 Okay, good. I had the microphone turned off, sorry. Yeah, how many of you recognize this beach? It's the one and only green sand beach that you'll find. Yeah, it's in Hawaii, very near the south point of the big island of Hawaii. Also known as Papakaleo Beach. It's a green sand beach. And if you were to go back far in time on planet Earth, all the beaches were green sand beaches. But this is the only one we have. And the reason why is that the Hawaiian Islands sit on top of a hot plume, which means you get hot magma material from deep in the interior of the Earth, welling up, and that's what's making the Hawaiian Islands. And so this is from a recent volcanic eruption where they had the spilling out of lava that came from very deep below the crust of the Earth. And this shows you what the sand actually looks like. Little small transparent green grains. And the green color comes from a mineral that you find deep in the mantle of the Earth, olivine. Now olivine is quite rare on the surface of the Earth, but as I mentioned, there was a time when this olivine sand was ubiquitous over the beaches of the Earth. And that would have been a problem if we have a lot of this today, because this mineral is a property that is very oxygen-hungry. It soaks up oxygen like crazy. But if you were to go back 3.8 billion years, this was kind of the mineral that was predominant on the continental land masses of the Earth, which at that time were quite a bit smaller than they are today. And the soaking up of all that oxygen allowed methane to become a significant gas in Earth's atmosphere. If you've got lots of oxygen, it basically destroys the methane. And so yeah, when methane is expelled in our atmosphere, oxygen knocks it out quite quickly. But methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas, much more powerful than water vapor or carbon dioxide. And so with all of this olivine in the face of the Earth, it soaked up the oxygen that methane could actually remain at Earth's atmosphere. Now that was important because at that time the Sun was about 23% dimmer than it is today. And with such a dim Sun, that would have made the planet frozen unless there was enough methane gas to keep the planet warm enough that it wouldn't freeze. But the new discovery that's been published in the scientific literature is that they've now been able to date through isotope measurements the transition of the continents of the Earth from green sand to gray or brown sand. So this is what it looked like 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago. And this is what sand looks like today. And this kind of sand we see today is dominated by silica. Basically, silicon dioxide as opposed to this magnesium-rich olivine sand that we see in the past. So no longer today do we have a sand that soaks up copious quantities of oxygen. We only have that one small beach. That's it. So it doesn't make a big difference. But this transition from green sand to gray and brown sand was perfectly timed given the brightening of the Sun. So this is how the Sun's luminosity changes over the history of the Sun. When it's accumulating masses of forms, it literally doubles in brightness and then it dims as it begins to lose mass during its early youth. But once it stops losing mass and ignites nuclear fusion in its core, that's where in the furnace of the Sun you get the fusion of hydrogen and the helium in the release of a lot of heat and light. But as that fusion continues, we see the ratio of helium to hydrogen increase over time. And that increase causes the nuclear furnace to burn ever more efficiently. So the Sun today is about 23% brighter than it was at the time our planet was dominated by these olivine sand grains. But thankfully this event took place between three and three and a half billion years ago and that's actually the perfect date if you want the possible future existence of human beings. So for example, if that event and transition from magnesium dominated sands to silicon dominated sands had happened any earlier, Earth would have become a permanent ice ball and no life would have remained on the planet for the last three billion years. On the other hand, if it happened a little bit later, then all of the Earth's water would have been turned into steam and the planet would have become so hot that no life would be possible. So it's perfectly time to have a long history of life that could end up with human beings entering the cosmic scene. So that just did get published and I do believe it will hit the internet, but you're getting the first news right here. And it demonstrates the principle that we've been documenting and reasons to believe that the more we learn about nature the more evidence we have for the supernatural handiwork of God. And the two evidences here is the timing is perfect and also the quantity of the silica-based sand compared to olivine-based sand. That quantity ratio likewise must be fine tuned in order to have 3.8 billion years of life history on planet Earth. So we've got people with microphones, so I'm going to stop talking. And as long as there's people there, you won't hear from me. So I'm talking about new discoveries, but go ahead. We also have a text question already, so I'm going to let John go and then we'll do a question coming in over the phone. Before we go to John, this is actually the oxygenation history of the Earth. And so oxygen was kept very low because of this olivine sand that had bumped up. And just at the right time, it came up to make animals possible and finally human beings. But go ahead, John. The subject matter is the migration of early man. We know that the Garden of Eden is the starting point in the Bible for modern man. And that undoubtedly is the location of that is under the Persian Gulf, as we've talked about before. However, in accordance with paleontology, the most early settlements of modern man are in Africa. And I believe I read a recent discovery where the migration out of Africa was earlier than they thought. It was about 60,000 years ago. I think it was in Saudi Arabia. They found some evidence of that. You can correct me if I'm wrong on that. And so the question is, please discuss RTB's model about the relationship of the Garden of Eden to Africa and the earliest indications of modern man that we currently have in Africa and the migration with this new evidence and so on. So I'd like to have an overall picture of how you view that. Sure. And if you want a detailed answer, you'll find it in my book Navigating Genesis, but I'll try to give a brief answer to your question. And you are right that what you see in Genesis 2 is the Garden of Eden being located in what is now the southeastern portion of the Persian Gulf. You get that because the text talks about four known rivers coming together. And the only location where they come together today is about 250 feet below sea level. But during the last ice age, it was about 100 feet above sea level. And so that's why I believe that the Garden of Eden event happened sometime during the last ice age. And so that would put a date on God creating Adam and Eve at somewhere between say 20,000 and 130,000 years ago. Now you're referring to dates about finding evidence for early human activity in eastern Africa as well as Arabia. Those dates are not radiometric dates. And so what I pointed out in both our book Who is Adam and Navigating Genesis, the best scientific date when you take into account both the random and systematic errors is 150,000 years ago, plus or minus 150,000 years. So the problem with trying to date human origins scientifically, we lack an objective dating method that has high precision. Now we're talking something in the neighborhood of say 40,000 years ago or less. You can use carbon-14 dating. If you're talking something more than a million years, you've got radiometric dates. But there's this gray zone where we don't have a good scientific dating method. Well, the error bars, I mean, typically when you read the scientific literature, they only give you the random error bars. They don't give you the systematic error bars. Mainly because of many cases, they're not even sure what the systematics are. And what I mean by systematics are assumptions that could push the date to one side or to the other. Random errors talk about how accurate the measurement is, but the systematics tell you that there may be assumption-laden that could actually push the measurement one way. The systematic errors are always much bigger than the random errors we talk about dating human remains. So that's just a caveat on all the dates that are out there. But what you will see in the scientific literature, in terms of dating the earliest undisputed evidence for human activity, it clusters in East Africa, Arabia, and the Persian Gulf. And so what I mentioned in navigating Genesis, there are three periods during the last Ice Age where you've got an easy rapid migration route from the Persian Gulf into Africa. And keep in mind during the last Ice Age, there is a land bridge joining Arabia to Eastern Africa. So people wouldn't have to cross any water. And there were three periods when there was a lush valley going through what is now called the empty quarter. In fact, let me pull this back up here for you. This is actually taken in the empty quarter. The empty quarter refers to the bottom third of Arabia and the whole bottom third looks like that today. But there were three times during the last Ice Age where the Gihon River flowed through the southern part of Arabia and that would have allowed an easy migration route from Africa into the Persian Gulf and from the Persian Gulf into Africa. I'm trying to remember the dates. So I'm guessing at this point that I think the earliest date is like 115 to 117,000 years ago when that easy migration route was in place. Another one is like 77 to 78,000 years ago and another one is around 45,000 years ago. So you can take your pick. That's kind of the status for the best evidence we have for the location and the dates for human origins. And as far as we can look for in the future, I don't have a lot of hope that we're going to get better data. We just lack the tools that we need to get that better data. Although what I think will happen is that we will eventually find evidence for early metallurgy. I mean the assumption was that you didn't have metallurgy or sophisticated agriculture until 12,000 years ago. But they've now found evidence at 23,000 years and 36,000 years ago that humans were actually engaged in farming, harvesting grains, roasting the grains, grinding the grains, and making bakery products all on a very small scale because of how highly variable the global mean temperature was. But likewise, I think we will eventually find evidence for metallurgy that dates at early. But likewise, it's going to be in a very small scale, which explains why it hasn't been discovered yet. At least part of the population was localized to the garden of Eden. At that time, Mike wasn't on. Repeat the question. Yeah, you need to be a little closer to that microphone. Okay. At the time of Cain and Abel and where Cain went off to another city, it