Since the post Darwinists Have a Lot of Explaining to Do asks atheists to offer causes for at least ten truths about reality, I thought I would present my perspective on each of those truths. We’ll start with the origin of the universe out of nothing. The following is an excerpt from I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (p. 84) and follows a section about the evidence that the universe began with a Big Bang out of nothing. I appreciate your comments.
So the universe had a beginning. What does that mean for the question of God’s existence? The man who now sits in Edwin Hubble’s chair at the Mount Wilson observatory has a few things to say about that. His name is Robert Jastrow, an astronomer we’ve already quoted in this chapter. In addition to serving as the director of Mount Wilson, Jastrow is the founder of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies. Obviously his credentials as a scientist are impeccable. That’s why his book God and the Astronomers made such an impression on those investigating the implications of the Big Bang, namely those asking the question “Does the Big Bang point to God?” Jastrow reveals in the opening line of chapter 1 that he has no religious axe to grind. He writes, “When an astronomer writes about God, his colleagues assume he is either over the hill or going bonkers. In my case it should be understood from the start that I am an agnostic in religious matters.”
In light of Jastrow’s personal agnosticism, his theistic quotations are all the more provocative. After explaining some of the Big Bang evidence we’ve just reviewed, Jastrow writes, “Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy.”
The overwhelming evidence for the Big Bang and its consistency with the biblical account in Genesis led Jastrow to observe in an interview, “Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover. . . . That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.”
By evoking the supernatural, Jastrow echoes the conclusion of Einstein contemporary Arthur Eddington. As we mentioned earlier, although he found it “repugnant,” Eddington admitted, “The beginning seems to present insuperable difficulties unless we agree to look on it as frankly supernatural.”
Now why would Jastrow and Eddington admit that there are “supernatural” forces at work? Why couldn’t natural forces have produced the universe? Because these scientists know as well as anyone that natural forces– indeed all of nature– were created at the Big Bang. In other words, the Big Bang was the beginning point for the entire physical universe. Time, space, and matter came into existence at that point. There was no natural world or natural law prior to the Big Bang. Since a cause cannot come after its effect, natural forces cannot account for the Big Bang. Therefore, there must be something outside of nature to do the job. That’s exactly what the word supernatural means.
The discoverers of the radiation afterglow, Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias, were not Bible-thumpers either. Both initially believed in the Steady State Theory. But due to the mounting evidence, they’ve since changed their views and acknowledged facts that are consistent with the Bible. Penzias admits, “The Steady State theory turned out to be so ugly that people dismissed it. The easiest way to fit the observations with the least number of parameters was one in which the universe was created out of nothing, in an instant, and continues to expand.”
Wilson, who once took a class from Fred Hoyle (the man who popularized the Steady State Theory in 1948), said, “I philosophically liked the Steady State. And clearly I’ve had to give that up.” When science writer Fred Heeren asked him if the Big Bang evidence is indicative of a Creator, Wilson responded, “Certainly there was something that set it all off. Certainly, if you are religious, I can’t think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match with Genesis.” George Smoot echoed Wilson’s assessment. He said, “There is no doubt that a parallel exists between the big bang as an event and the Christian notion of creation from nothing.”
Robert Jastrow suggested the same when he ended his book God and the Astronomers with this classic line: “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”
Even if a supernatural being did create this universe, there is no evidence that this entity interfered with it after that.
Have you ever read the Bible? It’s loaded with evidence.
“A thorough reading and understanding of the Bible is the surest path to atheism” ~ Donald Morgan
Curious – do you know how the Bible as you know it came to be? Do you know how the myths you learn in church compare to the *evidence* from history and science?
The bible is loaded, yes, we can agree on that.
Anecdotal evidence is the best kind – it gives one a good reason for a belly laugh.
What’s wrong with the universe as the creator? Remove the anthropomorphic qualities of God and you’re left with the universe – always existed; knows all by virtue of containing all to be known; created all; “all powerful” in that it has done or can do anything that can be done. The universe is a much SIMPLER answer than God. “God” as you describe him is, figuratively and quite literally, not necessary.
Christopher,
Please re-read the post: the universe had a beginning– it has NOT always existed– so the universe cannot be its own cause. In other words, the cause must be something OUTSIDE the universe. What is the atheistic explanation for this?
Frank
Another “universe” or a another part of this universe not yet known is simpler than God and doesn’t require religious faith.
You call the unknown “supernatural.” I am not convinced there is any such thing as the supernatural. Science has explained as natural many things once thought supernatural, and it seems reasonable to think it will continue to do so. “God” remains unnecessary.
Christopher,
Do you deny the entire natural world exploded into being out of nothing?
