Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / Would Aliens Rock Your Faith? || SLP364

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Would Aliens Rock Your Faith? || SLP364 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Have you been seeing strange lights in the sky?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Or perhaps little green men at the end of your bed?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Perhaps all this extra extraterrestrial activity is because at the end of this month the unidentified aerial phenomena task force will be submitting a report to Congress.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: The group were tasked with looking into the sightings of UFOs and to report what on earth was actually going on.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: But what if aliens really did exist?
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Would it make a difference to our Christian faith, or could we just carry on as normal?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if you want to know, the truth is not out there, it's right here on the Speak Life Podcast, as Glenn and I do our best theological Mulder and Scully and ask all the probing questions about what the existence of aliens would mean for our faith.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: And when the discourse is so transcendent, it would be a crime not to share it with the universe.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're enjoying the Speak Life Podcast, please do tell others about it.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: And if you feel able to give us a positive review on your podcatcher of choice, that would be much appreciated.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you think that discussion of aliens isn't for you?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, don't forget that you can always check out previous episodes of the Speak Life Podcast, and I'm sure you'll find the show is definitely bigger on the inside, and there's more to it than just alien life.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: But as for now, why not just lower your shields, set your phases on fun, and simply engage with the topic.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: Where are we?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: Camera one, camera two, camera three.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: We've got so many cameras.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: It is an embarrassment of riches.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, I'm Glenn Scrivener, if we haven't met before.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Are we on this camera?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: You're on this camera.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: We're both on this camera.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: And we've got new microphones as well.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: So we've had a bit of trouble with sound and vision recently.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: We're getting there though.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: We're getting there.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's all coming together bit by bit.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and very thankful for the interactions on TopChat, which were very encouraging, especially as we uh were groping around with our Dalek voices and uh mostly people mocking us.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: Mainly.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: But we have we have Rory here, one of our great interns.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: So um he uh he is seeing us through.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: So yes, anyway, I'm Glenn Scrivener.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm Paul Feason.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: I thought you were gonna say, you know, I'm Glenn Scrivener, I'm married to I ma I am married.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: I am, yeah.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: I I tricked I tricked someone into doing it, so yeah.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: Eighteen years later, here we still are.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, eighteen years.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, pretty good, huh?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: May the twenty-fourth.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: We're meant to be adults now.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: Our marriage can actually vote.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: But uh yeah.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, wow.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well yeah.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: Glamour should be much more of a grown-up than than Glamour is.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Glamour's probably sounds better than pecker.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: Is that what you are?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, or ball pecker and ball having a ball.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: How many years?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: How many years for you guys?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh 12 years.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Twelve?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Although you talk about joining names together because we knew it.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: This is a complete aside, nothing to do with anything we're talking about.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: So um we knew a couple who, when they got married, they were uh Moore and Lewis as surnames, and they became Morris, so they merged it.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_03: Really?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: But I said to Becca, that would never have worked for us because obviously I'm Feezy.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: She was noble, so we could have been the feebles or the knobsies.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: Feebles or the knobsies.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Or just the feeble knobsies.
• 3:11
  unknown: Double barrel.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: You should inflict that on your kids, the feeble knobsies.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Pecca feeble knobsi.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we're scribs easy together.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: To be honest, everything sounds silly with feasy.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's true.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Everything.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it works with all the worst words like cheesy, sleazy, nice and squeezy.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Nice and sleazy does it.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: Brilliant, but that's not why we brought you all here today.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's not what we're here for today.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Today.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's bonus content right there.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: We should put that behind the paywall.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: But we are talking about UFOs and alien life forms and what, if anything, it would mean for our theology if we discovered intelligent life on other planets.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: Why are we talking about this now, Paul?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, there's a report coming out.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's a task force in the States that was put together called the UAP task force, which is uh unidentified aerial phenomena because they you're not allowed to say UFO anymore because it's considered too crackpot.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why they've tried to distance themselves from the Peter.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: It offends the crackpot community.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: So when you say unidentified aerial phenomena, are we talking about flying objects that are unidentified?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, we are.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um so uh and it seems there was the a a report was asked to be done on these kind of UFOs, effectively.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: You don't care.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um and um basically with the thought being that um it's a legitimate thing for them to look into because if there are things in their airspace, this is a security risk, so they should look into these things with a bit more seriousness.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it seems it's a bit confusing exactly what the report has produced, because I don't think the report's actually out yet.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Seems that it's going to be released later, but there seems to be some kind of leaks about what's going on.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and it basically there were some videos, particularly, I think there were three there's a lot of videos, but there were three, I think, in particular, that had been leaked a while ago, and some group had basically I think the Navy had confirmed they were real videos in the last few years.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: They'd said these are real, um, you know, they're not faked.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um and people were looking at these and wondering whether they were really UFOs in the alien sense or whatnot.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: And from what the report seems to say, the government are saying, well, we're not they're not uh we don't think they're alien, but we can't rule it out.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not us, they're saying they're saying it's not m it's not their military technology.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um and perhaps they're like it might be China or Russia experimenting with hypersonic vehicles, basically.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: That seems to be the big thing.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: But it's been a big thing, or I say it's been a big thing in some circles that this report was coming out.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's like finally they're gonna make a statement on these things because they're taking it seriously.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: To some extent.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: And it came it came across my Twitter feed because I mean this is how I filter the world through Twitter.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's it's basically you you discover a Twitter joke and then you reverse engineer the joke to figure out what the news item was.
