The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program | Guests: Butch Wilmore & Hugh Ross | 4/1/26

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

Astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore, who was stranded in space for over nine months, joins to discuss how his faith carried him through the terrifying situation. Glenn lays out the qualities of a wartime president while discussing President Trump. Astrophysicist Hugh Ross joins to discuss the importance of space travel. Glenn and Hugh also discuss the story of Noah's ark. Is Noah's ark a story of God's wrath or God's mercy? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we talked about two things. We talked about what the president is going to talk about tonight, the war in Iran, all of the scary possibilities and also some really positive things. It could be very, very good tonight. And that kind of led into a conversation about how Trump is a wartime president, and he is facing a peacetime public. And that doesn't usually work out well. But let's see what happens tonight. Also, Artemis II. Artemis 2, if you're an insider, watch for all of the backstage things, because I'm going to be streaming a lot today for the insiders, because I'm going to be right there at the launch.

We're going to leave in just a couple of minutes, and then we're going to be at the launch, no matter what time it takes off. And we talk about that, what it really, truly means, and we have a guy who is trapped in space for a year. Remember when Biden wouldn't send up anybody to go get him? What was he thinking when he thought I'm not going to be able to dock or return? Which Wilmore joins us on today's podcast. Let me tell you about our sponsor. It's the Burn a Launcher. Let's say you accidentally find yourself caught in the middle of a no-kings protest.

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Try before you buy it, a sportsman's warehouse located near you. It's burna.com slash Glenn. Hello, America. You know we've been fighting every single day. We push back against the lies, the censorship, the nonsense of the mainstream. media that they're trying to feed you. We work tirelessly to bring you the unfiltered truth because you deserve it. But to keep this fight going, we need you. Right now, would you take a moment and rate and review the Glenn Beck podcast? Give us five stars and lead a comment because every single

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You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program. Don't bang, bang, bang, bang. Swalwell, don't want the files to drop. No, Sarah, no, stop, stop. That needs, that is, that deserves a world premiere setup. That is an Eric Swalwell, don't bang, bang, bang, Fang Fang song and it's inappropriate at this moment. We have more important things to do.

We'll do that in a second. Also, in about 30 minutes, I'm going to give you some, an update on what the president is doing today. Today is an extraordinarily historic day. First time a president has ever sat in the Supreme Court to listen to an argument. Then Artemis, then at 9 p.m., he's giving what could, be a ground-shattering speech from the Oval Office. He is giving an address already three prime ministers, or actually two prime ministers

and the head of the EU have already prepared their people in pretty disturbing speeches. We'll find out tonight at 9 o'clock. It must be really important for the president to speak maybe within an hour, up to three hours after Artemis launches. He's completely destroying the great PR, if you will, or just the hope that Artemis could give. He's going to follow that. You'll have about two hours to enjoy that light, and then something big is being announced tonight. We'll see. I wanted to, you know, because it is Easter week, and I just think there are so many things that are happening that are good. And we have to have faith to get through all of this. I wanted to get Butch Wilmore on. He is a retired NASA astronaut.

He was a Navy captain. He has written a book called Stuck in Space. Do you remember when Boeing sent up, what was it, their starliner? And I remember as he was sitting on the pad and I'm getting ready to watch this thing launch, I'm like, this is the worst thing. I would not get into a Boeing starliner. Because remember, it was all the problems that they were having. And I'm like, Boeing, you are so screwed. this thing goes up and it can't get back, God forbid. And they were stuck in space forever. And I think it was finally Elon Musk that went up and said, I'll go get him. That must have been terrifying.

Butch is the guy who was the pilot at that time. If he wasn't, was he the pilot or the captain, the commander? I'm not sure. But he was stuck up there. and it's his faith that got him through that. And Butch is on with us now. Butch, were you the pilot, the commander? What position were you in?

I'm sorry. Yeah, Glenn, no problem. It's a blessing to be with you. Thank you for having me on. I was the commander. I was in the left seat. Yeah, I was the one on the controls. Yeah, that was my role.

And when that thing happened, how bad was it? I mean, now we can talk about it because everybody was like, oh, no, it's not so bad. And I'm thinking, no. I think that's really bad. What was going through your head when you start going wrong? Yeah, in the moment, it was pretty serious. I mean, we lost the ability to fully control the spacecraft in all six degrees of freedom.

