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[00:00:00] Celine: Hello and welcome to the, what should I think about podcast I'm Celine and I'm Steven.
Stephen: And
Celine: today is a you topic isn't it?
Stephen: Yeah. I chose today's topic.
Um, there's been a lot of stuff on the news recently. It's been trending on Twitter and that's all about aliens. So I thought that would be quite an interesting subject to talk about. Not that we're going to turn this podcast into a, um, you know, an aliens type podcast.
Celine: No, probably would bounce if you started that.
Stephen: Um, but I think it's a really interesting question to ask. Um, how would religions and groups like Jehovah's witnesses respond if we found that there was life on other planets? Um, so I think that's a, that's a really interesting question. There's not. I don't think it’s been discussed very much. I did a little bit of research and there are some discussions about it, but, [00:01:00] um, it feels like quite a big deal to me for religions.
Uh, they would have to readjust or adjust their thinking quite a bit. So anyway, so that's the subject. So yeah, aliens, uh, life on other planets. What would happen to religious groups? Fundamentalist groups, mainstream religious groups. If we found out that there was life on other planets,
Celine: you have to be questions answered such as like the whole ‘in his image’ thing would be one.
Cause like presumably the aliens all look different unless there’s just a bunch of humans out there. Just all on different places, but yeah. Yeah. Like
Stephen: Star Trek.
Celine: Yeah. Just loads of humanoids,
Stephen: Slightly different um, bone structure on their skulls but other than that, that's pretty much human. Yeah.
Celine: Yeah. But, um, you know, like Vulcans just, humans with like
very good emotional management, but yeah, but [00:02:00] like, Uh, you know, presuming that's not the case now have to be a discussion of the whole in his image thing. And I don't know about other religions, but Christianity makes a big deal out of that
Stephen: . It does. If that, again, that depends on whether you see that literally or whether you interpret that verse literally.
Um, Jehovah's witnesses don't, so Jehovah's witnesses say that it is in his image in respect to their moral capacity, their ability to, yeah, understand. Um, I suppose higher things, spiritual things.
Celine: So they're ready to, they're ready to pioneer in the great beyond. And bring in alien Jehovah's witnesses to be more like him.
Stephen: I mean, that's a really interesting question. Um, before we get there, I can kind of just set it up a little bit so that we kind of understand that the likelihood that there are, or there is [00:03:00] life on other planets. Um, so yeah, just some raw facts. Um, there's estimated to be about a hundred billion stars in our galaxy.
That's the Milky way. So think about that a hundred billion stars in our galaxy alone, and there are billions of galaxies. Um, there are 1 billion trillion stars it's estimated in the observable universe. So 1 billion. I mean, I can't even begin to think of what that number looks like. Um, We've already discovered 4,000 exoplanets.
These are planets that revolve around other suns or the stars. Um, and it seems that a good number of stars will have not just one planet, but multiple planets around them. And then we've not even started talking about moons because even in our solar system, we've found moons that are perhaps better candidates to host life than other [00:04:00] planets.
So think about Europa and, and so on. And so it, yeah, the chances that there is, uh, there are planets out there that are capable of, of hosting life, similar to us, if you like. So, you know, breathing metabolizing, those sorts of things seems to be quite good. Doesn't it? It seems like there is a good, strong possibility that there is life out there.
We might end up finding out about this life through a number of different channels and it's worth just thinking about those because they might, I think that will have, uh, an impact upon the way that religion responds to it. So we could have, you know, aliens landing on the white house lawn, for instance.
So this would be the classic alien encounter first contact or however you want to describe it. So we know that aliens, they settle for that. Yeah. If I, as aliens, oh, identify identifies whatever species they are. And we then [00:05:00] have to try and communicate. I mean, there's whole host of problems that would, uh, that would throw up.
How do you communicate with something that, you know, doesn't even have anything like our architecture. Brain architecture or, you know, linguistic evolution or whatever. So unbelievably difficult if you've ever watched arrival the film, you know, that kind of summarizes it and she makes it look easy, but it would be much more difficult than that.
Um, so that's one way they, they come, they land and we talk to them. Obviously some people think they've already arrived and that's where UFO have come from as well. And the other way might be through observing a planet. One of these exoplanets that have, that has a chemical composition, which suggests there's life on it, that doesn't necessarily mean that life is intelligent, but it would, it would be a big deal if there was life on the planet, even [00:06:00] if it wasn't intelligent.
Uh, and another way might be that they. Communicate to us via radio signals or light signals or something. So we actually do get a message from T um, that we then have to try and work out what it means. So that they're basically the different ways that we might find out that they yeah.
Celine: That we know about
Stephen: anyway.
Exactly. Yeah. These are the ways that we can imagine. I suppose there might be other ways that we can't even imagine. So at that point, you know, there, there has been lots of talk, I think, um, Arthur, C Clark, in fact, in, um, 2001 space Odyssey that there was a reference to this too. I forget the exact words, but like cultural shock.
Which is why they keep it quiet. If they tell the world that they've discovered this thing from an alien civilization, it will create some cultural shock. And nothing's really explained what that means. But [00:07:00] I think the assumption is, you know, that there might be several arrests that might be okay.
