The Big Bang and the Big Question: A Universe without God?

Aish ^ | Lawrence Kelemen

[Physicist]

Newton then spoke to his friend in a polite yet firm way: ‘This thing is but a puny imitation of a much grander system whose laws you know, and I am not able to convince you that this mere toy is without a designer and maker; yet you profess to believe that the great original from which the design is taken has come into being without either designer or maker! Now tell me by what sort of reasoning do you reach such an incongruous conclusion?’

It's a shame that Newton (a Christian heretic in any case) never saw the Mandelbrot set. The detail and complexity of that object overwhelms anything to be found in the natural world, and yet it unfolds from the most trivial of mathematical expressions.

If you want to call that "design"--and I am very sympathetic to that point of view--then I'm willing to accept that the universe was designed. I believe that the universe unfolded from pure mathematics in the same way that the Mandelbrot set does. That's how a truly omnipotent, omniscient God would have done it. That also tells you why I'm a Deist, and part of why I went into physics.

[Loose_Cannon1]

If you want to call that "design"--and I am very sympathetic to that point of view--then I'm willing to accept that the universe was designed.

Well, wait a minute; If you're willing to 'LEAN', if you will, towards GRAND DESIGN, then WHY would you argue with me that somethings could have happen by chance?

For instance, lets assume God used Choas to create LIFE. If he used ORDER to create the world so that CHOAS could degenerate it into life, then God still created Life. All you're doing is argueing that He did it from the Big Bang forward, whereas I'm saying that he touched a few molecules on Earth and made the Universes best 'Wedding Cake'.

You've even put forth the idea that a SALT DOME is a work of incredible odds. Heck, I don't disagree. He certainly was a master. So if the chances of SALT coming together to make a SALT DOME seems a bit rare, imagine if it could walk, breath, communicate and reproduce. NOW that's something to behold!!

I'll accept that God's grand design was mathematically based, but as the Creator of the Universe, He also gave the insight to learn and master the Mathematics to see his work, to His most perfect beings, you and I.

[Loose_Cannon1]

Well, I must admit that that probability is zero. ;^)

You got me good, with that one!! LOL!

Here I was, pretty sure I'd need all the wits I could gather to argue the complexities of everything I wrote, and you give in!! That's just not FAIR!

Thanks for educating and teaching me so much. Have a great day.

[PatrickHenry]

That story about Isaac Newton's mechanical model sounded familiar, so I went on a hunt for its source. It's HERE, almost word-for-word. At the end of that web page is a reference to a creationist book: The Truth: God or evolution? by Marshall and Sandra Hall, but I see no indication that there is any historical evidence for the story. I wonder if there is any. It's a good story either way, but it would be nice to know if it's a true story.

[Physicist]

Well, wait a minute; If you're willing to 'LEAN', if you will, towards GRAND DESIGN, then WHY would you argue with me that somethings could have happen by chance?

Wait a minute yourself. I thought your point is that life could not have happened by chance, so therefore it must have been built "by hand".

My own expectation is that life evolved by insensible degrees from nonlife. If the entire process were laid bare before us, there would be enormous debate about what qualifies as the simplest life form, and what only qualifies as "mere" organic chemistry. (Even today, people argue about whether viruses and prions qualify as life forms.) Wherever the line would be drawn, however, the "first life form" would have an enormous history behind it.

But if I'm wrong, and it really was a matter of chance, then so be it. There seem to be worlds enough (and time) for that, so there's still no requirement for divine intervention.

For instance, lets assume God used Choas to create LIFE. If he used ORDER to create the world so that CHOAS could degenerate it into life, then God still created Life.

By that standard, there can be nothing in existence that is not designed. There can be no test that says, "this is designed" or "this is not designed", because all it will ever say is "designed". Even if that's true from some perspective, it's not a useful heuristic.

I'm saying that he touched a few molecules on Earth and made the Universes best 'Wedding Cake'.

It's a rather inadequate conception of God you have, that He would have to do anything so vulgar as move atoms "by hand" into positions where they would not naturally have gone. Why wouldn't He write the laws of physics and chemistry so that they would automatically allow for such things in the first place? What makes people so faithless, that they think they can find gross seams in their God's handiwork?