One degree of freedom, we lost completely. The other axes, the attitude and the translation were compromised and were very, very challenging. This was before we're docking. We're out in front of the space station. And what was going through my mind? There was three things. we have to dock. We did not have very many options.

At the time, not knowing why we're losing these thrusters, we ultimately lost five of our eight af firing thrusters. And during that process, not knowing why they're dropping, we have to dock if we don't dock because of the control was very challenging because I was manual control. I knew it would be very difficult to control the spacecraft and get it to a position where we could do a deorror. it burned and we turn to Earth. So that's why the thought was we have to dock. If we don't dock,

I'm not sure what our options are. And the third thing I thought, this is a sick spacecraft. If we are able to dock successfully, if we're able to get there, I don't think we'll be able to come back on this spacecraft. Even then, I knew that. Because I understand what all goes into trying to bound a problem like this and understand it to where you would crawl back in and attempt to come back to Earth. I know how difficult that would be, even in the moments of before docking, So I knew that if we got docked, the chances were slim that we would return on Starliner, even in those moments. Where is Starliner now? Starliner, it did come back. It did have some problems. We should not have been on it.

There are many others that would say it was fine, but it was, and we lost a pitch thruster. So we would have been coming back into the atmosphere had we been on it, zero fault tolerance to maintaining our control of pitch control. So we shouldn't have been on it. And I'm glad we weren't. Right. But it did make it back. That one pitch thruster that remained, it did successfully. It did operate successfully, so it made it back. And now they're refurbishing, going through the whole process of making sure that the thrusters are pristine, are workable, and trying to get back.

It'll be a cargo spacecraft initially if and when it does fly again, and then we'll see if they ever put people on it again. So, you know, the reason why they put people like you test pilots and people with vast experience up in a space and not people like me is because I would have been screaming, we're all going to die. Was there a moment at all that you thought we're not coming home? Well, you mentioned it at the very beginning there, Glenn. You said the faith. I, Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. I have eternal hope. There's nothing that can can outdo or overshadow that. in all situations, that brings comfort and contentment, regardless if you are facing death. And did death go through my mind? Absolutely. It did, because the control was so difficult, and the fact that not knowing if we could eventually get back, I did not get back, but get a dock to station, not understanding that in the moment, surely that went through my mind.

But even in that, I mean, my sins are forgiven. Jesus Christ paid the price for my sins on the cross. He incurred the wrath of God for my sins on the cross. And therefore, I mean, I believe that. And he has transformed me. He has forgiven me. Because of that, I have eternal hope in any situation. Fear? Yeah, was there fear? I would say there's fear, but you've got to be able to manage that in these high-stress situations because fear is very detrimental. You've got to be able to focus because you have to perform. And fear can be a detriment to that. did everybody i mean i don't want to get into personal stuff or you know everybody else but did everybody have that same kind of faith did you minister to anybody uh we we had some discussions about that

after we got dr space station yes but everybody's at a different place um the lord has prepared me for that moment over decades and that's what really you know glinda the book second space that you mentioned i didn't i didn't publish the book to sell the book i published the book because of the message. The message is hope in the now comes in Jesus Christ, our Lord, and hope and eternity comes in Jesus Christ, our Lord. And you can handle situations in the now because Christ has forgiven you of your sins. And it's also a big huge part about preparation, preparation, preparation. And that's what the message of the book is. You'll see life is tough. And I said it many times, life is tough, and you've got to want it. Those are two themes in the book. And that is the message. That's why I

public what does that mean what does that mean you've got to want it whatever it is endeavor that you're endeavoring to do you've got to you've got to want it it it takes commitment complete commitment i'm glad you ask that question you got to be all in committed and that commitment breeds preparation because the preparation has to be there because in many of our life endeavors we have a great responsibility when you're sitting in the commander seat on the sixth first launch of a human rated spacecraft in the history of nassah this was only the six you know mercury Gemini, Apollo, Space Shuttle, Dragon, and then us, there's a great deal of responsibility. And the preparation was immense. I mean, I would go into the simulator with our rendezvous officer

on Saturday mornings at 6 o'clock, just the two of us. The only ones in the whole place, all of NASA going in there and getting ready and running scenarios and doing different. We didn't imagine a scenario like this, but the preparation had to be there because the responsibility is so great. And those type of life endeavors require that. And that's, again, that's, That's the message of the book. It's in the book. The guys getting in, I've thought about them. I mean, they're going farther into space than man has ever gone before.

