Tuesday, February 10, 2009

The basis of atheist faith - Part 3

By one atheist’s definition, the phrase “There is no evidence for God” means,

“This “fact” could not exist unless there was a Creator God.”

Well, each and every one of these posts is giving examples, examples that are based on scientific facts, facts that are attested to and verified by atheist scientists that show that the laws of physics as we know them are not able to account for the facts that we observe.

Therefore citing Creator God as the probable cause for these facts is not an argument from ignorance because Creator God is the answer that best fits the scientific evidence. The only thing keeping people from accepting the obvious answer to what we observe is an a priori rejection of the existence of Creator God. In other words,

According to known and accepted scientific laws and observations, the evidence that I am citing in this series of posts COULD NOT EXIST unless there was a Creator God.

Are there alternative speculations proposed? Of course there are! There have to be because in the atheist world-view Creator God cannot exist. Have you ever asked yourself why there are dozens of hypotheses and dozens of variations of those hypotheses? It's because NONE of them work according to the laws of physics. If any one of them was workable according to scientific laws, then that would be the end of it. Like the saying, "It was in the last place that I looked," if any one of the atheist speculations was acceptable there wouldn't be any more theories. The fact is, based on known science, NONE of them are acceptable.

Because of clear scientific evidence, we know that:
. The universe cannot be infinite. That is because:
a) The Borde-Guth-Vilinkin Theorem proves that any expanding universe be it theoretical like atheists posit ad nauseam, or real like our own, must have a definitive space / time boundary, a point of beginning, a singularity, a point of Creation.
b) The Second Law of Thermodynamics rules out the possibility of the universe existing from infinity past.
c) Background radiation,
d) Known levels of entropy and
e) The Expanding universe confirm the truth of the 2nd Law >

. The universe had a beginning.

(About the Second Law, atheist scientist Arthur Eddington states, “The second law of thermodynamics holds, I think the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations - then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation, well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics, I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but collapse in deepest humiliation”).

Because of clear scientific evidence, we know that:
. It is physically impossible to have an Actual Infinite SERIES of Things or Events or even moments of Time preceding our today.

. Nor can we have an Actual Infinite COLLECTION by adding Things or Events or moments of Time one to another to another in order to reach today. This is why we can say with confidence that matter / universe cannot be infinite and that they haven’t always existed.

Imagine units of time as individual books filling a book shelf that stretches infinitely into the past. You could imagine an infinitely long street or an infinitely long rope or whatever, but for this example I’ll use a shelf of books.

While mathematics is able to deal with abstract or theoretical or conceptual or potential infinities, and while our imagination can create an imaginary shelf of books stretching infinitely into the past, sort of, reality holds no such possibility for us.

Time is not imaginary.

Time is not abstract or theoretical or conceptual.

Time is real.

Time is measured in real units.

In a scenario like this, with the shelf of books (units of time) stretching infinitely into the past you could never actually arrive at the first book. It is impossible to travel through infinite time to reach a starting point FROM WHICH you could begin your journey to the last book on the shelf or to what we call today.

If, in order to reach the last book (what we call today), you had to have the second to last book or yesterday.

And if, in order to have the second to last book you had to have the third to last book,

And if, in order to have the third to last book you had to have the fourth to last book and so on and so on, you could never reach today because you could never reach the “first” day (book) that made possible the second day which made possible the third day . . ..

Since the past is made up of units of real time, in the case of a beginningless past we would have had to pass through, or travel through infinite time in order to reach today and that is physically impossible. To reach today, we had to have had a starting point, a push point, a point of beginning, a point of first cause. That of course is what science tells occurred with the Singularity.

There was a beginning; a beginning that required a Cause.

If the past were actually infinite, we could never reach today because the past would simply extend infinitely into the past. Neither can we, as some desperate atheists have tried to do, arbitrarily pick a set or group or point in real time and begin counting from there. Of course you CAN do that, but it proves nothing regarding the beginning of the universe.

