Athanasius Kircher, (1602-1680) a devout Christian astronomer and polymath, constructed a complex working model of the solar system showing the Sun and the planets circling around it. One day he invited his atheist friend into his study to see this model. His friend was intrigued by the model’s incredible complexity.  He exclaimed : “How beautiful it is! Who made it?“

Kircher responded: “No one made it. It made itself! “

The atheist stared at him in disbelief:  “That‘s absurd! You don’t expect me to believe that! Do you?“

Kircher answered: “No. I don‘t. But what’s even more absurd is that‘s what you believe about the real solar system, which is vastly more complex than this simple model.“

_______________________________________

The Anthropic Principle

Originally the Anthropic Principle was outlined in a scholarly paper describing the extraordinary fine-tuning of physical constants, such as the gravitational constant, the strong nuclear constant, which is some 10⁵³ times stronger than the gravitational constant, the electromagnetic constant, and the electron-proton mass ratio to name just a few.  One prominent theoretical physicist deduced that the gravitational constant is exact to within 1 part in 10 to the 10¹²³.

The evidence for fine-tuning is extensive, involving four different types of fine-tuning: that of the laws of nature, the constants of physics, the initial conditions of the universe, and various higher-level features of the world.   

“If nature is so ‘clever’ as to exploit mechanisms that amaze us with their ingenuity, is that not pervasive evidence for the existence of an intelligent design behind the universe? If the world’s finest minds can unravel only with difficulty the deeper workings of nature, how could it be supposed that those workings are merely a mindless accident, a product of blind chance?” - Theoretical Physicist Paul Davies

____________________________________________________

The God of the Bible is not affected by time, space or matter.  If He is affected by time, space and matter, He is not God.  Time, space and matter is what we call a continuum; all of them have to come into existence at the same instant. Because if there were a matter but no space where would you put it. If there were matter and space but no time, when would you put it. You cannot have time, space or matter independently.  They have to come into existence simultaneously.

The Bible answers that in ten words, in the beginning, there’s time, God created the heaven, there is space and the earth, there’s matter.

So you have time space matter created a Trinity of Trinitys, there just – you know time is past, present future, space has length, width, height. Matter has solid, liquid, gas. You have a Trinity of Trinitys created instantaneously. And the God who created them has to be outside of them. If he’s limited by time, he’s not God. The guy who created this computer is not in the computer. He’s not running around in there changing the numbers on the screen.

The God who created this universe is outside of the universe, he’s above it, beyond it, in it, through it, he’s unaffected by it. - Ken Hovind

_____________________________

David Berlinski Lecture (2008) 

 

There are only four great scientific theories:

1.  Newtonian mechanics

2.  Maxwell's electromagnetic field theory

3.  Einstein's theory of relativity

4.  Quantum mechanics

 

We have been assaulted with the view that science has a voice all its own.  Science doesn't have a coherent body of theoretical principles that are uniform throughout the sciences, and it doesn't have a method beyond any method that anyone would use in the pursuit of golf, for example. All you get is a series of trivialities.  

Science has no distinctive methods.

Of the countless misleading statements repeated by atheists, perhaps none is more pervasive than the lie that Christianity is incompatible with science and reason.  We will now discredit that falsehood.

National Geographic magazine - April, 2015
Francis S. Collins, geneticist behind the Genome Project

(click on page to enlarge)

 

    

"For example, 106 of the first 108 colleges were founded by and for the Christian faith." - America's Providential History, by Steven McDowell

 ___________________________________________________________

Harvard University was named for its donor, the Reverend John Harvard.

Harvard's Charter, dated May 31, 1650, signed by the governor of Massachusetts:


Whereas, through the good hand of God, many well devoted persons have been, and daily are moved, and stirred up, to give and bestow, sundry gifts, legacies, lands, and revenues for the advancement of all good literature, arts, and sciences in Harvard College, in Cambridge in the County of Middlesex, and to the maintenance of the President and Fellows, and for all accommodations of buildings, and all other necessary provisions, that may conduce to the education of the English and Indian youth of this country, in knowledge and godliness: It is therefore ordered, and enacted by this Court, and the authority thereof, that for the furthering of so good a work and for the purposes aforesaid, from henceforth that the said College, in Cambridge in Middlesex, in New England, shall be a Corporation,.....

