The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – God’s Existence: Deeper Thoughts for Greater Insights by Gary R. Lindberg

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

God's Existence: Deeper Thoughts for Greater Insights by Gary R. Lindberg Amazon.com Garyrlindberg.com Does evolution contradict the Bible, or is it another tool God used for Creation? Why was the Old Testament written? What should Genesis tell us about creation? How should we look at certain issues raised in Genesis such as Adam and Eve, missing people, descendants of Adam, and even the Great Flood? We want to evaluate whether or not Moses was real, and whether or not the Exodus really happened. When did the alleged Exodus actually occur? We seek answers to these and other questions to get a better understanding of those events so long ago. The answers may be shocking, surprising, or different than what we were told. A profound book that is "on fire" to discover new truths to age-old questions.About the author Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the author's parents moved just before his seventh birthday to Santa Maria, California. There he grew up and attended grade schools up through high school. The author is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in U. S. History. Then he volunteered to join the Peace Corps for two and a half years during which he taught primary school students and teachers various techniques in a trial school gardens program in the Ivory Coast which is located in West Africa between Liberia and Ghana. He became fluent in French during that time. After his Peace Corps service, he toured Europe and visited primarily Italy, Germany (including East Berlin then under Communist control), France, England, and the Netherlands. Since he was drafted, he volunteered for the Navy in which he served for four years. Next, he went to San Francisco State University where he earned his Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree with a concentration in Management and Personnel. After that he began his 43-year career as a Human Resources professional for a number of major companies including National Gypsum, Celotex, McCormick (spices), Del Monte, Quebecor Printing, and Micro Lithography, Inc. He retired in November, 2019 to pursue personal endeavors.

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What are you missing? Like I learned from every guest we have on the show, new paradigms, new lessons of life, new stories, just amazing. Because I'm sick of mine because I have to hear them all the time, my stories. So I like other people's stories. And that's what's just amazing because you can learn from them. I learned nothing from my stories because I made so many mistakes. I learned a lot. Anyway, whatever that means. Anyway guys, go to Goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, Chris Foss 1, the TikTok, Facebook. Anyway, whatever that means. Anyway guys, go to Goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, Chris Foss 1, the Tik Tok, Facebook.com, Fortress, Chris Foss. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the

podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today we have an amazing young man on the show and we're going to be talking about his journey in his books and all that good stuff. His third book, I believe it is, he is a multi-book author, we love those, was out July 16th, 2024. It is called God's Existence, Deeper Thoughts for Greater Insights. It seems like we should have a soundbite for that. Like deeper thoughts. Anyway, I don't know. But it wasn't funny allowed. So, uh, I got Gary to laugh. Gary R Lindbergh joins us on the show.

We're going to talk to him about his books, his insights, so his experience in life and stories and what makes him great. Uh, he was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The author's parents had just moved there before his seventh birthday to Santa Maria, California. He went from the cold to the warmth. There he grew up and attended grade schools through high school. He's a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in US history. He volunteered to join the Peace Corps for two and a half years, during which he taught primary school students and teachers various techniques in trial school gardens program in

the Ivory Coast, which is located in West Africa between Liberia and Ghana. He became fluent French during that time and after his Peace Corps service, he toured Europe, primarily visited Italy, Germany, including East Berlin under communist control, France, England, and the Netherlands. And since he was drafted, he volunteered for the Navy, which he served four years. He went on to San Francisco State University, got an MBA, and with a concentration on management personnel. He began his 43 career as a human resources professional for a number of major companies. And then he retired in 2019 to pursue his personal endeavors, and he's been

writing books, I think, ever since. Welcome to the show, Gary. How are you? Gary F. Bollinger I'm fine. Thank you, Chris. Thank you for taking time to talk with me today. I appreciate that. Pete Slauson Well, thank you for coming, too. What an honorable career you've had. A lot of people used to join Peace Corps back in the day. That used to be a thing. Gary F. Bollinger Well, I think it's still a thing. It still exists and it's still helping other countries. And so, I was very proud to be part of that and it's one of the greatest highlights of my life. Pete Yeah, and you got some great pictures on your website of your experience there too, as well.

So, give us dot coms. Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? Pete Slauson On the internet, they can find me on my website at garyrlindberg.com. That's garyrlindberg.com. Pete Slauson So, give us a 30,000 overview. What's in this new book? Pete Slauson My book, God's Existence, Deeper Thoughts for Greater Insights, is a book that explores various controversies in the books of Genesis and Exodus in the Old Testament.