You've even put forth the idea that a SALT DOME is a work of incredible odds.

I've done no such thing. Salt domes are self-evidently likely objects. I was presenting you a reductio ad absurdum for that probability calculation technique. Garbage in, garbage out.

Heck, I don't disagree. He certainly was a master.

But I can't smell it for you, I guess. All I can do is point it out.

[Physicist]

Here I was, pretty sure I'd need all the wits I could gather to argue the complexities of everything I wrote, and you give in!! That's just not FAIR!

Well, I went to my CRC handbook and looked up the compounds formed by helium, and I knew I'd met my match. :-)

[azhenfud]

"Anyone who builds a world view on a hypothesis and expects to find it intact after historical exposure is asking too much considering that the hypothesis itself will be changed even in his own mind by tomorrow."

Good observation. The author of the piece likewise thusly concluded:

"But perhaps that is where we should be left: in the dark, tortured by confusing hints, intimations of immortality, and a sense that, dear God, we really do not yet understand."

Some have "faith" to believe the Universe was formed from nothing by nothing specific, others place their faith in the scriptures' accuracy on the matter of the Creator's design. Each is accountable for his own step of faith.

[Loose_Cannon1]

The ability of a rogue prion protein, without a genetic code, to become infectious and reproduce is a dramatic and revolutionary medical concept,"

Bob, Prion Protein is still a protein, made up of Amino Acids, the same as you and I. A prion protein is simply a protein that evolved to be a 'parasite', if you will, on life. It's as if you and I had the same father, only you turned to a life of crime and robbed me. If the Prion Protein had a different "FATHER", as in my example, I'd be impressed, but a prion protein, while amazing, isn't another life form alien to our own. It is, rather, derived from Amino Acids that randomly coagulated, as atheist's insist must have happen.

What is a protein? Proteins are long chains of smaller molecules called amino acids, linked together. Much of the work on the origin of life has focused on the question of how amino acids came into being and how they got linked into proteins. Amino acids contain primarily carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen atoms. All of these would have been present in some form in the atmosphere of the young Earth: unlike today's atmosphere, it was not a mixture of mostly oxygen and nitrogen gas, but may instead have contained nitrogen along with carbon monoxide or dioxide (emitted from volcanoes), or perhaps methane (a compound of carbon and hydrogen). Although the molecules of amino acids are small and simple in comparison with proteins, they are elaborate when compared with the molecules of these gases.

If amino acids are the ONLY building blocks of life, as I have supposed in every post I've made, and together they form proteins, which has been proven to turn "rogue", then they are still part of the same genetic family of life on Earth, no matter how big or small.

Show me a protein that formed on another planet, and I'll be impressed.

[Loose_Cannon1]

Why wouldn't He write the laws of physics and chemistry so that they would automatically allow for such things in the first place?

Precisely for the reasons of modern science today. I hope you know I was speaking figuratively about God's 'Hand' touching a few molecules.

Let's suppose that God created a system so elaborate as to design itself into Life. He designed the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, etc.--not to mention molecular laws, which are opposed to physics, to allow life to form. What would stop His supreme creations, you and I, from becoming gods ourselves? He must have supposed that we would eventually covet this process and turn out life like some mad "Brave New World'.

Instead, as I believe, He kept this last secret for Himself. That we might not create life, as He created it, so that we might become gods ourselves.

But, of course, then you could argue that if we would offend God with such a creation, why would he allow homosexuality, abortion, and Ted Kennedy, surely things that offend God as much, or more, then creating life, I suppose.

[RightWhale]

Good observation.

It's something attributable to Sir Thomas More, although you can probably trace it in some form or other all the way back to Plato.

