Biologists risk career death if they publicly disagree with Darwin’s theory of unguided evolution; notwithstanding the recent scientific evidence (ENCODE, orphan genes, the fossil record, etc.) against that theory. Fortunately, in cosmology and astronomy, scientists are freer to challenge atheist beliefs. The findings in these areas are getting more attention.
Cosmology is the study of the origin and structure of the universe. Last week (December 26) the Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece titled: “Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God.” A friend of mine told me it looked like I wrote it! The author began by focusing on the special qualities of Earth (Count 6 in my book):
Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life – every single one of which must be perfectly met, or the whole thing falls apart.
He then turned to the fine tuning of the universe (Count 2 in my book):
Astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces – gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ nuclear forces – were determined less than one millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction – by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000 – then no star could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp.
I also learned recently that, two years ago, at a “State of the Universe” conference held at Cambridge University in England, astronomer Alexander Vilenkin of Tufts University in Boston presented evidence that the universe cannot possibly be eternal. There is something called the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin (BGV) theorem, which proves every universe that expands (like ours) must have a space-time boundary in the past. In other words, science contradicts the atheist belief in an infinite multiverse, in which our universe was created by another universe, and that universe was created by a third universe, and so on back to infinity (turtles all the way down). According to Vilenkin: “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.”
Thanks for reading and Happy New Year! I can’t wait to learn what new scientific discoveries in 2015 demonstrate the existence of God.