreciate it. It's been fun. Thanks. 


Now for our listeners, go to my Michelle live.com. You can click on the resources that we talked about today. You can go right from there, right to answers in Genesis and find everything we talked about today. A big hello, and thank you to you and your colleagues there at answers in Genesis Bodhi, hot dark guests.


More, Sci-Tech talk@mymichellelive.com


and that's a wrap. 


Thank you, pat. Yeah, that was good. 


Yeah. So, um, I'll send Melanie a link and, um, I'm not on YouTube right now because I'm in YouTube jail because I'm dangerous. 


Yeah, our answers news program. We, we, we get YouTube jail and Facebook jail all the time. 


Like there's not more important things.


I don't know, like the Taliban to cancel, but you know, 


oh my right. 


Hey, thanks again for making time. I hope we get to talk again soon. God bless. 


Absolutely. God bless you. Bye-bye.

sci tech talk - CREATIONISM RACISM 8/17/21

wITH DR. fUZ rANA

 0 (1m 43s): I can hear the music you most definitely do. And you know, what we might consider to be quote unquote, intelligent design, you know, is, is honestly dwarfed by the elegant designs that I see when I look at biological systems.  0 (2m 35s): So there's, you know, quote unquote intelligent design and the things that we make. And then there's really remarkably intelligent design. When we look at the features of biology, look at the, how integrated everything is.  0 (4m 30s): And that integration is at multiple levels where each level is integrated in biology. And then the, each of those systems in and of themselves are integrated with other systems, you know, in, in just the sheer complexity of it all is astounding, but there's this undergirding elegance to everything that you see. That was probably what convinced me when I was a graduate student as an agnostic, that there had to be a mind behind everything. It wasn't that IO chemistry was complex, but it was so ingenious. You know, there was a clot, there was a cleverness to it, a sophistication to it, a real elegance that, you know, to me suggested there was a mind behind everything.  0 (5m 12s): And that to me is the thing that's so remarkable about science is that whether you are a scientific way person and you just are taking in the, the all and the beauty of the world around you, or you have scientific insight where you understand the detailed mechanisms, both actually reveal in their own ways, the creator's handiwork. It's not like the more we learn about how things operate scientifically, the less evidence there is for creator. No, it actually is the opposite. The more evidence there is, you know, for, for a creator. And so I don't specifically know how, you know, spamming, you know, return back their, you know, their birth place to spawn specifically off the top of my head.  0 (6m 3s): No, that mechanism, but, but as you, I'm almost confident that as you delve into it, it's just going to be one, you know, point of amazement after the other, after the other, as you, you know, this is always the case, when you unpack how biological systems work, the design is just amazing.  0 (8m 28s): Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, this is something that is really a fairly new insight that is developed through the science of comparative genomics. And, and what I mean by that is that the genome of an organism that is essentially the entire genetic makeup of that organism and in the molecule that stores, our genetic information is the DNA molecule. And, and so one of the areas that has been really critical in our understanding of human biology, as well as the natural history of our own species, as well as other species is then the ability to, to essentially sequence the entire genetic makeup of organisms, thanks to advances in DNA sequencing technology.  0 (9m 19s): And then once we have the genomes of, of, of organisms, we can compare them with one another and begin to understand a little bit more about our biology, what regions of our, our, of our, our, of our DNA are critical for certain functions. And also what regions of our DNA make us unique. But along the way, what scientists have discovered is that a phenomena called hybridization is far more widespread than anybody ever imagined. And what I mean by that is a hybrid would be the, the offspring of, of reproduction between two distinct species and biologists knew that hybridization happened, but they thought it was a relatively rare phenomena.  0 (10m 4s): And now what it looks like is when we compare, you know, genomes from one creature with another, it looks like hybridization is widespread. That species are interbreeding with species all the time. And the net effect is that a species are exchanging genetic material with one another. And so our genomes are really a composite of the genomes of, of several species. And, and this is on the surface may seem problematic from a creation model standpoint, but actually when you peel away the layers, we actually see, I think, really good evidence for, for God's providential care for his, for his creation.  0 (11m 1s): Yes, exactly. So, you know, the, the, the, oh, it is right, but you are, that's a really, really good point that you're making.  0 (11m 51s): So, you know, for example, th the, some examples that have been recently, we discovered it of hybridization would be cave bears and brown bears, you know, or it would be, let's see, you know, Himalayan in, in Tabasco and dogs with wolves, but one of the things that people find interesting, so let's take, but Tabasco Tabasco in dogs, as an example, these are dogs that the humans brought with them when they began to migrate around the world and began to occupy the Tibetan plateau, which is at a very high elevation, and there's very low levels of oxygen.  