Faith and Science: Rebuilding Truth, Order, and Education

This podcast is brought to you by Open Door Mission, restoring hope and changing lives. OpenDoorMission.com.

Peter Vazquez (00:11.767)
Mira la izquierda, mira la derecha. ¿Qué ves? ¿Dónde estás? In a world that seems to change daily, what will you do next? Welcome to The Next Steps Show with Peter Vazquez, a starting point for discussion y un poco de dirección.

Check it out, ladies and gentlemen. Mira, a society that refuses to recognize design will spend its days managing chaos. My gosh, is that not what we see in our own backyards here in New York and throughout this great nation of ours?

But we know this: when we follow the evidence, when we honor truth, when we rebuild from first principles and real science, guess what? It points upward. Education stands firm, and faith finds its footing.

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to The Next Steps Show conmigo, Peter Vazquez, on La Voz de la Libertad. Best radio station in all of Western New York and really all around the world, because we have listeners everywhere.

Check it out, ladies and gentlemen. I have a phenomenal guest today with a phenomenal topic, and the lines are going to be open. What a treat. 585-346-3000 and 866-552-1009.

Today we are going to confront the forces reshaping business, education, and faith itself, guided by un señor who has built companies, challenged institutions, and followed the evidence wherever it led. This gentleman is an entrepreneur and an author. It is my honor, ladies and gentlemen, to bring to you another phenomenal guest, the honorable Brian Wetzel. Señor, bienvenido to The Next Steps Show.

Brian Wetzel
Hello. Thank you for having me on. The pleasure is mine.

Peter Vazquez (02:26.209)
Thank you for your time, Brian. How are you?

Brian Wetzel
Doing good. I love being able to come on with great people and great topics.

Peter Vazquez (02:26.209)
As we get started, can you share with our listeners: who is Brian Wetzel, and what next steps you took to bring you to where you are today?

Brian Wetzel (02:36.649)
So, I always say that I am a wearer of many hats. I get bored very easily, so throughout my life I have done as many things as I possibly could. I started out in photography and production, movies and TV. I did that for many years, created documentaries, created TV shows.

All the while I was dabbling in small business. Eventually, as I got into my fifties, I decided that I wanted to stay a little closer to home with the family. So I invested in a restaurant and a couple of gyms in my area. I still do consulting for the production industry, but mostly I have now become an author and a small business owner.

Peter Vazquez
Your work has been recognized considerably. If I understand correctly, your production company contributed to the 1996 Olympic Games. You edited the first victim impact video used for the Fred Tokars murder trial. Can you tell us how that experience was? That must have been pretty heavy.

Brian Wetzel
Yes. Fred Tokars is a very famous case here in Georgia. It made it onto Court TV, and I believe the History Channel did something on it. It was gut-wrenching.

To avoid going too deep into all the facts of the case, he was a lawyer here who represented a lot of drug dealers and people who had gotten in trouble, a defense attorney. He was laundering money, taking a lot under the table, and he feared that his wife had found out. So he hired two people who owed him money for defending them to kill her.

She was supposed to be alone, but his four-year-old and six-year-old children were still there. They kidnapped both kids, and the two children had to watch their mom get shot in the head. Then the killers dumped them on a dirt road. By the grace of God, those two little kids found their way, about three miles away, to a house to get help.

Part of the victim impact video I did was not just representing who his wife Sarah was, but reminding the jury of the unbelievable violence that the children witnessed. Watching her oldest son on the stand try to get through the story, breaking down as he described his mom getting shot, was devastating. Every time I had to go through the footage it made me well up.

It was very difficult to get through, but I felt it was worthwhile. It was something I did for the Ambrusco family, who called me on an idle Sunday looking for someone to help them out. I kind of got lucky to be the first to do a victim impact video.

For those who do not know, when the victim cannot speak for herself, and the children cannot be brought back and put through the trauma again, the family creates a video that represents who the victim was, what the kids testified to, and the damage that was done to the families. They use that as part of the sentencing.