_________________________________________

 

The motto of Oxford University in England is "The Lord is my light."

____________________________________________

Roger Joseph Boscovich, S.J. (1711-1787)


    

Some notes on the works of Roger Boscovich

Two hundred years ago February 13, 1787 the Croatian Jesuit mathematician Roger Boscovich, S.J. died. He developed the first coherent description of atomic theory in his work Theoria Philosophiae Naturalis , which is one of the great attempts to understand the structure of the universe in a single idea. He held that bodies could not be composed of continuous matter, but of countless "point-like structures". In this work he states that the ultimate elements of matter are indivisible points "atoms", which are centers of force and this force varies in proportion to distance. What is remarkable is that his works appeared well over a century before the birth of modern atomic theory.


A younger Roger Joseph Boscovich,S.J.

Robert Marsh, the author of Physics and Poets, credits Boscovich with the idea of a FIELD: Faraday and others took the idea from him. His influence on modern atomic physics is undoubted.
Roger was a physicist, geometer, astronomer and philosopher. He had an older brother, Bartholomew, who was also a Jesuit mathematician and on occasion taught in Roger's place when Roger was needed elsewhere. He taught at the Roman College for 20 years, although the Jesuit General Luigi Centurione, S.J. thought his teachings too avant garde. The next Jesuit General, Laurence Ricci, however, valued Roger and chose him as Visitor of the whole Jesuit Society. He was also a correspondent for the Royal Society of London, and a frequent contributor to the Jesuit Mémoires des Trévoux. The famous astronomer Joseph Lalande said there was no scholar in all Italy like Boscovich nor did he know any geometer as profound. On the anniversaries of his publications, his birth, and his death, symposia are held throughout the world to honor this amazing polymath. Roger was a creative scientist credited with perfecting the ring micrometer and the achromatic telescope. He was the first one to apply probability to the theory of errors. Later mathematicians such as Laplace and Gauss acknowledged their indebtedness to his pioneering work which led to Legendre's principle of least squares.

The 500 dinar Croatian note honors Roger Joseph Boscovich,S.J.
Well known all over Europe, Boscovich was later made a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and today the name Boscovich is found on maps of the moon since a rather large lunar crater was named in his honor. Because of his prominence as a scholar, it was his influence that minimized the hostility of Catholic churchmen to the Copernican system, and he had such a reputation for honesty, integrity and scholarship that only he was able to persuade Pope Benedict XIV to finally remove Copernicus from the Index of Forbidden Books.


A Commemorative Boscovich stamp

Russian scientists have always shown a strong interest in his work and more recently western scientists have become better acquainted with his contributions. This resurgence of interest in his works is evident from a host of recent books and articles. His legacy has been preserved in the special Boscovich Archives in the Rare Books library at the University of California in Berkeley. Among the 180 items housed there are found not only many of his 66 scientific treatises, but also correspondence (over 2,000 letters) with other mathematicians such as Euler, D'Lambert, Lagrange, Laplace, Jacobi and Bernoulli.

It was assumed then as now that mathematicians have the practical sense to fix intricate things such as clocks, so he was commissioned by popes and emperors to repair the alarming fissures in the cupola of the Milan Cathedral, to reinforce the dome of Saint Peter's Basilica, to direct the drainage of the Pontine marshes, and to survey the meridian of the Papal states.

After the Suppression of the Jesuits he became captain of optics in the French navy. Born in Ragusa (now Dubrovnic, Yugoslavia), Roger lived a long, fruitful life and was one of the last renowned polymaths.
Incisive in thought, bold in spirit, and independent in judgment he was a man of the eighteenth-century in some respects, but far ahead of his time in others.

