Unraveling The Truth: Christian Faith Meets the Alien Debate

Episode Transcript
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Joe (00:02):
Hello everybody, thank you for joining us on Alien Talk
Podcast.
This is the show where wediscuss all things about aliens
and UFOs and, as always, wherewe push the limits of our
understanding.
We are Joe Landry and LaurieOldford, here once again to seek
out the truth and search forthe facts pertaining to the
highly discussed issues aboutextraterrestrial life, the
presence of UFOs and perhapseven the very meaning of life.

(00:25):
And that is not to imply thatthose three are somehow mutually
inclusive.
They are not.
So you've all heard us, on thisshow, examine the important
interplay that we seem to findwithin the substance of religion
as it ties into Westerncultural narratives of what
would be called paranormalencounters, particularly those

(00:47):
about alien contact.
Today, we want to explore theconnection that exists at the
very substratum of ourcollective psyche between our
beliefs in the form ofindividual expressions of faith,
and that which is moreexperiential in the way of a
tangible reality, such asthrough something like the
witnessing of a miracle.
More succinctly, we would liketo discuss how something like

(01:09):
Christianity may unveil aninnate drive within us to seek
the supernatural, a yearning tofind within our own minds that
which is unknown, and togenuinely ask if it truly does
explain how and why we allponder ideas like the nature of
our being, the purpose of ourphysical existence and the
essence of a transcendent andeminent God.

(01:30):
We also want to ask thequestions that many believers
have about alien life.
Do the scriptures say anythingabout it?
Is it unchristian to believethat there is life elsewhere in
the universe?
Would the existence of othersentient life forms on other
planets preclude the doctrinesof sin, salvation and
sanctification?
What are the connections andanalogies between the stories of

(01:53):
alien encounters and divineencounters?

Laurie (01:57):
Yeah, joe, of course we have alluded many times to how
you and I, you know, we werebrought up in the faith and how
we spent our lives with beinginvolved with Christianity and
the church and the study of theBible.
And, you know, part of thereason that we started this
podcast four years ago now wasto help explain how all of this
fits into a much bigger pictureand, you know, to help people

(02:21):
understand that to be religiousor to be a person of faith in
general, or to be a Christiandoesn't mean you.
You know you close out otherways of thinking, even if they
seem to challenge what you havealways accepted as the truth, by
juxtaposing it with otherpossible models of knowledge,

(02:46):
reality, the universe.
What have you, and kind ofdoing comparative analysis,
especially with regard todiscoveries made that support
the ancient alien theory?
And the questions thatinevitably get raised are ones
such as you know is there aparallel to it with religious

(03:09):
dogma?
Do all of humanity's beliefsystems originate from our
collective memory about thescriptural narratives?
Obviously, we know that ourancestors described God and gods
with the lowercase g asdwelling above us, both
figuratively and literally.
Is that because of a connectionto the extraterrestrial

(03:32):
encounters in the distant past,or is it because of something
altogether different, different?
So for tonight's discussion, weare pleased to have with us a
very special guest, a specialfriend of ours, who, like us, is

(03:59):
of strong religious backgroundand who, like us, also served in
various capacities of Christianministry.
In fact, he is still active inthe pastoral services.
I believe he is a chaplain formany of the local first
responder agencies here insouthern Arizona police, fire,
paramedics and he is part of alocal agency here, now that

(04:20):
actually he and I work at thesame agency and you know.
So with that, we would like tointroduce James Allerton.
I don't know, james, if you'rereferred to also as reverend
pastor or whatever, but welcometo Alien Talk podcast.

James (04:36):
Thank you.
Technically it could bereverend, but I prefer James.
And thank you so much forinviting me on, just for your
audience.
I have known these guys well,lori for nearly 20 years now and
Joe for just a little bit lessthan that.
I've literally gone throughdoors with them.
I was just thinking of a couplecalls that I've been on with

(05:01):
Joe I think it was after I was,when I was temporarily
reassigned to patrol and he andI patrolled together for a good
while.
And, lori, I've known that ifyour audience doesn't know, that
was, I'm using law enforcementcode words, so I may have given
away your secret if you're bothundercover right now.
Sorry about that.
No, we're not.

(05:21):
We've served in law enforcementtogether.
Consider these guys.
Brothers, I'm super excitedthat you invited me on because
one they know.
Both of you gentlemen know thatI have a great deal of faith in
my beliefs.
But we've seen people withfaith before that refuse to

(05:45):
listen to others, refuse totackle questions, refuse to hold
up what they believe againstwhat other people believe, and
it's not healthy.
If you truly think that whatyou believe is true, you should
be able to be open to discuss it, be open to say that.
Well, here's what I believe andhere's why.
And if we disagree?
Here's what I believe andhere's why.
And if we disagree, that's fine.

(06:06):
Now I'm going to endear myselfto your audience a little bit
because we're going to disagreeand they'll probably get all mad
at me, which is okay.
But so I have a confession tomake.
I'm pretty old now, and back inthe day the only thing on AM
radio at night was coast tocoast.

Laurie (06:25):
Yeah.

James (06:25):
The absolute only thing.
So I often up late, eithertraveling or working listening
to Art Bell in the day, and thenGeorge Norrie took over.
So I'm super geeking out aboutthis topic.
I mean, as I said, I'm notgoing to agree with most of it,
but I'm super excited about itand very interested to learn

(06:45):
what you guys understand aboutit and some of the things that
you know about it.
A little bit about my backgroundI do have a degree from a
Christian school I wentto—actually it was a Pentecostal
school.
You guys both have a littlePentecostal background.
It was Christ for the Nations.
I've taken classes at DallasSeminary and Nazarene Bible

(07:10):
College and I got ordained withthe Church of the Nazarene in
2000.
So I've been doing that for alittle while.
What is that?
20-plus years now?
But I was a pastor before thatas well licensed minister.
So I've been doing this for awhile.
A little caveat we talked aboutwe referenced a little bit the

(07:31):
Brian Carson-Wes Huff debatethat's making all the podcast
rounds and all the buzz and all.
I told Lori earlier that I amdefinitely no Wes Huff.
So you're hoping to get a superin-depth discovery of biblical
texts and some of that I'm notgoing to have the background

(07:55):
that he did, but you can alwaysgo listen to him if you want to
hear him.
I do have a little bit ofbackground, just nowhere near
that capacity.
So Laurie reassured me thatwe're not debating.
When I first heard about this Iwas like oh man, and you know
what I thought of initially.
Do you remember the informationabout the Scopes trial way back

(08:17):
?
It was the trial.
A trial, they were talking atClarence Darrow and actually it
was a trial.
Scopes was a school teacher whowanted to teach the Darwinian
evolution theory and it was abig controversy at the time
because of course, the countrywas yeah, I agree with that yes,
yeah, yeah.

(08:38):
So William Jennings Bryant,who's from my home state of
Nebraska, was the one thatdebated on behalf of the
creation model, and he did justan absolutely miserable job.
Basically, his only argumentwas the Bible says so.
What's wrong with you, heathen,pagans, which I have an

(09:01):
implicit bias towards believingthe biblical text?
So I'm going to do that some,but I hope to be somewhat more
reasonable with it than just.
Well, the Bible says so and youguys are all wrong.
So I'm looking forward todiscussing this not debating it,
because I'll fall miserablyshort but again, I'm pretty
excited to talk about what Iknow and, more important to me,

(09:24):
to learn what you guys know andunderstand.

Joe (09:26):
Okay, well, yeah, it's great to have you here and, no
worries, we're old guys too.
All three of us are old, yeah,you know, 30, 35 years ago, and
also beginning our lives intofaith 35, 40 years ago, way back

(09:48):
to the 70s and 80s, which seemslike a very long time.

James (09:58):
Oh man.
So today I was on base andthey're having the heritage
flight and they had some F-22sthere and they're talking about
retiring them.
They said, yeah, that plane'sold.
It first flew in 1991 the thethe like test model.
I like 1991, that's just likethree years ago.
What are you guys talking about?

Joe (10:13):
no, yeah, that was really before.
There was even email mentioningthat art bell.
They no podcasts at the time, sothat's a bit of a reach
backwards in time.
Like you mentioned, we bothhave experience in evangelism
and apologetics and we, like you, have spent a lot of time

(10:34):
studying the Bible and have satthrough many sermons and
lectures.
I myself have only been part ofthe lay ministry.
I've never been ordained.
Lori has been part of the layministry.
I've never been ordained.
Lori has, but I have not.
I grew up as a Pentecostal andalso as a Catholic.
My family was involved in bothand my dad did become ordained
as a pastor in the Assembly ofGod Church.

James (10:56):
Oh, okay, interesting.

Joe (10:58):
And after my parents had left it back in the 80s, I
returned to Catholicism andcurrently I'm still with it.
I still attend Sunday morningMass with my wife and sometimes
my grandkids.
We drag them along when theystay with us.
They love it right.

James (11:13):
You used plural for grandkids, did you?

Joe (11:15):
hear that, but the three of us here all know the
difficulties faced when weattempt to comprehend the
meaning behind scriptures, bothfrom theological and historical
standpoints.
All three of us have read theentire thing and have studied
commentaries about it, eventaken classes on it, and we know
that we must rely a lot onhermeneutics, on the critical

(11:38):
interpretation of the literarydevices used within the Bible,
especially going back to theoriginal Greek or Hebrew
languages, that is, if we arereally to be serious about
studying it.
So Lori and I came across thatdebate on a podcast.
I believe it's called Elevated.
You mentioned it, James, and itwas put out on YouTube probably

(11:58):
in the first week of Januarythis year, so about two months
ago now.
It was between these two guys.
Their names are Wes Huff andBilly Carson.
Wes Huff is a Bible scholar,apologist, theologian, and Billy
Carson is an author, abiomedical researcher and a
prolific proponent of theancient astronaut theory.

(12:18):
Both are fairly renownedacademically as experts for what
they specialize in.
Now this particular video onYouTube has gotten a lot of
viral attention.
There are about 1.5 millionviews just this far, and I
suppose I need to add that MarkMenard was also part of it as
well, since he is the host ofthe show and he was the

(12:39):
moderator of that debate.
So now the dialogue centersmostly on the validity of two
positions or interpretations ofbiblical history, one being the
fundamental Christian worldview.
The other was more from theperspective of interpolating
ancient texts in a way thatdeciphers the literary

(13:02):
traditions as being reflectionsof humanity encountering,
possibly encountering,extraterrestrial beings at a
time long before the storieswere recorded.
So what we want to do is focuson the congruities, as well as
the differences, betweenJudeo-Christianity as a way of
personal faith andJudeo-Christianity as it fits

(13:24):
into the hypotheses of ancientaliens possibly interacting or
even intervening with humanaffairs.
So, james, you said you didwatch the debate between Huff
and Carson Real quick.
What is your take on it?

