SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Boundless Bible. My name is David Shapiro. Hey, I'm Javi Marquez. And I'm Jason Holloway. Hey guys, welcome back. Listen, I know I always say I'm excited about the episode, but today I really am just beyond. This is because this happens to be one of the topics that we all equally love. And this is, and I'm going to get to there first, but it it actually fits really well into some other news I have, which is on April 28th, I have my first book coming out. And it's an apologetics book. It's called Unshakable, The Evidence Behind the Bible. And this is science and archaeology and history and miracles and all the things that people question and talk about. And this is the unshakable answers and reasons why I have for believing the Bible and believing what I believe. And it it fits just perfectly into what we're going to be discussing today. So I'm I'm really excited about it. So just kind of doing a shameless plug. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

I think I think it's the coolest thing I've heard this year. And we're very, we're both very proud of you and very excited for other people to be able to read, you know, to pick up what you're putting down. And excited for everybody to get to read, to get to read it.

Science And Bible As Both True

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Yeah, absolutely. And I will I will definitely make an announcement again before the release date. So that way everyone will remember. But I'm excited about it. And today, probably more than our conversation. Yeah, probably. And today I want to I want to discuss actually some of that tension that is in the book, which is science and God. And sometimes, you know, you have somebody who is uh, you know, on one side of the scope who says, Hey, there can't be a God because of this in science. And other people say, Hey, there can't be, you know, I can't rely on the truth of science because God says something different. And I would love to discuss that today with you guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

And we're here for it, Dave. We're here for it. You know, I I think to there's there's a little bit of a caveat as we start out, right? Like this, yes, there's so often there is a well, it's gotta be God, or it's gotta be science, or it's gotta be science, or it's gotta be God, or it's gotta be the Bible, and it's gotta be science. But I'm let me say Bible instead of God there, right? Like, and and this the science-oriented people say, Well, I know science things and those aren't in the Bible. And and the Bible people say, Well, I know some science stuff and that's not in the Bible. And so uh but but here's the thing, and I think you guys have heard me say it before. Sometimes things aren't this or that, they're this and that. It's just a matter of perspective of how you look at it. And as a very, very early caveat, what you're gonna find in what we're gonna talk about today is that the reality is that these things do not contradict each other. And I think everybody knows long enough now that I I'm a person who digs down rabbit holes that even rabbits won't go down sometimes. And and I I I am not an expert in any of these fields, but when I first came back into the faith, I got stuck in a lot of holes where I was like, well, wait a second, that's not consistent with this, or this isn't consistent with that. And the more I dug down the holes, the more I realized, wait a second, it actually gets more consistent the further you go. It gets more uh connected and it gets more cohesive the further down you go. And while we're not, this isn't a science episode where we're gonna talk about quantum theory, quantum physics, or you know, the the neurology of you know, this, that, or the other. I I do want to take, I think we are gonna take some moments to go into some of the bigger questions that people have and acknowledge how and why they are true and how they can both be true together.

Evolution Versus Creation Debate

SPEAKER_00 3:24

I agree. I I think that some of the big conflicts, uh, you know, and the same thing. I'm not gonna go into deep science about it, but I am gonna play both sides a little bit and I'm going to explain why both of them have attention and and then let's talk about some ways that, you know, we get around those because as believers, you know, there are moments where we go, okay, listen, this does sound like it could be an issue. We've talked about the contradictions in the Bible before. We realize they're not really contradictions, and I think this is one of those things that people use to shut down the reality of what the Bible says. And and I'm going to play both sides. With that, let's jump into the there are two really big conflicts. Let's hit them first before we hit the smaller ones. The first is evolution versus creation. And I talk about specifically with this one is whether or not, yeah, it's huge. And this is whether or not, you know, we come from a different primate, or God said poof, and you're here. And I I know I know I make that sound very quick and easy, but it really is, you know, where do we come from? And is this evolution where Darwin, you know, concluded it was, or is this creation that that the Bible says we are?