• 6:10
  unknown: Yeah.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: The tweet is satirizing.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: And um one guy tweeted out um on Saturday um, like how would it affect it was a Christian and he and he had it seemed a largely Christian audience, and he tweeted out how would it affect your theology if it turns out there's life on other planets?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: And overwhelmingly, the answer to that question seemed to be not much.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, from what I read, people were just kind of saying, well, you know, if God made God made everything on planet Earth, He made the stars, made the universe.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, therefore, whatever these things are, whatever these creatures would be, they're just another part of the created order.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: That seemed to be basically what people were saying.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: And that seemed to me to be insufficient as an answer to the question.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: Because I mean, for one thing, it it seems to be um it seems to be missing Jesus in the thinking.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: Like to to think that you can just easily accommodate aliens from another world, um, and not deal with the central figure of our faith, who is Jesus of Nazareth.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the scandal of particularity at the heart of Christianity is like we worship Jesus of Nazareth, which everyone was like making fun of in Israel, and but like what is Israel as regards to the whole world, and what is the whole world as regards to the solar system, as regards to the Milky Way, as regards to the entire universe?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: We believe this scandalous truth that the one who made heaven and earth was wriggling in that manger and writhing on that cross.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: And it seems to me that if we don't start and end our thinking there, we're not thinking particularly Christianly.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: But it it just it just bothered me that so many people would just so easily be able to accommodate, oh yeah, sure, there's there's just like humanoid life forms everywhere, and we're all children of God, aren't we?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: You're like, well what about Jesus?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: So when we were talking about it, we talked a little bit about you know, Jesus became a you know, Jesus in terms of atonement, Jesus becomes what we are.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so he becomes man to die for man.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so there were questions that were raised, well what you you know, what what how where do you fit aliens into that?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh are they just part of a fallen creation?
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um do they have do they have kind of accountability for sin?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: All c all kinds of questions you begin to raise.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: And you think, well, if they are accountable for sin, how can the God man die for for them?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, all kinds of things that you begin as you when as you unpack it a little bit, you go, oh yeah, this this does raise a few more questions than perhaps you might just initially think.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I th I think it diagnoses a lack of a lack of Christology at the heart of our thinking.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um if we're not if we're not doing business with the scandalously particular Jesus, then I don't think we're thinking particularly Christianly.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: And this this has been brought home to me in the last couple of weeks.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: I've been doing um some writing for a book that's gonna come out next year.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um it might be called the water we swim in, it might be called the air we breathe and the ground beneath, or it might be called mid-air, history's great leap of faith.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: Tell me what you like in the comments.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it's all about how history has taken a great leap of faith that that Jesus has kind of Christianized the world in a way that Westerners are just kind of blind to because it's the air we breathe, it's the water we swim in and the way the goldfish.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so one of the ways of seeing how very Christianized certainly the West has been is to come out of our culture and either go different go to a different location culturally and geographically or go to a different location chronologically.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: And you go back to the second century, and uh, you know, one of the harshest critics of Christianity there's ever been was this second century guy called Celsus.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and he just absolutely hated Christianity, and he hated Judaism as well.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: And he said the radical error in Jewish and Christian thinking is that it is anthropocentric, which is a fancy way for saying human-centered, right?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: And he the quote goes on, he says, They say that God made all things for man, but this is not at all evident.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um he said, in no way is man better in the God's sight than ants or bees.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: That was just obvious to him.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: He was a Platonist, following the Greek philosopher Plato, and you know, this idea that God, there was this personal God who made personal creatures who are in his own image and set apart as really different.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that was just absolutely nonsense, and it was the radical error.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then he said, so that's the radical error that Christians and Jews share.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: Christians double down on this, like in this incredible way, um, because the Christian God, he says, quote, forsakes the whole universe and the course of the heavenly spheres to dwell with us alone.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: So for for a Roman looking in on Christianity in the second century, he's just like, Well, there's no way Christianity can be true because it's just so gosh darn anthropocentric, human-centered.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: And it seems like God is human-centered, so much so that God the Son becomes one forevermore.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: And it's only when you see someone from the outside of Christianity making that point that you go, Oh yeah, we are a bit nuts, aren't we?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like it is a scandalous thought that the one who created the Andromeda Galaxy is wriggling on that straw in the manger, you know.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I and I just I just wonder whether because that's such a scandalous thought, we don't usually think in those terms.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so we back off from that.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: And then when people are like, what about other planets?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: We're like, oh yeah, sure, that's that's all fine.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: And God does seem to have a soft spot for planet Earth.