Most of my friends don't believe in God; they believe in the Big Bang and String Theory.
They can't explain either theory - most people can't; they accept it as a matter of faith.
Sadly, most don't see the irony in that.
THAT MAKES ME THINK... MAYBE THERE'S A SCIENTIFIC WAY TO PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF GOD TO THESE FOLKS?
I think this might be possible because there are very serious problems with both theories - The Big Bang and String Theory: they keep bumping into phenomena they can't explain, an so get more elaborate and complicated every year. TS Kuhn described how this process works in science - how and why and when one theory replaces another. Right now there are several theories competing with each of these.
Two of the problems physics is now encountering are HUGE: the Universe is expanding at an ever accelerating rate, and there is no known source for this energy; if there has been a Big Bang, then the energy shown run out and the Universe should gradually fall back on itself and repeat the process.
So physicists have come up with new theories to explain this acceleration chief among them Black Energy.
There second big problem with the Big Bang theory is that matter should be evenly distributed throughout the Universe, but it isn't.
To explain this physicists have posited that there musty be Black Matter: matter we can't see/detect/measure - but "it's there; it has to be there! TRUST ME!!!!"
God is really a much simpler explanation; God passes Occam's test. Here's how:
First, all there was only God.To create space for the Universe God had to withdraw - He had to create a place where he wasn't, a place where dimensions and matter and energy could EXIST ON THEIR OWN.
That place is our Universe.
The force accelerating the matter in the Universe is God: matter is being attracted back to God who exists in other dimensions and at the outermost ends, or outer edges of the Universe.
There are many black holes throughout the Universe and many emit energy jets.
There is no sign anywhere that these or any other things are collapsing back to the singularity.
These black holes and the dark matter and the dark energy are all racing towards God.
Shouldn't you, too?
Whether we choose consciously or not - we choose: a life lived must make moral choices and must confront moral dilemmas.
WHY?
Because God also created MORAL SPACE for us humans, a space where we can choose: right or wrong; good or evil; justice or injustice - God or not-God.
In this moral dimension, we are not inevitably drawn to God as matter is in the material dimensions.
We must choose to move toward God.
If we don't choose God - or Godliness, then we collapse back upon ourselves like a dying star.
Or look at it this way: Einstein proved that gravity is really a warp in the space-time continuum: matter - and the weak and strong forces in it - warps the continuum and a lot of it warps it a lot.
Our Sun warps the continuum - and our Earth isn't spinning around it as much as it is being pushed around it as if it was in a gully in the continuum, a place where our warp and the Sun's have found a balance of sorts - the way our Moon has with us.
Well, maybe God is the ultimate warp in the space-time continuum? The warp beyond all matter and to which all matter moves.
And this God isn't just a force of nature; He's conscious of everything.I know atheists believe that human consciousness is just an artifact of our brain-power, and many people have posited that soon computer's will have self-consciousness.
So... er, um... if computers - which are a phenomena only 75 years old - will soon spontaneously develop consciousness, then why can't God - that force above and beyond all things and the Universe itself, why can't it have consciousness?!
Something that big and old - infinitely big and infinitely old certainly has the energy, matter, and time for this to evolve, no?
In fact... I don't see how it COULDN'T HAVE!
That's why I think a Universe without God is illogical and impossible.
Anyhow, God certainly explains the things that dark matter and dark energy and String Theory and the Big Bang Theory cannot.
Perhaps my friends will just have to decide which leap of faith is more moral.
- Believing in a Universe without judgment in which there are no moral universals only values asserted.
- Or a Universe with universals and eternal laws and good and evil.
The world I live in is much more like the latter.
Unfortunately, too many people have turned away from God and are choosing evil and doing what is unnatural only right in their own eyes.
The consequences for this are eternal, too: nothing good comes doing evil.
And doing what is only right in one's own eyes is the very definition of evil.
7 comments:
I like this post very much. The whole "Jewish Idea" is that one of the dimensions of the universe (along with space-time, gravity, etc) is "Morality". Morality
itself is a trinity consisting of Justice, Compassion and Righteousness. Morality is
considered to be absolute, eternal and universal,l just as G-d is absolute, eternal and universal. Simply put, there must be G-d because we didn't make it up. If Morality was a man-made concept, that would be the ultimate act of idolatry: it leads to the idea that WE are G-d! But this is clearly impossible; we didn't create the universe. And if we're G-d (or in early political thought, the King is his messenger)
then all kinds of nasty and immoral goings-on can be justified. This is why there is no such thing as "human rights" in the Torah. Given the choice, which would YOU choose --
"human rights" or "universal moral principles?"
good points.
Not bad, but I prefer to use reason to prove God.
Selections from some notes I have written:
Presuppositionalism: Lately, this has become the poster child for intellectual Christian Apologetics, also known as Ontological Presuppositionalism. Yet, it is based upon the fallacy that it presupposes that God is required for knowledge to exist. This is an unprovable argument, ultimately, requiring a fideistic assumption that knowledge requires a God. It has yet been shown to be logically valid.
Rather than make certain assumptions and then argue for a specific worldview, man must look at the most basic without presuppositions. Any presuppositions can contain fallacies. The most basic question that can be asked is:
Do I know that I know?