We can’t move on to smaller questions if you can’t answer the biggest question: If there is no God, why is there something rather than nothing?
BTW, science explains nothing. Science is the means by which we discover some explanations, but science is not the explanation itself. Again, what is your explanation for the beginning of the entire natural realm? Saying science will one day find a natural cause for beginning of natural causes is not only a contradiction, it is the ultimate statement of blind faith.
Frank
Suppose the big bang had a cause. You can assign the name “God” to that cause. Now how does one gather any additional information about this God thing?
If I concede that God created the universe, nothing you can claim about the nature of God follows from that. I personally believe that the Big Bang was the result of the Big Crunch of what was the previous universe.
“Do you deny the entire natural world exploded into being out of nothing?”
Nice question. I neither deny or accept. By the way, do you still beat your wife?
What if all matter/energy was compressed into some infinitely small (to us) area? That is still something. Please direct me to any absolute proof the universe exploded into being out of NOTHING. Jury’s still out on that one as far as I know.
I tend to think like Kendenny, perhaps a big crunch. Before that? Another big bang? Before that, another big crunch? Hmmm, maybe it’s just been here all along? If so, then your next blog post on Who Created God will agree that if the universe HAS been here all along, that it was the universe BEFORE the big bang, just in another state of existence (not unlike god/son/holy spirit), then there it was not created and that which is not created needs no creator.
My definition of blind faith is pretty much this:
Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence
I said:
“Science has explained as natural many things once thought supernatural, and it seems reasonable to think it will continue to do so.”
That statement is based on material evidence, therefore your conclusion “it is the ultimate statement of blind faith” does not follow.
Likewise, if the universe in some form has always existed, there is no “cause” to be found. Science will continue to reveal the natural world to us. No contradiction there. The contradiction is in your restated straw man argument.
Christopher,
Is accuracy to five decimal points certain enough? That’s Einstein’s GR which shows that not only did space and matter have a beginning out of NOTHING, but time itself had a beginning as well.
This leads to another argument for the beginning: if the universe was eternal (no matter how many bangs it went through) then today never would have gotten here. You cannot traverse and infinite number of moments (or an infinite number of bangs or causes for that matter).
In addition to the time problem, it would also be impossible for the universe to go through an infinite number of bangs because the Second Law of Thermodynamics would ensure that energy would be lost with each expansion and contraction. So if the universe had been banging for all eternity, it would have run out of energy a long time ago.
And yes, Christopher, it is a contradiction to say there was a natural cause before the creation of all natural causes.
Christopher, what kind of evidence would you need to see to believe that there is a creator? Are you volitionally open to there being a creator or is your heart set against a creator?
Thanks for your posts.
Blessings,
Frank
Frank,
Current BB theory does not suggest the universe exploded into being from “nothing.”
Is god exempt from natural “laws” you cited, including reason, time and the second law of thermodynamics? If he created nature and natural laws, can he change them by his will?
If God does not need a cause, then the same reasoning can be applied to the “universe.”
I did not say there was a natural cause before the creation of all natural causes. That is simply not an accurate statement. IT IS A STRAW MAN ARGUMENT. I suggested perhaps there is nothing BUT nature and that nature is what has always existed.
What was before God? Now apply the same logic, but without God.
I am a skeptic. Even when I was a believer, I was highly critical of non-believers and I *wanted* to believe. Or was I afraid NOT to believe as a result of indoctrination as a child? I slowly came to realize it for what it is – the family that prays together is brainwashing the children.
I cannot say for sure just what evidence would be sufficient, but logical fallacies definitely will not convince me.
What would it take for you to believe the “creator” wasn’t your god? You seem to be leaving the door open for a creator OTHER than your god. Do you entertain the possibility there are other gods or a creator other than your god?
“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” – Stephen Roberts
Thank you for the discourse as well. I find it invigorating.
Christopher,
This is why I keep suggesting the book “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. ” All of these issues are addressed there. For the record, there is very little dispute about the origin of the universe out of nothing: again– Einstein’s GR.
I will post soon on “Who made God” which incredibly is the argument that atheists keep pointing to.
Blessings,
Frank
Interesting discussion.
Frank, the second law of thermodynamics would not seem to preclude an infinite series of expanding and contracting universes. Since the universe is “everything,” it’s impossible for the universe to lose energy — there’s nothing for it to lose energy to. In fact, the first law of thermodynamics (conservation of energy) contradicts your argument.
Perhaps interestingly, thermodynamics defines the universe as a system and its surroundings. So any system that loses energy just loses it to another part of the universe.
“If there is no God, why is there something rather than nothing?”
I do not find this to be an “interesting” question.