They're going to be closer to the moon without landing on it than we've ever been before. And I think about all of the things that could go wrong. What advice would you give? I mean, they don't need it. They've been up over and over and over again. But it must be, I mean, when you're strong. wrapped into that seat and you've got all of that explosive power underneath you. And I always think of it, God forbid, I always think of it at go with throttle up.

What advice do you give to people going into space? What should we be thinking or praying for? Yeah, well, that's a great question. These individuals are professionals. I mean, I know them all well. I did a spacewalk with Reed Wiseman back in 2014. team. So we were outside the space station together doing a spacewalk. So I know them well. Victor Glover, it's hard to put into words. I mean, you know you're the only people in the whole

universe doing that at the moment. And the responsibility there, again, you're in a one-man space capsule shaped like a person out in the vacuum of space. It's just, and you see Hawaii go by at 17,500 miles an hour below you. It's just, it's thrilling. And there's, again, responsibility because you're busy. You got work to do. You're not out there to sight see. You're out there to perform task. So anyway, that's what that's like. But anyway, these folks are professional. They have done their preparation. They are ready to go. They're excited about going. But if something goes wrong, that's why we train. The ground teams, this is a huge team. This isn't just then. It's the ground teams as well. And honestly, the reason we docked successfully ultimately was, you know, maintaining control of the

spacecraft in a very difficult situation. But the ground team's coming up with a plan on the fly to get us safely docked. And that's, you know, that's what we do at NASA. We prepare, we hope and plan and for the pristine mission, knowing that things are going to go wrong. This is high-risk business that we're in, and then we're ready to handle those situations when they occur. And thus far historically, we've been able to do that well. We've had many, many situations that we have been able to rectify on the fly real time. And there's a couple, as we know, that we've had tragedy has happened. But regrettably, that's part of this business.

as it can be, as difficult as it is. But obviously, you don't go until you think you're fully ready. And I know the people, I know John Blevins, the chief engineer of the space launch system, the rocket, he's ready. I've talked to him just yesterday, and they are all prepared. And if any small thing that they think could be a detriment to this mission happens prior to launch, they won't go. And that's just the way we, that's the way they operate. You were up there. We had the capability of going and rescuing you and politics.

at least from this vantage point seemed to play a role in that. I don't know if that's true from your vantage point. But when Elon Musk got involved, that must have been a good day. Well, I would say it like this.

I don't know all those conversations. I can't speak to any of those things that happened from the political realms, as you mentioned. But we were prepared in all aspects of space lights. Sunny and I both had been Space Station commanders in the past.

We understood the Space Station. It's one of the reason we were selected for the position we were in because you just never know. And when our stay was extended, we were fully, fully qualified and prepared to do every single function on the space station, including spacewalks, which we did. And that was because we pushed some of it. We certainly did. It wasn't just in the system. We pushed and said we need to be ready because we just don't know. But that's how we – and that mantra, that's how we roll, right?

We prepare, prepare for all contingencies, and this one was one of them. So when we got extended, there was no reason. I wouldn't have sent somebody up to get me. Honestly, Glenn, because we were trained and we were, we had the experience. We'd been there before. We understood space station operations. And I wouldn't have sent somebody up to get me either. So could they have launched a rocket and spent hundreds of millions of dollars to do that to come get us?

Probably could, but there was no need to do that. Just work us into the normal flow, and that's how it played out. So that's why we were there for almost 10 months. And, you know, it's a small price to pay when you're, because to serve your country, especially in this fashion, is a privilege. I know that's what all the four astronauts on board Artemis right now, that's the way they view it. It's a privilege to be in the position they're in, and they're honored to serve in that fashion. And so, so were we. I got to believe, you know, I talked to Buzz Aldrin.

