by Steven Gledhill for FREEdom from MEdom Project
You see, I have no problem with the ‘big bang’ theory of how things came to be. “Let there be light…” Then… BOOM! Something (or someone) instantly, within trillionths of seconds according to the science, blew stars and galaxies into what became the ever-expanding universe and then, well… “there was light.”
Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light… Genesis 1:3 (NLT)
“We have for the first time a detection for the mythical gravity wave signal that people have been searching for so hard, for so long.” —Clem Pryke, associate professor at the University of Minnesota
The heavens are telling of the glory of God;
And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Psalm 19:1 (NASB)
“Inflation is the theory about the ‘bang’ of Big Bang… It explains why we have all this stuff in the universe.” —Chao-Lin Kuo, assistant professor of physics at Stanford and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
If you are dependent on the field of evolutionary science to understand the origins of the universe and what evolved into life, what will you do with mounting scientific evidence suggesting that the big bang was not the “steady state” of an ever-expanding universe that for decades has been the prevailing opinion of how it all happened? What if that mounting evidence—the new discovery of traces of gravity waves—now suggests the likelihood that something from the “outside” of the big bang caused it to occur… faster than the speed of light… something closer to instantly? Would less than a second—perhaps as little as a trillionth of a second—be considered instantly?
“Certainly everything in the universe that we see now, at one time before inflation, was smaller than an electron. And then it expanded during inflation at faster than the speed of light.“ —Kent Irwin, Stanford physicist
Scientists have studied and continue to study a theory they refer to as inflation to explain the discovery of gravitational waves that “ripped apart space” faster than the speed of light on the space-time continuum that banged throughout the universe in an instant. This theory was predicted decades ago by Albert Einstein as part of his theory of relativity. Scientists today are amazed that he may have been onto something even then. There is now a discovery process with the BICEP2 telescope that one scientist suggested may be the “smoking gun” (Marc Kamionkowski, professor of physics and astronomy) for the gravitational waves hypothesized by Einstein.
“Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover… That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.” —Robert Jastrow, astronomer and physicist, founded NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, author of God and the Astronomers
“A Creator must exist. The Big Bang ripples and subsequent scientific findings are clearly pointing to an ex nihilo creation consistent with the first few verses of the book of Genesis.” —Henry “Fritz” Schaefer, five-time Nobel Prize nominee, professor of chemistry, and director of the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry, University of Georgia, as cited in What Your Atheist Professor Doesn’t Know (But Should), by Stephen Williams
According to Dr. Irwin, the gravitational waves, suggested by the BICEP2 discovery, would have expanded across the entirety of the universe at that time. He reported that the length of one of these waves—the distance between the peaks and troughs in the wave—would have extended billions of light years across in less than a second. He actually said “in a trillionth of a second,” but come on… who’s going to believe that, even if the math doesn’t lie? Do you have any idea what “billions of light years” represents? Do you want to know how many miles are in one light year? Ready? One light year consists of 5.88 trillion miles. (One light-second consists of more than 186,000 miles.) Gravitational waves jettison through space at billions of light years per second? Can you possibly begin to rap your mind around that? It is remarkable that science is unearthing, so to speak (pun intended), revelations that may actually support the creationist approach to instant light if the universe banged through space into existence… instantly.
“The remarkable discovery of ripples in the space-time fabric of the universe rocked the world of science—and the world of religion.
Touted as evidence for inflation (a faster-than-the-speed-of-light expansion of our universe), the new discovery of traces of gravity waves affirms scientific concepts in the fields of cosmology, general relativity, and particle physics.
The new discovery also has significant implications for the Judeo-Christian worldview, offering strong support for biblical beliefs.
The prevalent theory of cosmic origins prior to the Big Bang theory was the “Steady State,” which argued that the universe has always existed, without a beginning that necessitated a cause.
However, this new evidence strongly suggests that there was a beginning to our universe.
If the universe did indeed have a beginning, by the simple logic of cause and effect, there had to be an agent – separate and apart from the effect – that caused it.” —Leslie Wickman, former Director, Center for Research in Science at Azusa Pacific University, and engineer for Lockheed Martin Missiles & Space, where she worked on NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and International Space Station programs
Context changes everything. You have these black holes the size of millions of suns spinning at light speeds simultaneously orbiting around each other at a hundred times per second, while on the move through space, generating gravitational forces, rippling through the universe. It’s happening so far away that astronomers are saying that the light image captured by the Hubble telescope may be over 13 billion years old.
