Posted on 06/18/2013 5:22:54 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Last week, in Nice, France, I was privileged to participate along with 30 scholars, mostly scientists and mathematicians, in a conference on the question of whether the universe was designed, or at least fine-tuned, to make life, especially intelligent life. Participants — from Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Berkeley, and Columbia, among other American and European universities — included believers in God, agonistics, and atheists.
It was clear that the scientific consensus was that, at the very least, the universe is exquisitely fine-tuned to allow for the possibility of life. It appears that we live in a “Goldilocks universe,” in which both the arrangement of matter at the cosmic beginning and the values of various physical parameters — such as the speed of light, the strength of gravitational attraction, and the expansion rate of the universe — are just right for life. And unless one is frightened of the term, it also appears the universe is designed for biogenesis and human life.
Regarding fine-tuning, one could write a book just citing the arguments for it made by some of the most distinguished scientists in the world. Here is just a tiny sample, collated by physicist Gerald Schroeder, who holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he later taught physics.
Michael Turner, astrophysicist at the University of Chicago and Fermilab: “The precision is as if one could throw a dart across the entire universe and hit a bullseye one millimeter in diameter on the other side.” Paul Davies, professor of theoretical physics at Adelaide University: “The really amazing thing is not that life on Earth is balanced on a knife-edge, but that the entire universe is balanced on a knife-edge, and would be total chaos if any of the natural ‘constants’ were off even slightly.
Roger Penrose, the Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, writes that the likelihood of the universe having usable energy (low entropy) at its creation is “one part out of ten to the power of ten to the power of 123.” That is “a million billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion zeros.”
Steven Weinberg, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, and an anti-religious agnostic, notes that “the existence of life of any kind seems to require a cancellation between different contributions to the vacuum energy, accurate to about 120 decimal places.” As the website explains, “This means that if the energies of the Big Bang were, in arbitrary units, not:
1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
But instead:
1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000001
There would be no life of any sort in the entire universe.”
Unless one is a closed-minded atheist (there are open-minded atheists), it is not valid on a purely scientific basis to deny that the universe is improbably fine-tuned to create life, let alone intelligent life.
Additionally, it is atheistic dogma, not science, to dismiss design as unscientific. The argument that science cannot suggest that intelligence comes from intelligence or design from an intelligent designer is simply a tautology. It is dogma masquerading as science.
And now, many atheist scientists have inadvertently provided logical proof of this.
They have put forward the notion of a multiverse — the idea that there are many, perhaps an infinite number of, other universes. This idea renders meaningless the fine-tuning and, of course, the design arguments. After all, with an infinite number of universes, a universe with parameters friendly to intelligent life is more likely to arise somewhere by chance.
But there is not a shred of evidence of the existence of these other universes — nor could there be, since contact with another universe is impossible.
Therefore, only one conclusion can be drawn: The fact that atheists have resorted to the multiverse argument constitutes a tacit admission that they have lost the argument about design in this universe. The evidence in this universe for design — or, if you will, the fine-tuning that cannot be explained by chance or by “enough time” — is so compelling that the only way around it is to suggest that our universe is only one of an infinite number of universes.
Honest atheists — scientists and lay people — must now acknowledge that science itself argues overwhelmingly for a Designing Intelligence. And honest believers must acknowledge that the existence of a Designing Intelligence is not necessarily the same as the existence of benevolent God.
To posit the existence of a Creator requires only reason. To posit the existence of a good God requires faith.
— Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His most recent book is Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.
(21) Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
(22) What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
(23) And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
agreed. the enormity of creation is overwhelming for a cosmic accident. Impossible to imagine existence springing forth from bupkus.
Of course it isn’t. In fact it’s ludicrous in that it requires faith in something that cannot be seen. The same argument they use to condemn believers. My retort to them is, I respect your belief. I may even agree with your belief. However, if it is true then they were all created by the same creator. You must agree that it would take an intelligent being to have created many copies of the same concept as random occurrence could not possibly have done so. So you do believe then that there is a creator. I knew we believed the same thing. Thank you and have a blessed day.
Only in your mind......
It's not a problem because God tells us that Satan has been defeated and He doesn't *need* multiple universes to accomplish that. The death of Jesus on the cross took care of that.
We're still in the middle of everything. You can't pass judgment on God until it's all been completed and you see the end.
Speak for yourself.
What was your previous screen name?
I never could understand the need to separate the two.
FYI. Something you might want to incorporate into some Sunday sermon. I consider this “The Great Multiverse Crapshoot.” BTW, I understand that the force of gravity if just the very smallest bit larger or smaller would have prevented the formation of the universe. The percentage is astronomically small. I believe I saw a show on TV that stated that the percentage difference of just 1 over the total number of grains in the sand in the world in the force of gravity would have made our universe impossible.
Why? Explain that dynamic. Are you suggesting that free will is not the product of The Creator (that is to say the God of the Judeo-Christian Tradition), but instead is the happenstance of “Random chance” (like Topsey it just growed)? Following your logic to its conclusion, are you then suggesting that the Judeo-Christian God is not at all The Creator, but is rather just another hapless outcome of random “chance” (leaving aside your misapplication of “random”). If the case, then what is the difference from any other tenet of Materialism and your particular POV?
“. . . and for the existence of things in this world which God does not like.”
What would be the significance of “free will” were it not for the existence of “things” which The Creator does not “like”?
Thanks SeekAndFind, for posting this interesting Prager article. Prager is always a fun read. I’ve called mom and boop because of their interest in this subject.
God created free will. The “filthy minds” are the free choice of the “leftists and other lunatics” who have decided wrongly (or so we believe by our own God-given best judgment).
To assign free will to the agency of “randomness” is simply a bassackward way to deny God. It is a surrender to Materialism (which, by the way, denies free will).
Where did this notion of a multiverse first arise? DC Comics trotted out this notion beginning in the 1950s when they rebooted a number of their superheroes comic books and eventually had cameo/guest appearances from the 1930s/1940s incarnations of the characters.
Later as DC’s acquisitions grew, the rolled the other publishers’ characters into parallel worlds.
Then in the 1980s, they smashed them all together with a cataclysmic 12-issue storyline.
Does such “science” come from comic book lore or were others dreaming along these lines before the 1950s?
The multiverse has roots going back about 1,000 years. It was an early explanation of where gods go when they are not here. As I recall the current thinking grew out of the “steady universe” theory from 1948.
I am too lazy to look it up but I am sure it is out there on bing.
I see it as an acknowledgement from both sides of the issue that something bigger than any of us laid down a plan which is why we exist. The discussion is about whether it's a God or a superior alien being. Both could be true.
What gets my head spinning is why there's something instead of nothing.
Could be.......
You don’t know?
You seemed fairly certain when you opined, “There has to be some intermediate randomness to allow for the existence of free will.” Likewise, you must have had a reasonably clear idea in your head when you opined, “If God directly created leftists and other lunatics and their filthy minds then can we still call God good?”
Now, at this point you become coy, and profess to have not a thought in your head?
So, when cornered, you hope to escape by devising an argument over the meaning of a term, permitting you to avoid the embarrassment of having to speak to an issue with which you are unprepared to deal?
Get back to me when you can recall what matter so excited your disdain and animosity for the term in the first place.
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