Celine: Jerking pool about it. That's what they were like. He's like, why do you actually have a big head and like, look. Ridiculous. And he's like, why do you think you've been seeing that for years? I've been trying to get you ready for it.
Stephen: That's right. Yeah. That's one of the theories that, that, that's why we we've been fed these images in the popular media and so on to get us ready so that when we do actually meet them, we're not, uh, we're not totally a throne.
Yeah. So, um, so that's, uh, I suppose that's where we are, uh, as it stands, um, that the, the evidence is that there are things that appear in the sky lights. Um, and so on that we can't really explain, um, most of the other identified flying objects can be [00:08:00] explained, um, as you know, just sort of. Planets, um, natural phenomenon, um, maybe experimental aircraft, things like that.
Um, so I think a lot of the, the sightings are those things, but. It's that 10%, you know, and I think there's becoming much, a much greater willingness to actually say these are things we don't understand that we don't know what they are. And then at that point then obviously, you know, you can start speculating, but.
That's where we are with those sorts of things. But in terms of whether there's evidence of alien visitation, I think most people, most skeptics, most scientists would say there isn't enough evidence because most of the evidences, and it don't feel, it's just people saying I experienced this thing or that thing on people's phones.
Yeah. And um, often the, the quality is quite poor. It could be something [00:09:00] else. And. Then, of course you get the hoaxes who make things, uh, to look like UFO's. So I think at the moment we don't have the evidence, but it feels to me like there's more a willingness to talk about that 10%, that, that stuff that we don't really understand.
Um, and the, the way that the government or the American government describe it, uh, these days are, they don't really talk about UFO's. They talk about UAP, which is. Unidentified aerial phenomena, um, because that can cover things and not necessarily objects, but other things as well. So unidentified aerial phenomena.
Celine: Yeah. Uh, so why are you interested in the moment? I mean, you're always interested in it, but why did you want to do the podcast on it?
Stephen: Yeah, well, I noticed it was trending on Twitter, so that was the first I kind of. Heard about it. So I followed that through,
Celine: so I just wouldn't even follow it. I'm just so like, it was probably not real.
Is it [00:10:00] like, you know what I mean? Like in the way that you're quite dismissive, I guess, of supernatural stuff. I'm quite dismissive of the, of the alien stuff. I'm like, yes, the aliens are coming, you know,
Stephen: but I, I just find that baffling. Why could you not, why would you not be interested in the idea
Celine: uninterested?
I suppose it's just that I'm like, yeah, sure. Yeah. It's
Stephen: very skeptical. Yeah. But, you know, if you've got a, I've just read out to all those statistics, you know, the chances that there is, there is light for other parts is, is very, very likely. Um, and all that stopping is meeting them. I think he's destined really.
So, you know, that's obviously that is a big problem. We are so far away. It's hard
Celine: to believe though, that, that like they're coming to just. Can we take swear on this podcast, they're coming to mess with us. Imagine what, what I wanted to use. I just find it hard to [00:11:00] imagine that they're just going to like, you know, flashing lights and it's kind of like, whoa, like, oh, maybe they are, maybe they're like, do you want to go mess with the humans?
And they do that.
yeah, maybe that's what they're doing, but I do find it quite late. What they're doing is messing about like, why, for why though, you know?
Stephen: Well, we're trying to behavior that we don't. Hey, we don't actually know what it is and being behavior. If it was alien, we'd be trying to interpret a behavior of a species that has no common thread really with those.
So yeah, it will be very difficult. Um, yeah, I suppose I'm interested in it. As I said, I followed the, um, the Twitter threads and I came across some stuff that's been happening quite recently. There's been, um, some discussion. And there's this report that's going to be given [00:12:00] to, I think it's to Congress it's to one of the, the houses in the, in the states.
Um, so we're kind of waiting on that. I think it's next month we'll get that report or at least we'll see some of that report. Um, I, the last couple of years has been a guy that's sort of appeared. Um, well, for me out, out of nowhere, um, his name is Luis Elizondo and he's told a story. Um, and he does seem very credible.
He seems like. I remember watching the program on the history channel. And I remember saying to Sarah, it's your mum. Um, this is a different sort of guy. So this is not your ancient alien nutcases. You know, this is a different sorts of guy talking about this. Now, whether he's telling the truth at all. I mean, obviously I can't tell, but he, he comes across incredibly credible.
Yeah. If that's the sentences
Celine: that makes us Harrison 10 feet high and going, is it possible and grabbing it? Literally the air. Okay.
[00:13:00] Stephen: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. He's just a very credible sounding person. So either he's incredibly good at sounding credible or he is, you know, the real deal, but he tells a story of the fact that he was working.
I think he was leading the team. Called AATIP advanced aerospace threat identification program in the states. So this is like a, I guess a later version of it. If what some listeners might have heard about project blue book, which was when the, the millet, because, you know, if you've got crafts invading American airspace, many countries Aspace then.
That's a threat, really. They want to know what that is. And if these things are doing maneuvers that are just impossible, then that suggests that this threat is, it could be a human threat. It could be another nation that has technology that develops that we don't know about, [00:14:00] or it could be obviously something else and whatever it is, the military are interested in that clearly.