0 (12m 32s): And it turns out that these dogs we're able to survive in these low oxygen environments, because they hybrid they with wolves who had particular genetic makeup that allowed them to, to be able to live in low oxygen environments. And so they, these dogs kicked up this, this genetic information that allowed them again to survive like high altitudes. But it turns out that the wolves picked up that genetic ability from hybridizing with another type of canine species that nobody knows what it is.  0 (13m 13s): It's an extinct species that we have no record of. And that's where the ghost lineage idea comes into it is that there are ghosts in the Wolf's genome that wound up making its way into these Tabasco Dawn genomes. But, and so this is called technically adaptive integration integration. So our into integration where this interbreeding actually imparts genetic information that allows organisms to adapt very rapidly to new environments. And so I see this as, you know, micro evolution, but it's part of God's providential care. This is not again, you know, a, you know, that I like, I like to say, but rather it's really, microevolution where this is a new mechanism that nobody even knew existed, but it allows organisms to adapt.  0 (14m 10s): Now, this is the thing where it gets a little weird, but also kind of fun is that people believe that humans actually were able to occupy those high altitude regions as well. When we began to migrate around the world, because humans interbred with this mysterious, hominine called the Denisovans where the nose ovens actually imparted a similar kind of genetic genetic information into the human genome as these roles did to these two Sebastian dogs. And so it's almost an identical genetic transfer of genetic information into humans, as well as into these dogs.  0 (14m 50s): And so that's a little, yeah.  0 (17m 50s): You know, and thank you, Michelle, because you're bringing up a really, really important point that, that I think is helped will help people enormously when they interact with this kind of these kinds of scientific insights is that evolution is really an, an ambiguous term. And it means biologic in the context of biology, it means change over time. But, you know, we are familiar with many examples of evolution that to me, don't fundamentally threaten the idea that there is a creator that, that, that is intimately involved in orchestrating the history of life on earth. I'm an old earth creationist. So I'm skeptical about aspects of the evolutionary paradigm well-established.  0 (18m 38s): And so we talk about microevolution, which would be variation happening within a species that the textbook example that everybody's familiar with is the peppered moth changing its wing wing color from, you know, light colored varieties to dark colored variety. It, when the environment became, you know, covered with sweat because of pollution, you know, or speciation, which is a, a form of microevolution where one species can give rise to a closely related sister species. So the Galapagos finches, you know, that it's, you know, I don't have an issue with the idea that a Finch species made its way to the Galapagos islands and over time diversified into a collection of subspecies and species.  0 (19m 22s): This is all, these are all micro, evolutionary changes. There's no creative potential or power, really being ascribed to evolution. It's more fine tuning and tweaking and adjusting a core design. You know, to me where I'm skeptical is the idea that evolution could turn chemicals into the very first cells or could turn, you know, a Wolf like creature into a whale or an ape-like creature into humans. That would be macro evolution. So, and this is, yeah.  0 (21m 20s): Okay. Yeah. You know, I, I like to think of micro evolution and speciation as really, again, part of God's providential care for his creation. I mean, think about it, it's similar to a thermostat, right. You know, where the thermostat is designed to keep the room at a constant temperature. And so if the room gets too hot or too cold, that the, either the, the heat or the air conditioning will kick on to keep the room at, at a constant temperature. And so organisms are living in an ever changing environment and they need to be able to respond to those changes in the environment.  0 (22m 4s): Otherwise they're going to go extinct. And so I see microevolution the ability for a species to vary over time, or even for a new species that come from an existing species is really part of the way God cared for the, for those, those creatures that he's made. It allows them to be able to adapt to an ever-changing world and, and, you know, to remain again, to survive, to, to be robust as species and endurable as species. So I see that as part of God's providential care. And so it's not. And so what this new study is discovering is that it's not just, you know, the traditional mechanisms and natural selection that seemed to play a role, but it's also this idea that hybridization can infuse very quickly into the population, new genetic information that suddenly allows, you know, animals that can't live in high altitude to be able to live in the high altitude environment.  