Link to Roger Joseph Boscovich

References

Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu ( AHSI ) Rome: Institutum Historicum
Bangert, William A History of the Society of Jesus. St. Louis: St. Louis Institute, 1972, 1810
Boyer, Carl A history of mathematics. New York: Wiley, 1968
Gillispie, Charles. C. ed., Dictionary of Scientific biography. 16 vols. New York: Charles Scribner and Sons, 1970
Sommervogel, Carolus Bibliothèque de la compagnie de Jésus. 12 volumes. Bruxelles: Société Belge de Libraire, 1890-1960
Whyte, Lancelot Law Roger Joseph Boscovich,S.J. New York: Fordham Press, 1961
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Adventures of Some Early Jesuit Scientists

José de Acosta, S.J. - 1600: Pioneer of the Geophysical Sciences
François De Aguilon, S.J. - 1617: and his Six books on Optics
Roger Joseph Boscovich, S.J. - 1787: and his atomic theory
Christopher Clavius, S.J. - 1612: and his Gregorian Calendar
Honoré Fabri, S.J. - 1688: and his post-calculus geometry
Francesco M. Grimaldi, S.J. - 1663: and his diffraction of light
Paul Guldin, S.J. - 1643: applications of Guldin's Rule
Maximilian Hell, S.J. - 1792: and his Mesmerizing encounters
Athanasius Kircher, S.J. - 1680: The Master of a Hundred Arts
Francesco Lana-Terzi, S.J. - 1687: The Father of Aeronautics
Francis Line, S.J. - 1654: the hunted and elusive clock maker
Juan Molina, S.J. - 1829: The First Scientist of Chile
Jerôme Nadal, S.J. -1580: perspective art and composition of place
Ignace Pardies, S.J. - 1673: and his influence on Newton
Andrea Pozzo, S.J. - 1709: and his perspective geometry
Vincent Riccati, S.J. - 1775: and his hyperbolic functions
Matteo Ricci, S.J. - 1610: who brought scientific innovations to China
John Baptist Riccioli, S.J. - 167I: and his long-lived selenograph
Girolamo Saccheri, S.J. - 1733: and his solution to Euclid's blemish
Theorems of Saccheri, S.J. - 1733: and his non Euclidean Geometry
Christopher Scheiner, S.J. - 1650: sunspots and his equatorial mount
Gaspar Schott, S.J. - 1666: and the experiment at Magdeburg
Angelo Secchi, S.J. - 1878: the Father of Astrophysics
Joseph Stepling, S.J. - 1650: symbolic logic and his research academy
André Tacquet, S.J. - 1660: and his treatment of infinitesimals
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S. J. - 1955: and The Phenomenon of man
Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J. - 1688: an influential Jesuit scientist in China
Juan Bautista Villalpando, S.J. - 1608: and his version of Solomon's Temple
Gregory Saint Vincent, S.J. - 1667: and his polar coordinates
Nicolas Zucchi, S.J. - 1670: the renowned telescope maker

_________________________________________________

Father Georges Lemaitre (1894 - 1966)

According to the Big Bang theory, the expansion of the observable universe began with the explosion of a single particle at a definite point in time. This startling idea first appeared in scientific form in 1931, in a paper by Georges Lemaître, a Belgian cosmologist and Catholic priest. The theory, accepted by nearly all astronomers today, was a radical departure from scientific orthodoxy in the 1930s. Many astronomers at the time were still uncomfortable with the idea that the universe is expanding. That the entire observable universe of galaxies began with a bang seemed preposterous.


