(My Original Blog Post: <a href="http://thedisciplers.com/new-scientific-evidence-for-the-existence-of-god/">http://thedisciplers.com/new-scientific-evidence-for-the-existence-of-god/</a>)
New Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God
A Seminal Presentation by Astrophysicist Dr. Hugh Ross, given in South
Barrington, Illinois, April 16, 1994
Click here for printable copy in PDF
Editor's note: This lecture was selected not in spite of being more
than 10 years old, but because it is more than 10 years old. Virtually
every statement and inference given in this speech has been reinforced
and further validated during the last decade by measurements from the
COBE Satellite, the Hubble Telescope, and advances in physics and
astronomy.
The hallmark of a truly reliable scientific theory is that it is
thoroughly testable, scientifically falsifiable, and makes accurate
predictions. Dr. Ross's origins model has stood the test of time for
nearly two decades, literally receiving further validation on a
monthly basis as physics and astronomy journals publish new papers. I
believe you'll enjoy this ground-breaking information from Hugh Ross.
___________________________
New Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God
"The Discovery of the Century" -Stephen Hawking
I want to take you back to almost two years ago, April 23, 1992. On
that day, a discovery was announced that, in the words of the British
physicist Steven Hawking, "�is the discovery of the century, if not of
all time." This is remarkable because Steven Hawking has a reputation
for understatement.
Michael Turner, from the University of Chicago, says the significance
of this discovery cannot be overstated. They have found the Holy Grail
of cosmology. As to how holy of a grail we're talking about, George
Smoot, who led the team of 30 American astrophysicists who made the
discovery said, "What we have found is evidence of the birth of the
Universe. It's like looking at God."
Frederick Burnham, a science historian, said in response to this
discovery, "The idea that God created the Universe is a more
respectable hypothesis today than at any time in the last 100 years."
The reason I'm starting with these quotes is because anything that is
being called 'The greatest discovery of the century' and anything that
makes belief in God more credible that it's ever been before, is
something that every Christian should be apprised of and equipped to
share with his friends at home, in the neighborhood and at work.
The Day They Found 90% of the Universe
Now, what exactly was it that these astronomers discovered? They found
90% of the universe. Any day that you find 90% of the universe is a
red-letter day. What they essentially found was a new kind of matter.
For a couple of years, physicists have suspected that the universe
must have a different kind of matter.
Ordinary matter is the stuff that we're used to. Electrons, protons,
neutrons, everything we see here on planet Earth is made up of
ordinary matter. Ordinary matter is a property that strongly interacts
with radiation, so it's rather easy for astronomers to detect the
stuff.
But we found the problem, which was this: In 1990, the cosmic
background explorer satellite proved that the universe is extremely
entropic. In fact, the universe has a specific entropy measure of
1,000,000,000. Entropy measures the efficiency with which a system
radiates heat and light, and the inefficiency in which it performs
work.
The universe is by far the most entropic system in all existence. To
give you a point of comparison, a burning candle has a specific
entropy of two. A burning candle is something we realize is very
efficient in making heat and light, and very inefficient in performing
work. The universe is far more entropic than a candle, by many orders
of magnitude.
But it led to a problem. If the universe has that high a degree of
entropy and all matter strongly interacts with radiation, and the
radiation left over from the creation event measures to be incredibly
smooth, then the matter likewise should be that smoothly distributed.
But it isn't.
As you look at the galaxies and clusters of galaxies, rather than
being smoothly distributed like the radiation form the creation event,
it's clumpy. Astronomers wanted to know why. We have proof that the
universe was created in a hot, big, bang due to the incredible
entropy, but how do we explain the galaxies?
The discovery of exotic matter explains the clustering of the
galaxies. Exotic matter does not strongly interact with radiation, and
because it doesn't, it can clump independent of the radiation. Since
it doesn't really matter in gravity whether the matter is exotic or
ordinary, the laws of physics still apply.
Two massive objects will attract one another under the law of gravity,
and if one of those massive objects is made of ordinary matter and the
other is made of exotic matter, they will still attract.
Once exotic matter clumps, it can draw ordinary matter to it, and
hence we can have the universe we see today. The radiation from the
creation event is still very smoothly distributed, but the galaxies
and clusters of galaxies are clumped.
April 23, 1992 was the first detection an astronomer made of this type
of matter. Since that time, there have been seven other independent
detections of this exotic matter. If you're interested, you can read
all about it in my book, The Creator and the Cosmos, which was
published a few months ago.
In this back issue, we describe the set of discoveries that
established the existence of exotic matter which led to the
conclusions from the scientific community that we now have conclusive
proof that the universe was indeed created, and that's why we say that
we're looking at the face of God.
On April 24, 1992, I was on the radio with three other physicists to
discuss this discovery. A couple of the gentlemen were from George
Smoot's team, but the one that I was most curious about was Geoffrey
Burbridge, who I had as a professor while I attended the University of
Toronto, and who I knew to be an atheist.
Physicists Join "The First Church of Christ of the Big Bang"
I was wondering how Geoffery was going to respond to the news of this
discovery. The first words out of his mouth were a complaint, and they
were that as a result of this discovery, his peers in physics and
astronomy were rushing off to join the First Church of Christ of the
Big Bang.
What encouraged me about Jeffrey's statement was that even Jeffrey, as
an atheist, recognized the equation, Big Bang = Jesus Christ. If you
prove the Big Bang, you prove Jesus Christ. I want to briefly explain
to you how that follows and I want to reveal something to you that
leads to that.
Why Big Bang = Jesus Christ
It's something that's probably more beautiful than anything that
you've ever seen living here in Illinois . Or for that matter
California or where I grew up, British Colombia, which I think is the
most beautiful place in the world.
I want to show you something that far transcends the beauty of even
the scenery that we see on this planet Earth. [Shows Einstein's
singularity equation.] But, then what could possibly transcend the
beauty of equations of physics? For those of you who are starting to
break out into a cold sweat, this will be gone in less than a minute
and I'll never show you another one again.
I thought that you might be curious of the equation that convinced
Albert Einstein that God exists, that God created the universe. This
equation falls under the theory of general relativity. For those of
you who have a background in calculus, you'll recognize this term here
as an expression for acceleration.
What Einstein had done was to drive the equation for the acceleration
of the entire universe. On the other side of the equation, you see
four physical constants. I don't really have to explain them to you,
except to point out that they all have positive values.
Four well-known physical constants with positive values, yet there's a
minus sign in front. That immediately tells us that the entire
universe experiences negative acceleration. The universe is
decelerating. That was a tremendous challenge to the theology of his
day because in the 200 years previous to Albert Einstein's theory of
general relativity, academic scientific society was operating on the
premise that the universe was static.
Belief in a Static Universe Led to Darwinian Evolution
That was really what fostered the birth of Darwinian evolution, the
idea that the universe is static, infinitely old and infinitely large.
Static, in that it maintained the conditions essential for elements to
assemble themselves into living systems, as Emanuel Kant reasoned,
long before Charles Darwin came up with a theory.
Emanuel Kant longed to come up with a theory of biological evolution
but he didn't have the biological data to develop it. Nevertheless, he
laid the philosophical foundation that if the universe is infinitely
old and infinitely large and static, maintaining the ideal chemical
situation for life chemistry to proceed, then one can posit that the
dice of chance is thrown an infinite number of times and in an
infinite variety of ways.
If you have infinite throws at the dice of chance, then any matter of
complexity would be conceivable - even something as complicated as a
German philosopher. But this equation challenged that very notion by
saying that the universe is not static; it decelerates.
Einstein was well aware that the term for pressure (P) in the universe
is rather tiny compared to the term for mass density (represented by
the Greek letter Rho ). It's divided by a huge number - the velocity
of light squared. You've got this extremely small number divided by a
huge number. This means that for all intents and purposes, we can
ignore that "3P/C�" relative to the density. We can drop that term
out, and then we have something much simpler to solve.
Proof that the Universe is Not Static, but Expanding
It's still a non-linear differential equation, so it's not all that
easy. But Einstein was able to perceive and demonstrate that,
according to this equation, the universe not only decelerates, it
positively expands. Hence, the Big Bang. How so? Normally, I
demonstrate this for audiences by bringing a grenade, but they no
longer let you take grenades on airplanes.
I only do that demonstration when I'm on TV or in California, so
you're just going to have to pretend that I've got a grenade here in
front of me. If I were to pull the pin from the grenade, you'd feel a
few effects. One being that the pieces of the grenade would expand
outward from the pin. That's positive expansion.
Those outwardly expanding pieces of the grenade would inevitably bump
into obstacles into this room. When they collide with those obstacles,
they slow down. That's deceleration. After a grenade has exploded, a
physicist could make measurements of the positions and the velocities
of the pieces of shrapnel, and through the equation Velocity =
Distance/Time, he could calculate the moment that the pin was pulled
on the grenade.
We can do the same thing with the galaxies in the universe. We can
measure their positions and their velocities and calculate the moment
that the "pin" was pulled on the entire universe.
As Einstein pointed out, the significance is that the universe has
this moment of pin pulling. It has a beginning. Through the principle
of positive fact, if the universe has a beginning, it must have a
beginner, hence the existence of God.
To his dying day, Einstein held to his belief that as the result of
the verification of his theory of General Relativity, God exists.
(Good book on Einstein's extensive discussions of religion and
theology: Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology by Max Jammer
-Ed) God created the universe and God is intelligent. Today, we don't
deny that God is personal. Einstein died too soon.