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, yeah.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: You would certainly think that from scripture, wouldn't you?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like, tell tell tell us the scriptural story that that you know that has Earth at its at its center.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like Well, all of it.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah I mean I mean, literally starts with the heavens and the earth, you know, and it's the story of heaven and earth being brought together.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's the great romance, isn't it?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's the love story between heaven and earth, God and humanity.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Humankind being redeemed, you know, the relationship between God and man, the brokenness of that relationship, the the consequences of that, the the restoration of that through the cross and Jesus and what that means into the future for humanity.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's like over two hundred times it uses the phrase the heavens and the earth.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: You know, not I mean, obviously the very first phrase is God created the the heavens.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: So the heavens plural and the singular earth.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so that that's like a really interesting parallel.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: So let's let me just throw things straight back at you then.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: So someone and someone hears that and they say, Okay, but what if someone else, what if an Andromeda, yeah, they've got their Bible that says in the beginning there was the heavens and Andromeda.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a you know, why why is that an issue?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, okay, that's great.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then how are Andromedans reconciled to the creator of heaven and earth, or the creator of heaven and andromeda?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you you tell me, then you tell me, Glenn.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well, there's Should we should we get into the flowchart?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: Let's get we have we have done a flowchart for you, but before we get into the flowchart, we've got some uh excellent questions.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um so uh Mikil Brown.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: Mikhail, you've you've commented many times before, I'm probably butchering your name.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: You can tell me tell me how to pronounce it in the comments.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: But you say uh I would say that these UFOs and uh uh these sightings, I would say it's undisclosed advanced tech that our government is working on, or it's a demonic deception.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um I was thinking earlier today that the powers in the Bible, the there are principalities and powers in the Bible, and sometimes when Paul talks about the principalities and powers, you think, is he talking about like Nero and earthly rulers?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: Or is he talking about demonic rulers?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: The heavenly places, kind of and like quite often the answer is yep.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and so that's interesting that um uh Mickey Eal Brown has said, alright, um, it's it's either the powers in that sense, you know, the superpowers, the earthly superpowers, um, or who knows, is is is there angelic um activity going on?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um Christoph Keating says the videos are real, but the phenomena are identified, unidentified, of course.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: So um Yeah, so that I mean NASA is really having to explain themselves, but and they're not saying these are deep fakes.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, I don't know if it's NASA who are deep.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I don't think it's NASA.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: I could uh it it seems to be this this task force who are reporting to Congress, I think.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't think I don't think it's NASA specifically, but yeah.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: The US government on some level, they're not saying don't be ridiculous, this is this is all a hoax.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: They're saying there is unexplained phenomena.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Seemingly, yeah.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: They're just saying that.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: And things traveling at 7,000 miles an hour.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean that I I don't think they said that.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: That was my own research of what does hypersonic speed literally mean.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Which, you know, and I think there was there and there are hypersonic it looked like that certain countries have hypersonic uh missiles and things.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: So Russia seems to have some kind of hypersonic delivery system or something which can travel at up to 7,000 miles an hour, supposedly.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um called the Avangar or something like that.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're not sure.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um Bring it on, that's what I say.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: Identify these flying objects and let's let's catch them.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um Amanda Kay says there's a high correlation between UFO alien encounters, new ageism, occult, stories of possession, etc.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um And even I think there are there are always these ancient stories.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: So um Russell Brand has done a video on this where he kind of says um angels and the gods rocking up on planet Earth were probably stories of people trying to wrap their heads around alien encounters.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: Or, you know, that that that's that's at least a possibility.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um whereas I I wonder if I I believe the mirror image of that which is that alien encounters are um dealing with spiritual realities that there have always been.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: But it seems like there are there are these encounters with non-human intelligences that show up in literature, and you know, one of the great aspects of the fairy story that um Tolkien sort of pointed to is that you talk to talking animals, and there are intelligences that are non-human that you can kind of commune with.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: And that seems to show up in all the ancient Anglo-Saxon Norse and Celtic mythologies and Greek and Roman mythologies, and and and there are encounters with the gods who live on planet Earth, and and even, you know, in Genesis six you've got the Nephilim who are the hero heroes of old, the the heroes of renown, these superhuman kind of so you know there is a big category that we don't tend to think of in the materialistic West that is beyond the human, but nonetheless intelligent.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: And it seems to be it seems to be like in the Middle Ages you would have an encounter with a hag, right?