It is tempting to think that Lemaître’s deeply-held religious beliefs might have led him to the notion of a beginning of time. After all, the Judeo-Christian tradition had propagated a similar idea for millennia. Yet Lemaître clearly insisted that there was neither a connection nor a conflict between his religion and his science. Rather he kept them entirely separate, treating them as different, parallel interpretations of the world, both of which he believed with personal conviction. Indeed, when Pope Pius XII referred to the new theory of the origin of the universe as a scientific validation of the Catholic faith, Lemaître was rather alarmed. Delicately, for that was his way, he tried to separate the two:

“As far as I can see, such a theory remains entirely outside any metaphysical or religious question. It leaves the materialist free to deny any transcendental Being… For the believer, it removes any attempt at familiarity with God… It is consonant with Isaiah speaking of the hidden God, hidden even in the beginning of the universe.”


One problem with the Big Bang is that visible matter constitutes only 5% of the universe.
Dark matter is thought to be 27%, and dark energy is the remaining 68%.  What are they and how did they come into being?  It is unlikely that scientists will ever be able to provide evidence of their nature much less their origin.

_____________

The Fallacy of Science vs. Religion

The atheists' frequent claim that science and religion are mutually exclusive is demonstrably false.  If atheists were as "rational" and "intelligent" as they are always claiming, they would not resort to mendacity.  Science is supposed to pursue truth, although it has frequently failed in countless efforts.

 

The list of scientists as men and women faith is long and growing.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christians_in_science_and_technology

“Science is not only compatible with spirituality, it is a profound source of spirituality.  The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.”  ”  - Demon Haunted World, page 29, by Carl Sagan

 

“You can’t convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it’s based on a deep-seated need to believe.”  - Carl Sagan

[What an absurd statement by Carl Sagan, who time and again contradicts himself, doing as he says “a disservice to both science and spirituality.”]

“I believe in God more because of science than in spite of it.” – William Phillips, Nobel Laureate in Physics

“I think as Psalm 19, ‘the heavens proclaim the glory of God,’ that is, God reveals himself in all there is.  All reality, to a greater or lesser extent, reveals the purpose of God.  There is some purpose and connection to the world in all aspects of human experience.” – Arno Penzias, Nobel Prize-winner in physics for co-discovery of background cosmic radiation, confirming the Big Bang, or the moment of creation
_____________________________________

The Atheist Claim of Rationality and Intellectual Superiority

If atheists are, on average, intellectually superior to people of faith, then why do they abandon their religious belief in atheism at a rate higher than any other group?  (The Supreme Court has adjudged atheism a religion. Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961)) 

Ivy League Colleges all have Christian charters.  Is there a single college with an atheist charter?  Of course not.

Atheists marry far less often than those of faith.  Marriage confers enormous mental and physical health benefits, showing how rational and intelligent it is to marry the opposite sex.

Recently the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has published its mammoth study on Religion in America based on 35,000 interviews... According to the Pew Forum a whopping 37% of atheists never marry, as opposed to 19% of the American population, 17% of Protestants and 17% of Catholics.[3]

 

“All thinking men are atheists.” – Ernest Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961 ) (A Farewell to Arms, 1929, www.Goodreads.com)

Hemingway was a Nobel Laureate who was so thoughtful as to marry four times before killing himself and leaving his last wife to find the grisly mess he left for her

Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, was a genius and a mathematics professor at UC Berkeley before he resigned to live in a rathole cabin in Montana and mail package bombs killing three people and injuring twenty-seven others he hated for their technological prowess.  Arrested in 1996, he pled guilty in 1998 and was sentenced to eight consecutive life sentences.  An atheist, he killed himself on June 10, 2023.  His atheist father committed suicide in 1990.

____________________________

The religious have better mental health into adulthood.

The abstract for the journal article Health and Well-Being Among the Non-religious: Atheists, Agnostics, and No Preference Compared with Religious Group Members published in the Journal of Religion and Health indicates: "On dimensions related to psychological well-being, atheists and agnostics tended to have worse outcomes than either those with religious affiliation or those with no religious preference."^[2]

William Sidis and the Unabomber

William Sidis (1898-1944) was reportedly the smartest man who ever lived. He was admitted to Harvard University at age 9 but his parents held him back until he was 11.

