God and the Big Bang
By Dr. Billings
Hello Eva, nice to meet you, I'd really like to discuss your exchange with Kim.
EVA >Hi Kim, thank you for responding. I sense, via your emotional response, >that you hold your views quite passionately. I will respect your views, >and I would like to reply to your comments using logic.Good, I prefer logic.
>EVA >>...then the cause of the universe must be some entity operating in a >>time dimension completely independent of and preexistent to the time >>dimension of the cosmos.Who said the universe had a cause? To speak of a cause outside the context of time is meaningless.
The popular Big Bang model holds that the universe was in a singularity before the plank time, 10x10^-43 of a second, devoid of space and time. There is absolutely no reason to suspect that this singularity had a cause.
If God can be exempt from having a cause, being the first cause, then this singularity can easily be exempt from a cause as well, being the "first cause" in of itself.
If you are a scientist, you know that an important tool of science is Occam's razor. The explanation which makes the least assumptions is most likely true. You make extra assumptions postulating God. It is redundant.
Furthermore, there is no reason to suspect that the energy that now forms matter had a beginning. The first rule of thermodynamics states: matter/energy can neither be created nor destroyed, simply changed from one form to another.
The Big Bang is generally believed to be simply a phase transition of energy from one form to another, not a beginning to energy (a beginning of matter, sure). The Big Bang was energy itself.
EVA >I based my conclusion (previous e-mail) upon the currently accepted >space-time theory purported by Stephen Hawking.And Hawking doesn't believe the universe had a beginning! The model of the universe he embraces is that of a closed universe without boundary but finite, similar to the surface of the earth, which is finite but without boundary, only three dimensional instead of two.
He speaks of this on page 140-141 in A Brief History of Time:
"The idea that space and time may form a closed surface without boundary also has profound implications for the role of God in the affairs of the universe. With the success of scientific theories in describing events, most people have come to believe that God allows the universe to evolve according to a set of laws and does not intervene in the universe to break down these laws. However, the laws do not tell us what the universe should have looked like when it started—it would still be up to God to wind up the clockwork and choose how to start it off. So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator.But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?" Hawking, as do I, views the universe as not only self-contained spatially but temporally. There is no beginning to time or space, the Big Bang is analogous to a pole on the earth. It is a reference point, not a beginning.
He once said that "to ask what is before time is to ask what is three miles north of the north pole." There is no north of the north pole, and there is no before the Big Bang. A prerequisite to being a creator is existing before something.
But if Hawking model doesn't require a before, it sure doesn't require a creator.
EVA >Even if the cosmos is a result of an accident, (not-theist point) the >question of what caused this to occur has not been resolved. Perhaps you >did not understand the previous e-mail, or do not have a working knowledge >of basic science/physics. The term "accident" is vague and is not used in >the scientific community.No, we just use the term "random."
EVA >If the universe exists, then something or someone caused it into being,If God exists, then something or someone caused it into being. It works both ways. That is a worthless premise, and it hasn't even been established.
Where is your evidence that everything that exists has a cause? What logic requires that, and why is God exempt?
If God can be exempt because of the need for a first cause, the universe itself can be this first cause.
EVA >if you recall "cause and effect". For every effect, there is a cause. >The effect is the cosmos, and the "cause" is what effected into being.Then the "effect" of God requires a "cause" by that argument.
>KIM >>What gives you knowledge that it is a SINGLE entity. But discount the >>idea of a group working together to start another universe... Eva: >This is highly illogical.What is illogical about it? Is it a non sequitur, question begging, what?
She has a valid point. Nothing you have presented would require a singular creator even if we grant the validity of your argument.
Furthermore, even if we grant the design argument and the first cause argument as valid, it further doesn't follow that this creator still exists, or that it was any specific creator like Yahweh of the Bible, or that it was omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent (and the nature of the universe is evidence against the later), etc.
Kim's pointing this out isn't illogical, what is illogical is concluding as much based upon your argument.
EVA >But assuming your viewpoint, you would need to then explain what caused these >other creatures or "group" to come into being.And assuming your viewpoint, you would need to then explain what caused this one creature to come into being.
Your counterarguments are what is illogical. You contradict your stance. You say that here hypothetical creators require a cause, but then exempt your God from requiring a cause.
You also engage in a non sequitur by assuming that the first cause argument would warrant a conclusion that there is only one creator. Even if the validity of the first cause argument or the design argument, both of which you have invoked, is granted to you for the sake of argument, neither lead to the conclusion that this first cause or designer was a singular being.