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: Or a witch or something.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um or if you're in China, you'd have an encounter perhaps with a dragon or something.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um but these days you have an encounter with like a spaceman, E.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: T, at the bottom of the bed.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um and the alien abduction stories are culturally uh shaped, and the there there are always a fringe of people who have these encounters, um, and how they then describe them gets culturally shaped.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: And since the 1950s and all sorts of Hollywood films, yeah, people's experiences of the aliens become much more uniform, and it's much more the massive eyes and these skull faces like on the thumbnail that we've used for this video.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: And that there seems to be some cultural shaping to the what what it is that people encounter.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: And you can throw that phenomenon into any number of buckets, and one of the one of the buckets is um they're using psychedelics or drugs or yeah, um and and one of the buckets might be mental health issues.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: But do we also have a bucket for spiritual angels, demons?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think strangely, as Christians, we're quite we're quite d um skeptical, aren't we?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we we were watching a video earlier um of Michael Heiser, that's his name.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean he was saying that you know, we we're we're a people who believe, you know, i if once you accept theism and then you you start to accept, you know, there there's a god and there's a resurrection and there are angels and all kinds of things, like it's it whilst you can be sceptical of these things, we shouldn't be too surprised either.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we we're particularly in our kind of evangelical reformed circles, we tend to be quite dismissive of these things.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: But he his point was very much well the the biblical writers lived in a a world where they completely accepted the supernatural was all around them and things were going on.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um so there's no reason some of these things might not be supernatural, um you know, d maybe demonic as some people have said on here, um as well, rather than you know, it's an alien at the end of the bed or whatnot.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I think you know, I can't remember who he said it was now, said often associated with new ageism and things like that.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think he was saying as well, if I'd heard him write in that video, that there's been a bit of a shift in people's perception of these things in recent years as well, from away from the kind of um alien abduction isn't this awful kind of thing, towards these are things that are here to lead us into a a better way of life, you know, like revealing humanity's place, you know, and um uh which you know, you could uh you you could s from a Christian perspective, you could say, well, there may well be something demonic in there that is trying to lead people away from you know the truth and towards something else.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean think about the Ridley Scott universe or the like the alien aliens universe, or Prometheus in particular, which which exists within that universe.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: The heavens are entirely malign and intrepid humans, you know, go into the heavens and discover that like these spiritual forces want us dead, yeah.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: And they are incredibly scary.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: And you go to the James Cameron universe of the abyss, and it's people going down into the abyss, and yet it turns out that the abyss is just full of like really groovy vibes, and it's the people who are the real horror show.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think both those films are kind of inversions of the biblical narrative in which the heavens are for life and the abyss is not your friend.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's it's funny the way that yeah, sometimes our our narratives kind of flip things.
• 21:30
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• 21:39
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• 21:41
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• 21:46
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• 21:54
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• 21:59
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• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um let's okay, we've we've teased people about um this uh what are we calling it?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: Flowchart.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: Flowchart, indeed.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, here we go.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: Here we go.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: So okay, there we go.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: Questions to ask if we discover life on other planets.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: First question to ask.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: If we discover life on other planets, let's ask is it bleed?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: Does it bleed?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: If it bleeds, we can get it.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: As Arnie says, in Predator, is that Predator Millionaire.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: There we go.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean the first question to ask is um is this life form that you've just found on another planet intelligent, or is it like pond scum on Mars?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: If it's pond scum on Mars, like as you were.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, carry on.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think I don't think we're particularly threatened by the idea.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean that there are un undiscovered life forms probably at the bottom of the the ocean that that doesn't matter.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: I actually find your reference to pond scum to be quite offensive.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Your suggestion just by the use of the word scum.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: My apologies to the pond community.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um any pond phobia is just conditioned by my non-pond privilege, and I I I repent.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: But yes, is it is it intelligent I it's it is absolutely no problem to discover any kind of life I would have thought I would have thought up to and including human kind of intelligence.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um what we're talking about is what would make you think is um a kind of a creature that you might say looks like it's in the image of God, or you know, looks like it's humanoid, looks like it might be able to have a relationship with God.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um that that is what would cause pause for thought, I think, for Christians.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: So is it intelligent?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: If the answer is no, then don't worry about it.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: If the answer is yes, um then another question you can ask is is it an angel?