[kkindt]

Once I was blind to the reality of a Creator and thought as you thought. But suddenly my mind's eye was opened and when that happens Dimensio you are shocked at how blind you were and you try to point out to those who are blind that such evidence you seek is all around you but it is your unwilling 'heart' - that core of where your desires come from within you - your 'orientation' and 'inclinations' as to how you will respond to what you 'see'. It is, after all, the interpretation you give to the facts that matters most for you. We can both be looking at the same facts with our eyes and because our 'hearts' are oriented differently we will each interpret the data to try to keep that orientation of our hearts. SO those like myself who were once died in the wool evolutionist could look at the design in the little biomachines God has made and because we wanted to believe there is no God to whom we are responsible could pretend that there was no design. The question to ask yourself, as many of us have who were oriented like you at one time, is this - are my deep down heart inclinations orienting me in such a way as I am not being objective about the evidence but I think I am being objective? Call into question your own objectivity and listen to the perspective of those who are just as intelligent as you are - espeically those you know who are more intelligent than you are - and who see the facts - the evidence as conclusive that there is a God who has designed things - designed you and I.

That takes some courage you probably don't have yet. BUt you could get that courage. Remember you are emailing someone who was one of the biggest evolutionists you'd ever wnat to talk to - and I don't give me self the credit for having changed. Nor will you, if you do. The Creator must change that 'heart' of yours. It is for that blessing I pray for you for otherwise you will miss out on the most wonderful experience of eternity - His love and an eternal relationship with Him.

[longshadow]

helium in amino acids placemarker

[XBob]

261 - This will take a few zeros off your calculations, and there will be a whole lot more gone when we get the 'light' based computer, versus the current 'semi-conductor' computers.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/936890/posts

TOKYO (AFP) - Japan's NTT Data Corp. said it has successfully linked thousands of computers on the Internet to finish a task in 132 days that would take a single computer 611 years.

In the test that ended in April, the company linked 12,206 random computer users found through the Internet who were willing to download a program onto their systems that would share the computing burden of two scientific projects.


One sought to identify repeated patterns in the human genome (news - web sites) for use in a study of diseases' relation to genes, while the other analysed the light-transmitting ability of different materials for a future light-based computer.

[XBob]

298 - "It would seem as if all the ingredients in our kitchen got together--in perfect quantities, and baked itself into a cake. "

It seems like it is pretty remote a possibility, which it is. But how many possibilities are there on an object the size of the earth, in a period of 3-4 billion years, which is in a galazy with billions of stars, which is in a universe with trillions of stars, which is about 13 billion years old?

Seems like there are more than a few chances. And that is only considering one type of life. Who knows how many other types of life there are/may be?

[XBob]

301 - years ago, after I got my first PC (a real PC - pretty slow - not even an XT), I got a small cell development program, which worked on a random genetic algorithm. It was amazing, what would develop from the program in just a few hours of 'slow' computing. Someplace burined in my 'archives' in storage, I think I still have it.

[XBob]

307 - "Some have "faith" to believe the Universe was formed from nothing by nothing specific, others place their faith in the scriptures' accuracy on the matter of the Creator's design. Each is accountable for his own step of faith."

And some, like me, know that we don't have enough information to figure it out with certainty, so we remain agnostics, not finding enough proof one way or the other.

[XBob]

308 - The point I was making was that without DNA, the prion reproduces - no genetics. Is it alive?

You asked about other planets, and there have been several reports of 'life' on meteorites from Mars. Never did hear the end of those reports (on several different meteorites). The reports just sort of quietly disappeared.

Perhaps you know more about them, yes/no?

[Physicist]

It sounds like John Horton Conway's "Life", which is an example of a cellular automaton. Here's a Java implementation.. Google it up, there are plenty of other versions to play with.

The physicist (and all-around genius) Stephen Wolfram has concocted a nascent Theory of Everything using cellular automata. He describes it in his book A New Kind of Science. I've started reading at it, but it's heavy weather.

[XBob]

yes, thankyou I remember this one now - it's been many years. I think I saw this one, very simple.

It seems to me, however, there was something similar, where rules allowed much more complex structures. I seem to remember 'ant' and 'cities' as names. It built quite complex structures, and had cells with several colors (capabilities), and the structures could be several hundred 'cells'.

[XBob]

google found this explanation/article with rules. Very interesting.

http://ddi.cs.uni-potsdam.de/HyFISCH/Produzieren/lis_projekt/proj_gamelife/ConwayScientificAmerican.htm