I ask questions like, did evolution contradict the Bible? Or was evolution a tool that God used in his creation? Who wrote the Old Testament? Why did they write the Old Testament? What should be our thinking about different ideas or controversies like Adam and Eve, the missing people in the Bible, the long lifespans of Adam's descendants from Adam on to Noah, and even the great flood. And in the book of Exodus, was Moses a real person? Did he really exist? Pete Slauson He did, because it's in the movie.

He was in that movie, right? He's a doctor. David Larkin Yeah, he was very alive and well movie, right? He's a doctor. He was very alive and well there. Right? 1968 movie. I think he looked like Charlson Heston. It was kind of weird, but… Yeah, I noticed that too.

I noticed that too. He did all right. Well, another thing is, did the exodus itself actually happen? And if so, when? So, these are the ideas that I cover in my book. Pete Nice. So, do you break them down? Do you, you flush them out on you challenging those ideas? Dr. C. Yes, I do. And I, you know, I talk about what inspired me to write the book. In my first book, God's Existence, Truth or Fiction, the Answer Revealed, I did talk a little bit about evolution.

In my second book, which is actually the third book I wrote, I wanted to explore the concept of evolution more deeply and more thoroughly. And also, I wanted to discuss some of the controversies that I just talked about. And that's what inspired me to write the book. Pete And so, you were inspired by, what was kind of the proponent to that? Was there like, was there like questions in your mind or did you find that other people had questions and needed answers and you're like, I'm going to break this down? Well, I thought there were questions not only in my mind, but in other people's minds. And that's why I wanted to freely think about these issues, these controversies, and not

just follow what church teaching might be or what Christian doctrine might be I wanted to just let myself loose and Think about what it really meant and how it really should be defined Yeah, so let's get let's tease out a little bit here because we want people to pick up the book What was the why was the Old Testament written? What did you discover? the book. Why was the Old Testament written? What did you discover? Dr. Tom Bickel Well, I discovered that the Old Testament had a lot of different groups or Israelite, I don't know, sects that had different ideas. And I read the book, The Bible on Earth, by Israel Ficklestein and Neil Asher Silberman, and they examined all these different groups and their ideas, and they wrote that the main purpose

of the Old Testament was to unite all the various diverse Israelite groups into one unified people. And they concluded that that is exactly what happened. And I saw no evidence to contradict that, so that's what I think also. Pete So, this just in, the Old Testament's good with you, right? Pete Hehehe. Pete What did you discover about the story of the creation in Genesis? Pete's voice is very funny. Pete's voice is very funny. Well, the story of creation is rather an interesting conundrum, if you will.

The book of Genesis, chapter one, verse one, describes the outline that God followed in the various steps he took in his creation. But I found that there were some mistakes. And for example, the book of Genesis says on day four, God created the sun and the stars. Well, how did that happen? When you look at Genesis itself and chapter one, verse one, Genesis says that God created the heavens and earth. And he said, let there be light. And there was light and it was good. So if there was light to start with, So if there was light to start with, how could they wait till the fourth day for God to create the light?

He already created it. When he created the universe, that happens according to scientists 13.7 billion years ago. Wow. ago. Then he created the solar systems and our Milky Way solar system was created 4.67 billion years ago and the earth was created 4.54 billion years ago. So what did God do and between 13.7 billion years and 4.67 billion years, he created the other solar systems and along with them their planet, their suns. That's part of the process. So when the fourth day was not a day when he created the sun, he had already done that.

That's one thing I found. I also found that there are actually two stories of creation in the book of Genesis. Chapter one, verse one, is one version. It's outlined as I mentioned. And the second version is chapter two, verse four. And that version, it was not a full, complete description of the creation. They had some points that they made in their writing, this happened, and then that happened, and so forth. But fundamentally, if you read chapter 2, it's a description of Adam and Eve and their descendants. And chapter 5 actually lists all the descendants from Adam to Noah, and then carries on about Noah's descendants.

So I found that actually probably the chapter 2 verse four was the first version in the Old Testament that was written. And then the writers realized that that was an incomplete description of creation, because it didn't say anything about creation, basically, a few points here or there. And so they wrote the chapter one verse one version. And so, but they didn't want to get rid of the chapter two verse four, because it added to the outline that was already presented in chapter one verse one. And so it was an expansion of the idea. It's just like if you write a some kind of paper or thesis or something you write about, you make a general point and then you add a more specific point under that

general category and that's kind of what they did with the book of Genesis. And so, they realized that that was a more complete version, but they didn't want to get rid of the chapter two verse four because it added to the original story. Pete Slauson Hmm. What do you feel makes your book different from other books that have, you know, studied the Bible and tried to figure stuff out? Dr. C. C. Well, I think there are several things. One, my book explores the different controversies, or some of the controversies in the books of Genesis and Exodus, in unusual ways, in different ways than people usually expect. And secondly, my book defines basic terms in terms of the way people 6,000 years ago, like in Noah's time,

define the words as opposed to how we interpret the words today. What is the meaning of the word day? What's the meaning of the word year? What is the meaning of the word land? Or what's the meaning of the word land or what's the meaning of the word earth? Those are words that have to be defined according to the way the writers 6,000 years ago wrote it and intended it to be. You're not the way we defined earth. When you talk about God creating the universe in six days, he's not a magician. He didn't create everything, he's not a magician.