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um and if the answer to the question is yes, it's an angel, we go, yeah, I told you so.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: This is what Christians have been talking about.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's what we're talking about, you know.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it is and what what's been interesting to me thinking about that is um that in the Bible, the heavenly bodies seem to have personalities themselves.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the stars sing for joy, right?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: In in Job, for instance, and you go into Revelation, and some of the stars they seem they fall to earth, and then when they're on the earth, they're like people.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: And C.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: S.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: Lewis plays with this in the Voyage of the Dawn Tredder, and there are there are sort of stars that are people.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: And Eustace said, Oh, in our world, i.e.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: planet Earth, in our world, stars are big balls of gas.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: And the answer he gets in Voyage of the Dawn Tredder is no, that's what they are made of.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: That's not what they are.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like, ooh, you know.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: So it is interesting to me that when we think about extraterrestrial life and in extraterrestrial intelligence, we think about the creatures that might stand on two legs or six legs or whatever on a planet orbiting a star.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: And the scriptures are like, what about the stars themselves, baby?
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: The heavens are declaring the glory of God, and their voice goes out to the end of the earth.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: And and the fact that there is an animate, lively, heavenly sphere is all over the scriptures.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: As opposed to like our our vision is that that's just outer space, right?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: And in space no one can hear you scream, you know?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's a vacuum, it's dead.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: And if you ever watch those YouTube videos where they kind of try and give you the scale of planet Earth, you know, they'll show you the Earth, and then in relation to the Sun, and then in relation to the you know, the rest of the solar system and the galaxy, and and you're getting ever tinier.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's always that the the the music that they're playing in the background is like Marla's fifth on synth synthesizers, and it's just and it's so militaristic and it's meant to give you this sense of awe-struck, kind of, but just they're just gigantic, they're just huge.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas I think an ancient looks into the the heavens and they don't see outer space, they see light, you know, maybe because they don't have as much light pollution, they can actually see the Milky Way, but an ancient looks up into the stars and they sees they see life, they see a song of joy and that kind of thing.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it, you know, if if we discover that there's there's life beyond planet Earth, we already believe that there's life on planet Earth and and lively life on planet Earth.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that's you know no big deal from that point of view.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: But if it's not an angel, um what if you come across a humanoid creature in the Andromeda Galaxy?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's not an angel.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: Then you then you might ask the question, is it sinful?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, you know, there's there's there's two questions.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the two two answers that you can give to that.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: Is it sinful?
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um and maybe the answer is no, it's not sinful.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: And at that point, Christoph Keating's uh question comes in, because he's he's asked us on uh the the live chat, I'd be very disappointed if you don't talk about C.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: S.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: Lewis's space trilogy.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um because C.S.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: Lewis gives a couple of different answers to this question, depending on which novels you're reading.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're reading the space trilogy, he imagines I have I haven't read them myself, so Christoph, you can you can correct me, but my my understanding is that there are alien life forms that are unfallen.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: And and therefore Lewis is able to picture a kind of a humanoid life life form that is unfallen, which is a great literary accomplishment because it's so woven into our humanity, our fallenness and our sinfulness.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so, you know, might might there be creatures who um are human, they are not sinful, but then you you want to ask the question, are they mortal?
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, will they will they die?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: Because the wages of sin is death.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: And just even in answering that question, I don't know the answer to these questions.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm just saying, like theologically, there's a lot to think about here.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: Are they sinless but mortal?
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's that's and that's important because we're thinking i if we believe the wages of sin is death.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um if we're saying it's not sinful but yet it is mortal.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: That raises some questions.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's an it's it's not an angel, but it's this humanoid type creature that and because it's not sinful, I guess it's in some kind of relationship with God, because that's the the the key to sin, is that you're rejecting God.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: And and so it's in this kind of relationship with God, and but is it mortal or is it not?
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: Can it be saved?
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um if the answer to that question is um no, it can't, you know, it it can't be saved, um, it just lives its life unreconciled to God out there in the Andromeda Galaxy.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well then, like, how is Jesus at that point like the ruler of heaven and earth?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: How does he the Bible is so immense about its picture of what Christ accomplished?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: Colossians 1 verse 20 says that he reconciled all things through the blood of his cross.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: And these are things on heaven and things on earth, whether power thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things are reconciled through the human blood shed on a Jerusalemite cross.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: Scandalously particular and like incredibly universal.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: So does that and I believe that that has an effect on the Andromeda Galaxy.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: Crazy Glenn thinks that, but crazy Christians are meant to think that.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: But okay, so if but if if they can't be saved, I think I think the answer to that question ought to be yes.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: So if the answer's the question that the Andromeda can be saved, then we go across um to the top right hand corner of that image and we ask, well, does Christ assume an Andromedan nature?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it seems difficult to answer yes to that, because he like he's already assumed our nature, and he's seated at the right hand of the Father as a man.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: Is he also an Andromedon?