So that's why I think it is credible that they would be. Our unit looking into this stuff. So he was the leader of this unit. He quit in 2017 because he was unhappy with, um, and not being sort of taken seriously and not being promoted. But before we quit, he got three videos declassified. So if you watch the news at any point about this, you'll have seen some of these, these, uh, the classified.
Um, films and these are films taken from jets. Um, and th that the films a little bit low quality, because they're actually like targeting. Cameras. Um, so they're not like proper, full color, beautiful cameras, but they are showing objects, moving at incredible speed. And you're also hearing the audio of the pilots going what's that?
Why is that? And then they're trying to get a lock on it and then [00:15:00] they get a lock on it and yeah. Then you can, you can see something, I mean, it's, you don't know what it is. You can't really see the shape, but there's something there that is moving at incredible speeds and doing, um, Movements that, that, you know, it just is impossible.
Um, even if, even if they're remote, because that's a human in their only living thing would just be just completely pummeled because of the inertia. But even if it was a remote controlled, it was still this biggest draw. Cause it was just moving almost like ridiculously quick and flicking about. So there's that, there's another couple as well.
And they all. You know that they're all credible people who are reporting this we've got video and so on. There's also a case of too. People there's commander David Fravor and Lieutenant Alex Detroit. Um, and they report seeing what, what they call a white tech tack. So, you know, the little sweet [00:16:00] tic-tacs, it was shaped like that, but about the same size as that fighter, again, doing things that no aircraft can do, it has no means of propulsion that they could say, you know, there was no exhaust blue and there was nothing.
It just literally was flitting around, moving in and out. And, um, Matching easily, whatever they were doing and great. And then it just flicks away just completely bull God. Um, and there's, you know, we can, we can hear now they talk about that. So this has been declassified, so we can actually hear what these people are saying.
And again, they're very credible people, so there is something going on now. I think it could, you know, is it another state, is it showing or is it something like that possible? Um, but. Uh, puts them way ahead of the west. So that in itself is kind of worrying, I guess, for, for the
Celine: military, you don't always know with our own nations, what we actually have undercovers
Stephen: D I mean, there is a, there is a conspiracy theory that, [00:17:00] that suggests that the old what's going on here is actually part of the design of the government to kind of throw people off.
Yeah, exactly. Um, there was a lot of this, I think there's some good evidence that, that happened. Um, during the kind of stealth development. So like, you know, the stealth fighter and the stealth bomber, and there were lots of claims to have seen triangular craft and so on. Um, and. I think it did serve the purpose of, of the United States to let people believe it, where it was aliens.
And there was some misinformation that was actually on purpose and put forward. So we're getting into a little bit, cause per se theory here, but I think there's good. Yeah. That's more likely, well, it could be, you know, it, it could be, but, um, You do get to a point where you're starting to evolve. Lots of lots and lots of people.
Um, and I guess like any conspiracy [00:18:00] theory, you know what, when you start to have a big pool of people that are having to be in, on the, in, on the lie, then it gets, it gets really difficult. No, it does.
Celine: I just think like, obviously a lot of people will have to be involved, but in the grand scheme of how many people.
Or volt in like the government still wouldn't be, it's not like it would have to be all of them. It would just have to be a sub sub group. Yeah.
Stephen: Yeah. You know, it's not like it's not like trying to fake it. The moon landings would take minutes.
Celine: This would take a team of people would net they're involved in.
Yeah,
Stephen: I guess, I guess that's possible. I I'm. I find that. Personally, fairly unlikely, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't write it off. Um, so that's why I'm interested in it at the moment. Um, and it's a bit of a hot topic and I thought, yeah, what would happen? Um, [00:19:00] If it was discovered, and it might not be anything as exciting as that, you know, it may be all this stuff is, is just a lot of froth the nonsense, but it could more likely perhaps be that we find really clear signature signatures of life on another planet.
Somewhere alpha century is the nearest star system to us. We know it has some planets around it. The star, we, we think that one of them is similar to earth. In theory, you know, we could start to find that there's a signature of life. So just by looking at the content of the atmosphere and so on, that will give you a clue, a big clue whether there is life or not.
So maybe it's something like that. But my question really for today is what, what would religions do? How would religions cope with that? And in particular religions, like Jehovah's witnesses who have a very, [00:20:00] a very earth bound theology, really. So that's, I suppose it's taken us quite a bit of time to get there, but it's interesting to understand the background, but, but basically that's, that's the question.
How, how would religions cope with that? So what, what do you think, how, how do you think religions will cope with that? Mm.
Celine: Oh, it's interesting. Isn't it? Because if you think back, yeah, human's history is not as long as we think, as we feel like we've been here forever, but you think back, not that long ago, it was like religious doctrine that the sun revolved around the earth and, you know, cause we were the center of everything.
Um, I mean, like you put a man in, in a, in a, in a tower would lay them out for saying of why. So, um,
Stephen: absolutely. Well, so Copernicus in 1543, um, to demonstrate that the earth revolved around the sun. [00:21:00] Yeah. And, and it wasn't well received. Yeah. The Catholic church were not happy about that. So this is the, I suppose this is the, um, If we have any history that we can go back to say, how's this happened before that's often quoted as one of the way we can understand how people might react.