As usual, you are asking for “causes”, “purpose”, “why” for something that does not have to have an answer to these things. But you won’t actually tell us your “why” unless we buy the book?
From a review:
“The authors spend chapter after chapter postulating the necessity of a supreme being and creator with such mind-bending, half-nonsensical ideals such as “everything that began must have been caused,” all this metaphysical meandering obscuring the fact that such arguments validate the existence of Allah, or Zeus just as effectively as they do the Bible God. ”
It appears that I have my answer without buying the book.
Or:
“Geisler and Turek then go on to compare Mount Rushmore and the Grand Canyon with evolution.”
Please tell me you didn’t do that.
“I could go on and on and on and on until this review was 100 pages long and not even get close to Geisler and Turek lack of understanding and distortion of the facts to support their theory of intelligent design or theistic evolution.”
It would seem that I’m wasting my time on your blog.
Darin said on April 8th, 2008 at 9:37 pm:
~~~~Frank, the second law of thermodynamics would not seem to preclude an infinite series of expanding and contracting universes. Since the universe is “everything,” it’s impossible for the universe to lose energy — there’s nothing for it to lose energy to. In fact, the first law of thermodynamics (conservation of energy) contradicts your argument.~~~~
Perhaps I can help here.
The Law of Entropy states: In an isolated system, a process can occur only if it increases the total entropy of the system. (Rudolf Clausius)
Within the isolated system (the universe) a process (Big Bang, Big Crunch, everything in between) can occur only if it increases the total entropy of the system. You cannot therefore have an infinite number of processes unless you added energy from something outside the isolated system. The universe does not “loose” energy in the sense that it leaves the isolated system, what it “looses” is the capacity to do work as the energy of the system converts from useful to not-useful through doing work.
In essence, the universe, as an isolated system, cannot logically experience an infinite number of Big Bangs (processes).
This goes hand in hand with Mr. Turek’s point that it is logically impossible to traverse an infinite series of moments.
In Truth and Love,
Ernie
Ernie,
Please note above Frank and I argued about “the universe.” This came up again in the other thread where you accused me of employing a red herring. I hope you see why I insist it was not a red herring. I’ll try to remember to reference the other threads better in the future.
Ernie, it would seem to me that taking the universe as your system means that some of the seemingly trivial exceptions built into the law matter. Since the universe has nothing to lose energy to, you could imagine it moving between two states (expanded and contracted), like a spring, infinitely.
A real spring wouldn’t do this because it would shed heat (energy) to the outside until it settled into its equilibrium position. But there’s no “outside” to the universe. So from a macro position, it’s energy is constant.
You bring up a good point that entropy moves in one direction only. But you might be smuggling in some ideas that don’t quite apply at the conceptual beginning of the universe. I assume you’re imagining the whole universe reaching uniform temperature (maximum entropy) before the crunch, and then all the particles returning to home base with the same temperature as they are shot out in the next bang. Is it really reasonable to envision the particles maintaining their integrity and “remembering” their temperature in that circumstance?
Do you also argue that there was no first bang either, since that would bring up the question of how some particles formed after the fist bang ended up with more energy than others?
Darin said April 14th, 2008 at 11:08 pm:
~~~~Ernie, it would seem to me that taking the universe as your system means that some of the seemingly trivial exceptions built into the law matter. Since the universe has nothing to lose energy to, you could imagine it moving between two states (expanded and contracted), like a spring, infinitely.~~~~
I know of no “exceptions” to the physical laws of the universe.
As far as your point vs. my point goes, it is the very fact that the universe has nothing to loose energy to (or gain it from) that makes it fit the definition I provided. It is an isolated (or closed) system. The net entropy therefore must increase within the system for processes to take place.
~~~~A real spring wouldn’t do this because it would shed heat (energy) to the outside until it settled into its equilibrium position. But there’s no “outside” to the universe. So from a macro position, it’s energy is constant.~~~~
Using your spring example, even if the spring lost no energy to the external environment, it would eventually wind down as its internal energy did work and became unusable. Yes, the spring would take considerably longer to settle down into equilibrium but it would still do it. Otherwise you end up with a perpetual motion machine, an impossibility.
~~~~You bring up a good point that entropy moves in one direction only. But you might be smuggling in some ideas that don’t quite apply at the conceptual beginning of the universe.~~~~
To clarify, by this you mean the conceptual beginning of the universe within the old universe model.
~~~~I assume you’re imagining the whole universe reaching uniform temperature (maximum entropy) before the crunch~~~~
I don’t hold to any crunch or other such end, so no. Left as it is, yes, the universe will die a heat death (maximum entropy, uniform temperature). However, if it were going to crunch (a process requiring energy) it would have to do so before or in spite of entropic equilibrium.
