June 2012 Why is God Important? Dear Friend of Radio Liberty, The fool says in his heart, There is no God. (1) [E]verything we see could have emerged as a purposeless quantum burp in space or perhaps a quantum burp of space itself. Humans, with their remarkable tools and their remarkable brains, may have just taken a giant step toward replacing metaphysical speculation with empirically verifiable knowledge. The Higgs particle is now arguably more relevant than God. Lawrence M. Krauss, science editor, Newsweek magazine (2) Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator. (3) The idea that the Universe exploded into being is often called the Big Bang theory, or Big Bang cosmology. The seed of everything that has happened since in the Universe was planted in the first instant of the Big Bang; every star, every planet, and every living creature in the Cosmos can trace its substance back to the moment of the cosmic explosion. It was literally the moment of creation. This is a curiously biblical view of the origin of the world. The details of the astronomer s story differ greatly from those in the Bible but the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are alike in one essential respect. There was a beginning, and all things in the Universe can be traced back to it. Astrophysicist Robert Jastrow (4)
June 2012, Page 2 The best data we have concerning the big bang are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole. Nobel laureate Arno Penzias (5) If you are going to make a pie from scratch, commented the late Carl Sagan, first you have to invent the universe. Like many of his colleagues, Sagan saw something as simple as a pie but not something as imponderably complex as the universe as an artifact of applied intelligence. A pie couldn t assemble itself, but somehow the universe managed to. An indisputably brilliant man, Sagan made himself a fool (not to mention a living illustration of a biblical principle) in the service of ideology. He has a lot of company, most of it tax-subsidized. According to astrophysicist Alex Filippenko of the University of California-Berkeley, The Big Bang could ve occurred as a result of just the laws of physics being there. With the laws of physics, you can get universes. But apple pies, apparently, don t assemble themselves without the intervention of an intelligent designer. Filippenko was one of many scientists addressing a conference convened by the nonprofit (which is to say, foundation-funded and taxpayer-subsidized) Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute in Santa Clara, California. Those in attendance are willing to accept on faith the proposition that the universe abounds in superior intellects that were summoned into existence, out of nothing, by nobody, through an entirely unverifiable process supposedly explained through quantum mechanics a largely non-observational science that often takes on the appearance of simple mysticism. According to fellow panelist Seth Shostak, a senior fellow at the SETI Institute, Quantum mechanical fluctuations can produce the cosmos. If you would just, in this room, just twist time and space the right way, you might create an entirely new universe. It s not clear you could get into that universe, but you would create it. (6) But wouldn t this make you the Creator of that universe? And if twisting the timespace continuum at the quantum level explains the origins of the universe in which we reside, doesn t this require the presence of a Creator to do the twisting? Shostak, who is the sort of person who snorts in refined derision at what he considers the retrograde school of thought called Creationism, suggested that this universe is merely the science fair project of a kid in another universe. In addition to being risible, Shostak s suggestion was an act of plagiarism the theft of a concept the exalted academic borrowed from an episode of The Simpsons. In any case,
June 2012, Page 3 it leaves us, once again, with the irreducible need for a personal Creator of some kind an entity possessing personality, intelligence, and intent. The desperate search for the Higgs Boson the so-called God particle is driven by the ideological desire to destroy the very concept of a Creator. On July 4, European scientists attached to the Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland announced jubilantly and, it appears, quite prematurely that experiments with the Large Hadron Collider had finally yielded compelling evidence to confirm the existence of the elusive sub-atomic particle, which supposedly is responsible for the existence of mass in the universe. This would give comfort to the souls or the appropriate equivalent of atheists and other dogmatic non-believers, by identifying a suitably impersonal element as the Ground of All Being. According to Newsweek s Lawrence M. Krauss, the supposed confirmation of the Higgs Boson s existence validates an unprecedented revolution in our understanding of fundamental physics and brings science closer to dispensing with the need for any supernatural shenanigans all the way back to the beginning of the universe and perhaps even before the beginning, if there was a before. The brash notion predicts an invisible field (the Higgs field) that permeates all of space and suggests that the properties of matter, and the forces that govern our existence, derive from their interaction with what otherwise seems like empty space. Had the