Waheguru or Science?

Albert Einstein, "the more I study science, the more I believe in God"

1.  Without God, Life is Meaningless

The famous atheist philosopher Nietzsche was right that, without God, life is inherently meaningless:

At first sight, it seems as if we do not need God or indeed, that without God we would be freer and the world would be grander. But after a certain time, we see in our young people what happens when God disappears. As Nietzsche said: "The great light has been extinguished, the sun has been put out". Life is then a chance event. It becomes a thing that I must seek to do the best I can with and use life as though it were a thing that serves my own immediate, tangible and achievable happiness. But the big problem is that were God not to exist and were he not also the Creator of my life, life would actually be a mere cog in evolution, nothing more; it would have no meaning in itself. Instead, I must seek to give meaning to this component of being.

What atheists can’t credibly claim is that they have any absolute purpose, that their lives have any inherent meaning, that they’re here for any reason beyond random chance... If there is no God and this physical realm is all there is, life is pretty much pointless. If our lives aren’t meaningless, then God exists.

 

2. The Big Bang Theory (or Evolution) Doesn't Disprove God

Many people say that they don't believe in God because they believe in the big bang theory or evolution.

The implication is that God and the big bang theory or evolution just aren't compatible and it's that simple. But this is clearly false. It is perfectly possible for God to use the big bang theory or evolution as his creative means. The Big Bang Theory or evolution doesn't disprove God.

Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in Physics, said at the moment of this explosion, "the universe was about a hundred thousands million degrees Centigrade...and the universe was filled with light." The universe has not always existed. It had a start...what caused that? Scientists have no explanation for the sudden explosion of light and matter.

But perhaps the skeptic is not saying that the big bang theory or evolution disproves God, rather the skeptic is saying that evolution makes God an unlikely hypothesis...

And so some people say why did God take millions or billions of years to create man when he could have done it instantly?

For an eternal God, the matter of time is not really an issue. A process of trillions of years would feel no more drawn out than something instantaneous (God is timeless).

What about the possibility of life across the universe? A theist (person who believes in God) might not necessarily believe that God has humanity as creation's ultimate goal. Perhaps the stuff that was around before us is as valuable to God as we are. This includes the stuff that is yet to come or be discovered on other planets and solar systems.

Even if we take a human-centred view of creation, God might not see humanity as the only valuable part of his creation. Why must God necessarily rush to our creation? Nothing seems to demand that he do so.

All instruction, all teaching, all training comes with intent. Someone who writes an instruction manual does so with purpose. Did you know that in every cell of our bodies there exists a very detailed instruction code, much like a miniature computer program? As you may know, a computer program is made up of ones and zeros, like this: 110010101011000. The way they are arranged tell the computer program what to do. The DNA code in each of our cells is very similar. It's made up of four chemicals that scientists abbreviate as A, T, G, and C. These are arranged in the human cell like this: CGTGTGACTCGCTCCTGAT and so on. There are three billion of these letters in every human cell!!

Well, just like you can program your phone to beep for specific reasons, DNA instructs the cell. DNA is a three-billion-lettered program telling the cell to act in a certain way. It is a full instruction manual.

Why is this so amazing? One has to ask....how did this information program wind up in each human cell? These are not just chemicals. These are chemicals that instruct, that code in a very detailed way exactly how the person's body should develop.

Natural, biological causes are completely lacking as an explanation when programmed information is involved. You cannot find instruction, precise information like this, without someone intentionally constructing it.

 

3. Scientific Inquiry Points to God

Theoretical physicist Paul Davies writes that, when looking at the overall structure of the universe, "the impression of design is overwhelming" (1988, p. 203). I agree. And the famous atheist philosopher, Antony Flew, has also come to agree, citing the appearance of cosmic design as the main reason for his conversion to belief in some sort of intelligent designer. During the last one hundred years, physicists have discovered at least three features of the universe that point to a transcendent, intelligent designer:

(i) The so-called fine-tuning of laws, constants, and initial conditions of the universe for complex life of comparable intelligence to ourselves.

The fine-tuning for life refers to the fact that the laws of nature, the constants of physics, and the initial conditions of the universe are set just right for life to occur. To begin, consider the laws of nature. To say that the laws are fine-tuned means that if we did not have just the right combination of laws, complex intelligent life would probably be impossible. For example, according to current physics, there are four forces in nature - gravity, the weak force, electromagnetism, and the strong nuclear force that binds protons and neutrons together in an atom. The existence of each of these forces is necessary for complex life. For example, if gravity did not exist, masses would not clump together to form stars or planets; if the electromagnetic force didn't exist, there would be no chemistry; if the strong force didn't exist, protons and neutrons could not bind together and hence no atoms with atomic number greater than hydrogen would exist. Other principles of physics also appear necessary for embodied observers. For example, as Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson has pointed out, if the Pauli exclusion principle did not exist which is what keeps two electrons from occupying the same energy state in an atom - all electrons would occupy the lowest atomic energy state, and thus no complex atoms could exist. Thus, if any of these fundamental laws or principles were missing, the existence of complex, intelligent life would probably be rendered impossible.

Next, consider the fine-tuning for life of the constants of physics. Many of the fundamental constants must fall into a relatively narrow range in order for complex life to exist.

