There's No Such Thing as a Dragon

Jennifer:
Billy Bixby was rather surprised when he woke up one morning and found a dragon in his room. 

Steve:
What do we do when new truth or new ideas suddenly pop up in front of us, especially in an age of information like we live in today? How do we handle this? And what does that have to do with Bible science research? That's what we're talking about today.

Hello and welcome to the BC Messenger Podcast. This is June 2025, episode number 35. And we're glad you have joined us. I'm here as always with my wife, Jennifer. And we're glad that you're here.

Jennifer:
We welcome you wherever you are and whatever you're doing as you listen to this podcast. We're thankful for our listeners scattered out. We can see stats, but we can't see faces. We can't see people every now and then we get a little glimpse of what our listeners are doing or what their lives might be like. We had a comment recently that said, "I listened to this podcast while building F-35s all day." What is an F-35? We looked it up. Some kind of fighter jet.

Steve:
It's a jet fighter jet. That's cool.

Jennifer: 
I know it. How about that? So, hey, whatever you're doing, it may not be that exciting, but just the mundane, everyday things of life. We're glad you give us a chance to speak into your world once a month on this podcast.

Steve:
That's right. And we've got quite a bit to cover today. Jennifer, can you give us a rundown, as you always do, a bullet list of what we're talking about?

Jennifer:
Okay. Our featured topic, "There is no such thing as a dragon." This is actually a children's story. There's no such thing as a dragon. We're going to enjoy that story together and take some lessons from that story that relate to the work that we're doing here and how we handle new ideas. Then we will jump into our section as a matter of fact, the location of the Garden of Eden. What can we learn about that? What claims are made today about that? And what work do we have here on that question? Then we're going to have a little section called Q&A with Dr. A. And then finally, closing out, Helen will share part three of "Lessons from the Life of Charles Goodyear."

Steve:
Some of you may be coming in new, new listeners. Maybe don't have quite the understanding of who we are, what we're doing here, what this podcast is all about. But let me just mention something here so that we kind of catch you up to date and remind our audience as well. We believe some of the most important information in the world today is in the hands of independent researchers. Independent research scientists. We believe that. These independent research scientists have a very hard time making their voices heard because they're not in the mainstream. They're not part of the bigs, big science, you know. Big media, big tech, big everything. You have independent thinkers and people outside the mainstream who have something to contribute. Yes. And people are talking about this, that this is a problem. These independent scientists, independent researchers do not conform to the established narrative. And so that puts them in a quandary, a problem. But as we often find out, real answers very often do not come from established narratives. We're always being surprised.

Jennifer:
Now, a listener might be thinking at this point, well, that's interesting, but I don't know what that has to do with me. I mean, I don't know any independent researchers and I wouldn't even know where to go looking. How do you go out and find these people who are working independently and coming up with novel solutions to problems? I can't do that. But exactly. You're exactly right. And that is exactly why we are here on this podcast, bringing you this information.

Steve:
That's right. We're giving a voice to the work of one such scientist, an independent research scientist by the name of Dr. Gerald Aardsma. Jennifer and I are not research scientists. We are communicators for Dr. Aardsma. And the research work he is doing and has been doing independently here in Illinois, Central Illinois, for decades now. And discoveries that he has made. They're not hard to understand, though at times they might be hard to accept, because they're not in the paradigm. Whether you're in the science paradigms or in the religion paradigms and all of that, no, it's stepping out of the box, which makes it hard for people to listen. But that's what we're doing. That's who we are. And that's what this podcast is all about, trying to get it out to people like you.

Jennifer:
I don't know how many times I've heard Dad--Dr. Aardsma is my father--I don't know how many times I've heard him over the years say that in his opinion, you can either do science or you can do communications, but you cannot do both. So you have the ideas, you have the discoveries, and then you have the closely related but separate work of getting that information into the hands and minds of people. That's why we're here and that's why you're here. So let's get started.

Steve:
That's right. And if you want a front row seat to this vital information, you're in the right place. Now, let's go into our first topic today because really it takes us right into it. We have a little children's book that I believe your mom gave to you some years ago.

Jennifer:
Yes, this book that I'm holding in my hand here is like, you know, a historical heirloom of the Aardsma family. I think this is the exact book I had when I was a kid when we read this story. It is tattered and torn, but you can still read it. The copyright in the front is 1975 published by Golden Press. This story, "There's No Such Thing as a Dragon", story and pictures by Jack Kent.

Steve:
Well, everybody loves a good story. And what in the world are we doing telling you a story here today?

Jennifer:
We don't usually read children's stories on. That's right. Although one time on one of our early episodes, which this is episode 35, and so I realized as we were coming on the mics here that one more episode and then we will be launching into season four of the podcast. But early on, on one of our very first episodes, we did touch on a children's story that was like a mouse... what was that story?

Steve:
We'll have to go back to the archives.

Jennifer:
It was like all these little mice finding each a separate part of an elephant. And describing it differently. Seeing it from their vantage point. None of them had the whole picture. Back up to see the whole picture. Yeah.

Steve:
Well, and sometimes illustrations really do bring home a truth, a principle. Jesus, when he taught in the Bible, would use parables, and many good pastors use illustrations all the time. And that's what this story is. This is an illustration. And just to give it to you up front, we already mentioned at the beginning, you know, it, it's hard for us to come to terms when we're faced with something we didn't expect popping up right in front of us. A new idea, a truth, or maybe it's truth. Maybe it's not something that wasn't supposed to be true. And all of a sudden it's being presented as actually that is true. And what do we do with that? Well, this little story talks about a dragon, a little dragon that appears in a boy's bedroom. And we're going to read it to you.

