Good afternoon, everyone. This is the Theology Central Podcast, and today is Thursday, December the 30th, 2021. It is currently 12.13 p.m. Central Time, correction. It is currently 12.14 p.m. Central Time, and I'm coming to you live from the empty sanctuary of Victory Baptist Church, located right here in Ovallo, Texas. Now, I need you to use your imagination. Tomorrow is New Year's Eve. Imagine tomorrow evening, you're watching the ball drop there in New York City. All right, maybe you're there, maybe you're watching it on TV, but you are going to witness the ball drop and you're going to welcome in 20, you're going to say farewell to 2021. You're going to welcome in 2022. There is excitement. There is hope. Maybe a little bit of regret of how things went in 2021. Maybe you feel bad. Maybe you wish you would have done this. Maybe you've got your New Year's resolutions. You've got your hopes. You've got your goals. Whatever the case, whatever the emotions may be, you're there. Maybe it's a celebration. We made it through 2021. We've got a brand new year in front of us. I'm alive to see this new year. There is excitement. Maybe there's food, family, who knows the situation? It could be described so many different ways, but it's there, you can't wait, and the countdown begins. Ten! nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Happy New Year's and everybody's great. You kiss someone, everyone's happy. Celebration, celebration. And as you're watching and you're celebrating, all of a sudden, right there in New York City, boom, all the power goes out. Complete dark, New York City is plunged into absolute complete darkness, and you're like, what is going on? What's going on? What just happened? All of the power went out, and you're watching, and you're watching, or maybe you're there, and you're panicking, and you're looking around like, what's going to happen? And you're worried about, is there gonna be some kind of, you know, all of a sudden, crime is gonna break out everywhere. You're just concerned. Is it a terrorist attack? You don't know. And then all of a sudden, from above, somewhere in the sky, this blinding light comes shining down. Boom! I mean, it's blind. The brightest light you've ever seen. You can't even look at it. It will almost immediately blind you. And you're like, what is happening? And you hear this sound, and you hear this rumble, and you feel like, wait, something is descending from above. Some kind of, wait, wait, what is it? And you're trying to cover your eyes from the light, and you look, and you're like, wait a minute. There's some kind of, there's something in the sky. What is it? And as it begins to lower, you see this gigantic extraterrestrial spacecraft from some other universe, somewhere in space. And you just, you can't believe what you're seeing. It's like, is this a dream? Someone wake me up. Is this a movie? But it's absolutely real. And you're like, I can't believe this. I can't believe this. And they lower like some kind of a ramp. And all of a sudden you see aliens. coming out of the spacecraft, walking right there into the middle of Times Square, and we have our first contact with extraterrestrial, our first contact with alien life. Now, I know you're like, whoa, what have you been doing? Okay, you need a dial back, whatever you've been taking today. No, just stay with me, okay? Let's say that actually happens the very first minutes of 2022, we have first contact with alien extraterrestrial life. Now, I know you immediately will start thinking, what are the implications for humanity? What is the implication for earth? You may start thinking of all of these implications, but what would the implications be for your faith in Christ? Would this have some absolutely devastating impact on your belief in scripture, your belief in God, your belief in Jesus, your belief in salvation? Would this be the end of that belief? Would you abandon it and go, well, wait, we're gonna look to these extraterrestrial beings for divine guidance. Would you just immediately cast it off? What would it mean? Now, this question has been asked over and over and over and over again. Some people believe, and again, whenever you start thinking about this kind of thing, a lot of There's a lot of speculation. Some may even call it conspiratorial thinking will come in, but a lot of people truly believe that whenever the very first contact is, this will begin to establish a new religion and it will become a one world religion and that people will abandon God and turn to these alien beings as some kind of divine guides. Now that's a lot of speculation, a lot of craziness, and you may be saying, why are you even talking about this? There's so many important things to talk about. at the end of 2021, going to a new year. Why would you spend one second on this? Well, I, you know how things go. I don't always plan what I'm going to do, right? Well, let me put it this way. I have my plans and then life happens. So I sat down here behind the microphone, got ready to go live to talk about a hundred other things. And all of a sudden I get a notification of a news article that was just published. Here is the headlines. NASA, hires 24 theologians to examine implications of contact with aliens. And I had to read that again and go, okay, okay, who's pranking me? NASA is hiring theologians? I'm like, hey, hey, NASA, if you