0 (23m 5s): Or there was an yeah.  0 (24m 10s): Yep.  0 (25m 29s): That's a beautiful analogy too. You know what we're talking about here? And when you think about the amount of design that is needed to be able to, to take programming and, and to make it modular so that you can pick and choose the type of programming you need for your particular application, that takes quite a bit of ingenuity and overall foresight in planning for the entire, you know, system. And that's what you really see when you start looking at this idea of adaptive in aggression. You know, most evolutionary biologists would say, well, the shared biological features that we see among organisms reflects their shared evolutionary ancestry reflects common descent, but you can also see those shared features as reflecting common design.  0 (26m 19s): And now you can see that that within that common design are these modules, these genetic modules that allow organisms to survive in different environments and what a brilliant design to allow organisms to exchange those modules with one another through the process of hybridization, as a way to ensure, you know, the, again, the survivability of, of different species. And the fact of the matter is that that same, that same mechanism actually seems to have impacted human beings as well. You know, it, as we began to migrate around the world, we interbred with meander and falls.  0 (26m 59s): We interbred with these weird creatures that nobody quite knows these mysterious yeah. Right in there. Well, there's good evidence that, that interbreeding. Yes. Well, you know, but, but the thing is, is that, you know, when, when you look at, you know, as a, as a Christian who, you know, and when I think about Adam and Eve, and being created by God and, and their descendants bearing God's image, and, you know, you would like to think that, you know, human beings would be distinct and separate from, you know, this kind of, this kind of interbreeding mechanism.  0 (27m 47s): But we have to remember too, that human beings, you know, fell in the garden and that we're sinful and that human beings are deprived. And so it's not surprising that as we began to migrate around the world, that there was interbreeding that took place between humans and Neanderthals and Denisovans, but to me what's right, right.  0 (29m 3s): Yup. Yup. Yeah. Well, you know, and the thing is, you know, our interbreeding with Neanderthals and Denisovans actually helped us to adapt to new environments as we began to migrate around the world. Yeah. We did it for evil, but God was able to use it for, for good, you know, like you, you know, and so, so there's always, here's, what's neat because when you mentioned human exceptionalism, it's the fact that this interbreeding between humans and Neanderthals and Denisovans took place, that actually it highlights our exceptional nature as human beings in a really unexpected way, because there are regions in our genome that are absolutely clean of any kind of Neanderthal or Denisovan genes.  0 (30m 10s): These are called deserts. These are called meander fall deserts and Dennis Sovan deserts. And it turns out that the region in the genome that is completely pristine is the region in our genome that corresponds to neural development in cognition. And so there's part of a, our genome, even though we were interbreeding that God seems to have protected. And it turns out that really what scientifically, what makes us separate from even the Andrew falls and Dennis opens is our ability for symbolism. And, and, and, and we have a very bizarre skull compared to Mandra false and sodas where it's globular and our face is flat, or chin is retracted.  0 (30m 51s): And that leads to an expanded parietal lobe, which is the part of the brain that's involved in processing for language and math. So Neanderthals and Denisovans didn't have that, that, that, that anatomical ability and physiological ability for symbolism. And we can see our genome as being unique compared to these creatures. And, and I see symbolism as a, as a scientific descriptor of the image of God is a manifestation of the image of God. So even though, you know, God knew that we were going to do these, these things that, you know, we would find to be really problematic for very good reason.  0 (31m 31s): Again, you know, we intended for evil, God intended it for good, but God still protected and preserved us in the image of God, in us, by preventing any kind of Neanderthal contribution to that region that, you know, physically supports w R yeah.  0 (33m 22s): Yeah. Well, you know, you know, I, I think that the, the, the story of Noah's Ark is a, is a, a real historical description of what happened. And, you know, I mean, it's interesting to me that when you look at the migration patterns of humans, you know, that that pattern of spread around the world fits what you would expect after the, the flood and after the tower of Babel took place, you know, in the human genome for that. And, you know, I think we're just beginning to get insight into animal genomes that I think would support, you know, this, this idea that, you know, genetic variability and diversity can arise very quickly, you know, in animals.  0 (34m 8s): It, it seems to have been the case in humans. And I don't see why that wouldn't be the case in animals.  0 (37m 43s): Well, I'll come back anytime. Yeah. Oh, thanks for having me, Michelle. It's part of the game. So, you know, one thing I've learned over the years is flexibility is very, very important.  0 (38m 41s): Yeah, I will. Thanks again, Michelle. God bless you. 