Jennifer:
We will read it here. I really wish that our audience could see the pictures. Jack Kent, the author, is also the illustrator of the book and he has some other well-known children's books out, very endearing. Maybe you can find a copy of the book and see the pictures, but we are going to read it to you here, this little story so that you can fully understand where we're coming from as we draw the analogies out of it here in just a couple minutes.

Steve:
All right. You going to read it or am I going to read it?

Jennifer:
I'll read it.

Steve:
Okay. All right. Jennifer's going to read this story.

Jennifer:
All right. Here we go.

Billy Bixby was rather surprised when he woke up one morning and found a dragon in his room. It was a small dragon about the size of a kitten. The dragon wagged its tail happily when Billy patted its head. (In the picture, you can see the dragon sitting on the footboard of the bed looking at Billy, who is looking very surprised, looking at the dragon.) Billy went downstairs to tell his mother, "There's no such thing as a dragon," said Billy's mother, and she said it like she meant it.

Billy went back to his room and began to dress. The dragon came close to Billy and wagged its tail, but Billy didn't pat it. If there's no such thing as something, it's silly to pat it on the head.

Billy washed his face and hands and went down to breakfast. The dragon went along. It was bigger now, almost the size of a dog. Billy sat down at the table. The dragon sat down on the table. This sort of thing was not usually permitted, but there wasn't much Billy's mother could do about it. She had already said there was no such thing as a dragon, and if there's no such thing, you can't tell it to get down off the table.

Mother made some pancakes for Billy, but the dragon ate them all. Mother made some more, but the dragon ate those too. Mother kept making pancakes until she ran out of batter. Billy only got one of them, but he said that's all he really wanted anyway. Billy went upstairs to brush his teeth. Mother started clearing the table. The dragon, who was quite as big as mother by this time, made himself comfortable on the hall rug and went to sleep.

By the time Billy came back downstairs, the dragon had grown so much, he filled the hall. Billy had to go around by way of the living room to get to where his mother was. "I didn't know dragons grew so fast," said Billy. "There's no such thing as a dragon," said mother firmly. (Meanwhile in the picture, she's reaching over top of the dragon to be able to do her dusting and lifting up the dragon's tail to be able to do her sweeping and mopping.)

Cleaning the downstairs took mother all morning with the dragon in the way and having to climb in and out of windows to get from room to room. By noon, the dragon filled the house. Its head hung out the front door, its tail hung out the back door, and there wasn't a room in the house that didn't have some part of the dragon in it.

When the dragon awoke from his nap, he was hungry. A bakery truck went by. The smell of fresh bread was more than the dragon could resist. The dragon ran down the street after the bakery truck. The house went along, of course, like the shell on a snail. The mailman was just coming up the path with some mail for the Bixby's when their house rushed past him and headed down the street. He chased the Bixby's house for a few blocks, but he couldn't catch it.

When Mr. Bixby came home for lunch, the first thing he noticed was that the house was gone. Luckily, one of the neighbors was able to tell him which way it went. Mr. Bixby got in his car and went looking for the house. He studied all the houses as he drove along. Finally, he saw one that looked familiar. Billy and Mrs. Bixby were waving from an upstairs window, and the dragon is eating bread falling out of the bread truck near the house. Mr. Bixby climbed over the dragon's head onto the porch roof and through the upstairs window.

"How did this happen?" Mr. Bixby asked. "It was the dragon," said Billy. "There's no such thing," Mother started to say. "There is a dragon," Billy insisted. "A very big dragon!" And Billy patted the dragon on the head. The dragon wagged its tail happily, and then even faster than it had grown, the dragon started getting smaller. Soon it was kitten size again. "I don't mind dragons this size," said Mother. "Why did it have to grow so big?" "I'm not sure," said Billy, "but I think it just wanted to be noticed." The end.

Steve:
The end. That's a great story. I love that part of the beginning where the mother tells Billy there's no such thing as a dragon. And we're told she said it like she meant it, right? It's just a neat story. Well, there are times in life when we are faced with questions, or maybe we would call them realizations. Realities. We didn't go out looking for it, but we found them sitting on the foot of our bed one morning, so to speak. And again, this is, I think, more common today with the information age that we're living in, being presented with ideas like never before. We come face to face with something that completely throws us for a loop. Something that's not supposed to be true, right? Something that goes against what we've always thought, what we've always been taught. And when those things happen, temptation can creep in to just ignore it, like that dragon, right? Fear takes over. And it's always rooted in fear, and we just say, "I'm not going to go there." Now, this story's been used in the past to talk about other issues, like, for instance, a bad habit somebody has, or a hang-up someone has of some sort. And they're just ignoring it, and it just gets really big until they finally admit it, and then they deal with it. So, sure, it can be used for a lot of good lessons, but that's not what we're using it for. We're looking at it from a different angle today.

Jennifer:
This story is so skillfully and artfully done and told and crafted that you can draw numerous analogies and lessons from it. And, you know, reading a story like this to a child, you don't have to outline every single lesson, but it's just instilling in them ideas and values under the surface there. And so, yes, let's discuss... we've made an outline here, four reactions to uncomfortable realities that we see in this story.