Celine: Yeah. So the way that obviously they treated, they let the religious Catholics wasn't it, that they locked up Galileo or Christianity, let's say generally the way that Christianity reacted to gallows.
Stephen: Well, it was the Catholics because that was the only game in town,
Celine: right. Said. When he was like, maybe the sun doesn't revolve around us.
Maybe it's the other way round I'll lock him up. I think he was locked up for life for the rest of his life. So I don't let her out. No, we have in that we wasn't even let them out. They just, it was blasphemous, I
Stephen: suppose. Yeah. So it'd be interesting to, I suppose, explore why, why they might might've felt that way.
[00:22:00] Um, does that have relevance to today? So I think it depends on the theology. Of the group. Um, so listening to a few discussions about this, um, before we did this, as part of my research, it seemed that, uh, there's a problem. I think it was, uh, Thomas Paine in 1794. Rotes his age of reason. And, uh, he, he taught about the possibility of multiple worlds.
And he said that if there was a plurality of worlds that would render the Christian system of faith at once, little and ridiculous, and it scatters it in the mind, like feathers in the air. So he felt that it would be completely blown out of the water if we did find life. And the reason for that is that.
If Jesus, or if [00:23:00] God, because obviously most Christians believe in the Trinity. So if God came to earth, as Jesus died for us to save humanity, um, Did he do that for all of the other creatures in the universe, as well
Celine: as
Stephen: they call it. Is he a space hopping God? In other words, you have to go into all these different planets and do the same thing.
Celine: Yeah. There was a joke and they were like, It was someone would be like, oh yeah, Jesus has been coming to us. Like he comes by every, every 10 years. And I was like, well, he's not controlled since then. And they're like, well, what did you do to him? Like we normally bring him chocolates last party. And it was like, oh yeah, we killed him.
Stephen: Yeah. Yeah. So, so yeah, that's kind of the, the, the problem, I guess, for, for some, I mean, from, as somebody who was raised as a Jehovah's witness, [00:24:00] I don't. Understand that problem personally. So the way that, the way that it was explained to us was that the ransom sacrifice Jesus had to come down to earth to be killed, um, to essentially pay the price that.
Was required for the sins of mankind. So when Adam and Eve send in the original sin in the garden of Eden, it was a, it was basically a, an act that was. And act a rebellion against God's authority and they wanted to make up their own mind what was right or wrong. So it was like a rebellion against God's authority.
And the moment they did that, they introduced inherited sin into the world. So when Adam and Eve had children, they would inherit that set. So this concept of inherited [00:25:00] sin means that because Adam and Eve didn't have any children. Before they sinned that all people are sinners, imperfect creatures, and the only way to, and because God can't just.
Ignore his own, his own laws. The only way to atone for that was for somebody to pay the price. The Bible says that the wages that sin pays is death. Therefore, if you said you have to die, because everybody sins, we all have to die, which is why we die, which is why human beings die in the, in the beginning.
God. Didn't intend to human beings to die. We would have lived forever if it wasn't for Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve made that mistake did that sin, which means we all, we're all sinners. Therefore we will die. The only way to live forever again is for Jesus to come down as a perfect man, as somebody who didn't deserve to die to lay down his life.
As I run some, uh, run some sacrifice, essentially, it's a [00:26:00] courtroom drama. It's right. How are we gonna, so God's saying, how am I going to sort this out now I've got this law that says, if you send you on the other hand, you know, it's not everybody's fault. Cause they, they were born into sin. How do I do it?
So the answer was, I'm going to send my son down, have a perfect man. Who absolutely does not deserve to die and he's going to die and take all of the sins upon him. And that was the reason as far as the witness theology, theology is concerned. That was the reason for all the kind of animal sacrifices in the Testament.
These were pointing forward to the idea that, that Jesus was ha would have to die or that a Messiah would have to come and would lay down his life. So it's a kind of legal argument, essentially this idea of, of, um, Of laying down his life. Now, as far as Jehovah's witnesses are concerned, this happened on earth.
So it was Adam and Eve that did the sin. Um, therefore it was on earth [00:27:00] that this, this situation had to be dealt with. If you like. Um, it says nothing about other planets. So this would only be a problem if every single planet God created where he put intelligent life on it. If every single planet had their own kind of version of Adam and Eve who rebelled against God, in which case he would have to do the same thing on every other planet.
But I think that the thinking for Jehovah's witnesses is that, well, there's no reason to believe that that's the case. You know, all the other creatures that got created that they're all perfect. They're all doing the right things. Obviously, apart from that, The demons. Um, but the
Celine: vibe at the, the British heart foundation.
Stephen: Exactly. Um, but yeah, so, so when this is a concern, I think that bit of it, um, so if we found out that there was life on [00:28:00] other planets, even if we found out that it was intelligent life, I think that Jehovah's witnesses could handle that. Because, you know, there's nowhere in the Bible. Does it say that God only created life on earth,
Celine: anywhere in the Bible as well that he did it elsewhere.
And you'd think that he'd mentioned it.
Stephen: It's a very good point. He's quite silent. Yeah. Alien
Celine: aliens. Just like wouldn't you like to know? Who's to say.