sci tech talk - CREATIONISM RACISM 8/3/21

wITH DR. fUZ rANA

 0 (3s): It's the, my Michelle live podcast, Michelle live side tech doc, taking the God story to a Kiki. Here's the show. Hey, thanks for joining us today. I  1 (22s): Am Michelle Mendoza. Glad that you could be with us. Oh man. It's Sci-Tech talk. And in our Sci-Tech talk, we will take on a new stories, ideas, new discoveries, because every one of them opens the door to an interesting and deeper discussion, something deeper to enrich your life. And that's what we call the God story. And we like to take on that God's story with people who were in the know, and there's no one who knows better and is more fun to talk to, I think, than the one and only Dr.  1 (1m 7s): FAS Urana from reasons to believe. We're going to give you some reasons to believe no reasons to believe. Thank you. Big voice guy,  0 (1m 23s): Dr. Rano welcome. I'm glad to connect with you again,  2 (1m 27s): Michelle. It's always good to hang out with you. So thanks for having me.  1 (1m 31s): Well, our topic today is a very interesting one. I, I wonder in our society where we're just so blessed, we have such abundance, we have such prosperity. So what do we do with it? We have all the knowledge of man at, at our fingertips right here. And what do we do with it? We decide ways that we can demonize others. We can find ways that we can say ha you're evil. And so now we have a brand, we have brand new ammunition and our holsters against those crazy Christians in a time where black lives matter.  1 (2m 18s): And we're kneeling at stadiums. We can find a new way to say that people like you, Dr. Ronna, who have this idea that maybe not only is there intelligent design, seemingly interwoven in all of the universe, and we can see the level of complexity, but you take it to a whole new, crazy level. You believe that there's a God behind it. And specifically the God of the Bible. And now we have evidence that creationism is racism.  1 (3m 2s): That's where we're at today.  2 (3m 5s): Yeah. You know, and it, yeah. You know, it's, it's remarkable to me that this idea is even in play, but the person who really tried to drive home that point was a, a lady by the name of Alison and hopper who wrote an op ed piece for scientific American that was published, I believe July 5th. And in this article, she, it makes the argument that if you deny evolution, that if you embrace some form of creationism, that you in effect are advocating for white supremacy, that your ultimate motivation isn't scientific or religious, but it's ultimately motivated by white supremacy.  2 (3m 49s): And that that creationism is ultimately dangerous because it, it creates an environment where it is okay to, to bring about harm and injury to people with black bodies. So this was the, the assertion. This was the claim.  1 (4m 7s): And it's totally, totally, it is outlandish, but just, this is what I love about science. You take these ideas and you look through them, you examine them, you listen to them with respect, right? Isn't that what we're supposed to do with science? We have an idea, a pie apotheosis, and someone says, well, wait a minute, this hypothesis has problems because of a, B, C, or D. Right. And I'm hoping that she has something that we can bite into other than I feel this way. And so that makes it true because that's a lot of where we're at in our society.  1 (4m 48s): What does she have? That is any kind of evidence or something that we can well bite into?  2 (4m 56s): Yeah. Well, I mean her, her chief argument is this that, that, you know, what science has revealed to us is that the very first humans would have been people with that would have looked like African people groups today. They would have been people with dark skins. And that, that, because of this, this reality, it really undermines any kind of racism that might exist in our world. That scientifically we understand now that all human beings are unified, that we are essential, fundamentally are the same, that we all come from the same ancestry.  2 (5m 39s): And that really any differences between us biologically speaking are superficial. I actually fully agree with all of those claims, but then she, she brings up the point that this idea that we have African ancestry for the origin of humanity is not shown, doesn't make its appearance in museum exhibits or in discussions about the, you know, the origin of humanity. And so she blames in a sense creationists for this and her chief argument is that if you look at the history of the church in the United States, in the, in the civil war time, that there were Christians that were pro slavery, and they used a flawed interpretation of, of scripture as a way to justify the institution of slavery, namely arguing that black skin is essentially a curse that it's either the Mo the black skin comes from the mark of Cain or from, you know, Ham's descendants.  2 (6m 46s): And therefore God views dark skinned people as cursed. And this legitimizes the institution of slavery now. Okay,  1 (6m 56s): Let's stop there for just a moment, because that is 100% true. She is right on the money with that. I was at one time in a Bible study, and I had had this conversation about Bob Jones university. They didn't allow interracial dating. It's been, they changed their policy, but it was in my, it was probably 15 years ago or more. They still did disallowed, interracial dating. I was amazed at that. I asked why I, I had not known about, you know, even growing up in the church, I didn't know about this backwards.  