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Yeah, let's not throw any softballs when we start out there, David. Yeah, no, right. Let's just go, let's go, let's go for the fastest fastball you got and make sure it's burning while it's flying. Appreciate that. You know, I I'm gonna I'm gonna actually turn that back on you. I want to know your perspective on that right out of the gate.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

So, right off the gate, you know, there is micro and macro evolution. And when people prove things like, hey, there is a certain bird in a certain area that changes the size of its beak depending on where it is, these become small evolutionary changes for survival. And, you know, those things we see, and when you compare those to the larger ones are saying, such as a species changing into another or a kind changing into another, at this point, there's been no scientific evidence of that. Um, so I I reject it based on the fact of you're looking at micro versus macro, one we've seen, one we can look in a lab and see, and one we can't. So it's it's very hard in my eyes to go, I'm going to agree with this science when the science itself isn't even conclusive.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Is that the the Newton Finch thing?

SPEAKER_00 5:43

That that is.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Yeah, that he that changes the beak in time. Yeah, they they throw in their billions and billions of years, it could change to this more of a macro change, right? From what I from what I know, what I heard, you know, like and it's they they put in all these years, but not only that, like to change from different species. We haven't seen that. And even even his own theory of Newton's with the Finch is just a change of the beak rather than changing a whole species. He's still a bird, it's still a bird, you know?

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Yep. Um, and I've also heard something else in this, uh, Jason, I think you'd probably enjoy this. I heard this once and it it it kind of hit to me with evolution. We're told evolution is survival of the fittest, that if you want to survive, you are going to um, you know, be uncaring about another species or another person or another anything that if you want your goal is to survive, your DNA to survive. And then I look at somebody, I go, okay, if you're in a train station, somebody gets pushed into the train and somebody else jumps in and saves them. What caused that? Because evolution would have been the difference. You would have said, No, I'm gonna leave them die because their DNA is not gonna go on. Survival of fittest, mine will, but yet something compels us to jump in and save that person, and you see it over and over again people stepping in front of somebody else when they're you know a bullet or something like that. Um, and this would go against scientific evolution.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Yeah, I mean I am currently on the fence with many of these topics, and okay, it's my ability to be on the fence, I think, that allows me to kind of sit in the middle and see both sides and also see that it's the answer is neither side has a 100% definitive answer, right? You said I I wasn't there, I don't know. Well, I also wasn't there at the creation, and I wasn't there to see God, you know, pull Adam out of dust. So I I I take an almost maybe this is the wrong word, but an agnostic approach to it. I don't know, but I don't know also means you can't say no. So I'm I'm fully open to the concept that there is that there was no evolution and that some way, and and there, I mean, to be fair, there's also other complications to evolution as well, which is like you have to have mated pairs in in most opportunity, you know, in most opportunities. So so you'd have to have you know two different animals of the same pair of the same type who have already, you know, out of millions and millions of years of evolution, if that's the case, have evolved together similarly. I mean, it's it's it's a really complicated you know theory. That being said, I think there's also 13.4 billion years, so you know, as as science sees it, for many things to happen. And when you look at ratios and possibilities and potentialities, that's a whole lot of potentialities. I mean, there's there's a whole lot of bacteria that could have done a whole lot of things and a whole lot of this that could have done that. So I'm I'm not either way on that. But here's here's where I take it from a from a biblical sense. I mean, look, the Bible says that the that the the creation story happened in the way that it did. And whether it is evolution or whether it is instantaneous or seven days, or even particularly liter a literal seven days, the order still remains the same. There was first a, you know, there was a first a chaotic nothingness, you know, which in science would have been called what, the singularity, the original singularity. Beyond there, there was, you know, light, and there and so so light is what if there was a big bang, there would have been light at the big bang and there would have been the explosion of power. And then and then you have, you know, the the earth and the the heavens and the earth separated, then you have water. I mean, even the the story of the cosmos. If you if you if you watch the story of cosmos on Netflix, one of the things that happened in order for the earth to happen was there's millions of years of rain that would have come down and and you know, ra and rain, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you have the plants, obviously. You can't have plants until you have water, right? So this this comes down. And then you have then you have animals that come from that and the creepy crawlies and all that stuff. So even you know, you t you take there's there's the creationist myth, which is the exact seven days, and then you have the I don't know what it's called, but there's the seven days that aren't seven days. There's the seven days that that are what is there a name for that theory? Yep, and and I'm I'm gonna get into that later. So I'm I'm I'm I'm letting you go for it. But so there's so there's seven days that's actually you know, seven million years, maybe. You know, God's time and our time is not the same thing. So maybe it's seven million years, maybe it's a billion years, whatever that happens to be. But the the point is that the order was all the same, and then and then you know, whether or not he created the animals and then created man, or whether the animals were created and then the animals, you know, became man and man gave him, or then God gave him the consciousness to be to be man. My point is that I don't know the answer to either one, and I never will, because to your point, I'm I'm not there. The the evidence that I have, I have there is some certain scientific evidence, but that changes on a regular basis, and there's some biblical evidence with changes much less frequently, if frequently at all. And you know, I have two two points. But here's my primary and ultimate point. Number one, they don't contradict each other. And number two, neither of them leads me closer to Jesus in the end, and so it becomes an irrelevant to my faith topic. It's an interesting thing. My academia wants to know, my curiosity wants to know, my humanity wants to know, but it doesn't lead me closer to Jesus, and it doesn't lead me closer to God or the nature of God. And so it doesn't become a fundamental need for me to know or finalize in order to know that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the light.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