James (13:38):
My take is I mostly want to talk about dinosaurs, but
we're not going to do that.

Joe (13:44):
We'll get to that.

James (13:50):
Yay about dinosaurs, but we're not going to do that.
So we'll get to that Yay.
So I would be much more in thecamp of Mr Huff, but as far as
the debate went, I think he,putting aside the arguments on
either side, I think if you haveto assign a winner it would
definitely be him, mostlybecause of the way that Mr
Carson behaved afterwards.
I agree.

Joe (14:10):
I do agree with that I did not know how he walked off the
set.
That was, to me, wellinappropriate and unprofessional
.

James (14:19):
He's since threatened to sue both of the other two for
playing the podcast and havingit on and, kind of Streisand,
affected it, if you're familiarwith that term and made the
thing just explode, which I'msuper happy about because I
think it brings up some criticalissues for discussion that

(14:41):
oftentimes Christian believersare afraid of that sort of thing
.
Honestly, it can be veryconfusing to look at biblical
texts, to look at textualevidence, to look at
hermeneutical philosophiesbecause, well, for one, most of
us just don't speak Hebrew,aramaic, greek and certainly not

(15:03):
Akkadian or, as we alldiscovered, pretty much nobody
does Sumerian, including Wes andmost likely Billy.
So, yeah, the ancient languagescan be a hurdle.
So I like that.
It brought the topic to theforefront, if you will, of a lot
of church folks.

(15:23):
I've heard a lot of buzz aboutthat, certainly not everyone,
but I think it does address thefear in discussing that topic
and the fear of you know.
Well, this guy might like isthere really any sort of
evidence to the biblicalnarrative, etc.

(15:44):
Etc.
So I liked it from thatperspective.

Laurie (15:49):
Well, you know, it did get a lot of attention and it
did bring out a lot ofChristians who were actually on
the fence with the whole ancientalien theory because they had a
lot of questions about it.
And there's been a lot ofvideos that's been put out on
YouTube since that debate and alot of people have fallen back
to Christianity because of it,because they saw how well

(16:12):
Westhoff handled himself and howwell he explained his position.
So the major problem that I sawwith the debate was the
insufficient evidence.
So, like West provided, to showthat the Bible is historically
accurate, at least enough toprove that it is inherent and

(16:33):
infallible.
But there is a differencebetween claiming that the text
is authentic and saying thatthere are early fragments of New
Testament manuscripts that areunaltered and date way back to
the time of the beginning ofChristianity, and that of
claiming that the texts areaccurate, reliable and they're

(16:54):
factual.
So, even if we had, say, piecesof papyrus with Greek script
dating all the way to the timeof Jesus' life in the early
first century and it isimportant to note that we have
not as of yet found that andeven if we could show that the
text remains the same.

(17:15):
After being transcribed overthousands of years, it still
does not prove that what it issaying actually happened in the
way that it was, you know,written down.
So, for instance, like we'veall come across, you know,
newspaper, magazine, articleswritten in the past year that

(17:36):
you know we would say, you know,give stories that are, you know
, virtually untrue and the waythat they written is is clearly
biased toward a person or or oranother issue.
You know, something like withthe uh, the presidential
elections, like things can beembellished, and I thought you
were going to go local with theuh local uh elections.

(17:58):
Yeah, well, that one too but youknow, and they can be spun to,
you know, to support thatnarrative right.
So if those newspapers and say,magazine clips were to be found
, say, I don't know, twothousand years from now, the
readers would, you know, comeacross text that was, you know,

(18:19):
composed at the time of theevent and, you know, could call
it authentic.
Yet you know they might beremiss to claim they are, you
know, accurate or factual,without basing that off of some
other piece of evidence tocorroborate it with.
So I mean, do we need to applythe same logical methodology

(18:42):
when you know accessing thetruthfulness of?
You know the biblical stories,you know, particularly when it
comes to the mentioning of thesupernatural or extraordinary
things?
You know spectacles like Jesus,you know, walking on water.
Or you know Balaam's donkey,you know speaking to him in

(19:04):
perfect Hebrew.
So the question is, james, foryou is do you think Christian
apologists are critical andobjective enough as to how the
scriptures are studied?
What do you think?

James (19:21):
I think that's an interesting question and the
answer to that probably dependson the apologist.
I do know that I don't considermyself an apologist.
I don't know if I mentioned mydegree was in practical theology
, so almost veering more towardsthe way that kingdom theology,

(19:45):
people would work, that hey, howdo we make things better here
on earth rather than spendingall our time thinking about the
future?
But my theology is veryevangelical and you'll be very
familiar with it.
But to the question doChristian apologists give
careful thought to it?
I think some do, but I thinkthat there's not a lot of them

(20:09):
in the Christian world thatwould consider themselves
academic enough to give a lot ofcritical thought to it.
On the other hand, I think itis becoming more important and
has always been a always mightbe a too big of a statement, but

(20:29):
has been an important area ofstudy Christian apologists have
been working with, well, workingagainst, like the Q Theory from
the Jesus Seminar I don't knowif you remember that from 20
years ago, maybe A little morerecently the Gospel of Mary came

(20:54):
out.
So I think things like thathave forced some of the more
traditional Christianapologetics to tighten
themselves up a little bit andto look a little deeper, a
little closer into things andsay, hey, what's going on here?
And and really it's just beenthis century when some of the

(21:14):
major, uh, literary discoverieshave been made up.
When was it?
45?
Was the Nag Hammadi, whateverjar full of?

Joe (21:24):
stuff Joe knows that one.

James (21:28):
And then the Dead Sea Scrolls were 47, I think they
started coming out with those.
So I think in the past centurythat it has been a focus that
maybe it wasn't before, maybebefore it was just taken on.
Oh well, as I mentioned before.
Well, the Bible says that wehave to believe it.

(21:48):
Well, I think the questionshould be is it the Bible that
we received?
The early church referred to itas the Textus Recepticus Like.
Is this the actual Bible thatwe received?
Is it the same words as whenPaul wrote it?
If you believe that it hadPauline authorship for some of

(22:10):
the New Testament or theSynoptic Gospels, is this really
synoptic?
Is this really the text thatwas put in the Synoptic Gospels?
I think there's very goodarguments for it and of course,
I believe it, but there's a lotof other arguments that are
against it as well, and again,my arguments are fairly

(22:34):
sophomoric.
I know some of the textualcriticism and some of the texts
that were involved and some ofthe reasoning, but I can only go
so deep into it.
But I want to discover it moreand I think this whole sort of
dialogue is a good thing forthat, because once again, I
think Christians have beenafraid to someone challenges us

(22:55):
and help me.

Joe (22:56):
I'm melting Right I mean, like it says in 1 Peter 3.15,
that you should be ready to givereason to anyone who asks you
about why you believe, why youhave faith.
So you know, as one who wasonce passionately delved into
apologetics, I know that at thecore of argumentation for the
religious thought system is toprovide support for the Bible in

(23:19):
the way of evidence right.
So by doing so we'redemonstrating the reliability
and the truthfulness of what isfound composed in it, which in
turn shows that one's faith init is, being that it is believed
, what it is to be, that is, theWord of God.
Hence the message, which iscanon, is that the Lord is real
and he is holy and he loves usand that because of Him we have

(23:42):
the hope of eternal life throughsalvation.
So the methodology is alwayscentered on how to seek
verifiability of the biblicalnarrative, or if you can show
your scientific validity tosomething like, you know, the
Genesis flood, or the existenceof Solomon's temple, or the
virgin birth, or else ahistorical basis for, say, you

(24:04):
know, the Babylonian and laterRoman rule over the Jews, or
even how the places likeJerusalem and Egypt.
They're geographically real andthat lends credence to
everything else written withinits pages.
I think one of the inherentflaws in such a system is that
it is prone to allow one toformulate assumptions of truth,
assuming that the elements ofthese accounts could possibly be

(24:25):
true or be reasonably true,without them ever being
demonstrated as true.
And this should be the standardof evidence, much like how we
find with investigating andprosecuting crimes.
Under the law, everything needsto stand up against scrutiny.
All three of us here arefamiliar with that concept from
being police officers.

(24:46):
If evidence can't be found, orif it simply doesn't exist, then
an idea is then believed, moreso on faith or less so on fact.
Now you know, I consider howPaul says in 1 Corinthians 15,
17, that if you know the deadare not raised, then Jesus
Christ was not raised, and if hewas not raised, then our faith

(25:07):
is worthless and we are still inour sins.
It is only fair and honest toask how mere belief in that can
make such a notion true.
At face value, it is believedas faith, as there is no
tangible proof that couldpossibly ever be provided to
demonstrate that idea.
Paul is obviously using aliterary device to communicate

(25:31):
in metaphorical terms.
So I don't think it isinsensible to ask questions
about scriptures and what theyare really saying to the reader.
I mean, even CS Lewis had oncesaid that an explanation of
cause is not a justification byreason.
Things that are believed mustbe analyzed if truth is to be
asserted.

(25:51):
So, james, if things likelaboratory experimentation and
courtroom proceedings areapproached with rigor, tedium
and analysis, then why should wenot also approach the Bible and
the gospel in the same way?

James (26:04):
No, I agree with you completely on that.
I think that that has to bedone.
There's always going to be anelement of I decide what I
believe, but I think that thereis a very important point you
bring up is that we should beready to examine the evidence
that is there.
Is there enough to make aconclusion?

(26:24):
Some would say yes, some wouldsay no.
I think there is.
I think there's substantialevidence for the veracity of the
New Testament texts.
The Old Testament texts aremore difficult, admittedly.
How do you corroborate theevidence with that?
How do you corroborate whathappened with that?

(26:45):
And I'll get back to the NewTestament stuff in a minute.
I want to mention you mentioned1 Peter, 3.15.
I think equally important isthe next verse.
It says be ready to give thedefense.
But the next verse, very nextverse, says yet do this with

(27:05):
gentleness and reverence,keeping a clear conscience.
I think it's fair to say thattoo often when we discuss these
things, we can easily lose thegentleness and reverence and
respect for one another.
If someone reaches a differentconclusion than me, does that
mean I need to lose all respectfor them and lose my mind?