1 (7m 44s): Ridiculous. I would say evil mindset that, yeah, that's, it's a curse. The dark skin is a curse and they were trying to use scripture on that. And I was like, are you kidding me? So does that mean I'm curse? Oh, no. Michelle, you're Hispanic. You're okay. I'm like, no, thank you. I'll turn it off. I'll go to the other side. I'm good. I don't want to be, I don't want to be there. I w I was taken back. So yes, she's correct. That there is that backwards. There has been that backwards thinking it has dissipated quite a bit in the light of truth.  1 (8m 25s): Now that's where I said, FAS in science and in philosophy, we should be asking questions and in life, and in politics, we have an idea. We say, well, wait a minute. This happened. And so creationism is racism. This happened. So, you know, everyone should, you know, wear masks. You know, we, we all have these differing topics that we, we get really honed in on. Right. And we do, we want to cancel any other idea, but we need to talk about it because her philosophy has legs, but it only goes so far.  2 (9m 15s): Yeah. Well, you know, and, and, you know, to your point, you know, it's important to recognize that even though this idea kind of has its Genesis probably in the 18 hundreds and persists sadly, even today,  1 (9m 30s): I mean, Darwinian evolution, it doesn't come from creationism.  2 (9m 35s): Yeah. Well, you know, the, the, the, the point is that even in the civil war times, there were Christians who were abolitionists, who challenged that very poor interpretation of scripture. And today, you know, if you are seriously looking at what scripture teaches and people that hold to a creationist perspective, whether it's a young earth or an older perspective, would all agree that that scripture doesn't teach anything of this sort whatsoever, that scripture is silent about the skin color of Adam and Eve. And, you know, you know, what I think is unfortunate is that she neglects to acknowledge that there's a difference between an association that was in the church has passed and what is actually a genuine cause and effect relationship.  2 (10m 28s): But you're also pointing out, you know, that for example, that she brings up the, the, the KKK, well, it is true that the KKK in 1925 was the first organization to officially oppose teaching evolution in the classroom, that they demanded equal time for creation and for evolution. But the KKK was employing ideas that were connected to social Darwinism, you know, as part of their agenda. And so it was a really bizarre amalgam of, you know, a, a poor understanding of scripture and, and essentially social Darwinism,  1 (11m 9s): Evolutionary anthropology. Can we just call it ignorance because that's more, a lot of our worst ideas come from, interestingly enough, you can go through a list. Can you not doctor of a differing ideas that are out of left field, that people use scripture as the ultimate authority to say, we'll see the Bible says this. The Bible says that when the Bible in its interpretation, you take it from cover to cover it. Doesn't contradict itself. The idea doesn't just pop out and you can use a few words to shore up your idea.  1 (11m 54s): It's kind of like the adage figures, lie, liars figure. So go figure you can, you can use data and manipulate it in just the right way to say, just about anything you want. You have to look at the whole picture, but something that we need to get into, as we talk about creationism being racism is really did. Where did the idea of we are different races and we are at different levels of evolution and enlightenment, and some are less than others.  1 (12m 35s): Where did that really come from? Did it come from the model of creationism where more than likely as you pointed out, we were created in an area of the world that, and had darker skin. And then we micro evolution and changes based on environment, but we're still the same race of where God is no respecter of persons. I don't see that in the creation as a model, but we do see it as you and I have both touched on in Darwinian evolution, which is still taught in schools.  1 (13m 17s): No wonder we have a problem with race.  2 (13m 20s): Well, you know, this is something where I was really disappointed in the piece because Alison opera neglects to bring up the fact that evolutionary anthropology is, is littered with a racist history. And it goes back to Darwin himself. I mean, if you take the time to read through the descent of man, it's horrifying because, you know, Darwin believed that all human beings came from a single ancestry. So this is a view called Monat Genesis, but he argued that different racial groups were at different degrees in the evolutionary had different degrees of evolutionary advance, where of course, white Europeans were at the top of the evolutionary tree.  2 (14m 3s): And the other different groups of people had not advanced this far evolutionarily speaking. And, and, and he viewed people that were nonwhite as essentially savages. And that was a pejorative implication to that context, that term, where he saw people of, of who had darker skin as essentially inferior, intellectually inferior more in terms of their moral capacity and even inferior in terms of what he called self command. And in fact, Darwin even advocated for British imperialism.  2 (14m 42s): And he used evolutionary ideas as a way to justify this. If, if natural selection and survival of the fittest is produced different racial and those groups that are the superior ones are fully within their rights to this is the natural order of things to suppress other groups, to dominate other groups. And this of course gave rise to social Darwinism and led to the eugenics movement. And when you go into the 1920s and thirties, people like Carleton, Coon, who, who classify different people, groups, according to racial categories that we still use today, and, and actually saw these different groups as having different evolutionary histories, where again, white Europeans were the most advanced, but people like Carleton, Coon, and other anthropologists actually ranked different people groups, according to skin color, and in terms of superiority and inferiority based on skin color.  