If you happen to be a theist then the popular acceptance of the Big Bang theory was great news for our side of the debate. Most scientists especially the astrophysicists agree that the theory in one form or another is a valid idea supported by evidence. The implications are that the universe and even time itself had a beginning. This was not particularly good news for the atheist because he now has a hard time resorting to eternity like he used to when he found himself in a corner. As Voltaire noted in his time "The atheists are for the most part impudent and misguided scholars who reason badly, and who not being able to understand the creation, the origin of evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the eternity of things and inevitability."
He cannot now resort to "inevitability" as we have shown in the previous chapters. It certainly is not inevitable that life will spring out of the earth without intervention of an intelligent source. And if the Big Bang idea is true then he cannot resort to eternity. He can take us back into the obscurity of the unknown only so far now. That’s really too bad because that has always been such a fruitful area for him. His "could-haves" finally must end at least somewhere. Of course now he is devising in his mind whole scenarios about what could have happened before this supposed big bang - in order to escape God again of course.
I will not belabor the point that God must have been involved in an imagined event called the big bang except to quote one line from Stephen Hawking (from his book; A Brief History of Time) who knows much more about this subject than I do.
Now remember this is the same man who believes that life can inevitability evolve from the initial laws and circumstances which were put in place in the beginning. He certainly is not in agreement with me. Mr. Hawking has a well deserved international reputation for his excellent reasoning ability and methodical approach in determining the relevance of facts and evidence. He made the above statement, not me. Unlike today’s atheist approach to facts and evidence Mr. Hawking apparently has no problem in using Occam’s razor where it is appropriate instead of engaging in endless science fiction to explain the obvious. Stephen Hawking does himself engage in speculation but there is a great distinction that must be made: He does not call that speculation scientific fact.
Anyway I don’t necessarily believe in the big bang idea regardless of its implications in my favor. It has shown itself to be, at least in its present form, a huge quagmire of matter and anti matter that is intermingled with "springy space", dark matter, dozens of supposed new dimensions as well as completely unworkable mathematical problems that do not make sense except in the minds of the one imagining a true correlation to reality. Nevertheless the basic idea is based upon actual evidence that has serious implications. The evidence discovered by Hubble and confirmed by others shows that the universe is expanding. The amazing thing that is not often noted is that it is expanding away from earth in all directions. Some will say that is only relative and that may be true but the evidence at present without undue speculation is that the earth or our immediate portion of the universe is in the center of the universe. Of course the atheist cannot stand the thought of such a thing so he again throws out Occam’s razor and speculates about twenty thousand other possibilities.
No one knows what happened really but a few facts are relevant to our discussion of atheism. By the way, this is the chapter I told you about where we begin our transition from the turf of the atheist and modern science to my familiar ground of determining what exactly reality is regardless of the tools necessary to find that reality. Reality is things as they really are regardless of our ideas about them. Reality does not change to fit the mold of either the atheist or the believer in God. Reality simply is.
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." It seems to me that there are a number of creationists who seem to think that their own particular interpretation of scripture is the measure of all reality. Nevertheless the first verse of the Bible, without resorting to endless speculation and tossing out Occam’s razor again, appears to be established reality. There is no time line from this event anywhere in scripture that requires a so called young earth or young universe. Now, without claiming that my particular interpretation is correct in exclusion of the others we should discuss a few known facts that relate to time, space and the speed of light. It may very well be true that the supposition of a younger universe is the correct interpretation. Anyway, let’s look at some facts.
First of all it is proved that light remains at a constant speed in a vacuum. That implies that light does not maintain a certain speed outside of a vacuum. In fact, it can be slowed to nothing altogether. There is a direct correlation of time with the speed of light. The beginning of the imagined big bang for instance is by definition the beginning of time. The supposition is that there was no light or movement before such a theoretical event so there was likewise no time.
Unfortunately for this theory the figures just do not add up. For years now people have been dedicating their entire lives to trying to figure out how under the present laws of physics such an event as the big bang could be explained in a logical manner. Remember all of the hoopla about "artificial intelligence"? It was supposed to be, with the advent of computers, a fairly easy proposition to eventually make the machines become intelligent on their own. But the figures never added up. And the proof that is supposedly in the pudding has certainly never been demonstrated. I have a feeling that the present popular models of the big bang theory will likewise prove to be an impossible dream.
The figures do however seem to add up if we assume that the speed of light has changed over time. The puzzle under that scenario seems to fit together rather nicely. This option is not attractive of course but neither is the other which must include endless new ideas about theoretical particles and new dimensions that must often be invented out of thin air. One researcher who tended to believe in the variable speed of light thing said that it was easier for him to "question Einstein’s theory than it was to assume that there was some kind of strange, exotic matter around me in my kitchen." Einstein’s theory which relied on the constant speed of light has been proved to be true and it is used to some degree in modern space exploration. Of course the laws that Galileo and Newton discovered were also found to be true and proved. What Einstein did was not to overthrow established laws but rather to point out a higher law that transcended the others.