~~~~Do you also argue that there was no first bang either, since that would bring up the question of how some particles formed after the fist bang ended up with more energy than others?~~~~
Of course. I do not believe in the big bang model or any other old universe models. I believe and affirm that the universe was supernaturally created [first effect] just over 6000 years ago by Jehovah [first cause]. The watchmaker wound up the watch so to speak and its still running down from that.
In Truth and Love,
Ernie
Ernie, you’re right that there are no exceptions to the laws of thermodynamics. That was a poor choice of words on my part. What I mean is that some of the assumptions that go into the usual discussions of the laws may not apply to the universe as a whole, particularly at the quantum scale of a singularity. For example, you, correctly, point out that there’s no such thing as a perpetual motion machine — but what about an atomic particle at the same temperature as all the other particles?
Your point about our perfectly-efficient spring model is well-taken. I suppose the internal friction of the spring would cause the temperature of the spring to build up until it’s internal energy reached the initial potential plus kinetic (plus initial thermal, of course). Good point.
However, my fundamental point is that when you’re talking about black holes, for example, things like “time” and “forward in time” don’t really mean what they used to. I’ll admit to being out of my depth, but it wouldn’t shake my confidence in thermodynamics much to find out that the laws aren’t quite what you’d expect when there’s not really such a thing as time. Furthermore, when there’s only one “thing,” I’m not sure how you’d even measure the order or disorder of it — its entropy. You might wonder whether a singularity can possibly have more than one state.
Darin said April 17th, 2008 at 8:55 pm:
~~~~What I mean is that some of the assumptions that go into the usual discussions of the laws may not apply to the universe as a whole, particularly at the quantum scale of a singularity. For example, you, correctly, point out that there’s no such thing as a perpetual motion machine — but what about an atomic particle at the same temperature as all the other particles?~~~~
My understanding of the concept of temperature is that temperature is defined as the measure of the average translational motion of molecules within a substance. So what exactly are you asking about atomic particles that have the same measure of translational motion (temperature) as other particles?
~~~~Your point about our perfectly-efficient spring model is well-taken. I suppose the internal friction of the spring would cause the temperature of the spring to build up until it’s internal energy reached the initial potential plus kinetic (plus initial thermal, of course). Good point.~~~~
Thank you.
~~~~However, my fundamental point is that when you’re talking about black holes, for example, things like “time” and “forward in time” don’t really mean what they used to. I’ll admit to being out of my depth, but it wouldn’t shake my confidence in thermodynamics much to find out that the laws aren’t quite what you’d expect when there’s not really such a thing as time. Furthermore, when there’s only one “thing,” I’m not sure how you’d even measure the order or disorder of it — its entropy. You might wonder whether a singularity can possibly have more than one state.~~~~
Since black holes and other singularities are merely conjecture at this point, I’ll reserve arguments related to them (for or against a specific concept) until they are discovered to be actual realities lest I find myself arguing against a non-point.
As for wondering whether a thing, even a singularity, can possibly have more than one state (at the same time), I would argue that, due to the law of excluded middle, a thing cannot have a certain property and NOT have that certain property at the same time (keep in mind that the property must be precisely defined). I can have several states: 200 pounds, 5 foot 5 inches, male, all blonde, and human…all at the same time. But I cannot be both 200 pounds and some other weight at the same time in the same place. I cannot be both 5’5″ and some other height. I cannot be both male and female. I cannot be both all blonde and not all blonde at the same time. I cannot be both non-human and not non-human at the same time.
Even in quantum mechanics, where we only know enough about the discipline to speak in probabilities, there still is no violation of the Law of excluded middle. It is just that we cannot precisely define anything at that level yet.
Thanks for your response.
In Truth and Love,
Ernie
My question isn’t whether a singularity (such as a black hole or the theorized starting point of the universe) can have multiple states at the same time. My question is whether it can have more than one state, period. The reason might be important to our discussion is that it becomes hard to describe the entropy of a thing that can have only one state.
My understanding is that black holes have been observed, though indirectly, of course. But whether they exist or not is irrelevant to whether a cyclic universe is possible; what matters is whether they could exist, which I believe is well-accepted. Not by you?
Of course, the proponents of a cyclic universe (of which I am not one) have an explanation for the Second Law issue, which I wouldn’t feel qualified to judge. We’d be left having one of those silly arguments about whose experts were better. Not very interesting.
Ernie, thanks for an interesting discussion.
[...] it is) then the entire space-time universe exploded into being out of nothing (see previous posts God and the Astronomers and Who Made God? ).? ? Therefore, the Cause of the universe would seem to have these attributes:? [...]