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: He has two natures, divine, human.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: Does he now have a third nature?
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: That seems tricky.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: So you probably want to say, I don't know, you you might therefore want to say, Christ has not assumed the Andromedon nature, but somehow he still saves Andromedans.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: And you're like, well, that's that's a different kind of salvation.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like the the reason why Christ's work on the cross saves man is because he died as man in our place.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: And this is this again is why I'm kind of I'm kind of disturbed when people don't see that this would involve some pretty serious theological reworkings.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: Because and one of the one of the reasons why I think people don't do that work is they kind of assume that Jesus got zapped on the cross, and it doesn't matter that he got zapped as man.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: They just they just figure that the lightning bolt struck Golgotha, and therefore the lightning bolt doesn't strike us.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: And the fact that he dies as man and for man doesn't figure in a lot of people's thinking.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas for Christ to save the world and the cosmos, for Christ to save the cosmos, it's got to be because he's taken our nature and stood in our place.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: So does Christ assume the the nature of the Andromeda?
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, he kind of has to if he's gonna save Andromedans, but therefore, does that mean, and now now we're at the bottom right hand corner of the of the um picture.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_02: As Wendy Lomon said, this flowchar is getting wild.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is what it takes, though, Wendy.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: This is what it takes.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: This is what happens when you're left unsupervised.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: I did this on a whiteboard this morning with Paul.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then then we made it into a pretty picture.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, multiple would it mean multiple incarnations and multiple atonements?
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: And this is this is where another work of C.S.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: Lewis comes into play.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um because I forget which Narnia book, it might even be in The Voids of the Dawn Tredder.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Aslan says to Lucy, and I'm getting a nod from Rory, yes, Aslan says to Lucy, you must learn to know me by another name.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_02: When you're when you're in Earth, when you're on Earth, you must learn to know me by another name.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: And of course that's Jesus, right?
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so so the idea in the Voyage of the Dawn Tratter is I guess God the Son incarnates as a human, as an earthling in Earth.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: And as a Narnian lion.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: As a Narnian in Narnia, and that seems okay.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_02: Let's run with that.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: What would that mean?
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like Christ is at the right hand of the Father, as man, and as Andromedon, and as like how many other civilizations are there?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's not a straightforward.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not expecting an answer.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad you're not expecting an answer, really, you know.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: How how how could there be an answer to that?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um And maybe there is an answer, maybe maybe that's exactly how it works.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: But um it would it would take quite a quite a significant rethink, wouldn't it?
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: To think that Jesus also incarnated um and atoned for these different planets in these different ways.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um so there's some other things uh we didn't deal with.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: So uh is it sinful?
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: If it's not sinful, then going down the middle line.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: If it's not sinful, then is it mortal?
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: If somehow it's mortal, well you you gotta ask, well, for whose sins is this Andromedan, you know, dying?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: If it's dying for its own sins, um then again that's another kind of salvation.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's that's a different gospel for the Andromedans.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um they're dying, you know, for their own sins and not caught up in the collective work of you know Adam and Christ.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: But if if they are mortal because of humanity's sins, well, how?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: What is the connection between us and Andromeda and how are they related to us?
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: So it seems all all the boxes that are put in black there, especially the the four boxes in the bottom right-hand corner, they just raise massively intricate difficult questions for for Christians, I think.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, this is interesting.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_02: Digital Gnosis.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_02: Digital Gnosis is asked.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's only difficult for Protestants.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um because Yeah, and then on the next one, Catholics believe virtuous persons can be saved without the correct propositional belief in Jesus because of the sovereignty of I I guess he's saying God there.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um he says they have more robust atonement theology than Protestant penal substitution.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: They've also got a sacramental a sacramentology that means you need to participate in the the true universal church, but universal church doesn't mean universal crossing the galaxies.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_02: It means uh yeah, you need to be connected institutionally back to Peter and back to Rome.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: So does the Andromeda need to take communion?
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, take the Mass and participate in the sacraments of the true church.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not This is the weirdest conversation we've ever had.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: Just find it out there now at this point, you know.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um Christopher's asked the question I don't get it, animals die.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think animals sin?
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh no, but they die under us.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_02: So so there there is a connection between um ha having been given dominion in Genesis chapter one, um, then we earthlings, Adam is formed from the Adamar, the ground of the earth, and takes responsibility for the earth, and he rules and has dominion over the earth, and is in covenant connection with the land, the creatures, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea and the animals, and is in communion with gods.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_02: And that's um you know, that's the that's the axis around which the world turns, is this God man kind of axis.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: What relationship do life forms have on other planets in which we're not in that kind of covenant connection?