need, give me a call. I'll be more than willing to offer my theological expertise to this question. But I just found it fascinating that It seems to be legit that NASA hired 24 theologians to examine implications of contact with aliens. Now, if I wanna put on my conspiratorial thinking, I'll be like, oh, that's because NASA knows it's about to be revealed. They know that it's gonna be revealed that we have made contact with extraterrestrial life. They're preparing, the revelation is coming. Now, I could go full blown into that, but it is a little just interesting that NASA has hired 24 theologians to examine the implications of contact with aliens. What even makes this more interesting is this news article showed up at ChristianHeadlines.com. Oh, so we've got theologians. We've got a news article posted on a Christian news site. All right, so this immediately says, well, you're the Theology Central podcast. This obviously is right there, right there in what you cover. So you need to talk about it. So I thought I would talk about it right now, since this is a new news article, let's dig in and we'll see. But let me, before we do this, let me just ask you, and I've kind of already hinted at the question. Let me state it in a more direct way so that no one misunderstands what I'm trying to do, because what I like to do is take some things. take, sometimes I'll take news articles or anything, and I like to just bring it to you and then present it to you as a question for you to think about, for you to kick around, for you to struggle with, for you to have discussions with other fellow Christians. What would be the implication? So let me state the question, what would be the implication if we experience First contact with extraterrestrial life. In other words, there's no question anymore. There's no debate. It's not a conspiracy. It's not something for late night radio. It's actually true, witnessed by the whole world. Aliens do exist. And extraterrestrial life, intelligent extraterrestrial life, advanced intelligent extraterrestrial life does exist in other parts of other universes. And they have now made contact with us on this planet. What would be the theological implications of that? What would be the religious implications of that? Would people pour into church the following Sunday? Or would people just abandon church the following Sunday? Or would it make absolutely no difference? Well, let's see what's going on at NASA. Here we go, headline. NASA. hires 24 theologians to examine implications of contact with aliens. This was published at christianheadlines.com on Thursday, December the 30th, 2021. NASA recently hired two dozen theologians at the Center for Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey to offer religious guidance to people if contact with aliens were ever to occur. So hey, we're gonna hire you theologians, if by chance, it just seems weird, if by chance contact with aliens was to ever occur, we're not saying that it will, but if it was to ever occur, we need you on staff, we need you on emergency standby, because we'll need you to provide religious guidance to people if this occurs. I'm just reading what's here. According to Relevant Magazine, Karl Pilcher, the former head of NASA's Astrobiology Institute, said NASA enlisted the theologians to consider the implications of applying the tools of late 20th and early 21st century science to questions that had been considered in religious traditions for hundreds or thousands of years. Reverend Dr. Andrew Davison, a University of Cambridge religious scholar, and one of the 24 theologians on the new project, agreed that if humans were ever to make contact with aliens, it would be useful to have thought through the implications in advance. Okay, oh, here's someone, someone is listening. That's always good to know. Someone just asked this. Also, are they also created in God's image? Do they have the same sin problem we do? If so, do they have a savior like we do? Those are all, I think, very important theological questions that we could ask. I was going more along the line, okay, does this just destroy Christianity? Does this just annihilate Christianity? Most Christians will say, oh, absolutely not. But I think in the minds of many, It may, and that I think is maybe one theological implication, but those are very good theological questions that would be asked. Okay, here's this alien. All right, are they creating God's image? Do they have a sin problem? Do they have a sinful nature? Do I view them as depraved sinners who need salvation? And if they need salvation, is it Jesus or do they have a different savior? What religion do they bring? In other words, if they are, let's say they are far advanced. and every area of life, right? What if they have a completely different religious system? Does that immediately call us to go, well, ours is antiquated, ours is old fashioned. These are aliens from another planet. They are far advanced. Clearly their religious understanding has to also be more advanced than ours. I think that's what a lot of people would think. If these aliens are far advanced in every other area, then why would we, what to bring our antiquated religion and force it upon them, maybe they're more enlightened and have a better religious understanding. So many people would possibly view Christianity as a relic of the past. Just throwing out