Stephen: Yeah. Yeah, that's true. But I mean, there's all sorts of excuses
Celine: with the witnesses. I F I, I believe that they'll always make it fit. Do you know what I mean?
Like, whatever happens, if the, if aliens are discovered, there'll be like, well, obviously, and they'd say, well, you never said they didn't.
Stephen: Yeah. As I said, I don't think it would be a massive problem. W what would be a problem is if, is if they [00:29:00] visited and we were able to communicate, and they were to say something like.
Well, Jehovah what Jehovah. So if they were to demonstrate that they had no knowledge of this, God that we think is the creator of the universe. Um, and if, I mean, who knows whether aliens or extraterrestrials have what we might describe as religion, but if they did. I had a completely different religious setup, you know, which is most likely if they do have some form of religious belief, I've I believe if they are advanced, they are unlikely to have any religious belief.
That's just my, my personal view. Yeah. So either that, or they had their own, you know, that would be a problem then for Jehovah's witnesses, because how does that fit in at which point? I think there's only one answer. The Jehovah's witnesses would give. Hm. What's that answer
[00:30:00] Celine: pioneering, any of the aliens that teach them about God, I was like, oh, don't worry. We can help
Stephen: you. No, I don't think, I don't think it would be that because no, but no, I think they think it was demons. They, they would, they would decide that these beings are just another manifestation of Satan and his demons.
It's another way. I said, be
Celine: racist
Stephen: for, for Satan to fool us after all he is, uh, you know, he's a liar and he's, he, he was able to, um, pretend to be the original serpent in the garden of Eden. So I think they would very easily interpret that. Um, so I, I did have a look at the way that the Watchtower library to see what, what the current thinking is on that.
And w the most surprising thing was they haven't even spoken about it since around 1990. That's [00:31:00] a long time ago. So that's, you know, that's years ago. Exactly. Um, And so I was still going at that point. And I do remember some of these articles cause I was interested in the, in the subject. Um, and basically the 1990 awake references, the Condon report, which is, um, the Condon report, um, physicist, uh, called condom.
Um, Hm. Did this report, I think you follow in project blue book. And basically they came to the conclusion that there was nothing to worry about. Nothing to see here. The witnesses
Celine: did. They were like though the report. Oh right. I see what you're saying. The week was like no food to see it. Don't worry about
Stephen: it.
Goodbye narrative. Yeah. Nothing to worry about. So, uh, mainly skeptical stands if I'm honest, a pretty sensible, skeptical stance. You know, most of these things are, um, physical phenomena. Natural phenomenon. Um, there might be some [00:32:00] advanced technology and so on. Um, but then of course they start to go down little crazy town, um, suggests that some of it might be demonic influence in some cases.
So a lot of, a lot of the phenomena is kind of related to what you might see with ghosts and poltergeists and so on. If you've ever watched close encounters, you'll remember that a lot of that is. Kind of fairly spooky. Um, and what I found absolutely brilliant was at the end that it kind of ends with, well, you know, God's people essentially shouldn't be wasting their time worrying about these sorts of things.
Get on preaching. That's the most important work do that. Um, and the insight book is your, the book that talks about it. And it says the Bible does not reveal whether God created life on any of the planets in the universe. However, astronomists today have not found proof that life exists on any of these politics, which is technically true.
But at the time of this writing, we didn't even [00:33:00] know there were other planets. And in fact, No of no planet besides the earth that is at present, capable of supporting the life of fleshly creatures. Again, because we hadn't explored or found the technology yet to identify exoplanets. It's not surprising that we hadn't found any evidence, you know?
And so our lack of. Evidence really just shows ignorance. Not that there wasn't any evidence at all. Um, so yeah, so they they've taken kind of a fairly skeptical stance, but I I'd be interested to see what would happen if we did. So, so my, my prediction, if, and when we do find life and especially if it's intelligent life, I think so long as.
It doesn't interfere with that theology that I explained earlier. Um, Then they'll be okay with it. If you're like, I don't think it will damage anything or, I [00:34:00] mean, some people might get worried about it. I think as soon as the aliens demonstrate a lack of knowledge about Jehovah or actively say, well, you know, this is just the primitive religion, or we don't.
We don't have such things. I don't think at that moment they will become demons and a part of Satan's plan. Um, and I would suggest that that's probably where some evangelicals might go as well. Other groups, fundamentalists and so on.
Celine: Do you think that'll have an impact on the people that believe generally though?
No. No, no. I mean, so. Yeah. That's what like the governing body might say, but like, you know, just going that, that's a very obvious trick. Do you know what I mean? So do you not think that I love impact on the general populace of believers? Um,
Stephen: I think some might be worried about it. I know if I [00:35:00] was still a witness, it would eat would definitely play on my mind.
I'd be wanting to know. Um, watching, uh, there was a little, I'll put this, um, link onto the show notes, but there was a, quite an interesting discussion with some experts in various different fields, linguistic, um, studies. Um, there was a guy there who studies dolphins to try and understand dolphin language.
Dolphin studies
Celine: are wild, though. If you've seen some of the stuff they do, it is wild. What'd your mate. Did you not hear about that study? Where the woman like lived in the house? That was
Stephen: wild?