would be a reasonable assumption that at least part of the population at that time was still local to the Persian Gulf area. And maybe a portion of it siphoned off and migrated. That's a possibility. What would be the motive for migrating to Arabia and then East Africa? What would be their motive for going down there? Was it a really lush paradise down there at that time? Well, you made reference to Genesis 4 and how Cain left the Garden of Eden locale and went to the Land of Nod. And please, none of you don't go to the Land of Nod while we're doing this. And the Land of Nod was some distance. You see that implication of text. But likewise, it was probably a place where you had relatively lush vegetation. And likewise, I would think whenever you've got migration roots that have lush vegetation, you're going to see humans migrating. And so today, if you're in the Persian Gulf area, there really isn't much outside that area. But during the last Ice Age, there were times when indeed that happened. And yeah, as early as Genesis 4, you've got some significant migration going on. But keep in mind, we've got big error bars in terms of what the Bible says. The Bible only gives us a rough indication. It doesn't exactly give us the location. It just says that the Land of Nod is to the east of Eden. It doesn't tell us how far. Probably somewhere in Persia. And likewise, in terms of the science, we don't have really specific data at this point. We've got a question in coming in over the text. This is the first time we've ever had a text in question at the skeptics forum. So this is a big deal. And it fits right in with that question. Do you believe that an actual Adam and Eve existed? And if so, what scientific evidence do we have for their existence? How did all people groups arise from two people? Okay. Well, I do believe that there is an Adam and Eve, that there are two real people from whom all humanity is descended. You actually see a reference to that in the book of Acts, where it talks about how all nations come from one man or one blood. And in terms of scientific evidence for that, there's not scientific evidence that proves it. But for example, mitochondrial and Y chromosome DNA analysis is consistent with all of humanity coming from one man and one woman. But a caveat is it's also consistent with all of humanity coming from a few women and a few men. But it is consistent with the one man, one woman idea. And as far as looking at the genetic evidence today, it in need is consistent with all humanity coming from two individuals. I mean, of all life forms on planet Earth, what's remarkable about the human species, even though there's 7.5 billion of us, our DNA is remarkably uniform amongst the individuals that make up the human population. So for example, even though Neanderthals were considerably less numerous, we see significantly greater DNA variation. And they were around longer, with much smaller population, and yet they have a greater genetic diversity. And I think what's interesting too is the greatest genetic diversity you see in the human population is between the Zulu blacks and the Bantu blacks that live in South Africa. So even though you've got people living close together, you can get significant diversity. In fact, Africa is a place where you see the greatest diversity. And that's one reason why people think the first humans must have been in Africa, because that's where you see the greatest genetic diversity. But Africa is also the place where people practiced marriage isolation. So for example, the reason why the Bantu and Zulu blacks have such great genetic diversity compared to one another, Bantu's would never let one of their sons or daughters marry a Zulu, and likewise a Zulu's. And that went on literally for thousands of years. And so basically preserved a genetic diversity that you don't see in Africa, or probably in Asia or Europe. I have a question that concerns the chaos in the cosmos. Evidently they found astrologers. I found astrologers. Astronomers, I hope. Well, we were just missed by a comet or an asteroid by 115,000 miles. And they didn't know until two days later or something like that. And we know what these comets and things and cause because of that one that struck in Siberia in 1907, I think it was. But there I was born. And it devastated a huge area of Siberia. So my question is, God does not keep very good track of all these things that are going on in the cosmos. Because, I mean, it's just one big explosion after another, eventually. Everything that's out there will eventually explode. And well, that's my question. Well, it's a good question now. It's an omnipotent. You'll actually see a chapter in the book Improbable Planet on the solar systems, asteroid and comet belts. And it's fairly new evidence that we have because for the first time we can actually detect. You can't hear? Okay. It's okay? All right. For the first time, we astronomers are actually to detect asteroid and comet belts around other planetary systems. And we notice that the vast majority have no comets or asteroids at all, about 90%. About 10% have asteroid and comet belts a thousand times bigger than the ones we see orbiting the sun. And we actually now understand why this happens. Because most of the planetary systems we see is where the gas giants have migrated in towards their host stars to inside the orbit of the Earth. And when that happens, those gas giant planets scatter out all the comets and asteroids. And most of the planetary systems we observe have that characteristic. They got gas giant planets orbiting close to their host stars. And so they have no asteroids or comets. The other 10%, the gas giants don't migrate at all. So they basically remain where they formed. And they have enormous asteroid and comet belts, literally thousands of times bigger than we see. What's unique about our solar system is that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune migrated towards the sun. Jupiter got the closest, but it stopped at about the orbit of Mars. And then it reversed and migrated back out. And so that moving in towards and stopping at about the orbit of Mars and moving back out caused 99. whatever percent of the comet and asteroid belts to be scattered. But five small asteroid and comet belts remained. And this is the only planetary system we see that's got small asteroid and comet belts. And we now recognize that's crucial for human civilization. Because if you have no asteroids and comets at all, then you've got no source to replenish the very slow leakage of water from the Earth. Earth's gravity is pretty good at hanging onto its water, but not totally. And if it had enough gravity to hang onto its water without losing any, we'd also be hanging onto a lot of other gases that would be bad for human civilization. And so the Earth's gravity is fine tuned, but there is a small loss of water. But the water we lose is replaced by the comets that impact the Earth. Comets are 85% frozen water. So the water we lose gets perfectly replaced by the water we gain. But you're right, sometimes we get hit by something quite big. And so if you go back 66 million years ago, there was a six mile diameter asteroid that smashed into the Earth and wiped out all the big animals, including all the dinosaurs. But we humans actually gain some benefits from these big collision events. So for example, over half of the nickel that's in circulation in human civilization comes from an asteroid collision site, Sudbury, Ontario. That's where an asteroid hit, and it was a very rich, nickel rich asteroid. And that's been a real benefit for civilization. 80% of the gold that's in circulation in human civilization and 80% of the platinum comes from an asteroid collision site in South Africa. So we actually have some benefits from getting occasional hits from these asteroids. However, you don't want that happening every day. I mean, we had big asteroid and comet belts, and we would be impacted so frequently you couldn't build cities. But events of that nature happen only about every 30 to 35 million years. And so it's actually possible to have a narrow time window in which we got human civilization. I'll give you another statistic. Have you ever seen that meteor collision site in Arizona, the Winslow creator site? An event like that happens about once every 10,000 years. And the energy release is roughly equivalent to the Hiroshima atomic bomb. But again, that's only once every 10,000 years. And all powerful God cannot control these chaotic events that happen that could wipe us out in any moment. And that was part of my... Yeah, well, and all powerful God could control these collision events so that Manhattan doesn't get hit and some sandy place in Arizona gets hit instead where it only knocks out a few rats and mice and rattlesnakes. I mean, God could do that. But something I've written about my book, Why the Universe is the Way It Is, God could intervene. And you see instances recorded in Scripture where he has intervened to save humans from natural disasters. But if he were to do that all the time, it would blunt the benefit that we gain from just letting the laws of thermodynamics run. Letting the laws of thermodynamics run provides a powerful restraint on the expression of human evil. And so there's a reason why God only intervenes rarely rather than all the time. Because if he did it all the time, then we humans would lack the benefit of restraint from the laws of physics that keeps us from doing too many evil deeds. As it is, God tolerates quite a bit of evil, but he's got a plan to use the laws of physics and the randomness and the chaos that comes out of those laws of physics to eventually completely eliminate all evil and suffering. So he's actually using all this for good. But if you want the details, there's a whole book on it, Why the Universe is the Way It Is. A long time. Probably the oldest guy in here. I've never seen him intervene. Pardon me, I didn't hear that. I said I've been alive a long time. Probably older than anybody here. And I've never seen him intervene. Oh, he has intervened. Here's how God intervenes with the laws of physics. The more evil you commit, the more work you have to do to undo the damage of your evil and the more pain you experience and the more time you waste. And that's because God saw fit to put you in a universe where there's gravity, thermodynamics and electromagnetism. Those laws of physics guarantee that the more evil we commit, the more work we're going to have to do, the more pain we're going to experience and the more time we're going to waste. And if you're like the rest of us, you don't like those things. And so that's actually a motivation that God imposes on each of us. It's said to my sons when they were growing up, why don't discipline you the laws of physics will? We've got another question coming in from the phone, but I want to try to take a shot at that, Al. I have a challenge for you, Al. Find ten Christians at random, people you know in the class, and ask them how has God intervened in their life in obvious ways? I bet you all ten of them will give you very clear ways in which he