It was my dad's, I think, 70th birthday. And I arranged lunch with the two of us in Buzz Aldrin. and it was kind of a sad meeting because, you know, he's never really moved past the walking on the moon. And he said it was devastating to come back to Earth and knowing you're never going back up. I mean, and you're in your 20s and you've just done the greatest thing any man has ever done on Earth. And so in some ways, it must have been kind of nice. Wow, I get to stay up here for an extra year in some ways. but now that you're out of it, does that play a role in you at all of, I'm not going back up

because it's a very small club and really super cool? I tell you, it is a small club. It is really super cool. But we're all, you know, when I read Scripture, Glenn, I see that my purpose of existing is for my Lord's glory and it ultimately is my good. And that's my focus. I have a greater hope, a much greater hope in space like I could ever bring, and that's the eternal hope with Jesus Christ, my Lord, and that's what drives me, and that's my focus. Yeah, I will not be down. I've 464 days in space is plenty for me and for anyone, but would I like to go to the loan?

Sure, but I'm not going to, because I've got a great hope. Thank you so much. The name of the book, Stuck in Space and Astronaut's Hope Throughout the Unexpected, Get It Now, Stuck in Space. you so much. This is the best of the Glenn Beck program. Don't bang, bang, bang, bang, Swolewell, don't want the files to drop because he went bang bang bang with the bang. The president could say we're all going to die in 10 minutes. The missiles have been launched and you will be in your head. You'll be going, don't bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, I mean, it's going to happen.

And I apologize for bringing. It's workplace harassment is what it is. Bring that light to your day. All right, lots of stuff going on. We just talked about Artemis last hour tonight. I feel like I'm, I feel like I'm 10. I feel like I'm 10. I'm so excited. I'm going to be there at the launch tonight. We'll talk about that tomorrow and bring you some amazing stuff.

If you're a Torch insider, you're going to get some backstage stuff all throughout the day. We'll be posting it. The president is going to speak on, I don't know what. He says the Iran War, but it could be, I mean, did you see what he posted yesterday on truth? I mean, I felt really good, but at the same time, I'm like, wow, I've never seen a president say this. All of those countries, I'm quoting the president, all of those countries that can't get jet fuel because of the Strait of Harmuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran. I have a suggestion for you. Number one, buy from the U.S.

We have plenty. Number two, build up some delayed courage. Go to the straight and take it. you'll have to start learning how to fight for yourself. The USA won't be there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us. Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part is done. Now go get your own oil, President Donald J. Trump.

Holy cow. Holy cow. Now, he has been leading towards this for a very long time. He's been saying it really since his first term, why are we in NATO? Why are we spending all this money? We don't need to be in NATO. Now, tonight he gives his speech at 9 o'clock. We don't know what it is.

However, we do know that it has something to do with Iran and the rest of the world because already the prime minister of England, the prime minister of Australia, and the head of the EU have all given a speech. The prime minister of England said we now know that getting out of the EU is really, wrong. We all have to band together. They are preparing, I think, for some sort of a, America's not going to defend us. Good. Good. Good. Grow up and protect yourself. Now, the problem is they're not going to have all the money that they, you know, they still don't have for all of their social programs. So they're going to go into real tailspin if that happens. But, hey, they're big, they're big boys now. You know, you have to deal with your own problems.

They're also saying that this is, I mean, Stormer actually, or Starmer actually used the language of this is going to be extraordinarily hard and difficult on a coming energy crisis. So we don't know what's going to happen. But I've been thinking about this for the last few days because I thought about wartime generals. And I think Trump is a wartime president. So what is a what is a wartime general do? It's not a personality thing or just in tone or whatever. It is a cut from a completely different cloth kind of thing. A wartime general operates under the central assumption that we are already in danger.

Just make this checklist in your head as I go through this. Is he a wartime president? Does President Trump believe? the republic is already in danger. Not hypothetically, right now, we are in danger. If he does, that assumption changes everything. I believe he thinks we are in danger on multiple fronts, not just Iran, you know, with the nukes, but the Islamists, the 12ers, Islam taking over Western Europe, the Marxists, the socialist, the anarchist, the EDU, big money foundations of Soros corrupt press, big tech, the court systems, the CIA, DOJ, the corruption, the cartels,

the illegals, the crime, war on faith, war on the family. I mean, he thinks we, and we are, we are at war with all of those things. So if he believes that, then that changes a few things. First, now listen to these characteristics that change if you're a wartime general. First one is clarity over consensus. A wartime general. general does not wait for polling to confirm reality. He acts on what is, not what is popular. Does that not sound like Donald Trump? Speed over process. In war, delay kills.