Mathematics was his favorite subject and he excelled at it. Unfortunately he was mocked and teased by “the best and brightest” all around him, as was Theodore Kaczynski, aka The Unabomber, another mathematical genius, recluse and miserable failure.

Sidis rejected “the big boss of the Christians,” like the Unabomber did, and embraced socialism and isolation. He died at age 44 of a brain hemorrhage, with a disappointing record of achievements considering his intellect and education. Like the Unabomber, Sidis never married and never had any children. Two Darwin Award Winners removed themselves from the gene pool. The Unabomber will be remembered most for his serial murders with package bombs. So much for the atheist championing of their “intellectualism.”

         

Global News reported:

“

Children who are raised with religious or spiritual beliefs tend to have better mental health into their adulthood, a new study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found. According to the study’s findings, people who attended weekly religious services or prayed or meditated daily in their childhood reported greater life satisfaction in their 20s. People who grew up in a religious household also reported fewer symptoms of depression and lower rates of post-traumatic stress disorder.[3]

______________________ 

People of faith live longer than atheists.

For the study, a team of Ohio University academics, including associate professor of psychology Christian End, analysed more than 1,500 obituaries from across the US to piece together how the defining features of our lives affect our longevity.

These records include religious affiliations and marriage details as well as information on activities, hobbies and habits, which can help or hinder our health, not otherwise captured in census data.

 

The study, published in Social Psychological and Personality Science today, found that on average people whose obituary mentioned they were religious lived an extra 5.64 years.

Atheists commit suicide far more often than those of faith, which is clearly not "rational"

 

"Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns" in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, ed. by Michael Martin, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK (2005). In examining various indicators of societal health, Zuckerman concludes about suicide:

"Concerning suicide rates, this is the one indicator of societal health in which religious nations fare much better than secular nations. According to the 2003 World Health Organization's report on international male suicides rates (which compared 100 countries), of the top ten nations with the highest male suicide rates, all but one (Sri Lanka) are strongly irreligious nations with high levels of atheism. It is interesting to note, however, that of the top remaining nine nations leading the world in male suicide rates, all are former Soviet/Communist nations, such as Belarus, Ukraine, and Latvia. Of the bottom ten nations with the lowest male suicide rates, all are highly religious nations with statistically insignificant levels of organic atheism."^[3]

 

The list of atheist shooters and serial killers does not correspond to claims of intellectual superiority and rationality.

 

Atheists have a long record of being mass shooters and militant atheism in general has a causal association with mass murder.

Due to this fact, peer reviewed research published in academic journals has found that society-at-large is likely to hold atheists responsible for capital criminal acts and that even atheists are likely to assume that serial killers are fellow atheists.^[2][3][4]

_______________________________________

“The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advance of science.  Religion will have to make more and more concessions.  Gradually the myths crumble.” – Adolf Hitler

 

"...indoctrinating them (scholars) with materialism, atheism, and the theory of evolution - the Chinese Communist Party systematically brainwashed a new generation of students, instilling hatred toward traditional culture.  ... the CCP promoted atheism and launched ideological attacks against the belief in god.... using methods of violence and high pressure to suppress, persecute and, eliminate religions including the murder of religious practitioners."  - The Epoch Times, July 29, 2019

 

  

Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins became atheists after long and exhaustive rational inquiries into the existence of God, both at the age of nine.  - The Irrational Atheist, by Vox Day, page 243

 

 

The total body count for the ninety years between 1917 and 2007 is approximately 148 million dead at the hands of fifty-two atheists, three times more than all the human beings killed by war, civil war, and individual crime in the entire twentieth century combined. – The Irrational Atheist, by Vox Day, page 240

 

Irrational Atheism

Atheists always claim to be more rational and more intelligent than Christians.  They do not provide evidence of their arrogant, pretentious claim, but even if they did, it does not begin to prove their claim that God does not exist.  Implied but not stated is the presumption that BECAUSE atheists are much smarter than you are, THEY must be right, and YOU must be wrong.  That does not logically follow, and is a clear Fallacy of the Argument From Authority.   So the statement of intellectual superiority itself is irrational.  

