Stranger Things: Aliens

Embark on a journey into the unknown! 🛸 Whispers of alien encounters and rumors of extraterrestrial secrets locked away have captured recent headlines. 👽 As the world ponders the possibility that we're not alone, Christians face profound questions about the essence of faith. How do these ideas impact the core messages of the Bible? 📜 Join us in our "Stranger Things" series as we navigate the intersection of faith and the unexplained. Let's unravel the mysteries together. 🔍

------------------------------

Read the article: What Would Life Beyond Earth Mean for Christians?

-----------------------------

Visit our website: Navigating An Ancient Faith

Sign up for our Newsletter

Visit our Fanlist page for questions, comments, or to support the show.

Discuss on our Facebook Group

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Stranger Things
• 6:08 Aliens in the News
• 17:45 What Might It Mean for Faith?
• 25:44 Ezekiel's Vision
• 35:36 Describing the Indescribable
• 38:28 John's Vision in Revelation
• 45:53 Seeing What We Want To See

Transcript

Aliens

David: [00:00:00] You are listening to the Navigating an Ancient Faith podcast. My name is David and with me is JR. We are coming to you from our, let's call it our cabin studio, right? Yeah, yeah. Our high tech cabin studio. 

J.R.: It's not high tech, but, you know.

David: Okay, low tech. We'll go with low tech cabin studio. 

J.R.: That's where the echo is coming in.

David: Yes, so. As we mentioned last episode, we are in a cabin in North Carolina. We did some hiking today. <Yes>. Quite a nice hike. 

J.R.: Yep, the clouds were pouring in and by the time we got to the end of our hike, man, gorgeous. <Yes>. Opened up. All the clouds were gone. Wonderful morning. 

David: Yes. And I think of the ascent and the descent that we've talked about so much on this podcast.

J.R.: That's right. All we did was played that podcast over and over. Yeah. Remind us. 

David: It helps our download numbers too. 

J.R.: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Autumn leaves, man. The colors are everywhere. This is great. Yeah. I love this. 

David: I really think we hit [00:01:00] the peak leaf turning. <Yeah, yeah, yeah.> At just the right time because there were moments today where it was just a shower of yellow leaves.

J.R.: Raining yellow leaves on us. Yeah, it was great. 

David: And the woods are just full of all kinds of color. Yeah, so it's been a great, great week for me. Great couple days with you joining us here. And we're gonna knock out this whole series. 

J.R.: Yeah, no, I can't wait. 

David: And I don't know about the sound quality. We apologize in advance because we're doing this on a phone and a little mic rigged up here. But we will not apologize for spending time here at this beautiful location. 

J.R.: We'll set up the studio next time. We'll do that next year. 

David: Yeah, we'll have a full studio in the mountains next time. 

J.R.: Aliens, man. I've been looking for him. I've been, 

David: I had an eye out for him. 

J.R.: It's a nice, yeah, it's a nice dark night out here. There's no city lights anywhere around. You can see all the stars. <Yes.> So, yeah, I was thinking, man, wouldn't it be awesome if we saw a UFO last night? 

David: Okay. Now you, I, I saw something the night before you got here,

J.R.: Yeah, that's right. You did see a UFO. 

David: And you pointed out and I, more I thought about it, [00:02:00] I think you're right. Now, what was it you think that I saw?

J.R.: It's the Starlink satellites.

David: It's Starlink satellites. 

J.R.: And I thought it was like a dozen or twenty or something. I looked it up. It's like a thousand cube. Like, like, not even the size of a football type thing. Satellites. <Okay.> And I don't know. Somebody else can correct me on this. I don't know if it's actually generating light or if it's just the sun reflecting on it.

David: Reflecting. Yeah. 

J.R.: And, and so across the night sky, you literally see a perfect line of dozens and dozens of little dots. <Right.> You know, where the sun's reflecting and it looks, it's kind of bizarre. Yeah. 

David: Well, that's, you showed me one picture of it and man, that's exactly what I saw in the night sky. Because it was already dark, and I thought it was maybe jet plane exhaust. <Yeah.> But there it was dark. There was nothing to reflect off it.

J.R.: Yeah. And it was too long.

David: Yeah. Unless it was, you know, way up in outer space, what you were talking about.

J.R.: I bet you anything that's what it is, yeah. 

David: And I think that's what it was. It just, It's a line of dots that move methodically [00:03:00]across the sky. And I just kind of sat there for five or 10 minutes and watched it.

J.R.: Elon Musk, man. There's an app that you can track it. So you put in your location, it'll tell you what, you know, the next night that should be visible. And you know, you can go find, there's one for the space station also. Yeah. Yeah. So pretty cool. 

David: All right. Well, it was a good introduction to this episode we're going to talk about today.

J.R.: Yeah, that's right. You should have taken a picture. 

David: I know. So we are in the middle of our series on Stranger Things. We're talking about, you know, just modern things in our culture today that are popping up. We talked about AI last time. <Yep.> We are going to talk about aliens and UFOs today. <Can't wait.> And the next episode we will talk about end of the world hysteria: Armageddon, apocalypse. Yeah. So we're going to talk about that. 

 So Stranger Things, the inspiration for this series title, is the TV show, which is a great little TV show. 

J.R.: Yeah, have you seen all four seasons? I think we got season five coming out. 

David: Really? There's another season? 

J.R.: Yeah. It seems like I caught that.

David: Uh, okay. Well, I'll be honest, [00:04:00] I could have stopped at season three and been happy. 

J.R.: That's most series, yeah. You kind of lose it. They grew up a little bit too much, right? 

David: Yeah, now we're in that awkward phase where we're supposed to believe these are all still kids. 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. It's like the seventh season of Urkel. It just doesn't work anymore.

David: Right, right. So there's a couple of reasons why Stranger Things was such a great show initially. 

J.R.: The Gorgons? Yeah, the Gorgons. 

David: But there's a deeper reason too. This will tie in why we chose this title for Stranger Things. 

J.R.: I thought it was just a cool title. 

David: Well, that too. So, you know, you do have the innocence of the kids in the 80s kitch, right? <Oh, yeah.>In season one or two. 

J.R.: Yeah, I love it. I think that's what grabbed people. Yeah. 

David: Yeah, and you know the throwbacks you got Winona Ryder and <Yeah, yeah.>, the kid who did Rudy and the Hobbit and ... 

J.R.: Yeah, it's like all these 80s actors, you know And then they're in an 80s like the mall. I forget what's oh, yeah Yeah, the mall the abandoned mall is like this is so great. They captured it man, all the stores [00:05:00] everything Yeah, it was great. 

David: So I was thinking about this though, but the tie in that I think is interesting is in a very modern cinematic way, they've almost captured this idea that we've talked about quite a bit on this podcast of ancient worldview that said there is a parallel spiritual realm that's happening in conjunction with the physical realm. And that's the whole upside down. 

J.R.: The upside down. Yeah. Okay. So there you go. Well, I thought, yeah, I was thinking it was just a good name because we are talking about some strange things. You talk about aliens and things like that. But, yeah, the upside down the parallel world. that mirrors the physical world. And they can actually kind of cross over and talk to each other. And ... 

David: Yeah, there's some points of contact. We're going to talk about aliens, but yeah, you know, seeing things from a parallel universe that you don't know how to describe. 

J.R.: Yeah. Okay. So do we need a fourth episode? The Theology of Stranger Things? 