>KIM >>and for what purpose would they/he/she/it do that? EVA >I am not sure what you are asking here, but if you are questioning why >the universe/earth came into being, it was obviously created for the >habitation of man, as here we are, as proof!How highly anthropomorphic. If the universe was created for the sole purpose of humans, then why is there so much of it that doesn't do us any good? That argument is arbitrarily asserted, you have no backing. To draw this conclusion from the fact that humans exist in the universe is a non sequitur. It doesn't follow from the fact that we live in the universe that the universe is designed for us, unless you want to beg the question of a designer.
>KIM >>They could even be {or have been} a civilization that accidentally caused >>our universe to come into being in a failed experiment for that matter. EVA >But then you would, once again, need to explain where this civilization >came from.And you in turn are expected to explain where this God came from.
>KIM >>If you can't prove it, that doesn't mean anything. The bang theory, is a >>model of how the universe may have started, based on what we've SEEN >>through astronomy. Galaxies moving away from a central point, etc. All that >>that means is that there is a central point they are moving away from. All >>that means is that we need more data. Not to start inventing what origin we >>want. That's not science. EVA >The big bang proves that the universe was at a central point, and therefore >had a point of origin.There is no "central point" of the universe, and to say as much betrays an ignorance of the topological model of the universe cosmologists employ.
Ever heard of the "cosmological principle," one of the more fundamental principles in cosmology? The universe is both homogeneous and isotropic. There is no center, any more than there is a center to the surface of the earth.
Galaxies aren't flying away from a central point, they are flying away from each other proportionally. They are not analogous to debris flying from an explosion, but are more analogous to raisins traveling away from each other equally in rising raisin bread.
The Big Bang "was" everywhere at once, it wasn't at a "central point." That is why the CBR is uniformily spread everywhere. Had the universe sprang from a central point, we would expect concentrations of the CBR in certain parts of the universe, and not expect the isotropic and homogeneous configuration of CBR that we do indeed see.
EVA >This is highly relevant, as it suggests that all of the cosmos came into >being at one point in time.It doesn't show that it came into being, only that it changed from one form into another, from a singularity to the universe we now see.
Nothing in it implies creation from nothing, but rather creation from preexisting material.
After all, you were the one who wanted to stick with logic, and if so, you can't ignore "from nothing, nothing comes."
EVA >This supports the Bible's teaching that the universe came into being all at >once.The Bible and current cosmological models are not compatible. The Bible says that the earth predated stars, an impossibility in the modern cosmological model. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Furthermore, who can trust the Bible? It is full of errors, contradictions, failed prophecies, and downright idiocy. A few examples:
Ex. 6:3 tells us that Abraham did not know Yahweh's (the Judeo-Christian god) name, but Gen. 22:14 tells us that he not only knew his name, but named a place after him.
Jesus tells us in John 3:13 that no man but him has ascended to heaven, but in II Kings 2:11 we read that Elijah ascended to heaven centuries prior.
In Matt. 12:40 Jesus says he will be in the grave for "three days and three nights". This is confirmed in Mark 8:31, which states that he will rise "after three days." From his crucifixion Friday afternoon until his alleged resurrection early Sunday before the sun had risen is only a day and two nights. Even if we allow a part of a day to equal a whole day, you still have only three days and two nights.
In I Kings 15:5 we are told that "David did all that was right in the eyes of the LORD...save only the matter of Uriah the Hittite." (The "matter of Uriah the Hittite" is found in II Sam. chapter 11. What had happened was that David had sent a man, Uriah, to the front lines of a battle, ensuring his death, so that he might acquire his wife Bathsheba). However, if you turn to the last chapter of II Samuel, chapter twenty-four, you will find that David was punished for taking a census. The punishment was an example of utmost cruelty in itself, because to punish David Yahweh (God) killed 70,000 Israelites who had nothing to do with David's decision to take the census. If Yahweh got so angry about David's taking of the census that he punished him by killing 70,000 people, obviously the "matter of Uriah the Hittite" was not the only act of David that was not "right in the eyes of the LORD" as is claimed in I Kings 15:5.
Furthermore, in the first verse we are told that it was Yahweh himself that had "moved" David to take the census in the first place! So he "moves" him to do it, and when David does exactly what the Lord had "moved" him to do, it is deemed a sin, and David is punished. His punishment not harming him, but killing 70,000 others. That is no different than forcing your child to touch a forbidden object, and then to punish him you kill all of his friends on the block. A strange display of mercy and infinite justice to be sure.