If he had lived to the late 1980's, he'd have seen direct scientific
proof for the personality of the creator. But he acknowledged as a
result of the confirmations of his equations and his theory that God
is transcendent. That God exists, he is intelligent, he is creative
and he is responsible for the universe.
But he didn't know the details of that transcendence. The details of
that transcendence had to equate to a deeper solution of those
equations of General Relativity. They are non-linear, which means
they're hard to solve.
Stephen Hawking and Friends Solve The Equation
By 1970, three British astrophysicists had combined to produce a
deeper solution of the equations of General Relativity. They
culminated the paper, The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and
Cosmology, published in 1970. You should all go get it - its exciting
reading.
It closes with the Space-Time theorem of General Relativity, which
states that if the universe is governed by the equations of General
Relativity, not only are we faced with an ultimate origin, we are all
of the matter in the universe, and all of the energy in the universe.
But we're faced with a coincident ultimate origin for even the
dimensions of length, width, height and time.
Even Time Itself Was Created
As Steven Hawking, one of the three authors, boasted many years
thereafter, we proved that time was created. We proved that time has a
beginning. But through his contacts with certain Christians like his
wife Jane, who's an Anglican, as a friend of mine from Cal Tech, Don
Page, who had daily Bible studies with Steven and Jane Hawking while
he was doing research pointed out, if you prove that time has a
beginning, that it was created, it eliminates all theological
possibilities but Jesus Christ.
Of all world religions, only Judeo-Christian theology says Time has a beginning
Why? Because if you were to open up the Holy books of the religions of
the world, only one of them would describe God as a being that creates
the universe independent of time, space, matter and energy.
The other Holy books describe God as creating within time. The Bible
states that God creates independent of time. That's the difference.
Some verses that you might be familiar with: The first verse which
states, "In the Beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth�" The
Hebrew words for heavens and Earth literally refer to the entire
physical cosmos of matter, energy space and time. The universe.
Hebrews 11:3 makes it more specific stating, "The universe that we
detect was made from that which we cannot detect." We can make
detections within matter, energy, length, width, height and time, but
not beyond.
Eight places in the Bible tell us that God created time. I'll give you
two examples: 2 Timothy 1:9 which states, "The Grace of God that we
now experience was put into effect before the beginning of time" and
Titus 1:2 which states, "The hope that we have in Jesus Christ was
given to us before the beginning of time."
The three things that the Apostle Paul was saying in those two verses
were that time is beginning, that God created the time dimension of
our universe and, most importantly, that God has the capacity to
operate through cause and effect before the time dimension of our
universe even exists.
Your friendly neighborhood physicist will tell you that time is
defined as that dimension or realm in which cause and effect phenomena
take place. What the Apostle Paul is telling us in these two places
and in the six other portions of Scripture, is that we are confined to
a single dimension of time.
In fact it's worse than that. We're confined to half of a line of
time. Time, for us, is a line that goes forward only. Have you ever
noticed that you cannot stop or reverse the arrow of time? No matter
what you do, it just keeps going forward in one direction.
Any entity confined to half of the line of time, must have a beginning
and must be created. I can walk home tonight, and that's it. It's the
simplest, most rigorous proof of the existence of God.
We're confined, and the entire universe is confined to half of the
line of time. Therefore, the universe must be created and we must be
created. But God is not so confined.
When I present this evidence to atheists, their most frequent response
is the same one I got from both of my sons when they were three years
of age. It's, "If God created us, then who created God?"
God: Not Confined by Time
My sons and the atheists are assuming that God is confined to time in
the same way that we are. But the Bible and the equations of General
Relativity tell us that the entity that brought the universe into
existence is not confined in time like we are, or the way that the
universe is.
God can move and operate in at least two dimensions of time. In two
dimensions of time, time becomes a plane, like a sheet of paper,
length and width. In a plane, you can have as many lines as you want
and as many directions as you want.
It would be possible for God to dwell on a time line running through a
sheet of paper that's infinitely long, and that never crosses or
touches the timeline of our universe. As such, God would have no
beginning, no end and he would not be created. Sound familiar?
Why the God of Modern Physics Matches the God of the Bible
Both John Chapter One and Colossians Chapter One make that claim about
God; He has no beginning, no end and He is not created. The Bible is
the only Holy book that makes that statement about God.
What I've done for you in these few minutes is to establish the
doctrine of the independent transcendence of the Creator. But we can
go beyond this abstract, rigorous proof of the existence of the God of
the Bible. It's Jesus Christ because we proved that the Creator must
be an independent, transcendent being.
What I've discovered, even on the University campus, is that audiences
much prefer tangible proof for the existence of God, to the abstract
proof of the existence of God.
Today we have that, thanks to the efforts of astronomers in measuring
the universe. Ours is the only generation of man that has ever lived
to witness the measuring of the universe. This wasn't the case 15
years ago.
Measuring The Universe
Ours is a privileged generation because we have seen the measuring of
the universe. The theological significance is that if you can measure
the universe, you are measuring the creation. If you can measure the
creation, you are measuring the Creator himself. Not all of his
characteristics, of course, but many that are theologically
significant.
What we've discovered in measuring the universe is that the third
assumption of Emanuel Kant; that we have infinite time, the universe
is static and that we have an infinite supply of building blocks for
life isn't true.
We proved that the universe isn't static, that time isn't infinite.
It's finite. The age of the universe is only 1,000,000,000,000,000,000
seconds (10 to the 18th power).
We also discovered that we do not have an infinite supply of building
blocks. In fact, we discovered that it takes exquisite design to get
any building blocks at all. Molecules, without which, life is
impossible.
Atoms must be able to assemble in the molecules in order to gain
sufficient complexity for life chemistry to proceed. That applies to
any conceivable kind of life.
The Extreme Precision of Physical Constants
Unless the force electromagnetism takes on a particular value,
molecules won't happen. Take the nucleus of an atom. There's an
electron orbiting that nucleus. If the force electromagnetism is too
weak, the electron will not orbit the nucleus.
Electromagnetism
There won't be sufficient electromagnetic pull to keep that electron
orbiting the nucleus. If electrons cannot orbit nuclei, then electrons
cannot be shared so that nuclei can come together to form molecules.
Without molecules, we have no life.
If the force electromagnetism is too strong, the nuclei will hang onto
their electrons with such strength that the electrons will not be
shared with adjoining nuclei and again, molecules will never form.
Unless the force electromagnetism is fine-tuned to a particular value,
the universe will have no molecules and no life.
Strong Nuclear Force
We also have a problem in getting the right atoms. Now take a neutron
and a proton. Protons and neutrons are held together in the nucleus of
an atom by the strong nuclear force, which is the strongest of the
four forces of physics.
If the nuclear force is too strong, the protons and neutrons in the
universe will find themselves stuck to other protons and neutrons,
which means we have a universe devoid of Hydrogen.
Hydrogen is the element composed of the bachelor proton. Without
Hydrogen, there's no life chemistry. It's impossible to conceive of
life chemistry without Hydrogen.
On the other hand, if we make the nuclear force slightly weaker, none
of the protons and neutrons will stick together. All of the protons
and neutrons will be bachelors, in which case the only element that
would exist in the universe would be Hydrogen, and it's impossible to
make life if all we've got is Hydrogen.
How sensitive must this strong nuclear force be designed for life to
exist? It's so sensitive that if we were to make this force 3/10 of 1%
stronger or 2% weaker, life would be impossible at any time in the
universe.
Mass of the Proton and Neutron
We also have a problem with the protons and the neutrons themselves.
The neutron is 0.138% more massive than the proton. Because of this,
it takes a little more energy for the universe to make neutrons, as
compared to protons. That's why in the universe of today we have seven
times as many protons as neutrons.
If the neutron were 1/10th of 1% less massive than what we observe,
then the universe would make so many neutrons that all of the matter
in the universe would very quickly collapse into neutron stars and
black holes, and life would be impossible.
If we made the neutron 1/10th of 1% more massive than what we observe,
then the universe would make so few neutrons, that there wouldn't be
enough neutrons to make Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Phosphorus,
Potassium, etc. These are the elements that are essential for life.
So, we must delicately balance that mass to within 1/10 th of 1%, or
life is impossible.
Electrons
With electrons we see an even more sense of the balance. In order for
life to exist in the universe, the force of gravity must be
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10 to the 40th
power) times weaker than the force of electromagnetism. It's essential
that the force of gravity be incredibly weak compared to the other
three forces of physics.
Gravity
Yet planets, stars and galaxies will not form unless gravity is
dominant in the universe, so the universe must be set up in such a way
that the other forces of physics cancel out and leave gravity, the
weakest of the forces, dominant.
It's necessary for the universe to be electrically neutral. The
numbers of the positively charged particles must be equivalent to the
numbers of negatively charged particles or else electromagnetism will
dominate gravity, and stars, galaxies and planets will never form. If
they don't form, then clearly life is impossible.
The numbers of electrons must equal the numbers of protons to better
than one part of 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
(10 to the 37 th power). That number is so large that it's difficult
for laymen to get a handle on it. So I compare that number with
another very large number - the national debt.
The National Debt
The national debt stands at $5,000,000,000,000. One way to visualize
this is to imagine we cover one square mile of land with dimes piles
17 inches high. We can pay off the entire national debt with a pile of
dimes 17 inches high in one square mile.
That's truly a lot of dimes. Out national debt problem is serious. But
to get 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, we would
have to cover the entire North American continent with dimes, but 17
inches high won't do.
We'd have to cover the entire North American continent from here all
the way to the moon. That's a 250,000-mile high pile of dimes covering
10,000,000 square miles, and you'd have to do that with a billion
North American continents from here all the way to the moon. That is
one chance in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10
to the 37 th power).