I understand that. I I think that no, I I think it's great. I I think that there is a debate in interpretation. There's an this is what this is. It's a debate and interpretation of uh where where man came from, whether he was created by a God or whether he came about by evolution and scientific processes and natural processes and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Which is which would still be God breathed, though. I mean, despite it definitely it definitely could be. It would be it would have to be because he built all the things before that. And so even if he even if we agree a hundred percent that he did all the things he did up to animals, he and then the evolution happened, it's still God breathed because it's or maybe God created because God created the ordered universe in which the humans could be created.

Age Of The Earth And Time

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Sorry, which we believe in. No, no, which we believe in, but there are people who don't, and that's that's kind of that hey, you know, why is there such tension here? And the tension does come from the people who go, No, listen, it can't be created because what happened is by accident there was this rain. This rain poured onto the earth for millions of years, and then there became this soup, and the soup became an organism, and this organism evolved into something bigger and then bigger and bigger until eventually, like you said, until eventually it it created a man and fee and woman of the same type that were able to mate and create. So I I think there is a debate and interpretation, but it does it is one that keeps people from going, Well, listen, if right off the bat God is saying, I created man, and you're saying, wait a minute, and and this will lead us right into the second biggest conflict. Wait a minute, there's been billions of years, that adds into the second conflict, which is the age of the earth, because you have God who says, in seven days, in six days I created, seventh day I rest, and and this they are now intertwined. So you now have this evolution versus creation, set six days versus, you know, I think it's up to I believe 13.8 billion years is the newest number of what scientists believe uh, you know, we are in existence from uh the entire world. I think it's the entire yes, it's 13.8. Um, and and I'm gonna explain a little bit of both of those sides just to see, but but before I do, because I I'm you know, I'm also don't want to talk the whole time because I can, I can just go on and on and on. I just want people to understand that um what Jason is saying is 100% true. There's not a this or that, it's this and that. There are ways that you can look that scientists have looked at both of these informations, brilliant scientists, and they have said this science does work, but it also creation works. And one of the first things they talk about is in the beginning, and that's something that every scientist, not every, I don't want to say that, but most scientists said, no, there was not a beginning. We've always have been. And then all of a sudden we get the big bang theory, and somebody goes, Wow, the Bible was right all the all along. There was a beginning, and scientists are going, no, no, no, no, don't don't look here, don't look at what I just said. We're we're figuring it out still, but it can be this and that, and I think that that's a perfect example of that.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Yeah, I mean, guys, I I I can't state enough that we are humans who weren't there, who don't know. And, you know, it's these are complex topics. It's even complex for the scientists who are looking at it. I mean, look, the scientists are changing their, you know, measuring methods and their, you know, the ways that they're looking at things. And and so there, you know, there's just not going to be an answer. I will say though, maybe, you know, I think we've all heard that there's the thousand, you know, there's the seven-day creation, and then there's the there's there's things in throughout the Bible that say, you know, God to you, time is, you know, time is different than it is for us, you know, a day to you is a thousand years, and you know, things like that. So there's there's even inferences in the Bible that those seven days may not be those seven days. But I as as somebody, and I told you guys this right before we started, and I feel like saying it on the air now, is like, as somebody who got half of the information as a teen and ended up not having the other half and making it making me walk away, I feel very compelled to say if anybody is you know out there and listening to this and you and you feel you know like you're only getting part of this, or like you feel like you've got all the answers, or you feel like, oh, you know what, this is the day that I I realize that this isn't for me. I would say the thing, the the really important parts of this conversation are A, that nobody has the answers entirely outside of this. And so having a little bit of grace and saying, you know what, it doesn't affect my faith, it doesn't affect my my relationship with God, it doesn't affect the experiences I've had with God, with Jesus, with my with my with this, with this religion, don't let a thing like this, particularly a very physical, very human thing, a very, you know, human mental academia thing get in the way of an actual real relationship. So, but but these are but look, you're you're gonna have these questions. So you might as well address them, right?