Bureaucracy is not neutral. It's lethal in war. He also believes, or a wartime general, also believes outcomes over optics. Victory matters more than how it looks on cable news. Does that not explain how he's operating right now in this war? It's almost as if he doesn't care about the optics. He's like, this has to be done. The other one is enemy identification. A wartime general names the threat plainly. It's foreign, it's domestic, whatever it is. And they do not soften the language to preserve comfort. Ronald Reagan did this just on this as an evil empire. Donald Trump does that with all of it. Whatever he sees, remember his list of we're at war and we are. We're at war. This is a civilizational war. It is an existential threat. It is, it's gone if we don't

pay attention. A wartime general also has tolerance for disruption because they know war rearranges systems. Stability is not the goal. Survival is. And the last characteristic that changes is moral framing. Things stop being so gray. Some things have to be opposed directly and decisively. Does that not define who Donald Trump is? Because I think it does. I think it does. a peace time is and see if this doesn't sound like Barack Obama. Consensus over clarity, process over speed, optics over outcomes, reluctance to name enemies, preference for stability, moral ambiguity. Okay. Now, I started looking into this a couple of days ago because I was going to write a monologue that was about, we have a war.

wartime president and a peacetime GOP. Because that's what's happening in Congress. They're peacetime GOP. They think that everything's going to be fine. And they're acting as if we're in peace. While he's saying we're at war and you, you know it. A good portion of this country knows we're at war

for our very lives in civilization. But everybody's acting like it's peacetime. Okay. I'm not going there. because that's not the biggest problem. As I was thinking about, I thought, okay, has this ever happened in history before? And the first thing that came to mind was, yeah, Churchill. Churchill was a wartime leader.

And he was preaching about Hitler long before anybody wanted to hear it. I mean, 1938, they didn't even want to hear it. They didn't really want to hear that from him until 1940. Churchill was not the leader. In fact, they kicked him out. His own party rejected him. And Britain was led by Neville Chamberlain, who was a peacetime leader. He believed that war could be avoided.

He trusted the negotiation agreements. And he was a reflection of the exhausted public from the last war. Does any of this sound familiar? England was exhausted and did not want to go in because they were exhausted by World War I. They didn't want to do it again. They said, look what happened. So when Churchill started to say war, nobody wanted to go. So Neville Chamberlain was sent over to meet with Hitler.

And they came up with a Munich agreement and peace was preserved. There would be peace in our time. This is Obama and Biden dealing with Iran. Churchill, however, saw something different. He said Hitler was not a negotiator in a normal sense. this guy is not negotiating. He is using our fear of the fight, and he's flattering us and saying enough things right

to delay our entrance into the war in Europe. He is going to use this delay. Does that not sound also like Iran? The delay was not neutral. Churchill knew it's strength in Germany. The war was not coming someday. It was already underway in spirit and intent. and I don't care what podcasters tell you.

You don't have to believe me. Take a journey with me to our vault and our American Journey Experience Museum. In the vault, we have a copy of the German battle plans outlining the war with Poland. It was planned. It was printed. It was distributed to the highest of generals

as top secret classified. And it showed every bridge, every move they were going to make when they took Poland. And it was written before Hitler and Chamberlain were meeting where he was. was like, I want you to know, we have no design on par. Poland is not a target. Yes, it was. He had already distributed the battle plans. The problem was that the English public didn't accept Churchill's view until it was undeniable. And that moment was the Battle of Britain and the

blitz. Bombs have a way of clarifying a philosophy. So what happens when a president is wartime and the public is not. Because that's where we are. Well, it creates a very dangerous lag. It's a misalignment between the leadership's perception of the threat and the public's willingness to accept the cost of that. I mean, Donald Trump just gave a press conference yesterday where he said, where the reporter said, it's $4 a gallon of gas.