He didn't create everything and instantaneously, like a magician does, he created it over billions of years. And so a day has to be interpreted in terms of a day from the perspective of the creator, not from the perspective of the creator, not from the perspective of the created. And so the Bible has to be interpreted in the way God interprets time, not the way we interpret time. And so that another factor is that makes my book different is that I fit the pieces of the puzzle together in ways that are quite surprising and maybe even startling ways.

And also, I want to add one more point that when I discussed evolution, I wanted to examine how God created 13 different human species during the billions of years on the earth that he was creating. And you had your pro-Mangan man, you had your Neanderthals, you had Homo erectus, and all these different, 13 different people, and one by one over time they were eliminated. They became extinct until today. We only have one speed human species, even though we're one in influence or contaminated or or whatever makes the Cro-Magnon and Neanderthals. I see those on Twitter.

Yeah. Neanderthals. I see those on X right now, Twitter. Yeah, there's only one species left and that's us and that's the official name of our species is Homo sapiens sapiens. So that's the why do we have only one left and so those are reasons why I think my book is different than others. Pete Slauson Well, it's an interesting book and, you know, there's questions people have. So, I think it's good to question things and educate and research and study. I mean, the Bible might be the most studied book ever in history, right? Pretty much, I think. Pete Slauson It's pretty well read, I guess. Pete Slauson Yeah. People have been trying to, you know, a lot of these tomes that are around the world

to help people understand things better. What lessons did you learn about the views of some Christians and science? Dr. Cicero When I wrote the books, I didn't fully understand understand why some Christians are so adamant in being against science. When I was going to school, I took a lot of science and mathematics, even up to calculus. And so, I have a strong belief in science. So it didn't make any sense to me that they would be so much against science. But I found out, I realized that the reason why they were so adamant against science is because they felt that science contradicted the Bible, and the Bible contradicted science. So they felt that if they believed in both, they were believing in opposite points of view

at the same time, and that made them what they characterize as double-minded. And that is something they could not tolerate. They couldn't tolerate being double-minded. Well, when I was about 12 or 13, I asked myself a couple of very important questions. First, I asked myself, who created the Bible? My answer to myself was that God created the Bible because He inspired a number of people to write it and to organize it.

Well, then I asked myself a second question. Well, who created science? Well, the answer to that was pretty clear to me. God created science because He created the universe and all that's in it. Well, then it's just- Yeah, He needs science to put everything together, maybe. Sorry to interrupt you.

Yeah, that's right. And so, I reached a sudden realization that if God created the Bible and God created science, they both must say the same thing. So that's why I say that some Christians need not fear science, they need to embrace it because it's the greatest support that they ever have. And they're misunderstanding God and His purpose. Pete Yeah. I mean, it makes sense, all right? Just logically. Because, you know, when you

study science, you understand there's kind of a mathematics, physics, and clearly I'm not a scientist. But you know, there's like a pattern there that's pretty consistent. There's building blocks of the universe, you know dust and space dust and I don't know some gold and you know I I have clearly flunk science. So anyway I'll just make it right here. And so, you know, he had to use science probably not magic probably science to To you know map all this stuff out and build it all right like materials It's kind of like when you play Minecraft, you know use materials to make things Right. Like materials.

It's kind of like when you play Minecraft, you know, use materials to make things. So maybe you build a house. Yeah. It was like a big, it was like a big Sims experiment basically. Uh, yeah. I mean that, that makes sense. And then logically you can finally square, you know, science with the thing. One of the things you talk about in the book is did the generations of Adam and Noah really live about 900 years?

I often remember thinking about that when I was a kid and I was like, really? And that's a lot of years. Like I'm 57. I don't know that I want to live to 900. That's my back hurts already, man. Just think. Yeah. Well, you and me both. I think, no, they did not live 900 years. They lived a normal lifetime, just like we live, 75, 80, maybe, maybe a few got to a hundred. I think that's quite possible. Maybe they were using a different calendar back then. I don't know.