SPEAKER_02 16:41

I'm glad you said I'm glad you said that because you know, to me, what I'm hearing from you guys, and just when you when you read this stuff, it takes faith to to have for both of them. It just takes faith to follow God and and Christianity and just kind of follow Jesus in that sense, right? You weren't there when Jesus was walking around, right? So there's always that debate, right? Well, did he even exist, right? All that stuff, you know, all the way to science to talking about billions and billions of years of this water that became a soup. Like it takes faith to you to even like trust in that. So with me, I really believe everything just kind of blends together. I think science does not combat you know, religion or just God. I think it just blends together to to actually show the glory of God, to show the power of God, to show how how infinite and how organized He is, design, you know, intelligent design. Because everything starts blending into like a moral argument and all this other stuff. So I don't want to just bash that. I just want to say, I just want to second what you said, Jason. It's just you're right, it just takes faith to pick, not pick a side, but just faith to even believe all this stuff. And when it comes down to it, it's how do you live your life and what makes sense. And to me, it always leans back to God because of how we live. The evidence for me of what was left behind of how we came to form is what we have right now, and what we have right now always points to a uh a lawgiver, always points to something higher.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

It always does, it always does. Yeah. Can I say one more thing about that in that vein? Because I think it's this is also important to me, too, which is the fact that you know, you you talk about faith, and we give science so much trust in our society. It's the last several hundred years, society, you know, it's science, it's science, it's observable, evidential science, observable evidential science. Believe it, believe it, believe it because it's tangible and because I can see it, right? But there is a level of faith in that. And I'm not gonna get into a very, very deep argument about you know, whether scientists are right or wrong, but I am gonna say this, or and I'm also not gonna get into these really deep scientific topics, but I will tell you this. If you go deep into any particular science, there comes a point when there is a dead end and the and the scientists themselves do not have answers. There's a reason why many of the scientific things are called theories and not, you know, principles or rule. Like you have the law of gravity. But do you, I mean, I'm I don't know if you guys know this, but do you nobody really know what gravity is? They have entire summits for physicists who are still trying to figure out literally what is gravity. Like they know what it does, they know what the force is, but they literally do not know what it is or where it comes from. So to say, like, oh, I believe in gravity, yeah, that's great, but you don't know where the source of it is. You do not know where the source of it is. Like the fact that you, you know, people people look at, you know, physics and everybody had physics totally nailed, and then Einstein comes along and comes up with quantum physics. And there are things in quantum physics, anybody again, I'm not getting into details here, but what makes quantum physics so interesting is the fact that all physics that seem to be correct fall apart at a certain level below a certain level, but the below an atomic level. And so, and they don't have the answers to these things. Like there are that that's why they're called theories still. So the uh and I'm saying that you have to have just as much faith in things that you do not know the answer to in science as you do to have faith in in Jesus in God. And sorry to keep it going, but this is another point, and Javi, you you absolutely nailed these two points, and I'm so glad you did. Because the other thing is this, guys, this book was written thousands and thousands of years ago, and scientists are finding these things now, right? They're finding out that the neurological processes of of prayer have benefits. They're finding out the neurological processes of gratitude have you know you know, all these things, right? They're they're finding out that that, I mean, just all these crazy things that they're finding out today that we knew 2,000, 3,000 years ago. Man doesn't find what wasn't there to find in the first place. Man didn't make gravity, man didn't make neurology, man didn't make those things, right? Man found those things. So there had to be, to your point, Javi, there had to be a creator of those things. There had to be an initiator of those things. There had to be a an instigator and a and a primordial beginning to those things that is found by people, not made by people. And when you realize that, it's like, yeah, sure, we're gonna find out some more stuff in the next hundred years about the earth and about the universe, right? But where did it come from? I mean, tell you this if if every time science opens up a new door, it leads me something back, something to something that was already open 2,000 years ago, you might want to rethink that original source.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

