“The Big Bang Theory” has solid arguments and evidence that it is true. The universe is expanding rapidly from a center, astronomers confirm, apparently from a gigantic explosive force. The antisupernaturalists oppose this because it implies a first cause, and an original “creation” and God, which they reject. However, there are no good alternatives that the creation came into being with a Creator. Their argument is that it came into existence by chance, but chance is just a mathematical prediction, not evidence. In any event, the mathematical laws of probability are overwhelmingly against any conceivable reality. If it came about by chance, certain pre-conditions must have been there beforehand. Who or what set up any such conditions? No piece of “something” could appear as a speck out of nothing. It certainly could not explode as a “Big Bang.” There is no concrete evidence of “many universes” existing which are as “fine-tuned” as our own (by hundreds of factors). There is no concrete evidence of intelligent life, as we understand it, elsewhere in these issues, despite frantic, expensive efforts to discover it. The notion is chiefly sustained by “science fantasy” movies, cartoon strips, and statements by antisupernatural “academics.”
“The Big Bang Theory” is solidly supported by new evidence. Dr. David Whitehouse, Science Editor of the BBC, said in September 2002 that 5,500 hours of observation by a radio telescope at the South Pole, confirming the theory. In May 2002, teams of astronomers released this new data as the strongest evidence to date for the formation of our present universe. The findings were presented to the American Physical Society indicating powerful expansion, called inflation, “in the first instant after the Big Bang.” This evidence of inflation looks very strong, said John Carlstrom,
What is your definition of “science”?
1. Do you think that science must explain everything, according to a “theory of natural selection,” plus mutations, and necessarily exclude any suggestions of some kind of Intelligent Designer?
2. Do you think science should follow evidence, without prejudice or partiality, wherever the evidence leads (“true scientific method”).
What are needed questions?
1. Does “natural selection” provably have any inherent creative power? Examples usually given are:
a. “The peppered moth theory” (light to dark). In these shifts, does anything new appear, with any clear directional change? Discovered in the 1980s, it showed that moths do not rest upon tree trunks, and desperate attempts to prove the theory led to gluing dead moths to tree trunks, shown in textbooks. This is now completely discredited.
b. The finch beaks on Galapagos Islands, which
2. Since there is overwhelming belief within academic circles in “natural selection,” plus mutations producing everything out of nothing, how did this come about?
a. Limitations are placed on reality by these circles, who insist on them as their “rules of the game.” The idea of an Intelligent Designer belongs to “religion” and has nothing (they say) that science can confirm by objective evidence. This rests upon a naturalistic explanation theory, which does not overcome the contradictory evidence that such complex details (as with DNA, cellular makeup, or any number of similar factors, are beyond believable explanation on the basis of chance, random, mindless, purposeless. Each cell contains more information than all volumes of an encyclopedia combined, is more complex than any supercomputer encompasses. The human DNA model, when segments are spliced together, is six feet long with 13 billion pairs of letters in a “double helix” structure. The letters represent a code and direct construction of 30,000 proteins from 20 different amino acids, containing information equal to 200,000 telephone books.
b. How do you explain the evidence of design, as naturalists admit, without a Designer. The latter has been designated as The Blind Watchmaker (by Dawkins). He says in his book, “The universe produces an illusion of design,” but it is really random, purposeless.”
c. Is it more reasonable to suppose that “particles” or gases emanating inexplicably from nothing is more reasonable than a Designer (or God)?
3. What about the fossil record, the dinosaurs, the discovery of skull fragments in
a. If the fossil record proves evolution, there should be evidence of continuity in development at each step and any evidence of hierarchical organization. It’s all random, mindless, therefore essential disorganized, but does this exist? Theodosius Dobzhansky, a distinguished evolutionist (cited in the book What’s Darwin Got to Do With It?, by Robert C. Newman, John L. Wiester, Janet Moneymaker and Jonathan Moneymaker, InterVarsity Press) says that each major group of plants and animals developed hierarchically like a pyramid. Pyramids are built from bottom up. Phylum (a group that has a unity with a direct line of descent within) are built from the bottom down. Life is not a hodgepodge of plants and animals that appeared randomly if “natural selection” were the only process. The fossil record shows that these groups have been organized from the very onset, distinct from one another. One group is called vertebrates with a spinal cord and includes all animals from fish to amphibians to reptiles to mammals, including human beings. The other group is called invertebrates (insects, crabs, lobsters). There are 37 phyla, including worms, jelly fish, mollusks, and coral life. All have completely different body plans. There is clearly a discontinuity in this picture.