To give you an idea, imagine that in those piles of billions of dimes,
there's one dime colored red. If you were to randomly shuffle your way
through those billions of dimes blindfolded, and you choose one dime,
the odds that you would pick up that one red dime is one chance in
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 .
God's Fine-Tuning vs. Man's Fine-Tuning
Another way of looking at this incredible fine-tuning of the universe
in this one characteristic is to compare it with the very best that we
humans have achieved. It's not built yet, but towards the end of this
year, a machine will come online at Cal Tech. This machine will have
the capacity to make measurements to within one part in
100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10 to the 23rd power). The best
machine man has ever designed.
But the very best machine that man has ever designed, with all of our
money, technology and education, falls one hundred trillion times
short of the level of fine-tuning that we see in just this one
characteristic of the universe.
Purposefully, I didn't choose the best example. In my book, The
Creator and the Cosmos, I describe two other characteristics of the
universe that are much more fine-tuned than the balance of electrons
to protons. Some of these characteristics reveal more than what I've
described here.
If the universe is fine-tuned in one part to the 10 to the 37th power,
one part in 10 to the 40th power and one part in 10 to the 55th power
on three different characteristics, then that tells us that God must
be personal; that He's not only transcendent, he's personal!
God: 100 Trillion Trillion Times More Precise than Man
Why do we say this? Because only a person is capable of fine-tuning to
the degree that we've observed, and that person must be orders of
magnitude more intelligent and creative than we human beings. One
hundred trillion times more intelligent and creative than we human
beings, just based on that one characteristic. But he's also creative
and loving.
Earth: An Insignificant Speck?
When I was a young man, questioning the holy books of the religions of
the world, I knew God must exist because of the Big Bang. There's a
beginning, there must be a beginner. But I doubted that God was
personal and caring because I felt that planet Earth was just an
insignificant speck in the eyes of a God that created a hundred
trillion stars. What could we matter to such an awesome God?
Mass of the Universe
Astronomers have discovered that the total mass of the universe acts
as a catalyst for nuclear fusion and the more massive the universe is,
the more efficiently nuclear fusion operates in the cosmos. If the
universe is too massive, the mass density too great, then very quickly
all the matter in the universe is converted from Hydrogen into
elements heavier than iron, which would render life impossible because
the universe would be devoid of Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, etc.
If the universe has too little mass, then fusion would work so
inefficiently that all that the universe would ever produce would be
Hydrogen, or Hydrogen plus a small amount of Helium. But there again,
the Carbon and Oxygen we need for life would be missing.
What does this tell me about the Creator? That God so loved the human
race that he went to the expense of building one hundred billion stars
and carefully shaped and crafted those hundred billion trillion stars
for the entire age of the universe, so that for this brief moment in
time, we could have a nice place to live.
It's the same logic that my five and eight year old sons use on me.
They measure my love for them by how much money I spend on the gifts
that I buy for them. We can use the same kind of logic to draw the
conclusion that the God who created the universe must love we human
beings very much, given how much he spent on our behalf.
We live in a Special Solar System, Too
We can extend this argument of design from the universe to the solar
system itself. When we look at the solar system, we discover that we
have a heavenly body problem. It's not that easy to get the right
galaxy.
Life can only happen on late born stars. If it's a first or
second-generation star, then life is impossible because you don't yet
have the heavy elements necessary for life chemistry. There's a narrow
window of time in the history of the universe when life can happen.
If the universe is too old or too young, life is impossible. Only
spiral galaxies produce stars late enough in their history that they
can take advantage of the elements that are essential for life
history, and only 6% of the galaxies in our universe are spiral
galaxies. Of those 6%, you must go with galaxies that produce all of
the elements that are essential for life. It's not that easy.
Besides Hydrogen and Helium, the other elements are made in the cores
of super giant stars. Super giant stars burn up quickly; they're gone
in a just a few million years. When they go through the final stages
of burning up their fuel, they explode ashes into outer space, and
future generations of stars will absorb those ashes.
Births & Deaths of Multiple Stars Required to have Metals in Earth's Crust
When those stars go through their burning phase, they will take that
heavy element ash material. This time when they explode, they make a
whole bunch of material, capable of forming rocky planets and
supporting life chemistry.
But we want these supernovae exploding early in the history of the
galaxy. We don't want them going off now. If the star Cereus goes
Super Nova, we're in serious trouble because it's only eight light
years away. It would exterminate life on our planet.
We observe in our galaxy that there was a burst of Super Nova
explosions early in its history, but it tapered off to where it isn't
a threat to life that is now in existence. The Super Nova explosions
took place in the right quantity and in the right locations so that
life could happen here on Earth.
What does location have to do with it? Life is impossible in the
center of our galaxy, or in the heel of our galaxy. It's only possible
at a distance 2/3 from the center of our galaxy.
Mormon Astronomy - Accurate or not?
That's why I'm not a Mormon. Mormons tell us that life originated on a
master planet right smack at the center of our galaxy. That's probably
also why I've never met a Mormon astronomer.
The stars at the center of our galaxy are jammed so tightly together
that the mutual gravity would destroy the planetary orbits. Moreover,
their synchrotron radiation would be destructive to life molecules.
But we don't want to be too far away from the center, either. If we
get too far away, then there aren't enough heavy elements from the
exploded remains of supernovae to enable life chemistry to proceed.
There's one life essential element that the supernovae do not make,
however, and that's Fluorine. Fluorine is made only on the surfaces of
white dwarf binaries. A white dwarf is a burned out star. It's like a
cinder in a fireplace, just glowing.
Orbiting this white dwarf is a star that hasn't yet exhausted its
nuclear fuel. It's an ordinary star, like our Sun. The white dwarf has
enough mass relative to the ordinary star orbiting around it that it
is capable of pulling mass off of the surface of the ordinary star and
dragging it down so that it falls on its surface. When that material
falls on the surface of the while dwarf, it ignites some very
interesting nuclear reactions that produce Fluorine.
We need a white dwarf binary whose gravitational interactions between
the white dwarf and the ordinary star are such that a strong enough
stellar wind is sent from the white dwarf to blast the Fluorine beyond
the gravitational pull of both stars, putting it into outer space, so
that future generations of stars can absorb it. Then we have enough
Fluorine for life chemistry.
A Trillion Galaxies - but as far as physicists know, only ours can support life
Two American astrophysicists concluded about a year ago that rare
indeed is the galaxy that has the right number of this special kind
white dwarf binary pair in the right location, occurring at the right
time, so that life can exist today. The universe contains a trillion
galaxies. But ours may be the only one that has the necessary
conditions for life to exist.
The right star is needed. We can't have a star any bigger than our
Sun. The bigger the star, the more rapidly and erratically it burns
its fuel. Our Sun is just small enough to keep a stable enough flame
for a sufficient period of time to make life possible. If it were any
bigger, we couldn't have life on planet Earth. If it were any smaller,
we'd be in trouble, too.
Smaller stars are even more stable than our star, the Sun, but they
don't burn as hot. In order to keep our planet at the right
temperature necessary to sustain life, we'd have to bring the planet
closer to the star.
Tidal Forces
The physicists in the audience realize that when you bring a planet
closer to its star, the tidal interaction between the star and the
planet goes up to the inverse fourth power to the distance separating
them. For those of you who are not physicists, that means that all you
have to do is bring that planet ever so much closer to the star, and
the tidal forces could be strong enough to break the rotational
period.
That's what happened to Mercury and Venus. Those planets are too close
to the Sun; so close that their rotational periods have been broken,
from several hours to several months.
Earth is just barely far enough away to avoid that breaking. We have a
rotation period of once every 24 hours. If we wait much longer, it
will be every 26 or 28 hours, because the Earth's rotation rate is
slowing down.
Going back in history, we can measure the time when the Earth was
rotating every 20 hours. When the Earth was rotating once every 20
hours, human life was not possible. If it rotates once every 28 hours,
human life will not be possible. It can only happen at 24 hours.
Speed of Earth's Rotation
If the planet rotates too quickly, you get too many tornadoes and
hurricanes. If it rotates too slowly, it gets too cold at night and
too hot during the day. We don't want it to be 170 degrees during the
day, nor do we want it to be below �100 at night, because that's not
ideal for life.
We don't want lots of hurricanes and tornadoes, either. What we
currently have is an ideal situation, and God plays this. He created
us here at the ideal time.
We need the right Earth. If the Earth is too massive, it retains a
bunch of gases such as Ammonia, Methane, Hydrogen and Helium in its
atmosphere. These gases are not acceptable for life, at least, not for
advanced life. But if it's not massive enough, it won't retain water.
For life to exist on planet Earth, we need a huge amount of water, but
we don't need a lot of ammonia and methane.
Remember high school chemistry? Methane's molecular weight 16,
ammonia's molecular weight 17, water's molecular weight is 18. God so
designed planet Earth that we keep lots of the 18, but we don't keep
any of the 16 or the 17. The incredible fine-tuning of the physical
characteristics of Earth is necessary for that.
Jupiter Necessary, too
We even have to have the right Jupiter. We wrote about this in our
Facts and Faith newsletter a few issues back, but it was also
discovered by American astrophysicists just this past year. Unless you
have a very massive planet like Jupiter, five times more distant from
the star than the planet that has life, life will not exist on that
planet.
It takes a super massive planet like Jupiter, located where it is, to
act as a shield, guarding the Earth from comic collisions. We don't
want a comet colliding with Earth every week. Thanks to Jupiter, that
doesn't happen.