2 (15m 43s): So this is part of, of evolutionary anthropology. Now, today, it's hard to find anybody who is an evolutionary anthropologist that would adhere to any of these views. They tried to distance themselves from this racist history. And part of the argument that they use is, well, we all come from Africans. So, you know, I don't want to label evolutionary anthropologists today is racist, but it's very clear in the past they  1 (16m 11s): Work. No, but, okay. So what we're saying here is think through this logically, okay. On one end, we are labeling creationism racism because of an idea that wasn't even mainstream and was challenged by people of the day and is absolutely not biblically sound, right? We're, we're making this assumption. Creationism is racism and creationists are racists when Darwinism is founded in racism.  1 (16m 54s): And we're saying, well, yes, but people today that doesn't make them racists. When we're looking at, at that model, you know, you can't have it both ways,  2 (17m 7s): Right? You, you can't. And you know, to me, and this is an issue that you touched upon that I really think is worth bringing out. The issue is ultimately white supremacy and people will use their source of authority as a way to justify their views on a number of issues. And that's what you see in the history. Sadly, the west is that people held to this view that for whatever reason, that white people were superior and for Christians, they are going to go to their source of authority and try to co-opt it to justify their views and people that are more that are, you know, that would embrace a scientific worldview, are going to go to their source of authority, which is scientific insight as a way to justify their views on issues.  2 (17m 57s): And this would include white supremacy. So the issue was really white supremacy, and I think a misuse of the science and a misuse of scripture to justify white supremacy. And so it's, you know, it's a great thing when, when you know, we recognize that ultimately we all are sinners and we all can do it really. We, we could things to one another and we'll try to justify it any way that we can. That's really the issue at stake here. And, and I think, you know, Alison hopper just really brushes aside the complexity of, of, of these different ideas and how these ideas were really used.  2 (18m 40s): You know, societaly  1 (18m 43s): Yeah, I I'm with you there. It, it's a, it's essentially a hit piece, not unlike what we see in modern media where we don't do our research anymore. We don't look into the stories. We don't dig deep. We have an idea that we want to propel, and we, we gather information that will help bolster our mindset, the point that we want to make, I'm making that point because all of this has to do with how we look at modern science, modern information, the issues of the day, the news that we're experiencing, the people that we are asked about for all of these things are being affected by the canceling of information, by the shutting down of other ideas.  1 (19m 37s): And by the irresponsible media that doesn't do the job of looking at, I know this is more of an opinion piece, but everything in the media seems to be an opinion piece anymore, fuzz, where we're not looking at the whole story, digging deep telling, looking at both sides of reporting the entire T of the story. And if we were, we would realize that we are teaching in our schools, Darwinian evolution, which is at the very base of our modern racism and <inaudible> supremacy, that's where it has truly flourished from and continued in.  1 (20m 31s): And we're teaching it in our schools today as though it is fact from kindergarten up through college level.  2 (20m 41s): Yeah. You know, I mean, it's interesting when you go back in history towards your, to your point, and you look at the scopes monkey trial, and of course, William Jennings, Bryan was the, the, the person who was defending creationism and he actually was an old earth creationist. And so it was perfectly comfortable with the antiquity of the earth. I don't think he was even troubled in, in and of itself by the idea that may be life had an evolutionary history. What his primary concern was, was the connection between evolutionary theory and social Darwinism, willing Jennings Bryant was a progressive. And so he probably would have more in common with Bernie Sanders today than with evangelical Christians.  2 (21m 23s): He was a progressive, and he was concerned about the implications of Darwin's theory when it came to again, how we view one another in society, where he saw social Darwinism as really as, as evil. And even though the KU Klux Klan was on his side, in the code scopes monkey trial, William Jennings, Bryan actually was opposed to the KU Klux Klan. And many of the IUD is that they held. And so, so the point being is that, you know, the, the implications of Darwin's theory are far reaching. And to me, my biggest concern about Darwin, the implications of Darwinism is that ultimately it undermines the dignity and the value and the sanctity of human life.  2 (22m 9s): That is if ultimately human beings are the product of evolution, then we have, we're no different than any other creature on the planet we have, you know, there's nothing that makes us exceptional. There's nothing that causes us to stand apart from any other, other creature. We are just part of the evolutionary tree. There's no ultimate meaning and purpose. And this is really the message of the Darwinian paradigm. Now, ironically, within that paradigm, you can still argue that the science doesn't support racism, but it's, it's, it's only because you would say, well, we are fundamentally all the same biologically speaking.  