Steve:
Well, you know, it can really wake us up when these things face us. Do we want the truth or not? Is that something we want, or do we just want to be comfortable in our paradigm? And independent research scientists, at least like Dr. Aardsma, are often presenting to us paradigms that don't fit. They're not in the box. We don't like it for whatever reason. And so, we can have various reactions to these uncomfortable realities.

Jennifer:
If you've listened to this podcast very long at all, you know that there are very often surprising things that we never thought. That's what the Bible was actually saying, or we thought it was actually saying something quite the opposite of that. Or we never thought that such a thing would be demonstrated in science. We could go into any number of areas here that we've discussed on the podcast in the past 34 episodes. But I think we could paint with a broad brush and say that in the field of Bible science research, we are always being surprised. Sometimes it's a good surprise, and other times it's like, whoa! That dragon is not sitting there looking at me, is it?

Steve:
Well, what are some of those ways that you and I have been surprised? Jen, we've had our own dragons over the years.

Jennifer:
Yes, we have. It probably would be good to share some of our personal experience. So, this discussion about dragons facing you is not so abstract, I guess.

Steve:
Well, one for me has been my rethinking of climate change. Realizing through the research here that there is a reality of weather patterns changing and the things that we're looking at. I didn't used to think that. That's been one dragon I've had to face and the reality of what's causing it in the research here.

Jennifer:
Yeah, the reality of what's causing it is more than a small dragon. And for me personally, that's been the biggest one, the most difficult to grapple with. Go back and listen to our old episodes if you don't know what we're referring to in that. But I'm still dealing with that particular dragon of Noahic Events and the whole thing with global warming we're experiencing now and all of that.

Steve
Right, and just to name a few without getting into the details of them concerning the research here, dragons, age of the earth, that's been huge, a very large dragon that is not so large anymore, but I had to grapple with this from what I always had thought.

Jennifer:
Now, for me on the age of the earth, I'll just be honest, I like that dragon. For me, that's a friendly one because there are groups that are not wanting to deal with it, the reality of it in the science. But then the work here and the direction it goes with that question is really taming that dragon down in my experience.

Steve:
It gives a good answer, a very good understandable answer as to what we're seeing in the earth.

Jennifer:
Another dragon, an uncomfortable reality for me was the manna research that came out a couple years ago here, because we get all these heavenly ideas about these miracles and must have been angel food cake, and how could they possibly have complained about that! And then you realize through the science and the lab work and the scientific method being applied to the biblical clues and you find out, okay, this wasn't glamorous at all. I would not want to eat this in large quantities every day. And it's very sobering actually. Is this what God actually did? So yeah, you got to grapple with it.

Steve:
Well, a number of things in that, in the research of the Exodus and all, the Red Sea and how that transpired. Any of these things, you learn as you discover realities that this isn't the way I always thought, and that becomes somewhat of a dragon, some are bigger than others. Well, let's broaden it out. It's not just the research here. I mean, life in general and things you always thought. There are certain doctrines as we go through life that we might tend to want to rethink because we heard more information. For us in our family, you know, eschatology is something that we've grappled with over the years, and I think a lot of people are today as more information is going out around the world, over the internet especially. 

Jennifer:
Yeah, that was our first and real major experience with a dragon popping up. And us realizing we were going to have to grapple with that, was, like you said, the eschatological beliefs that we had held in the past that we thought were very, very biblical. And then that was challenged in a major way. And, you know, we were reeling for quite a while from some of that, but it was good for us in the end. God had his purposes in it.

Steve:
Sure. Well, we could go on and on about examples and there's more that we have.

Jennifer:
I'm sure each of our listeners, each one of you could very easily tell us, you know, what are the moments in your life when you had to face some kind of uncomfortable reality that rocked your world in some way, because you don't forget those things. And of course, it's tempting to ignore or to turn away. But if we are courageous and we deal with it, we will not forget that.

Steve:
Well, and what is the danger of not facing that? Well, I mean, what if we all do just have the mindset, what you know, it's all we've already figured it all out. Quit bothering me with your silly little facts. I don't believe in dragons. I don't. And it doesn't matter if I have to pick the tail up and sweep out from underneath it or not. I don't believe in it. What's the danger in this?

Jennifer:
Right, we're going to get into that as we discuss these four reactions to uncomfortable realities. But I think, well, we should point out that Steve, you wrote a blog post on this little children's book, which is what we're drawing on for the podcast today. This blog post was published March 25, 2023. So a couple of years ago. So linking in the show notes, you can go over and check out Steve's blog.

Steve:
We called it "There's No Such Thing or You're Not Allowed to Believe That," you're not allowed to believe that, you can't go down that road. That little dragon that you see isn't real. Just ignore it. Right.

Jennifer:
Right. So in your article, one of the really good things that you pointed out right before we jump into these four reactions. I think it's so important to remember and think about not every dragon is your dragon, especially today. Just remind ourselves that there are things that God wants us to deal with and face and be our battle. And then there are other things that are not. We can't address every shocking reality that comes down the pipe through the news, through social media, through you name it, all the voices today. And so, is that little dragon sitting on the end of my bed or am I just out here looking for all the little dragons wherever they may be? Sometimes God puts something right smack in your path, right there in your family or in your consciousness where you know, I'm going to have to grapple with this. I can't just ignore. And so that's the first question. Is this a dragon that's popped up here that in good conscience, I can't just turn away from it? And it's okay to have some things that you're kind of aware of in your peripheral, but you know that that's not really your particular thing to deal with. You can't deal with everything. You can only have so many missions in life, you know, and so much time in a day, and so much mental space. But there are those times when that little dragon definitely is sitting right there looking right at you.