What these astrophysicists discovered in their models of planetary
formation was that it's a very rare star system indeed that produces a
planet as massive as Jupiter, in the right location, to act as such a
shield.
We Even Need the Right Moon
The Earth's moon system is that of a small planet being orbited by a
huge, single moon. That huge, single moon has the effect of
stabilizing the rotation axis of planet Earth to 23� degrees. That's
the ideal tilt for life on planet Earth.
The axis on planet Mars moves through a tilt from zero to 60 degrees
and flips back and forth. If that were to happen on Earth, life would
be impossible. Thanks to the Moon, it's held stable at 23 � degrees.
Just as with the universe, in the case of the solar system, we can
attach numbers to these. In this case, I've chosen to be extremely
conservative in my estimates. I would feel justified in sticking a few
zeros between the decimal point and the one. I would feel justified in
making this 20 percent, 10 percent, for example, and on down the line.
We Even Need the Right Number of Earthquakes
I've got so many characteristics here, and I let the Californians know
that you have to have the right number of earthquakes. Not too many,
not too few, or life is not possible. I share them with my wife, who
doesn't like earthquakes, but I just tell her that when you feel a
good jolt, that's when you have to thank God for his perfect
providence.
At Least 41 Fine-Tuned Characteristics, to have One Planet that Supports Life
The bottom line to all of this is that we have 41 characteristics of
the solar system that must be fine-tuned for life to exist. But even
if the universe contains as many planets as it does stars, which is a
gross overestimate in my opinion, that still leaves us with less than
one chance in a billion trillion that you'd find even one planet in
the entire universe with the capacity for supporting life.
This tells us that we're wasting valuable taxpayer money looking for
intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Worse than that, we're
wasting valuable telescope time. In the words of William Proxmyer, "It
would be far wiser looking for intelligent life in Washington than
looking for it in other galaxies."
Planet Earth: Not an Accident
It also tells us that God wasn't wandering throughout the vastness of
the cosmos saying, "Wow, that's the best one, I'll use that". No. With
odds this remote, we must realize that God especially designed and
crafted, through miraculous means, planet Earth, so that it would
support life and human beings. Planet Earth is not an accident; it is
a product of divine design.
I would also say that's true of life on Earth. The fossil record
testifies of life beginning on planet Earth 3.8 billion years ago.
Over those 3.8 billion years, we have more and more species of greater
and greater complexity and greater and greater diversity. But there's
no fossil tree. We have no evidence for the horizontal branches.
Peculiarities in the Fossil Record
All we have is evidence that a certain species exists for a certain
period of time without significant change, which then goes extinct to
be replaced at a different time with a radically different species,
with no connection from the previous species to the next one.
What the textbooks don't mention is that there's been a reversal of
this fossil tree; it's only true up until the creation of man. Since
the creation of man, the whole thing reverses. As time proceeds, we
have fewer and fewer species with less and less diversity and
complexity, and it's the land mammals that are being impacted in the
worst way.
There were 30,000 land mammals on planet Earth when God created Adam
and Eve. There are only 15,000 remaining today. In just a few thousand
years, 15,000 species of mammals have disappeared.
Admittedly, man has a lot to do with that.
As Paul and Ann Erlich pointed out in their book on extinctions,
though, even if we were to get rid of every vestige of humanity and
civilization on planet Earth, a minimum of one species would still
become extinct every year. How many species do we see appearing?
No New Species
Paul and Ann Erlich say we have yet to document the appearance of a
single animal species in the world of nature, and in the vast majority
in the world of species, we cannot even detect any genetic movement.
It's a virtual zero.
The Bible offers the perfect explanation for this. For six days
(periods of time), God created. On the seventh day, he rested. For six
days, he replaced the species that were going extinct with more
complex and diverse species. For six days, he created through special,
miraculous means, the evidence of which we clearly see in the fossil
record.
But the Bible tells us that when He created Eve, He ceased from his
work of creating new species of life. God is at rest. We're now in the
seventh day, where God is resting from his work of creating. All we
see today is the natural processes. The natural processes tell us that
the planet is heading to a culmination in death.
When Will God Create Again?
Revelation 21 tells us that the very instant that God conquers the
problem of evil in man, he will create again. There is an eighth day
of creation coming. It's exciting to think about the fact that God may
have many weeks of creation planned for the future. We're simply
through the first week.
Can you imagine what's going to happen in the second, third of fourth
week, etc? It would be exciting news if we could be a part of that
work with him.
Creation vs. Evolution?
Whenever I discuss this whole issue of creation evolution, everyone
wants to talk about what we know the least about - the origin of man.
You know the story. We begin with a primitive bipedal primate species,
and wind up with an advanced character.
The truth of the matter is that the evidence of the bipedal primates
that God created before Adam and Eve fills only one coffin full of
bones. We don't have a lot of evidence. It's not like the dinosaurs.
In no case are any of those bi-pedaled primate finds more than 30%
complete; that's the most complete fossil find that we have.
Fossil Record: Not a Fraud!
Some Christians like to claim that this is all fraudulent, but that's
not true. There are bones. They can be seen in museums and they are
definitely bipedal species. But they existed long ago. They are
extinct, and there's no relationship between those bipedal primates
and human beings.
The Bible tells us that God created only one species of life on planet
Earth that is spiritual in nature: Adam and Eve, and their
descendents. All other species of life are either body only, or body
and soul, like the birds and the mammals. Only the human species is
comprised of body, soul and spirit.
You can go to any secular anthropologist and ask him to provide you
with the most ancient evidence for spirit expression. They will
confess that the most ancient evidence dates back to only 8,000 to
24,000 years ago. In the form of a moral code or religious relics, the
most ancient finds have been these primitive Venus Idol figurines from
10,000 years ago.
What's the Biblical date of the creation of Adam and Eve? The
genealogies are useless for giving us the creation date of the
universe or the Earth, but they are effective for giving us the
creation date of Adam and Eve. It was the very last event on the sixth
day of creation.
I should say only slightly effective because there are gaps in the
genealogy. The genealogies of Luke and Matthew contain names that are
not in Genesis 5, but the best Hebrew scholars that I've spoken to say
that it's about a factor of ten.
When Did Man Appear?
Six thousand to 60,000 years ago, God created Adam and Eve. That 6,000
to 60,000 encompasses the secular date of 8,000 to 24,000. Even at
this most controversial level, we have so little data to work with
that we see fundamental agreement between scientific evidence and the
words of the Bible.
I close with a quote from Revelation 3:8, "See I place before you an
open door that no one can shut." In my book, The Creator and the
Cosmos, I have a whole chapter filled with quotes from astronomers and
physicists in response to this evidence.
Fine Tuning of the Universe: Proof Positive of the Existence of God
Let me read you one from the British cosmologist, Edward Harrison, who
says, "Here is the cosmological proof of the existence of God. The
design argument of William Paley updated and refurbished. The
fine-tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence for theistic
design. Take you choice: blind chance that requires an infinite number
of universes, or design that requires only one."
Many scientists, when they admit their views, incline towards the
theistic or the design argument, and for good reason. It's because the
appeal to an infinite number of universes where ours by pure chance
out of that infinite number takes on the conditions essential for
life, is committing the gamblers fallacy.
To Assume it Happened By Chance = "The Gambler's Fallacy"
You're assuming the benefit of an infinite sample size, when you can
only provide evidence for one. Let me give you an example. If I were
to flip a coin 10,000 times and it were to come up heads 10,000 times
in a row, you could conclude that the coin has been fixed with a
purpose to come up heads. That's the rational bet.
But the irrational better would say that conceivably, two to the
10,000 coins could exist out there. And if those two to the 10,000
coins are like my coin, but all getting different results than I see
here, then this coin could be fair.
It's the gamblers fallacy because you have no proof of the existence
of those other coins or that they take on similar characteristics of
the coin that you're flipping, and you have no evidence that those
coins are producing different results.
The equations of General Relativity guarantee that we will never
discover another universe. God may have created two, but we'll never
know about it because the equations of General Relativity tell us that
the Space-Time manifold of universe A will never overlap the
space-time manifold of universe B.
Other Universes? No Way to Know
That means we will be forever ignorant about the possibility of other
universes, because the sample size will always be one. Therefore, the
appeal to infinite chances rather than to the God of the Bible is the
gambler's fallacy.
Q&A from the Audience
Moderator: Okay, I know what you're thinking. Why didn't he tell us
something that we don't already know? Right? Why do we keep doing all
this mental cotton candy stuff, why don't we get to something deep?
Actually, I'm sure there are a lot of questions, so I'm going to make
my way around with the mike, and I'll try to get around to the sides.
We want to give you the chance to ask Dr. Ross some questions, and
we'll do that for about 20 minutes.
If we have any spiritual seekers here, who have some questions, I'm
especially interested in your perspective.
Why do we need earthquakes? Can you explain that a little more?
Hugh: Before I begin, let me just say that if you think of a question
two hours from now, the ministry I work for, Reasons to Believe,
maintains a daily hotline. You are welcome to call, two hours per day,
to ask your questions. The number is (626)335-5282, 5:00pm to 7:00pm
Pacific Time. You are also welcome to write, and we'll respond to your
questions in writing. The service is available, free of charge, to
anyone who'd like to take advantage of it. [Website is www.reasons.org
� ed.]
In response to your question about earthquakes, without earthquakes or
plate tectonic activity, nutrients that are essential for life on land
would erode off of the continents and accumulate in the oceans. After
awhile, life would be impossible on land, though you'd still have life
in the oceans.