You mentioned Einstein, and just a quick fact. Einstein actually what he said one of the greatest mistakes of his life was he was doing some math over the expansion of the world. And the the Bible was saying one thing and he wasn't believing the Bible, and he didn't want to come up with math that agreed with it. So he came up with a different math that made sense. Years later, when they discovered satellites and Hubble telescope and all of that, they realized that he was wrong. He had to go back and do the regular math. And he said it was the greatest mistake of his life because he did pit science versus the Bible versus just going where the information leads. One of the things that you were talking about, you know, is people who think that only science can give you truth. It's called scientism. These are people who believe that only science can give you truth. The problem is that science can't even prove that statement. So if science is the only thing give you truth, and science can't prove the statement that only science can give you truth because there's no way to prove that in a lab, then it's self defeating. So yeah, it's self defeating. Yeah. But just jumping back real quick, just so we the age of the earth, I'm gonna go through this really, really quickly, and I'm I'm not gonna go super deep into the science, but there are testing methods, and there are also ways where we watch how things, objects in the sky move away from us, the light. That it emits as it moves away. And this is how they've come up with 13.8 billion years. Scientists have studied this and they said this is what it is, because if they had a starting point at the Big Bang and now they're here, and this is the light that's emitting, and this is uh it sounds really bad. I hate to the speed of light, but I hate to also use the the name, but it's fossilized light. This is light that has gone out. Um, they can they can actually calculate how far away and how quickly it's moved and things like that. And they have that's where they come up with this amount of the 13.8 billion.

SPEAKER_03 22:57

Yep.

Limits Of Science And Scientism

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Um what what ends up happening, and this is I always tell people like you you can take whichever one makes sense to you because if you want to believe, like, hey, God was very specific, he can do anything, and he said I'd create in six days, and you're a young earth creationist, that that's fine. But then there's something like in medieval time, there was uh a Jewish scholar named Rambahn, and he had scholars under him, and they came up with this theory, and it's really, it's really interesting. But what they did was you nailed it before, you said one day is equal to a thousand days. I believe that was David who said that in Psalms, but I might be wrong. But it was one day equals a thousand. And they start to go and they go, okay, well, if six days is creation and we do a thousand by each day, well, the math doesn't work out. That's six days, that's six thousand years. That doesn't work for the the billions that we're talking about now. But what this scholar did back in medieval times was actually thinking that we have actually gone through multiple cycles of Earth, that there are multiple cycles. We're not sure which one we are, but if you look at roughly 6,000 years, which is where they think Earth would have lived, they go 6,000 years times the thousand years per year. Believe it or not, that theory actually brings it a lot closer. I think it it comes up to like 15 or 16 billion. It's so close to what the actual age is. And you're talking about somebody who came up with this math in the medieval times just looking at what the Torah said and what their thoughts were on God's own words. And it comes up incredibly close. And I only say that because there are ways that you can discuss hey, we know that God's time doesn't work like our time. Hey, we know this, but but now you're talking about somebody without all the math, without all the science, who came up with a number incredibly close just based on the words he was reading and their idea of what God meant. And they got pretty close. And I'm uh and that's why I'm saying I agree with you 100%. I think that we as men try to figure out what God is saying and what science is saying. And and meanwhile, it's probably a blend of both. We just don't understand it yet.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