Steve:
So it would do us well to have a little humility, a little courage, and to face it head on. We're in the middle of God's story and he always has the best plot twists and here we are. So yes, let's get into this now.

Four reactions to uncomfortable realities. Number one, choose to state the facts. This is the first of the reactions we're going to talk about and it's demonstrated by Billy in our story. 

Jennifer:
Very naively, very innocently.

Steve:
I mean he just woke up and there it was. Right? And he's sitting on the foot of his bed. There's a dragon and he discovers what other people are just kind of like that, well, they've grown too much. Right? They're too experienced. They have too much knowledge now. Don't you know, sweet little Billy, poor little innocent Billy, that dragons don't exist.

Jennifer:
So he meets with immediate resistance that he probably didn't expect. He thought, oh, I better go downstairs and tell my mom about this dragon. And this can happen. New truth presents itself and the person making the discovery, or the initial, you know, you receive that if you are open minded like Billy was, or you just realize the reality of the thing. And so you're going out to tell this new truth and you immediately find out that it is not being received with open arms. It is not being welcomed. The opposite thing is happening. We had a little conversation yesterday as we were talking this over. How often do we see this in history and even in the Bible's history? Galileo. You know, hey guys, I looked through this telescope and I'm seeing all these, I'm seeing moons going around Jupiter. What was some of the other examples?

Steve:
Well, in the mid 19th century there was this scientist who was trying to tell everybody that if doctors would just simply wash their hands, with antiseptics, then many mothers would be saved during childbirth. Mothers were dying because they were getting infections. And he was trying to show they just simply needed to wash their hands with an antiseptic type solution and he was being mocked.

Jennifer:
And he had empirical evidence. Yeah. I mean, so here you go. Hey guys, I found out that washing our hands with this chlorine solution, or whatever he had, will stop people from dying. Would you not think that that would be welcomed with grand hara's?

Steve:
And who would think that washing your hands with an antiseptic solution would be a dragon? I mean, in our day that seems silly. It seems hilarious that anybody would believe. Well, that's kind of like the illustration of the story. It's just this big, huge dragon. But when you start to deal with it, it becomes small again and it just becomes normal. Okay, today that's normal. Today it's crazy to think of it the other way that a doctor wouldn't wash his hands with an antiseptic solution. And that's life.

Jennifer:
And that they wouldn't have said, well, you know what, I'm not sure, but let's give it a try because we really do want to save lives. So it's not that big a deal to wash our hands. But instead he was resisted with this new idea, this little dragon. Guys, it's because we're not washing our hands that these people are dying. So there you go. Stating the facts, you know, just innocently, here's what I've discovered and it is not welcomed favorably.

Steve:
So that's our first reaction that you can have to uncomfortable realities and very often discovering that others are just simply not receptive. Well, what about the second? Second reaction, and this reaction was demonstrated in our story by Billy's mom. I don't think she was named was she?

Jennifer:
No, I think it's just Billy's mom, Billy's mom and Billy's dad, Mr. Bixby.

Steve:
Well, what was her initial reaction? Well, she just simply chose to deny it, flat out deny. I'm not going to believe that. It was right in front of your face, my face, but nope.

Jennifer:
We in this family, we do not believe in dragons. Move on.

Steve:
Right. Well, what does this do if you choose to react that way? What path do you go down, ultimately, by just being in your box, not coming out of your box, even though the truth, the evidence is sitting right there in front of you?

Jennifer:
It would have been good, as we draw these analogies, for Billy's mom to have said, Billy, why, why are you saying this? You know, like, what is your reason for telling me there's a dragon in your room? Billy, take me up there. Let's, let's have a look. But instead, she just immediately turned away and vocalized her resistance to this idea and then went about her business. So where do we see this today? Well, there are some uncomfortable realities facing different Bible believing groups, creationist groups today. And we've addressed some of those on the podcast in the past. But they are very good in these certain groups at loudly denying, you know, nope, we don't believe in that. No such thing as... and fill in the blank. And they say it like they mean it. Just like the story says, I mean, they are convinced.

Steve:
Well, and it's, it's couched in noble reasons in their own mind. Often you hear the thing, well, we believe the Bible first. The foundation is the word of God. When in reality, and I appreciate that, I appreciate that, but it's often my interpretation of what the Bible is saying is what really we are preaching.

Jennifer:
Right. What we've always taught, what we've always said, what we have been loyal to. Ideas that we cannot very easily, because we're so loyal to them, we can't hardly disentangle them from the actual biblical text. But definitely we will loudly and proudly proclaim there is no such thing. We'll write songs about our ideas. We will write magazines. We will build tourist attractions, whatever it is, because we are very, very loyal, very dedicated to these ideas, in the face of these uncomfortable realities. But we'll spend a lot of energy just denying that those realities are there.

Steve:
A good example is Galileo, and we bring this up often, but it's just the great example, I mean, of a man who saw and just stated the facts, and his fellow scientists and the religious community and everybody around him absolutely chose to deny it because they believed the word of God was saying that what he was seeing was not true. And their interpretation was completely wrong. We now know today, of course.

