In celebration of the Fourth of July and as 2022 is the year of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 16 moon landing, Dan sits down  for a conversation with Apollo 16 astronaut, the tenth man to walk upon the lunar surface, Charlie Duke.    Duke is a retired Air Force Brigadier General and the CAPCOM "voice" of Houston for the historic Apollo 11 mission to the moon in July of 1969.    It was such an honor and delight to speak with Charlie. It was like talking to family. His delight in telling his remarkable story is evident. We spoke about his time working as CAPCOM for Apollo 11, his own trip to the moon on Apollo 16 and ultimately how the Lord Jesus Christ saved both Charlie and his family.    Here on part three Charlie reads from some of his favorite Psalms, shares a remarkable story about a wedding ring floating in the heavens and shares the beginnings of Jesus saving him and his family.  To see the video of this episode go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZerXQ-S0AU For more about Charlie's story, you can visit his website. https://charlieduke.com/ Charlie and Dotty Duke's book Moonwalker https://www.amazon.com/Moonwalker-Astronaut-Enough-Satisfy-Success/dp/0840791062 Good Heavens! A Podcast about the Universe with Wayne and Dan https://www.patreon.com/GoodHeavens Apologetics Profile https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/jwalker55293 https://www.watchman.org   Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.

In celebration of the Fourth of July and as 2022 is the year of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 16 moon landing, Dan sits down  for a conversation with Apollo 16 astronaut, the tenth man to walk upon the lunar surface, Charlie Duke.    Duke is a retired Air Force Brigadier General and the CAPCOM "voice" of Houston for the historic Apollo 11 mission to the moon in July of 1969.    It was such an honor and delight to speak with Charlie. It was like talking to family. His delight in telling his remarkable story is evident. We spoke about his time working as CAPCOM for Apollo 11, his own trip to the moon on Apollo 16 and ultimately how the Lord Jesus Christ saved both Charlie and his family.    Here on part two Charlie looks back on his own landing on the moon with John Young, talks a little bit about Buzz Aldrin's communion on the moon after Apollo 11 had landed, remembers James Irwin of Apollo 15 quoting from Psalm 121 from the moon, and reflects on the Apollo 8 crew on Christmas Eve of 1968 reading from the first chapter of Genesis.    Watch the video of this episode!  https://youtu.be/9YpNFwbKTBA For more about Charlie's story, you can visit his website. https://charlieduke.com/  Charlie and Dotty Duke's book Moonwalker  https://www.amazon.com/Moonwalker-Astronaut-Enough-Satisfy-Success/dp/0840791062  Good Heavens! A Podcast about the Universe with Wayne and Dan https://www.patreon.com/GoodHeavens  Apologetics Profile  https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/jwalker55293  https://www.watchman.org   Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.

In celebration of the Fourth of July and as 2022 is the year of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 16 moon landing, Dan sits down  for a conversation with Apollo 16 astronaut, the tenth man to walk upon the lunar surface, Charlie Duke.  Duke is a retired Air Force Brigadier General and the CAPCOM "voice" of Houston for the historic Apollo 11 mission to the moon in July of 1969.   We will be releasing this conversation in five parts in the coming week, so stay tuned!  It was such an honor and delight to speak with Charlie. It was like talking to family. His delight in telling his remarkable story is evident. We spoke for an hour and twenty minutes about his time working as CAPCOM for Apollo 11, his own trip to the moon on Apollo 16 and ultimately how the Lord Jesus Christ saved both Charlie and his family.  Part one of the video premiers Tuesday, July 5th.  Listen all the way to the end for some hilarious bonus material! You can't hear Charlie's reaction on the audio, but he is grinning ear to ear in the video!  Here on part one Charlie reflects on his experiences on the moon 50 years later and what it was like during the very tense final moments before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon during the historical Apollo 11 mission.  For more about Charlie's story, you can visit his website.  Charlie and Dotty Duke's book Moonwalker     Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.