speculation here. Well, let's go through this, all right? So their thinking is we need to think through these implications before it would happen. Davison believes that a large number of people would turn to their religion traditions for guidance if such contact were to occur, and that it would present significant ramifications for the standing and dignity of human life. This isn't the first time NASA and the CTI, and the CTI is the Center for Theological Inquiry, just so that they're gonna use that abbreviation throughout. This isn't the first time NASA and the CTI have worked together. In 2014, the space agency awarded CTI a $1.1 million grant to conduct the societal implications of astrobiology study. Now, I would just like to tell this NASA, hey, look. NASA, I'm right here in Texas, I'm right here. If you wanna give someone $1.1 million to study the possible implications of this kind of thing, please just contact me, okay? I will give you my address, send me the check, and I will do hours and hours of podcast about it every single day. I promise you. In fact, I'll create a separate podcast for 1.1 million dollars. That's a lot of money they gave them to do this. It says, through which researchers, so this is what they gave them money to do, to examine the interest and openness to scientific inquiry among worshipers. So they give him $1.1 million simply to basically go from church to church to church and say, how open are you to scientific inquiry? So I'm gonna give you some different scientific inquiries and we wanna know, are you open to it or not open to it? I mean, in other words, I didn't even need to do podcasts. You just need to go to church to church to church saying, hey, can I talk to the people in your congregation and have everyone answer some basic questions? And then I just report back my findings. That's a lot of money the government is spending. Now again, if I put on my conspiratorial hat, I bet you there's already, oh man, Skywatch TV is gonna be all over the, Skywatch TV is something I subscribe to as a podcast, and they're always like, the aliens are coming! It's always every day. But it's religious. So, they always add the religious implications of it. But, I mean, from a conspiratorial standpoint, you're like, they're spending a lot of money. They've already spent over a million. We don't know how much money went into hiring all of these theologians for this study, for something that may never even happen. It seems crazy. I'm not going to do any speculation, but I think it is important. that at least we consider the possible implications, what they would or wouldn't be. Let's see what else they go here. According to the CTI director, Will Storr, S-T-O-R-R-A-R, the 24 theologians hope to see serious scholarship being published in books and journals regarding extraterrestrials and discovering the profound wonder and mystery and implications of finding microbial life on another planet. So now what they're even talking about is what would be the implications if we find some microbial life on another planet, even if it's something very small. Just look, there's a possible one-cell organism that's on another planet. Now, I've always found it. I have to at least stop here. Now, a lot of people disagree with me on this greatly, but that's okay. I've found it. fascinating and absolutely bizarre in many ways that as a society Billions and billions and billions and trillions and trillions of dollars have been constantly spent to fund NASA and to fund space travel and space exploration. I've just found it. We've got a bazillion problems on this planet, but we spend so much money about just, oh, we're going to go, we're going to put a, you know, we're going to put a device on Mars to drive around digging in the sand. So maybe we'll find that. Oh, look, look, look, look, look. There's some kind of life here. There's some kind of life here. Why do we want to spend trillions to figure out that there's maybe some one-cell organism in the sand of Mars when we've got a zillion problems right here on Earth of people that are far more developed than a one-cell organism? Why wouldn't we use that money to better what we have here, to fix infrastructure, to do this, healthcare? I mean, if we can spend trillions for space travel, but if you even dare say, well, let's spend money for healthcare. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's socialism. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's like, well, wait a minute, if we're spending trillions for that, why wouldn't we spend trillions to help the people who are actually here? How about in cancer research? That would be a good thing. Cancer kills so many people. I mean, I could just go on. And so much that money could be spent on, I've just always, look, privately funded space exploration, I'm all for it. If some billionaire wants to go explore space, they should have the freedom to do so if they can pass whatever safety standards are needed. But for the government to spend that much money, I'm just baffled. And it's almost like we've got, This is what I feel that from the world's perspective, we've got to figure out that life is out there because if we can figure out that life is out there, that will explain how life got here. But I'm always like, You're just kicking the can down the road. If you find life there, and you believe that answers how