Thanks to earthquake activity, that stuff in the oceans gets recycled
into new continents. W
New Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God
A Seminal Presentation by Astrophysicist Dr. Hugh Ross, given in South
Barrington, Illinois, April 16, 1994
Click here for printable copy in PDF
Editor's note: This lecture was selected not in spite of being more
than 10 years old, but because it is more than 10 years old. Virtually
every statement and inference given in this speech has been reinforced
and further validated during the last decade by measurements from the
COBE Satellite, the Hubble Telescope, and advances in physics and
astronomy.
The hallmark of a truly reliable scientific theory is that it is
thoroughly testable, scientifically falsifiable, and makes accurate
predictions. Dr. Ross's origins model has stood the test of time for
nearly two decades, literally receiving further validation on a
monthly basis as physics and astronomy journals publish new papers. I
believe you'll enjoy this ground-breaking information from Hugh Ross.
___________________________
New Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God
"The Discovery of the Century" -Stephen Hawking
I want to take you back to almost two years ago, April 23, 1992. On
that day, a discovery was announced that, in the words of the British
physicist Steven Hawking, "�is the discovery of the century, if not of
all time." This is remarkable because Steven Hawking has a reputation
for understatement.
Michael Turner, from the University of Chicago, says the significance
of this discovery cannot be overstated. They have found the Holy Grail
of cosmology. As to how holy of a grail we're talking about, George
Smoot, who led the team of 30 American astrophysicists who made the
discovery said, "What we have found is evidence of the birth of the
Universe. It's like looking at God."
Frederick Burnham, a science historian, said in response to this
discovery, "The idea that God created the Universe is a more
respectable hypothesis today than at any time in the last 100 years."
The reason I'm starting with these quotes is because anything that is
being called 'The greatest discovery of the century' and anything that
makes belief in God more credible that it's ever been before, is
something that every Christian should be apprised of and equipped to
share with his friends at home, in the neighborhood and at work.
The Day They Found 90% of the Universe
Now, what exactly was it that these astronomers discovered? They found
90% of the universe. Any day that you find 90% of the universe is a
red-letter day. What they essentially found was a new kind of matter.
For a couple of years, physicists have suspected that the universe
must have a different kind of matter.
Ordinary matter is the stuff that we're used to. Electrons, protons,
neutrons, everything we see here on planet Earth is made up of
ordinary matter. Ordinary matter is a property that strongly interacts
with radiation, so it's rather easy for astronomers to detect the
stuff.
But we found the problem, which was this: In 1990, the cosmic
background explorer satellite proved that the universe is extremely
entropic. In fact, the universe has a specific entropy measure of
1,000,000,000. Entropy measures the efficiency with which a system
radiates heat and light, and the inefficiency in which it performs
work.
The universe is by far the most entropic system in all existence. To
give you a point of comparison, a burning candle has a specific
entropy of two. A burning candle is something we realize is very
efficient in making heat and light, and very inefficient in performing
work. The universe is far more entropic than a candle, by many orders
of magnitude.
But it led to a problem. If the universe has that high a degree of
entropy and all matter strongly interacts with radiation, and the
radiation left over from the creation event measures to be incredibly
smooth, then the matter likewise should be that smoothly distributed.
But it isn't.
As you look at the galaxies and clusters of galaxies, rather than
being smoothly distributed like the radiation form the creation event,
it's clumpy. Astronomers wanted to know why. We have proof that the
universe was created in a hot, big, bang due to the incredible
entropy, but how do we explain the galaxies?
The discovery of exotic matter explains the clustering of the
galaxies. Exotic matter does not strongly interact with radiation, and
because it doesn't, it can clump independent of the radiation. Since
it doesn't really matter in gravity whether the matter is exotic or
ordinary, the laws of physics still apply.
Two massive objects will attract one another under the law of gravity,
and if one of those massive objects is made of ordinary matter and the
other is made of exotic matter, they will still attract.
Once exotic matter clumps, it can draw ordinary matter to it, and
hence we can have the universe we see today. The radiation from the
creation event is still very smoothly distributed, but the galaxies
and clusters of galaxies are clumped.
April 23, 1992 was the first detection an astronomer made of this type
of matter. Since that time, there have been seven other independent
detections of this exotic matter. If you're interested, you can read
all about it in my book, The Creator and the Cosmos, which was
published a few months ago.
In this back issue, we describe the set of discoveries that
established the existence of exotic matter which led to the
conclusions from the scientific community that we now have conclusive
proof that the universe was indeed created, and that's why we say that
we're looking at the face of God.
On April 24, 1992, I was on the radio with three other physicists to
discuss this discovery. A couple of the gentlemen were from George
Smoot's team, but the one that I was most curious about was Geoffrey
Burbridge, who I had as a professor while I attended the University of
Toronto, and who I knew to be an atheist.
Physicists Join "The First Church of Christ of the Big Bang"
I was wondering how Geoffery was going to respond to the news of this
discovery. The first words out of his mouth were a complaint, and they
were that as a result of this discovery, his peers in physics and
astronomy were rushing off to join the First Church of Christ of the
Big Bang.
What encouraged me about Jeffrey's statement was that even Jeffrey, as
an atheist, recognized the equation, Big Bang = Jesus Christ. If you
prove the Big Bang, you prove Jesus Christ. I want to briefly explain
to you how that follows and I want to reveal something to you that
leads to that.
Why Big Bang = Jesus Christ
It's something that's probably more beautiful than anything that
you've ever seen living here in Illinois . Or for that matter
California or where I grew up, British Colombia, which I think is the
most beautiful place in the world.
I want to show you something that far transcends the beauty of even
the scenery that we see on this planet Earth. [Shows Einstein's
singularity equation.] But, then what could possibly transcend the
beauty of equations of physics? For those of you who are starting to
break out into a cold sweat, this will be gone in less than a minute
and I'll never show you another one again.
I thought that you might be curious of the equation that convinced
Albert Einstein that God exists, that God created the universe. This
equation falls under the theory of general relativity. For those of
you who have a background in calculus, you'll recognize this term here
as an expression for acceleration.
What Einstein had done was to drive the equation for the acceleration
of the entire universe. On the other side of the equation, you see
four physical constants. I don't really have to explain them to you,
except to point out that they all have positive values.
Four well-known physical constants with positive values, yet there's a
minus sign in front. That immediately tells us that the entire
universe experiences negative acceleration. The universe is
decelerating. That was a tremendous challenge to the theology of his
day because in the 200 years previous to Albert Einstein's theory of
general relativity, academic scientific society was operating on the
premise that the universe was static.
Belief in a Static Universe Led to Darwinian Evolution
That was really what fostered the birth of Darwinian evolution, the
idea that the universe is static, infinitely old and infinitely large.
Static, in that it maintained the conditions essential for elements to
assemble themselves into living systems, as Emanuel Kant reasoned,
long before Charles Darwin came up with a theory.
Emanuel Kant longed to come up with a theory of biological evolution
but he didn't have the biological data to develop it. Nevertheless, he
laid the philosophical foundation that if the universe is infinitely
old and infinitely large and static, maintaining the ideal chemical
situation for life chemistry to proceed, then one can posit that the
dice of chance is thrown an infinite number of times and in an
infinite variety of ways.
If you have infinite throws at the dice of chance, then any matter of
complexity would be conceivable - even something as complicated as a
German philosopher. But this equation challenged that very notion by
saying that the universe is not static; it decelerates.
Einstein was well aware that the term for pressure (P) in the universe
is rather tiny compared to the term for mass density (represented by
the Greek letter Rho ). It's divided by a huge number - the velocity
of light squared. You've got this extremely small number divided by a
huge number. This means that for all intents and purposes, we can
ignore that "3P/C�" relative to the density. We can drop that term
out, and then we have something much simpler to solve.
Proof that the Universe is Not Static, but Expanding
It's still a non-linear differential equation, so it's not all that
easy. But Einstein was able to perceive and demonstrate that,
according to this equation, the universe not only decelerates, it
positively expands. Hence, the Big Bang. How so? Normally, I
demonstrate this for audiences by bringing a grenade, but they no
longer let you take grenades on airplanes.
I only do that demonstration when I'm on TV or in California, so
you're just going to have to pretend that I've got a grenade here in
front of me. If I were to pull the pin from the grenade, you'd feel a
few effects. One being that the pieces of the grenade would expand
outward from the pin. That's positive expansion.
Those outwardly expanding pieces of the grenade would inevitably bump
into obstacles into this room. When they collide with those obstacles,
they slow down. That's deceleration. After a grenade has exploded, a
physicist could make measurements of the positions and the velocities
of the pieces of shrapnel, and through the equation Velocity =
Distance/Time, he could calculate the moment that the pin was pulled
on the grenade.
We can do the same thing with the galaxies in the universe. We can
measure their positions and their velocities and calculate the moment
that the "pin" was pulled on the entire universe.
As Einstein pointed out, the significance is that the universe has
this moment of pin pulling. It has a beginning. Through the principle
of positive fact, if the universe has a beginning, it must have a
beginner, hence the existence of God.
To his dying day, Einstein held to his belief that as the result of
the verification of his theory of General Relativity, God exists.
(Good book on Einstein's extensive discussions of religion and
theology: Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology by Max Jammer
-Ed) God created the universe and God is intelligent. Today, we don't
deny that God is personal. Einstein died too soon.
If he had lived to the late 1980's, he'd have seen direct scientific
proof for the personality of the creator. But he acknowledged as a
result of the confirmations of his equations and his theory that God
is transcendent. That God exists, he is intelligent, he is creative
and he is responsible for the universe.