 

Atheists claim that "there is no proof" of God.  They seem blissfully ignorant of the fact that proof only exists in mathematics.  So says mathematics professor John Lennox, of Oxford University.

 

His remark is echoed by the late Carl Sagan, a militant agnostic and Leftist, who said, "Nothing is known for certain except in pure mathematics."  Atheists seem to dispute even their beloved Carl Sagan as they insist that they know for certain that Darwin was indisputably right, though it is not known "for certain," according to Sagan,  and therefore, what need for God?  Atheists Stalin and Hitler agreed wholeheartedly.

_____________________________________

 

 "Nothing will prevent me from eradicating totally, root and branch, all Christianity in Germany."  - Adolf Hitler, April 7, 1933

"Christianity is an invention of sick brains.  The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.  We commence hostilities against the so-called Ten Commandments:  the tablets from Sinai are no longer in force." - Adolf Hitler

 

“If you believe in evolution and naturalism then you have a reason not to think your faculties are reliable.”  -  Alvin Plantinga

"An atheist is a man who looks through a telescope and tries to explain what he can't see...." - Power to Influence People, by O.A. Battista

"The atheists are for the most part imprudent and misguided scholars who reason badly, who not being able to understand the Creation, the origin of evil and other difficulties have recourse to the hypothesis the eternity of things and of inevitability...." - Voltaire:  Philosophical Dictionary

 

"Atheists put on false courage in the midst of their darkness and misapprehensions like children who when they fear to go in the dark will sing or whistle to keep their courage...." - Alexander Pope

“Still, even the most admirable of atheists is nothing more than a moral parasite, living his life based on borrowed ethics. - Vox Day

 

“I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.” -Abraham Lincoln

To sustain the belief that there is no God, atheism has to demonstrate infinite knowledge, which is tantamount to saying, "I have infinite knowledge that there is no being in existence with infinite knowledge." - Ravi Zacharias

 

Atheism turns out to be too simple.  If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning. - C.S. Lewis, atheist turned Christian

 

 “It is hard to see how a great man can be an atheist. Without the sustaining influence of faith in a divine power we could have little faith in ourselves. We need to feel that behind us is intelligence and love. Doubters do not achieve; skeptics do not contribute; cynics do not create. Faith is the great motive power, and no man realizes his full possibilities unless he has the deep conviction that life is eternally important, and that his work, well done, is a part of an unending plan. ” - Calvin Coolidge, speech, Jul. 25, 1924

 

La nature a des perfections pour montrer qu’elle est l’image de Dieu, et des défauts pour montrer qu’elle n’en est que l’image. Nature has some perfections to show that she is the image of God, and some defects to show that she is only His image. (Blaise Pascal, 1623–1662)

 

You cannot have rationality in a universe that is purely and solely material -matter.  Matter is not rational, it doesn’t think, has, no consciousness and no will.

 

“The mind of God we believe is cosmic music, the music of strings, resonating through eleven dimensions of hyperspace.  That is the mind of God.” – Michio Kaku, www.scienceworldreport.com, June 13, 2016

 

“As to the first cause of the universe, in the context of expansion, that is left for the reader to insert, but our picture is incomplete without Him.” – British Theorist Edward Milne in his treatise on the theory of relativity

 

“If the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million , the universe would have re-collapsed before it ever reached its present size.”  - Physicist Stephen Hawking

 

“The universe and the laws of physics seem to have been designed specifically for us.” – Stephen Hawking

 

“It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way except as the result of a God who intended to create beings like us.” – Stephen Hawking   

 

“When I began my career as a cosmologist… I was a convinced atheist.  I never imagined that I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true        …. straightforward deductions of the laws of physics… I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics.” – Frank Tipler, professor of mathematical physics

 

“It seems to me that when confronted with the marvels of life and the universe, one must ask why and not just how.  The only possible answers are religious.  I find a need for God in the universe and in my own life.” – Arthur L. Schawlow, Professor of Physics, Stanford University, Nobel Laureate