magnitude or nature of the Higgs field been different, the properties of the universe would have been different, and we wouldn t be here to wonder why. Moreover, a Higgs field validates the notion that seemingly empty space may contain the seeds of our existence. (7) Apparently, the universe was created ex nihilo (out of nothing), just as Christian theologians have long maintained but that this act of self-creation out of nothing was actually carried out by nothing and nobody through a purposeless quantum burp in space or perhaps a quantum burp of space itself. (8) This isn t to say, however, that intelligence and purpose don t exist. Krauss praises human beings, who with their remarkable tools and their remarkable brains, may have just taken a giant step toward replacing metaphysical speculation with empirically verifiable knowledge. Empiricism is based on observation and experimentation. All that would be necessary to verify the new knowledge hymned by Krauss would be to duplicate the experiment that is, to trigger a new quantum burp that creates a new universe. In other words, man would simply have to become God, who as Krauss and his ilk ardently insist, doesn t exist. With similar devotion they maintain that they are committed to solid, sober science, rather than trafficking in the unverifiable claims of mysticism and
June 2012, Page 4 theology and since their claims are patently unprovable, we ll just have to take them on faith. Addressing Aquinas s First Cause argument for God s existence, evangelizing atheist Richard Dawkins asserts that it fails the test of parsimony (a principle of logic holding that the simplest explanation is generally true). It is more parsimonious to conjure up, say, a `Big Bang singularity, or some other physical concept as yet unknown to account for the existence of the universe and the presence of self-aware, curious beings like us determined to understand its mysteries. (10) In addition to lapsing into the metaphysical language of magic (from which we get the verb to conjure ), Dawkins who regards himself as a flinty-eyed empiricist insists that it is more rational to exercise faith in something as yet unknown than to admit that a creation requires a Creator. Astrophysicist Steven Hawking, another indisputably brilliant man, earned academic acclaim (in the company of Roger Penrose) in the mid-1960s by devising a mathematical proof of the Big Bang. That was an act of applied science. In recent decades, however, Hawking has developed severe reservations about the ontological implications of his signature academic achievement. So long as the universe had a beginning we could suppose it had a creator, wrote Hawking, the scientist whose defining discovery confirms that there was a discrete creation event. This left Hawking, the dogmatic atheist, searching desperately for some way to escape the prison of iron-clad logic created by Hawking the scientist. If a man is going down toward the Big Bang, it is one thing before another, and if he is coming up from the Big Bang, it is one thing after another, explains elite mathematician (and self-described non-believer) David Berlinski of the Discovery Institute in his fascinating book The Devil s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions. This is a feature of the real number system itself. It cannot be challenged on scientific terms, that is. (11) However, that branch of ersatz science-cum-theology called quantum cosmology permits its adherents to alter the meaning of time. Thus, in the service of his religious dogma which denies not only a Creator, but the initial creative event Stephen Hawking devised a new concept called imaginary numbers. Hawking suggested that in going down toward the Big Bang, one mathematical regime (that of real numbers) would somehow give way to another (that of imaginary numbers), Berlinski relates. It was the use of the word imaginary in this context that gave his ideas their air of pontifical mystification. How can numbers be imaginary? They cannot be. [I]n Hawking s scheme, at the point in which the regime of the real numbers gives way, the complex regime takes over. As the physicist descends toward the place formerly known as the Big Bang singularity, time smoothly executes a transformation all its
June 2012, Page 5 own. There is now a moment corresponding to the magician s withdrawal of a handkerchief from his sleeve: The Big Bang singularity has disappeared! (12) This is what it looks like when an undeniably intelligent man turns himself into a fool in the service of his ideology. "Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth, observed astrophysicist Robert Jastrow (another self-described unbeliever). And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover. That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact. (emphasis added). (13) If we are to be honest, stated Oxford physicist Peter Atkins in a moment of candor, then we have to accept that science will be able to claim complete success only if it achieves what many might think impossible: accounting for the emergence of everything from absolutely nothing. (14) There is a way to account for this. As Berlinksi observes, The hypothesis of God s existence and the facts of contemporary cosmology are consistent. (15) But according to Atkins, Hawking, Dawkins, and their colleagues, science will fall short of success unless it can somehow account for either a self-creating or