Celine: No. No. If you want to have a laugh, then go find that study. The woman that lived in a house with a dolphin, like they would like taking LSD with the dove and it went really well.
Like they flooded the house a bit, so that
but that's not
Stephen: what was going on here then now that wasn't this guy who [00:36:00] was a very sensible, um, he's doing proper science prophesies. Um, what, what they do is quite interesting because they they're seeing dolphins as. You know, uh, kind of like an alien, obviously they're not alien. They, they belong to the earth, but, um, they're very different.
They're so different. Yeah, exactly. And if we can't communicate with a dolphin who actually is still a mumble, you know, we are pretty closely related in many respects. If we can't understand dolphins, if we can't communicate with them. And then what challenges have we got within a real alien? I mean, the other one is Octa octopuses.
You know, they are even more crazy as range and there's a lot, there's a bigger gap between us and, and then biologically, but, but yeah, it was, it was very interesting listening to him. They, one of the things that dolphins love to do is they love to, to swim the bow. Bulge in front of a chef, as we know, and they've done that for thousands of years because we've got art and so on going back, [00:37:00] which shows dolphins doing that.
And they just love doing that. So they're using that as a kind of controlled. Um, experiment to see what they say to each other, if you like with their clicks and their whistles as well, while they're doing those things. So, um, it's quite a clever way of, of trying to understand what's what's happening, but you know, his point was, we still don't really, we didn't know
Celine: a lot of what way was it doing?
It's they're like making, cause we, you can hear them. Can't you? They put my friends in the water, but no one has any idea what they're on about.
Stephen: This, I mean, you know, it could, it could be music essentially, or it could just be like bird song is, it's not like con it's complex, but it's not, um, you know, what are we going to have to tonight?
You know? Exactly. Um, but yeah, we can't really have some dolphins and we certainly don't on Sonata policies. Um, so the chances of was [00:38:00] communicating effectively with aliens, I think are pretty slim.
Celine: You say that dolphins belonged to the Alphamine. If were to go by know an important book on the subject, the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy who's to say they might just be, they might be leaving.
And also we might be confusing a series of, um,
Stephen: clicks and whistles
Celine: for actually telling us to get out of it.
Stephen: Exactly. Um, yeah. I mean, if you want to really let your mind, uh, Golf for one, that's a great course. A great book. Um, yeah. So my point was that if we did actually communicate or did sort of find aliens with there, I think the saving grace for Jehovah's witnesses under the fundamentalist groups like them, is that the chances of them actually saying anything, intelligible or communicating anything that we could understand and vice versa.
Hmm. Um, uh, quite slim. [00:39:00] So we might. Recognize that we have intelligent life in the universe, but they're unlikely to say, Hey, you know that thing that you do call religion. It kind of, we stopped doing that 50,000 years ago. I just think that's unlikely because there'll be a long time for us to work out what the saying.
Maybe
Celine: I've got a universal translator, like all good Saifai.
Stephen: Yeah, exactly. I mean, there is the possibility that we are coming at this as human beings and thinking how difficult it would be, but yeah, it's possible that they may have learned our language and, uh, and have a way of communicating if they wish
Celine: to loads of media that they could use to just input into programming if you wanted to.
Stephen: Yeah. He imagined learning about us from television shows and.
Celine: You think TV is bad. We should try to tick tock, tick tock, just like seven, second clips. Just,
Stephen: yeah, there's a, there's a, [00:40:00] there's a book in there somewhere. Yeah. So I think, um, I, I think it's probably unlikely to be the, um, the death knell for groups like Jehovah's witnesses, unless as I say, unless it really does, um, Unless they really do say this is actually the truth.
You, the stuff you've been believing isn't isn't it correct. So you don't think
Celine: there was an attempt
Stephen: to pioneer? No, I don't think so. The idea of converting is quite interesting. Um, I think I've mentioned this book before, but there's a book called the Sparrow by a writer called Mary Doria Russell. I think her name is, and it's quite an old book now, but I read it, um, I don't know, 15 years ago or so.
And, uh, the story is about a group of Jesuit priests who, um, life is found. We, we find, uh, that there is life on another planet. Somehow can't remember how, but this group of Jesuit priests basically go out [00:41:00] to this planet to try and convert them. So that's, that is something that they think is, this is now, now their mission is, as God is.
Right.
Celine: That's where I was saying about it, because I would imagine they would, because they think that that's the most important thing in the world to do.
Stephen: But how would that make sense? Unless, as I say, unless the only reason the witnesses do the preaching work is to convert people, to worship Jehovah back to the state.
They believe that we should have been in the first place. Well, how would that work on other planets? If, if, if there's nonbelievers on those other planets, that means that that their planet has gone through the same problem that hour's house. Doesn't it. That means that, that the theology that, as I say, they've had their own Adam and Eve on whatever the planet it was.
Well, I think that would be, that would be really [00:42:00] weird. So that means that God creates all the different planets with life on them, giving the creatures free. Well, knowing that they will sin, which is going to require. Not just sending down himself, if they believe the Trinity or his son, if they don't or another perfect being in the likeness of that, of that species, but that millions, billions of people or creatures are going to go through misery and die, just so that, you know, eventually this perfect sacrifice will happen.