Jennifer:
And Galileo faced basically persecution for stating the facts. I mean, the story, you know, could have gone in the direction of Billy's mother, Billy, if you say that one more time about this dragon, you will be in trouble. You will be disciplined. Do not say that. Right.

Steve:
So, yes. So that's the second reaction in our list today. Now, if you keep this up long enough, you're going to lose credibility. You're going to lose faith. You're going to bring people down. Because if what you're dealing with is actually true, and it's God's truth, and you're mistaken about your preconceived ideas, again, I mentioned a minute ago, we got to have a little humility. And sometimes to realize that we don't have all the answers. And when truth is being brought into our field of view and the dragons right there, then, you know, we've got to deal with this because God might just very well be trying to show us something that's going to bring other people to truth.

Jennifer:
Right. The end of the road of the denial, the loud denial of the uncomfortable reality, the end of that road is just basically a loss of credibility. Because sooner or later, it's going to become obvious that no matter how loudly you deny it, it's there.

Steve:
Deny it or laugh at it.

Jennifer:
It's staring at you. And you will notice Billy's mother did not give any good reason for her disbelief in dragons. She just said there's no such thing, the end. So if we are going to deny something, we better be prepared to back that up with some very good reasons, evidence, and give some substance to the claim that we're making in that case. So we don't want to just continue to deny something to where people lose trust. I mean, another ending of the dragon story would have been that Billy's mother denied the dragon to her dying day. And Billy lost trust in his mom and didn't really see her as being someone that he could really rely on to help him navigate questions in life because she would never admit that there was a dragon. 

Steve
She's just caught up in her old ideas and she'll never be changed.

Jennifer:
So that hurts his relationship with his mom in the end as far as her being able to be a trusted guide for him in the future.

Steve:
Now, if you know the podcast and you know who we are here, you understand we are dealing with these very kinds of things. Discoveries that seem delusional, right? Things that people aren't readily accepting today, but nonetheless are true. If you're new to the podcast, hang on, you know, check us out.

Jennifer:
Hang around a little while and you will see what we mean.

Steve:
All right, well, that's the first two reactions. What about the third? The third reaction in the story. Both of these characters chose to do this for a little while. Billy and his mom chose to ignore this dragon. They chose to ignore what was sitting right in front of them.

Jennifer:
Right. They turned away. They tried to just go on with their business and hoped that the problem would go away.

Steve:
Just go away, just disappear. Unfortunately, it didn't. And what happened? It just got bigger and bigger.

Jennifer:
The problem got worse and worse. The repercussions were a little bit horrific, even though it's cute in the story and kind of endearing in the pictures and all that. But yeah, the ignoring of the problem only made it get worse and worse and worse. So, you know, you don't have to loudly deny you can just turn away, bury your head in the sand and move on. But if it's a dragon that God's put in your path, it is going to cause more and more problems because it's going to loom larger and larger and larger. The truth has a way of just nagging, nagging at you until you finally address it.

Steve:
That's right. Well, then our fourth reaction to uncomfortable realities is to choose to acknowledge it and to simply deal with it. And this was seen, at least at first, by Billy's father and then by Billy himself.

Jennifer:
It's so cute in the story when the house has run off on the back of the dragon, well the dragon has run off with the house on his back. And Mr. Bixby can't find the house. And then he finally finds that he climbs up the head and neck of the dragon, gets to the upstairs window. And he says, "How did this happen?"

Steve
How did we get here? What happened here?

Jennifer:
Yes. Well, something to notice too, the dragon doesn't disappear even after they acknowledge it, even after they notice it. That dragon is still there. Now it comes back down to small size again, but it's still present.

Jennifer:
And I think a good lesson here is dealing with it in a non-emotional way. So Billy and his father have just a brief exchange there. The mother tries to interject her feelings on it, but the men are able to just address the dragon and pat it on the head and recognize that it's real. So Mr. Bixby is a great example of a fairly non-emotional reaction. What are we dealing with here? And that's what we need to do when it comes to the Bible and science, when it comes to these new discoveries, new ideas. Keep your emotions out of it as much as you can. That's what causes you to want to loudly deny or ignore, and deal with the facts. Deal with it. Okay, what do we have here? What does this mean? And what can we find information-wise to help us to understand this properly? And yeah, like you said, then suddenly the dragon stops wreaking havoc on everything and becomes actually manageable again.

Steve:
Right, the idea. Very often, and isn't this true, the truth is stranger than fiction. But if it's truth, it's God's truth. He really does own all of the truth. And if it pops up on your bed one morning, it is of no use ignoring it, or giving heed to those who say you're not allowed. You're not allowed to say that. You're not allowed to believe that. You might as well reckon with it. Because if it's going- if it's there in front of you, it's not going to go away. If it's truth, it wants to be noticed. If it's truth, it wants to be noticed and eventually it's going to be noticed. And if it's truth, it needs to be noticed. That's really where we're getting to. God's trying to show us something. There's information here. There's vital information that people need to know about. The world may need to know about. Christians need to know about. Un-saved people who need to come to Christ need to know about. Realities, truth. But we can only reach them, we can only get to them and to the answers if we have the right reaction to these dragons.

