Science and Creation

Science itself cannot deductively prove or disprove creation or a creator but in my mind it is an indicator of the existence of a Supreme Intelligence. We live in a Universe that is explainable through the sciences and the fact that man is an ‘intelligent” being is capable of developing the various science disciplines and hence able to through his intelligence to discover the myriad of intelligible aspects of the Universe.

Contemporary cosmology gives an insight into the creation of the Universe, as Physicist Arno Penzias states :

“Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, and delicately balanced to provide exactly the conditions required to support life. In the absence of an absurdly improbable, the observation of modern science seem to suggest an underlying, one might say, supernatural plan.”
(Brock 1992, cited in Bradley 1998, p40)

Robert J Spitzer SJ, PhD, in his book “New Proofs for the Existence of God” (2010) develops this insight by examining the hosts of concepts that gave rise to the “Big Bang Theory, as shown through the General Theory of Relativity, Hubble’s redshifts, Penzias’s and Wilson’s universal background radiation, black holes, quantum cosmology, inflation and many other related ideas and discoveries. He comments “In the view of many physicists, this remarkable cosmological theory points to a creation event as well as an ordered unfolding of the universe.” p14

Part3
In his book Spitzer looks at many other issues around the Big Bang and the question of the numeric coincidences necessary for an anthropic universe (Ch 2,) and p48 he notes the comment by Paul Davies in his book (God and the New Physics, 1983, p189) “….the numerical coincidences could be regarded as evidence of design. The delicate fine tuning in the values of the (Universal) constants, necessary so that the various different branches of physics can dovetail so felicitously, might be attributed to God. It is hard to resist the impression that the present structure of the universe, apparently so sensitive to minor alterations in the numbers, has been rather carefully thought out. Such a conclusion can, of course, only be subjective. In the end it boils down to a question of belief. Is it easier to believe in a cosmic designer than the multiplicity of universes necessary for the weak anthropic principle to work?”

Spitzer notes in Chapter 2 that there are some 20 different Universal Constants that play a crucial part in determining the structure and nature of the Universe. In the following quote I briefly look at the opinion of one physicist on one of those constants.

According to Penrose (1983, p343, quoted by Spitzer p58) “In order to produce a universe resembling the one in which we live, the Creator would have to aim for an absurdly tiny volume of the phase space of possible universes – about 1/10th to the 10123 of the entire volume, for the situation under consideration.”

Given this highly improbable occurrence Spitzer (p59) observed that many physicists have concluded that our universe was influenced by a supernatural designing intelligence.

Part 4
While others who find it difficult to accept the idea of such a metaphysical explanation have postulated some new naturalistic explanation such as a limitless numbers of unseen, unverified actual or potential universes in an effort to explain the conditions for the weak anthropic principle. It would be arguable that such postulations are scientifically questionable if not dubious. Spitzer examines the multiverse postulate in detail on p67 et op. He notes (p73) physicist Fred Hoyle’s observation (which moved him out of atheism) (Hoyle 1981 Engineering and Science, California Institute of Technology, pp 8-12) :
“...a common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelmingly as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”
What I have presented above is a very truncated summary of some of the arguments presented by Spitzer in the first few chapters of his book and I would recommend any one interested to obtain a copy to work their way through.

Given an infinite number of universes with varying physical parameters any of the universes is equally probable as long as the parameters don't conflict. Our universe is the one we happen to be in. That does not mean our universe is designed by a super intelligence. A number consisting of all 5s extending into infinity might seem improbable, but it is just as probable as any other number.

Dear Not_Now.Soon,

My claim that "atheists do not believe in themselves", was supported by the link: http://www.swamivivekanandaquotes.org/2014/10/who-is-atheist.html
See for yourself the degree of correlation between belief in oneself and belief in God.

Regarding agnostics, most definitions, including Oxford's, count them as atheists. Some call them "weak atheists".

I do not discard the importance of belief, it's a great religious technique, but if it remains merely an intellectual idea then its value is limited.

The Kingdom of Heaven and Nirvana (a Buddhist concept) are just two different perspectives describing the same: the Kingdom of Heaven is a positive state where one crowns God as their absolute ruler with no reservations, thus no selfishness remains and nothing of the world can shake or upset them. Nirvana describes this state negatively: that the world has been extinguished and no longer effect you, so what remains? God!

«Being moral doesn't measure up in my opinion because we all fail on that measure.»

But we can keep trying and gradually improve our morality. We still occasionally fail, but we can progress a lot up to a point. The last bits of immorality can only disappear by the grace of God.

---

Dear Pliny,

Why be concerned about the existence of God?
What difference can it make?
Don't look for a creator - seek God instead and meanwhile worship Him, using whatever form appeals to you most, be it Allah, Christ, Indian, Greek, Roman - or your own.

Both questions: God's existence and how the world came about, are material questions of no spiritual benefit, so don't waste your time on them.

In some decades, you shall leave this world and later on, this whole world itself will no longer exist, so forsake the illusion of existence and seek instead that which is true, immutable and everlasting!

.

Dear Graham Preston & Peter Sellick,

.

I have just (rather belatedly) discovered your exchange of articles and comments on “serious atheism and atheists” as seen by each of you, presumably, as theists.

Allow me to suggest that, at the beginning, there were probably neither atheists nor theists, just “ordinary people”. Logically, some of those ordinary people must have later become theists. Then, some of those two categories subsequently constituted a third category called atheists.

To complete the picture, there are those who “sit on the fence”, as it were, and constitute yet a fourth category, classified, for convenience sake, as agnostics.

Now, you introduce at least one new category of “serious atheists”, perhaps two, if you consider that, by the same token, there is also a category of “serious theists”. So we now have five or six categories :

1. Ordinary people
2. Theists
3. Serious theists
4. Agnostics
5. Atheists
6. Serious atheists

To clarify my own position, my mother had me baptised by an Anglican priest when I was a baby and later confirmed as a young boy. I simply did what I was told.

But having realised, rather late in life, that there is and never was any god or gods, I now like to think of myself as just an ordinary person. It makes no sense to me to describe myself by reference to a figment of the imagination (atheism or serious atheism).

From this point of view, your debate on morality takes on an entirely different dimension. As there is and never was any god or gods, and as there is no morality in nature, it can only be a purely human construct. The so-called revelations of the prophets, priests, philosophers and others were all ordinary people just like you and me. They mistakenly attributed their ideas on morality to that figment of their imagination they called god.

Morality or humanism is an integral part of mankind and always has been. It is an essential element of our survival instinct. The following brief description is worth contemplating :

http://www.meetup.com/en-AU/Humanist-Society-of-WA/pages/1587611/Beginning_of_Humanism/

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