MWUTT 34: Can Christians Colonize Spaces Outside of Earth?

Welcome to this week's episode of Men Who Understand the Times. I'm Michael with Phil and Andy. And today we're gonna be talking about something, uh, totally different. Uh, it's way out of my comfort zone. Uh, so our disclaimer is, uh, we're not talking for our churches or church body. We're just... Uh, I don't even know if I'm gonna be talking for myself today 'cause we're gonna be talking about some pretty interesting things. Uh, and so then we've got the actual rocket scientist on the podcast for this one, as we're gonna be talking about the colonization of spaces outside the Earth. And by the way, gentlemen, while I was doing my preparation on this podcast, I was listening to all kinds of soundtracks from space movies and TV shows just to get myself, you know, in the mindset. And that I'm, I'm assuming that this is God's timing for when this drops. We'll probably be close to Monday, May 4th. So May the 4th be with you. It's perfect timing. So Andy, we're gonna s- start with, with you on this one. What's the purpose of exploration, like oceans, you know, um, the American West, the North Pole, Moon, space, et cetera?

The purpose for the token person is to, to grow in knowledge. Science means knowing or knowledge, and of course, so for the token human being who's perhaps without faith, it's to gain understanding about this created world. Now that said, we also know with the natural knowledge of God that an unbeliever can learn a lot about God by the study and the exploration of God's created world. For the believer, it's very different, isn't it? For the believer who trusts that God has made all these things by His all-powerful word, we can certainly gain knowledge like Solomon did through the study of all these things. I mean, Solomon was my idol when it came to botany and understanding plants and all sorts of other things. Botany was easily my worst subject in college science. But, um, but for the believer, we gain not only knowledge, but appreciation for the majesty and the wisdom and the love and the creativity of our God, a, a vastness and a depth and an intricacy we can never fully appreciate, but we can grow in appreciation for the more that we, the more that we explore and discover it.

Yeah, and since I moved out West, then I started reading and listening to books about the West, and, and then other... And that led me to other books on explorers. So I've listened to books on, uh, explorers of the oceans, like Balboa, Magellan, and Columbus, and then explorers and trappers of the West like Jim Baker, James Bridger, and Kit Carson. Uh, and then you learn about how hard life was for them. Uh, read a book on the exploration of Lewis and Clark, uh, as President Jefferson sent them across to figure out where does our nation end, and is there a river that goes west that will, uh, uh, tie everything together. Uh, they were trying to figure out this Louisiana Purchase that they had gotten from Napoleon. They had no idea how big the West really was. Uh, learning about Sir Ernest Shackleton and his, uh, and his trip to the North Pole, and getting stuck there, and where his ship was trapped in the ice and he and a number of his sailors, uh, left everyone else there, uh, went in a little dinghy and escaped in order to come back and free them, and no one died. Uh, you've got the space explorers, you know, for the first Moon landing of Armstrong, Aldrin, and Michael Collins. Uh, and then, you know, James T. Kirk, "To boldly go where no one has gone before." You know, all of those things, uh, I think I would encourage our listeners to learn about these explorers. Th- this is manly stuff. These guys are going, and they are... They're doing hard things, that we as men are created to do hard things and, and explore. So go ahead and talk about exploring, too, as a godly purpose, a godly vocation, Phil.

Yeah, so I think you kinda hit on there is a male drive to explore and conquer, and, and God did tell us to take dominion of the Earth, take care of it, nurture it, grow it. Um, there's a certain freedom, too, in our ability to expand and go places, right? Um, when the ark landed, God just told them to fill the Earth, right? Spread out. Uh, the sin was creating Babel and, you know, unifying in one place. But he didn't say, "You have to go here, and you have to go here, and you have to go here, and here were the extents of your limits." And again, I think, um, you know, in most of the cases of exploration, maybe Shackleton's a little different, but in most cases it was let's explore the land, and let's figure out where we can live and where we can support our wives and children, right? So there's, there is a domestic end to exploration, that is, where can I live? Where can I thrive? Where can my family grow?