The fact is, we HAVE reached today so we can know not only that the universe had a beginning, but that time itself had a beginning. Just as a bookshelf stretching infinitely into the past with no beginning would prohibit our reaching today, neither can there be an infinite regress of causes of the universe. That would also prohibit reaching today’s universe.

. A beginningless Series or Collection of Things or Events in time entails, not a potential but an actual infinite number of Things or Events or moments in Time.

. As we’ve just seen, a beginningless Series of Things or Events or moments in Time that leads to the today cannot exist.

. Therefore, in order to reach today, time and the universe had to have a beginning; they had to have a starting point.

. Clear scientific evidence show us that beginning had to have a Cause.

The fact is, the infinite exists only as an idea or as a concept. It does not exist anywhere in realty. Of course, if the above argument is too cumbersome for you, you could just refer to the Quantum Physics discovery of the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem. These scientists have proven that any expanding universe, be it real, such as ours, or theoretical, such as the dozens proposed by desperate atheists cannot be without a past space-time boundary, a Big Bang, a Creation event.

2 comments:

Master G said...

The origin of the universe has absolutely nothing to do with why I am an Atheist, as I believe I told you in my last comment. I am an Atheist because I've heard theistic arguments and have found them lacking in substance. What is your evidence that your god exists, or that any god exists?

You're misunderstanding the science here. Of course an expanding universe has to have a space-time boundary--of the expansion. No kidding! As I have stated in a previous comment, this doesn't mean that the universe began to exist at that point; it only means that it began to expand at that point.

You're also forgetting the first theory of thermodynamics, which states that matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed; they only change form. What form were they in before the expansion? Nobody knows. Nobody is positing that something came from nothing--except theists. Theists believe that a creator created the universe out of nothing. How can that be? If the matter and energy didn't exist before, where did it come from? Did your god think it into existence? And how do you know it wasn't many gods instead of one?

Nobody knows--including you--what happened before the universe began to expand. It is true that space-time for the expansion has a boundary, but whether that boundary is just a part of a cyle is unknown. Scientists have posited that our universe is the result of the collision of two singularities within a multiverse, for example; how can you say that they're wrong? Other scientists certainly haven't.

Have you ever observed your god? What are its properties? At best, First Cause only posits the god that the deists believe in: an entity that got everything going and stood back to watch. Which god is your chosen deity? Why?

I became an atheist because I read the Bible many times and found it less believable with each reading. I then studied other religions and found them equally without substance. It had nothing to do with science.

Thesauros said...

“I am an Atheist because I've heard theistic arguments and have found them lacking in substance.”

Would you help me understand your difficulties with those arguments?
===============

“What is your evidence that your god exists, or that any god exists?”

By my way of thinking, the best route to go, in giving evidence that any god or from your perspective to rule out the existence of gods is to clarify first of all that science itself is proving that our universe, a life permitting universe, a universe where matter, space, time and the laws of physics came into being in a nano second out of literally nothing, did not occur in any manner that can explain the state of our present.

Not the steady state model
Not oscillating models
Not baby universes
Not multi verses
Not the Cyclic Ekpyrotic Scenario
Not the Chaotic Inflationary Model
Not brane-cosmology
Not an inflationary multi verse
Not bubble universes floating in a sea of false vacuum
Not the many worlds hypothesis
Not the black hole hypothesis
Not string Scenarios
Not quantum gravity models
Not vacuum fluctuation models

None of these propositions have been able to explain what science observes today.

In fact it can be said with absolute confidence that no cosmogonic model has been as repeatedly verified in its predictions and as corroborated by attempts at its falsification, or as concordant with empirical discoveries and as philosophically coherent as the Standard Big Bang Model.

As for you favourite theory, the cyclic model it has in fact been given up as unworkable precisely because it cannot be eternal in the past.