That's it. They were, they didn't have a calendar. Ah, see that. So how did they define, How did they define a year? That's that's why I said I have to define the words My year. What is a year to the Noah if you if you Are those people that lived at that time? Yeah, I know that some people would harvest wheat Several times a year. Does that mean that they counted every harvest as a new year?

What about the fact that people would often say, well, this event occurred in the fifth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar or something like that, the king, the local king. Is that how they define a year? Did they define a year by every time there was a new month? How did they know what time they were counting? So we first have to figure out what was their method of measurement. We don't we don't even address that

issue. Yeah, how can we how can we know what what a year is? They live 900 years. No, that's nonsense and so, you know, it reminds me of you know, some of the writers did some embellishment when they wrote they wrote the Bible and so you have this story about the harvest in the year so, you have this story about the harvest in the year. People, you know, will say that a fisherman goes out and catches a fish. Well, every time he tells a story,

the fish gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Then you, by the time he's finished telling the story, it's so big you can't handle it anymore. Pete Yeah. finished telling the story, it's so big you can't handle it anymore. Pete Yeah. So, that's kind of, maybe, you know, there was some of that that went in the Bible. I know it went through some iterations of whatever. And yeah, all that stuff. Let's see, the other question I had for you, what is your take on the great flood? I wonder if that was just like a local thing, Maybe the, you know, the world was

like, you know, the Bronx or something. David Hickman Exactly. That's what it was. The great flood did occur, but it was a local flood, as you said. That's what it was. Pete Slauson Because, funny, the whole earth is, it takes a lot of work, man. David Hickman Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. In the Bible, it says they covered the whole earth. They did not cover the pyramids of Egypt. We know that from science.

Oh, yeah. Wow. They did not cover North America or South America. They did not cover India or China or Australia or Russia. So it didn't cover the whole earth. Now just imagine, Noah has got to add all the animals of the earth, right? So he travels to North America to get a buffalo and then he goes to Australia to get a kangaroo.

Did he do that? Of course he didn't do that. And so by the time he got to North America, it would have been centuries before he got back. And how was he going to cross the ocean? Is he going to fly? Is he going to swim? I don't think so. So no, the great flood happened, but what does the earth, what was the word, how do you define the word earth in the whole earth in the time of Noah? Well, I submit that it is defined by the amount of land that they were familiar with.

They were familiar with the land in the Mesopotamia Valley. That's what the whole earth was to them. Nothing more, nothing less. And science has already proven that there were local floods at the time of Noah. So that's not even an issue anymore. So some of these people want to criticize the Bible bible they'll say well it didn't cover the whole earth so therefore the whole story is false therefore he didn't even exist and all this and kind of stuff and then all that is uh uh nonsense um uh and did he really get like two of every animal because you know that's one of the other things that they threw it. Yeah.

Uh, you know, I mean, did he get all the microbes and the mosquitoes and you know, yeah, that's right. No, he didn't do that. Oh, and so, no, he didn't do that. Hmm. Then otherwise he would have cut, he would have included both flow and, uh, kangaroos. Hmm.

So that, that, that he didn't, he didn't get to everything. He got two of everything and the local area and he wasn't getting mosquitoes and he wasn't getting even birds. He was getting animals basically. And that was all there was to it. Yeah. Cause the people are like, there's some, I think there's a arc or something in Missouri or someplace, Kansas, where they have dinosaurs on the arc and oh is that right?

Yeah, yeah, and he's like people like he he picked up tyrannosaurus rexes and put him on the He didn't do that. Oh you get eaten, right? Yeah They disappeared before he came Like I remember Jurassic Park, eh? You know, it's a good way to get eaten, whether it's velociraptor. Pete Slauson Exactly. Pete Slauson Let's see, what else do we have on deck for you? A couple more questions. Did Moses actually live? Was he a real person? I think we, didn't we flesh that out earlier with Charlton Heston, the joke about that?