If argued from the negative, then it has just been made a self-defeating argument; therefore, something is knowable. Therefore, it can be argued that knowledge exists because of God or knowledge is eternal, based upon Spiritual Monism or even Material Monism, because to argue against it is self-defeating. Arguing for knowledge being God-required is unprovable because knowledge, being self-evident, does not give us proof of origin.
The compelling conclusion is that we need to argue from the position of Rational Presuppositionalism. This is a much more effective philosophical approach. Carnell states, “No man can meaningfully deny the primacy of the laws of logic. Their universality and necessity are secured by the simple fact that nothing has significance apart from them.” In arguing for the rationality of Christianity, one must depend on Aristotle’s law of contradiction, the foundation of all meaning. It states that the same thing cannot be acted on in the same part or at the same time in contradictory ways. Therefore, words must have a finite number of meanings. If they mean everything, then in reality, they mean nothing. God is consistent in all things (James 1:17).
The first question that we must ask ourselves is:
-Do we know if Something/All is eternal or temporal?
-The logical argument would be to acknowledge the validity of the argument:
-If none is eternal, then all is temporal.
-If all is temporal, then all came into being.
-Being from non-Being is irrational.
Therefore Some/All must be Eternal.
Material Monism
This is the philosophy that requires all to be one substance, not allowing the dualism of mind and matter or God and the universe. This position asks the question whether all matter is eternal? The first argument is based upon change:
Major Premise: If material world was eternal, then it would be self-maintaining.
Minor Premise: The Material world is not self-maintaining.
Conclusion: The Material World is not eternal.
There are only two ways according to Material Monism that the universe can be self-maintaining: The first irrationally appeals to an uncaused event (Hawking’s True Vacuum to a False Vacuum). The second is the Big Bang Oscillating Theory. This theory was Sagan’s attempt to get around the eternality problem that Material Monists had. First, there is not enough matter to return matter into Singularity (Oneness). Even assuming there was, a person would have to appeal to an uncaused event for the cycle to start over again. The following argument presents the difficulty faced in Material Monism, and specifically the Big Bang Oscillating Theory:
-The physical universe is highly differentiated in terms of hot and cold.
-These differences interact.
-The interaction continues until sameness is reached.
-Sameness remains sameness; it cannot return to differentiation.
Therefore, the conclusion must be that the Big Bang Oscillating Theory is irrational, even if there was a way to account for enough dark matter to return everything together through gravity. The second problem is that the universe reaches equilibrium; therefore, there must be a cause to “start the clock over” and set the universe into motion again.
We also know from reason that the immaterial world exists:
Major Premise: If all is matter, then thinking must be motion of atoms in the brain.
Minor Premise: Thinking is not motion of atoms in the brain.
Conclusion: It is not the case that all is matter.
A quick note on Spiritual Monism (This won't be the whole argument, because I don't want to drag this post longer than it is:
There are three major arguments against reincarnation:
1. Reincarnation is ad hoc.
2. If you haven’t yet become enlightened in this eternal process, there is no hope to obtain enlightenment in this life.
3. There are no unique events in an eternal process or being (one that changes its intrinsic value).
Major Premise: If all is Spiritual, then this process (enlightenment) is an eternal cycle
Minor Premise: This endless cycle makes striving for release meaningless and futile.
Conclusion: Spiritual Monism is both irrational (There is no difference between ordinary existence and enlightenment) and unjust (It is unattainable).
And finally, is Theism rational?
This only leaves Theism to be rational. Is it actually rational? There are two arguments:
Major Premise: Anything that has a beginning has a cause.
Minor Premise: The universe had a beginning.
Conclusion: The universe had a cause.
Major Premise: Anything that is eternal (does not have a beginning) does not have a cause.
Minor Premise: God did not have a beginning
Conclusion: God did not have a cause.
Thus, Theism is rational. However, this argument usually brings forth a few objections to it, but these objections are based upon fallacies.
The first objection, normally proposed, is, “Who created God?” The argument against this position is that God was not created (see second argument). The major premise is arguing that anything that exists had a beginning. God, being eternal, did not have a beginning. He always was. The reason for this is because the Universe is temporal, but God exists outside of time. He is Eternal; therefore, He is exempt from the argument.
This brings up the second objection, “You only have argued that God exists, you have not ‘proved’ His existence.” Since science is empirical based upon matter, it cannot test for empirical evidence for God, because it is outside of its scope. That doesn’t mean that it is not rationally provable that something is eternal. Rationally (based solely on reason), Theism exists as the only reasonable explanation of the universe. The objection is asking for empirical evidence based upon matter. God, being apart from the universe, is immaterial; therefore, no empirical evidence exists. This does not invalidate the argument for Theism.
Some other time, I'll explain and justify the Problem of Evil.
Most of the above Arguments are either from Surrendra Gangadean's works or variations on them.
I recommend getting his book, Philosophical Foundation at Amazon. One of the best Apologetics works ever.
THANKS TIMOTHY - I WILL STUDY THESE NOTES!
"Sadly, most don't see the irony in that."
AH ha.
Sho'nuff
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