Peter Vazquez
Thank you for sharing that, Brian. I really do appreciate it. Many people do not realize that there is such a thing as creating videos to do exactly what you described. I am glad that the victims do not go unheard and that you contributed to that.

After all that, you became an author. You wrote two books. One is The Real Problems Destroying Education, which came out in 2024, and your more recent book is A Path to Faith Through Science and Common Sense, correct?

Brian Wetzel (07:19.123)
That is correct. They came out so close together, and that was not purposeful.

The book on education came out of one of the businesses that I started. I always tell people when I speak to small business owners, I was very proud of this business, but we just could not get it off the ground fast enough. We ended up selling off the assets. It was a company that created K-12 educational resources, videos, and assessments, small online quizzes.

My job was not just producing the content, but also traveling. I drove or flew around to conferences, principal meetings, and administrator conferences all around the country. I met with teachers, administrators, and people in every aspect of K-12 public education. I was in a lot of schools. I probably spoke to several hundred, maybe close to a thousand teachers in the four or five years that we did this.

What I saw was very alarming. When I first started the business, in full disclosure, my wife is a public school teacher. Thank you for your service. I have kids in the system. She works in the system. I was doing business with the system. I thought that when I got a peek behind the curtain it would all make sense. Instead, it was more confusing. I was very alarmed.

It would not have been a good idea to write the book while we had the company. We probably would have been blackballed. I started writing at the end of 2018 and through 2019. Then we went into COVID lockdown, so I put it down until 2021, maybe early 2022.

During that time I interviewed 169 teachers and other people in education. Most of them had just retired so they could speak freely without fear of consequences. I spoke to 16 administrators who were retiring, to get an idea of what they saw change over the years. Anybody retiring has been in the system at least 20 to 30 years, so they were good interviews. These were teachers all over the country, not just in my state.

I got a very good picture of what they had all seen change. Coupled with my own experience and the things I saw, I also interviewed several college professors who were doing studies on education to get their point of view on the best way to educate or to fix the schools.

By the way, there is no consensus. The biggest consensus, in my opinion, is that the system needs to be stripped down to its bare bones and restarted.

Peter Vazquez
I think many people would agree: start with math, English, language arts.

Brian Wetzel
Exactly. We have thrown so much at these teachers. Right now the average teacher, after going out and getting a degree, will not be in the profession for five years before they quit. So much gets piled on them. When there is a problem child, they often do not remove the child from the class anymore. There is a lot of bad behavior.

You also have a rise in autism. I know schools where they cannot find enough teachers because autism levels have risen to the point where they do not have enough staff to manage those classrooms. There is so much going on, but in the end it all comes back to math, science, and the basics. Families should handle values and worldview, and schools should teach what kids need to learn to get out into the world and function.

Peter Vazquez (11:52.843)
Brian, I need to pay some bills. Ladies and gentlemen, I have entrepreneur and author Brian Wetzel. Do not change the dial.

In January 2025, a review noted that 44 percent of K-12 teachers reported feeling burnt out often or always. We will be right back, right here on La Voz de la Libertad, W-Y-S-L.

[Recorded Sponsor Spots]

Flower City Collision – Greg Sadwick (13:12.351)
Hi, my name is Greg Sadwick, and along with my son Zach, we are the owners of Flower City Collision. We have been advertisers on WYSL, the Voice of Liberty, for the last couple of years. I want to thank the listeners of WYSL for their patronage, which has allowed us to grow and reinvest in the latest technologies to ensure that your vehicles are repaired to the most current standards, whether conventional or EV. If you are in a collision, reach out to Zach at Flower City Collision in Henrietta and he will work with your national insurance company on your local behalf to ensure that your repair gets done right.