2 (22m 50s): And as soon as you have any kind of discoveries that suggest different people, groups are different. You begin to unravel any kind of scientific support that would oppose racism. And in fact, there was an op ed piece that I read written by a geneticists who was concerned that as we apply modern genetics and looking at the genetic basis for diseases, we see that different people from different regions of the world, or more or less susceptible to certain diseases. And his concern is that this could actually be the pathway for a new type of eugenics that would mirror in a new type of social Darwinism. So this idea that, you know, that there's no basis for racism because we all are coming from the same population, scientifically speaking is, is a really, really weak argument.  2 (23m 42s): Foundationally speaking to justify again, unity among human beings. Whereas biblically speaking, we would argue that that unity ultimately stems from the fact that we are made in God's image and every human life has dignity and value, regardless of your racial views, your, your re, the regional part of the world, your ancestry comes from that because the Bible is, is colorblind. You know, what is important is what is inside of us. And, and that is ultimately our, our, the fact that we're image bearers and fundamentally, we, you know, Christianity is the only pathway to true reconciliation among people in the world.  2 (24m 24s): Science has never going to give you that, that ultimate justification,  1 (24m 28s): Very good point created in the image of God is a marker of exceptionalism, something different, something that sets us apart from the rest of the earth and the universe. I understand that. And yet in science, you know, this being a, a Sci-Tech talk, we also see that, but this isn't just a nice idea that comes from the pages of a religious book. We see evidence of that in science. Do we not?  2 (25m 6s): We, we sure do. And this is, again, something that I find fascinating is that a growing number of anthropologists who would be deeply steeped in the evolutionary paradigm are really forced to acknowledge that maybe human beings really are different from other creatures, that we really are exceptional. And the, the, the fundamental quality that appears to make us exceptional is our capacity for symbolism. We can represent the world symbolically, but not only that, we can actually manipulate those symbols in our mind to create, you know, this open-ended generative capacity to communicate, you know, complex abstract ideas in a near infinite number of, with a near infinite number of possibilities.  2 (25m 51s): There's no other creature that exists that has that capability. There's a recent article. I saw where the, the, the, the, the author was pointing out that animals, interestingly enough, have concepts of numbers. They, they can, they, they have some kind of numerical concepts, interestingly enough, but it's only human beings that can do mathematics, where we can take those numerical values and manipulate them to actually develop a deeper understanding of the world around us. And so there's something fundamentally different about us. And to me, when you start talking about symbolism, you really are talking about a quality that I would in you.  2 (26m 32s): And I would understand Michelle, as essentially reflecting the image of God, a scientific descriptor of the image of God. So, you know, anthropology, even it's steeped in evolution has shown us that really human beings are exceptional. There's a, again, a growing number of people in the scientific community that would accept that idea. And even this idea that we all come from, you know, east Africa, th the, the information surrounding that is really provocative. You know, we, we come from a region very close to where we think the garden of Eden would have been from a small population that had a recent origin.  2 (27m 14s): And, and we have concepts like mitochondrial Eve and Y chromosomal, Adam, you know, that suggests that there was a single woman that gave rise to humanity, that there was a single man that gave rise to humanity, at least with respect to certain genetic markers. And so, you know, there's a lot coming from the science that suggests the biblical account of human origins is highly credible. And, and the implications of that of course are far reaching.  1 (27m 43s): They're very far reaching and kind of exciting when you really look at the creation story, the model suggests, as you mentioned, just, just a pull this out that we came from Africa, we had likely originally a darker skin, which as we regionalized changed and developed that model shows something very in line with the biblical model, the idea that we crawled out of goo, and we've left some of the people and other regions of the world behind us, some of us have ascended to a higher level, you know, that really does speak of ignorance, racism, elite, ism, and division.  1 (28m 37s): Where when we see in the Bible, the biblical model, we see a human race created by in the image of God created by God, in need of a relationship with God. We see that. And we talk about this. Every SITECH talk where we see more evidence coming out continuously FAS that shows the, the relationship of creation to not only intelligent design, but something very specific that is so in line with, with biblical ideas that it's hard to ignore.  1 (29m 20s): I want your final thoughts.  