David: We could have done that. . 

J.R.: We can do that. You wanna do that? 

David: We could, we might, we might do that. We'll think of that. 

J.R.: Yeah. I'm, I'm not sure where the [00:06:00] gorgon's, tie in, but Yeah, we, we give that a shot. 

David: Yeah. We'll think about that. Anyway. 

J.R.: No, that's a good tie in. I like that. 

David: Yeah. So that's the tie-in. 

So aliens, aliens. What's your view on aliens? 

J.R.: Dude, man. All right. So I've got an abduction story.

David: You've got an abduction story.

J.R.: No, I don't have an abduction. Oh, yeah, it's not this isn't gonna be that type of podcast. I don't we were talking about before it's like we're not gonna go through the theories Well, we're gonna go through some theories. We're not gonna go through the individual stories and talk about Roswell and right. <Yeah.> So if this is what you're tuning in for you'll be a little bit disappointed, you know. It's it's more like, yeah, what's our take? What's the Christians take? How should we view this because it is I mean, it's front and center on the media. And 20 years ago, you know, obviously Roswell stories and alien stories and things like that, but they weren't really taken seriously by the mainstream media. And it's gained some traction, man. Seems like the past few years, 

David: Especially this summer. Yeah. Especially this summer. It just seemed like it you were seeing a story like every [00:07:00] other week. 

J.R.: Yeah. And major news outlets don't make fun of it anymore. Or don't, you know, , it's military footage and things like that, that you see that, I guess give it some legitimacy, like something is probably up there. And then we can have, you can have your opinion on what it is. But, there's something causing, I don't think these people are making something up. 

David: Yeah, so it always raises the question, we, talked about this in the introduction last episode, it always raises the question about, as people of faith, as Christians, how are we supposed to respond to that and what, might it mean, right? <Right.> And you can't help but ask these things. And we talked last time about those two reactions that we tend to have those polarizing reactions.

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. The binary reaction. Yeah.

David: Right, you know the compartmentalization that we said has nothing to do with our faith, you know. So our faith has no bearing or information or influence on that whole topic. And then we go to the other end and we talk about how this can't be true. It goes against the Bible. This would shatter my entire spiritual worldview.

J.R.: Yeah, And I think that's [00:08:00] why people Christians are afraid of the UFO phenomenon because it would be, it would be kind of earth shaking. And what we're going to talk about today is, I don't think it has to be. <Right.>

Now, it depends on how we view this. I mean, and we're not getting, you know, at least I'm not going to make some kind of claim that for certain, I believe that, there are aliens visiting us from other galaxies and things like that. I'm not going to go there, but I do want to talk about, we've already talked a little bit about, it doesn't have to be faith shattering. It doesn't have to unravel everything we know. And, you know, there have been other paradigm shifting phenomena in the past that, I'm sure at the time they thought this would completely shake their right. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll get into that. Yeah. I'm looking forward to this. 

David: Yeah. So Let's start out by talking about just, unless you've been living in a cave, you've probably seen the news stories recently, or this past summer at least. And there's been a lot of people that have come forward, there's been some whistleblowers, quote whistleblowers, that have come forward and said, look, we've seen the evidence [00:09:00] that the government is covering up. I know I've heard podcasts about I listened to one in particular about a guy who it's like a friend of a friend. It's like I trust this source and he was talking about what this source has told him about what he's seen in the documents he's seen. 

And I think you're right. You mentioned this earlier that there's an air of, what would you say? Almost a little bit more legitimacy to some of these claims recently. Growing up, there was the whole Area-51, Roswell, but you know, no one really, I don't know, no one really ... 

J.R.: Yeah. Well, you know, you bought into it. You were either all into it and you're a little bit nutty or you kind of took it with a grain of salt. And then there's the abduction stories and yeah, those are a little bit fantastic. And yeah, you know, I mean, I can look at some of these stories and think, well, you know, I don't know if they didn't get enough attention as a kid, you know, that type stuff.

<Yeah.> But some of the more recent stories you kind of look, I, at least I look at it as an [00:10:00]adult and say, I'm not sure what they're gaining by this. I'm not sure, you know, these are pilot Navy pilots, these are military people. You know, these are sometimes cases of doctors and professional people that are in a way kind of putting their career out there for the sake of their own alien story. And yeah, I just don't, I'm, I, they seem a little bit more legitimate, like I take 'em a little bit more seriously. 

David: Yeah, I would say this time around there feels like a little bit more seriousness, legitimacy to it that at least it personally has caused me to kind of rethink and go, okay, what what does this mean?

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah. How do I wrap my head around it? 

David: If it's true, what does this mean? You know, I'm like you said we're not here to debunk it or be all in. It's just more like what does it mean for us? And then of course this summer you also had the thousand year old Mexican alien body that was ... 

J.R.: Yeah. There we go. We found them, man. We got proof.

David: Shown, it was,

J.R.: got a pair of them.

David: Shown in front of the Mexican Congress, right?

J.R.: Something like that. Yeah.

David: And in about [00:11:00] 24 hours that whole thing was debunked. . But still. 

J.R.: But it was a fun ride. 

David: Yeah, it was. And I heard other people say, well this just set our whole movement back. You know . But still it, the fact that it made news, the fact that it was done in the congress of a country. 

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah. For a split second, there was almost like a, Oh, wow, is this it? And I'll be honest, I saw the pictures and I'm like, okay, this is not it. But at the same time, you know, there was that moment. You're like, man, is this the announcement we've been waiting for, you know?

David: Yeah. Is this the proof? Is this finally someone's going to drag out an actual body? 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's right. 

David: And scientists are going to look at it and say, yep, we can't explain this, but this is <Right.> not of this earth, right? 

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah. And so I don't know if something's coming down the road or not. But it does feel like, I don't know. I like the idea that the government is sort of setting us up to see how we'll respond to some of these things. And so they're slowly leaking information out for [00:12:00] the big reveal one of these days. <Yeah.> That really does seem like a plausible theory to me. 

David: You've shared that with me before that there is going to be a big reveal maybe. And some of these things are just leaking enough information, so it's not a total cause hysteric panic.

J.R.: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Men in black situation, right?

David: Yeah, yeah. . Yeah. Well, that's interesting. 

J.R.: But yeah, no, look at, I'm a UFO fan. Like I said, I'm an AI fan, a big foot fan. I'm all the, I'm, I'm a fan of all this stuff. Well, I'm not saying I'm not , I'm not going down with the ship on this one to say absolutely the lochness monster exists. I like the thought experiment behind them, you know. <Okay.> And so I guess maybe you could say I'm not really afraid of how this affects my faith, because I actually enjoy kind of running down the trail of saying well, okay. What if we do get the announcement? What if it is absolutely, certainly true, you know, what does that do to my faith? And so, it's sort of like some people dream about winning the lottery. I dream about what happens when they [00:13:00] announce that the aliens are for real. And yeah, what does that do to my faith? And, Yeah. Spoiler alert. It does not completely destroy it. <Yeah.> We do, it'll change things, but, and we'll think through things differently, but no, it doesn't destroy it. 

David: And I'm, I'm more on the skeptic side, but I have enjoyed thinking through the conversations to say, okay, what if? What if, what would this do to my faith? And that's what we really want to cover on this episode.

J.R.: Right. Yeah, that's right.