(27:29):
And I think we've all seen thatswirling around religious
questions.
And for me, if I truly believewhat the scripture says you know
, be ready to give a hope.
Okay, I should be ready to givea hope, but I should do that
with gentleness and reverence,not just all pissed off because
you don't agree with me.
So I think you guys haveprobably seen that more than

(27:51):
once, um, and, and so Iappreciate that, uh, that we can
have this dialogue and, uh,even though you think I'm
probably dead wrong, and viceversa, I, I, I love having the
dialogue and I think it forcesme to think and hopefully it'll
get some others to think as well.
So your question about evidenceI think there's substantial

(28:18):
eyewitness evidence.
The Synoptic Gospels, to me, arefairly substantial eyewitness
evidence that has been acceptedby the generation after them and
the generation after them.
They've said that these guyswere here.
This is what they said, theysaw, and they corroborate one

(28:42):
another's testimony and theycorroborate one another's
testimony.
If we look at eyewitnesses, say, for a crime, there's going to
be slight variances, there'sgoing to be slight differences.
For instance, thinking of thetestimonies that all four
Synoptic Gospels has about thecrucifixion, all four Synoptic

(29:06):
Gospels has about thecrucifixion, if you notice, each
one has a slightly differentversion of what the sign above
Jesus' head says.
One of them says behold theKing of the Jews.
One says behold Christ, theKing of the Jews, and says it in
Greek, roman and Aramaic.
So slight differences.
Well, those sort of slightdifferences are the exact sort

(29:28):
of differences that I wouldexpect when I'm interviewing
folks after a crime.
They're going to have slightlydifferent perspectives.
They're going to have thingsthat they understand differently
than the next guy.
They're going to have thingsthat I'm going to use the term
agenda.
They have a certain agenda.
Hey, I want to push thisforward, not that that's
necessarily bad or denigratesthe evidence, but it's hey, I

(29:52):
want you to understand this.
So it said King of the Jews, orit's said it in three languages
.
You need to know that.
So I think slight variances areto be expected and, to me, the
acceptance by the early churchfathers.
So it's generally accepted nowthat the Gospels were written

(30:14):
first century, late firstcentury.
There was again question aboutthat.
But scholars generally agreenot everyone, of course that
scholars have generally agreednot everyone, of course but that
it's late first century, whichmeans that the authorship is
accepted as authentic at thetime and accepted as authentic

(30:36):
by the folks that immediatelyfollowed them.
So in the Christian traditionand understanding, we have the
acceptance of the apostolicfathers saying that, hey, I knew
that guy, he wrote that bookand passed it down to us.
So is that definitive evidence?
I mean, that's open todiscussion and interpretation.

Joe (30:59):
So jump in here real quick.
You said slight differences.
I would argue there are majordifferences in the crucifixion
and resurrection narratives ofthe four Gospels, not even just
the synoptic Gospels, but alsowhen you look at things like
Jesus' birth.
There are only two stories thatgive the nativity, one is

(31:22):
matthew and the other is in aluke and and they're very
different.
Um, in matthew you have, uh,jesus being born in the time of
herod the great um, you have the, the magi um, and, by the way,
it doesn't even say how many, itjust says magi from the song
says three it says three.

James (31:43):
The song.
The song, I'm just kidding, youknow the we Three Kings.

Joe (31:47):
We.

Laurie (31:48):
Three Kings.

James (31:49):
We're going to sing that before we're done today.
So the three of us.

Joe (31:53):
No, the idea of three did come about, but in Matthew it
only mentions Magi or Wisemenfrom the East and Luke.
Luke has shepherds, no Magi.
Luke has the census taken atthe time of Caesar Augustus,
when Quirinius is governor ofSyria.

(32:13):
That is not found in Matthew.
In Matthew here, Herod theGreat is about 10 years.
He ruled about 10 years beforeQuirinius ruled in Palestine, in
Jerusalem, in Judea.
So Herod the Great died rightaround, say, 4 BC.
His son, antiochus, came intopower.

(32:35):
He did a terrible job.
The Romans didn't like how hewas doing it, so they put in
governors, and Quirinius was oneof the governors that was put
in over Syria.
So this is like a 10-yeardifference.
This would be like somebodytelling the story about the
Space Shuttle Challenger tragedyhappening during Reagan's
presidency and then someone elsesay well, the events that

(32:58):
happened were more duringClinton's presidency.
So you know, of course, even inLuke we have the manger.
We don't have the manger inMatthew.
Even within the crucifixionnarratives in Matthew we have
the part where the stone isrolled over and then, when
there's an earthquake, and thenthe guards get afraid and they

(33:20):
run away, there's mention of thedead leaving the tombs and
walking about the city so thateverybody can see them.
That's not found in Mark, lukeor John.
John is a little different thanthe Synoptic Gospels.
John is a gospel that waswritten more for Christians that
were centered on John being thepreferred apostle.

(33:42):
It was a community ofChristianity that was a little
more fragmented in the firstcentury and they were not all
monolithic.
So the Gospel of John waswritten by a group of Christians
who saw John as theauthoritative figure, less so
than Peter.
But you see in that narrativethat Jesus appears before Mary

(34:02):
Magdalene.
She doesn't recognize him.
She thinks he's the gardenerand she only recognizes him at
the time he speaks her name.
So these are four verydifferent stories.
I mean, how do you sort of lookat that?
If you were to consider theseas like interviews with people
and you got these differentversions of what happened, how
would you synthesize them intoone event?

James (34:28):
synthesize them into one event.
So I don't think that there aredramatic variances for a
narrative.
Let me explain what I mean.
If you're telling the story ofLaurie's entire life, there's
four of us telling a story.
We would each emphasizedifferent portions of it.
We would each put forthdifferent pieces that we thought
were important to our readers,listeners, to get the point

(34:51):
across that we wanted to getacross.
So I don't see the variances asexclusive.
I would like some more infoabout the governor, about the
time he ruled and all.
To me that's potentiallyproblematic.
But the rest of the things yousay are just differences that
one narrator wants to putforward, another narrator

(35:12):
doesn't want to put forward.
So that's how I would answerthat.
And even when I'm interviewingsomeone, there's key elements of
a crime that everybody's goingto agree on.
But then someone else is goingto focus on one part, someone
else is going to focus onanother part.
And well, to me, first of all,the concept that the early

(35:35):
church was fragmented is again,it's true, and not necessarily
true.
There were certainly someelements that deviated from what
was considered the orthOrthodox teaching, the Orthodox
view, certainly, and allthroughout church history you'll
have that.
But the majority of the churchfathers had a very, very unified

(36:00):
view, very solidified view, andheld that same view and brought
about some of the councils thatwe're familiar with, simply
because they wanted to, uh,debunk, if you will, some of the
other views like 300 yearslater.

Joe (36:17):
I mean they didn't come.
Yeah, it was some time lateruntil constantine uh became the
first emperor to convert tochrist, and that was around 313.
The Council of Nicaea in 325 iswhen really the church was
given the authority by the RomanEmpire to exist, if you will to

(36:38):
exist and also be the officialreligion of the empire and
therefore to unify the empirewith this common faith.
Uh, constantine wanted a, acanon, and he approached all the
the church fathers, the bishops, to and decide on what is canon
.
What are those books?
Because there were many of themthere.

(36:58):
There was, there's, there's,dozens of apocryphal new
testament books that did notmake it into the canon.

James (37:05):
Oh, certainly, and I think that the idea of the
canonical Bible is certainlyvery true.
But it wasn't like they justdecided, like they took some
vote then.
These were agreed-upon booksfrom the early church.
These are the 27 books thatwere agreed upon in the second

(37:25):
century.
They were agreed upon in thethird century and then into the
fourth century They'd alreadyagreed upon these books.
They didn't have it codifiedinto the one big book, but they
were the 27 books that thechurch read, the church used and
the church agreed upon, exceptfor the Coptic church.
They're a little differentgroup.

Joe (37:45):
And they still existed as they.
They exist today as theEthiopian Orthodox Church and
they, I think the ArmenianChurch as well, except a lot of
other manuscripts that are notpart of the canon that we have.
There's even a differencebetween the Catholic and
Protestant canonical Bibles.

(38:05):
I mean, the Catholics haveadditional books that
Protestants refer to asApocrypha.
Catholics would call themdeuterocanicals, as they were
included into the canon much,much later it was during the
Counter-Reformation, during theCouncil of Trent of 1546, as a
way for the Church in Rome toreassert its authority over
Christendom in Europe.

(38:26):
Lord, I think we've been kindof leaving you out here.

James (38:29):
Oh yeah, sorry, Laurie, let's go back to space aliens.

Laurie (38:32):
No problem.
Well, to your point, james.
I know you're getting at whatthe variance is.
I'm sure Joel does too.
But it's like you know, somebodygets assaulted and we go take
the report and we have a victim.
We have a victim statement, awitness statement and a suspect
statement, and all three of themare going to have different

(38:54):
statements, but the fact isthere was a crime that was
committed, there was an assault.
Now we have to determine fromthese three statements and the
evidence that we have todetermine from these three
statements and the evidence thatwe have, you know who committed
the crime.
So we have the victim.
The victim says that you know,that guy punched me.