 

“I believe I came from God and you believe you came from a monkey and you’ve convinced me you’re right.” – Dr. Ben Carson, neurosurgeon

 

 “I believe in God because of a personal faith, a faith that is consistent with what I know about science.” – William Phillips

 

“Both religion and science need for their activities a belief in God, and moreover, God stands for the former in the beginning, and for the latter at the end of the whole thinking.  For the former, God represents the basis, for the latter – the crown of any reasoning concerning the world-view.” – Max Planck

 

“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass, God is waiting for you.” – Werner Heisenberg

 

“The more thoroughly I conduct research, the more I believe that science excludes atheism.” – Lord Kelvin

 

“Science brings man closer to God.”   “The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator.  Into his tiniest creatures, God has placed extraordinary properties….” – Louis Pasteur, pasteurization, immunology, confirmed the germ theory of disease

 

“I’m afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engraving them in the heart of youth.” – Martin Luther (1483 – 1546)

______________________________

“Four Big Bangs” That Kill Atheism

 

October 15, 2018 Daniel Currier 

 

In a recent conversation with an atheist, I challenged him with four major topics his worldview can’t explain. I remembered them by using Frank Pastore's nice mental hook, the “four big bangs” that materialism can’t explain.

 

     1.    The “Cosmological Big Bang”

2.    The “Biological Big Bang”

3.    The “Psychological Big Bang”

                                4.    The “Moral Big Bang”

 

When atheists try to explain these away, there seems to be much hand waving and “just so” stories. I love lines like, “sure, we don’t know, but at least we’re humble because we admit we don’t know” or “at least we don’t believe in the God of the gaps.”

 

But I digress, each of these four items are predicated upon something, almost magically, the popping into existence of things when the wheel of time is spun.

 

1) The “Cosmological Big Bang”

 

This is the most fundamental issue the materialists struggle to explain. I want to be clear, I’m not talking about when the universe started to exist, rather that it did start to exist. Things are much more likely not to exist than to exist. They can’t explain why.

 

This “just so story” sounds like this: the universe popped into existence, like “poof”, and then expanded through eons of time. Sometimes the claim is that there was nothing and that nothing turned into everything, as in “no thing” or “not anything” caused it all. Nothing is actually what rocks think about. That radical view takes much faith, more than I can muster. Really, are you afraid a pink elephant just appeared in your fridge and now is eating your salad?

 

Others say “nothing” means “something.” Don’t worry if this misnomer confuses you, the rest of us are confused too. If it’s “something,” please stop calling it “nothing,” right? They say this “nothing” was a singularity, or “all the matter in the universe smashed into an incredibly hot, infinitely dense speck of matter.” Or was this “nothing” some sort of quantum vacuum?

 

The problem becomes exponentially worse when we understand that the universe is finely tuned. To explain what I mean by fine tuning, think of the International Space Station, or even your car, mower, vacuum or microwave. Even the simplest of these are finely tuned. Many things need to be just right or else the machine does not work. There are many more ways for machines not to work than to work.

 

The universe is no different, except for it is exponentially more finely tuned, the most complex structure known. So many constants need to be just right. If not, the universe, all the elements, our solar system, our sun and our earth would not exist. In addition, life on earth would not exist if these constraints were not tuned to be just right.

 

Examples of some of these constants include things like the strength of the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, the electromagnetic force and the gravitational constant.

 

Scientist and agnostic Robert Jastrow, says this in “The Enchanted Loom”:

 

“Now we see how the astronomical evidence supports the Biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and Biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy.”

 

We may disagree with some of his thoughts, but his main point is true; the evidence points to the biblical God. Simply put, from our experience, nothing ever makes something. Everything that begins to exist had a prior cause. Also, the fine tuning of the universe, like carburetors, cars and chainsaws, points to a fine tuner. Finely tuned things ultimately have an intelligent cause.