Youth for Christ Rochester (recorded)
Youth for Christ Rochester is creating a safe sanctuary and a Christ culture for at-risk city kids. Our basketball programs provide a strict code of conduct, discipline, and mentoring to give our kids the boundaries they need and crave. Our God’s Girls middle school program is so popular we are now in three city schools and growing. Our Performing Arts Academy explores and identifies untapped gifts, all while delivering the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Give a monthly or one-time gift at yfcrochester.org/donate.

Peter Vazquez and The Next Steps Show on the Voice of Liberty.

Peter Vazquez (14:55.498)
Welcome back to The Next Steps Show on La Voz de la Libertad.

A quick shout out to our sponsors: Flower City Collision. Meet us, get it done once, get it done by a veteran. And YFC or Youth for Christ Rochester.org, another veteran saving lives.

Ladies and gentlemen, lines are open: 585-346-3000 and 866-552-1009. I have entrepreneur and author Brian Wetzel. Sir, thank you again for taking time to spend with us today.

Brian Wetzel
Absolutely. Glad to be here.

Peter Vazquez
Brian, today is International Men’s Day. It is observed every year on November 19 and is meant to remind us that the welfare of men and boys matters, not only to families but to the health of the entire nation. I thought I would put that out there as we seem to be very confused about the role of men these days.

Brian Wetzel
Yes, that is true. A lot of boys are suffering because of that confusion.

Peter Vazquez
As we were talking about education, there also seems to be a big push in schools to sidestep parents. I want to look at your other book, A Path to Faith Through Science and Common Sense. Many people believe that science and faith cannot mix. I believe they complement each other. I believe that science is something ordained by God. That is not the common belief in most places.

Your book encourages a critical, open-minded evaluation of the evidence for a designer. Scientists like Copernicus, Newton, and Kepler said that they saw their work as uncovering God’s handiwork. In the twentieth century, some intellectuals argued that science renders God unnecessary.

In all the work you did preparing this book and in your life, is there any validity to the idea that science renders God unnecessary? That seems to be the mantra, especially politically.

Brian Wetzel (16:43.658)
There is no validity that I know of. There are scientists who are physicalists, who believe that if you cannot physically touch it, test it, and measure it, then it must not exist. That is very short-sighted.

Most people believe stories about what happened to others. They will listen to those stories, and there is so much going on around us that we do not see spiritually. I think that is the blind spot in modern science.

I used to believe that scientists did not believe in God. As it turns out, I quote in the book a lot from Dr. Gerald Schroeder. He has a PhD, he is from Harvard, and he was a professor there for many years. He changed his mind. He was an atheist, but after he saw the evidence in DNA and other aspects of nature, he completely changed his mind and came to believe in God.

There is Dr. Stephen Meyer. Some people may know him. He wrote several great books on this. Dr. Hugh Ross, Michael Denton, David Berlinski. There are many really good scientists. Whenever I say this, I think people sometimes wonder whether these are ministers. They are not. These are actual scientists, with all the credentials you would expect in cosmology, the study of the origin of life, and the Big Bang. Every one of them has the pedigree you would want if you were debating the science.

I also tell the story in the book about Antony Flew. He was a famous atheist and philosopher who wrote more than 20 books on atheism. He would have been Richard Dawkins’ hero. In December 2004 he announced that he now believed in God. He said that the science led him to believe that what we see around us could not have just popped up like a seed. It had to have been designed, by someone who created the laws of physics.

One of the things I loved about The Science of God by Dr. Schroeder, and I was emailing with him about this, is that he makes a very elegant case that God created the laws of physics, the laws of our universe, and acts through those laws. When people question miracles, he often points out that when God parted the Red Sea, He did not just reach His hand down and push the water aside. Scripture says He brought a strong wind.

He talks about how the laws of physics line up so perfectly, mathematically, that they must have been designed. They could not have happened by chance.