Furthermore, this points to another contradiction. In the same account of the same event found in I Chronicles, we are told it was Satan, not Yahweh, that had "incited" David to take the census. So which was it, Yahweh or Satan? Either we have an error or Yahweh and Satan are one in the same.
How about an example of failed prophecy?
Ez. 29:9-12 and 30:4-16 tell us that Nebuchadrezzar will "destroy" the land of Egypt, cause its inhabitants "to cease", the land will be made "desolate and waste" and "neither shall it be inhabited for forty years," and finally that afterwards, "there shall be no more a prince in the land of Egypt." The prophecy fails miserably on all counts.
Nebuchadrezzar never destroyed Egypt, neither did he exile or exterminate the inhabitants of Egypt. A prince ruled in Egypt for centuries after Nebuchadrezzar's death, and never has Egypt been uninhabited for a single day in recorded history, much less forty years. An utter failure of a prophecy.
>KIM >>And how would you know of intelligent design without contact or some sort >>of evidence of intelligent design? The universe doesn't show that. EVA >It is clear to me here that you have a limited, if not minimal science >background. If you had, I could easily state the many accepted laws of >nature, of which can be assigned a mathematical equation. (perhaps you have >heard E=MC2) If this is not evidence of intelligent design, I do not know >what is.Why is it evidence of design, because it is ordered? Is not God ordered? If so, then according to your own "logic," God must have had a creator.
Furthermore, you are working under the premise that anything that displays order, complexity, etc., has a designer. When have you proven that premise, and doesn't it somewhat beg the question?
Furthermore, you tell Kim that since she doesn't see evidence of design, she must be ignorant of science, implying that if she was knowledgable in science, or was a scientist herself, she would see this evidence of design.
That is simply not true, as a recent poll published in Nature last year shows that only 7% of scientist believe in God, and the number is declining rapidly. From Nature, July 23, 1998, p. 313, article entitled "Leading Scientists Still Reject God":
"Belief in personal God (percent) Personal belief: 1914 - 27.7% 1933 - 15% 1998 - 7.0% Personal disbelief: 1914 - 52.7% 1933 - 68% 1998 - 72.2% Doubt or agnosticism: 1914 - 20.9% 1933 - 17% 1998 - 20.8%"
Clearly, it isn't an ignorance of science that is responsible for Kim not seeing design in nature. It would seem that those the most knowledgeable of science overwhelmingly seem to agree that there is no God.
Join us in the twentieth century, where biology, geology, cosmology, etc., have shown us the concept of adaptation and evolution. Design is no longer needed to explain the order of things, only the laws and forces of nature, space-time, and matter-energy.
You may ask, where did they come from, but since you reject God having a creator, one can just as easily reject all of these from having a creator.
If you are a scientist, you know that Occam's razor is an important tool of the scientist. It states: the explanation making the least assumptions is most likely true.
We know that the laws and forces of nature exists. We know that matter/energy exist. We know that space-time exist. We need make no assumptions about their existence. We have to make a big assumption about God, and the more powerful the God you assume, and the more details you assume (e.g., there is only one, it has such-and-such attributes, etc.), the more assumptions you are making.
Your hypothesis is unparsimonious and completely lacking of supporting evidence.
>KIM >>(Stuff I got from Discovery and Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot): It shows >>chaos. Galaxies colliding, free floating solar systems out in the so >>called empty spaces, comets and other interstellar debris whizzing about, >>haphazardly slamming into things. EVA >Are you aware of the laws of thermodynamics?Are you? You ignore the first rule of thermodynamics.
>KIM >>And if you are a scientist, asking your questions from a non-biased point >>of view, why haven't you asked yourself such questions? EVA >But I have asked myself these questions after having been provided with >logical information. I am basing my opinion on evidence, not an emotional >response. I can prove what I believe, can you?Oh, by all means prove what you believe, especially if it involves the Bible. You have proven only that you can use outdated and long-ago refuted arguments for the existence of God.