(39:14):
And we now see the evidence ofthe swollen jaw or whatever, the
black and blue.
But the witness says, yeah, Isaw that guy, he did punch him,
but he didn't punch him with hisright hand, he punched him with
his left hand, so he shouldhave bruising on the left cheek,
not the right cheek or whatever.
And now you talk to the suspectand the suspect says I didn't

(39:36):
do it, I didn't hit it.
But we can take all three ofthese stories and this is where
PC comes in the probable cause,the facts and circumstances that
would lead a police officer tobelieve that a crime has been
committed and that the suspectcommitted that crime.
So, based on that, he's notguilty.
But that's for court later.
But we can determine thatthat's enough to make an arrest

(39:57):
on the suspect.
So, because, even though thewitness did see him punch, he
just saw him punch with adifferent hand, but he actually
did punch and commit the crime,right.
So the problem that I have,though and the thing is with
Christianity and the fourgospels is there's like 44,000

(40:22):
different denominations, butthey all have this different
views.
There are many differentdenominations that have all this
different views.
The many differentdenominations have all these
different views, but they haveone thing in common, which is
the core, which is Christ andChrist's salvation, his death,
resurrection and all that.
But the words of Jesus in theGospels because they came so

(40:45):
late, they were written so late.
Even scholars are in agreementnow that they weren't written by
Matthew, mark, luke, possiblyJohn did write, but Matthew,
mark and Luke were pretty muchwritten by somebody else, and
they must have taken the nameand just assigned it to the book
, like the book of Matthew orMatthew's gospel, or whatever,

(41:06):
but the words of Jesus we arenot able to use because Jesus is
not considered to be the authorof any of these words.
He's because he's never writtenany books.
So this would all be hearsay ontop of hearsay on top of hearsay
and, like you know, the wholething with when Jesus is telling
a story about being in thewilderness for 40 days, 40

(41:28):
nights, tempted of the devil,you know who was there with him
witnessing that?
How did he explain that?
Who did he first tell you knowthings like that?
So the words of Jesus, Ibelieve, are definitely hearsay.
Now, I'm not saying he didn'tsay these things.
Of course I believe in Christ,but I think that the wording or

(41:51):
whatever it is, the stories thatpeople have of him may have
embellished it or maybemistranslated some of the things
.
I mean, we can go on and on andtalk about some of the wordings
of certain scriptures and wordsand whatnot, but going back to
the aliens and you can chime inagain later.
But I mean, in that debate withWes and Billy, I think we can

(42:16):
all agree that Wes put Billy onthe hot seat and, by challenging
him on the topics for which youknow he had already
well-prepared, answers him onthe topics for which you know he
had already well-preparedanswers.
West did, because it seems thatWest was more controlling of the
narrative, like he wasappearing to win the debate.
And he did win the debate,let's be honest, by sticking to

(42:38):
his viewpoint and by his, youknow, thorough understanding of
the scriptures, which is verygood.
And I think West needed to put,he needed to be put on the
defensive, but that didn'thappen.
But he needed to be put on thedefensive by you know, like
Billy should have demanded thathe explain and defend his

(42:58):
narrative with the specificevidence.
You know particularly thehistorical validity of those
biblical texts.
You know not merely theauthenticity of them, but you
know particularly the historicalvalidity of those biblical
texts.
You know not merely theauthenticity of them, but you
know and really I'm notconvinced he even did that as he
was unable to prove, morelikely than not that the authors
of the Gospels were, you know,like I said, the actual

(43:19):
eyewitnesses to the life ofJesus.

James (43:22):
Right, Joe Billy definitely was not on his a game
for that no, I agree, and hecould have been thrown off.

Laurie (43:31):
He could have, like he he was claiming that he was not
on his game because he was sick.
Well, I, I mean he could havebeen sick and he wasn't prepared
, which made it sounded likehuff was well more prepared, and
he that's what I mean by he wasalready controlling that
narrative.
You know what I mean.
Like he knew what to ask Billyand he had those well-prepared

(43:53):
answers ready to go.

James (43:55):
I'd like to transition to dinosaurs because I know James
is dying to get into this, but Ithink there's a number of
scholars who do believe in theearly writing of the Gospels to
that point.
So, again, it's depending onthe scholar that you follow.

(44:17):
So there's a large body ofbiblical scholars and Wesley
Huff one of them that do believein the authenticity of early
authorship of those booksauthenticity of early authorship
of those books and before we gointo dinosaurs put forth.

Joe (44:32):
The probable cause was mentioned when we were analyzing
these four gospels.
We know that probable cause isa low threshold for
demonstrating something.
That's true, much too low of athreshold.
I could say that these storiesare talking about something,
that something happened.
I don't know exactly what, butsomething happened and it was

(44:54):
written down or was talked aboutand by the time it made it to
the form that we're familiarwith as the synoptic gospels of
Matthew, Mark and Luke, at least40 years had passed.
I guess I have to bring thispoint up here with synoptic
gospels.

(45:14):
You know they went into thatdebate between Huff and Carson.
They talked about the CodexAnacticus and I don't know if it
was Carson who initiallyalluded to it, but he was trying
to say there's a possibilitythat crucifixion is not
historically substantiated asbelieved as it fails adequate
cross-references and otherdocuments of the early church.

(45:35):
But I think we can accept theidea of crucifixion because we
know crucifixions did happen.
Romans did crucify people didhappen.
The Romans did crucify people.
That was not an event that wewould say is unreasonable to say
that somebody who was a leaderof a religious movement could
have been crucified by Romans inthe first century.

(45:55):
So the Codex Sinaiticus it's theoldest complete manuscript of
the Greek New Testament.
It dates to the middle of thefourth century and, in addition
to the biblical text, it hassome apocryphal ones, like the
shepherd of hermes and theepistle of barnabas.
But there's one thing that Iwould like to point out about it
is that there are some thingsthat it's lacking, and one of

(46:16):
the things that's lacking is the, the last um 11 verses of the
gospel of mark, and it's chapter16, verses 9 through 20, and uh
, it doesn't have it and it evenum, if you go to any like my
niv bible, I have it.
It says right there that theearliest sources do not have

(46:37):
chapter 16, verses 9 through 20.

James (46:39):
I think that should be footnoted in uh in the bibles we
have now.
I think most, most of them have.

Joe (46:45):
That is the part that deals with the resurrection, so that
was redacted at a later time.
If this is the earliest of thesynoptic Gospels that we have,
why is that part left out?
It should not be.

James (46:58):
Let me to that point a little bit.
It's not necessarily theearliest version of those
Gospels Not saying that thatverse was in Mark originally but
there have been copies of theGospels that have been found
that are older than that andportions and fragments.
However, it hasn't all been ina… like Codex Sinaticus… I

(47:23):
forget how you pronounce thatagain, sinaticus.
Thank you.
Yeah, codex Sinaticus is theearliest compilation of all 27
books of the New Testament andthat's what's not necessarily
the earliest version of each ofthose books.
Sometimes when people think ofthe biblical text, they think of

(47:46):
it as one book, whereas I thinkof it as 66 books that have
been compiled into one book forus.
And definitely there wereversions of all the Gospels that
were existing before that, someof them.
We found some of the earliertexts.
We found the actual earliertext and the early church all
agreed on all I say all that'sagain hyperbole, but the.

(48:11):
It was agreed upon that for afew different reasons that these
were the texts that we'll take,and one of them was simply
because of the orthodoxy of it.
One of it was because theprovenance the early church
generally believed that, hey,these were the guys that wrote
these gospels.
We know who wrote the Paulineletters, so we're going to
believed that.
Hey, these were the guys thatwrote these Gospels.
We know who wrote the Paulineletters, so we're going to

(48:31):
accept that.
The others we won't.
And then the Catholicity of it,which is a little bit weaker of
an argument.
And not Roman Catholic but justthe church in general accepted
these books.
So that argument is a littlebit weaker than the other two.
But I think there's strongarguments that we have the
scriptures that the early churchintended to hand down to us.

(48:51):
And I still firmly believe thatthe early gospels or the
gospels were eyewitness accountsand that the authorship is what
it claims to be with thosebooks.
I mean, it certainly was commonin the ancient world to reverse
, plagiarize.
Now we take other people'swords and say, oh, I wrote that.

(49:13):
Well then it was very common tosay that, oh, this, you know,
superman over here wrote this,so that's the book of Superman.
Or you know, with a number ofthe what they call the Gnostic G
gospels, a number of those,they they have those attributed
attributions, so I don't know.

Joe (49:32):
Interesting topic all right , so we'll go to the dinosaurs
here.
So dinosaurs we all know umjurassic park and we all know
this story of like they wentextinct, lost away from a
cataclysm that occurred 65million years ago.
There are those who believethat humans walked the earth

(49:54):
with dinosaurs, laurie, did you?
I think you had a tangent onthis.

Laurie (50:01):
Well, yeah Well, it all depends on what you believe.
You know when God created theearth, you know in the beginning
, what happened between in thebeginning and then the next
wording of the scripture, like,was there a long time period?
Does that mean that in thebeginning you know there were

(50:24):
the dinosaurs first and all that.
And then you know the creationtime, which is about 6,000 to
7,000 years ago, the creation ofman, or you know Adam and Eve,
you know, does that begin then?
So, because there is there sometype of time, a long time,
between those first beginningwords of the scripture, time

(50:47):
between those first beginningwords of the scripture.
But before we go further intothe dinosaurs, I want to lay the
foundation for what ismentioned in the Enuma Elish.
You know the foundational text,teasing me with dinosaurs.

James (50:58):
Okay, I'm listening.

Laurie (50:59):
Go ahead, All right, and so I mean, like in the creation
narratives found in the HebrewBible.
So, you know, with the EnumaElish they do have a relation to
the Hebrew text, like it seemsthat they were expanded upon
from the Enuma Elish, like whenthe Jews, you know, first wrote

(51:19):
their Torah.
But scholars widely acknowledgethat the creation of the
Pentateuch, which is the Torahfor the Jews, likely took place
around the 7th or 6th centuriesBC.
This is post-dating theBabylonian exile, when they came
out of the Babylonian exile,and this historical context of

(51:40):
it suggests that the Jewishauthors may have expounded upon
those old Mesopotamian myths toconstruct their own theological
narratives.
Per se, god, like amonotheistic belief centered on
the worship of the singular,all-powerful, all-knowing and

(52:11):
all-present God, and like theopening lines of Genesis, say in
the beginning, which can bejuxtaposed with the enumeralish
initiation phrase, which is whenin the heights, and it's
highlighting, you know these uh,um, thematic, uh, parallels.
That don't it describes thischaotic being uh or beginning.

(52:35):
It's like this chaos and theenuma elish that, and this is
where it's pretty interesting.
The enuma Elish is seven tablets.
We have six tablets that aredetailing the acts of creation
and then you have one tabletthat is known as a tablet of
summation.
So it was discovered in theruins of the Assyrian library of

(52:59):
Nineveh back in the 1840s Ithink Henry Rawlinson was the
guy that translated them, and Ithink Nathaniel Smith was
probably another one but youknow this likely, they believe,
actually, that it did influencethe biblical authors, as they,
you know, they delineated theirown account of creation, you

(53:22):
know, with it being six days andfollowed by that seventh day of
rest to culminate the entirething that was done by God, and
this reflects a distinctiveJewish religious perspective
concerning God and histheological identity as Yahweh.
So, james, I think that theverbiage of being created in

(53:47):
God's image can be interpretedin a few ways, one of them being
allegorical for abioengineering process involving
blood to produce a new species,which is the ancient alien
theory on it.
It's reasonable then, I think,to conclude that, due to the

(54:21):
nature of blood, the createdbeings well, inherently carry
these characteristics of DNA oftheir creator, and this is where
we get that scripture verse,you know, let us make man in our
image, after our likeness, makeman in our image after our
likeness, and that is one of thecore principles to the ancient
alien apostasis, and it's apredominant theme in.
I don't know if you heard ofthis guy named Zachariah Sitchin
, but he translated thesetablets, the Sumerian tablets

(54:42):
19,000 of them, I believe andformed them into this series of
books called the EarthChronicles series.
Now, I understand that you knowthat phrase in the image of God
is meant to illuminate the, youknow, that preordained
relationship that's between theLord and man in a, you know,

(55:04):
moralistic and, I guess,spiritual way, and that would
hold true as well.
Yet I mean you can't deny thedepiction of a physical presence
of God with man and Eve.
I mean, he breathes into Adam'snostrils, brings him to life,
he walks this is God walks inthe garden in the cool of the

(55:25):
day and he speaks to Adam andEve, you know, in clear,
face-to-face voice, and askslike, where are you?
Like, where were you?
I didn't find you, I didn'tknow where you were.
So I mean, what are we to makeof this?
I mean, is it all a metaphor?
Is it subject to interpretation?
I mean, if it is, then is thenhow are we to interpret it?