And he said, yes, and there's no nuclear threat. And they said, but it's $4 a gallon gas. Yes, and you're not going to be vaporized. That's the disconnect. He's looking at it as this was a threat. I have to take care of that first. This gap always happens the same way. It produces four predictable effects.

First, the trust begins to fracture. The public begins to think, this is exaggerated. This didn't happen. We're being dragged into something. Sound familiar? His own base is saying this right now. Meanwhile, the leadership is thinking, you don't understand the stakes, both sides lose confidence in the other. Very dangerous.

The second thing that happens is political isolation of the leader. Even if the leader is right about the threat, the institutions resist, right? You see that happening? Allies are hesitating. Hello? Media fragments all of the narrative. This is exactly what happened to Churchill prior to 1940. He was an alarmist. He was reckless. He was reckless. He was reckless. He was out of his mind. He was dangerous. Third thing that happens, delayed mobilization. Because a peacetime public does not sacrifice easily. They do not accept shortages. They do not tolerate casualties.

They don't want to reorient their daily life. So the nation responds to slowly and in war time is not neutral. The fourth thing that always happens is a very important. Eventually, reality shocks and it forces the alignment if you can get all the players still in the same place. There's an attack, there's an economic collapse, there's visible escalation. In Britain, it took the bombing of London. It took the blitz. In the U.S., during World War II, it took an attack on Pearl Harbor. We have been here before. This is exactly what happened with Pearl Harbor, and nobody wanted to go to war in World War II.

Nobody wanted to fight the Germans. until something that shock happens, large parts of the public resist the wartime frame. That's why the Green Red Alliance is not blowing buildings up yet. They don't want that shock to happen because that brings us all together. Now, here's the part people forget about Churchill. Churchill was a Nobel Prize winning laureate. I mean, he was a beautiful writer. He did something that very few can do.

He translated reality into the language the public could eventually accept. Remember, he was the guy, said, we shall fight on the beaches. It's our finest hour. He didn't just describe the war. He brought the public into it, psychologically, morally, emotionally, and that's the second half of wartime leadership. Do we have that? Do we have anyone telling the tale in a way that is actually waking people up and bringing them into this emotionally, intellectually, spiritually? Do we have anybody? I think he's kind of alone on this island expecting us to get it. And I'm not sure we are. So does that lead us to any place good? Well, there's a danger zone, a closing window if this happens and we don't fix it. this, we don't realign either him or us.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program. My friend Hugh Ross, astrophysicist, reasons to believe founder and senior scholar, an author of a new book out, Noah's Flood, Revisited. Hello, Hugh, how are you? Doing well, thank you. You bet.

So can I start with just space for a second? Yesterday, I had a lot of people push back and say, Glenn, space is a waste of money, and it is, it's our Tower of Babel, trying to make ourselves look so great. I don't look at it that way. I look at it from the view of an explorer, and I believe God wants us to explore. How do you feel about that? Yeah, he made us curious. I mean, we're unique amongst all life on planet Earth, and that we're curious about everything. I mean, my dog doesn't care about the galaxies around us, but we do. Right. We want to know what's beyond the universe. So I think God gave us a curiosity for a reason. He really does want us to explore,

but I think he also wants us to do it, and the most efficient and effective way possible. So a lot of people, and maybe you can help on this, a lot of people say we never even went to the moon the first time. I find that amazing, but people actually believe it, and they say, you know, it's because this radiation belt, we can't get through the radiation belt and all this stuff. did we go to the moon? And does it matter? I actually got to watch the moon landing live on television when I was much younger. And what really thrilled me was watching Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong putting up a laser reflector.

There's now three laser reflectors on the moon. Physicist beam laser beams off them every single day. as because of those laser reflectors that the Apollo astronauts put on the moon that were able to test theories of gravity to agree we've never been able to do before. So somebody put those laser reflectors there.

Well, probably aliens. I'm just saying. It really, it's very frustrating because, you know, there is evidence like the laser reflectors. Well, for example, even the vehicles left behind by the astronauts. are still there and they're being photographed on a regular basis.