   

2) The “Biological Big Bang”

First dead matter, then alive matter, that’s the problem. Am I just to believe that a “poof,” composed of eons of time, created life? We could talk about the debunked “spontaneous generation” hypothesis from history to the modern “abiogenesis” version, but both have the same issue, lacking evidence.

Paul Davies, a well-known Astrobiologist, says this, “One of the great mysteries of life is how it began. What physical process transformed a nonliving mix of chemicals into something as complex as a living cell?” In a conversation on the Unbelievable radio show, he said we have no naturalistic theory for the origin of life. Anyone who has studied the origin of life will tell you the same. Life always comes from life. Life from non-life is a dead end, pardon the pun.

 

Also, you remember the fine tuning of the universe, right? Well, life too is finely tuned. From finely tuned cells, to finely tuned molecular machines, to finely tuned DNA code, to finely tuned molecules and all way to the finely tuned elements, life and its building blocks are finely tuned! Again, fine tuned things have an intelligent cause.

 In addition, life’s microscopic machines are real machines, not metaphors. In biology, we find gears and motors, turbines and generators. These types of machines, from our experience, are always designed. 

 We must not forget the information contained in the cells. Again, from our universal experience, meaningful and functional information like this always comes from minds.

 3) The “Psychological Big Bang”

 The question is simple, how did consciousness arise? From a bacteria like cell, to a blob brain, to a mind?

 Somehow we acquired the capacity for creativity and consciousness, design and beauty, self-awareness and self-reflection. From proverbs to poems, to meaning and methods, to emotions and economics.

We have mental abilities, and complementary physical abilities that other organisms don’t have. We love beauty, love the arts and love music. In addition to beauty appreciation, we can make it too.

We can do complex mathematics, we have a complex language and we have the ability to create complex technology.

 Our technology, as a whole, not only needs intelligent minds to dream and design, but also proper bodies to create. But there is another level too, that is the topic of fire. Most of our technology requires fire in manufacturing. Very few things, if any, were created without the help of fire.

Here is the interesting part, we are the only creatures on earth that can use fire. Not only do our minds have the ability, but we also have the proper body to make and interact with fire.

Greased with the ingredient of eons of time, this all seems so much like a fairy-tale for grownups!

  

4) The “Morality Big Bang”

Let me get this straight, we were some type of amoral animals, and through another poof of evolutionary generations, we now possess moral sensibilities? Why is it wrong for one Bag-O-Chemicals to bump off another Bag-O-Chemicals? Why is it wrong to torture babies for the fun of it, and right to treat them kindly?

If our main purpose on earth is to just pass down our genes to the next generation, as many Darwinists say, why the “me too” movement and why is rape so wrong? Oh, am I not supposed to bring up that conundrum? Why do we know those things are bad, wrong and evil? Why is it more wrong for one to try to trip someone maliciously and fail than for one to accidentally trip another? Who cares?

In an atheistic universe, there is no ultimate morality, except for pragmatic reasons. The only reason we do what is “right” is because it helps us. But that does not make things good or evil! And the “it just helps me” line seems quite selfish, so why would that be good?

And why is it a good thing to pass on our genes to the next generation? First, who cares if our genetics are passed on or not passed on? Second, the point seems quite circular. It’s good because it’s good. We are reusing moral language to explain the existence of morality.

 The Monstrous Mountain to Climb

 Again, each of these four “big bangs” point to God. They are a monstrous mountain to climb, and when the atheist scientist scales them…well, let me quote Robert Jastrow again from his work God and the Astronomers.

 

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

 

Whenever discussing Nature's God, atheists consistently choose to be neither right nor kind. 

_________________________ 

Additional Reading:

 
http://clarifyingchristianity.com/science.shtml

Brilliant Creations - The Wonder of Nature and Life, by John Phillip Jaeger  (Amazon.com)

The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, by Josh McDowell

Science of the Bible, by John Phillip Jaeger

________________________________