(55:47):
Is it partly symbolic and is itpartly literal?
If that's the case, then I mean, how is anyone supposed to know
where it is speaking in realnarrative and where it is
speaking as imagery.
And I mean, I'll let you answerthat.
But you can probably throw inyour thoughts on the dinosaurs

(56:07):
too, where they come in?

James (56:08):
I think the answer comes back to dinosaurs.
Clearly, there you go, no.
So yeah, no.
I think those are excellentquestions to ask about the
Genesis narrative.
I tend to lean more towardsliteral, but, however, I have an
understanding too that Easternthought is very different than

(56:32):
what we typically understand inWestern, rational, reasonable
sort of thought.
Not that they're unreasonable,but they have a very different
perspective, a very differentway of communicating and a very
different way of expressingthings.
So I think very much so.
Some of it is metaphor, verydifferent way of expressing
things.
So I think very much so.
Some of it is metaphorical,some of it is literal.
Some of it to them seemsliteral that would seem more

(56:53):
metaphorical to us.
So that's not a very good answerfor those texts, but for me, I
lend much more towards theliteral, and one perspective
that I've heard before is that Imean, obviously, as Christians.
As a Christian with a veryorthodox theology, I believe

(57:14):
that God has existed the samethroughout eternity.
And existing the same meansthat he's existed in three, as
the Godhead, he's the Trinity,if you will, which you're
familiar with that, which meanshe's been Father, son, holy
Spirit for eternity, in the wayhe chooses to express himself.

(57:36):
And I think he's chosen toexpress himself and express
through people the idea of allthree the Father, son and Holy
Spirit.
So I think to me that canexplain some of the physicality
of walking with people in thegarden.
Maybe it was and I've heardthis before and I don't have a
definitive answer but perhaps itwas Jesus in physical form

(57:58):
walking in the garden.
Is that a possibility?
Because, again, at the sametime you have scriptures that
say that, well, god is spirit,not physical.
But we certainly know thatJesus was physical and if we
have that Trinity view, believethat he was God expressed as a
man, god expressed as the HolySpirit, god expressed as God Not

(58:23):
saying I have all the answerson that, but I have heard that
suggested as a possible answerfor the physical nature of God,
even in the Garden of Eden,talking about creation stuff in
general, and probably getsidetracked on that a lot.
But I think we're going to gointo some other points.
You want to bring up on that,you want to bring up on that.

(58:51):
But for my views I am notdogmatic on this but I lean more
towards a young Earth creation,but with the first of all with
the room, for there could havebeen a lot more time Also for
the room or leaving room for theidea that the earth could have
been created mature, was madesimilar to how Adam was made as
an adult.
The earth could have been madeas an adult rather than starting

(59:16):
from the egg or starting fromthe seed.
But again there's variances inChristian.
Again there's variances inChristian orthodoxy addressing
that issue of how long has theearth been around.
How did creation roll out?
Was it seven literal days,including the day of rest?

(59:37):
And then some I've heard haveused the later verse.
That I don't think has anythingto do with creation.
But talking about how a day anda thousand years are
interchangeable, I don't thinkit fits here, but some people do
.
So you can't say they'renecessarily wrong for saying
that, but with that I do believein a much younger Earth and I

(01:00:02):
think that mankind walked withall of the creatures that were
created.
So in other words, I think thatpeople have seen dinosaurs and I
don't think it's a stretch atall to say that.
So a couple of interestingfactoids about that.
They've recently discoveredsoft tissue in some dinosaur

(01:00:22):
fossils.
Far as I know, soft tissuedoesn't last millions of years
and they've always said that oh,this you know, we know it's
millions of years old,everything's calcified et cetera
, et cetera.
And scientists haven't walkedit through and said exactly what
the soft tissue is.
But a lot of people think it'sthe actual soft tissue that's in

(01:00:46):
their bone structure and allwhich would indicate a much
earlier or much more recentdeath of some of these
fossilized dinosaurs.
Also, I think it's interestingthat pretty much every culture
has descriptions of dinosaurs,of creatures.
Even biblically it talks aboutLeviathan and Behemoth but

(01:01:08):
hundreds of discussions ofdragons, dinosaurs, depictions
of it.
There's an Incan temple thathas what looks almost dead on a
stegosaurus.
How do you know what astegosaurus looks like?
Unless you dug one up or yousaw one, you probably didn't
ride it because it's got lumpieson the back of it, but the

(01:01:29):
chinese talk about dragons as ifthey interacted with them.
So I don't think it'sfar-fetched at all to say that
mankind walked with dinosaursand, uh, interacted with them.
Um, I've heard some creationtheories about how the pre-flood
earth um, you know, if youbelieve the, uh, the biblical
reference to that or the othercultural references to that,

(01:01:50):
again, over 100 cultures haveindicated that there's a
worldwide flood, with anindividual that saved people or
a group of people that did.
But one guy heard theorize and,bear in mind, he sounded a
little different when he talked,but he theorized that regarding

(01:02:11):
what scripture refers to as thecanopy that was around the
earth, talks about that fordinosaurs to grow and thrive,
because some of the like thepterodactyls, some of them
couldn't have even flown in ouratmosphere, but if it was a
denser atmosphere they couldhave flown.
And he theorizes that it wassimilar to a hyperbaric chamber

(01:02:37):
in some regards, where increasedatmosphere, increased oxygen,
allowing these creatures to growlarger and to live and thrive.
So, anyway, I want to hear yourthoughts on dinosaurs and any
questions about that, because Ithink it's a super fun topic.

Joe (01:02:50):
Okay, Well, I do find several things mentioned that
are problematic.

James (01:02:57):
Go with it, because I could be completely wrong on
that.

Joe (01:02:59):
Aside from just a very speculative part of you know,
men or humans existing withdinosaurs, because there really
is no record, eitherhistorically or geologically, of
that.
The fossil record does prettythoroughly and consistently show
that the dinosaurs were extinctbetween 65 and 35 million years

(01:03:23):
ago.
That's a long time and, yeah,if you're trying to sort of
conflate that into a young earththeory where it's not really 65
or 35 million years ago, you'releft confronting the physical
evidence that is prettyconsistently showing that that
is true, that that is the age atwhich these things occurred.

(01:03:47):
There is a good bit of evidence.
I mean, it's not perfect, I'mnot saying it's absolute, but
more likely than not.
Definitely the probability isheld up by the evidence that's
been found consistentlyregularly and they keep getting
the same answer regularly andthey keep getting the same
answer and that answer is that,um, the dinosaurs were extinct

(01:04:09):
long before we find evidence ofhumans on earth.
So, as far as you know thestories, the myths and the tales
about dragons and, uh, the, theartwork of something that looks
like a stegosaurus, uh, thereference to leviathan and in
the, we don't know really whatLeviathan is.
There are some who say it couldbe a crocodile, could be a

(01:04:31):
whale.
It's not really given enough ofa description for us to
definitively say what it reallyis.
So to go to this young earththeory, you're asking people to
accept the biblical chronologythat you know God made
everything in seven days andthat he did so sometime around

(01:04:54):
five to six thousand years ago,based on how we see the stories
laid out in Genesis and how itwas brought into the rest of the
Old Testament, and that itflies in the face of the
geological and fossil records.
So if you're going to make thatstatement that the young Earth
theory is most likely true,you're going to have to come up

(01:05:15):
with some kind of evidence.
I mean really even that thingwith the firmament.
We don't really have a goodunderstanding of what that
really is, if it's even aliteral thing or if it's talking
metaphoric.
It sounds like what they'redescribing is that the Earth was
inside of some kind of shakerglobe and that at the time of

(01:05:35):
the flood, the shaker globe cameopen, the water that was above
it poured down on Earth.
So in other words, you'd belooking up in the sky and there
would actually be liquid waterheld up above the earth, and
then that somehow enabledconditions to be as suitable for
dinosaurs to exist?
Has that been demonstrated?

James (01:05:56):
you have heard the theory before, then you are familiar
with it.
I am oh good, good, yeah.
Well, yeah, there's some,there's some.
Uh, yeah, there's some.
I think there's a decided lackof evidentiary proof about how
old the Earth is, and I don'tnecessarily trust all the

(01:06:21):
conclusions about the fossilrecord.
All of them, I mean some ofthem are you look in the ground,
there it is, you can't deny it.
But sometimes the fossilrecords intersect and to me it
makes an argument for somecataclysmic activity that
occurred in a lot of theseplaces.
So anyway, to me it's aninteresting theory that's not

(01:06:45):
necessarily definitively heldout either by scripture or by
historical and scientific fact,but it's not necessarily
excluded either in my mind.
Laurie, sorry, go ahead.