Jennifer:
Well, we can think back. You know, the world needs to know, right? So here we are in Christianity in 2025. But we are only here because some people back in the first century had to reckon with some uncomfortable realities. And they had to be willing to say, You know what? I mean, my Jewish parents really don't want me to go down this path. But I really do think this fellow, this man is the Messiah and I'm going to have to forsake all and follow him. And, you know, the traditions and the things that we've always believed are getting shaken up here. And that's scary, but I'm going to have to step out and see where this new reality is going to lead me. I mean, that's always the way it is when something new comes on the scene. But we're so glad for those trailblazers because it blesses all those who come behind them.

Steve:
That's right. I mean, behind it, in that case, obviously we can see God was behind it and God was doing it. And yes, now another reality, I don't know if we've mentioned it yet today, is that there is good reason to fear when it comes to new truth. Because you're not going to be treated real well, and it can be as dangerous as fire, as a quote we've heard before says, and these men suffered great persecution, even most of them going to their deaths, martyred for this new truth. But yet, has it done any good for the world? Has it resulted in any benefit? I mean, we're talking about Christianity. So, yes.

Jennifer:
So may God give us the boldness and courage to speak up, to grapple with whatever God puts in our path, and to know that as we are doing this, following the path of truth to the best of our ability, following God, ultimately, to the best of our ability, God will bless that and he'll bring about great good in the end.

Steve:
Let's let that take us into our next section, because we're going to be talking about a place in real world history. And it's important because we are trying to do, part of what we're trying to do here, is present a data-rich apologetic to demonstrate the reality of the accounts of the biblical history, the stories that we have in the ancient Old Testament. And we have repeated this quite often here, and we will continue to repeat it, that in order for a story to be seen as true and real, real world history, we have to know two things. We have to know when it happened, and we have to know where it happened. Well, when we get all the way back to the beginning of the Bible, we have an account that...

Jennifer:
Yeah, what's the very first place mentioned in the Bible? Here's a pop quiz question for our audience.

Steve:
That's easy.

Jennifer:
The very first place mentioned in the Bible.

Steve:
The Garden of Eden. Yes, so this section is our, as a matter of fact, section. So let's present it here. You may have heard it said, the location of the Garden of Eden cannot be known. Okay, the where of the Garden of Eden cannot be known. Everything was wiped out by the global flood, and the earth was drastically changed during the flood. Therefore, it is impossible to know where the Garden of Eden was located.

Jennifer:
Not only you may have heard it said, we heard it said. And that's why we're on the podcast talking about it today. I heard a well-known creationist speaker talking to a group of Christian university students, and he was starting out his session by giving them some quiz questions. And he asked them, he gave them a multiple choice. Where was the Garden of Eden? And the answer to the multiple choice was, "We can't know." He said, "We can't know because everything's been wiped out by a global flood. What makes you think you're going to find where the Garden of Eden was?" And then he moved on to other topics. But some red flags went up in my mind as we heard that, knowing that that's not a very good foundation. Not a helpful thing to say. For the very first location that the Bible talks about, we have no way of verifying it in any way. It's a funny thing, but we don't know where Goldilocks lived with the three bears either.

Steve:
But we're just supposed to believe the Bible though, right? I mean, of course, I don't believe Goldilocks because Goldilocks is a fairy tale. We all know that, but the Bible is not a fairy tale. We just know that. Is that true? I mean, we just know that. I've always known that. Mom and Dad told me that. Grandpa and Grandma told me that.

Jennifer:
Right. Well like I said, if you're going to make claims, you need to be able to back that up in any area.

Steve:
Well, at this point, you're probably not surprised that we don't agree with that statement, that we cannot know where it is. Now, you might be surprised that we would be saying we can know where Eden was. Now, let me make that clear. We are not saying we know where the actual Garden of Eden is located. But we probably ought to be able to understand where the region of Eden is located. The Bible gives us almost an entire chapter, a very large portion of chapter two of Genesis, with a description of the location of this place called Eden, the Garden of Eden. And it seems like it wanted us to know where it was located, that God wants us to know that.

Jennifer:
Does it not just say a long time ago in a land far, far away, there was a garden?

Steve:
No, somewhere over the rainbow? No, it didn't say any of that. It actually gave us historical data describing a location in this world.

Jennifer:
Yeah, geographical.

Steve:
That's right, mentioning names of rivers and all of that. So, as a matter of fact, while the modern topography and climate of southeastern Iraq cannot be regarded as identical to those which pertain 7,000 years ago, 7,000 years can change a lot, the similarities which yet remain to the Eden region described in Genesis 2, are large and quite striking. Objective analysis cannot help but conclude that the region the Bible calls Eden is essentially the same as the geographical region we refer to today as southeastern Iraq.

Jennifer:
So as a matter of fact, we can know the general area where the Garden of Eden was located and very strong evidence and correlation shows that it was in the southeastern Iraq region. Now, to give credit to this creationist speaker, he didn't really clarify whether he was talking about the actual garden or the region of Eden. But it would have been a good opportunity for him to have connected the Eden region with the real world by saying what we have just said here. We don't want to send Christian University students out with the idea that the very beginnings of the book that we base our lives upon, there's no way of verifying it. That's not helpful. That's doesn't make you feel like you are basing your belief system on the real world. The very first story that you learned in Sunday school, you know, well, we don't we don't know where that was.

Steve:
We can't know.