has intervened beyond the laws of physics in their life. So that's my challenge to you. Well, let me add another one. Ask people, have you ever experienced an incident where you wanted to do evil but you weren't able to pull it off because of the physical situation? Very good, yeah. Okay, here's the question. I heard somewhere that God won't heal amputees. Do you have an answer for the reason for that? Yes, I do. I get asked that question quite a bit. And you actually see an incident in the Gospels where Jesus did heal an amputee somewhere at a withered hand that was useless and healed it so that it could be fully operable. But again, God does that rarely. And he wants us to experience the benefits of the laws of physics. So for example, notice, God allows all of us to get older. As we get older, we decay. And if you don't believe that, look around at one another, okay? We're all in a process of ever progressing decay. At least those of us who are older. So, but, okay. So while God could intervene, he chooses not to because he really wants us to benefit from the laws of physics. And there will come a time when those laws of physics won't exist. If you read the last two chapters of the Bible, it describes a realm where there's no gravity, where there's no thermodynamics, where there's no electromagnetism, where there's different space-time dimensions. Why? Because it's a realm where no one will ever use their free will to express evil or evil intent. And therefore those laws are no longer needed and those space-time dimensions are no longer needed. And that's a point where there won't be amputations, there won't be disease. You won't get gray hair. I'm sorry about that. That's okay, at least I've got it. Or, yeah, I mean, I don't have any, so. Yeah, so there will come a time. And you know what it tells us in 2 Corinthians 4 that we're all experiencing physical decay, but those of us who've given our lives to Jesus Christ were experiencing spiritual renewal and the spiritual renewal far outweighs the physical decay because the physical decay is relatively slow, but the spiritual renewal can actually happen on a daily basis. And that's just fun about being around people who've been followers of Jesus Christ literally for decades. You can see just how much beautiful they're getting in a spiritual context and how far outweighs any physical decay they experience. And so I encourage people, go into rest homes where you've got, you know, believers that are experiencing significant physical decay and just see how wonderful it is to be around them. Thank you, Hugh. Doug? Well, you know, I'm tempted to, I could speak for an hour about what God's done for me and if I got my prayer journal, I could speak for four hours. So maybe I'll talk to Al about that later. But I have a question about reasons to believe. When you guys go to work, do you have, like, little conferences? Do you talk to Fuzerano about biology? You talk to A.J. Roberts about viruses and all that. That's my first question. Okay, I'll answer your first question. Then that's it, Doug. That's your first question. That's the one question. Okay, I'll give back a line. Yeah, reasons to believe, we have about two scholar lunches a week where we debate one another and what we're doing in terms of our research and writing. And those are all these fun sessions. And sometimes we go to a restaurant and have those dialogues with a lot of people listening in. Because it almost seems like you're a biologist when I talk to you about biology and your expertise. Well, I pick up a lot just listening to my colleagues. But you know what I really enjoy about those lunches is the fact that we challenge one another. It's like iron sharpening iron. And so I develop some of my best stuff by being challenged by my colleagues. And you still read books, probably, right? Pardon me? You probably read a lot of books about biology and other parts of science. Well, just go to my Facebook, especially go to my Twitter page. You'll see all the citations I'm giving to the scientific literature and many different disciplines. Incidentally, that's what we do at Reasons to Believe. We take top scholars out of academia and set them free to do interdisciplinary research. Because when I was at Caltech, I could only read the literature that was relevant to my research because the research was just so intense. I didn't have time to read outside my sub-discipline. Things were so bad back in those days that the whole astronomy department would go to a restaurant and take over the restaurant. But the ultraviolet astronomers would sit at one table, the x-ray astronomers at another table, radio astronomers at another table. And if you sat at the wrong table, you couldn't follow the conversation. That's how specialized science has become in the 21st century. Okay, thanks. Here we have a written question. How were people saved before Christ went to the cross? How were people saved before Christ went to the cross? The same way we are. It tells us in Romans 1, for example, that all have heard and that nature reveals God as attributes. And, you know, if you look at the book of Job, Job was one of the wisest and humblest of all men. If you read that book of Job, he was actually able to declare all the basics of the Gospel through the Redeemer. He didn't know the name of the Redeemer, but he actually knew that God had to be the Redeemer, that God was his advocate. And there was no other way he could be delivered from his propensity to commit sin and evil other than to go to his Redeemer and say, I know you're loving enough from what I see in nature. I know you're powerful enough from what I see in nature. And I know that you're knowledgeable enough from what I see in nature that you will do what I'm not able to do for myself. You will deliver me from my propensity. So he's able to say in the 19th chapter, I know that my Redeemer lives and I will see him in my flesh on the last day. So he not only knew the Gospel plan, he was able to declare the assurance of his salvation all through looking at what God had revealed in nature. Now very few of us have the humility and the wisdom of Job. So today God's got multiple ways of reaching us through books, testimonies, the Bible, et cetera. But yeah, in the Old Testament, everyone was exposed just like everyone is exposed today. So that's why it says, no one was on excuse, we've all seen and heard. Thank you. Peter? Yes, if I made a statement like the finest stopwatch I own can measure hundreds of a second and that therefore time can't be split infinitely because we can't measure it so. I heard a similar claim made by Vick Stinger in your debate with him at Caltech. And he claimed that since we can't measure time finer than the Planck time, that time is discreet as he put it in segments of the Planck time. And I took his argument to be that we really can't get to t equals zero and a singularity because of measurement of time. And I didn't hear that specifically addressed in the debate but it seemed to me to be quite an egotistical claim that time is determined by man's measurement of it. Would you comment on that? Yeah, what Vick Stinger was saying in that debate at Caltech is that perhaps time is not continuous, perhaps it's quantized. And so quantum mechanics might play a role in the expression of time and says we can't prove that but we can't disprove it either. We lack the measuring capacity to do it. And what would it take to actually show whether or not time is quantized at that level? It would take a particle accelerator that would go from here to a galaxy 12 billion light-years away. And chances are that's not going to be funded anytime soon. So this is why you have physicists saying well since we can't make these measurements we're free to speculate that maybe something really exotic is going on in the physics. And in the latest edition of The Crater in the Cosmos I have a chapter that addresses what I call non-empirical attempts to avoid a theistic worldview perspective. And I think this is what's interesting in the 21st century are observations, measurements, and experiments overwhelmingly established that there must be a God beyond space and time that created the universe and specifically designed it for the benefit of us human beings. And it's become so overwhelming that those that take a non-theistic perspective are being forced to appeal to these non-empirical arguments which are either cyclical arguments, you know, circular reasoning or they appeal to realms that we're not able to measure or may never be able to measure. Now what's interesting in that part of this book is I say we've actually been able to push the frontiers of knowledge where we actually can penetrate to some degree the quantum gravity era. That's that era where time might be quantized and it's by looking at the images of distant quasars and blazars because if there is quantization of space-time at a high level where you've got high quantum space-time fluctuations in the space-time fabric that would be amplified in the images of distant quasars and blazars. And so what happened is those images would blur a little bit and so we're able to look at those images and see if we see the blurring that would sustain the speculation that we've got really big quantum space-time fluctuations and we don't see any blurriness in those images. Now this is a merging material it's only been around for the past year but we've been able to make these kinds of measurements and it's only been done in quasars and blazars at ultraviolet wavelengths that are 3 billion light-years away. We can make the test much more definitive by looking at quasars and blazars 10-12 billion light-years away at X-ray wavelengths. That hasn't been done yet but that would allow an even deeper penetration of the quantum gravity era. Likewise, come this December an array of radio telescopes that stretches around the planet and actually gives us a telescope power of a telescope with a diameter of 6,000 miles. That instrument is being used right now to image the event horizon of the black hole the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy and that image will actually give us some information of what's happening in the quantum gravity era and we're lucky enough to find a neutron star in a close orbit about an imaged event horizon of a black hole that would give us a really powerful penetration of the quantum gravity era but it demonstrates the principle the more we learn about physics the more we learn about the universe the more evidence we see for the supernatural handiwork of God because what I point out in this book is that the measurements we have already don't support the quantum eternity theorem as being put out by atheist physicists but it's really consistent with the theorem put out by Aaron Wall where he says if these quantum space time fluctuations are small enough then the space time theorems hold all the way to t equals zero and in a corollary to this theorem he says they might even hold that the quantum space time fluctuations are big but the measurements are indicating it doesn't look like they're big but this is being discussed in the