The best science of the universe seems strongly to suggest our universe did indeed have a beginning. Why are the best minds in astrophysics trying to create models of the universe without a beginning? Are these models anywhere close to explaining a beginningless universe?  As we heard last week, there is indeed an anti-supernatural bias in the sciences today against the idea of God having anything to do with our universe. The late Stephen Hawking, Lawrence Krauss, are just a few examples of cosmologists who have openly expressed their intent to explain the cosmos without reference to God.  How then does the message of the cross speak to modern cosmology? If science found a way to explain the universe without a beginning would that force us to reinterpret Genesis?   By no means. Our guest again this week is astrophysicist Dr. Jeff Zweerink. On part two Jeff gives us more background into why beginningless models of the cosmos simply don't work, especially those which overtly attempt to "get rid of God." Jeff also offers how he sees our Christian faith in light of modern cosmology.  Astrophysicist Jeff Zweerink is a research scholar for Reasons to Believe (RTB), an organization dedicated to demonstrating the compatibility of science and the Christian faith. Jeff’s work focuses on helping people of all backgrounds bridge the perceived gap between science and the Christian faith. Jeff has also made many media appearances, on television, radio, and in print. He earned a BS in physics and a PhD in astrophysics with a focus on gamma rays from Iowa State University. He taught and ran the planetarium at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, until postdoctoral research in gamma rays led him to the University of California, Riverside. Prior to joining RTB, Jeff spent years working on the STACEE and VERITAS gamma-ray telescopes and was involved in research projects such as the Solar Two project and the Whipple Collaboration. He continues to work as a project scientist at UCLA on GAPS, a balloon experiment seeking to detect dark matter. Jeff is also a coauthor on more than 30 academic papers published in peer-reviewed journals, such as Astrophysical Journal, Astroparticle Physics, and Astrobiology. A Christian from childhood, Jeff struggled to reconcile his love of science and his desire to serve God. While an undergrad at Iowa State University, he heard astrophysicist and RTB founder Hugh Ross speak on the constructive integration of science and faith. Hugh’s old-earth perspective introduced Jeff to a creation view that aligns with both Scripture and science. Ten years later, a professor encouraged Jeff to enroll in RTB’s volunteer apologetics program. This involvement eventually led to a scholar position in 2005. Today, Jeff writes and speaks on the compatibility of science and the Christian faith and on evidence for intentional design from a multiverse theory, dark energy and dark matter, and exoplanets. His speaking engagements take him to universities, churches, and other venues around the world, including high schools and youth groups and numerous conference proceedings. He is also the author of Is There Life Out There?, Who’s Afraid of the Multiverse?, and Escaping the Beginning?. Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.

Moses knew it long before any of the best minds in physics and cosmology knew it. And what did Moses know? That "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."  Just a hundred years ago, the sciences of the heavens had stumbled across what appeared in the mathematical and observational data as evidence that our universe did in fact have a beginning.  But like Moses, philosophers and theologians of earlier centuries understood our universe to have had a beginning. But the burgeoning skepticism of the 18th-century Enlightenment philosophy led many to believe the universe could be explained without God.  Faced with what many thought was a reversion back to religion and philosophy, modern cosmological science stood face-to-face with the possibility our universe did in fact have a beginning.  This was a radically new idea in the contemporary sciences of the universe. To consider the universe as not only expanding but as having a beginning was, to say the least, not a bit unsettling. How could this be?  The best minds have been brought to bear on the question of the origin of our universe. And many alternative models and explanations have been offered that attempt to circumvent a beginning of the universe and thus once more eliminate God from the picture.  Our special guest on the next two episodes of Good Heavens! astrophysicist and researcher at Reasons to Believe, Dr. Jeff Zweerink walks us through his exploration of these alternative models and shares why he thinks none of them succeed in "escaping the beginning."   Jeff's 2019 book Escaping the Beginning? Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.

A special edition of Good Heavens! There is a video version of this that will be available Friday (6-3-2022). https://youtu.be/BIpyvSiUgZM A theist wrote a 2017 article suggesting the fine-tuning argument is not evidence for God.   We take a look at the basics of the fine-tuning argument, how it began, what it is, and why  it remains a good argument, despite the article's conclusions.    Original article can be found here. https://nautil.us/fine-tuning-does-not-imply-a-fine-tuner-10235/  Books mentioned in the broadcast.   Patrick Glynn God the Evidence  David Alcalde Cosmology without God? Alex Vilenkin Many Worlds in One – The Search for Other Universes  William Lane Craig and Joseph E. Gorra A Reasonable Response, Answers to Tough Questions on God, Christianity and the Bible  For Watchman Fellowship go to: https://www.watchman.org Book: https://www.thestoryofthecosmos.com  1 Cor. 10:31. Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.