Laurie (01:06:58):
Yeah.
So what I think is I think thebiblical timeline is off.
Timeline is off and of coursewe'll archaeologists, whatever
and paleontologists they.
You know, when you're measuring, when you're trying to figure
out the date of the earth or howold the earth is, there's, you

(01:07:19):
know, you can see these layerswhen you're driving around,
especially here in Arizona,going up in the mountains, you
see all of these sediments, thelayers and stuff.
It's just, it's similar to atree.
You cut a tree, you in themountains, you see all of these
cinnamons, the layers and stuff.
It's just similar to a tree.
You cut a tree, you count thelines, you know for each
lifeline of the tree or eachyear of the tree.
So the same thing is with, likein the Grand Canyon.
You know you got these deeptrenches and you have all of

(01:07:39):
these different cinnamons andstuff.
So they date the earth from wayback, millions and millions of
years.
Uh, just like the oldest rocksup in the northeast part of
canada, newfoundland, where I'moriginally from, you know
there's some of the oldest.
They even have this big uh typeof uh glass type, uh museum, I

(01:08:01):
guess, if you want to say, youcan go in and you can actually
touch these rocks and they'relike the oldest rocks to
billions of years old.
And that's what I meant by whatthe you know in the beginning
was what?
What were they referring to inthe beginning?
Like way back 4 billion yearsago or 6,000, 7,000 years ago?
So what I what I'm talkingabout, with the timeline being

(01:08:24):
off, is that geneticists haveHomo sapiens going back to
250,000 years and I think youknow the ancient alien theory
suggests that the, the Homosapiens, were created then.
That's when they were modifiedand it was the biblical
narrative of when, say the, thefirst civilization, which would

(01:08:51):
have been the Sumerians, becausethat's where we get our
60-dismal system from.
We get all of these recipes forfood, musical notes, all of
that stuff, how to make beer.
There's even cylinder sealsthat have this tall, maybe
12-foot being that's handing aplow to a 6-foot man and you
know that's showing theagriculture boom.
And we have the.

(01:09:11):
You know the Neolithic periodof when, you know the earth was
what went through thatcataclysmic, probably when the
flood happened, which would havebeen about 13,000 years ago.
And now we can throw Atlantisinto the mix.
Maybe there was an atlantis,maybe that's when a
pre-civilization went under thesea during that time, because
from the time when um uh who,was it?

(01:09:34):
Uh socrates or whatever?
Claimed that uh um who?

Joe (01:09:40):
was it plato plato.

Laurie (01:09:43):
Well, yeah, when pl claimed that was 9,000 years ago
from his time and he was beforethe time of Christ.
So could something like that be.
And you look at the biblicalpatriarchs in the Bible, you
know they have these 500 years,lived to be 900 years,
methuselah 969 years or whateveryears or whatever you know.

(01:10:09):
But if you look at the Sumeriankings list which is on display
in one of the museums over inEurope, it shows that these
patriarchal kings had lifespansinto the like 18,000 years.
I think Alalu was 18,000 years.
He reigned, ruled and reigned.
And then they have other onesat 26 000 years and but with all

(01:10:29):
of these uh, 10 antediluvialkings, they go all the way back
to 250 000 years.
Now that would be at the timethat genesis say that homo
sapiens were created.
Of course, the whole ancientalien theory is that these gods
came and mixed with the genomeof the Homo erectus and then

(01:10:51):
implemented their DNA into thatbeing and trial and error
finally got the right specimen.
They named him the Adamu.
And that's how this whole thinghappens with the creation of
man placed him in the land ofthe Eden.
With the creation of man,placed him in the land of the
Edan.
So you can see the similaritiesbetween the Adam and the Eden.
The Adamu, the land of Edan,not Eden.

(01:11:20):
But and that's when Joe and Ihave talked before and said you
know, it's so strange becauseeven in the Genesis story, when
God created Adam, it says thathe placed him in the garden of
eden, in the land of havala,where the gold is good.
So we're like well, why wouldgod be interested in gold?
And of course the ancientsumerians spoke of their gods
coming to earth to mine gold.

(01:11:41):
So you can see these parallels.
And then you see little hintsin the Bible, that kind of show
that it is being derived fromthis older ancient text.
So I think that the patriarchsof the Bible, the eight
patriarchs, are actuallyreminiscent of the.
They're actually the, because Ithink Inlander Anna in the

(01:12:05):
Sumerian Kings list has the sameexact story as I believe it is
Enoch.
So anyway, those are mythoughts on that.
I think the biblical timelineis off and I think there's
significant evidence, scientificevidence, that with the

(01:12:25):
Neolithic period and all thatand the Homo sapiens DNA going
back to 250,000 years, I thinkthe yeah got it, but did they
ride dinosaurs?

Joe (01:12:41):
you need to go to the uh, the thing yes and uh I've been
there as both aliens and anddinosaurs james, if you want to
just kind of uh expound on that,give your thoughts, your
rebuttal, and then I want to gointo one more uh topic before we
we wrap excellent, um, so yeah,I mean different worldview on

(01:13:02):
my part, different understanding.

James (01:13:04):
I think certainly that ancient cultures are going to
have similarities about whathappened, because what happened
was what happened.
But my primary thought is that Iguess the biblical narrative
has always been counterculture,if you will.

(01:13:29):
The primary culture at the timeespecially in the Mesopotamian
era, if you will was that hey,we've got lots of deities that
they taught us these things,they showed us these things,
they taught us how to live.
We have to keep them appeased,etc, etc.
I think that the biblicalnarrative has always been

(01:13:52):
counter to that, saying that no,that's not true.
There's one God who made us, hemade us special, unique, and he
cares for us and it's not aboutappeasing him.
So, just a very differentnarrative, very different
understanding from all theliterally all of the cultures at

(01:14:12):
the time.
I mean I don't think you canfind an ancient culture other
than Judaism, if you will, orfollowers of Yahweh that held
that belief.
I mean you have Akhenaten inEgypt that during his reign he
was generally monotheistic, butcertainly very different than

(01:14:40):
what the Christian understandingis of the biblical teaching,
and we just simply believe thatGod created us.

Joe (01:14:52):
There are other examples of the monotheistic theme.

James (01:14:55):
Oh yeah, I'd love to hear about those.

Joe (01:14:57):
And there's also the polytheistic theme.
And there's also thepolytheistic theme and we find
that is the case even withinJudaism, that there is more
complex parts to God.
I mean, when we talk aboutYahweh he's a singular, but it
sort of parallels other figuresthat were known from the people

(01:15:19):
of the land of Canaan, theMoabites, edomites.
There was Baal.
A lot of the personificationsof Yahweh reflect on attributes
of Baal.
So yeah, I mean it's like youwere saying, all these ancient
cultures, they all share a lotin common and, of course,

(01:15:41):
christianity is the one that hassucceeded over the centuries to
you know pretty much surviveand well, some would say judaism
too.
But judaism as well, but morelimited.
Uh, christianity, you know,spread throughout uh europe for
2 000 years and then over hereto the Americas.
Right now, I believe it is themost populated.

(01:16:07):
I mean, I think there are moreChristians on the earth than
anywhere.
I think Islam is like a closesecond.
I think it's Christianity,islam and then Hinduism.
So just in terms of numbers,christianity is the one that's
more prolific.
Let's transition to the bigquestion that I think we want to

(01:16:28):
hit, and that is, you know, theexistence of extraterrestrial
life.
And, james, you know the churchreally takes no official
position on this.
Okay, if you ask the Vatican,they say pretty much nothing,
whatever it is.
And really there are someJesuits who are actually very
open to the idea ofextraterrestrial life, the

(01:16:48):
Society of Jesus, the priestlyorder in the Catholic Church.
So does the argument can wemake it about the Bible,
particularly the SynopticGospels, that would it exclude
the belief of extraterrestriallife?
Meaning, if there isextraterrestrial life, we find
out tomorrow that there arealiens and they come to Earth.

(01:17:11):
Does that change our doctrineabout salvation and redemption
and about our design, ourspecial relationship with God,
who is transcendent in theuniverse?

James (01:17:24):
That is a super interesting and fun question.
Cs Lewis kind of dealt withthat in his whole.
What is it?
The space trilogy, it's calledthe Pre-Alandra, and that
Hideous Strength, and the thirdone and I forget the name of it
strength, and the third one thatI forget the name of it, but
just that whole idea.

(01:17:44):
What is what does it mean to, uh, to have the, this
understanding of, uh, what ifthere is extraterrestrial life?
Um, so, first of all, let mesay that the universe is a very
large place.
Um, I don't think we're capableof defining the size of it in
our understanding.

(01:18:05):
And then there's the theory ofthe multiverses, which I don't
subscribe to, but some do, andI'll actually answer your
question in a minute, joe.
I'm just swirling around,swirling around.
So I don't personally believein them, but I do understand

(01:18:27):
that various parts of the churchhave said that.
Well, why not make room forthat?
Why not?
It is a huge universe and whynot make room for that?
I don't think it changes thegospel narrative at all.
The question would be if spacealiens existed, are they part of
God's unique creation thatneeds salvation?

(01:18:50):
Did they never fall—and this isjust looking at it through a
Christian lens—did they neverfall into original sin?
So don't have any need of aparticular redemption, salvation
?
So you'd have questions likethat.
Again, I don't think that theyexist based upon.
I think we're a very uniquecreation as humans, but I don't

(01:19:15):
think that someone proving orbelieving in the existence of
alien life forms other thanCanadian alien, I mean existence
of of alien life forms otherthan Canadian alien, I mean you
know, space alien life forms Idon't think that changes the
gospel narrative, theunderstanding of of salvation,
redemption, the understanding ofscriptures, simply because it's

(01:19:39):
not addressed.
And yeah, that's, that's mythought on that.

Joe (01:19:44):
Okay.

Laurie (01:19:46):
So I think so I obviously believe in aliens.
I believe that we are thealiens.
I believe Jesus when he said Ihave come down from above, I
believe that you know.
He said I'm going to prepare aplace for you.
When I go and prepare a placefor you, I'm going to come again
and receive you unto myself,that, where I am dear, you will

(01:20:06):
be also.
And like what we were talkingabout earlier too, it's like, I
believe, that the ancients, theones that jotted these words
down, they didn't have theunderstanding, they didn't have
the vocabulary to explain whatthey were seeing.
Understanding, they didn't havethe vocabulary to explain what
they were seeing.
And we have examples of that,like with ezekiel, where, you

(01:20:26):
know, he explains uh, seeing achariot, um, god coming in a
chariot, and it had wheels, ithad four wings, it made the
sound of thunder, um had a, hada being that looked like the son
of man, which would be a humaninside of this glass dome, which
would be a, a cockpit, and youknow.
But he's he's trying to saythat it had the wings of an
eagle and it had the, you know,the face of a bear or the body

(01:20:49):
of a bear, the body of a lion,whatever, but he's taking things
like what he knows from histime period to explain what he's
seeing, just like this Tic TacUFO that we talked about so many
times out in off of San Diego.
They call that.
We call in our time because wedon't know exactly what it is.
We call it the tic-tac becauseit resembles a tic-tac, and I

(01:21:12):
think that's what the ancientsdid.
And so my theory is that,because we are 99% the same DNA
as a chimpanzee, my questionsare you know, why would God
create us to be the same DNA,which has proven scientific fact
that we have the same DNA.
You look at a chimp's ear, anape's ear.