Well, that's the thing, is that it's that we don't understand it yet, right? It's like the time reveals, and it's funny that the word revealed just came out because that's the word I've been working with a lot lately. It's like time, time reveals, and and man can't make, but man can reveal. So what science is really doing is opening, like, you know, opening the the textbook that God has already written, and they're just finding the thing that he's already written. And so, and and that's how I I see it these days. I mean, I look, I look back at things like, you know, look, Jesus talks about forgiveness and the benefit of forgiveness and social support, and you know, all the Bible is about having a purpose and having a guide and you know, the benefits of framing things in different ways. And and and I mean, even fasting and you know, David, a million years ago, you told me, not not a million years ago, because there's not a million years we talked about, but you know, a long time ago, you know, you and I talked about the fact that, you know, the the some of the Levitical laws were, you know, hand washing and not being around blood and things like that. And you know, all of these things are now things that we know inherently to be scientifically, biologically true, neurologically true, psychologically true, physiologically true to to our benefit, to our to our you know, to to our benefit, I guess. And again, that wasn't because man made it true. We didn't make it true that those things were there. We they were revealed to us. It took time for those things to be revealed to us in the way that we could go, oh wait, that's how God built it. That's how God created this whole thing. That's the way it all worked out. This is the ordered universe he created, this is the ordered universe we live in. Now it's up to us to listen and learn and identify, and which is what science is, what has already been created and what already is. And so when you start to see it like that, it's just a it just takes on such a different format for me.

Bible Passages That Match Science

SPEAKER_00 26:53

That's one of the things that blows me away about the Bible. You know, when you talk about the washing under running water, this is Leviticus 15, 13. And this is already told thousands of years ago when Leviticus was given. You're talking about over 3,000 years ago, they were told in order to be purified, you need to wash under running water. It wasn't until the 1800s AD until a scientist by the name of Simon Weiss, a doctor, would come in. He would handle the cadavers, the dead bodies from overnight, whoever died overnight, he would handle them, check them out, and all that. And then he would actually go and deliver babies. And a lot of these women were dying. And they didn't understand, they didn't know about bacteria, they didn't know about infection, they didn't know anything about anything at that point. And but he's he realized that hey, this is this is happening. And doctors at that point wash their hands in basins and still sitting water. And he discovered that if you wash your hand under running water, that the mortality rate of pregnant women, women went way down. They were living better, they were doing better, they were healthier. And and this is something that, like you said, was given 3,000 plus years ago in the Bible. Uh, I do have a list of just really quick, I'll run through a couple of them. This is really, really great science that was in the Bible. I mean, thousands of years before we knew it. Job 26, 7, Earth is suspended in space. Uh, a lot of people at that point believed that earth was riding on the back of some animal, that it was um, you know, not just suspended in nothing. Nobody would have believed that back then. They didn't have the technology for that. That was in there. Leviticus 13 through 15. This is about quarantining the sick. We know this, listen, from 2020, we know this all too well. Um, that that quarantine is the thing that that keeps people healthy when somebody is sick.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

Do you look at the you have the you look at the black plague and they didn't even know that then? I mean, like, you know, so it's like science, science even at the time of the black plague, didn't know. I mean, I think I think even up until like a few hundred years ago, they were still they still were not quarantining sick people. So the fact that the Bible says that 3,500 years ago is significant.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Yeah, it it is. And it goes, I mean, man, it goes. These are the listen, I tell you, there are some that are contested. Yeah, these are some that are contested. I made sure I picked ones that are just a hundred percent accurate, no debate. Leviticus 17, 11, life is in the blood, which is what you mentioned. We now know that nutrients and oxygen and all the things that come within the blood, that's not something they had they knew back then. But again, in Levitical law, they had said that the life is in the blood. And then the last one I just picked out was in Jonah 2, 5 through 6 that there were mountains under the sea. Again, people were not, these weren't people who are scuba diving or had submarines going thousands of feet under the the water. So for him to know, and he said he saw it obviously through the the mouth of the fish, but there are mountains under the sea. That's something also that scientifically is true, but they would not have had any knowledge of the book. They would have had that at all, right? Yeah. So these these are just things where science exists in the Bible. You're right, it's not a science, it's not a textbook, but there is some amazing science within the Bible, which to me shows personally that this is written by the hand of God because he's the only one who would have known.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

Yeah, I mean, I go, I I go back to that statement. I think we talked about it before. I don't think we said it in this episode, but the the John Lennox statement, you know, and I think that's where that's probably a pretty good place to end off is like understanding like, look, we started I I started by saying very particularly that the Bible is not contradicted by science. In fact, the more science goes on, the more it begins to maybe even align with with that. Um, but if there ever is a point in which the Bible is saying something different from science, it's important to remember the following, which is that the Bible is not a science textbook. David, you want to give the the the John Lennox quote? Because it's, I mean, it it says what you need to it says what you need to say and it it's what everybody needs to hear.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

So if John Lennox has a cup of tea, science will explain how that cup of tea got there. He they will explain how the molecules move, how the water got hot, how the tea seeped into it. Science can explain everything about why that cup of tea is is there and how he can drink it. Um, but it doesn't explain why it's there, and the why it's there is because he wanted a cup of tea. Um and I I know I probably but I probably butchered it a little bit, but he said that, and it was one of the most brilliant statements that I heard is just it's true. Science does explain the cup of tea, it does not explain why he wants the cup of tea and simply it's because he wanted it and he was thirsty.