So we're going out on Artemis today and this is to prove that we can live in space. It is to totally change the economy and the way we explore and go to, you know, Mars, etc., etc. Yet we still have, we're making such advances and yet we have not. explored inner space nearly enough and we are fighting over things like we never went to moon in the first place and when I look at the thing about you know we never went to the moon it's the same kind of argument just with a lot more distance to it that there was no flood and your book Noah's flood revisited you are saying you can prove this that there was a flood?

Well, the Bible tells us that the flood lasted 375 days. You know, liquid water flows out of the ocean fairly quickly. There had to be a lot of melting ice and snow for the flood to last that long. And during the previous ice age, there were seven really big melt events. So I think one of those melt events explains why the flood lasted that long, but it also puts the flood early enough in human history that the flood can wipe out the entire world of humanity and all their animals without being global. And that's the number one reason why people reject the biblical account.

They think it's speaking about a global flood, rather it's speaking about a worldwide flood. The world of humanity was wiped out. But if you have the event hurdy enough, the world of humanity is a local region. I mean, there weren't humans in North and South America until 16,500 years ago. And likewise, Australia wasn't settled until 40,000 to 50,000 years ago. The big major melt events were 47 to 85,000 years ago. So I make the argument. In fact, I waited to bring the book out until we really had solid data confirming the events of Genesis 10 and 11.

And if you can nail down the dates for that, you've got a good idea that date for Noah's flood. How did you nail down the dates? Well, Genesis 10 and 11 speak about the great scatterings of humanity. I mean, Genesis 11, we see that humanity is repeating the mistake of what happened before the flood. They were staying in one region, disobeying God's command to multiply and fill the earth, and even built a city in a huge tower, so they would not be scattered over the sun. the face of the earth. And God knew that was a prescription for runaway evil. His plan all along

was there would be multiple nations that would have to compete with one another for citizens, which would act as a check against a government oppressing its citizens. You know, if one nation oppresses too much, they get up and leave and go to another nation. And so God forcibly scattered humanity over the face of the earth. And now we got four methods that enable us to give accurate dates from when those happened. The remains of humans, their artifacts, evidence from when they were cooking, because humans can't survive unless they're cooking and preparing their food, and then the genetic models, and they all come in with consistent dates from when those events happened. So, I don't know, I've talked to rabbis before, and in the oral tradition,

the Tower of Babel, there's different facets of God, if you will. There's the angry vengeful God. There is the kind, merciful God. And the one that shows up at the Tower of Babel and scatters is not the angry God. It is the merciful God, knowing that if they can do this, they can do anything. So he is having mercy on us by scattering people and changing their language. Is that the same view of... Noah, that it's actually a mercy mission?

Absolutely, because, you know, humans before the flood had the potential to live past 900 years, and it tells us that Adam and Eve had many sons and daughters besides Cain, Abel, and Seth. I mean, at a minimum, they were having 120 children, and all the rest of the couples, likewise. So when God told Adam, multiply and fill the earth, earth, he could have done it in his own lifespan. What stopped that from happening, so we see in Genesis 4, murder began to run out of control. And so I've calculated in my book navigating Genesis that the murder rate in the days before the flood was above 90%. In other words, at least 9% of 10 people died as a result of being murdered by their fellow man. Humanity was literally in danger

of self-extermination. So God stepped in and prevented humanity from wiping itself out. I have a guest on, I think on Friday, who has done extensive scientific work with some of the best scientific minds, not all believers, on the evidence of Jesus, his life, his death, and his resurrection. That's coming up on Friday show. And you've kind of done this, I mean, really throughout the Bible, not just Noah. You mean, you have used science to show Book of Genesis is true. It is the best scientific explanation, if you look at it this way, of what is true about life and the way we were created and everything else. Is there something happening, Hugh, that the Lord, that we are, we are moving more rapidly towards being able to prove things that we've never been able to prove before?