But he didn't know the details of that transcendence. The details of
that transcendence had to equate to a deeper solution of those
equations of General Relativity. They are non-linear, which means
they're hard to solve.
Stephen Hawking and Friends Solve The Equation
By 1970, three British astrophysicists had combined to produce a
deeper solution of the equations of General Relativity. They
culminated the paper, The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and
Cosmology, published in 1970. You should all go get it - its exciting
reading.
It closes with the Space-Time theorem of General Relativity, which
states that if the universe is governed by the equations of General
Relativity, not only are we faced with an ultimate origin, we are all
of the matter in the universe, and all of the energy in the universe.
But we're faced with a coincident ultimate origin for even the
dimensions of length, width, height and time.
Even Time Itself Was Created
As Steven Hawking, one of the three authors, boasted many years
thereafter, we proved that time was created. We proved that time has a
beginning. But through his contacts with certain Christians like his
wife Jane, who's an Anglican, as a friend of mine from Cal Tech, Don
Page, who had daily Bible studies with Steven and Jane Hawking while
he was doing research pointed out, if you prove that time has a
beginning, that it was created, it eliminates all theological
possibilities but Jesus Christ.
Of all world religions, only Judeo-Christian theology says Time has a beginning
Why? Because if you were to open up the Holy books of the religions of
the world, only one of them would describe God as a being that creates
the universe independent of time, space, matter and energy.
The other Holy books describe God as creating within time. The Bible
states that God creates independent of time. That's the difference.
Some verses that you might be familiar with: The first verse which
states, "In the Beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth�" The
Hebrew words for heavens and Earth literally refer to the entire
physical cosmos of matter, energy space and time. The universe.
Hebrews 11:3 makes it more specific stating, "The universe that we
detect was made from that which we cannot detect." We can make
detections within matter, energy, length, width, height and time, but
not beyond.
Eight places in the Bible tell us that God created time. I'll give you
two examples: 2 Timothy 1:9 which states, "The Grace of God that we
now experience was put into effect before the beginning of time" and
Titus 1:2 which states, "The hope that we have in Jesus Christ was
given to us before the beginning of time."
The three things that the Apostle Paul was saying in those two verses
were that time is beginning, that God created the time dimension of
our universe and, most importantly, that God has the capacity to
operate through cause and effect before the time dimension of our
universe even exists.
Your friendly neighborhood physicist will tell you that time is
defined as that dimension or realm in which cause and effect phenomena
take place. What the Apostle Paul is telling us in these two places
and in the six other portions of Scripture, is that we are confined to
a single dimension of time.
In fact it's worse than that. We're confined to half of a line of
time. Time, for us, is a line that goes forward only. Have you ever
noticed that you cannot stop or reverse the arrow of time? No matter
what you do, it just keeps going forward in one direction.
Any entity confined to half of the line of time, must have a beginning
and must be created. I can walk home tonight, and that's it. It's the
simplest, most rigorous proof of the existence of God.
We're confined, and the entire universe is confined to half of the
line of time. Therefore, the universe must be created and we must be
created. But God is not so confined.
When I present this evidence to atheists, their most frequent response
is the same one I got from both of my sons when they were three years
of age. It's, "If God created us, then who created God?"
God: Not Confined by Time
My sons and the atheists are assuming that God is confined to time in
the same way that we are. But the Bible and the equations of General
Relativity tell us that the entity that brought the universe into
existence is not confined in time like we are, or the way that the
universe is.
God can move and operate in at least two dimensions of time. In two
dimensions of time, time becomes a plane, like a sheet of paper,
length and width. In a plane, you can have as many lines as you want
and as many directions as you want.
It would be possible for God to dwell on a time line running through a
sheet of paper that's infinitely long, and that never crosses or
touches the timeline of our universe. As such, God would have no
beginning, no end and he would not be created. Sound familiar?
Why the God of Modern Physics Matches the God of the Bible
Both John Chapter One and Colossians Chapter One make that claim about
God; He has no beginning, no end and He is not created. The Bible is
the only Holy book that makes that statement about God.
What I've done for you in these few minutes is to establish the
doctrine of the independent transcendence of the Creator. But we can
go beyond this abstract, rigorous proof of the existence of the God of
the Bible. It's Jesus Christ because we proved that the Creator must
be an independent, transcendent being.
What I've discovered, even on the University campus, is that audiences
much prefer tangible proof for the existence of God, to the abstract
proof of the existence of God.
Today we have that, thanks to the efforts of astronomers in measuring
the universe. Ours is the only generation of man that has ever lived
to witness the measuring of the universe. This wasn't the case 15
years ago.
Measuring The Universe
Ours is a privileged generation because we have seen the measuring of
the universe. The theological significance is that if you can measure
the universe, you are measuring the creation. If you can measure the
creation, you are measuring the Creator himself. Not all of his
characteristics, of course, but many that are theologically
significant.
What we've discovered in measuring the universe is that the third
assumption of Emanuel Kant; that we have infinite time, the universe
is static and that we have an infinite supply of building blocks for
life isn't true.
We proved that the universe isn't static, that time isn't infinite.
It's finite. The age of the universe is only 1,000,000,000,000,000,000
seconds (10 to the 18th power).
We also discovered that we do not have an infinite supply of building
blocks. In fact, we discovered that it takes exquisite design to get
any building blocks at all. Molecules, without which, life is
impossible.
Atoms must be able to assemble in the molecules in order to gain
sufficient complexity for life chemistry to proceed. That applies to
any conceivable kind of life.
The Extreme Precision of Physical Constants
Unless the force electromagnetism takes on a particular value,
molecules won't happen. Take the nucleus of an atom. There's an
electron orbiting that nucleus. If the force electromagnetism is too
weak, the electron will not orbit the nucleus.
Electromagnetism
There won't be sufficient electromagnetic pull to keep that electron
orbiting the nucleus. If electrons cannot orbit nuclei, then electrons
cannot be shared so that nuclei can come together to form molecules.
Without molecules, we have no life.
If the force electromagnetism is too strong, the nuclei will hang onto
their electrons with such strength that the electrons will not be
shared with adjoining nuclei and again, molecules will never form.
Unless the force electromagnetism is fine-tuned to a particular value,
the universe will have no molecules and no life.
Strong Nuclear Force
We also have a problem in getting the right atoms. Now take a neutron
and a proton. Protons and neutrons are held together in the nucleus of
an atom by the strong nuclear force, which is the strongest of the
four forces of physics.
If the nuclear force is too strong, the protons and neutrons in the
universe will find themselves stuck to other protons and neutrons,
which means we have a universe devoid of Hydrogen.
Hydrogen is the element composed of the bachelor proton. Without
Hydrogen, there's no life chemistry. It's impossible to conceive of
life chemistry without Hydrogen.
On the other hand, if we make the nuclear force slightly weaker, none
of the protons and neutrons will stick together. All of the protons
and neutrons will be bachelors, in which case the only element that
would exist in the universe would be Hydrogen, and it's impossible to
make life if all we've got is Hydrogen.
How sensitive must this strong nuclear force be designed for life to
exist? It's so sensitive that if we were to make this force 3/10 of 1%
stronger or 2% weaker, life would be impossible at any time in the
universe.
Mass of the Proton and Neutron
We also have a problem with the protons and the neutrons themselves.
The neutron is 0.138% more massive than the proton. Because of this,
it takes a little more energy for the universe to make neutrons, as
compared to protons. That's why in the universe of today we have seven
times as many protons as neutrons.
If the neutron were 1/10th of 1% less massive than what we observe,
then the universe would make so many neutrons that all of the matter
in the universe would very quickly collapse into neutron stars and
black holes, and life would be impossible.
If we made the neutron 1/10th of 1% more massive than what we observe,
then the universe would make so few neutrons, that there wouldn't be
enough neutrons to make Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Phosphorus,
Potassium, etc. These are the elements that are essential for life.
So, we must delicately balance that mass to within 1/10 th of 1%, or
life is impossible.
Electrons
With electrons we see an even more sense of the balance. In order for
life to exist in the universe, the force of gravity must be
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10 to the 40th
power) times weaker than the force of electromagnetism. It's essential
that the force of gravity be incredibly weak compared to the other
three forces of physics.
Gravity
Yet planets, stars and galaxies will not form unless gravity is
dominant in the universe, so the universe must be set up in such a way
that the other forces of physics cancel out and leave gravity, the
weakest of the forces, dominant.
It's necessary for the universe to be electrically neutral. The
numbers of the positively charged particles must be equivalent to the
numbers of negatively charged particles or else electromagnetism will
dominate gravity, and stars, galaxies and planets will never form. If
they don't form, then clearly life is impossible.
The numbers of electrons must equal the numbers of protons to better
than one part of 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
(10 to the 37 th power). That number is so large that it's difficult
for laymen to get a handle on it. So I compare that number with
another very large number - the national debt.
The National Debt
The national debt stands at $5,000,000,000,000. One way to visualize
this is to imagine we cover one square mile of land with dimes piles
17 inches high. We can pay off the entire national debt with a pile of
dimes 17 inches high in one square mile.
That's truly a lot of dimes. Out national debt problem is serious. But
to get 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, we would
have to cover the entire North American continent with dimes, but 17
inches high won't do.
We'd have to cover the entire North American continent from here all
the way to the moon. That's a 250,000-mile high pile of dimes covering
10,000,000 square miles, and you'd have to do that with a billion
North American continents from here all the way to the moon. That is
one chance in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10
to the 37 th power).