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um that that's another question.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you could say, you could just say, by divine fiat, when you know humanity sins, then Andromedans fell.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_02: But it's not it's it's certainly not as organic a connection at all.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it and it brings its own questions of the the justice of God in cursing Andromedans for something that happened light years away.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um and with no real connection.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean the good thing is I mean, there aren't aliens.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the report is pro has almost spoken.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's probably not aliens.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: But no, but but I mean it would be easy to look at this much as I've done at points and think, why are we talking about this?
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: But much as you've thought in the last 40 minutes, but it does, but but I think it like you say, the response on Twitter, people going, oh no, it's not an issue.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it it does raise questions, doesn't it?
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: It when you start to think about there is that connectedness, you know, but like the question there about animals is um uh is a good question there, isn't it?
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: But there is that connectedness of man to the the creation and the animals, and therefore it spreads out, and there is that disconnect if you've got these creatures over there somewhere.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, if you when you when you're you're talking about Jesus becoming a man, yeah, you know, and taking on the nature uh our human nature and dying as a man and those things there are bigger, weightier questions that it would raise, wouldn't it?
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, if E.T.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: turned up next week, yeah, we probably would be right to kind of go, oh, what does that mean?
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: Rather than just be like, it's all fine, carry on.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: There'd be a massive rethink, I think.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_02: There would be a massive rethink.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and it would it would undo everything that Celsus found totally scandalous about Christianity.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_02: That that yeah, I I believe and I worship a Nazarene, you know, who died with Jerusalemite nails through his hands.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: Cosmic, you know, and that those scars have cosmic significance.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_02: And the Roman spear that was plunged into his side, that wound has now been glorified in resurrection, and he has glorified his wounds and is filling the universe, says Ephesians 4 verse 10, at the right hand of the Father.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_02: He fills the universe, the man Christ Jesus fills the universe.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I like I think there's something absolutely bonkers about Christianity and beautiful, and it's bonkers and beautiful altogether.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: Because like that instinct that we have that there is something um divine almost about about a human being and about the value and the dignity of a human life.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_02: That that sense that we have, Christians come along, and with all this behind us, we say, yeah, we we are godlike creatures.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: We are made in the very image and likeness of God.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_02: We have dominion over the earth.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_02: God the Son became our brother, invited us into his family forever.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_02: He has anchored himself to our humanity so that his future is our future and our future is his future.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_02: And man has been so dignified and so blessed.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think that's the most beautiful thing to buy into if you're on the outside looking into Christian faith.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's also bonkers.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, really?
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: When you look at the vastness of space.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um so, like, as as we finish, I I do I do want to try try to answer some of that believability question.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um because as you say, almost certainly when the US government makes whatever statement it's gonna make, they're not gonna say, and here's Marvin the Martian.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_02: Say hello, everybody.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_02: All away from Mars.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: Here he is, winning 300 pounds.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's not gonna happen, I don't think.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and I've got I've I've got, I think, uh a good reason for thinking that because it's not as though we have to wait until we discover extraterrestrial intelligence.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_02: If there is superhuman extraterrestrial intelligence out there, it should find us.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_02: It should have found us by now.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, so as as nuts as it might sound to say that, you know, I I think um that aside from the angelic realm and those heavenly beings, that earth is where it's at, and this is this is where God's purposes are focused.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: As nuts as it as it sounds to be that particularly focused, so it appears to be.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like we have not we have not discovered other intelligent life, but far more to the point, other intelligent life has not discovered us.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_02: So we s we make we make this claim that if God does not create life, life is not simply going to develop all by itself.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um whatever position you take on on evolution, um everybody, uh every Christian says it it is God who makes life.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um but the assumption that there must be millions of, you know, there's there's trillions of other you know stars, and then how many other planets are orbiting those stars?
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_02: And there must be there must be billions that are within the habitable zone that are not too close to the sun, so they're not too hot, they're not too far away, so they're not too cold.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_02: Water can form, you get some kind of carbon-based, or if you don't like carbon-based, maybe silicon-based life, or whatever, you know.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_02: You can that you know you can set all these different parameters, and you'll still come up with like there's a million planets out there that could sustain some kind of life.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_02: Where are they?
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_02: Where are they?
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_02: Why haven't they showed up?
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_02: Why haven't they showed up?