David: So I think one, I'll throw out one important distinction, at least as I was growing up, that I realized, because, you know, there's been announcements of, we found life on Mars, or we found life on this planet. And I always pictured, you know, the little green man. They found him. They got him. And it turned out, yeah, it turned out to be evidence of water or, you know, an ancient amoeba that, yeah, something like that. 

J.R.: Yeah. This could be a fossilized amoeba or, yeah, that, yeah, we've seen some of that thing, yeah, some of those announcements.

David: As a kid, it was always a letdown because there would be some headline about life found on Mars.

J.R.: No, that's, [00:14:00] that's clickbait. Ancient, old clickbait. Yeah. That's all that was. Yeah. 

David: Yeah. So I guess that's one thing as you start to hear these stories, it's always good to keep in mind what someone means when they're saying life on other planets, right? There's a big difference between a monster, a little green alien, and <yeah> a plant, right?

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. 

David: Something like that. 

J.R.: Yeah. So so yeah, we're basically talking about life on other planets. And I also think there's a distinction between unidentified, what is it aerial phenomenon, and Aliens, right? We're going to make that distinction too. 

David: Yeah. Cause that's another UFO unidentified flying object , which means I saw something in the sky the other night and I didn't know what it was.

J.R.: Right. It may not be an airplane. It may not be a weather phenomenon, but it also may not be visitors from outer space. Right. Right. And so we'll get into that. 

David: Yeah. And just a little bit of the skeptic's take here, it always raises these questions you know, why are we just now seeing aliens? <Right.> And we'll get into this a little bit [00:15:00] further, but I think there's some good questions about, from the skeptic point of view, you know, if their technology is so advanced why, why do they end up crashing in the desert, you know? Yeah, yeah. Or why do they end up showing themselves to a remote cabin in the mountains somewhere.

J.R.: Yeah. Why not make it more obvious? Yeah. Let's land in time square. Let's go ahead and make this big announcement. 

David: Right. Right. Yeah. Why is it always in the middle of Siberia, ? 

J.R.: Right. Yeah. Well, you know, so, okay. their goal is not to make a big announcement. Their goal is to check our progress from time to time.

David: Okay. So they're spying on us and from time to time, one of them crashes or something. But otherwise they're, they don't want to be seen. 

J.R.: Maybe, you know, something like that. Or, you know, the other. Okay. So that's, another thing is when we're talking about things that we see in the sky, that is something different than buying into the Roswell - an alien crashed. Our government has the bodies. Our government has the ships. I'm not so certain of all that. But I do [00:16:00] think the more recent sightings, there's something to it. But I'm just, I don't buy the whole it's another country's advanced technology. I don't really buy that because.

David: Yeah, well, on the other hand, there are a lot of unidentified lights in the sky that turned out to be a weather balloon or ...

J.R.: Yeah, yeah, there's some of that.

David: You know, or, it always happens around an air force base, maybe, you know. So there was some kind of secret test plane that was actually doing maneuvers up in the sky or, <Right.> You know, that's the skeptics take. 

J.R.: Well, we're always talking about the 1 percent right? I mean, the majority of the sightings are debunked or are kind of explainable by weather phenomenon or something like that. But then there's that 1 percent that everybody looks at it and says, yeah, I'll be honest, this doesn't look like a fake photo.

This doesn't look like altered video, you know, however they check all these things. No flights in the sky at this time, we're, you know, I'll be honest, I'm not sure. You know, there are the, the 1 percent is what we're talking about. So we won't get too [00:17:00] fantastic on, whether or not our government is holding aliens in some underground bunker or something like that. <Yeah.> Yeah, I'm more interested in kind of the phenomenon of the lights in the sky. <Yeah. Okay.> So yeah, we can kind of start there. 

David: We're not going to spend this whole episode talking about different types of aliens. We've kind of given the scale of, you know, this conspiracy theory over here to unknown lights in the sky, but really where we're trying to funnel all this discussion here now that we've kind of introduced the idea is, you know, what would it mean? <Right.> Right, what would it mean? <Yeah.> As a person of faith, what would some kind of discovery of alien life mean <Right.> for our faith? For the Bible? 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's where we want to go with this. 

David: So you just want to jump right into... You found an article that you sent me. Do you want to jump into that?

J.R.: Yeah, I stumbled across an article by Logos.org. And it was just, it was a fairly straightforward article. It said, you know, you gave four different options, <Yeah.>[00:18:00] of what does it mean for the person of faith, if aliens are real or if there's some kind of announcement.

David: Just kind of posing the scenario.

J.R.: Yeah. And I thought it was pretty neat, you know, and it's, nothing to panic about, but you, you read the options and it's like, okay, I can, buy into one or a few of these. Right. <Yeah. Yeah.> Okay. So, let's go through those. 

David: Yeah. We'll post the article in the show notes too, so you can take a look at it, but yeah. So the four options are, we'll go through these real quick. Number one and I have to preface this by saying it's talking more about the whole idea of what it would mean for the salvation of Christians, right? <Right.> Or that whole notion of the redemption of the world. What Jesus did on the cross, so ...

J.R.: Jesus believing Jesus following Christians. What specifically does it mean? 

David: Yeah, and I have to I wanted to put that out there, too because as I start to read through the four, it's like jumping right into very deep theological Salvific issues, right? So alright, so now that we've got out of the way. Number one: aliens [00:19:00] are not fallen beings, right?

J.R.: Okay. Now that's interesting because as soon as I read that I thought well, that's an interesting concept because the whole idea is that, Well, did Jesus die for the aliens? Did he die for the whole universe? You know, I mean, you kind of go down that, but I never had thought about, well, yeah, what if they're not, what if they're not fallen? <Yeah.> What if they're not fallen beings? Okay. <Yeah.> I just like that possibility that I, initially don't think of. 

David: Yeah. So the scenario there is yes, humankind is fallen. But it's at least theoretically possible that there's life somewhere else that let's say are living out more of the Edenic vision <Right.> of paradise and they actually have not fallen. <Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.> And so the whole salvation, 

J.R.: The crashes, the alien, the space, the spaceship crashes, <Yeah.> pokes a hole in that theory. 

David: All right. So let's cross that that one off the list. We can move on from that one, because we've already debunked it. All right. We're doing good here.

J.R.: All right. There you go. One down.

David: Yeah. All right. So that was the first option. Second option [00:20:00] is aliens are fallen, but they have their own path to God. 

J.R.: That there's another, I'm not gonna say another Jesus. I'm not gonna be sacrilegious here.

David: Yeah, let's not go there.

J.R.: There is another path, right, that God gave them another path to redemption. 

David: Right. It looks different on this other planet or let's say in this other world than Jesus becoming incarnate, dying for our sins.

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, so that's, that, yeah, that's option number two. 

David: And here again, so as we go through these options, the whole idea is like, what would aliens mean to our faith? And so these first two and a couple of these actually is, well, it doesn't mean anything because they're under a different scenario, right?

<Yeah.> All right. So that's the second one. 

J.R.: And when they make contact, hopefully they'll explain their theology. <Yeah.> Right? They'll explain their, path to God. 

David: Yeah. Let's see there...

J.R.: We'll all be enlightened by it. Okay.

David: We can compare their Bible to ours. <Yeah.> All right. The third one then is aliens are fallen. They've [00:21:00] crashed. We've already established that. <Yeah.> But they are included in Christ's redemptive work. 