No one in the observatory on that increasingly foggy London evening had even imagined they were all about to be a part of an unexpected discovery of a supernova. But as students were munching away at their pizza, they decided to aim their telescope at a target near the Big Dipper  Boom.  That's when they saw it.  You just never know. While most of us will likely never be the first to discover a supernova, if we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, there is no end to the surprises and wonders He can and will do for us. The universe is filled with His stars. He created them, for signs and for seasons, and for days and years. He knows their names, He numbers all of them, not one of them is missing. He knows their days and their place.  If God cares for the stars in such detail, how much more so will He care for you? (Isaiah 40:26ff).  God can and will do exceedingly and abundantly above all we can ask or imagine, for His glory.  So in the midst of your daily routines, God can break in like a supernova and answer your prayers beyond anything you might have been expecting.  Come along with Wayne and me as we talk about the numinous wonders of supernovae and how they can be a reminder to us of God's glory and His care for us.  SN1987A from Hubble, NASA, and the ESA. https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2017/news-2017-08.html.  Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.

God's fireworks! Stars that explode. What could be more exciting? What are supernovae? Why do stars explode? And how do such wonders point us to God's glory? Find out on the next two episodes of Good Heavens!  Wayne's article on supernovae.  https://creationanswers.net/answersblog/2022/05/02/stellar-fireworks/ Some spectacular supernovae What is a supernova? https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/definition-what-is-a-supernova/ SN1987A (the views expressed in these articles do not necessarily reflect those of Watchman.org or Good Heavens) https://www.sciencenews.org/article/30-year-anniversary-supernova-1987a https://earthsky.org/space/supernova-1987a-closest-brightest-supernova-star-death/ Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.

From now through the beginning of June, you can see four planets closely aligned - Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and Saturn.  On this special episode, we give you some pointers about how you can see these celestial diadems just before sunrise and we offer some thoughts about how they remind us of God's glory.  One may not agree with Lewis's use of medieval symbol and pagan mythology as imaginative symbols pointing to Christ. We are not suggesting it is an appropriate apologetic approach for everyone. Certainly Christianity teaches the rejection of pagan idolatry in both the Old and New Testaments. Yet it was the apostle Paul himself who took ideas from pagan Greek poetry about the gods and related it to Jesus to the philosophers and stoics gathered atop Mars Hill in Athens (see Acts 17 and an episode on our sister podcast Apologetics Profile about Paul on Mars Hill here).  For any questions or concerns, drop us a line at Psalm1968@gmail.com.  Books mentioned on this episode:  Planet Narnia - The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis   Nightwatch   Living The Sky - The Cosmos of the American Indian   Our book The Story of the Cosmos - How the Heavens Declare the Glory of God     Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.

No, we aren't talking about the Internet! But about the newly launched James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), now roaming about the heavens a million miles from planet Earth.  It was launched Christmas morning, December 25, 2021 from a European spaceport in French Guiana, in South America. A brand-new, ten-billion-dollar telescope venture, the James Webb Space Telescope is an infrared telescope and will be able to pick up some of the faintest light in the most distant regions of the cosmos. The James Webb telescope supercedes the Spitzer Space Telescope that went before it.  Spitzer was also an Infrared telescope.  Come and find out about where the James Webb telescope is located and why astronomers are so excited about it.     Every time we build a bigger telescope, our understanding of the cosmos is radically changed. What wonders await us? Whatever Webb uncovers it is exciting to consider that no eye has ever seen the things God is about to reveal to us through the honey-combed mirrors of this new telescope.  Come along with Wayne and Dan as they ponder how telescopes have changed our understanding of the universe we inhabit and how it all might point to the glory of God in Christ.  Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible. Image:  The picture is an infrared colored image from the Spitzer Space Telescope, produced by NASA (cropped and resized for this).