Posted on 12/08/2008 6:27:04 PM PST by SeekAndFind
WHAT would you rather believe in, God or the multiverse? It sounds like an instance of cosmic apples and oranges, but increasingly we're being told it's choice we must make. Take the dialogue earlier this year between Richard Dawkins and physicist Steven Weinberg in Austin, Texas. Discussing the fact that universe appears fine-tuned for our existence, Weinberg told Dawkins: "If you discovered a really impressive fine-tuning... I think you'd really be left with only two explanations: a benevolent designer or multiverse."
Weinberg went on to clarify that invoking a benevolent designer does not count as a genuine explanation, but I was intrigued by his either/or scenario. Is that really our only choice? Supernatural creator or parallel worlds?
It is according to an article in this month's Discover magazine. "Short of invoking a benevolent creator, many physicists see only one possible explanation," writes journalist Tim Folger. "Our universe may be but one of perhaps infinitely many universes in an inconceivably vast multiverse." Folger quotes cosmologist Bernard Carr: "If you don't want God, you'd better have a multiverse."
There are plenty of reasons to take the multiverse seriously. Three key theories - quantum mechanics, cosmic inflation and string theory - all converge on the idea. But the reason physicists talk about the multiverse as an alternative to God is because it helps explain why the universe is so bio-friendly. From the strength of gravity to the mass of a proton, it's as if the universe were designed just for us. If, however, there are an infinite number of universes - with physical constants that vary from one to the next - our cosy neighbourhood isn't only possible, it's inevitable.
But to suggest that if this theory doesn't pan out our only other option is a supernatural one is to abandon science itself.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
Neither does the "multiverse", if he wishes to be intellectually consistent.
Why?
As yes. The ultimate excuse. A “scientific” theory that can’t be proved. The smug self-satisfaction of arrogance.
Who gets to define “supernatural?” Who defined “science,” or the “scientific method of inquiry?” All these, and more, very useful to us within their limits, are constructs of the human mind, which often defies rationality by its own standards and has not a corner on absolute truth, IMO.
Many natural phenomena, noted in for example weather phenomena or the stars and planets, once were inexplicable, frightening to we “savages,” and “supernatural.” It seems to be fluid concept.
Multiverses have been banging around as an idea for decades, and I have not heard once how they jibe with the laws of conservation of mass/energy.
Why do we all of a sudden obtain a "get out of jail free card" with regard to conservation of mass/energy just because it ends up in a different universe?
Multiverses are amoral and anti-scientific.
If everything exists in multiverse, then God exists there also. Believing in multiverses demands a belief in God.
Case closed.
The extremes to which some of these so-called “scientists” go — in order to get away from “God” — is absolutely hilarious...
They will come up with the most *crackpot* ideas in order to not invoke God... :-)
Like you said, great post.
“Why?”
in a multiverse there are a zillion other universes where hc87 (who is really a 12 legged unicorn) posted “why not?”
agreed
As they discover more and more about how God made the worlds Man’s “smartest minds” get more desparate to explain away their Creator.
The explainations get whackier all time. I shudder to think what science will be saying 100 years from now.
It may rule out a particular type of God, but not God in general.
What that means is that his opinion on anything has no meaning for real human beings.
Yep, I know...it won't work though. It's just another ploy to downplay God and He always wins in the end.
End of the argument.
Presumably (if what I've seen elsewhere by he and other's writing about the multiverse applies here), Dr. Weinberg finds the explanation of a benevolent designer to be "not genuine" because it relies upon the recourse to an entity which cannot be "scientifically", i.e. empirically observed. But guess what? Neither can these proposed multiverses. They are as much as a figment of the imaginations of cosmologists as God is said by these same cosmologists to be a figment of the imaginations of religionists.
the multiverse is just like the epicycles that were used to prop up Ptolemaic astronomy. When you don’t have a case, you look for the most convoluted explanations.
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