scientific literature we've got atheists saying well maybe we don't need big quantum space time fluctuations but again they're appealing to something we don't know and can't measure and so what I share with audiences everything we can know and measure and do experiments on tells us there really is a beginning to the universe in the same manner that everything I know about my wife tells me she's real but in that realm where I can't make measurements I could speculate as a physicist that maybe I'm being fooled all these decades by a very sophisticated hologram I mean but all immeasurable evidence tells me she's real and that she's not a hologram here's a text in question Hugh okay do you see any similarities in the United States to any behavior actions of a specific people or story recorded in the Bible? yes you'll see this in the book of Isaiah where it talks about the rebirth of the nation of Israel which depending how you interpret it happened in 1948 or 1967 but what it tells us in the book of Isaiah is that it would be silver and gold from people dwelling in the distant coast lands that would play a key role in establishing this new nation of Israel and there's actually historical evidence for this in 1948 when Israel was formed they were being attacked by ten Arab nations around them they didn't have the military equipment to hold back the attack and so David Ben-Gurion sent a woman gold in my ear with ten dollars in her purse to New York and she came back with fifty million dollars and those fifty million dollars turned the tide in the Arab-Israeli war and David Ben-Gurion many years later said if it wasn't for the actions of a woman there would be no new nation of Israel but it was people dwelling in the distant coast lands that provided the gold and silver that made possible the rebirth of Israel you'll find another reference in the book of Ezekiel which is actually a reference to what will happen to people dwelling in the distant coast lands who live in safety it's a reference to the future which basically says their security and safety would be disturbed you'll read about it in Ezekiel chapter 40 if you want to check it out and the distant coast lands is a reference to big islands and big continents that are far away from Israel I think that would include us but you could also argue maybe it includes Australia, New Zealand and South America as well but the point is the gold and silver did come from the United States and Canada and we are people living in relative safety and security I don't have much of a question more of a comment I'm glad to be here I came across another organization who tries to blend religion and science together and they're telling me the earth is 7,000 years old because they followed the Abraham's genealogy I had a seizure and I woke up three days later laughing hysterically because really the earth is only 7 I'm glad that you're saying 3 billion years for me that's great but what concerns me a little bit is that I have this feeling, maybe I'm wrong that we start that the Bible is 100% correct and I'm taking Genesis literally and then I'm making science prove it where I think it should be different it should be the science starting and perhaps moving towards the book of Genesis which you probably know this the Hebrew Bible has at least three ways there's poetry, there's allegories and there's some history there but it's not all literally when you mention Job it feels that people believe that it literally happened but for our tradition it's a story it has a tremendous theological implication the story of Job but Job was not a real person flesh and blood so my concern is when I see science or a religious institution trying to make this fit into that concerns me a little bit because unfortunately a lot of violence has been committed to my people in the name of religion or how we interpret religion so when the interpretation gets strange I step back and I say oh God help me because you know what I'm talking about we can go back to the Inquisition we can go back but I'm glad at least you know I'm happy with your organization I don't understand everything I'm not a scientist but anyway thank you it was just a comment well it's an interesting comment and you know I agree with your statement that it's a mistake to try to take the Bible and force science into it but you know that's not my story my story is that I was not raised in a Christian environment in fact I didn't get to meet Christians until I was to get to know them until I was 27 years of age and my quest began through astronomy where I realized okay it looks like the Big Bang is a correct model for the origin and history of the universe and if that's the case there's a beginning if there's a beginning there's a beginner so I began to search for that beginner first through the great philosophers and discovered they had the wrong concepts of space and time and it began to look at the world's holy books and what I was looking for were provable historical and scientific errors I felt that this is a book that's communicated to us by the God of the universe given what I see in the universe it's a God that seems to really like consistency and harmony therefore I said the way to tell whether this is invented by humans or it's from the creator is if it's invented by humans there will be mistakes and errors and contradictions so I looked for those and if you're looking at the Quran or the Hindu Vedas it's not difficult to find several provable historical and scientific errors but when I think that the Bible over the course of 18 months I was not able to find any provable scientific errors or contradictions now to be fair I did find lots of texts that I didn't understand but unlike what I saw the Hindu Vedas of the Quran I couldn't find provable errors or contradictions and I found many places where the Bible actually predicted future scientific discoveries and I saw that in no other holy book only the Bible actually predicts accurately future scientific discoveries and as an astronomer I was especially impressed that it predicted all the fundamentals of Big Bang cosmology like the universe has a space time beginning that expands from that beginning under laws of physics that don't change where one of those laws is a pervasive law decay and therefore the Bible is implying that the universe must get colder and colder in a highly predictable way and we astronomers actually have measurements of the past temperature of the universe that confirm what the Bible declared thousands of years ago now I would agree this can be overdone and I've run into other Christians that basically read science into the text that I don't think is there I mean as a president of reasons to believe I get manuscripts on my desk unsolicited from people who think that Genesis 1 and 2 explains the particle creation model so they're putting neutrinos in there protons and I'm saying I don't see any of that in the text and so one extreme is you're basically looking at almost every passage of the Bible as having scientific implications but for example I spoke at a seminary where seminary professors basically took the book of Job and said it says zero about science or creation and it's like if you take this book as being an actual real account I mean it's got more science and creation content than any other book of the Bible but their concern was that we read any science content in the Bible we take a risk that it might not fit what we see in the established record of nature on the other hand if you have a zero risk theology you also have a theology that's incapable of persuading anyone that this is the inspired word of God and so we were just talking about what the Bible says about the future nation of Israel what if the Bible said nothing about future history then we couldn't use history as a tool to persuade people that this is actually beyond human capability likewise if you strip all the science content of the Bible you've got the problem but for example you can get a four views book it's called four views on creation, evolution, and intelligent design and one of the authors takes a position that the Bible has no science content at all but you know there's another position where you have extreme overlap our position is there is overlap but we're not talking the majority of the text it's part of the text and it's the obvious parts like Genesis 1 where it talks about this account of creation you know clearly it's talking about real things that God did to prepare the plan for humanity so I say well you can't deny the science content there the question is does it actually match what we scientists measure that was actually a big part of my coming to faith in the Bible was recognizing Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 correctly described everything and put it in the correct chronological sequence whereas when I looked at the ancient Near Eastern creation stories everything was out of order and a lot of the stuff that was described wasn't even a correct description so I was a major factor in turning my life from an atheistic real view perspective to a theistic one and a Christian one and yeah I'm frequently involved in debates with other believers where I think they've gone to one extreme or the other and I think the best way to balance it out we need to challenge one another I mean that's the benefit for example of having these luncheons that we have where we challenge one another and say you know what I think you went too far or I don't think you went far enough we're gonna wow was that making up for it was quiet before we're gonna do one more question before our break remember if you want to get a chance to win a book fill out that card and if you would pass it pass them that way and if I could ask Bud and James on each side to go down and collect them and we'll do a drawing so you've got as long as it takes you to answer this question to fill those out and get them there Hugh the Bible seems to suggest that the universe came from nothing Lawrence Krauss seems to suggest this also it's hard to imagine something coming from nothing without at least the laws of physics existing and being true even if there was no matter space or time would this be a proof of God well long time ago I gave a talk everything you want to know about nothing and I was making the point after Lawrence Krauss published his book a universe from nothing if you read his book you can actually find nine different definitions of nothing in his book and every one of his definitions is actually something so it's common for physicists for example to talk about the universe being created out of a quantum space time foam all a quantum space time foam is not nothing we know from relativity and quantum mechanics that you can take quantum space time foam and make particles out of it just like you can convert energy into matter and matter into energy likewise you can convert space time fluctuations into energy and matter so what Lawrence Krauss is talking about is not really the universe coming out of nothing now what you see in the Bible in Hebrews 11.3 the universe that we can detect did not come from that which we