The most impressive case of fine-tuning for life is that of the cosmological constant. The cosmological constant is a term in Einstein's equation of general relativity that, when positive, acts as a repulsive force, causing space to expand and, when negative, acts as an attractive force, causing space to contract. If it were too large, space would expand so rapidly that galaxies and stars could not form, and if too small, the universe would collapse before life could evolve. In today's physics, it is taken to correspond to the energy density of empty space. The fine-tuning for life of the cosmological constant is estimated to be at least one part in 10^53, that is, one part in a one hundred million, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion. To get an idea of how precise this is, it would be like throwing a dart at the surface of the earth from outer space, and hitting a bull's-eye one trillionth of a trillionth of an inch in diameter, less than the size of an atom! Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg, a critic of fine-tuning, himself admits that the fine-tuning of the cosmological constant is highly impressive.

Manmukh's may still dismiss God and believe the universe was created with a random one in a one hundred million, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion chance...

ਮਨਮੁਖਿ ਅੰਧੇ ਸੁਧਿ ਨ ਕਾਈ ॥: Manmukh andhe sudh na kaaee: The blind Manmukh have no understanding at all (sggs 118).

ਮਨਮੁਖੁ ਅਗਿਆਨੀ ਅੰਧੁ ਅੰਧਾਰਾ ॥: Manmukh agiaanee andh andhaaraa: The Manmukhs (because of emotional attachment: Moh) remain immersed in utter darkness of ignorance (of their spiritual life: ਆਤਮਕ ਜੀਵਨ) (sggs 1067).

Further examples of the fine-tuning for life of the fundamental constants of physics can also be given, such as that of mass difference between the neutron and the proton. If, for example, the mass of the neutron were slightly increased by about one part in seven hundred, stable hydrogen burning stars would cease to exist.

(ii) The extraordinary beauty and elegance of the laws and mathematical structure of the universe.

The beauty and elegance of the laws of nature also point to Divine design. Nobel Prize winning physicist Steven Weinberg, for instance, devotes a whole chapter of his book Dreams of a Final Theory to explaining how the criteria of beauty and elegance are commonly used with great success to guide physicists in formulating laws. As Weinberg points out, "mathematical structures that confessedly are developed by mathematicians because they seek a sort of beauty are often found later to be extraordinarily valuable by the physicist". Later, Weinberg comments that "Physicists generally find the ability of mathematicians to anticipate the mathematics needed in the theories of physics quite uncanny". Indeed, one of the most prominent theoretical physicists of this century, Paul Dirac, has gone so far as to claim, as Einstein did, that "it is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit experiment". The beauty, elegance, and ingenuity of mathematical equations make sense if the universe was purposefully designed like an artwork, but appear surprising and inexplicable under the nondesign hypothesis. Weinberg, who is a convinced atheist, even admits that "sometimes nature seems more beautiful than strictly necessary"

(iii) The intelligibility and discoverability of the basic structure of nature.

Finally, the laws of Nature themselves seem to be carefully arranged so that they are intelligible, and in addition discoverable, by beings with our level of intelligence - like solving a clever puzzle. This has been stressed by many prominent physicists. Albert Einstein, for example, famously remarked that "the eternal mystery of the world is that it is comprehensible.... The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle". Similarly, in his famous essay, "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Physical Sciences," Eugene Wigner, one of the principal founders of quantum mechanics, famously claimed that "The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve"

An objection to considering fine-tuning for life as evidence for design is one that takes us almost into the realm of science fiction: the proposal that there are a very large number of universes, each with different values for the fundamental parameters of physics. If such multiple universes exist, it would be no surprise that the parameters in one of them would have just the right values for the existence of intelligent life, just as in the case where if enough lottery tickets were generated, it would be no surprise that one of them would turn out to be the winning number. Further, it is no surprise that we observe that our universe has these values, since they are necessary for our existence.

How did these universes come into existence? Typically, the answer is to postulate some kind of physical process, what I will call a "universe generator." Against the naturalistic version of the universe-generator hypothesis, one could argue that the universe generator itself must be "well designed" to produce even one life-sustaining universe. After all, even a mundane item such as a bread-making machine, which only produces loaves of bread instead of universes, must be well-designed as an appliance and have just the right ingredients (flour, yeast, gluten, and so on) in just the right amounts to produce decent loaves of bread. Indeed, as I have shown in detail elsewhere, if one carefully examines the most popular and most well-developed universe-generator hypothesis, that arising out of inflationary cosmology, one finds that it contains just the right fields and laws to generate life-permitting universes. Eliminate one of the fields or laws, and no life-sustaining universes would be produced. Finally, neither the universe-generator hypothesis nor even the hypothesis that all possible universes simply exist as a brute fact can explain the other design-indicating features of our universe mentioned above, such as why our universe has an elegant, intelligible, and discoverable underlying mathematical structure.

Despite these objections to the naturalistic version of the universe generator hypothesis, I am not objecting to the notion of many universes or even a universe generator. For the theist, the existence of a many universes would simply support the view that creation reflects the infinite creativity of the creator, who is so creative that he/she not only creates a reality with an enormous number of planets and galaxies, but also one with many universes. God could create these universes directly or by means of creating a universe generator. For the theist, the existence of a many universes would simply support the view that creation reflects the infinite creativity of the creator, who is so creative that he/she not only creates a reality with an enormous number of planets and galaxies, but also one with many universes. God could create these universes directly or by means of creating a universe generator.

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

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