To give you an idea, imagine that in those piles of billions of dimes,
there's one dime colored red. If you were to randomly shuffle your way
through those billions of dimes blindfolded, and you choose one dime,
the odds that you would pick up that one red dime is one chance in
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 .
God's Fine-Tuning vs. Man's Fine-Tuning
Another way of looking at this incredible fine-tuning of the universe
in this one characteristic is to compare it with the very best that we
humans have achieved. It's not built yet, but towards the end of this
year, a machine will come online at Cal Tech. This machine will have
the capacity to make measurements to within one part in
100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10 to the 23rd power). The best
machine man has ever designed.
But the very best machine that man has ever designed, with all of our
money, technology and education, falls one hundred trillion times
short of the level of fine-tuning that we see in just this one
characteristic of the universe.
Purposefully, I didn't choose the best example. In my book, The
Creator and the Cosmos, I describe two other characteristics of the
universe that are much more fine-tuned than the balance of electrons
to protons. Some of these characteristics reveal more than what I've
described here.
If the universe is fine-tuned in one part to the 10 to the 37th power,
one part in 10 to the 40th power and one part in 10 to the 55th power
on three different characteristics, then that tells us that God must
be personal; that He's not only transcendent, he's personal!
God: 100 Trillion Trillion Times More Precise than Man
Why do we say this? Because only a person is capable of fine-tuning to
the degree that we've observed, and that person must be orders of
magnitude more intelligent and creative than we human beings. One
hundred trillion times more intelligent and creative than we human
beings, just based on that one characteristic. But he's also creative
and loving.
Earth: An Insignificant Speck?
When I was a young man, questioning the holy books of the religions of
the world, I knew God must exist because of the Big Bang. There's a
beginning, there must be a beginner. But I doubted that God was
personal and caring because I felt that planet Earth was just an
insignificant speck in the eyes of a God that created a hundred
trillion stars. What could we matter to such an awesome God?
Mass of the Universe
Astronomers have discovered that the total mass of the universe acts
as a catalyst for nuclear fusion and the more massive the universe is,
the more efficiently nuclear fusion operates in the cosmos. If the
universe is too massive, the mass density too great, then very quickly
all the matter in the universe is converted from Hydrogen into
elements heavier than iron, which would render life impossible because
the universe would be devoid of Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, etc.
If the universe has too little mass, then fusion would work so
inefficiently that all that the universe would ever produce would be
Hydrogen, or Hydrogen plus a small amount of Helium. But there again,
the Carbon and Oxygen we need for life would be missing.
What does this tell me about the Creator? That God so loved the human
race that he went to the expense of building one hundred billion stars
and carefully shaped and crafted those hundred billion trillion stars
for the entire age of the universe, so that for this brief moment in
time, we could have a nice place to live.
It's the same logic that my five and eight year old sons use on me.
They measure my love for them by how much money I spend on the gifts
that I buy for them. We can use the same kind of logic to draw the
conclusion that the God who created the universe must love we human
beings very much, given how much he spent on our behalf.
We live in a Special Solar System, Too
We can extend this argument of design from the universe to the solar
system itself. When we look at the solar system, we discover that we
have a heavenly body problem. It's not that easy to get the right
galaxy.
Life can only happen on late born stars. If it's a first or
second-generation star, then life is impossible because you don't yet
have the heavy elements necessary for life chemistry. There's a narrow
window of time in the history of the universe when life can happen.
If the universe is too old or too young, life is impossible. Only
spiral galaxies produce stars late enough in their history that they
can take advantage of the elements that are essential for life
history, and only 6% of the galaxies in our universe are spiral
galaxies. Of those 6%, you must go with galaxies that produce all of
the elements that are essential for life. It's not that easy.
Besides Hydrogen and Helium, the other elements are made in the cores
of super giant stars. Super giant stars burn up quickly; they're gone
in a just a few million years. When they go through the final stages
of burning up their fuel, they explode ashes into outer space, and
future generations of stars will absorb those ashes.
Births & Deaths of Multiple Stars Required to have Metals in Earth's Crust
When those stars go through their burning phase, they will take that
heavy element ash material. This time when they explode, they make a
whole bunch of material, capable of forming rocky planets and
supporting life chemistry.
But we want these supernovae exploding early in the history of the
galaxy. We don't want them going off now. If the star Cereus goes
Super Nova, we're in serious trouble because it's only eight light
years away. It would exterminate life on our planet.
We observe in our galaxy that there was a burst of Super Nova
explosions early in its history, but it tapered off to where it isn't
a threat to life that is now in existence. The Super Nova explosions
took place in the right quantity and in the right locations so that
life could happen here on Earth.
What does location have to do with it? Life is impossible in the
center of our galaxy, or in the heel of our galaxy. It's only possible
at a distance 2/3 from the center of our galaxy.
Mormon Astronomy - Accurate or not?
That's why I'm not a Mormon. Mormons tell us that life originated on a
master planet right smack at the center of our galaxy. That's probably
also why I've never met a Mormon astronomer.
The stars at the center of our galaxy are jammed so tightly together
that the mutual gravity would destroy the planetary orbits. Moreover,
their synchrotron radiation would be destructive to life molecules.
But we don't want to be too far away from the center, either. If we
get too far away, then there aren't enough heavy elements from the
exploded remains of supernovae to enable life chemistry to proceed.
There's one life essential element that the supernovae do not make,
however, and that's Fluorine. Fluorine is made only on the surfaces of
white dwarf binaries. A white dwarf is a burned out star. It's like a
cinder in a fireplace, just glowing.
Orbiting this white dwarf is a star that hasn't yet exhausted its
nuclear fuel. It's an ordinary star, like our Sun. The white dwarf has
enough mass relative to the ordinary star orbiting around it that it
is capable of pulling mass off of the surface of the ordinary star and
dragging it down so that it falls on its surface. When that material
falls on the surface of the while dwarf, it ignites some very
interesting nuclear reactions that produce Fluorine.
We need a white dwarf binary whose gravitational interactions between
the white dwarf and the ordinary star are such that a strong enough
stellar wind is sent from the white dwarf to blast the Fluorine beyond
the gravitational pull of both stars, putting it into outer space, so
that future generations of stars can absorb it. Then we have enough
Fluorine for life chemistry.
A Trillion Galaxies - but as far as physicists know, only ours can support life
Two American astrophysicists concluded about a year ago that rare
indeed is the galaxy that has the right number of this special kind
white dwarf binary pair in the right location, occurring at the right
time, so that life can exist today. The universe contains a trillion
galaxies. But ours may be the only one that has the necessary
conditions for life to exist.
The right star is needed. We can't have a star any bigger than our
Sun. The bigger the star, the more rapidly and erratically it burns
its fuel. Our Sun is just small enough to keep a stable enough flame
for a sufficient period of time to make life possible. If it were any
bigger, we couldn't have life on planet Earth. If it were any smaller,
we'd be in trouble, too.
Smaller stars are even more stable than our star, the Sun, but they
don't burn as hot. In order to keep our planet at the right
temperature necessary to sustain life, we'd have to bring the planet
closer to the star.
Tidal Forces
The physicists in the audience realize that when you bring a planet
closer to its star, the tidal interaction between the star and the
planet goes up to the inverse fourth power to the distance separating
them. For those of you who are not physicists, that means that all you
have to do is bring that planet ever so much closer to the star, and
the tidal forces could be strong enough to break the rotational
period.
That's what happened to Mercury and Venus. Those planets are too close
to the Sun; so close that their rotational periods have been broken,
from several hours to several months.
Earth is just barely far enough away to avoid that breaking. We have a
rotation period of once every 24 hours. If we wait much longer, it
will be every 26 or 28 hours, because the Earth's rotation rate is
slowing down.
Going back in history, we can measure the time when the Earth was
rotating every 20 hours. When the Earth was rotating once every 20
hours, human life was not possible. If it rotates once every 28 hours,
human life will not be possible. It can only happen at 24 hours.
Speed of Earth's Rotation
If the planet rotates too quickly, you get too many tornadoes and
hurricanes. If it rotates too slowly, it gets too cold at night and
too hot during the day. We don't want it to be 170 degrees during the
day, nor do we want it to be below �100 at night, because that's not
ideal for life.
We don't want lots of hurricanes and tornadoes, either. What we
currently have is an ideal situation, and God plays this. He created
us here at the ideal time.
We need the right Earth. If the Earth is too massive, it retains a
bunch of gases such as Ammonia, Methane, Hydrogen and Helium in its
atmosphere. These gases are not acceptable for life, at least, not for
advanced life. But if it's not massive enough, it won't retain water.
For life to exist on planet Earth, we need a huge amount of water, but
we don't need a lot of ammonia and methane.
Remember high school chemistry? Methane's molecular weight 16,
ammonia's molecular weight 17, water's molecular weight is 18. God so
designed planet Earth that we keep lots of the 18, but we don't keep
any of the 16 or the 17. The incredible fine-tuning of the physical
characteristics of Earth is necessary for that.
Jupiter Necessary, too
We even have to have the right Jupiter. We wrote about this in our
Facts and Faith newsletter a few issues back, but it was also
discovered by American astrophysicists just this past year. Unless you
have a very massive planet like Jupiter, five times more distant from
the star than the planet that has life, life will not exist on that
planet.
It takes a super massive planet like Jupiter, located where it is, to
act as a shield, guarding the Earth from comic collisions. We don't
want a comet colliding with Earth every week. Thanks to Jupiter, that
doesn't happen.