can detect so that's kind of a difficult definition of nothing and we can detect matter we can detect energy we can detect space we can detect time so the Bible's claim is that the universe that we can see and measure came from something by God's hand that's completely distinct from matter, energy, space and time the laws of physics, etc so that's a big difference between Lawrence Krauss's claiming than what the Bible's claimed for thousands of years and the space time theorems are consistent with what the Bible claims they're not consistent what Lawrence Krauss says although I will give Lawrence Krauss some credit on page 173 of his book he concedes that we can't take deism off the scientific table and that's because the force of these space time theorems and that's actually I'd say a correct label most physicists and astronomers have met that label themselves as atheists when you press them you discover that they're actually deists they'll say things like Stephen Hawking I think the universe came from the law of gravity well, he's basically making the point of deism which is some agent brought the universe into existence but that agent hasn't been doing a thing since he brought the universe into existence it's basically the God of the 14 billion year NAF model but theists believe that God not only acted at the beginning of the universe he's acted since the universe and he's acting in the lives of human beings today so that's the difference between theism and deism but deism is very popular amongst my peers thank you Hugh James bring those up he's got them all there's one more over there thank you Diana, thank you James we don't have a box or anything to put these in you so we're just gonna you're just gonna have to draw one oh it's okay it's okay I can I know how to play cards I can shuffle them alright pick a card, any card first name's Tim last name is S-E-C-H-A-N-G is that right? come on up okay so what we're what we're giving away is either a DVD journey towards creation or Hugh's latest book creator in the cosmos or the second latest book improbable planet and since you drew first you get your choice great, the latest and greatest congratulations okay next one Hugh Margarita Cates there you go right in front no you don't get to pray that you win that's unfair alright number three Carl Yackey yeah very good congratulations everybody that's great okay I think the next question is it's the microphone's turn so Doug you're at it again I also want to say one thing I understand we have some students here from Cal State Fullerton so welcome to you guys thank you for coming can you hear me? yep my question is regarding the miracles that Christ performed in the Bible tell us and as a scientist Dr. Russ how would you explain what actually happened when Christ takes fish and the bread and multiplies it 12,000 7,000 and even have leftovers Bible tells us there were 12 baskets left so how would you as a scientist how would you explain what happened and your mind yeah good question and you see in the Bible God performing three different kinds of miracles miracles that transcend the laws of physics miracles that take place within the laws of physics but demonstrate fine-tuned control and then laws of simply sustaining the physics of the universe for the benefit of life on earth you see in the Gospels especially the Gospel of John is that it focuses on the miracles that God performed that the prophets of the Old Testament could not perform basically making the point that Jesus is more than just a prophet that he's actually the one that is God that created the universe for example we look at the universe the cosmic creation event it's clearly an act by a being who can move and operate inside of matter, energy, space and time and so what you see recorded for example in the Gospel of John is repeated instances of Jesus performing miracles that are outside of what's possible within space, time and the laws of physics and matter and energy like walking on water or as you say transforming a few loaves and fishes into enough to feed 5,000 men all their families as well and sure well I mean for example there were Old Testament scholars who were saying well a prophet could raise somebody from the dead but a prophet can't raise anybody who's been dead for more than 3 days and so with Lazarus God waited until the 4th day before raising him basically making the point that what you're seeing here is someone who actually has complete control over the physics of the universe so this is what Jesus was trying to do to establish that he was more than just a prophet he was actually the one that created the universe so that's just distinct about the Christian faith I mean for example in the Islamic faith they believed that Jesus was a prophet you lost your picture that's okay I don't need to see the picture anymore but what we see in the New Testament and back by the way it also tells in the Old Testament that the Messiah would perform these kinds of miracles so it's prophesied in the Old Testament that there would be one who would come who would perform these miracles the one greater than Moses would come Moses himself said that someone greater than I will come I think where Dan was headed with that though he was how did he actually do it did he make matter out of nothing did each fish appear as it went to the next guy I mean I know it's speculative but how would you think he might have done that well just like you can't explain how a human being can walk on top of the sea of Galilee or how that individual could also have Peter walk on the sea of Galilee for a few seconds that can't be explained within matter energy space and time in the laws of physics so it's demonstrating what the disciples reaction was who is this individual when they saw him walking on water when they saw him calm the storm a storm that was threatening their lives and with one word Jesus transformed that life-threatening storm into perfect calm and the reaction is who is this individual well Jesus was simply making the point I'm one who's greater than the laws of physics and so yeah my answer to that is it was a miracle that God literally produced it not from existing material it was basically brand new stuff thank you Hugh what caused that beach in Hawaii to keep the green sand okay that sand will not stay green for much longer because it's existing in an oxygen rich environment and you know the reason why we see green sand there it came up from the deep near mantle of the earth if it came up from the top mantle part it wouldn't be green like that which is why most lava flow eruptions you don't see all of being a rich material that's one single incident where we do yeah if you wait long enough in fact if you actually go to that beach you'll see parts of the beach where the green stuff is actually starting to turn and look like regular sand but yeah there's the fact that zoom in was actually looking at a part of the beach that's nothing but all of being crystals I've been to that beach so not all of it is all of being crystals but you do find some parts that are thank you do we have another person at the mic you're on Doug well to use some scientific terminology here I'm tripping I'm tripping here because like right before the break the question from the internet was about Lawrence Krauss and then nothing from something to nothing or nothing to something and I was just talking about miracles he was right there when this happened and then he sat right next to me so anyway that's a comment but I'm gonna go ahead with my question anyway I don't really understand what Lawrence Krauss is saying but I'd like to quote him here the amazing thing is once you apply in fact quantum mechanics to gravity as you were beginning to allude to in your last segment um that's what it says right here that is possible in fact it is implied that space itself could be created where there was nothing before that literally whole universes could pop out of nothing by the laws of quantum mechanics and the question is why is there something rather than nothing it becomes right because nothing is unstable and it will always produce something and so that's what he said on this NPR broadcast in 2012 and so getting to the point here one could one would have to infer a timeless quantum flux of information without energy or a vacuum would need to occur to begin space-time but still this is an absolute nothing in reality an actual nothing is nothing is not only the absence of space-time and matter but also the absence of quantum states a lot of physics I'm almost finished and information by definition an actual nothing cannot produce something the big bang is a miracle and then Craig said this skeptical response represents I believe a deliberate abuse of science the question is do you agree okay well if you go back to Romans chapter one it talks about people who reject God and that their responses they attribute to the creation properties that only the creator possesses and so this is an example of saying well the laws of quantum mechanics created the universe well the laws of quantum mechanics don't have any power of creativity they're simply descriptive of the universe and so you've got Lawrence Crowell saying quantum mechanics did it you had Stephen Hawking saying gravity did it but what they're doing is they're actually attributing creative powers to gravity and quantum mechanics all of our measurements tell us that's not the case we see no creative capacity in the laws of physics and you know we physicists have been measuring them for a long long time if indeed nothing is unstable we would have seen some examples of that we don't see any examples of that and if nothing were truly unstable we'd all be in real trouble because everything would be disturbed so thank God that nothing was unstable because otherwise we'd have stuff popping into existence all over the place but again all of our observations are consistent with the fact that the laws of physics are descriptive they don't possess powers within themselves we have to look elsewhere to explain why the universe has a beginning but don't be surprised that people we see that in biology as well where people will attribute say to genetics a creative power that the genetics simply doesn't have so a quantum vacuum is something a quantum vacuum is something yeah whenever a physicist says something came from nothing ask him what kind of nothing are you talking about Hugh here's a question from a text it's a very good question how does the act of sacrifice clear up sin how does the act of sacrifice clear up sin well the bible tells us that God is a holy God he's not able to tolerate any evil or sin in his presence and since we're all sinners and have all had the propensity to commit evil the only way we can actually have fellowship with God is if someone pays the penalty for our offenses and this is what the creator of the universe did for us on the cross he took upon himself the penalty the holy penalty for all the offenses we committed against God and one another and so what you have the creator of the universe doing is paying a payment that none of us are able to pay on our