life got here, meaning that life got here by coming from outer space, well, wherever you find that life, then you have to ask the question, how did life get there? Which then you're gonna have to go further into space and try to figure out where life, and then every time you find life, you gotta figure out where it's come from. To me, it's just spending trillions of dollars to somehow prove some evolutionary, materialistic origins to the universe. It just makes no sense to me why we spend all of that money. A lot of people think it's fascinating. All I see is, well, we spend another zillion dollars to send something into space to take pictures so that we can try to figure out the origins of the universe. It just seems weird to me, but okay. So, but what would be, what are the profound implications? If you find, I mean, let's say you just named the planet, they go there, maybe they find a body of water and they dip something in the water and look, look, it's filled with life. Okay, yes, now what does that mean? Oh, see, that's where life came from. Okay, but then how did life get there? You're just, to me, it's just, trying to find an answer to a question that's going to require another answer to another question. In the meantime, life here on Earth is having a bazillion problems. So why wouldn't we put all of our thinking and efforts in doing this? Now, I got no problem if you say, well, if you make the claim life here is not sustainable, so at some point we're going to have to be able to establish life somewhere else. I guess you could go from that perspective, but Yeah, I don't know. Over the years, let's just get back into this. I know I'm just bringing up all kinds of issues now, but that's okay. Over the years, more people have begun to believe in the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Earlier this year, a Pew Research study found that two thirds of Americans believe that aliens exist with more younger Americans holding to that belief. And that's also fascinating to me. Hey, we believe aliens exist. And you're like, what proof? Well, you see this little grainy, Video that's posted on YouTube. That's it. That's it. That's it that and you're like, whoa, you don't need a lot of evidence for your Belief system. What do you believe? I believe in God. Well, that's ridiculous. Okay, it's just kind of it's it's almost like the belief in extraterrestrial life has become a separate religion which would mean if they came in contact with alien beings, they would almost treat it as a religious revelation, which I think could then be used to establish a separate religion, separate and apart, and maybe even to replace Christianity. I know that's a little conspiratorial, but I just think it's almost a faith for some people to believe in extraterrestrial life. I think it's fascinating to look at all the supposed sightings. I've always been fascinated by Roswell. I've been, Project Blue Book, which was an Air Force thing when I was in Airman Leadership School, which I was in one of the schools for the Air Force, and I had to give a speech, and I did my whole speech on Project Blue Book and the Air Force's investigation into UFO sightings. I think it's absolutely fascinating. So I'm fascinated by it. Obviously, I just don't think it's gonna provide the answers that people want, but okay. The connection between religion and belief in intelligent life on other planets has also grown in recent years. One research study from Scientific America noted that belief in religion or aliens stems from the human impulse to seek deeper meaning in life. See, there you go. The reason so much money has been spent is to try to find the meaning of life. The person listening just added this. Recently, really would create an apologetics nightmare, right? Does Genesis 1 include their creation or do they have their own creation account? When it says, and he created the moon and the stars also, is that when he created their home or do they have their own Genesis? Yes, it would, there's no question it would create a lot of questions, a lot of issues. I just, I guess my approach is this. There's enough, and maybe this will, maybe people will agree with this, maybe people will not, and maybe I'm foolish here. I could be foolish. So please, I'm gonna state on the record that I could be wrong about this, but here tends to be my approach as of today, December the 30th, 2021, all right? By January the 2nd, 2022, I may change my perspective, but here's my perspective now. We can spend a lot of time and effort trying to come up with all of the apologetic implications of alien life. for something that could possibly happen, I feel that I'm still struggling to come up with philological answers for things that are already like, what's going on right here, right now, right? There's so many always philological and apologetic issues happening right now in the present. I could try to craft all of the best apologetics that I could for something that is only possible, but I guarantee you that when, let's say alien contact did occur, I think whatever our possibilities we plan for, it will probably be nothing like we planned for and we would have to start over anyway. I'm still trying to figure out how to answer all kinds of philological questions and regards to, well, I say it all the time. If you listen to my sermons on Sunday, Genesis 1-1 to this day still