J.R.: Yeah. This one is interesting on the surface. But then I start thinking, okay, well, how do they know of Christ's redemptive work? You know, how are they aware of it? How do they make that choice? 

David: So, yeah, so somehow the redemptive work, the incarnation, the death and the resurrection here on earth somehow covered the entire universe. 

J.R.: And yeah, which is a nice thought. Yeah. But yeah, then you start getting into you know, our free will to accept or reject that versus how do they, I mean, we have the story. We have the in some cases the archeological evidence, the biblical evidence that this happened, <Right.> you know.

David: So that's interesting because just as you were saying that, cause I think what you're getting at is like all this took place [00:22:00] in time and space on our planet 2,000 years ago, and that's what we hold.

J.R.: Yeah, we can accept or reject that.

David: And if you flip, the script, what would, I mean, honestly, we would sound crazy if we said somewhere else on another planet, a savior died on Saturn for our sins.

J.R.: Yeah, yeah, that's a, that's a tough sell. 

David: That would, I might start a cult if I started saying that, right? 

J.R.: Yeah, I was about to say, some people have said things like that. <Right, yeah.> And they are no longer with us because they drank the Kool Aid, right? Yeah. 

David: Okay. So that's interesting, but I just, as you were saying that, I thought, yeah, flip the script, and what would that sound like? <Okay.> Which, that's a little far fetched, but again, theoretically, okay, maybe, you know. 

J.R.: Yeah, I like it on the surface when there are no aliens. <Yeah.> You know, that Jesus died for the entire universe. But, you know, when you bring that into it, it's like, okay, that's problematic. Okay. So what's number four? 

David: So, well, this one kind of overcomes that we just talked about is Christ's redemptive work has been repeated on other planets. [00:23:00] So that's where, okay, we, so, you know, Jesus became human, right? 2,000 years ago and died on the cross, rose from the grave. But then somehow that was repeated on another planet. 

J.R.: Yeah, well, God is outside time and space, and it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility and what we know of God for that to take place. <Yeah.> So, yeah, okay. 

David: In fact, I think I could buy that one more than maybe the middle two, but, you know, if I had to choose. 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think that would, yeah, I think that would be my option too. <Yeah.> That makes the most theological sense. 

David: That there's a million miles away, there's another planet, life, let's go there theoretically. <Yeah.> And somehow they're not perfect either and somehow God manifested to them <Right.> in a very unique way that kind of paves [00:24:00] their path. 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. Can you imagine making contact? And in the process of, we come from this star system, you know, in the process of that conversation, they're like, wait a second, you've got a Jesus also? We've got a guy named Jesus.

David: Yeah. Well, so what if, all right, what if they were missionaries to our planet? 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a cool idea too. 

David: What if they finally landed safely and didn't crash? And they said, We're here to spread the good news. I got it. We got to be careful. I may be getting a heretical, but ...

J.R.: No, no, listen. Okay. So,

David: All this is in the realm of theory, right?

J.R.: I, I have fun with this because people I greatly respect like CS Lewis and other people have gone down this road. <Right. Yeah. Yeah.> In theory. And, you know, I'm actually reading the Ransom Trilogy right now. <Okay.> And it's, it's interesting to read his perspective. He's not getting too theological yet. <Yeah.> I'm just in the first book, but no great Christian thinkers of the [00:25:00]past have considered this idea. 

David: Right. Tolkien, Chesterton, Lewis. Yeah. 

J.R.: Yeah. They've all kind of run down this road. So yes, at the risk of accidentally being heretical, , some of our ideas, we apologize for that. But no, I, I, I do think it's a fun exercise given the current stories in the news and things like that.

David: Yeah. Yeah. It raises the interesting question and that's just what we're batting around right now of what would this mean for our faith? Yeah, what would this mean for the salvific work of Christ, right? And so again, these are just, I thought it was an interesting article that these were four possibilities that they laid out.

J.R.: Yeah, I vote on number four, right? But you and I kind of have a fifth, maybe not a fifth option, but sort of a fifth take on the aerial phenomena.

David: Yeah, so let's actually ask the question, does the Bible say anything about aliens? And again, like last episode, initially people may go, well no, of course it doesn't. But, well, let's take a look. 

J.R.: I was about to say, there are some pretty interesting stories that read through our understanding of [00:26:00] flying saucers and alien phenomenon, it starts to sound a little bit eerily similar, right? 

David: Yeah, yeah. So let's look at some of that. So the first thing we can say is, let's go back to the idea of an unidentified flying object, right? <Right.> Which simply means there's something that I saw that I don't know what it is.

J.R.: Right. No explanation for. 

David: And so I think we can safely start from the standpoint in the Bible of one thing that I've actually come to really appreciate in the last, say, several years, and we've talked about this on other podcasts, is the Bible very much affirms a spiritual realm full of spiritual beings.

J.R.: Absolutely. Yes. Yeah.

David: And we have some issues with that in our modern, rational, scientific mind. <Yeah.> But look, if you're going to take the Bible seriously, this is one thing I've really come to appreciate, is you've got to take this idea of a spiritual realm seriously.

J.R.: Right, that's [00:27:00] right. And we're talking about something more than, well, yeah, I believe in God and angels and heaven, right? That's kind of where, we think of that as the spiritual realm as a, I'd say the average churchgoer, right? <Right.> But the Bible is a lot clearer that no, no, there's a lot more going on in the spiritual realm. Listen to any of our other podcasts and you'll get that message loud and clear from the text of the Bible.

David: Right. And then you read the stories about how human beings saw things and sometimes even interacted <Right.> with these, let's just, well, you know, angel spirits, whatever, but yeah, they sometimes saw them. It's sometimes frightened them. And then you get into the whole issue - and we're going to talk about this in a minute here - of some of the visions that people saw.

J.R.: Right, yeah, they're pretty wild. They're pretty out there. 

David: And so broadly speaking, all of this could fall under the category of UFO. <Sure.> Right? <Yeah.> I saw something and I had [00:28:00] no idea what it was. 

J.R.: It was up in the sky. Sure. Sometimes it spoke to me. Sometimes it, interacted with me in strange ways, but yeah, we yeah, there's lots of that in the Bible. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so what first one.

David: So you and you brought this up yesterday and this is really interesting. You brought up Ezekiel's vision, right? And some of the things that Ezekiel saw so Ezekiel's an Old Testament prophet, right? And like a lot of these Old Testament prophets they have a vision that they wrote down. <Right.> Now, Ezekiel's a big book, but right in Ezekiel chapter one, he starts describing this vision that he had. And I want to start, I'll start reading since the computer screen is facing me, <Yeah, that's right.> in our high tech cabin studio. I want to read 11 through 14 and then we'll read a couple more verses.

So this is, I'm jumping in in the middle of his vision, but Ezekiel chapter one, verse 11 says, "Such were their faces. They each had two wings spreading out upward, each wing [00:29:00] touching that of the creature on either side and each had two other wings covering its body. Each one went straight ahead. Wherever the spirit would go, they would go without turning as they went. The appearance of the living creatures was like burning coals of fire or torches. Fire moved back and forth among the creatures. It was bright and lightning flashed out of it." And this is the, this is the verse I want to stop at, because this is interesting. "The creature sped back and forth like flashes of lightning." Now, it's interesting that he's describing these creatures, he's describing they're like burning flames and coals, but then he describes this, what he sees as the creatures were sped back and forth like flashes of light.