own account so your analogies have been used as what have I got a debt of a trillion dollars given my salary there's no way I can pay that debt off but someone who actually has that kind of money can come forward and say look I take care of your debt for you well likewise the creator of the universe has come forward and has taken care of that debt for us you know a corollary I've gotten to that is how can a man dying on the cross for six to nine hours actually take upon himself the holy penalty of all the offenses committed by human beings and I answer that question in the book the creator beyond the cosmos by saying the one that died on the cross in addition to being a human being was the God that created the universe it's the God that created the space-time dimensions of the universe a God that's got the power according to the space-time theorems to create space-time dimensions of will who says that he only suffered for six to nine hours that's an hard time frame but in the time dimensionalities that he's able to experience he could have easily accommodated a hundred billion infinitely long lines of time in which he suffered the penalty for all the offenses that we committed against God and one another and I think when we appreciate the depth of what happened in those six to nine hours and who as it says in Hebrews 2 3 who can turn down such a magnificent offer of redemption if we really appreciate the depth that was done on our behalf who in a rational mind would turn down that offer and that's an offer that God makes to every human being that has ever lived and that's something that Job recognized he recognized as you can see in the 17th chapter he recognized he did not have the power to deliver himself from his propensity for sin and evil but on all power for all loving God must have provided a way so he says I'm going to go to that because he was basically believing in what God would provide on his behalf but we can look back in time and say we don't have to look forward it's already been done on our behalf I'm back a few months back the so called pastor of America died I'm talking about what's his name? Billy Graham yeah he's my favorite televangelist he said one time and one of his sermons that he knew what heaven was like and he he said 120 miles long by 120 miles wide and that we would sit by a huge fireplace and angels would wait on us and we would go down those golden streets in a brand new catalac convertible that was great how could you not love him anyhow he was he was I looked him up and I don't know Google or something had his little bio he was when he died he was worth 30 million dollars you know that's a little some that's not a great sum but it's some and so I wondered 30 million dollars has the neighbor read the bible? the bible says is it more you know it is more difficult for a camel to go through the eye of a needle then for a rich man to go to heaven isn't that right? it's Matthew and Matthew and Mark Matthew and Mark I got it right so he didn't read the bible very much did he? but what kind of a Christian was he? well this is a good comment but there was a sermon given in this church a few months ago where the pastor explained that very text how it's difficult for a rich person to enter heaven is difficult as a camel to go through an eye of a needle now it's not talking about a needle that you use to sew thread it's actually a geological feature where you got a small hole in a mountain so he's making the point as difficult but not impossible but what I loved about the sermon he went on to say here's what the bible here's what the bible defines as a rich person is someone who's so wealthy they know that they're going to eat the day after tomorrow they got enough wealth where they can only have enough food for today and tomorrow but even the next day and they're also wealthy enough that they actually have not one change of clothes but two changes of clothes or more and then he addressed all of us in the congregation okay how many of you fit that description? well the truth is we're all rich by that definition now let him finish you could probably expand that needle but Jesus is making the point most of us are in that category in fact even in the poor nations of the world today most people are in that category and we need to realize don't let the wealth that you have give you a sense of security where you think I've got wealth and I don't need God and so that's what it means when it says it's difficult for a rich man to enter into heaven because what happens when you got wealth is you begin to think I don't need anybody else's help I don't need God's help however it says it's difficult not impossible what we need to do is realize okay the wealth I have I get from God it can disappear at any time I can't put my security in my wealth I need to put my security in God and I need to be generous with the wealth I have what you see throughout the whole of the Bible is that God blesses people with wealth so that they can use that wealth to serve other people so having wealth does not make you unrighteous however it's what you do with the wealth you're unrighteous that's the reason I never got wealthy because I read that a long time ago well I can tell you Al by the Bible's definition you are a wealthy man and so the challenge to you is the same as the challenge to me by the Bible's definition I'm wealthy what am I doing with the wealth that I have I'm very poor so I don't have to work I don't think there's a poor person in this whole room so we all have enough wealth that we know we're going to eat the day after tomorrow that's a very small hole but the whole point is what are you doing with the wealth that God has given you are you using it to serve others or are you using it to serve God do you have the mindset look this is a gift from God it can disappear anytime and it does, that's okay but good comment, thanks Hugh, here's a couple of questions that are personal to you and I think I like that because we don't get those very often what gets you excited regarding science coming up on the horizon what gets me excited about science on the horizon I'm really looking forward to our astronomy community nailing down what kind of inflation was responsible shortly after the cosmic creation event because I anticipate that's going to give us a whole new set of fine tuning evidence for the creator God of the Bible I could go on there's lots of things I'm excited about I think I'm excited about the fact that we're on the verge I've actually seen the very first born stars in the universe we've liked the telescope power to actually image those stars but we're really close there are three telescopes that will be coming online in the next five years that will have the power to actually image the very first stars now, we already have seen very lightly polluted stars stars that did form at the very beginning of the universe but the stars that are so old they've been lightly polluted by the intergalactic medium but yeah, time will come not too far from now we'll actually see stars 13.6 billion light years away individual stars the very first stars that formed in the universe something else I'm looking forward to is astronomers or astronauts going back to the moon digging up the Earth's soil that was transported to the moon and in that soil finding the fossils of Earth's first life and being able to prove who got the origin of life model right the theists or the non-theists and I think the Chinese are going to beat us to it they're interested in going back to the moon and I'm hoping that they'll put that as part of their mission strategy because the problem with Apollo was it was aimed at finding pristine lunar rocks and I got to speak at NASA Houston a few years ago I said we need to go back to the moon with a different mission not to find the pristine lunar rocks but to find the Earth's soil that's been dumped on the moon by meteoritic transport and every ton of Earth's soil on the moon contains about a hundred quadrillion microbes and we know that many of those microbes will be in the pristine form they were when they first appeared on Earth we're never going to find the fossils of Earth's first life on the Earth Earth's geology destroyed them but they're in Earth's attic if we go to Earth's attic we're going to find them so yeah, I'd be really excited about that great, thank you go ahead thanks so much for this talk this has been really fun I apologize in advance to the crowd if this is a Bible 101 question but I wanted to know if you could speak to more of the application process if any for submissions to the Bible I went to Catholic school so I know a little bit about the disciples how they might have had it in but if you can just speak to I mean I know how to get myself into you know a journal there's an abstract, there's a committee that reviews but if you could just talk about I guess the initial binding I know about the reproduction but how could a person get in were there any books that were rejected from the old and the new sorry if that's not very scientific can you speak a little more specific what book are you talking about no, just the good book the Bible so when I say the Bible I'm describing the Old Testament and the New Testament and what's your question is can you talk about the initial application process to be included in that book now I get it, thank you what you're talking about is the formation of what's called the canon you know how did the Jews select the 39 books of the Old Testament and what about the 27 books of make of the New Testament exactly well the Jews basically established some rules that were applied for both the Old Testament and the New Testament namely that the content had to be consistent with the 10 commandments so for example, Maccabees one and two though they give a true account of the inter-testamental period between the last of the Old Testament books and the first of the New Testament books it's an accurate history but there's a couple of passages that basically condone murder as opposed to allowing the state to be the ones that has the authority and so that's why those books are not included in the canon they've violated that principle another principle is does the book actually speak from the authority of God himself you know like thus says God so do we have that claim of authority another aspect is does the book actually make any predictions of future historical events and scientific does it have predictive power and so if it's stripped of all predictive content that's not that's not considered a definitive evidence but if that is there that adds to the weight of evidence for its conclusion and of course what it says about future history geography and science is that 100% accurate in what it predicts because it was Moses that said there will be many false prophets that will come and here's how you know that they're a false prophet when they predict some point of future history, geography or science if they're not 100% accurate in what they predict don't believe them they're a false prophet and so the standard is it has to be 100% so there's actually good books you can get the scholar