caused me all kinds of problems about God creating a world, knowing everything that was going to happen, but yet still created it anyway. And why didn't he do this? I mean, I could go on and on and on. So there's all kinds of issues that I'm still struggling with based off the world that I'm currently looking at. It's very hard to know how to create an apologetic, but the future, but I do agree that the implications could be just maddening. It would be like, wait a minute. So what do we do here? Cause we'd have to talk to them. So do you believe in a God? And if they start their whole religious system, then we'd be like, well, cause their religious system is different than our religious system. Now do we, again, and I think there would be a feeling for some, well, these people are more advanced than us. And what if, just throwing this out there, what if they can clearly demonstrate that their civilization has been around a million years longer than humans have been existing? Then their religion would be older than our religion, so then would their religion be truer? I mean, that's something that someone could bring up as well. But it is interesting that they note, according to one study, that the reason people are trying to find alien, they need a deeper meaning in life. I will go that they're trying to find the source of life. How did life begin? Because no one still can truly explain how, you know, how can I say this? how matter gave rise to life. And I think there's still lots of questions about that. And well, that's the end of the article. That's the end of the article. They don't go much more into that, but I at least wanted to bring it to your attention that NASA is spending, I guess, government tax money hiring 24 theologians to figure out the implications of contact with aliens. I don't know how much money or the study or the project is going to cost everyone. It seems odd to me to do this. They've done it in the past, trying to figure out the implications here. I think there's lots of speculation. For me personally, I don't even know I think for me personally, my approach would simply be like, I got to hear from them. Okay. What, what, what's your belief system? And then. I would have to just start with that. I would have to hear what is their belief system? What is their religious system? Do they even have a religious system? And if they do, then I would have to think about, then I would have to then address the implications at that time. Now, I've stated it before, sometimes Christians get really mad at me. Look, if it can be demonstrated somehow that Christianity is not true by, let's say, extraterrestrials landing in Times Square in New York City, If they could clearly demonstrate Christianity is not true, I would abandon Christianity in 1.2 seconds because it's about truth. It's not about what's comforting or what's something I've held on to or how much time I've invested in it or if I like it, it's about truth. It's about truth. And if somehow they landed with truth, then I would follow that truth, but I would do so carefully and thoughtfully and just try to consider. Now, some would argue Now, there would be, I guarantee you, there'll be some within Christianity who would immediately say, oh, this is a demonic plot to deceive people, that aliens would actually be some kind of... There would be some kind of manifestation of demons, and they have come to lead people away into a one-world religion. I guarantee you that would show up in many areas of Christianity. They would refer to it as a demonic plot to deceive everyone. And I guarantee you that, I mean, that's already, I've heard that before. I've heard that in a number of Christian podcasts that UFO sightings and these supposed abductions, all of that is demonic activity. That's all demonic activity. That's a very common thing within Christianity. To me, if you found I mean, if you find, you know, some one-cell, you know, microbe somewhere in space, and you say, well, see, life came from here. I don't really understand that logic. To me, if you find life there, okay, well, then the God who created life here created life there. Like, that doesn't cause me any major, like, problems. And for the evolutionists to say, no, see, life came from, let's say you find it on Mars, life came from Mars, well, then how did life end up on Mars? They just, they don't really answer anything either. So I would just say, God's the creator. Wherever life is, God created it. Now, you could say, well, is it recorded in the Bible? Well, I would argue the Bible clearly is a revelation for us, so maybe it doesn't include that. I don't know if there's a good answer there, but that's arguing over just some small form of life. If it's an advanced culture, advanced intelligent extraterrestrial life, that is a civilization and spacecraft and all of these things, that raises all kinds of, then it becomes even a bigger question, well, okay, did God create them? Well, if you're gonna maintain the existence of God, you would have to believe that he created them. Well, why did he record it? When it says he created the heavens and the earth, does that involve them? I mean, you would just have question after question, after question, after question, after question, after question. And I don't know if there would be good answers. It would be a major event theologically. And it will be