J.R.: Yeah, that's a tough one because what that looks like to me - again, we're going through the lens of the sort of our modern lens of UFOs <Right.> and projecting back. So [00:30:00] that's the asterisk here. It seems like teleportation, something like that, and the fact that the beings teleported like lightning back and forth between was it between the beasts? Between the... 

David: Yeah, they're kind of going back and forth between these other creatures that he sees in this vision. But the picture I see is... Ezekiel is looking up and he sees these flashes of light moving in the sky.

J.R.: Right. And what he's calling creatures, we think of biological <Right.> carbon based, but that may or may not be the case, right?

David: Okay. So there's two things we should probably clear up right now. Number one, when these Prophets talk about a vision, it's not like they just laid down one night and had a bad dream and wrote it down, right? <Right.> In fact, a lot of times in scripture when someone's having a vision, they're actually awake.

J.R.: Yeah, that's right.

David: So we're not just talking about I had a weird dream like right, you know, I had a [00:31:00]bad burrito last night.

J.R.: Yeah, it's more like Paul's road to Damascus, the light struck him down, you know, nobody thinks that Paul was just had a, yeah. 

David: So that's the first thing, because you may be asking, well, why are you talking about someone's dream that they had? No, that, that's something different. These are visions that people who were fully awake in the Old Testament had and the things that they were seeing and they're describing the things they saw. Right. <Right.> So that's the first thing. And the second thing you just brought up is we talked about this before in the ancient mindset something like a star or a planet, <Right.> had a spirit associated with it. 

J.R.: Yes, that's right.

David: And so just as you said that, I thought, yeah, that's why, look, I think it's not beyond the realm of possibility that someone like Ezekiel could look up and see a star moving or a light moving and would automatically assume, well, there's a spirit associated. There's a creature associated behind that. Yeah. Yeah. And that would be perfectly in line with the [00:32:00] ancient worldview. 

J.R.: Yeah. And we see that in other parts of the Bible. Like I said, we talked about it in Psalms. We've talked about it in other parts. 

David: So that's interesting enough. I, in fact, verse 14 jumped out at me as I was reading this this morning is that idea of he saw lights moving across the sky, right? <Right.> One way we could read that. All right. So let's go back to 15 then, because it gets even more interesting. Verse 15 says, "I looked at the living creatures. I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces. This was an appearance and a structure of wheels. They spark like topaz, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel." So there's, there's something else. There's this wheel intersecting a wheel, right? <Right.> "And then as they move, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures face. The wheels did not change direction as the creatures went. Their rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around it. And then when the living [00:33:00] creature moved, the wheels beside them moved. And when the living creature rose from the ground, the wheels also rose. Wherever the spirit would go, they would go. And the wheels would rise along with them because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels." Now again, from our modern perspective, that all sounds pretty bizarre.

J.R.: It probably sounded bizarre to the readers in ancient time that Ezekiel was talking to, right? 

David: Yeah, yeah, but what's interesting is this idea of a wheel within a wheel rimmed with eyes. <Right.> Now, gosh, that could sound an awful lot like some kind of disc with lights all around it.

J.R.: Sure, with lights around it, with windows perhaps. <Yeah, yeah.> Yeah, it kind of sounds like our modern flying saucer. It could yeah, yeah, and again, that's us projecting it back. But at the same time that's I mean, how would you describe a UFO that we see in a movie to someone who's never seen, <Yeah.> you know, to the ancient people, right? <Yeah. Yeah.> How in the world do you[00:34:00] describe that? You know, when me and you talk about UFOs or something like that, we will say something like, well, you've seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind, right? You know, I'm talking about something like that. Well, we've both seen that movie. We've both seen Independence Day. <Yeah.> And so we have, we kind of have a reference because we've both seen that.

But how do you explain that to someone who's never seen it, right? <Right.> And the best you can do is talk about wheels. If you had a rocket ship, our modern rocket ships, you know, how do you explain that? You'd say, well, it's like a tree with fire coming out of the bottom of it, and it rose toward the heavens, and the smoke was immense. And, you know, however you try to describe that in biblical terms it's not gonna translate well, and vice versa. If somebody from the ancient world tries to describe something modern, we're not going to get the translation very correct. <Right.> And our tendency is to say, man, why didn't you just say, why didn't you just say a metal tube? Or why didn't you just say, you know, because [00:35:00] none of that stuff existed and they're limited by what they knew, what they saw. 

David: And we're not saying that Ezekiel saw a spaceship, to be clear.

J.R.: Oh, I'm saying that.

David: Okay, you're going to... 

J.R.: No, I'm kidding. 

David: You're going to die on that hill. Well, we're just actually more throwing out the idea and perspective that, what was it that Ezekiel saw? <Right.> And sometimes that sounds an awful lot like things that are reportedly seen today. <Right, right.> But from the perspective of the ancient versus us, and what you're saying is, yeah, those could be very different descriptions, even though you're describing the same thing.

J.R.: Right. That's right. <Yeah.> Yeah. I mean, it's difficult to describe something. How do you describe the indescribable? How do you describe a feeling, you know, I think in the last episode you mentioned the John Mayer concert. <Yeah.> How do you describe that feeling? Well, you can talk about the music. You can, talk about, well, everybody was kind of in sync and there was just an energy there. But, I wasn't there. I mean, I, I see [00:36:00] your YouTube video of it and I'm like, yeah, he's got a dozen songs like this, you know. <Yeah.> And you're like, no, no, no, but there's a whole, you know what I mean? It's just impossible to describe a feeling. So it's, the difficulty of describing it indescribable. That's where Ezekiel was probably stuck. 

David: Right. And we had an interesting conversation this morning because the other example that we kind of talked about is, you know, in our modern society, we can Google anything. So there's very few creatures that we would actually say, you've never seen this. <Right.> Where you have no conception of what it is. <Right.> But picture the ancient world, if you lived in England, say. <Mm hmm.> And someone had come back from Africa and said, I saw an elephant. And you said, what is an elephant? <Right.> And if I, we kind of went through this this morning. If I said to you, man, it's got legs like trees. It's like four trees. <Right.> And something, the body, the size of like five or six cows, right? <Yeah.> And then it also [00:37:00] had ears that were the size of a, you know, a human being almost, right? And instead of horns on the top of its head, it was coming out of its face 

J.R.: I've already got this grotesque and a description of what you're describing.

David: And it's nose actually dragged on the ground. So now in that case you know, it's interesting because I described what an elephant is. But, what is in your head right now? 

J.R.: Yeah, all of it's correct, but whatever your monstrosity that you just described is not what I think of as an elephant. <Right.> Google elephant, that's an elephant, right? <Yeah.> You know, but, and you can do it with kangaroos, you can do it with all kinds of stuff. But yeah, the difficulty of describing something that...

David: It's a neat thought experiment to, fInd something, a platypus, a kangaroo, and think about if you've never seen it before, try to describe it to someone else and what would be in their mind, right?

J.R.: Right. When all you've seen is goats and donkeys and yeah, you know, a few other [00:38:00]common creatures, right? You know, but so you can see the limitations that he's got. 

David: Yeah. And I think it helps to try and understand we have a tendency to look at Ezekiel's vision and go, man, that guy had some crazy dreams and visions. <Right.> Well, maybe they weren't that crazy. Maybe it was just the language he had to describe what he was seeing.