(01:21:34):
We have the identical ear andthere's no denying it, and
there's no denying it.
And so I think that the aliensare the gods that ancient man
misunderstood, and in the imageof God.
That means that God has got tobe an organic being of some type

(01:21:57):
, because he has arms and legs.
We are created in his image ortheir image.
Let us make man in our image,after our likeness, and so the
God of the Bible, yahweh, couldbe one of these Anunnaki from
the Sumerian tablets or thecuneiform scripts that they have
about those who from theheavens came down to the earth.

(01:22:21):
And you know, just look atNephilim in the Bible.
The actual Hebrew word isNephilim and it's not giants as
it says in the Bible.
So the actual, correct word isNephilim.
And when you would go to likethe Helahim, you know Helahim
can be used in the singular aswell, but it's actually used in

(01:22:45):
the plural and in Hebrew it's, Imean, the singular form would
be Eloah.
But some claim that saying theElohim is an invariant noun.
You know meaning.
It is pronounced and spelledthe same way whether singular or
plural, much like how we usethe words sheep or fish to be

(01:23:07):
both.
But I don't think this iscorrect as it is not consistent
throughout any of the biblicaltexts.
And certainly when you look atsimilar Hebrew words, the plural
form is different from thesingular.
For example, you have cherubim.
The plural form is differentfrom the singular.
For example, you have cherubim,serubim and nifilim and they're
all plural for these angelichosts and the singular versions

(01:23:30):
are cherub and seraph.
And of course, nifilim might bean invariant noun, as to you
know, or as it is the same,there is a nifilim and there are
many Nephilim, so similar tothere being a sheep and there
being many sheep, but the wordsfor God, being singular and
plural, are both found.

(01:23:51):
You know, there is Eloah, whichis singular for God, and that
does appear in Hebrew text, asdoes Elohim, which means God or
possibly godhood.
So the singular word for Elohimshould be Hiloah or Hiloah.
It's spelled E-L-O-A-H, andthese, of course, are just a

(01:24:13):
couple of words that areattributed to him.
You know Yahweh being apredominant one, but the first
two letters of that word are ELor El, which represents Elion,
the father of the gods, and thisis most likely the Sumerian
main god, which is Anu from, youknow, the Sumerian pantheon.

(01:24:36):
So James, I mean in the book ofEnoch, both Joel and I have read
all three of these, and youknow we've always wondered too
about the book of Enoch.
Both Joel and I have read allthree of these.
And you know we've alwayswondered too about the book of
Enoch why that wasn't part ofthose 27 books or whatever that
was in the New Testament,because Jude and some people say
well, it wasn't inspired enoughto be in that canon.

(01:24:56):
But you know, we read thescriptures and Jesus, jude and
Peter all quote from Enoch, andso that's.
We always thought that that wasa little strange.
But going back to what I wastalking about just now with the
angels, are in the book of Enoch.
They're actually provided withthe names of these angels and

(01:25:18):
their root word is El E-L, suchas you know Ramiel, tamiel,
ezekiel, aziel, sentinel, daniel, and you know a lot more.
I mean heck, even the Supermanmovies.
His birth name is Kel-El, sonof Jor-El.
So I mean, is there not atleast an apparent connection

(01:25:40):
between you know, ourunderstanding of this Judaic
theology, the conception of theLord, god Almighty, and what is
learned from examining these andwhat would be called these
pagan traditions?
Could they be extraterrestrials?
Could they be aliens?
And just, the ancient men justput these explanations down to

(01:26:05):
the best of their ability, tothe best of their understanding,
and then thousands andthousands of years copied texts
and oral traditions over andover again.
Here we are today with thewrong interpretation of these
texts and, of course now, yeah,we believe one, god Almighty.
Oh, is that a?

James (01:26:24):
question for me.
You packed a whole lot in there.
I don't even know if I evenremember it all.
First of all, with the Book ofJude, he certainly does quote
out of 1 Enoch.
I don't think that him quotingthat brings the other book to
the level of inspiration Paulquotes out of Philosophers of

(01:26:46):
the Time as well.
Oh man, I forget what he wasquoting, but I think it was
reference to the Cretan folks,which, by the way, there was a
Stoics.

Joe (01:27:02):
He did quote the reference to Stoics the Platonist, so he
referenced Platonic thinking andI believe it's Zeno, the
founder of the Stoicism.

James (01:27:16):
So him, quoting outside sources does not necessarily
raise the source to the level ofcanon.
I mean, the scriptures thatwere included in the Bible were
again, they followed thatcriteria that I laid out in the
book of Enoch simply didn't getin there.

(01:27:36):
As far as the Anukai and isthat how I say that, anunnaki,
sorry and their beliefsregarding that, I in I guess you
say, orthodox Judeo-Christianbelief, they're just simply,
they're the gods that people atthe time worshipped, whether

(01:27:57):
they had supernatural powerbehind them or not.
They were certainly analternative to the God of
Scripture and to the God of thebelief system at the time, the
God of Abraham, isaac and Jacob,if you will.
So, yeah, that's my perspectiveon that.
It's a completely differentpantheon and I think it's

(01:28:23):
completely different than theGod that we get from the
scripture.
I mean, that's a pantheon thatwas continually handed down and
I think the Greeks and Romanshave certainly echoes, if not
direct reflections, of some ofthe same gods in the way that,
like the way that they expressthings For instance, ishtar and

(01:28:46):
Artemis very, very, very similarin some of the expressions of
that and always been consideredby the Judeo-Christian folks as
completely different.
To me, the best illustration ofthat is what those gods asked
folks to do human sacrifice, etc.

(01:29:10):
Etc.
Now there's certainly theargument about well, why did God
want to wipe people out?
Isn't that human sacrifice?
And yes, it certainly is, but Imean there were reasons for
that as well.
And then a little bit about oh,where did we go?
Where did you go?
I said a lot in like foursentences.

(01:29:31):
Back to the Elohim, and Icertainly subscribe to the
argument that it is an abstractplural and I think generally
when you use terms like that,you have to look at the verbs
that are being used.
In Hebrew the verbs reflect ifit's plural or singular.
And generally when they useElohim it's reflected as

(01:29:53):
singular, with the exception ofthe part where it says let us
make man in our own image, butthen the verse immediately after
that it uses the singular verbsto go along with it.
So the way I've heard itexpressed is that Elohim is more

(01:30:14):
of a title and then Yahweh ismore of a name, so like the host
of this or Lori.
So that's my understanding andhow I understand that expressed.
And once again, to me the bigtelling factor in it all is a
very different approach to howwe express our beliefs, not you

(01:30:39):
and I, necessarily, but asreceived from the deity.
So I believe that there's oneGod, that he created us and we
walked away from him and he madea way for us to come back
through the death and atonementof Jesus.
And the ancient gods said no,that's not true at all.

(01:31:02):
This is what you need to do andhere's how you are to live.
So, yeah, very differentperspective, but I'm super
interested in hearing all thisstuff and I'm enjoying the
conversation.
So are we going on or do wehave to end?

Joe (01:31:19):
There's a lot of agreement and a lot of disagreement, but
I'd like to put one question toyou.

Laurie (01:31:26):
And.

Joe (01:31:27):
I think a lot of Christians wrestle with this idea, and I'm
sure you have too.
It's you know.
The communication between Godand mankind is not very
efficient, and we can see thatbecause there are many.

James (01:31:45):
I like that.
I like that.

Joe (01:31:46):
Well, we see all the different religions in the world
, okay, and they're all the same.
God has told them through.

James (01:31:55):
Whatever?

Joe (01:31:56):
Or, you know, contemplation , prayer, inspired canon.
There are many different canonsthroughout the world.
I mean, there's the Koran,there's the Bhagavad Gita in
Hinduism, there's the Koran inIslam, and even within
Christianity there's differenceson what God's will is for us.
The Catholics have a differentperspective on all of this, as

(01:32:21):
opposed to the Pentecostals.
So we have this sort of problemhere where it seems like God is
talking different ways todifferent people.
He's giving different messages.
It should be one message,really.
If God has a relationship withall of humanity, that should be

(01:32:43):
one single message and nobodymisunderstands it.
The dilemma is that you knowwe're getting all these
different messages.
So I mean, if I want to speakto you and tell you a message, I
could do that very easily.
I could just simply say this isa message for James.
Lori, it's not a message foryou, it's a message for James,
and this is what I want you todo, and I can even give you

(01:33:06):
feedback if you're doing itcorrectly or incorrectly and say
no, no, no, not like that.
Or I'm going to give you amessage now, ok, and it's going
to be the same message.
I'm going to say James, look atwhat Lori's doing, do it that
way and I can be very clear andmake sure that no mistake is
done, and I can do that veryquickly and very effectively.

(01:33:26):
It wouldn't take me 2,000 yearsand I could do that without
having to write anything down.
I can speak it to you, I cancommunicate to you, so that
there is no doubt in your mindsthat it's coming from me and
it's going to you and not to you.
So if we can do that as humanbeings and we can communicate

(01:33:51):
very well and very effectively,such that we can build
civilizations and get all kindsof messages and information
across, why does God, who isall-powerful, all-knowing,
all-good, all-present,all-intellect and all-sentience,
only able to communicate to usthrough ways of stories retold
as other stories?

James (01:34:11):
Okay, first of all let me step back a little bit to basic
communication theory.
Just, you know the part that'salways so boring when you take a
communications class.
You have the sender, thereceiver and the message.
So what I believe is that thesender knows how to communicate

(01:34:34):
with us.
If he is, as we say, inall-knowing, all-powerful God,
he knows how to communicate withus.
He knows how to frame a message.
But in my belief system there'sa problem with the receiver.
We're kind of screwed up.
We've separated ourselves to anextent from the ability to

(01:34:59):
listen to that.
So we need to have a way ofreconnecting with our creator,
reconnecting with that message,reconnecting with the one who
originally made the message.
So that may sound a little bitsimplistic, but I think it
synthesizes.
What I believe with that isthat the problem's not with God,

(01:35:22):
the problem's not with the wayhe framed the message.
The problem is with the way wereceive it.