>KIM >>Why seek out some atheist stranger on the internet and waste a bunch of time >>trying to sell it to me like a Christian missionary purveying her so called >>"good news" at my door step? EVA >It depends on whether you are truly a skeptic (which by definition means >someone who questions and seeks) and someone who desires to form your views >based on reviewing all the evidence, pro and con. If you have come to your >current philosophy of atheism without doing so, you are doing yourself the >disservice. I have nothing to gain or lose either way, but you must >certainly do.Don't tell me your drudging out Pascal's Wager on us. If you're not a Muslim, you most certainly do have something to lose, as you will burn in Muslim hell for nonbelief.
Furthermore, I consider my intellectual integrity to be something to lose, I don't want to believe something just to be on the safe side. And you just got finished saying a person should base their believes on the evidence, but then you turn around and imply that one should believe it because they have something to lose if they don't. That is forming a believe on fear, not evidence.
If you form your beliefs on evidence, why do you believe anything in the Bible? There is no evidence to support its extraordinary claims, and there is evidence that it is a very errant book.
>>EVA >>>This conclusion is powerfully important to our understanding of who God is >>>and who or what God isn't. It tells us that the Creator is transcendent, >>>operating beyond the dimensional limits of the universe.Such a conclusion is a non sequitur. The conclusion that a God exists does not at follow from the argument you have offered.
>KIM
>>Also, hell has its origins in Nordic myth.
>>http://www.csulb.edu/~persepha/Hel.html
EVA >All this indicates is that another culture of people held the belief hell >existed. I would argue from a theistic point of view that this was a >God-instilled "instinct" in man, much like the instinct the birds have to >fly south in the winter. (which, by the way, is more evidence of >intelligent design)You might argue that, but you'd have no basis for your argument. You would first have to prove that God and Hell exists, and then you'd have to prove that God "instilled" us with such an instinct.
It is a funny instinct, I mock it rather than fear it. It obviously isn't a genetically consistent instinct.
>KIM >>Why do I disbelieve in these gods also? Because you can't prove they exist >>either. And you obviously don't base *your* assumptions on them. Why not? EVA >Because none of these gods came to earth in human form and died on a cross >and were resurrected, with witnesses (five hundred) and thousands of >historical documents to prove this.And you beg the question that Jesus really did do this, that God does exist, and that Jesus was this God.
The "thousands" of historical documents don't prove this. There aren't "thousands" of such documents anyhow, but only thousands of copies. As if the number of copies of a book is evidence of its truth! Stephen King's books sell millions, but does the evidence for the truth of his stories increase as the number of copies made increases?
There are only four anonymously written books that are accepted in the Christian canon, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They were all written decades after the events they allegedly report, and none exist in their entirety until the second century. I'd hardly call anonymous hearsay written decades to centuries after the fact and filled with religious propaganda good evidence of anything accept the fertile imagination of humans.
There is no evidence to support their extraordinary claims, and the nature of these claims, the fact that they are extraordinary, requires extraordinary proof.
The fact that something is written doesn't mean that it is true.
EVA >I am interested to hear your argument regarding this, because I believe I >have PROOF to validate this claim.Well quite stating it and give me this proof.
EVA >I think you will find it fascinating, that is, if you are truly a "free >thinker" and are open minded enough to hear it.I'm anxious to hear it myself.
>>EVA >>>Pantheism claims there is no existence beyond the universe, that the >>>universe is all there is, and that the universe has always existed. > >KIM >>Pantheism? AKA new agers? Who cares what they claim, they can't back it >>up anyway. > >>EVA >>>Atheism claims that the universe was not created > >KIM >>Atheism claims that you cannot prove that the universe was CREATED by an >>intelligent being, or any being for that matter. > >>The Intelligent design idea has no evidence. If you look at astronomy >>and what cosmic chaos our universe is in you might wonder where any >>creator is. Or why he/she/it made such a friggin mess, and apparently >>then just left. EVA >I would argue that it is man who has left the mess, and continues to make >more of one.How could "man" have made a mess of the universe, seeing as how "man" hasn't been around but less than the smallest fraction of a percent of the total time the universe has been around, and since we have been around, we haven't had the capabiliy to affect anything but the surface of the earth?
You might argue this, but you wouldn't be able to back your claims.
EVA >When I look at the heavens, based on my scienfic knowledge of the odds of >it even existing, I marvel.I would think that, "based on [your] scientific knowledge," you'd know that it is impossible to calculate the odds of an event knowing absolutely nothing about the conditions that surround it!
On what factors do you base the calculations you used to arrive at these odds? How do you know the factors involved in a universe's existence?