J.R.: Yeah. The limitations he was under about what he's seen in his life. <Yeah.> How do you describe that to the people around you, in your village, your town, <Yeah.> your area. 

David: Alright, so let's do one more because let's go to the New Testament. The book of Revelation that's also filled with all kinds of crazy visions.

J.R.: Yeah, yeah, that's right.

David: And again, this was not just a dream that John had when he was asleep. This was something that he saw before him. 

J.R.: Right, a vision that he was shown. 

David: Right, a vision that he was shown. So, he's actually kind of seeing, you get the picture that he's actually seeing these things unfold before him. <Right.> And he's trying to write down. So, Revelation chapter 9, verses 1 through 3 start out, "The fifth angel [00:39:00] sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the abyss." "When he opened the abyss, smoke rose from it, like smoke from a gigantic furnace. And the sun and the sky were darkened by the smoke from the abyss. And out of the smoke, locusts came down on the earth, and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth."

All right. Now I want to skip down to verse seven because you have this idea of a locust, right? And then verse seven, he starts to describe the locusts. "The locusts look like horses prepared for battle." Well, that's weird. <Yeah.> "On their heads, they wore something like crowns of gold and their faces resembled human faces. Their hair was like women's hair and their teeth were like lion's teeth. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron and the sound of their wings were like thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle." Right, now you could sit there and draw this crazy picture of what this locust look like, right? <Right.> I [00:40:00] remember from a long time ago, even this idea that what if he's describing something like an Apache helicopter?

J.R.: Yeah. And when you think about it you can go through that entire description. <Yeah.> The women's hair, I'm not sure about that one. But the crown, I mean, the sound of, galloping horses. I mean, if you've been under a helicopter, man, it's a thump, thump, thump. I mean the scorpion sting, if he saw missiles or 50 caliber rounds shooting out from that. Yeah. I mean, that's a, that's a heck of a sting. Yeah, I mean everything kind of falls in, in an even the face of a man that, you know, you kind of look at an Apache helicopter and it, and <Yeah, and sometimes...> if you've never seen one, it'd be terrifying and you'd think it has looks like a man in a mask and ...

David: Well, and yeah. And sometimes one of the wars. They even had like the face painted on them. 

J.R.: Oh, yeah, that's right.

David: Right? I mean, you've see pictures of that. 

J.R.: What is it the Hellfire? The Hellcat plane, you know had the little ...

David: Had the face painted on it, yeah. 

J.R.: Had the teeth on it, had the the mean eyes. <Yeah, yeah.> Yeah, you could see something like that. Whether it's [00:41:00] necessarily that or something further on in the future. I mean if you were to tell me yeah 20 years from now, we're going to start painting faces on these Apache helicopters. I'd say, okay, sure. That makes sense, you know.

David: Now if they put women's wigs on them, then I think that would clinch the deal.

J.R.: Yeah, that's right. If we ever see the wigs. I'm not sure what the hair women's hair <Yeah.> would be. But at least at least you're right in all the other descriptions, we're coming very close to something that is recognizable to us and would be impossible to describe to an ancient person.

David: Right, 2,000 years ago if John saw an Apache helicopter, you have to ask the question: how would he describe it? 

J.R.: Yeah, and that's pretty good. What he came up with was pretty close.

David: You couldn't get much closer than saying a giant locust that had a stinger like a scorpion and, <Yeah.> and it sounded, and breastplate of iron and a face on it. <Yeah, absolutely.> Like that's pretty close.

J.R.: So [00:42:00] at the very least you're right. It's a UFO in the Bible by our standards, right? 

David: Now what's interesting is this was about a month ago I was listening to a podcast about and I think I referenced this earlier is this guy said he knew some trusted sources who actually said they claimed that they had seen an alien spacecraft, right? <Okay.> Now it was very interesting and I think I was even on the phone with you. I just listened to this. Because he said it looked like a giant helicopter. And the way he started describing it, I immediately went back to something I'd heard, you know, in kind of church circles of what if these locusts were helicopters?

J.R.: Right, no, that's interesting.

David: And this guy who was describing the UFO that was described to him, he was describing, what looked to him like a giant helicopter. That's how he was describing it. I thought, wow, now that's interesting.

J.R.: Yeah, it's an interesting connection. <Yeah.> And again we're not saying this is what is described in the Bible right? We're [00:43:00] talking about aliens. But it does help me see the difficulty of describing something in the future using only what you have around you, basically nature and horses and chariots and things like that. <Right.> Trying to describe something a thousand years in the future with what you have around you. And so John and Ezekiel apparently are describing something in the spiritual realm. <Right.> You know, that is becoming manifest in the physical realm, or at least they can see it, right? 

David: Right. 

J.R.: So then the question becomes, okay, are Ezekiel and John describing UFOs or is that just us projecting our UFO fever on the past? <Right.> You know, cause it can go the other way, right? It can very much go the other way.

David: Yeah. What John saw and called a locust, theoretically, if we saw that today up in the sky, 

J.R.: Yes. We would absolutely call it a UFO. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. 

David: Yeah. We would absolutely call it a UFO. 

J.R.: Right. But what if it's a spiritual being? [00:44:00] <Yeah.> What if it's from the spiritual realm? 

David: And that's kind of the fifth option that we landed on The fifth option would say if we believe that the Bible affirms that there are spiritual beings that they're still around today, what if we're catching glimpses of these spiritual beings? What we would use in our terminology today, the same way Ezekiel and John had the language available to them. Right. Here's what I saw, right? 

J.R.: Right. But we're projecting it through our 2023 technological framework that we can describe and say, Oh yeah, that sounds like a UFO. <Yeah.> That sounds like something from another planet. <Yeah.> When in reality, we're just trying to describe the indescribable with our own vocabulary, and it's actually something from the spiritual realm. <Yeah.> Yeah. I think you told me this a long time ago. I think I was like in high school. You know, I brought up UFOs and spaceships, and you said, I don't know if you remember this, but you said to me, Man, I've always thought that could be angels. We're a lot [00:45:00] younger then, but yeah, it was you saying, what if that's from the spiritual realm? What if what we think of as UFOs is actually something from the spiritual realm. 

We can get tangled up with why they would visualize themselves to us or, what the purpose of it is. <Yeah.> And, and we're over our skis here. But, but, but, but what if, what if, what if, what we're seeing in the sky, the phenomenon we're seeing is something, a manifestation from the spiritual realm for whatever reason it is.

David: Yeah. Yeah. And so you have to kind of follow this thread to say in the Bible, they caught glimpses of the spiritual realm. How come we don't see that today? And, you know, there might be some people more in dispensational camps that would say, Well, that doesn't happen anymore. Well, what if it is? 

J.R.: What if that's what we're seeing? 

David: And that's what we're seeing. 

J.R.: And we're explaining it through our sci fi lens, <Right, yeah, yeah.> through all the movies we've seen. 

David: And again, we're just throwing this out as an option. Something to think about from a Christian perspective, right? So, I [00:46:00] thought of three possibilities of, okay, if this might be the case, then what's happening here? And I think this is helpful, too, the way I thought through this. Is, one possibility is that the people in the Bible are describing modern day machines, but they only had their primitive language. The second option is that modern people are seeing things in the Bible, but we're using our modern descriptions.

J.R.: Yeah, and we don't go down that road very much. Because we assume that, well, we have the more accurate view. I mean, we've got the technological innovation and, you know, it makes sense that they can't explain what we see. But sometimes it doesn't make as much sense to say, well, we're both trying to explain the unexplainable. <Yeah, yeah.> You're just putting your 21st century lens over it. 