This, I suppose, could be compared to a nation’s constitution that transcends the lesser laws. There is no reason for a contradiction unless they interpret the constitution the way they do in the United States! In that case the analogy cannot be used because what was once a simple principle is now entangled by lawyers who have twisted the meanings of words. Nevertheless, let’s try and see the correlation. Newton and Galileo were not overthrown by Einstein. The laws they discovered are still in effect and they are still used today, even in space travel. However Einstein discovered that everything was relative to certain conditions including the speed of light.
This "relativity" is now an important concept firmly established in science. People who are now seriously proposing that even his laws are relative are only making that assumption because of the already established principle that Einstein discovered. Their propositions are no less fantastic than his and they are certainly less fantastic than the current popular ideas of who knows how many extra dimensions and unknown and unseen particles that supposedly exist in the so-called vacuum of space.
Regardless of which theory is a true representation of reality, or if none of them are, one thing is patently obvious; "the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made out of things that do appear." This is shown not by referring to "an old book full of contradictions" but by experimentation and rational examination of evidence. And it is confirmed by both theist and atheist alike. The only other alternative to "the word" which is obviously in life itself, and God which is necessary to establish both it and the exact conditions necessary for our universe to exist is a string of fantastic and supposed possibilities that eventually enter the realm of science fiction. It is necessary to use brother Occam’s razor to shave off the unwarranted complicated speculation and consider the obvious.
Naturalistic theories assume, even if God is considered, that he is only necessary in some supposed beginning. He is relegated to a distant time in the past and he is of very little value now days. Or as Carl Sagan put it in the introduction of Hawking’s book, there is "nothing for a creator to do." There is of course another alternative that fits in well with existing evidence and that is: Nothing is possible without his continued intervention. What exactly is "nature" anyway? I will define it briefly for the sake of argument as the automatic processes that continue according to established laws. Nature is what we have determined by our observation to be a process which is continuous and automatic. The obvious existence of God however, at least in the role of initial creator, creates a whole new range of possibilities.
Is he dead now? That would seem to make the atheist happy. It isn’t a total victory but at least he could see it as a consolation prize for his efforts. It seems however in light of the present mysteries still present in life and the universe that a far more reasonable solution must be considered. Perhaps God is in all of his creation? The mysteries are then immediately solved except of course the eternal mystery of the exact nature of God. Take for instance the mysteries of why, with the best minds of science working on it night and day, there is an utter collapse of known laws of science and a necessity to engage in fanciful predictions and suppositions to make sense of a simple observation by Hubble; The apparently expanding universe. And I use the word "apparently" for a reason. If the speed of light is a tool of the Creator that he uses as he sees fit or even if a higher law turns out to allow it, then there is no such thing as an expanding universe.
A higher law as it turns out does indeed allow for time to be slowed, sped up and stopped altogether. This is a unique quality of the theory of relativity which was later proved by observation. A person traveling along with the speed of light is effectively stopped in time as he is compared to one who is standing still. Light is a marvelous thing really. Experiments are constantly being performed in order to discover what else it can do in various contrived conditions created in the lab. Black holes and the theoretical beginning of our universe both require higher laws to understand ("Singularities" they are called). There is evidence that even now there are places in our universe that are stopped in time. Regardless of how we look at light and time however, and the relative nature of everything including the present, past and future, it becomes apparent without engaging in science fiction that whoever controls light, controls the universe.
The universe may or may not be expanding. We may or may not be getting older in relation to undiscovered parts of the universe. Time is now known to be simply a function of eternity. An invention of sorts by whoever or whatever controls light. None of this was known by man when the words, "let there be light: and there was light" were written. If it is the case that a who rather than a what controls time and light then all bets are off. If he is the same God who wrote the code for life that must have arose from an intelligent mental source then it is foolish to believe that he is irrelevant in any area of the universe including the universe of life itself. After all, the research into the mysteries of biological life is leading to exactly the same place as is the search for the mysteries of the entire universe. Both fields of science are looking for smaller and smaller particles which are now known to be controlled and effected by unseen but obviously necessary smaller particles. Light acts like both a wave and a particle. Therefore it adds further complications to the particle questions. Other dimensions are now seriously postulated as an answer. How far will science go to avoid God?
Biological life must contain a mental source in order to even get started. The structure of matter and space that fills the entire universe including that which is living cannot be as it is, without engaging in purely fictitious fantasy that takes place only in the mind of the one devising the fantastic solution. Why else would researchers now be seriously considering that the speed of light perhaps is not absolute? Is there really some kind of "strange, exotic matter" around us in our kitchens, or is the speed of light a consistent law of the universe? Regardless of either supposed reality all bets are off in regards to a simple solution or a "grand unified theory" that ties the whole thing together. The "uncertainty principle" (The uncertainty principle by the way is the proved principle that shows that the position of a particle of matter cannot be determined exactly along with the exact time it is there.) alone gives us a precedent of the impossibility of finding an exact solution based upon known laws. This is basic navigation and it shows that we do not know where we are!
So then we are all as lost sheep wandering in the wilderness looking for a way out by the use of logic. Because it has already been proved that God is an absolute necessity for our existence it should take no great leap of faith to assume that he is still controlling it. There are really only two choices: God or science fiction. One of the options is already firmly established by logical deduction. The other is in the realm of comic books.