Why Purpose Matters More Than Proof

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Right. I mean, look, whether or not atoms are what defines the molecules, that defines the chemical compositions, that define the hormones, that define who I am, doesn't change the fact that I have a creator. It doesn't change the fact that that creator knows me, loves me, is has a purpose for me, has a plan for me. Who knit me in the womb and who, which by the way, you want to talk about science being crazy. Like look at the way a baby is born and it is formed and is formed in the womb, and then go back and you know, listen to the I don't know, anyway. Like, but you realize how incredibly miraculous that is. You want people talk about the miracles being crazy. You you have a woman get pregnant and follow that pregnancy through her pregnancy and then finish that pregnancy, and that's a that's a nothing less than a miracle. It is literally nothing less than a miracle. And and and and you know, you have to extend a little bit of grace and say there's things in this world I just do not know and I do not understand. And again, I go back. I I have a creator, I was knit in the womb, I am loved, I have a purpose, I have there's a plan for me. And none of those things have anything to do with the atoms that are inside my body. They have nothing to do with the gravity that holds me on this earth, they have nothing to do with the quantum physics and the science that you know heats my house or warms, none of that. It's it's the purpose and the nature of God and the purpose and the nature that God has for me. And two different books, right? Just two different books.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Yeah. And we listen, we didn't even touch on things like fine-tuning argument or a DNA and the the codes require a coder and all the different things that we can get into with Simon. We didn't really go through those things, but I think, and this actually I have a question for you, Javi. You know, I know Jason and I have been just really hyped up talking about this, but you are also a huge fan of apologetics, but you're also somebody who just loving the Lord and having you know this testimony and always talking about the testimony part of it, um, you know, I I would love for you to touch upon just for a moment on yes, there's all this wonderful proof of of God in his hand and the things that he does, but when you would hear about that versus just a testimony, what to you feels the most important?

SPEAKER_02 33:35

Yeah, when I hear you guys talking about science, and even for me, when I was going through my search of what what all this is when I came to faith, you know, it was I'm I'm a huge skeptic, huge skeptic. You know, I'm not a cynic, but I'm a skeptic. Meaning I'm open to to re you know experience what's happening or to learn more, you know, and being open to the fact that I'm still learning about God, even through the many years of following God, reading the Bible, you know, and diving into it further, especially apologetics, which I really hung out to. I think apologetics really helped me to get deeper in my faith and answer a lot of questions for me that maybe I had or didn't have, you know. And I think when I think about all this, especially now my more mature in my faith and being the last couple of years, I think about that's all great and dandy. It doesn't really answer a lot of human questions, it doesn't answer a lot of relational questions that I have nowadays of how I live life with my wife and and friends and my purpose in life and how to move forward, you know. So to me, a lot of a lot of it answers faith to me answers a lot of the stuff that really is important to me. Where do I go when I die? You know, relationship questions and and purpose questions and stuff like that. To me, it answers that. And I lean towards faith more than I do science. Not to say a science does not, we need science. Believe me, this is all science. Everything we're doing right now is part of science, you know, or you know, in some form, you know, and I think it blends together. So I think when I think about science, when I think about my faith, I lean on, you know, what I know to be true. And and usually it's my heart is telling me to love this person and to help them out before they get hit by a train rather than survivor of the fittest, letting him get, you know, letting him get hit by the train. That doesn't come from from science and evolution, you know, because to me it's it would be survivors of the fittest. It doesn't make sense that I would want to save a baby and or let him die. Like my heart is telling me to save it. I feel a certain way. It's where's that come from? Where's that intrinsic nature comes from? And I think that's all knitting it in the womb, that's all having a lawgiver, a lawmaker, a creator that loves us personally rather than a very distant. And I think that's what matters most to everything we talk about here in the Bible, even when we go into the the nitty-gritty of the verses, the nitty-gritty of who wrote this and that. You know, what matters most is your relationship with God. Um, not to get into the weezer thing. We just love to get into to know more and further. And the more further that I do know or discover things, the more I see God's hand in it. And we talk about it in this episode.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