Joe (01:35:29):
I'd like to refute that by saying let's use an example of
us and children.
We're better at communicatingthan children, so we can send
the information to the children.
Their ability to receive it isnot as good as our ability to
send it.
We, as someone who has moreintelligence and more

(01:35:49):
understanding, more experience,realize that.
So we know that when we'recommunicating with children and
we have to do it in a way thatthey understand we have to make
sure that they do understand andthat onus is on us, it's not on
them.
So if the kids misunderstand ordon't fully grasp what we're
saying or they do it wrong,that's more like our fault, that

(01:36:10):
we didn't make sure that theygrasped it the correct way.
By saying there's a problemwith the receiver and that it's
not God's problem, you're givingGod infinite power, infinite
knowledge, infinite presence,but no accountability for when
the message breaks down.
How do we rectify that?

James (01:36:31):
So you're given basic educational theory who's
responsible for learning?
As a student, the student is.
Who's responsible for teaching?
As a teacher, who's responsiblefor the student learning?
If you're the teacher, theteacher is.
So, yes, god has someresponsibility in that and I
firmly believe that he made avery easy way for us to connect
with him, to understand him andto know what he's saying.

(01:36:54):
And we can embrace that.
In my worldview, we can embracea belief in that, and it does
require a level of faith, itrequires a level of trust, and
then we can step into thatunderstanding.
It's not hidden, cryptic, etc.
Etc.
So I have a little bit at oddswith some of the Gnostic

(01:37:20):
philosophy that if we just wouldunderstand this hidden, cryptic
message then we'd be okay.
I don't think it is hidden, Idon't think it is cryptic.
I think it's very clear andvery straightforward and we have
the opportunity to embrace that.

Joe (01:37:35):
No, it would be clear.
It should be clear.
I mean it shouldn't beencrypted at all, it should be
as plain as day.

James (01:37:41):
Now the dinosaur part.
That's pretty cryptic andthat's mostly me, but I still
like them.

Joe (01:37:48):
Yeah, I mean, but I mean to kind of get to this point where
you know the flaw is with us asthe receivers.
I mean you're saying that noneof us are able to grasp.
You know the message correctlybecause, again, we have the
message at the Catholic's spouse, we have the message at the
Lutheran's spouse, we have themessage of the Mormons, the

(01:38:18):
Muslims, jews, orthodoxChristians.
You're probably going to get ahundred different versions of
what it means to be a followerof Christ and what it means to
have a relationship with Christand what God's will is.
It should be just as clear asday.
Why, would you say, God iscommunicating in this way, where
it's through dreams, throughvisions, through inspiration, to

(01:38:43):
write scripture as opposed tojust I don't know, putting it
right there for everybody to see.

James (01:38:49):
Like in a book, putting it in a book so we could read it
.

Joe (01:38:52):
Because not everybody knows how to read and people didn't
know how to read proficientlyuntil the last few hundred years
.
So you're having thingscommunicated to people by
secondhand recounting Somebodyelse who knows how to read is
telling people who don't knowhow to read the story of Jesus
and the story of creation andthe story of God's will.

(01:39:12):
That seems like it's not thebest way.
It's not how I would want mymessage or my instructions to be
given out there, because I knowthere's a good chance of it'll
be messed up, there'll bemisunderstanding, um wrong
decisions get again completelywrong in terms of the objective,
and I would want to overseethat to make sure that whatever

(01:39:34):
I communicated makes it as Iintended to to everybody that I
I gave it and it's you know,delivered it to.

James (01:39:41):
Fair point.
I think God has chosen topartner with people who have
these childlike inability tounderstand and reason on a God
level.
Chosen to partner with us to toconnect with the world.
So yeah, I don't, I don'tunderstand all of God's choices

(01:40:03):
and I'm with you.
I think there's some things that, were you and I in charge, we
could just run it a whole lotbetter, but I think that at work
too.
So, you know, and my boss haschosen to use me to do some
things, and I'm sure itfrustrates the daylights out of
him, but that was his choice.
Hey, this is in your hands.
But yeah, as far as the messagepart go, I think that we have

(01:40:36):
I'm trying not to use biblicalterms for it, but we have a wall
of understanding that we've putup ourselves to not understand
what God's saying, and it doesrequire a level of faith.
We do have to have that faithin what we're believing in.
And why are there differentreligions?
Why are there different beliefsystems?
I couldn't answer that, but Ithink I understand at least the

(01:41:00):
basics of having a relationshipwith God and communicating with
him and that sort of stuff.

Joe (01:41:08):
Laurie.

Laurie (01:41:11):
Yeah, no, I think I pretty much said everything I
want to say about how God tunesin on this.
I really think he's not theall-knowing, ever-present.
I think we do have a lot ofthings lost in translation, a

(01:41:33):
lot of misunderstanding over themany hundreds of years.
And, like you were saying, joe,I also like to add that we have
had constant wars against oneanother too.
And you look at the biblical Godin the Old Testament.
He created this civilizationper se, but he gives commands to

(01:41:55):
Moses and to Joshua to go inand slaughter every man, woman,
child, to take over their tribes.
You know, kill the animalssometimes.
Don't kill the animals othertimes.
Don't mock him, don't sayanything against him, and you
know, or he'll strike you down.

(01:42:16):
And if this is Yahweh, who isoften referred to, as we spoke
to earlier, as a dragon, thenostrils, he flies his wings and
it could be an allegoricalthing, but he's described as a

(01:42:38):
tyrant at times.
And of course Jesus is the it's.
You know, these viewpoints anddifferent opinions and different
takes on everything.
It's very hard to, you know,determine who was right, who's
wrong.
And I mean we can't all beright, but I mean we can't all
be wrong.
So leave it at that.

James (01:42:58):
We didn't get to the Gnostic Gospels this time.

Laurie (01:43:01):
Yeah, maybe that we can do another one.

Joe (01:43:04):
A few other topics I want to touch on, but I think we're
running on to two hours here.
We don't have any commercialbreaks, so we're kind of over a
stretch here.
But you know, one thing I thinkwe can all agree about is that
this is a very pervasive topicand it touches everyone's lives
and it stretches across nationalboundaries, cultures,

(01:43:26):
demographics, different churchcongregations, and I think we
also know that the viewpoints onit are as diverse and as
numerous as the people out therewho believe in them.
And, as always, it's up to you,it's up to the audience, it's
up to the individual to decidehow you should approach all
these concepts and hypotheses,as well as what you should do

(01:43:47):
personally to derive somethingfrom it, whether it's by faith,
whether it's by skepticism, orwhether it's from some unique
experience, some specialspiritual experience.
Uh, it's up to the individual.
Uh, for me, I believe faith is avery individual phenomenon, um,
and that what you know is worksas a, as a sort of comfort zone

(01:44:11):
or as a connection for oneperson, uh, maybe different for
someone else, and a lot of ithas to do with where we where we
are in our, our lives and wherewe are, uh, where we are in
country.
I mean, really for me, I find asort of comfort and connection
with Catholicism.
That's because that's what I'mmost familiar with, that's what
I grew up with, and we all havethe same personal experiences.

(01:44:34):
It depends a lot on our socialand cultural emanations.
You know where do we grow up,who is our family, where do we
go to school, what do we study?
Emanations you know where do wegrow up, who is our family,
where do we go to school, whatdo we study?
If I grew up in a country, say,like Iran, my idea of, you know,
sort of comfort through faithwould come through something
different, a different religion,probably wouldn't come through
Catholicism.
So that's for me and that worksfor me.

(01:44:55):
It may not work for someoneelse, and I'm okay with that.
It may not work for someoneelse, and I'm okay with that.
I don't find a problem withsomebody saying that the faith
that they have gives themcomfort and it suits them and it
makes them a person who wantsto be the best they can be for
themselves and for others.
I have no problem with that.
And, like you point out, james,the problem comes when people

(01:45:17):
get angry and say no, my viewshave to be correct, and if yours
counteract mine, then we haveto argue and that's unproductive
right Off with his head.

James (01:45:36):
Yeah, yeah.
So I certainly believe inobjective truth, but I also
believe the scripture that sayswork at your salvation with fear
and trembling, which to memeans you need to approach it
with healthy skepticism, with ananalysis, with an understanding
, with diving in, because Ithink it's important, to me,
it's very important, and if youjust blindly accept everything,
that's neither productive norworking it out, as it says, hey,

(01:46:01):
appreciate you guys.
Thanks so much for letting mecome on.
I'm actually honored because Iknow, you know that I believe
completely differently than thanthan Lori, for instance, but
you still let me talk and sharemy views, so I love that.

Joe (01:46:14):
Thank you very much and I appreciate hearing you what you
guys have to say, james, it wasfun with us and it's truly an
honor really to be able to havethis profound conversation with
you and to hear your points ofview.
Yeah, we disagree on a lot.
I love hearing the disagreement.
That is the beauty of living ina free society where we can
communicate openly and disagreeand still be friends.

(01:46:37):
That's the greatest thing.
I love this kind of forum.
So thank you for taking thetime to join us in what I found
to be a very pleasant, livelyand enlightening dialogue.

James (01:46:49):
Yeah, we went twice as long as usual.

Laurie (01:46:51):
Yeah, we did.
Hopefully everybody out therecan enjoy this now.
I know it's a long one, but wehope everybody is enjoying the
topic and the discussion.
I mean we did keep it civil,the topic and the discussion,
and I mean we did keep itcivilized, and I wish we'd see
more of that out there on theseYouTube videos and podcasts, you
know, because you learn a lot,and so we appreciate your

(01:47:13):
willingness, james, to shareyour, I guess, expertise in
order to help us get a betterunderstanding of a very deep and
sometimes opaque subject likethis one, and I hope that we
were able to maybe get youthinking about some things, and
so maybe we can do it againsomeday and get more into the

(01:47:35):
Coptic Gospels and whatnot.
And so, anyway, thanks again,james, not.
And so, anyway, thanks again,james, and for you, all of you
out there, our next episode weare going to discuss, you know,
some in further detail of theMesopotamia, the Mesopotamian
Enuma Elish, and we're going todelve more into how it may

(01:47:57):
possibly have been to thatoriginal source material for,
for the Hebrew Bible in the oldTestament.

James (01:48:01):
Don't forget to get your alien talk.
Swag everybody yeah.

Joe (01:48:06):
And from there we plan on continuing doing an episode
which we hope to upload this onYouTube with some pictures to
enhance what we're talking about.
And we want to cover not onlythe Enuma Elish but also other
manuscripts, the Ultra Hasas,the Epic of Gilgamesh and the
Code of Hammurabi and we thinkthat these will be enjoyable

(01:48:27):
episodes since we love studyingthe ancient world and learning
about how the mysteries of thedistant past relate to our
modern day religious thinking.
It is truly fascinating.
So until next time, folks staysafe and stay curious.

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