That makes no sense, but I would put it
Celine: past that. Not put it fascinate. That's what they come to the conclusion of. I would,
Stephen: I would, yeah. I would really struggle with, well, like,
Celine: oh, that's really hard. Why would they believe that? Why do they believe any of that? Why do they believe that it was a flood that did the whole world,
[00:43:00] Stephen: because the Bible says.
So, this is what they always keep coming back to. It's what the Bible says, but the Bible doesn't say anything about aliens. So if, if they have, if they're going to make sense of aliens or extraterrestrials, then they're gonna have to make that up. They're going to have to come up with a it's
Celine: just like copy and paste.
Isn't it. It's just like, well, obviously he wouldn't have just done. The suffering to us, you know, we've all got to go through this process and learn. It's just saying, God God's raffle. He does awful things. He kills people all the time. He sends people to start over, but that's
Stephen: worse, worse than that because that's not only, um, it's not just punishing people for what they've done.
It's creating them in the first place, knowing that that's, what's going to happen. Because it happens on all the platelets. So the I create life.
Celine: Yeah. If God is real, that's what I believe. God is like Bruce almighty. God is a mean kid with a magnifying glass, you know? Wait, [00:44:00] I mean, that
Stephen: was say a piece of pizza.
I don't know. Write a Saifai
Celine: about it.
Stephen: Yeah. What I've called us
Celine: to come together. All of us, including us. Right. We all come to him. We find we're like, we go up to God and we're like, why, why are you
Stephen: so off? Was the muscle with you? Yeah, I mean, um, uh, um, Hitchins talks about this quite eloquently, you know, what the, the mistakes that God made, so quiet, unbelievable, really, you know, um, he creates a perfect couple.
Make sure that they have free will it doesn't actually foretell that they're going to sin against him. So that's the other thing that Jehovah's witnesses believe anyways, that God has the ability to foretell the future, but he doesn't always use it. Um, because there's a problem. As soon as you start using it, then of course, you're, you're throwing into doubt.
The idea of free. Are [00:45:00] you. As soon as God is able to look into the future and go, uh, you know, that Adam of just crazy, he's going to sin then essentially that's predetermined. You've you've actually decided that in the first place. Exactly. Yeah, you could. But then, um, Why would you do it in the first place?
Why would you decide to create man in the first place? Um, there's a, quite an interesting video about this. That's recently come out, um, from one of the YouTube, um, activists called alt worldly thing. And, uh, he talks about predestination. It's quite an interesting one. Should, if you're interested in this subject, you should have a read.
Yeah, it is. He does highlight the fact that it is logically. Um, fallacious. It's a, it's it kind of is illogical. If you actually start asking
Celine: the questions, does he make the tree of knowledge if he doesn't want them to go near it?
Stephen: Exactly. What, why does he well,
Celine: not made a tree. He could have not made [00:46:00] a tree of literal all knowledge.
Stephen: Well, the reason, the reason that I was, it was explained to me was that, um, It was just a test, a small test. God had given Adam and Eve everything that they needed. And he says all the fruits, you know, all the, all the, um, Mondays, any animal. So it's all the fruits and the vegetables and all that good stuff.
Um, you can eat of any of the trees of the garden. Anything like, except this one tree, this is one that you're not allowed to eat from. So it's essentially, God's saying, um, I want to ensure that you understand that I'm the boss, you need to be obedient. And I need you to demonstrate that you are obedient so you can eat anything else.
Just this one tree you're not allowed to eat from. So there's nothing. Why does he,
Celine: why does God have to have all of this power? Like literally all power in the universe, but like, basically he's really, but her, because they [00:47:00] didn't do, as they were told to, do you know what I mean? Like, why does he
Stephen: care? Well, this is, um, the, the witnesses see this as a, as an example of God's sovereignty.
So God has to maintain his sovereignty. So he is the one that makes the rules. He's the one that decides right and wrong. And with Adam and Eve doing this, they essentially said we. Don't accept your sovereignty. We want to make our own mind up what's right or wrong. And in the Genesis account, actually, you see, when they do eat of the fruit Bible, actually just say that their eyes became opened.
And they realized that they could make their own mind up about things. Obviously I'm paraphrasing now and they notice that they're naked at this point, they decide, oh, we need to wear clothes, which is kind of one of the earliest, um, personal decisions that they make often to that point. And there hadn't even noticed that wasn't a problem.
So I think, I think the Bible is quite an [00:48:00] interesting example of trying to work out. They think or free, well, and the, the, the problems that gets us into, but also the, the wonderfulness of being able to make your own mind up about things and the Bible paints it, or at least religions, certainly Jehovah's witnesses painted the other one.
He did a terrible thing here and that the devil. Trick them into doing something that was bad for them, but essentially what they're doing, if you think about it as an episode of star Trek, all they were doing was, was saying, I want to be able to make my own decision about whether I take this fruit or that fruit.
And so it was an act of rebellion, but you know, what would, is it acceptable for a creative God, if you like to. Make rules, arbitrary rules that say, well, why can't I this root? Cause I said, so. [00:49:00] Yeah. And if you eat from that fruit, you are essentially saying to me that everything else that I've told you, you're going to ignore as well.