Jennifer:
We can't know because we had this cataclysmic world-altering geography-changing topography of the years magical flood, really almost like puff the magic dragon. The giant dragon came and just like, puff, you know, everything was gone. And so, sorry, but we don't really have any way of knowing anything before that horrendous world-altering flood happened in the earth.

Steve:
Well, and that's the first misconception that Dr. Aardsma talks about in his article on this, which I don't think we've mentioned that yet, there is an article on this that you can go and read, the link is in the show notes, The Location of Eden. It's called the cataclysmic flood model. And that's the term that's used that Dr. Aardsma as an independent research scientist is showing  that that is a false model. It's a misconception of the biblical account. It is extra biblical, extra biblical ideas placed upon the text that is not there. It's interpreting a couple of verses to say something that it's not actually saying.

Jennifer:
And an abundance of evidence shows us that no, the flood did not wipe out river basins and entire geographical regions. In fact, archaeological remains were preserved through the flood. And as Steve mentioned, he read a little piece there of the article on the location of Eden, but we'll link to it in the show notes. You can go read. It's a good five, six pages there on the strong correlations with southeastern Iraq, and why we would not believe that the flood changed everything so drastically that we just can't have any idea or way of knowing where that was.

Steve:
Right. The idea is that the flood was just that, a flood. The Bible is true. The waters covered over the earth. And this idea that the whole ground broke up and destroyed everything and everything was, you know, massive, massive, massive amounts of land was reformed and all of that. The Bible doesn't say that.

Jennifer:
We need science to help us to understand what the flood was actually like. The Bible describes a lot of what it did as far as depth of water and those types of things. But as far as how it did it or what was happening in the earth during it, we have to go to science to find that out. And if anybody is trying to say that the Bible is telling me I must believe all of this. I must believe that the flood altered the entire face of the globe. Then they're denying the dragon that's sitting there looking at them that's saying, well, what about the archaeology of the Chalcolithic peoples that were pre-flood? You know, why wasn't that all obliterated then?

Steve:
And that's why this is such an important topic. It's not just that we're trying to say, yes, we can know where Eden was. It all leads somewhere and be incredible and showing people the reality of the things that we find in the Bible. That's the first misconception, the impact of the flood on the topography of the earth. But the other misconception Dr. Aardsma talks about, which we've already touched on, is the mistaking of the Garden of Eden with the region of Eden. Genesis 2:8 talks about how there was a garden in Eden. So it wasn't just the garden that was called Eden.

Jennifer:
Eden was not just the garden. It was a much bigger region.

Steve:
It's a region the garden was in. And then we see in Genesis 4 and an indication here as well, Cain was sent away, was sent out. And it says, "Out from the presence of the Lord," when he murdered his brother, "and settled east of Eden." So this was long after they were out of the garden. So, those misconceptions being straightened out, we can now begin to wrap our brain around the fact that, okay, well, what then is the Bible describing there in Genesis 2? Where is this? Can we see it on a map today?

Jennifer:
Yes. That would be a great study as a family or in a Sunday school class or Bible study. Let's look at a map. Let's delve into these details and let's anchor our feet more firmly on the ground of the real world in the very beginning of the book of Genesis.

Steve:
Well, we can because there's a detailed description there of the geographical location. We can go to a map today and say, Wow, look at this. Comparing the biblical description with modern world geography, we can see, look right over here in southeastern Iraq, right over here at the head of the Persian Gulf. Here's two rivers. Here's, okay, well, this looks like it really works. We're not in a land far, far away after all. We're not in Narnia. We're not in, you know, you name it. We're actually on Earth in a real place in the real world. It wasn't all broken up, abolished, obliterated and destroyed.

Jennifer:
And I think it's actually four rivers. We know the Tigris, Euphrates, but there's more detail there. So go look at the article for yourself and, but just know that we don't want to make claims that say that we cannot verify the things that we believe. We are all about finding it in the real world as much as possible, answering the questions, and arming ourselves with a strong defense for the truth that we believe.

All right. Well, all that talk about Noah's flood and how that relates to what did it do, what did it not do, brings us right into our Q&A with Dr. A. I don't believe we've ever had a section like this before. We have had Dr. Aardsma on the podcast and our listeners have always responded very well to hearing straight from Dr. Aardsma. But surprisingly enough, even though this is episode 35, we have never had just a Q&A with Dr. A. section. So better late than never, we will bring this to you here today. We're just going to read the question and then read the answer.

Steve:
This is from May of this year, 2025.

"Dear Dr. Aardsma, I am intrigued by your hypothesis of a hemispheric flood due to the temporary dislocation of the Earth's inner core, as it seems to lack the biblical problems of local flood models, and the extreme scientific problems of global flood models. But there are still problems with your model. Earth's inner core is a solid iron nickel sphere approximately 2,440 kilometers in diameter, surrounded by a liquid outer core and a viscous mantle. It is stabilized by immense gravitational and magnetic forces. A temporary dislocation of the inner core would require an extraordinary force far beyond known natural processes like earthquakes, volcanism, or impacts, to displace it relative to the mantle and inner crust. Dislocating the inner core would disrupt the Earth's magnetic field, rotation, and gravitational equilibrium, causing catastrophic global effects such as pole shifts. Do you have any evidence of this occurring at the end of the Chalcolithic?"

And this is from a gentleman by the name of Scott.