F. F. Bruce has probably written what I think is the best book on basically answering your question how did the canon get formed I can tell you this both Jews and Christians they spent literally centuries establishing what makes up the canon what causes a book to be rejected from the canon and so another rule is it actually has to come from the claimed author and so did Isaiah really write the book of Isaiah and for example there is a dispute 35 years ago where scholars took computer analysis of the book of Isaiah and they said we think it was written by four different people and so that caused some concern but everything that Isaiah says is loaded with predictive power lots of prophecies of future history and it's past the test but what we now know is that the book of Isaiah was written by one person at four distinct times in his life where there was like a decade between the first part that was written the second part a decade between the second part and the third part and so Isaiah has been vindicated as being a legitimate book of the Old Testament but yeah FF Bruce has written a big thick book about how we got the Bible in the form that we got it thank you hang on Steve I've got a question of yours up here already so we'll ask that now Steve Hugh went to a different church and had heard what he thought was possible heretical teaching how does he how can he know for sure if teaching is heretical well I had that experience myself because I became a Christian through reading a Gideon Bible and then tried to find a church and every church I tried in Canada either nobody believed the Bible was the word of God so I said why bother going and the rest of the churches I tried were cults where they were teaching heretical teachings I think one way you can discern whether or not a church is heretical do they deny the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith and so for example the creeds the creeds were basically formed as a way to challenge the heretics and the church and even the shortest of the creeds the apostle creed I think is adequate I mean every cultic church I attended in some way violated what's in the apostle's creed and so I think that's one way to determine whether it's and for me even though I didn't know any Christians when I walked into a church it was pretty easy for me to say hey this doesn't match what I read and understand from the Bible and typically what cults do is they'll overemphasize one doctrine of the Bible and deny the others very common for example is to emphasize the love and mercy of God but to deny the holiness of God and its capacity to judge sin and so the Bible teaches both so any church that ignores one and promotes the other that's a problem just a quick correction and then I have a question the Hebrew Bible has 24 books you mentioned 39 the Protestant Old Testament and the Catholic Old Testament is 46 just the numbers but my question is could you compare your organization with the creationist movement Ben Stein he has this organization and he wants to teach creationism in public schools has created a lot of issues that's question one number two real quickly does your organization believe the science proves that God is a trinity because some organizations do the point the science proves that God is tree in one I'm just curious yeah good question you know we were presented with the Ben Stein movie about six weeks before it was released and they wanted us to endorse it and we basically said we can't endorse the movie because it's basically making a point that Christians who are believers in secular universities they're being universally persecuted and I said well yeah I know some that are but the majority are not and so I thought the movie is making an overstatement the persecution is not ubiquitous you know when I was at Caltech everybody knew that I was a Christian and I wasn't experiencing persecution and a whole lot of us at Caltech who are believers and so we were more than tolerated we were respected for our position so and also I felt that the Ben Stein movie was basically emphasizing one kind of creationism you made reference to the young earth model and the vast majority of us who are Bible believing Christians do not hold to a young earth model so that's why we said we can't endorse the movie your question about the Trinity is interesting because I had a couple of Muslim apologists in my office a few months ago and they said we know that you as a Christian you don't believe in the Trinity but can you explain why you do and I said well I came to that belief even before I picked up a Bible because to me something like that is really the only way to explain how science operates and so my critique of Islam for example is they do not have an answer for the origin of love because they believe that God well by definition love requires at least two individuals to receive love and express love but I'm not comfortable with Hinduism because they have all these gods that participate in creation and they all got different plans and so as I engage people of a Hindu worldview perspective they have this belief that creation is going to be filled in consistencies and contradictions because of how many personal gods are involved they all got different plans but kind of the heart of the Christian faith is that there are these three persons but they have one essence they got one mind one purpose one plan and we see in nature is complete consistency in harmony it's not multiple people with multiple designs and multiple creation objectives there's a single objective a single mind a single purpose but you actually have God experiencing love and giving love before he creates anything so my problem with Islam is kind of the mantra in Islam is nothing is greater than God but their own theology makes us human beings greater than God because we come from a being with no capacity for love and yet we have the capacity for love or to put it another way in Islam God must create in order to experience love but in Christianity God's not compelled to create it's something that he does by his own free will because he's already experiencing the fullness of love before he creates anything matter of fact there are passages in the Old New Testament that make the point that God begins the creation before he creates anything so creation is not his top priority now people have asked me okay I can understand that but why three why not just two I said well notice in human psychology where you got two you get codependent love but bringing a third individual it breaks that codependency so that at least roughly explains why only with a Trinitarian kind of God you can have compatibility between what the Bible teaches and we see in nature science only makes sense from a Trion divine perspective so I'd argue science doesn't make sense of the original God there's got to be a God but it's got to be this particular kind of God and actually if you're interested right now in the class I'm teaching we're going through the book of Isaiah and it's the book of Isaiah which explicitly teaches the doctrine of the Trinity yeah it does it repeatedly says God is one but it names three persons who all take deity even take the name of Yahweh and so for example in Jeremiah the name of the Messiah is called Yahweh so you got two individuals taking the single name or as it says in Genesis one you have Elohim the uni plural one and you got on the creation of human beings God using the singular pronoun and the plural pronoun so God is referred to as a singular pronoun but also referred to with a plural pronoun so it's a God that is simultaneously singular and plural and that's basically the doctrine of the Trinity God is one in essence but three in personality thank you Hugh how did God how did Noah build the ark big enough to accommodate all the animals well he didn't build an ark to accommodate all the animals on the face of the earth what God told him is take a pair of every bazaar on board the ark which is a reference to the soulish animals that are in relationship with human beings and so we're not talking of species of animal life I don't think God was telling me to take cockroaches on board the ark there might have been a couple that were there anyway they seem to be everywhere so but no it was the soulish animals and there's a reason for that if you look at the book of Leviticus it makes the point that these are animals that God designed to serve and please human beings but if an animal is in an an abundant relationship with a human being where the human being has a very vicious character then that animal will behave in a vicious way in the book of Leviticus it talks about how if a man has a cow that's in the habit of goring other animals and people that man is to be rebuked and if the cow continues in that behavior the cow is to be destroyed and the owner along with it making the point that it's the owner that's responsible for that behavior and it's not that the cow was evil or sinful the cow simply is designed to please its human owner and what brings pleasure to the human owner is vicious behavior that's how the animal will behave so I think that explains the vicious dog syndrome vicious dog are not owned by compassionate kind people so I don't know if any of you got a vicious dog so I'm not trying to so I mean we had a dog that had a problem but what we found out was his previous owner had basically trained the dog to be really vicious so that's a problem yes no I mean the bible does tell us that wild cows are very difficult to tame but once cows are tamed they will be in an emotional relationship with you I mean I had an uncle that raised cows but he treated his cows with such kindness that the cows would run towards the fence to greet him every time he came by in his pickup truck they really loved my uncle but it's because he treated them with such kindness and the bible actually exhorts us to do that that you know God has given us these animals in order to treat them with kindness and they will produce better for as my uncle's claim if you treat your cows with kindness the milk is better and the meat is better so basically back to this flood question the reason why God said take two of every nephesh creature that has relationship or association with human beings those are the only animals that can be damaged by human evil and sin you can sin all you want in front of a mosquito it's not going to change the behavior of the mosquito it doesn't have the capacity to bond to you emotionally it will bond to you in other ways but not emotionally so but dogs and cats and cows and horses are different it tells us in Genesis 1 they're not just physical they're also soulish God endows them divine will and emotions and gives them the capacity to relate to a higher being and to serve and please that higher being in the same way God designed us to serve and please a higher being and to relate to him in an emotional relationship but it's because of that that the evil people and the days of Noah had so mistreated their animals that God said they have to be destroyed just like that cows and the habit of goring other animals if the behavior can't be