I just think that's the sort of thing that I wouldn't have done to you as a child. Yeah. Um, and it seems. It seems quite small, a small thing to do. Um, but that's that, that's the theology that Jehovah's witnesses have. And I think they're not alone on that. That's something that the others, the others have as well.
Celine: Yeah. Well that's lot. It's, um, you know, We talked about it in the interview recently, didn't we with the whole, like why the women often, like, you know, where's all this patriarchal, you know, sad come prominent, swell. She goes and eats the fruit first. Doesn't she? She temps Adam she's tempted and then he's tempted by
Stephen: her.
Yes, that's right. She's deceived. So I didn't wasn't deceived Eve was deceived. Adam kind of went in into sin with his eyes open. He did it [00:50:00] because he wanted, well, he was, he was, um, Seduce, as you say, by, by his wife, essentially, he loved her more than he loves God, which is again, the problem, thus again. So you're back to this idea that everything has to be about God's sovereignty and that's what Jehovah's witnesses really believe.
So going back to our alien situation, anything that would interfere with that I think would create a problem. So I think it would have to come down to if these aliens or if these creatures demonstrated any. Um, anything contrary to what Jehovah's witnesses would have believed, which was that if God did create life on other planets, it would be perfect on those planets and they would all be worshiping God, just like it's supposed to be in the new water.
Well, anything contrary to that would suggest that they were demons. They were like the original syrup and they were like, Satan. In fact, they were a manifestation [00:51:00] of that. So I think Jehovah says wouldn't be the only ones. So that could be quite militant action. A reaction, cause not all groups are kind of fatty peaceful, like Jehovah's witnesses.
Some of them might, um, Do all sorts of things, I suppose, just kind of finishing off, um, the stuff that we've talked about recently with cognitive dissonance and, um, the earlier podcast we did with the paper by JF Zygmunt, uh, I think the evidence says that religions like Jehovah's witnesses will. Do quite a lot of work to reduce that dissonance.
So just like, you know, um, again, it's coming in 1914 or it's not happened a while. It kind of did, but it was invisible and this sort of stuff, these sorts of antiques, I think. [00:52:00] That would be the first thing that would happen. Then I think there might be more problems, as I say, if these aliens demonstrated that they weren't under God's control, they weren't worshipers of Jehovah.
At that point, they become Satan. I think I see.
Celine: I'll
Stephen: have to wait and see. Yeah. So I'm, I'm fascinated by what's going to be announced out this, um, or this report. I don't expect it to be anything, uh, shaking.
Celine: I don't think they would just do a very casual report being like loads as aliens. Don't worry about it though, you know?
Stephen: Yeah.
Celine: Maybe they try and do it really casual so that no one took it too to, you know, too far, like just,
Stephen: there is a theory that, that work, as you said, sort of alluded to that, that things are being gradually. Drip drip, drip, so that when it does happen, it's not the structuring thing that it would have been.
Celine: If, if that's what's going on. I can't imagine. They'd tell us that during the pandemic though.
[00:53:00] Stephen: Well, I'll tell you.
Celine: I don't know. I think because everyone's so fatigued, I'll just tell her about the aliens. Yeah, yeah,
Stephen: yeah, yeah. That's right. I think it's like, yeah. Well, the good there's some good news and bad news folks.
Good news is we're getting a handle on the pandemic. Vaccines are working, you know, brilliant. Uh, and let's go down is, uh, alleyway next thing. Yeah. So I will say, right. Okay. Well I think that's, um, that's it, isn't it. We done it is. So this is about aliens, not ancient aliens. Obviously, if you're interested in the whole ancient alien thing, which is
Celine: of course nonsense, dad went to a convention just to fall winter.
Stephen: So it wasn't really a convention. It was more a. Kind of meeting contention. Um, anyway, if you're interested in that subject, then. Yeah, check out one of our [00:54:00] earliest, um, podcasts. It must be like two or three, I think.
Celine: Yeah. It's very easy on that. Enjoyed that a lot.
Stephen: I love that episode. It makes me laugh even now when I listen to,
Celine: I like the, I like the episode where I, where we talk about old, but now problematic.
Stephen: Yeah. That's another old one. Isn't it? Um, so yeah, keep listening guys. And uh, don't forget to like, and subscribe. Right.
Celine: The iTunes give us a review. It really does a lot for us. When you do the reviews, you can just do the stars, um, five, but we like reading the reviews. It makes her
Stephen: happy. That's right. I don't quite understand how reviews work in with apple because I understand that we might not see reviews from other countries.
So if you're writing a review from the states or Austria or something, and we've not said, thank you. Not mentioned it. It's probably because we can't see it. So, um, so there's nothing we can do about that as far as I understand that. But, um, thank you. If you are writing reviews, [00:55:00] it does mean a lot to us. Um, we've had some really great, uh, interviews recently, so check those out.
Um, as we're recording this on Sunday morning, the 23rd, um, the Lloyd Evans interview comes out. So hopefully your you've listened to that. If you've not, then that's a really interesting interview. He was very generous with his time and I'm very open with it. So, yeah. Please check it out. Thank you. Thanks again.
See you next time. Uh, what should I think about BARR?
Celine: What should I think about is an Evil Seep production. [00:56:00] .