EVA >Perhaps , if you are truly interested, I will boggle your mind with some >fascinating evidence regarding the universe to consider. I am not looking >for someone to battle with, merely someone to share my knowledge with.I haven't seen you display any knowledge, and regarding the Big Bang, I've seen you display an ignorance of the model and the concepts involved.
EVA >I merely asked you to consider it. By the way, you appear confused, as I >support the big bang theory, and it is in synch with biblical creation.How you get that is beyond me. According to the current model of cosmological evolution, the earth could not have came before the sun and the stars, and the plants couldn't have formed prior to the sun either.
Besides, what credence does the creation account deserve? It is a religious myth, a dime a dozen, why is it special?
>KIM >>Convince Hawking. That would impress me and not make me just think that >>you're just some nut trying to win converts to your off-shoot cult. EVA >Consider this: >"Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of >rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and >makes a universe for them to describe? The ususal approach of science of >constructing a mathemantical model cannot answer the questions of why there >should be a universe for the model to describe. Whey does the universe go >to all the bother of existing?" Quoted, Stephen Hawking.I considered it, now tell me how does it indicate that Hawking believes in a God?
He is simply pointing out the obvious, that science can only tell you how something works, not why it works. He points out that a unified field theory can't tell us if there is or isn't a god, and if so, whether or not it had much control in the outcome of the universe.
By the way, provide a reference if you can. For those that don't know, her quote comes from page 174 of A Brief History of Time.
Also, you left out his next statements immediately after the ones you quoted: "Is the unified theory so compelling that it brings about its own existence? Or does it need a creator, and, if so, does he have any other effect on the universe? And who created him?" ( ibid.)
That puts his statements you quoted into a bit better perspective.
>>EVA >>>and no entity exists independent of the mater, energy, and space-time >>>dimensions of the universe. > >KIM >>This is not known in any way. By what we can judge and test, we can't >>find any such beings, or know how intelligent or not or how powerful or >>not they are. There could be such beings like the Q from Star Trek. >>But none have made contact, and we can't detect them so you can't just >>say there are any. The only rational stand one can take on that point or >>any like it, is that such is unknown. EVA >Kim, you did not comprehend the last e-mail, did you?I see no reason to draw that conclusion from her above observations, and find your comment very evasive.
EVA >All the following statements you have made below indicate you were not able >to grasp the concept being presented. I am not trying to sound arrogant, I >am just trying to determine at what level I can base my explanations. I >would prefer an honest "I don't understand" to argument, which belies your >inability to grasp the content of the material.I question your abilities to grasp the content of the material.
EVA >I can explain things in a much simpler fashion. Therefore, I am not going >to rebutt the argument, based on the fact that you were unable to understand >the concept in the first place.How convenient, Kim is just too ignorant for you to even bother, is that it?
>KIM >>If you can find one and prove it exists. Go for it. EVA >for creating is defined as causing something, in this canse everything in >the universe, to come into existance. >Matter, energy, space and time are the effects He caused.This begs the question.
>KIM >>And YOU some how also know its gender, and that it has one, too? How do you >>know this? Is there a cosmic phalus hanging out in space somewhere? This >>makes me start to think you're a new ager and not a scientist. You make too >>many unprovable assumptions to be taken seriously. EVA >This keyed me in that you do not understand. All the arguments in the >previous e-mail are currently accepted theorums in the scientific >community, by noted cosmologists, who by the way are non-theists.Your interpretations and understanding of the models in question are not "currently accepted. . .in the scientific community, by noted cosmologists."
You assert as much, but you display an ignorance of the Big Bang model throughout this post.
EVA If you doubt this, research the space-time theory and Einsteins theory of realitvity on the web.I've researched all of the above, and I have not drawn the conclusions you have, nor is your conclusion popular among the scientific community.
EVA >Unfortunatly, Kim, you do not have the educational background to >understand facts when they are presented to you.Pure ad hominem. I thought you wanted to discuss this logically, not emotionally?
EVA >This is very unfortunate, because you are baseing your atheism on ignorance, >opinion and emotions.She bases her atheism on a lack of evidence for a God, just like all atheists. You have wonderfully demonstrated the validity of her position by your inability to provide such compelling evidence. You can more appropriately be charged with the above attack. It is you that believes things without evidence and extraordinary claims.
EVA >I would be glad to teach you, but we have to work together without "frontal" >attacks (of which most of your arguments were based).LOL, you'd better learn a bit more about cosmology before you begin teaching it. What arrogance….
Ciao,
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