What these astrophysicists discovered in their models of planetary
formation was that it's a very rare star system indeed that produces a
planet as massive as Jupiter, in the right location, to act as such a
shield.
We Even Need the Right Moon
The Earth's moon system is that of a small planet being orbited by a
huge, single moon. That huge, single moon has the effect of
stabilizing the rotation axis of planet Earth to 23� degrees. That's
the ideal tilt for life on planet Earth.
The axis on planet Mars moves through a tilt from zero to 60 degrees
and flips back and forth. If that were to happen on Earth, life would
be impossible. Thanks to the Moon, it's held stable at 23 � degrees.
Just as with the universe, in the case of the solar system, we can
attach numbers to these. In this case, I've chosen to be extremely
conservative in my estimates. I would feel justified in sticking a few
zeros between the decimal point and the one. I would feel justified in
making this 20 percent, 10 percent, for example, and on down the line.
We Even Need the Right Number of Earthquakes
I've got so many characteristics here, and I let the Californians know
that you have to have the right number of earthquakes. Not too many,
not too few, or life is not possible. I share them with my wife, who
doesn't like earthquakes, but I just tell her that when you feel a
good jolt, that's when you have to thank God for his perfect
providence.
At Least 41 Fine-Tuned Characteristics, to have One Planet that Supports Life
The bottom line to all of this is that we have 41 characteristics of
the solar system that must be fine-tuned for life to exist. But even
if the universe contains as many planets as it does stars, which is a
gross overestimate in my opinion, that still leaves us with less than
one chance in a billion trillion that you'd find even one planet in
the entire universe with the capacity for supporting life.
This tells us that we're wasting valuable taxpayer money looking for
intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Worse than that, we're
wasting valuable telescope time. In the words of William Proxmyer, "It
would be far wiser looking for intelligent life in Washington than
looking for it in other galaxies."
Planet Earth: Not an Accident
It also tells us that God wasn't wandering throughout the vastness of
the cosmos saying, "Wow, that's the best one, I'll use that". No. With
odds this remote, we must realize that God especially designed and
crafted, through miraculous means, planet Earth, so that it would
support life and human beings. Planet Earth is not an accident; it is
a product of divine design.
I would also say that's true of life on Earth. The fossil record
testifies of life beginning on planet Earth 3.8 billion years ago.
Over those 3.8 billion years, we have more and more species of greater
and greater complexity and greater and greater diversity. But there's
no fossil tree. We have no evidence for the horizontal branches.
Peculiarities in the Fossil Record
All we have is evidence that a certain species exists for a certain
period of time without significant change, which then goes extinct to
be replaced at a different time with a radically different species,
with no connection from the previous species to the next one.
What the textbooks don't mention is that there's been a reversal of
this fossil tree; it's only true up until the creation of man. Since
the creation of man, the whole thing reverses. As time proceeds, we
have fewer and fewer species with less and less diversity and
complexity, and it's the land mammals that are being impacted in the
worst way.
There were 30,000 land mammals on planet Earth when God created Adam
and Eve. There are only 15,000 remaining today. In just a few thousand
years, 15,000 species of mammals have disappeared.
Admittedly, man has a lot to do with that.
As Paul and Ann Erlich pointed out in their book on extinctions,
though, even if we were to get rid of every vestige of humanity and
civilization on planet Earth, a minimum of one species would still
become extinct every year. How many species do we see appearing?
No New Species
Paul and Ann Erlich say we have yet to document the appearance of a
single animal species in the world of nature, and in the vast majority
in the world of species, we cannot even detect any genetic movement.
It's a virtual zero.
The Bible offers the perfect explanation for this. For six days
(periods of time), God created. On the seventh day, he rested. For six
days, he replaced the species that were going extinct with more
complex and diverse species. For six days, he created through special,
miraculous means, the evidence of which we clearly see in the fossil
record.
But the Bible tells us that when He created Eve, He ceased from his
work of creating new species of life. God is at rest. We're now in the
seventh day, where God is resting from his work of creating. All we
see today is the natural processes. The natural processes tell us that
the planet is heading to a culmination in death.
When Will God Create Again?
Revelation 21 tells us that the very instant that God conquers the
problem of evil in man, he will create again. There is an eighth day
of creation coming. It's exciting to think about the fact that God may
have many weeks of creation planned for the future. We're simply
through the first week.
Can you imagine what's going to happen in the second, third of fourth
week, etc? It would be exciting news if we could be a part of that
work with him.
Creation vs. Evolution?
Whenever I discuss this whole issue of creation evolution, everyone
wants to talk about what we know the least about - the origin of man.
You know the story. We begin with a primitive bipedal primate species,
and wind up with an advanced character.
The truth of the matter is that the evidence of the bipedal primates
that God created before Adam and Eve fills only one coffin full of
bones. We don't have a lot of evidence. It's not like the dinosaurs.
In no case are any of those bi-pedaled primate finds more than 30%
complete; that's the most complete fossil find that we have.
Fossil Record: Not a Fraud!
Some Christians like to claim that this is all fraudulent, but that's
not true. There are bones. They can be seen in museums and they are
definitely bipedal species. But they existed long ago. They are
extinct, and there's no relationship between those bipedal primates
and human beings.
The Bible tells us that God created only one species of life on planet
Earth that is spiritual in nature: Adam and Eve, and their
descendents. All other species of life are either body only, or body
and soul, like the birds and the mammals. Only the human species is
comprised of body, soul and spirit.
You can go to any secular anthropologist and ask him to provide you
with the most ancient evidence for spirit expression. They will
confess that the most ancient evidence dates back to only 8,000 to
24,000 years ago. In the form of a moral code or religious relics, the
most ancient finds have been these primitive Venus Idol figurines from
10,000 years ago.
What's the Biblical date of the creation of Adam and Eve? The
genealogies are useless for giving us the creation date of the
universe or the Earth, but they are effective for giving us the
creation date of Adam and Eve. It was the very last event on the sixth
day of creation.
I should say only slightly effective because there are gaps in the
genealogy. The genealogies of Luke and Matthew contain names that are
not in Genesis 5, but the best Hebrew scholars that I've spoken to say
that it's about a factor of ten.
When Did Man Appear?
Six thousand to 60,000 years ago, God created Adam and Eve. That 6,000
to 60,000 encompasses the secular date of 8,000 to 24,000. Even at
this most controversial level, we have so little data to work with
that we see fundamental agreement between scientific evidence and the
words of the Bible.
I close with a quote from Revelation 3:8, "See I place before you an
open door that no one can shut." In my book, The Creator and the
Cosmos, I have a whole chapter filled with quotes from astronomers and
physicists in response to this evidence.
Fine Tuning of the Universe: Proof Positive of the Existence of God
Let me read you one from the British cosmologist, Edward Harrison, who
says, "Here is the cosmological proof of the existence of God. The
design argument of William Paley updated and refurbished. The
fine-tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence for theistic
design. Take you choice: blind chance that requires an infinite number
of universes, or design that requires only one."
Many scientists, when they admit their views, incline towards the
theistic or the design argument, and for good reason. It's because the
appeal to an infinite number of universes where ours by pure chance
out of that infinite number takes on the conditions essential for
life, is committing the gamblers fallacy.
To Assume it Happened By Chance = "The Gambler's Fallacy"
You're assuming the benefit of an infinite sample size, when you can
only provide evidence for one. Let me give you an example. If I were
to flip a coin 10,000 times and it were to come up heads 10,000 times
in a row, you could conclude that the coin has been fixed with a
purpose to come up heads. That's the rational bet.
But the irrational better would say that conceivably, two to the
10,000 coins could exist out there. And if those two to the 10,000
coins are like my coin, but all getting different results than I see
here, then this coin could be fair.
It's the gamblers fallacy because you have no proof of the existence
of those other coins or that they take on similar characteristics of
the coin that you're flipping, and you have no evidence that those
coins are producing different results.
The equations of General Relativity guarantee that we will never
discover another universe. God may have created two, but we'll never
know about it because the equations of General Relativity tell us that
the Space-Time manifold of universe A will never overlap the
space-time manifold of universe B.
Other Universes? No Way to Know
That means we will be forever ignorant about the possibility of other
universes, because the sample size will always be one. Therefore, the
appeal to infinite chances rather than to the God of the Bible is the
gambler's fallacy.
Q&A from the Audience
Moderator: Okay, I know what you're thinking. Why didn't he tell us
something that we don't already know? Right? Why do we keep doing all
this mental cotton candy stuff, why don't we get to something deep?
Actually, I'm sure there are a lot of questions, so I'm going to make
my way around with the mike, and I'll try to get around to the sides.
We want to give you the chance to ask Dr. Ross some questions, and
we'll do that for about 20 minutes.
If we have any spiritual seekers here, who have some questions, I'm
especially interested in your perspective.
Why do we need earthquakes? Can you explain that a little more?
Hugh: Before I begin, let me just say that if you think of a question
two hours from now, the ministry I work for, Reasons to Believe,
maintains a daily hotline. You are welcome to call, two hours per day,
to ask your questions. The number is (626)335-5282, 5:00pm to 7:00pm
Pacific Time. You are also welcome to write, and we'll respond to your
questions in writing. The service is available, free of charge, to
anyone who'd like to take advantage of it. [Website is www.reasons.org
� ed.]
In response to your question about earthquakes, without earthquakes or
plate tectonic activity, nutrients that are essential for life on land
would erode off of the continents and accumulate in the oceans. After
awhile, life would be impossible on land, though you'd still have life
in the oceans.
Thanks to earthquake activity, that stuff in the oceans gets recycled
into new continents. W
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