David: And look, let's be honest. We tend to be modernists. but we tend to think, well, we can make more sense of the, the Bible in 2020, you know, 2023. And the reality is, is like, no, the Bible actually made more sense two thousand years ago, and we're the ones that are tasked [00:47:00] with deciphering what it meant.

J.R.: Right. What they were saying at the time made sense to the listeners at the time. <Yes.> And we lose a lot of that. We commonly say something like this is a monumental task and this idea of, oh, did you build a monument? Is there a monument somewhere? Is some kind of granite chiseled statue something, you know? It's like, no, we just kind of use that word interchangeably from sometimes there's a physical statue or monument and sometimes it's just a huge, a mammoth, there's another double meaning, sometimes it's just a mammoth undertaking. And it's difficult a hundred years from now to know what you mean by that.

And I think when you talk about stars and spirits, I think a lot of that is interchangeable. I mean, it's clearly interchangeable in some of the biblical language, you know, that a third of the stars fell from the sky. We already know that they're talking about something in the spiritual realm. They're not actually talking about the balls of gas that are millions of miles away falling to the earth, right?

David: Yeah. Well, there was a meteor shower.

J.R.: [00:48:00] Right? Or something like that, you know.

David: You're missing the whole point of what they were talking about. Yeah. 

J.R.: And I think we suffer from the same limitation of double meaning that they probably understood 2,000 years ago. But we in our scientific explanation mindset, we try to literalize everything. <Yeah.> And they weren't doing that. They never intended that. <Yeah, yeah.> To be a literal explanation of something. 

David: Yeah. Right. So we had those two ideas that, you know, the ancients were describing something from modern times. <Right.> And moderns are seeing something from ancient times. But I'll throw out the third option, which is both moderns and ancients maybe are trying to describe something from the spiritual realm that is totally outside of either framework. 

J.R.: Yeah. I really like that idea and that concept. <Yeah.> Because you could see the struggle of both of us. Again, how do you describe the indescribable? How do you explain what colors are not visible to us, but are visible to somebody else? You know, how do you describe that? <Yeah.> And, [00:49:00] and even our, even our language says. ultraviolet and infrared, right? It's not that it's just more red or more violet. It means it's just an entirely other color. But on the spectrum, it just goes further toward the violet side or toward the red side. And it's like saying, well, how is green like red? Well, no, it's a totally different color. Well, so is ultraviolet and infrared, but that's the only way we know to describe it because there is no description for the unseen. 

David: And it's also interesting to note that when Ezekiel and John, and again, those are just two examples, because there's a lot more examples of that in the Bible that we can go through.

J.R.: We can dig all through Revelation, sure. 

David: It's also important to understand that when Ezekiel and John are describing things like that, again, Ezekiel isn't saying, I saw a locust in the sky. There's always the language that said, something like a locust. <Right.> Which has a big difference, right? <Right, sure.> So Ezekiel in that case is saying, look, I saw something that to me, in my words, look like this.

J.R.: That's the best description I've got, [00:50:00] but it's not that. <Right.> It's like that. 

David: I think that, yeah, I think it's an interesting point. It's almost implied in that statement that this is not what I saw, but it's the best way I know to describe it because I don't know what I saw, right? 

J.R.: And his buddies are saying man a giant locust. It's like no, I didn't say that. I said it was like that. <Yeah.> Come on man, pay attention. 

David: Yeah, that's true. So the other thing that I think bears mentioning is that again, we suffer from modernism because we assume that, well, even if I did see a spirit, I would know what it looked like. Because let's be honest, because of movies and TV shows.

J.R.: Because you and I both watched Casper. 

David: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, or Ghost. The movie Ghostbusters. Yeah. Ghostbusters. I mean, look, we've seen it all, right? <Right.> So if there really is a spiritual being, I would know what it looks like. <Right.> And the reality is, those are our best attempts to visualize what a spirit world might look like. <Right.> But let's be honest, if we ever did see into the spiritual [00:51:00] realm, I think we would be in the same boat as the ancients, trying to grasp at descriptions about what we just saw. 

J.R.: Yeah, we'd be at a loss for words. <Yeah.> And I go back to the whole, kind of go back to the idea of capturing a feeling. You know, when you're on a mountaintop, I'm at a loss for words. <Yeah.> I know you guys have seen pictures of mountains. I know you've seen Everest and I know you've seen the Matterhorn, but there's a whole plethora of feelings that go along with it and emotions and things like that, that you can't, you can't communicate. And so the best you can do is say, When we were standing at the base of the pyramids, I can show somebody a picture of the pyramids and it was like that. But it wasn't the same thing.

David: We would say it was like this. Right. Yeah. We would use the same thing that Ezekiel and John. Sure. We would say, look, what I saw, what I experienced was like this. 

J.R.: And we have the, we have the luxury of pointing to a picture and saying, yeah, take a look at this. And that's where I was at. And yeah, it was bigger than the picture. There's a lot more going on, but at least you have an idea. [00:52:00] They don't have, they didn't have that luxury. 

David: Right, right. Our database of images, TV shows, movies, Google, the internet is so much larger than an ancient person.

J.R.: Right. We have such a vast framework to pull from, database to pull from. 

David: And that's why I think it's almost hard to describe something today that doesn't immediately convey some kind of modern contraption or some kind of modern image. Because it's hard to say anything today without you immediately pulling images from a movie you saw. <Yeah.> Or the web or, <Right.> And so we go, oh, okay. I know what you're talking about. 

J.R.: Yeah. That it, that the internet and our movies in our media actually become a basis of how we communicate. Yeah. Yeah. And we don't realize it, it's all under the surface. But, you and I can both speak the same language because we've seen some of the same movies. <Yeah.> How many times are you in a conversation and say, Have you ever seen this? Have you ever seen this video clip? <Yeah.> And the answer is yes or no. And sometimes you'll pull out your phone and show them the video clip and then you say, It's like [00:53:00] that. You know. <Yeah.> But that is such a shortcut that we take for granted, <Yeah.> that they didn't have. 

David: So something else I read recently that I think applies to this is C. S. Lewis, The Discarded Image. And there's some great quotes from his very last chapter. And so he talks about this idea of the old model. <Okay.> And what he's really talking about is the ancient way of thinking. <Right.> So, I'll actually insert ancient way of thinking with the old model. Because people, if you're not familiar with Discarded Image, you don't know what the old model is. <Right.> So, C. S. Lewis has this quote where he says, "There's no question here of the ancient way of thinking" - old model - "being shattered by the inrush of new phenomena. The truth would seem to be the reverse, that when changes in the human mind produce a sufficient disrelish of the ancient way of thinking and a sufficient hankering for some new one, phenomena to support that new one will [00:54:00] obediently turn up." Now, there's a lot of words there, but it's interesting what he's saying. Is that basically, even in the early 20th century, when Lewis was writing, <Right.> that he witnessed this idea that when people were kind of done with the old model and using his language, and they were going to a new way of thinking that suddenly all this phenomena popped up that supported what they were thinking.

J.R.: Right, right. Right. Yeah, you'll see what you want to see. 

David: Yeah, that's basically what he's saying, right? You'll see what you want to see, right? 