self-existing universe that was somehow wrought out of nothing without the intervention of a personal Creator. This would also require an explanation for the fact that the human intellect and capacity for creativity emerged from a universe that was somehow created without the exercise of those traits. And the government that rules us is deeply involved in this exercise. The US government is actually spending billions upon billions of dollars looking for extraterrestrial life forms, and why? Because they think that the discovery of a virus on Mars will prove that man is not special and there is no God, comments Dr. Thomas Fleming of the Rockford Institute. There must be a cheaper way, some deity-destroying pill we could all take. I feel sure there is government money for such a program. My biologist friends used to tell me that there is no mystery about how life originated on earth, continues Dr. Fleming. After all, given infinite time and an infinite variety of circumstances, anything can happen. This is an insincere argument, since it is precisely the scientists who have limited both the time and the circumstances in which life might have originated. Nobel laureate Francis Crick was honest enough to see the thing was impossible, which is why he put forward the hypothesis that life is alien on earth, having arrived by way of spores from outer space. This conveniently gets us back to infinite time and circumstances, but it is really a confession of failure. (16)
June 2012, Page 6 Interestingly, the supposed discovery of the Higgs Boson was announced on July 4 the day made notable by the promulgation of a document asserting as self-evident truths the creation of human beings by a personal Deity, who invested individuals with rights that exist independent of human government. In a universe that resulted from a cosmic burp produced by random quantum interactions, neither truth nor purpose exists unless it is imposed, through unrestricted force and unaccountable violence, by a self-appointed elite. While it is as impossible to murder God as it is to invent imaginary numbers, the experience of the modern era teaches this unavoidable lesson: Those who commit intellectual deicide will eventually get around to committing genocide. REFERENCES 1) Psalm 14:1 NIV 2) How the Higgs Boson Posits a New Story of Our Creation, Lawrence M. Krauss, Newsweek, July 9, 2012. 3) Romans 1:22-23, 25 KJV 4) Robert Jastrow, Journey to the Stars: Space Exploration Tomorrow and Beyond (New York: Bantam Books, 1989), pg. 47. 5) Quoted in David Berlinski, The Devil s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions (New York: Basic Books, 2009), pg. 71. 6) The Big Bang Didn t Need God to Start Universe, Researchers Say, space.com, June 24, 2012. 7) Ibid. 8) Krauss, op. cit. 9) Ibid. 10) Berlinski, pg. 81. 11) Berlinski, pg. 101. 12) Ibid., pp. 101-102. 13) A Scientist Caught Between Two Faiths: Interview with Robert Jastrow," Christianity Today, August 6, 1982. 14) Berlinski, pg. 95. 15) Ibid., pg. 81. 16) The Atoms of Democritus, by Thomas Fleming, London Daily Mail, July 6, 2012. Submitted by William Grigg
June 2012, Page 7 Why do most scientists embrace the flawed Theory of Evolution? Why do highly educated men deny the existence of God? When Benjamin Stein interviewed Richard Dawkins, a well-known professor at Cambridge University, Dawkins said he believes in Evolution, and he is certain there is no God. I suggest you watch the interview on YouTube because it is very informative. The interview concluded shortly after Ben Stein asked Richard Dawkins where life came from, and Dawkins replied: It could be that, at some earlier time, somewhere in the universe, a civilization evolved by probably some kind of Darwinian means to a very, very high level of technology, and designed a form of life that they seeded onto, perhaps, this planet. If an advanced civilization with a high level of technology existed somewhere in the universe millions of years ago, it should be obvious that someone, or some entity, created the ancient civilization. Why can t Professor Dawkins concede that fact? Richard Dawkins can t concede that fact because he is the victim of a liberal education. His mind, and the minds of thousands of professors, have been programmed to reject the truth. How did that happen? I believe we are witnessing the final stage of an ancient battle that has been waged between God and Satan since the serpent deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden. What is happening today? I believe the BOD (Brotherhood of Darkness) precipitated the current financial crisis because they want to destroy contemporary civilization, and establish a world government (Globalism). They call the process Creative Destruction. How can you verify that fact? If you have a computer, access Google, and type in You Tube Alan Greenspan Creative Destruction. What will happen if they succeed? They will kill billions of people, and bring the world under the control of the Antichrist. Will the BOD accomplish their goal? Only God know s the answer to that question. What can you do? You must continue your effort to educate your friends, tell them about the BOD s program of Creative Destruction, tell them about the spiritual struggle that is taking place, and bring as many people as possible into the Kingdom of God. Barbara and I appreciate your loyal support, and your faithful prayers. Yours in Christ, Stanley Monteith