According to atheist quantum physicist Vilenkins, “It follows from our theorem that the cyclic universe is past-incomplete.” That is to say, the need for an initial singularity has not been eliminated. Therefore, such a universe cannot be past-eternal.

Steinhardt who originated this theory has himself come to recognize this implication of the theorem for Ekpyrotic Scenarios. He now acknowledges that on his scenario the universe has a past boundary at some point in the metrically finite past. See www.phy.princeton.edu/.steinh/, under “Answers to Frequently Asked Questions: Has the cyclic model been cycling forever?”

You will notice that Steinhart seeks to mollify the impact of the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem by maintaining that clocks run progressivly faster as one approaches the past boundary, so that the elapsed time becomes what he calls “semi-infinite.” This trick does nothing to abrogate the finitude of the past or the beginning of the universe.
=================

By one atheist’s definition, the phrase “There is no evidence for God” means, “This “fact” could not exist unless there was a Creator God.” Well, each and every one of these posts is giving examples, examples that are based on scientific facts, facts that are attested to and verified by atheist scientists that show that the laws of physics as we know them are not able to account for the facts that we observe.

According to known and accepted scientific laws and observations, the evidence, the "facts" that I am citing in this series of posts COULD NOT EXIST unless there was a Creator God.

Are there alternative speculations proposed? Of course there are! There have to be because in the atheist world-view Creator God cannot exist.

Greg, have you ever asked yourself why there are dozens of hypotheses and dozens of variations of those hypotheses? It's because NONE of them work according to the laws of physics. If any one of them was workable according to scientific laws, then that would be the end of it. Like the saying, "It was in the last place that I looked," if any one of the atheist speculations was acceptable there wouldn't be any more theories. The fact is, based on known science, NONE of the scenarios that I listed above are acceptable.
================

“You're misunderstanding the science here. Of course an expanding universe has to have a space-time boundary--of the expansion. No kidding! As I have stated in a previous comment, this doesn't mean that the universe began to exist at that point; it only means that it began to expand at that point.”

Greg, science - SCIENCE! - your science tells us that there cannot be an infinite regress of cause. Yet, if I understand you correctly that is exactly what you are proposing. I'm not the brightest guy in the world so maybe I'm just not understanding you. Am I wrong? Are you saying that there can be an infinite regress of cause?

I gave you one reason yesterday why the cyclic model is no longer acceptable. Our known levels of entropy simply could not be what they are if there had been ANY given number of previous cycles.

That is why other hypotheses have come after the cyclic model. If this model had been workable there wouldn’t have been any further speculation. Doesn’t that make sense to you?
===========

“You're also forgetting the first theory of thermodynamics, which states that matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed; they only change form.”

Well where was this matter and energy prior to the Big Bang?
============

“Nobody knows--including you--what happened before the universe began to expand.”

That’s right, but as I tried to explain yesterday and what I’m in the process of explaining in these posts, science knows a GREAT DEAL about what DIDN'T EXIST and what didn't cause the Big Bang and that is what I’m pointing out.
==============

“Scientists have posited that our universe is the result of the collision of two singularities within a multiverse, for example; how can you say that they're wrong? Other scientists certainly haven't.”

Actually, yes they have. See above.

Greg, let me use the words of atheist physicist Vilenkin,

“It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can on longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.”

Vilenkin and his theorem does not go to saying that God is the answer, he IS an atheist after all. What he, along with fellow quantum physicists Borde and Guth have proven is that there has to have been a beginning, regardless of how far back you want to go.
===============

“At best, First Cause only posits the god that the deists believe in: an entity that got everything going and stood back to watch.”

Good observation! You’re absolutely correct. And at this point a Deist God is all that I’m suggesting is a reasonable submission to the question of Why is there a universe and Why is it THIS universe and not another.

Greg, let me just say that why I might try to emphasise a point with bold or caps etc. none of what I'm saying is being said in anger - ok? I enjoy the talk. Thank you for challenging me. It's very helpful.