Pete Slauson Yeah, we already settled that question. Charlton Heston, he proved it to us, didn't he? Pete Slauson Yeah, we got right into that. Let me skip to this one, the last question. Did the Exodus actually happen? What was Exodus for those who made a foundation on that data? David Sperling Well, I don't know what kind of foundation I can present, but the Exodus was where Moses led the Israelites

out of Egypt and to the, quote, promised land, which was, and he led them through the Arabian peninsula and supposedly it took 40 years to get to the promised land, and he could have done it in about three days if he had walked straight to it. But the point is that the exodus really did happen, but it wasn't quite the way some of the people want to interpret it to be. And the Pharaoh wasn't Ramesses II, it was a different pharaoh. And when they crossed the, apparently the Red Sea is very deep, and so it probably wasn't the Red Sea, it was probably the Reed Sea and EED instead of that. And the whole concept of the Exodus was that, according to the Bible, there were 600,000 people who Moses led

out of Egypt to the promised land. But that, to me, is another embellishment that the writers did. And we need to remember that the Old Testament was not written at the time that we think it was written. Let me put it this way. It was not written at the time that Noah actually did it. It was written much later. But the point I'm trying to get to is that the Exodus was, the whole concept or the whole concept of the old history of it was communicated orally for not only a few years but for centuries before they discovered the ability to write and before they discovered the ability to print and publish the story, the fact that when you have years and years of people telling other people and

then they tell other people and they tell other people and you go on and on and on for hundreds of years, you get some embellishments and that's what happened. I've already mentioned a couple of embellishments. Not only the ark was an embellishment, supposedly, but the number of people was an embellishment, and it's just like the fish story. And really, you see that the people at that time, maybe it was much smaller than than than 600,000 people because then the Bible says there were six hundred thousand men and An equal number of women and children. Well, there weren't 1.1 million people

Then Loah let out of Egypt. There were maybe 100,000 people total men and women and maybe that's wrong, too. I don't know the precise figure and I don't know that we'll ever know the precise figure. But the six point or the 600,000 is a false number. And it's just an embellishment that the writers wrote at the time. Pete Slauson So, as final thoughts as we go out, tell people about your, tell people about your, where people can find out more about you and everything else and how it works, etc., etc. Gary R. Lindbergh People can learn more about me at my website,

garyrlindbergh.com. That's garyrlindbergh.com. And they can learn more about my Peace Corps experience that where I was a Peace Corps volunteer in the mid 60s that's the early days of the Peace Corps and my history there and some of the events that occurred as I was trying to teach primary school children how to more effectively grow vegetables in a tropical climate and grow vegetables in a tropical climate. And there was obviously some cultural changes that I had to undergo. There were some events. I went to, did some traveling around West Africa,

Timbuktu, in fact, the famous Timbuktu, and around Nigeria at the very beginning of their civil war. I went to East Africa on a chartered plane by Peace Corps volunteers and traveled around the game reserves. Got my car stuck in the middle of nowhere with no water. There were four girls that asked me to be with their group because they wanted a guy who knew about cars. Well, I told them I don't know anything about cars.

So I wasn't the right person for them. And they said, well, you're a guy anyway, so we want you anyway. So I said, well, okay, as long as you understand. So then I go to Serengeti Park and we have a nice visit there and then as we leave, one of the girls wanted to visit the Olduvai Gorge where the leekies had, at that time, 55 years ago, discovered the oldest remains of man. And so we found this little road and we drove off the main road and went up the hills and followed this road that was supposedly leading us

to Olduvai Gorge. And then the car overheated and this smart ass Gary decided to open up the hood of the car and open up the radiator when all the water splattered out. Oh no. And there were stuff if we weren't stuck before we were stuck then and so this I recount the story of how we got out of that mess and so that's kind of interesting. Then the first book was God's Existence Truth and Fiction, the answer revealed, where I offer evidence

that science proves the existence of God. I'm not proving that God exists, I'm saying how science proves the existence of God. For example, when I was in high school, when I was a sophomore, it was time for me to take biology, but I elected to take botany instead. And when I did, I learned a very important lesson. And that lesson was that all plant life,

all plant life is organized in seven categories or levels of organization, starting with kingdom phylum down to the most specific level of species. Well, that was interesting enough, but then later in life, I learned that all animal life is also classified by the same seven levels of categories, a little more complex of an organizational system than for plants, but nevertheless the same basic levels. And then it struck me that if all plant life is organized that highly, and all animal life is also organized that highly, that they both cannot be, that cannot happen by accident.

That cannot happen by random. It must happen by design. Therefore, it must happen by random. It must happen by design. Therefore, it must happen by God. Pete Okay. So, give us your dot coms as we go out. One last time. Gary r Lindbergh dot com. Gary r Lindbergh dot com. And thank you so much for the time you've taken to talk to me. I appreciate it. Pete Thank you! And thanks for coming on. Thanks for tuning in. Order the book, where refined books are sold. God existence deeper thoughts for greater insights out July

16th 2024 by Gary R Lindbergh. Thanks for tuning go to good reads calm for just Chris Foss LinkedIn calm for just Chris Foss Chris Foss one on the tick tock any and all those crazy places They're not be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time And that should have a sound man