The way I set my book up is that I am a Christian, and I make no apology for that. I believe in the Christian faith. However, I do not proselytize to Christianity in the book directly. I am looking to reach people who may be on the fence, who say, “I have never seen any evidence for God.” I want to say, “Take a second look.” There is so much more out there that people are not paying attention to.

With respect to science, there are many unanswered questions. A lot of people who do not study science think that science has everything figured out. You would be surprised how many things science really does not know or understand.

I tried to get an interview with Dr. Bruce Greyson at the University of Virginia. He had a stroke, so he could not speak with me, but he sent me some white papers and peer-reviewed studies. He has been studying near-death experiences for several decades and cataloging them.

One of the things I noticed in his peer-reviewed study on consciousness, based on interviews with people who had near-death experiences, is how hostile some critics were. Other scientists wrote in trying to disprove his conclusions, but everything they argued had already been addressed in the original paper. It was clear they did not really read the article. They were simply offended by the conclusion and began trying to tear it down. Dr. Greyson, being the gentleman that he is, wrote back very politely and pointed them to the paragraphs that answered their objections.

I found that very telling. Many physicalists are turned off by any conclusion that does not fit their worldview, and they stop listening.

Peter Vazquez (23:29.181)
I think that is very interesting. You mentioned philosopher Antony Flew. He once said that the laws of nature and the complexity of life require an infinite intelligence. Staunch skeptics, when they open their minds, can see the smart design of the universe that has to be divine.

Ladies and gentlemen, entrepreneur and author Brian Wetzel. We will be right back, right here on The Next Steps Show on WYSL and WENY. No cambie enseguida.

[Break ID / Bumper]

Peter Vazquez (25:21.832)
Peter Vazquez and The Next Steps Show on the Voice of Liberty.

[Segment return – some text is station copy, partial]

Caller (reading question, paraphrased)
When science gets it wrong, hopefully scientists self-correct. The problem has often been that the church has kept people down. The church went after Galileo when he was making correct observations, for example. As time went on, the church caught up, like in 1951 when Pope Pius XII declared that the Big Bang theory was acceptable and compatible with creation. But for centuries, the church kept free thinking at bay. What about the times when religion was wrong and persecuted people who were just trying to bring the actual truth?

Peter Vazquez (28:35.289)
I did get that question. Brian, how would you respond?

Brian Wetzel
What I would say is that we have to remember that those decisions were made by people. People working in the church at the time were making those calls. That does not necessarily mean that those decisions aligned with what God would have wanted or what was best. That was their opinion.

A lot of times, especially back in the time of Galileo, the church was trying to protect its turf. They did not want anyone else having the information. They wanted everyone to turn to the church.

What happens nowadays, I believe, is that because we know so much more scientifically, we can take a fresh look at things. I would encourage you to read The Science of God by Dr. Gerald Schroeder. He takes Genesis and lines it up with the Big Bang and with the biblical timeline, and he lines it up mathematically. It works out quite well.

So I think that we know far more now in science, and we also know that people in religion can let their pride drive them as they try to protect their turf.

I wrote this book because I am skeptical by nature. I want to see evidence. When I tell you I believe, it is because I studied. I had people email me and say, “You should not have to look at science to believe in God. You should just have faith.” That would be nice, but many people like myself want a bigger picture, a fuller picture. That was really the point of the book, to give people a bigger view of how science and God come together.

Peter Vazquez (30:42.929)
Keith?

Caller Keith (paraphrased)
In closing, I would say this. If the church overall were really following the teachings and tenets of Jesus, they would be more open-minded. I think you would have to agree that the church has persecuted many pioneers who dared to step out and say, “The doctrines of the church are wrong in light of this scientific fact.” Good people tried to get the truth out, and religion got in the way. It took centuries for the damage to be undone. I wish you would speak more loudly about that. Religion is good, but it can get in the way and it can persecute. I do not hear you coming out strongly and saying that religion has to back away when it does not know the answers and let the free thinkers speak without persecution.