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: And the and again, it's not the question of, oh, well, they're too far away for us to reach.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_02: We're not gonna reach them, they should reach us.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like we're idiots.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_02: We can't we can't get to them.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: But and this is what's given rise to the Fermi paradox, and and people can look up the Fermi paradox on on online.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um and there are different s solutions to the Fermi paradox as to as to why this might be the case, but um but the fact that these are the these are the kind of the the assumptions of the Fermi paradox, I I don't think is is particularly controversial.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, it might seem bonkers to feel like humans uh uh you know take this special role.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: in the cosmos.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_02: Seems like we do though.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I was saying earlier, like we we have that strange dissonance in our people in our thinking, don't we?
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: Of we we do people do often talk about human beings as if we're special, you know, and and different, you know, we to everything else.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: But yet also on the flip side we do that whole kind of oh we're no we're just another animal type thing.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know when I say we do that I mean just the world.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, secular society generally has this kind of idea that human beings are special.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: But also not.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: So there's that weird thing that goes on.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: We all have to do that double thing because we all we all have to do we are like the dust of the earth and we're breathed into by God.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know that's that's the biblical thing.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like because from one point of view we're just slabs of meat walking around you know on the other hand we're having a conversation about being slabs of meat walking around which is magic.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: And everybody has to deal with that duality to our existence.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: We are we are this quintessence of dust as Hamlet says but we are the you know the paragon of animals and you know as to virtue so like a god and whatever Hamlet says.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_02: You know Shakespeare said it a bit better.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_02: But you know but we are this quintessence everyone's dealing with this duality.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_02: I think the Christian story makes makes the best sense of that duality.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: That yeah as you know if you ask a butcher what am I worth well I don't know you you you might get fifty quid for a side of Glen.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_02: But you know in terms of just the m the the f uh according to my flesh what am I worth?
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_02: I could sell my kidney for I don't know a couple of thousand.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah but I think you gen I think I I did a thing on this a while back like if you boil if you literally just boil yours down to constituent elements or constituent elements something about like 30 quids worth of material in you.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah a meal out.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know yeah either way some of us would feed the family but uh yeah so weather spoons for five but yeah you've everyone is wrestling with this this issue and and but you want to you want to be able to have a a worldview that can integrate both things that yes we are according to the flesh very weak pathetic perishing but we want to treat one another like we are in the image of God and we want to treat one another like we've got this divine spark and that we've got a future and all this kind of stuff.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_02: And honestly I th I don't see I don't see that anywhere else except with Jesus.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: Because with with Jesus you get God the Son showing up to be with us forevermore and the the future is human.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_02: Even for God the Son you know it's scandalous but I think yeah I think it's a big deal.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's a big deal it's a pretty big deal.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah I think so I think so so I don't think we need to be worried that ET's gonna show up well we'll let you know next month.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah that's true once the report's out we'll report back Beverly Pentner says the lighting on Paul is very spooky.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: You sure he's not um a bit alien ishortunately I do just look like this all the time I am my own source of light I am I am simply transfigured with glory and uh Mickey O'Brown have you have you said in the chat how to pronounce your name I'm so sorry if I'm getting that wrong but you say yeah thank you for the show gents Michael it is Michael Michael you said earlier Michael sorry Michael uh thank you for the show gents and thanks to the nice folks in the chat yeah thank you for the nice folks for the for the not nice folks you know who you are it was it was good chat good stuff going on in the chat there today lots of uh stuff going on interesting conversation so man and we'll try we'll try and um publish uh uh flowchart somewhere we'll put it on Twitter we'll put it on the Twitter merchandise get the flowchart get the mug what to do if you come across an alien life form it's not even what to do it's like how to tweak your theology um so yeah how how can people keep up with us Paul uh yep so as always follow us on all the social medias YouTube Twitter Instagram Facebook TikTok uh search for Speaklife UK you'll find us that way um or if you want to keep up with particular resources that come out sign up to our email uh speaklife.org.uk forward slash sign up and we'll keep you abreast of what's going on.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: Brilliant and hopefully you've hit like and subscribe to uh this video and this channel we'd love to keep you uh abreast of all that we're doing here on Friday we've got our new video coming in the series called Waka Waka and uh yeah people people are appreciating our Waka Waka video last uh last Friday when we looked at the uh question of uh what was the question we looked at uh supernatural isn't it oh yes yes who made God and all that yeah he's got a he's got a super he's got a supernatural being we've got another one of those coming out on Friday and do make sure that you're subscribed on uh the podcatcher of your choice and we'd love to get that to you.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much Paul uh thank you Glenn Yeah and we shall bid you farewell earthlings nano nano well that's all for us we hope you enjoyed this week's podcast we'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback and comments on the things that we talk about on the show so please do feel free to get in touch with us.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_01: You can do that by emailing info at speaklife.org.uk to let us know what you think or do join us over on our Facebook page facebook.com forward slash speaklifeuk where there's always lively discussion we hope to see you again next week but until then keep speaking life