b. The second major characteristic of plants and animals is that each major group develops over time in a hierarchical manner, like a pyramid, not in some random way, according to Dobzhansky, an evolutionist. Hierarchical patterns develop among living things in which a major design scheme originates, followed by variations. The fossil record exhibits this hierarchical pattern. There is no necessity of attributing this pattern to undirected, naturalistic forces. The major group, or herd, is supposed by evolutionists to have split off, had mutations, and then the split-off segment rejoined the main group, leaving no fossil record. How convenient is the theoretic speculation! Thus evolution presumably proceeds step by step.
The problem with all this speculation is the relative rarity of transitional forms between groups. Stephen Gould called this “the trade secret of paleontology.” Why is it a secret? Because the fossil record is not good for evolution, despite propaganda to the contrary. New forms of life appear suddenly, already formed, followed by stasis. There are variations but not basic changes from the original forms. Evolution requires step-by-step, progressive changes, leading to new groups. The record does not support this. To deal with this problem, Gould, along with Niles Eldridge, developed a new theory called “punctuated equilibrium.” It proposed a shifting pattern of change which left no fossil record. So much for fossil evidence! It simply did not exist to prove the theory. It was improvable geologically. It replaced Darwinism (not largely laid aside) with New-Darwinism, a new explanation to replace the classic form. Evolutionists cheerfully accept this today as a way out of their dilemma.
Geologic Ages
There are various layers on earth which are defined according to supposed “geological ages.” The earliest of these ages (layers in which life is found in fossil form) is called the Cambrian Period. Pre-Cambrian life is debatable and unproved. For all practical purposes, Cambrian life evidence is all that is available. It originates in what is called “the Cambrian Explosion” (see Newman, Wiester, Moneymaker, and Moneymaker What’s
The point of all this explanation is to show how scientific theories do change; they are not facts. The facts of geology point to an explosion of apparently designed organisms, before which there was no life.
THEORIES ABOUT AN IMPERSONAL ORDER
Geo. Roche ( A World Without Heroes, 1987)
1. Universe is uncreated, eternally self-existent, accidental—that it has no purpose—and we have no purpose.
2. The Creator is impersonal—love, compassion, and care merely illusions—having no basis—or morality, justice, mercy
3. The Creator is contained within the universe—then the universe is the ultimate reality, supreme preeminence.
Agnostic (can’t or doesn’t know beliefs on origin of life).
Agnosticism – God’s existence cannot be known. Most eminent early proponent, Immanuel Kant, said, “It would be absurd to represent the Deity as passing into action with an infinitely small part of His being.” He infers a “Deity” with “infinite potency,” and insisted that he did believe in God. But on what basis does he infer his “if God is unknowable”? It was Kant who reasoned that an infinite universe gives rise to the possibility of an infinite number of random chances. Thus, even such improbably events as atoms self-assembling into human beings might be possible. Is this “the scientific method”?
Dr. Roche, a college president, says, “If the universe is simply uncreated, self-existent, or randomly self-assembled, then it has no purpose and consequently we have no purpose. Determinism rules. Morality and religion are ultimately irrelevant and there is no objective meaning to life.”
Dr. Albert Einstein in 1905 published his General Theory of Relativity. He later extended the theory beyond velocity effects to acceleration effects. His own worldview initially kept him from concluding that there is, in fact, a Beginner. He proposed a hypothetical force of physics that would cancel out the deceleration and expansion factors he enumerated. Astronomer Edwin Hubble soon proved that the galaxies were expanding away from each other (predicted by Einstein earlier). Confronted with this, “”Einstein gave grudging acceptance to the ‘necessity for a beginning’ and ‘the presence of a Superior Reasoning Power’” ( The Universe and Dr. Einstein by Lincoln Barnett). Einstein criticized the views of David Hume and Bertrand Russell for neglecting the connection between abstract ideas and the material world ( The Creation Hypothesis, J.P. Moreland, Editor).