interesting to see as these theologians work on this, what books they write, what their claims have to be. It also could be that they may spend all of 2022 writing these books and thinking about it for something that's never even going to happen while they're ignoring all of the theological issues that are right here on planet Earth. right now as I'm speaking. So where do you put your focus? At the same time, I mean, I don't know. I don't know how convinced I am. I guess I'll say this. I find it fascinating, all of the discussions about UFOs, UFO sightings. I find that fascinating just from a more, I hate to say this, just from an entertainment perspective. I mean, I spent how many years of my life late at night listening to Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell and then George Norrie. I mean, probably every couple of months, I'll subscribe to Coast to Coast AM so that I can listen to the radio program and then as a podcast. And they're always talking about aliens and alien cultures. I mean, I've been listening to that stuff since the 1990s. It's fascinating. It's entertainment. I'm just not that convinced. that there is anything out there. I'm just not. I believe all of it out there is to prove, is to show that God exists. Everything out there is to show me that there's a creator, that all of that out there is not just there by accident. I'm just not convinced. after all of the research and study and constantly looking and looking and looking and looking and looking and looking and looking and looking, the best evidence we find, it's always circumstantial, it's some grainy, weird looking, like what kind of phone were you taking that video on? It's always just like, I'm just not convinced. So, I guess my feelings are, I don't really believe we're ever going to find anything of significance. So, focus on what we have before us. Alright? Maybe that's just me. I mean, I think it's interesting. To make it very clear, I find it entertaining, and I'm by no means discouraging anyone from reading and looking to it. Now, don't allow it to become basically your god and your own religion. I just... I put it this way, I am more concerned as someone who's spent a good portion of my life studying pandemics, I'm more concerned about the bird flu than I am about aliens. I'm more concerned of what's going on right now with some birds. I think it's in Israel where we got some weird developments going on there because I would hate to see a massive pandemic in 2022 of bird flu that goes from person to person and people start dying, making COVID look like nothing. I'm more worried about that than I am. I'm more worried about what's going on with Russia right now, and are they getting ready to invade another country, and what are we going to do? I'm more worried about the economic possible dangers America is facing in regards to China. I mean, I got all kinds of other issues I am concerned. I'm worried about the state of the church and where we're going. I'm worried about how politically hijacked the church has become. I can't say that when I walk outside at night and I look up going, I wonder when aliens are going to come down. They make for good movies. I'm all for the, I'm all for the good movies. That's awesome. I'm all for the good stories. I just, I just don't know as, as a Bible believer, someone who obviously has studied theology and my degrees are in theology, I just can't say that. I need to put forth my theology to come up with a foolproof apologetic for something I haven't even heard yet. Like, can you develop an apologetic to something we haven't even encountered yet? Like if they show up, I am going to be first to say, hey, let's talk, right? Hey, can I meet with them? I want to hear what they have to say. I want to know all about their supposed religious beliefs. I want to know about their morality, their philosophy, their religion. And then I'm going, then I would have to address it. But I think we could address it at that time. It almost seems like. For some Christians, it's like, okay, if this shows up, we've gotta have a foolproof way to ensure that no one defects from Christianity. And I guess my approach is, no, I'm not here to try to keep someone from, quote unquote, defecting from Christianity. My focus would be, let's pursue truth, wherever truth leads us. And if truth led me away from Christianity, then I would pursue truth. I don't hold onto Christianity out of, some feeling of emotional connection or nostalgia or because my great great well I don't I don't know if anybody in my past was in my family was Christians but whatever the case may be I don't hold on to it for any other reason other than I believe it to be true and if I can be shown it's not true I would abandon Christianity before you would even know what hit you and I know when people I say that people think wow that's that's so messed up no it's not because I want truth I want truth So, I'm gonna check something really quick just to make sure we've got no, I know I didn't really offer any good answers and I apologize that I don't have better answers, but I just, I have a hard time figuring out how do we, all of the questions that our listener asked are great questions. They're amazing questions. I mean, are they creating God's image? Do they have the same sin problem we do? If they do, do they have a savior like we do? Does Genesis 1 