Jennifer:
Dr. Aardsma says, "Hello, Scott. Nice to hear from you again. The evidence is pretty overwhelming for dislocation of the inner core being the fundamental physical cause of the flood. The major global effect is hemispherical flooding, of course. The northern ice sheets show this effect very clearly and at the time expected by modern biblical chronology, 3520 BC. Note that I have shown quantitatively in my book, 'Noah's Flood Happened 3520 BC' a realistic physical mechanism by which motion of the inner core away from center may be initiated. The main scientific effect connecting the present back to Noah's Flood terminating the Chalcolithic, other than the archaeologically attested sudden near extinction of the Chalcolithic civilization itself, is current global warming. This, however, is an albedo effect, not a magnetic effect. Magnetic effects are significantly delayed from the core to the surface, but note that the magnetic field has been observed to be decaying since scientists first began to measure it. According to my Noahic Events theory, this decay is a simple consequence of Noah's Flood. Dr. Gerald Aardsma."

Steve:
Good question by one who is following the work here and a clear answer by Dr. Aardsma. And if you have questions, you are more than welcome to write in to us. You can write to Dr. Aardsma if you'd like. He doesn't spend a whole lot of time as he's very heavily involved in research answering questions. But we do answer questions here and we appreciate Scott allowing us to share his question and that answer with you today.

Jennifer:
You can get the book that Dr. Aardsma references in his answer there and delve into yourself what he's referencing, the physical mechanism, etc. So go to the show notes and you can avail yourself of that.

Steve:
Our next section is Helen's View and Helen has been doing a series on the life of Charles Goodyear. Another scientist that researched the vulcanization of rubber many years ago. This is part three and some lessons that we can learn from the experience of this man Charles Goodyear.

Helen:
Lessons from the life of Charles Goodyear, Part Three. The process of vulcanization. For four years, Charles Goodyear worked vigorously on the problem of trying to improve the physical properties of rubber. Despite health issues, poverty, friends feeling he had lost his mind, and loss of partners, Goodyear passionately followed the call of God on his life.

In 1838, God brought Nathaniel Hayward of Massachusetts into Goodyear's life. Hayward was working on sulfur for drying rubber. Ultimately, in the year 1839, after continued persistence, Goodyear succeeded in vulcanizing rubber using sulfur. This time it really worked. Goodyear was finally on the road to success.

Myths abound as to how Goodyear actually learned to vulcanize rubber using sulfur. Some say it was accidental. That Goodyear spilled the rubber mixture on a hot stove and then observed that the rubber became vulcanized. Others say that he worked with the sulfur and rubber over an open flame and discovered that the rubber cured. The inventor himself says that the process was not the direct result of the scientific method, but that it was also not accidental. It was the result of application and observation.

Delighted and excited with finally getting the results he had worked so hard for, he tried to secure the capital needed to start manufacturing. But everybody already knew Goodyear was a loser when it came to inventing and a loser in business. He continued for several years, living in extreme poverty, still experimenting to improve the rubber, but only in a small way as funds were practically non-existent.

Persistence in trying to raise capital finally paid off when Goodyear went to New York and showed some of his rubber samples to William Ryder. Ryder, along with Goodyear's brother, could see the rubber's potential and started to manufacture it. But Ryder brothers had a financial collapse and that was the end of that business plan for Goodyear.

Some would say that Goodyear had terrible luck, but of course we don't believe in luck. We believe God had a plan for Goodyear. Several years earlier Goodyear had started a small factory in Springfield, Massachusetts, with his wealthy brother-in-law, Mr. De Forest. When things fell apart with Ryder, he still had a facility in the works.

In 1844 Goodyear took out a patent, but his troubles were far from over. I will close with a quote from the book review section of an issue of Physics Today. "Scully's book shows how historic contributions in physics are not made by those who publish papers by the hundreds or who get funding by the millions, but by the few thinkers and independent minds who have the strength to step out of the race and quietly identify and address the big questions."

Jennifer:
This series on Charles Goodyear is just clearly focusing in on the struggle, the path to discovery, to invention, to solving a big problem. And that quote that Helen shared there at the end takes us back to what we said at the beginning. The independent minds who have the strength to step out of the mainstream and quietly identify and address the big questions. That's a nice circle back there to what we shared at the beginning, which is what this podcast is all about.

Steve:
Well, we are presenting important information that needs to get out to people like you and those who you know. And we are presenting discoveries from an independent research scientist. You have a front row seat as you are listening to this podcast. And we hope that you'll help us spread the word, get the information to other people, share the podcast. You can easily do that by going to our podcast website, TheBCMessenger.com. And you can listen on any podcast channel that you enjoy listening through. We're on all the major ones. And we're so glad that you are here, and we're trusting the Lord that he's going to continue to allow this information to get out into more and more hands, as people are being faced more and more with questions in this age of information, dragons on the end of their beds that they don't know what to do with, we believe that right here we have some solid answers.

Jennifer:
We are here to help you and those you know to be able to calmly and rationally pat the dragon on the head and help it to stop being such a monster, to just be addressed and dealt with and be able to move on in our pursuit of following the God of all truth.

Steve:
That's right. So thanks for listening in. Leave us a quick review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify if you can. And as always, we welcome your feedback as we mentioned a minute ago. Thanks for joining us.

Jennifer:
We will see you in July, which will be the close of Season 3 of TheBCMessenger Real Science, Real Bible, Real History, Real World.