Peter Vazquez
Keith, I appreciate the call. Brian, do you want to respond?

Brian Wetzel
That really was not the point of the book. I was not going after the church or trying to correct it. However, I think we can all agree that the church, whether it is the Catholic Church or some megachurches, has not always made the best decisions. They have not always made decisions that we can look back on and be proud of.

I am Catholic, and believe it or not, in my family lineage, Martin Luther is on my family tree. So half of my ancestors were on the Catholic side, and the others left Germany and came to the United States because they felt persecuted by the Catholic Church.

Peter Vazquez (33:07.271)
Let me read some stats here. The Pew Research Center shows that a majority of scientists are not atheists. About 51 percent of scientists profess belief in God or a higher spiritual reality, whereas only 41 percent are agnostic or atheist. My research found something even more interesting among younger scientists today. Sixty-six percent express belief in God or a higher power, and only 32 percent do not.

Among physicians, 76 percent believe in God or a higher power, and only 12 percent are agnostic and 11 percent are atheists. Three quarters of doctors think miracles occurred in the past, and many believe they can occur today.

How do you reconcile, as an entrepreneur, the idea that if you speak openly about these views, it may have a backlash on your business? How do you reconcile your entrepreneurship background with your theological convictions?

Brian Wetzel (34:37.797)
They do not really cross in a negative way. I am in an area where a lot of people are very religious, in the South. Most people appreciate it.

If someone were upset about it, I would tell them that is their choice. In my business, for instance, if you want to use my gym, you do not have to believe in any particular religion. That is not what we are about. However, my faith does dictate how I treat people and how I deal with problems.

I have gotten better at that over time. As a younger man I had a much faster temper and a sharper tongue. As I have gotten older and studied more, I have tried every day, every week, every month, every year to be better. That is all we can do.

Peter Vazquez
Ladies and gentlemen, entrepreneur and author Brian Wetzel. Sir, I really appreciate your time. I cannot say that enough.

Ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate you. We will be right back, right here on the Voice of Liberty, WYSL. The Next Steps Show with Peter Vazquez.

[Recorded Sponsor Spots – closing]

Flower City Collision spot (repeat).
Youth for Christ Rochester skills and drills program for middle school boys, God’s Girls program in three schools, and Performing Arts Academy building its own recording studio. Help at yfcrochester.org/donate.

Peter Vazquez (37:55.6)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to The Next Steps Show. Mira.

Thank you, Flower City Collision. If you get into a fender bender, take it to Flower City Collision. Get it done, get it done right, by a veteran, and get it done once. YFCRochester.org, Youth for Christ, saving the lives of young people before they lose hope in life.

I have entrepreneur and author Brian Wetzel here on The Next Steps Show. And check it out, we have a caller.

Caller Gary
Hello Peter, hello Brian. Interesting topic today. I want to throw in a couple of things. One is that I have known a few people who were atheists who suddenly decided that a higher power, intelligent design, made more sense, just common sense wise. I have never heard of anybody who was a devout believer going the other way. I do not know if that is significant or not.

The other thing is that as I have spent more time in nature observing animals, intelligent design is the only thing that makes sense. All of these systems fit together so perfectly that in my mind it is beyond common sense to say that this was just an accident or just random changes over time. Of course there are changes over time, but I do not believe they are by accident or coincidence.

Brian Wetzel (39:42.917)
I would agree, and I think science points to that. When I talk to someone who is agnostic or atheist, I often point out that a lot of the science they point to is over 100 years old. If you are talking about Charles Darwin, he wrote in the mid-1800s. We know so much more now.

Many scientists who cracked open the human genome and looked at DNA changed their opinions when they saw how complex it is. Sometimes when I hear people say, “A bunch of minerals came together and formed the shapes of the people you see today,” I think, that is an elementary understanding of biology.