Well, what thrills me as a research scientist is the more we learn about science, the more and more evidence we gain that the Bible has inspired inherent word of God. So, for example, you have Genesis 1 describing 10 different events of creation, tells us what the chronological order is, gives us details. The book of Job puts in more details as to Psalm 104 and Proverbs 8. But what I've noticed is that it tells us that on day four, you have the atmosphere going from a thick haze to being transparent. And just back in 2018, a team of physicists did an experiment.

where they took a huge flask, filled over the known constituent's atmosphere, and then began with no oxygen, then gradually increased the oxygen. And when the oxygen hit 8%, the atmosphere in the flask cleared, you could see through it. And likewise, when you have the oxygen, the atmosphere going up to 8%, that's the moment we have large animals appearing on the face of the earth. those animals need to see the sun-moon and stars in the sky in order to regulate their biological clocks. So that's just one example of how a scientific experiment gave us more evidence that the Bible got everything right. Because you and I did a, I mean, we probably spent 90 minutes together and we did a podcast.

And it was one of the most fascinating podcasts I've ever done. And you made the case that it's not just that it's right scientifically. It is right. It's in the right order. If you don't have these things in the right order scientifically, it can't happen. Yes. It's not just that the descriptions are correct. Everything is in the correct chronological sequence. Now, I do get pushback from my atheist peers who say, wait a minute, if you look at it from the perspective of God up in the heavens, everything is in the wrong order. I say, yeah, but that's not the frame of reference. Genesis 1-2 tells us that the Spirit of God is hovering over the surface of the waters of the premortial earth, below the clouds, not above the clouds.

And from that frame of reference, the 10 events of creation are all in the correct chronological sequence. I saw that at age 17. That was my first clue that this book, the Bible, was different from all the other holy books, that it got all the science right. And that's what motivated me to say, I got to read through the rest of the book. It took me 18 months to get to Revelation 22. But when I got there, realized, every time the Bible speaks about something scientific,

it gets the science right. And often it does so thousands of years ahead of scientists making the actual discoveries. Is there anything that you feel compelled that people must know? Well, I think what really impressed me as a young astrophysics student was the Bible actually predicting for the fundamental features and what we call a Big Bang creation model. And not until the 20th century to any astronomer have a clue that the universe had those characteristics. And it's not just me reading this into the Bible with my 21st century hindsight. Jewish theologians writing 800,900,000 years ago, saw the Bible making these statements about the universe, and they declared the universe must have these features.

The 20th century, we discovered that indeed the universe has a beginning, a space time beginning, with laws of physics that don't change, where the universe expands from a cosmic creation event and gets progressively colder. All that was in the Old Testament. Hugh, he's an astrophysicist, Reasons to Believe, Founder, Senior Scholar, author of the book, Noah's Flood Revisited. Hugh, a lot of people are looking at the world today and they're looking for signs. I haven't looked up what that one comet that is supposedly shooting towards the sun and then coming around and maybe we can see it this. if it survives the sun, we can see a trail of million or tail a million miles long,

something like that. Do you know anything about that comment and did it make it through the sun? I don't know, but I've seen some really spectacular comments on my lifetime. I remember seeing one in my graduate school days. It was as big as the moon in the sky

and the tail went back 40 degrees. So yeah. If it survives, maybe we'll get a really special. spectacular sight. So people are saying that, you know, look for signs, look for signs, because there is this feeling, even in Islam, that we're headed for something biblical. Do you feel that?

Are there signs that we should be looking for in the heavens? Yeah, Jesus told his disciples that he would return a moment that as followers take the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ to all the people groups of the world and make significant number of disciples amongst all those people groups. So I'm not waiting for the Lord to return. I'm waiting for his people to finish the task that he assigned to them. And I had Ralph Winter, the founder of the U.S. Center for World Mission in my Sunday class for a number of years. and he wrote a book making the point that Christians today have the wealth, the technology, and the people to complete that commission that Jesus gave us in just one decade. All we lack is the motivation.

So my passion is to try to motivate people. Let's get the job done because, hey, this universe is a wonderful place, but God has promised to take us to a new creation where it's unbelievably more rewarding. and fulfilling than the universe in which we live. So let's get there. Hugh, always great to talk to you. Thank you so much. We'll have to re-post our podcast at glenbeck.com because it's a fascinating podcast

and grab his book, Noah's Flood Revisited. Noah's Flood Revisited. He is a fascinating guy. This episode is brought to you by an espresso. Hear that, that's your next obsession. Every coffee, a new world. Every sip, a new taste. This is the new Nespresso.

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