You know what's funny is Ken Ham actually said something that that in the beginning you were talking about it. Ken Ham said that science cannot answer the question of a five-year-old. And he said, and that's why I looked at God. He goes, the question of a five-year-old is why am I here? Uh and that's something that science can't answer is the why, the purpose. And I think you're right. I think that God truly gives us purpose and a testimony and something on our hearts that can't be explained away by science. And although it is this and that, there are things that listen, that science can explain that the Bible is not going to explain. It it the Bible did not ever talk about, you know, WhatsApp. And so there's no way that we're going to find things about WhatsApp in the Bible in in the other side of things.

SPEAKER_01 37:07

He'd have been like, There you go.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

There was actually a really funny joke I saw with Jesus. Jesus is a twitter Twitter list. He goes, Well, I have 12 followers. I guess that's good for now. That's solid. That's good. That's good. But but you know, there are things that the the science will explain that the Bible doesn't have in it, but there's also things that the Bible will explain that science can never touch. And that's that's what you're talking about, Javi, is that relationship and the why we're here and our purpose.

Closing Thoughts And Book Plug

SPEAKER_01 37:31

Guys, I've I've talked far too much in this episode, and I acknowledge that, but I do want to say one last thing that I find to be really important for me. And and Javi, I love this is why I love your presence here and in general, is because you remind me that I'm in the wrong place sometimes. And like just mentally, I'm in the wrong place sometimes. Like, you know, right now we're having this conversation about academia and all this stuff, and you said you look, it's about purpose, right? It's about purpose, and and and that's what God can teach you. And here's the thing Science has never given me a sense of calm at 3 a.m. when my life is in disheveled state, right? Yeah, science has never helped me to deal with the loss of a loved one, you know. Knowing the hypotenuse of a square rooted, you know, triangulateral has never, you know, helped me to wake up and feel grateful. You know, there was that one time. You know what I'm saying? I mean, there was that one time, and I was like, it was definitely pi squared R. But you know, it just doesn't, it just doesn't, you know, the there are things that we know and there are things that we feel. And academia is things we know, and the Bible is the things that we feel. And that's where I separate and I need to separate. And I've said it in this episode, but I think it's a lot more clear this way. It's like the there's no formula that makes you feel better in the middle of the night when things are rough or when you're going through something. And and yet the Bible is absolutely full of it. The Bible is full of statements and knowledge and tribal background and historical background that that's gonna make you go, you know what? We've been here before. We've done this before. I know how this goes, I know how my God is, I know how he's going to save me, I know how he's gonna redeem me. I know, I know that I screwed up again because I'm one of these people, and yet I know he's gonna redeem me again. And again, no science does that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

So thanks for putting me back in that place, Javi.

SPEAKER_00 39:26

And then my final statement, just as a another shameless plug. If you are truly interested in the apologetic side, the historical, archaeological, and scientific knowledge of it, but also from a perspective where we do talk about miracles and it comes from a Jewish perspective as well. If you want a different kind of apologetics book, I'm excited for mine coming out April 28th. But it does, if you want to go deeper and further uh than we did even in this conversation, I would love for you guys to get that. Yep. And even better is if you can review it and tell me what you think, even that'd be even better.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

Yeah. Yeah. So, guys, this has been an awesome conversation. I think these are the types of conversations that need to be had more often. I think these I think these are the kind of conversations that a lot of people have in their heads, and maybe they're too afraid to ask out loud or even ask somebody else. So I'm left with a lot of things to think about, and I'm left with the memory of that Milliebo scholar's name, Rambam, because that is the coolest name I've ever heard. That is such a cool name. Isn't that a cool name? Isn't that a reggae song? Rambam. Isn't that his name? So all right, guys. Always, always fun. If you guys have weird questions or strange questions or things you're curious about and feel like you don't have a place to ask them, you know where we are, and we like to address the the elephants in the room, as it were. So send us some elephants. Until then, we'll talk to you soon. Thanks. See bye for you guys.