Biology is ridiculously complicated. I have in the book all the numbers and statistics: how many genes, cells, and proteins the human body has. These are unique for every cell and every organ. That cannot be by accident. If you rearrange the “letters” in a protein chain, you do not get a living protein; you get a failed one. It is too perfect to be random.

I have a friend whom I love dearly. He is an atheist with a very high IQ. He is a scientist. He stayed at my former house, the one I grew up in, and that house had a lot of weird things going on. I never saw ghosts, but there may have been a poltergeist. There were some very strange events.

He told me after he stayed there one night that he would not come back to spend the night. I asked why. He said, “Whatever went on last night really freaked me out.” I said, “But you do not believe in that.” He replied, “Well, I can believe in ghosts.”

So I asked, “How can you not believe in God, but you can believe in a ghost? It is all spirit. Either there is something after you die, or there is not.”

I know a lady who is agnostic, but she told me about a miracle that happened after her father passed away. I wanted to ask her, “Did that not move you a little closer to belief?” I never got an answer.

Peter Vazquez (41:42.134)
Most people do not have an answer. They are just emotional. They are angry.

Gary, I appreciate the call. We are getting down to the end of the show and I want to hit a couple more topics.

A Pew religious landscape survey found that religious people consistently report greater happiness than non-religious people. Out of nearly 37,000 U.S. adults, 28 percent said that they were very happy, 58 percent said they were pretty happy, and only 13 percent said that they were not happy at all.

It leads me to wonder why so many people, including politicians, want nothing to do with Christ. You have schools that have banned faith or discussion about Jesus Christ, while crime and violence among our youth have increased alongside depression. That is dumbfounding to me.

I want to circle back for the next couple of minutes, then spend the final minutes talking about your work and where people can find you. You brought up near-death experiences.

Another number I found interesting is that near-death experiences, or NDEs, are not rare. Scientific American reports that 5 to 10 percent of the general population have reported having a near-death experience, and 10 to 23 percent of cardiac arrest survivors remember such an experience. Some people say these may be a utopian-style response or an oxygen-deprivation reaction in the brain. However, this phenomenon has been reported forever, across cultures and countries, for centuries.

Can you talk to us about that?

Brian Wetzel (46:00.854)
Yes. The research is being done at the University of Virginia in the Division of Perceptual Studies. They have been cataloging experiences and have even developed tests to help determine whether someone actually had one.

They are convinced, and I am as well after reading their research, that NDEs are not simply chemicals released in the brain. People are leaving their bodies.

One of the things I found fascinating is the question of whether consciousness resides in the brain at all. There is a belief that perhaps it does not. No one knows for sure. Is consciousness a stream coming to us from outside? We do not really know.

One thing that stands out is this: when scientists study people’s brains under MRI during a dream, the brain is incredibly active. You can see the activity while they dream.

When people have a near-death experience, or when they are on psychedelics and describe an out-of-body experience, the brain often appears almost inactive. It is as if the brain shuts down, and its getting out of the way allows us to see beyond what is around us.

Before they were able to study this, scientists believed they would see a tremendous amount of brain activity during an NDE, which would show that the brain was creating the vision. That was not the case. The brain activity nearly disappears.

Peter Vazquez
I will tell you, I used to laugh at friends who said they had near-death experiences. I feel bad now. I learn a lot hosting this show, and as I prepared for this episode and looked at these numbers, I was astonished. The next time someone tells me they had a near-death experience, I think my response will be focused on learning more. What did they see?

Sir, we are down to the end of the show. Do you have a website?

Brian Wetzel
I do. It is brianthomaswetzel.com.

Peter Vazquez (48:11.389)
Ladies and gentlemen, the honorable entrepreneur and author Brian Wetzel. Sir, I appreciate your time today.

Absolutely, ladies and gentlemen. Whether it is a discussion on near-death experiences, education, or politics, the concept is the same: be a leader, be a leader, be a leader.

God bless the United States of America. As I always say, do not let a second go by where you are not a voice for liberty. Until tomorrow.