include their creation? Or do they have their own creation account? When it says, and he created the moons and the stars also, is that when he created their home? Or do they have their own Genesis? Those are all amazing questions. I just, I wish I don't have an answer. and I think you could get 20 theologians sitting in a room for a year writing books and academic papers and journals and doing podcasts, and it's just gonna be speculation, speculation, speculation, speculation, but it seems to be, it's like we're circling the wagons. We gotta protect the status quo. I don't feel like I need to protect anything. They show up, they give me their account, then we have to address it. When they show up, In the meantime, it's complete speculation, right? I think I'll end with this. The Apostle Paul, I don't have my Bible here in front of me. It's way down here at the end of the table. I believe it's in chapter 15. I think it's 1 Corinthians 15. He speaks of the implications of Jesus not being raised from the dead, that if Jesus is not raised from the dead, basically all of our faith is in vain. So if it can be proven that Jesus did not raise from the dead, if we could prove that the resurrection never occurred, that would be the end of Christianity. The end. It'd be over, be done, be finished, right? If you can prove Jesus, and Paul doesn't say, now Paul says that with great confidence, as if, if it could be shown that our faith would be in vain, but the implication is this, is it could never be shown to be. that it did not happen, so therefore Paul is not saying it with any question like, okay, we may have to give up our Christianity, but the point is, if something like that can be proven, that would disprove Christianity, that would be the end of Christianity. And we have to accept that, right? If they could clearly prove Jesus did not raise from the dead, and here is absolute dogmatic proof, that would be the end of Christianity. So if aliens could show up and prove things like that, dogmatically, well then, Yes, you could say, well, then Christianity is not true, but they would have to be able to show up and prove something like that. Just because they show up with a different religion, that in and of itself would not immediately disprove Christianity, right? There's all kinds of different religions now. It would just be another religious perspective. Where things would get complicated is, well, how long has their civilization been in existence? What if it predates, you know, Abram, predates, wherever we try to date Adam and Eve, it predates all of that. Then what would be the implication? In other words, you could sit here and speculate and speculate, but again, we don't know. When they show up, we don't know. And I can immediately hear some Christians, well, I don't care what they show up and say, because it could be all a lie. Well, I agree, we would have to call into question the veracity of any claim they make, right? They just claim, they just show up and make a claim, we would have to go, well, wait a minute, how are they gonna prove the claim? So, to me, it's just something of science fiction. It just seems so weird that NASA, at the same time, it's weird that NASA would even hire people for this. That does seem weird to me. I don't want to go conspiratorial, but that just seems weird. Hey, we need to hire you guys. We've already spent a million dollars on this kind of thing. Just in case, just in case it happens, we need to make sure we can keep the world from falling into complete and utter panic and that we can maintain some order. It just seems weird that that's the case they would be. But I just know that obviously there are things, that if they were demonstrated, they would destroy Christianity. Like I said, if you could prove that Jesus didn't raise from the dead, you've destroyed Christianity. So, there are certain things that clearly, if you could prove, Christianity then would be proven to be false, and that we have to accept that. Now, just because aliens show up doesn't mean that they've proven any of those things. It just means that we would have to then take into account their claims and then see how to develop an apologetic from there. I don't know how people would react, I don't know. But that's just a fascinating news story to read on a Thursday afternoon at the end of the year. All right, I'll stop right there. I could go into more speculation. We'll see what everyone else has to say. You can email me at newsifatyahoo.com, newsifatyahoo.com. That's newsifatyahoo.com. Again, that story is found at christianheadlines.com. It was published today. A headline, NASA hires 24 theologians to examine implications of contact with aliens. You can look at it for yourself. If you have any thoughts or questions about it, feel free to email me. You kind of already heard my perspective. I just, I just, I'm a skeptic. I just don't believe that. I just don't believe they're out there. I just, I just think people are so convinced of it. And I just think after this long, They, shouldn't they, couldn't they have already just made contact with us? I mean, really? I mean, come on. It just seems, I don't know. It's fun to speculate. I just have, I just have questions. So, or doubts, I should say. All right, email me, newsifatyahoo.com, newsifatyahoo.com. Thanks for listening. I'll be back on the air here shortly. God bless.