J.R.: But it's interesting that he ties it in to a paradigm shift in the way we think, right? You'll see what you want to see. <Yeah.> And this goes back to the very beginning of Yeah, we're gonna talk about aliens and yeah, we're gonna talk about what if they exist. And I think I said at the beginning, don't worry, it's not as bad as you think. It's not as earth shattering as you might think. And, to take Lewis quote, that's happened several times. You know, we talked [00:55:00] about, Galileo's heliocentric model of the universe, right? That was a paradigm shift because everybody at the time thought that the Earth was the center of the universe and it was primarily the religious elites that took issue with it, because it was such a paradigm shift. And now we look back at that, the idea that the sun is the center of our solar system and we rotate around it and we don't have any issue that we take no issue with, that doesn't conflict with the Bible. <Yeah.> And we almost look back and say, man, what was the problem with that? Why did they freak out over that? <Yeah.> And of course that was them reading in projecting their view of what God's perfect creation and God's creation of man must mean that the entire solar system revolves around us.

Well, that's that's an absurd reading in of the Bible that the Bible never says. But it was a paradigm shift. And like Lewis says, you know, when something like that comes up, I'm sure people at the [00:56:00] time thought, no, no, no, this is earth shaking. This is religion shaking. This, this is going to destroy people's faith. And it never, it, was unnecessary. It didn't need to do that. And there's other, there's other examples of that. 

David: Yeah, yeah. Well, to wrap this up we can finish on this idea because I think it's an interesting one . Because I think if we're honest, some of our fear as Christians would be that if something like an alien is real. <Right.> Okay. Now let's go back to the little green man in the flying saucer. If something like that is real, then it changes everything I know to be true about the Bible and faith. <Right.> And that's, I think if we're honest, that's kind of the fear. And I think what you're referring to is it's not the first time that the church has had this gripping fear that if something new being proposed is true, that this would shatter their faith. <That's right.> We've seen this with evolution. Yeah, Darwin. We've seen this with Galileo, right? Look, look [00:57:00] even the notion of the Messiah actually came shattered the whole notion of what it meant to be Jewish, right? <Yeah, that's right.> This changes everything if this is true. <Yeah.> And so I think what we're saying is we can look back on that, and we can say, actually, that really didn't change anything.

J.R.: It changed our preconceived assumptions of what the Bible was saying. <Yes.> And it might take an adjustment, but it doesn't undo the gospel. It doesn't undo what we understand of salvation.

David: Right. That's, yeah, so that's a great point. That what changed was not the essential message of the Bible, right? What changed actually is our perception of what that was. <Right.> And a little bit of time and distance and we look back and go well that wasn't a big deal.

J.R.: Right, we just had to adjust what we were projecting on the Bible to begin with. <Right.> And again, we, we go, you know, a little bit of time goes back and we look back and we can see, [00:58:00]well, the Bible never demanded that the earth be the center of the universe. We demanded that. <Right, right. Yeah.> And, and that it was unnecessary. And suddenly we, you know, it'll require us to dig in, to rethink, and those are all healthy things. It doesn't dismantle what you believe. It actually exposes the biases that we project on the Bible to begin with. 

David: And let's be honest, it is a little bit scary, but it's not scary because the Bible isn't true. It's scary because my foundational beliefs about what I perceive the Bible saying. 

J.R.: Right, yeah, that's right. 

David: Had to change.

J.R.: Yeah. I have to go back and, work on that foundational assumption. <Yeah, yeah.> Yeah, that, the Bible didn't say it's not crumbling the foundation of the Bible. It's crumbling my foundation, you know, and that can be scary. 

David: Scary. It can be challenging, but also in hindsight, it's fun. Like I, I look back at my faith and my faith has actually been strengthened when I've had to toss out [00:59:00] something I held and realized, no, the Bible saying most of the time it's because my perception was way too small of what the Bible was saying. And so you toss that out and it becomes very exciting and liberating and freeing to go, no, the Bible was saying something so much bigger than you understand. 

J.R.: I've told the story before about a friend of mine who's a Jehovah's Witness and we kind of had an uncomfortable conversation. And I left the conversation a little shook, you know, some of the things he said. I'm not gonna get a whole thing because I've talked about it before. But there's some foundational things that I was thinking, man, I wonder if he's right, because he showed me passages in the Bible. And what I ended up doing is go back and studying more of the Bible and it actually reinforced what I knew to be true to begin with, I just took for granted. And now I, now I'm armed with actual biblical evidence that says, you know, where I can come back and say, It's not my pastor didn't say this. This is what the Bible says. <Yeah.> And we take for granted how much we [01:00:00]we hear from sermons and how much baggage we take from well meaning pastors. And I'm not saying any of them are wrong or anything like that, but we take a second hand evidence and what we need to do is be into the Word and dig into the Bible as a first hand account of how the world works. <Yeah.> And not somebody else's explanation sometimes. 

David: Yes, and not hold our current view so tightly that it would shatter our world, if something said, no, your current view isn't exactly right. 

J.R.: And it's happened before. So yeah, the more me and you talk about this, the more I'm like, yeah, aliens, that's okay. <No big deal.> It's not the end of the world. It'd be a big, it'd be quite the news story, I will say that. But no, it's nothing to fret about, and I don't think it's anything that Christians need to reflexively deny and push back and say, no, no, no, the Bible doesn't say that. Well, you know, we've talked before, the Bible doesn't say anything about dinosaurs. And the world didn't end about, about mastodon bones being pulled up, right? <Yeah.> You know, [01:01:00] it doesn't have to destroy your faith. <Right.> It can actually reinforce your faith. 

David: Yes. Yep. And so again, what we were saying here to wrap this up is look, they may find little green men. They may not. We're not here to make that judgment. What we're ultimately saying is, it doesn't have to shake your faith. And look, whenever something like this new pops up, there is a tendency to feel some anxiety about, what does this mean for my faith? But I hope through this discussion, what we've discussed, and I agree with you, after even our discussion right now, I'm like, yeah, what's the big deal? <Yeah, yeah, yeah.> Okay, they find it. No big deal. 

J.R.: Yeah. Y'all may have a different take out there. <Yeah.> So, leave us a comment on Facebook. We want to hear your feedback. Everybody has an opinion on this. This is one of those that not everybody may have an opinion on the incarnation or the Trinity or deep theological issues. But this is kind of one of those things that, yeah, everybody has an opinion on, so let's hear it. <Yeah.> Let's have a conversation about it. 

David: Yeah. Let us know. Navigating An Ancient Faith. Contact us. [01:02:00] Facebook. Website. Yeah. What are we going to talk about next week?

J.R.: All right. Armageddon it, man. Armageddon. The Def Leppard song. Okay. That's a throwback. No, no, no. We're going to talk about Armageddon and the end of the world and it's funny because kind of with AI and aliens, we've kind of touched on this idea of shattering our idea of this is going to be the end of the world. <Yeah.> Right? If either one. So we're going to kind of summarize all these ideas with the idea of Armageddon, the end of the world. 

David: Is this the end of the world? 

J.R.: Yeah. Is this, is this Armageddon? You know, well. 2012 wasn't but maybe tomorrow is and there are fears and concerns about that. So we're going to jump into that. That'll be fun.

David: Yeah, and again, we'll ask does the bible have anything to say about it and it'll be fun because it says some interesting things.

J.R.: Oh, yes, it does. 

David: All right. We will talk to you next episode. 

J.R.: See you next time.