turned around the cow needs to be destroyed however there would have been animals that Noah's in relationship that weren't damaged by human sin he says take two of each of those however the Bible is explicit that the flood of Noah destroyed the entire world of ungodly people but it doesn't say it destroyed the whole planet it's the world of the ungodly that was wiped out not the whole planet in fact Psalm 104 is explicit about that it talks about creation day 3 when continents for the first time appear that's verses 7 and 8 verse 9 says now that the continents are here never again will water cover the whole face of the earth as statements repeated four more times in Job and Psalms and Proverbs and therefore the flood of Noah did not inundate the whole world therefore there was no need for Noah to take a pair of polar bears on board the ark or a pair of penguins on board the ark because that was not the world of the ungodly ungodly people had not yet visited the arctic or the Antarctic and therefore the ark was more than big enough to accommodate all the soulish animals that were in relationship with human beings and big enough to carry two years supply of food and water in addition to all those animals does that answer the question I think it does and I've got like 12 questions on the phone that I'm not going to be able to answer so please don't send it anymore but we'll take I think probably one more from the mic and maybe one or two more from text so go ahead sir I have a friend that talks about a parallel universe can you explain already what the issues are here when I hear that I missed the first word you had a friend that talks about what kind of universe parallel universe yeah that's the parallel universe idea also referred to as the multiverse making the point that it's possible there are other universes it was Einstein who said once you got observers in universe A observers can never detect the possible existence of a second universe but it also means we can't rule out the possible existence of a second universe or for that matter 10 universes or for that matter an infinite number of universes so a number of non-theistic physicists speculated maybe the universe isn't fine tuned for our existence maybe instead there's an infinite number of universes different from the other universe and therefore all this fine tuning that we measure it's here by pure chance and so God didn't design the universe the multiverse did but it has serious philosophical weaknesses one being is that it explains the way all design not just God's design so in this book The Crater in a Cosmos I tell a little story we got an infinite number of universes where they're all different from the other universe you're gonna have an infinite variety of birch trees in that multiverse and you're getting one species of birch trees that will peel white pieces of bark all birch trees do but this is a birch tree that peels pieces of bark that are 8.5 by 11 inches and they fall on soil that's got chemicals in it that make random markings on these 8.5 and 11 pieces of white birch bark and those markings in an infinite number of universes will duplicate all the equations letters and paragraphs and tables and charts that you see in every research paper published by every physicist who ever lived and so those research papers didn't come from the minds of those physicists the multiverse did it you're basically exposing a philosophical inconsistency you're appealing to an unknowable infinite infinity to explain away God's design but it explains away all design but I also argue in this book there is a way to test the atheistic version of the multiverse and that is if this really does explain away all of fine tuning design at some point as we continue to make measurements in the universe we're gonna see that the evidence of fine tuning design for a specific benefit instead of increasing with respect to time will plateau and drop and so we've been making those measurements for centuries now and it's always gone up matter of fact it's going up exponentially it's going up at such a rapid rate that every month the evidence for fine tuning design for the benefit of us human beings rises by about a factor of 1,000 times which is why when I speak on university campuses I tell the skeptics if you're not persuaded today wait one month but if the atheistic version of the multiverse is correct we would not be anticipating this exponential increase in fine tuning design at some point it's gonna plateau and drop the fact that it's never plateaued and drop that it's consistently gone up exponentially tells us what's in mind behind the universe with supernatural powers that design the universe for our specific benefit and I think especially compelling when you say what kind of design do you need to have a planet somewhere in the universe that can support at one time 7 billion human beings there you really see the fine tuning design rise at a very steep exponential level Hugh another question a personal question what would be your biggest dream for reasons to believe before you retire my biggest dream for reasons to believe before I retire is that we would raise up a community of at least 300 scientists and other scholars who would take the message that hey we're seeing increasing evidence from the frontiers of knowledge that there's a God behind the universe for our benefit and also is able to deliver us from the sin and evil that we all are played with the idea that there's a God out there who desires to redeem us and have a personal relationship with us for the rest of eternity we're well on our way to doing that right now the scholar team we have numbers around 50 individuals but we're hoping to build it up to 300 and to tell all the scientists on staff at reasons to believe your job is to find not just one person but several people to replace what you're doing so I'm looking forward to being replaced well notice that when I'm traveling away from this area we have a half dozen people in the class that do a really excellent job of teaching in my place including this gentleman behind me in the back of the class over there so yeah we're really blessed with some great people and that's part of what we've been doing over the past 30 years is raising up people who can step in in fact I argue that's a Biblical principle we're all to raise up people to be disciples of our savior and our job is not just to bring them to faith but to bring them to a point where they can instill faith in other people I'm going to close with one more question we've got a couple of minutes so I'm going to break the flow here and finish with another internet question it looks like we're at the end of human history when the temperature goes up 3 degrees what do you foresee for humans today? well if you look at the ice age cycle that we've been experiencing for the past 2.6 million years every time the global mean temperature has gone up 2 degrees centigrade above where it is right now our planet plummets into an ice age and there's several models that explain why that happens the one I think that has the best explanation is that when the global mean temperature rises you wind up melting the polar ice cap when you melt the polar ice cap sunlight now evaporates more water off the Arctic Ocean and a lot of that water falls snow on Siberia and Canada and you say well what's the problem if you warm up Canada doesn't that help? well the problem is I'm from Canada and I can tell you that if you go up at a certain latitude you get 10 and a half months of winter 2 weeks of black flies 2 weeks of mosquitoes and 2 weeks of horse flies so they really do have 4 seasons but but during those 10 and a half months the temperature is well below freezing and so simply raising the temperature of Canada from 50 below 0 to 40 below 0 is not going to stop the snow and if you got more snow falling on Canada and Siberia you got an ice age because that snow will accumulate and that's what's happened in all the previous ice ages the reason there's not ice over all of Canada today is that the average precipitation over Canada is only 10 inches a year that's not enough precipitation to allow ice to accumulate in spite of how cold it is up there but hey if you evaporate more water off the Arctic Ocean which is what will happen when you melt all the ice then that precipitation level goes up to 20 inches a year and that will bring on an ice age and explains why when you look at the past ice age cycles as soon as that temperature peaks up you get a rapid drop into an ice age and the ice age lasts like 90 to 100,000 years now what's interesting is when you are in an ice age the temperature jumps up and down by about 24 degrees Fahrenheit but explains why what I mentioned before we have evidence that humans living during the last ice age were engaged in sophisticated agricultural activity but it was all done on a very small scale because of how dramatically the global mean temperature was jumping up and down and that's the story I tell on an improbable planet over the past 2.6 million years that's been the norm for the climate stability jumping up and down by 24 degrees Fahrenheit on time scales of two or three centuries the only time in the past 6 million years where we've had a stable climate is the last 9,000 years never before have we had an ice age cycle with a stable temperature but that's what we got now and that's why you can have billions of people on the face of the earth today and you can't have humans without an ice age cycle we need an ice age cycle to be able to grow the food that we need to launch the technology that we need for civilization so yeah, removing the ice age doesn't help and never before in the history of the earth has there been an ice age cycle only the last 2.6 million years and only once has there been the temperature stability to permit a large human population we're in it right now but yeah, it will end eventually we're going to see another ice age come so the question is how much time do we have it could happen in as little as 100 years it could take as much as 1400 years so it's all up to us whether it happens in 100 years or 1400 years well thank you Hugh, we're out of time I want to remind you all that there's a book table over here and tomorrow night we're doing this again for another 2 hours at 7 o'clock tomorrow night and for all of you who are capable we would ask if you could help us stack over there before we give Hugh a round of applause before I'd like to ask you Hugh to close us in prayer father in heaven we thank you that you're a god that enjoys us coming to you with questions we thank you for the example of king David a man after your own heart who just kept plaguing you with questions thank you lord that you're a god that answers our questions help us lord to be diligent in seeking those answers help us lord to recognize the benefit of the hard work to get those answers but thank you lord that you're a god that made us curious you're a god that made us want to seek after answers and father I pray as we seek we would find you, discover you and enter into an eternal relationship with you in Jesus name amen