2 (29m 21s): Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, and that, that to me is, you know, what's amazing, it doesn't matter what discipline of science you go to. We see very clear evidence that, that, that the universe that we live in is design has been designed and designed for a purpose. We see that in living systems and, you know, scripture teaches, ultimately human beings are the crown of creation. And again, we see scientific evidence that, that aligns with it. And so, you know, there, there is, you know, this remarkable reconciliation between science and scripture that really, I think, bolsters and justifies our views as, as Christians in our, in our worldview as Christians.  2 (30m 3s): And, you know, that's, that's exciting because the Christian worldview to me is the ultimate solution to, to racism into what divides us in the world today. Because the message of scripture is that ultimately when we embrace the, the, the, the life death and resurrection of Christ and we're reconciled to God, we were also reconciled to each other, that there is no free, there is no slave, there is no Jew. There is no Greek. We all are unified in Christ. And in this is the ultimate solution to racism. It's never going to be found through social programs, or it's never going to be found through some kind of scientific insight.  2 (30m 46s): And ultimately it's going to come through, I think the gospel message.  1 (30m 50s): Yes. And that's the exciting thing that I love about connecting with you, with the folks at reasons to believe with other biblically based scientists, is that the more we delve into the universe, whether it's on the macro level or you as a microbiologist, you know, on the, on the micro level, we see extraordinary intelligence. We see extraordinary engineering. We see extraordinary design. We see fingerprints of the designer, which align with this beautifully, perfectly balanced planet universe, environmental system that was tailor made lovingly.  1 (31m 41s): You would S you could say for mankind, and again, eerily, no matter what your faith level is, it is eerily. If I might say, in line with a biblical worldview, because it is so in line, it begs our attention. It's something to deeply look into. It's something that I think is perfectly fine to challenge, because unlike what we see in society, the Bible says, comma, this reason, test me, try me, prove me, right. God, isn't afraid of articles that say creationism is racism.  1 (32m 28s): I think God is more in line with bring it. I'll give you the final word.  2 (32m 34s): Yeah, well, you know, I guess, you know, from my perspective, I really am saddened by that op ed piece by Alison hopper, because this is an opportunity to actually create common ground and create unity. You know, where she could say, look, here's this interesting idea that comes from anthropology. And it's remarkable how this lines up with, with what, you know, creationists today are saying. And look, even though we have different worldviews and different perspectives, when it comes to creation evolution, here's a place where we have common ground that we could lock arms together and oppose racism in the world that we live in, that we could work together to bring about justice.  2 (33m 16s): But instead of trying to find that common ground, what Ellison hopper is doing is trying to create these artificial divisions, you know, and, and that to me is what really is sad. And so, you know, just as we see a reconciliation between science and scripture, I think it's our obligation as Christians to really work for genuine reconciliation in our world. You know, where we, where we, you know, try to reach across worldviews and try to find points of agreement where we can at least, you know, you know, live together in peace. But it's in that framework, in that environment that I think, you know, we can then begin to engage one another with our differences, but it's only, it should only be after we find common.  1 (34m 1s): That's well, put it's in line with, if you look at scripture, Paul's sermon on the unknown God. So you may want to look that up in the interest of time. I also want to say, this is Gallatin. Let me get this right there. And I love it. And they are one of the folks that keeps as on the internet on the air, keeps us VOD casting, podcasting, and bringing you good information. It is a fountain of youth in the bottle. And I will tell you for arthritis issues for aging issues, heartburn, energy sleeping at night, there is nothing better.  1 (34m 46s): So thank you Kaletra and for being part of what we do, you can find it@mymichellelive.com where we have new swag, too. I'll have to send you a, my Michelle live t-shirt will you wear it?  2 (34m 58s): Oh, I will. I love to wear t-shirts and definitely wear it proudly.  1 (35m 3s): Yeah. We're we're even designing new Sci-Tech geeky t-shirt so I know you and I lean towards the geek. So yeah, we could be sporting. Our t-shirt Dr. Ronna is with reasons to believe, and they are a spectacular organization that delves into all manner of science. They have a team of scientists that work with them, writing the best books you may ever read on, on science and faith. They have articles that you can peruse through and get lost in it's on a rainy day. That's what I do. I go through the articles, that reasons dot or get you can of course find the link@mymichellelive.com.  1 (35m 48s): Thank you folks for joining us today.  0 (35m 55s): No, you can dance. If you want to. If you get more, Sci-Tech talk@mymichellelive.com  2 (36m 5s): Your bumper needs and going into the show is pretty fucking, so we got to go and on, we got to go. 

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