How and why does that happen? It’s beyond anything I can imagine. Yet, it’s real.
How about you? How fast are you moving right this second?
We travel around the world almost 25,000 miles every day. To get around in 24 hours we’re spinning at about 1000 miles per hour. For the earth to get around the sun in a years, it’s flying at about 67,000 mph. The sun, along with the entire solar system, is moving in the milky way at roughly one-half million mph, or 135 miles per second. In the blink of an eye, you were transported some 10-20 miles while spinning like a top.
I’m not making any of this up. We are flying at unimaginable speeds. Do you feel it? Feeling dizzy? Gravity holds it all together. So long as we’re not feeling affected, who cares, really?
If it was God that is responsible for the creation of the universe and the life therein, did he do it in six days before he rested? Well, what does that even mean in the first place? Was time at all relevant before the earth turned on its axis in a day’s time, while simultaneously orbiting around the sun with barely any variation in its distance from it as it makes its way around every year? If there was and is a creator (commonly known as God), has God ever been bound by time, or limited by anything at all? Wouldn’t God be the originator of time? It’s more likely that there were various stages in the evolutionary advances of the universe, as well as life as we know it on earth or anywhere life might exist.
It very well may have occurred over the course of 14 billion years as speculated by some of the most intelligent, curious minds to ever grace the planet. It just so happens that their discoveries are no accident. There’s been a sovereign creator at the helm from the beginning, gifting his creation with the genius to begin putting this puzzle together piece by piece. While there has been progress, there are still so many holes to fill, it’s a never-ending project. If the puzzle is to ever to solved and make any sense, science cannot discard all of those pieces that display God’s hand in the operation from the beginning.
“Another source of conviction in the existence of God, connected with the reason and not with the feelings, impresses me as having much more weight. This follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.” —Charles Darwin, the founder of evolutionary biology, as quoted in his autobiography
Were there dinosaurs and prehistoric mammals walking upright before the days of the first civilized human beings as identified in the Bible and the rest of the literature? Of course, there is archeological evidence of prehistoric life in museums and relics around the world, and there is likely a great deal more to be discovered. It’s silly to dispense of Christianity because its historical manuscripts speak of “days” in its narrative to account for various stages of the genesis of the universe and life on earth.
“The fanatical atheists are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who – in their grudge against traditional religion as the ‘opium of the masses’ – cannot hear the music of the spheres. Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” —Albert Einstein
Understand that both of these “theories”, random evolution and intentional creation, require a degree of faith. I simply find it more reasonable to wrap my mind around the reality of an eternal creator. If that makes me the fool, then so be it. If I’ve somehow missed it believing in God, I’ve lost nothing. But if God is alive, and is loving and gracious, then I have everything to gain believing that. Please understand that truth is not subjective. It is what it is. One way or the other, truth is truth whether I believe it or not.
“One way to learn the mind of the Creator is to study His creation. We must pay God the compliment of studying His work of art and this should apply to all realms of human thought. A refusal to use our intelligence honestly is an act of contempt for Him who gave us that intelligence.” —Ernest Walton, physicist, 1951 Nobel Prize in physics for his “atom smashing” experiments done at Cambridge University in the early 1930s, and so became the first person in history to artificially split the atom
God always existed. I’m not going to debate who or what God is here. Some will read this that have different names for God. I’m not getting into that much either. God made you and God made me. God is the creator of all things. Even if that means that God came up with the recipe that includes the ingredients that when stirred together in the pot, stirred up the evolution of all things.
Truth’s Innocence
If the genesis of life in its gazillions of forms began with God, then God is life. God is all about good, and right, and best. So why do bad things happen on every level of existence? It’s not for me to say? Those who deny the existence of God because God allows bad things to happen, miss the point. What if God was demanding and tortured anyone who denied their ruler? How many would bow to God frightened to death for their lives?
Why is it that children have the easiest time believing in God? Is it because they’re naive and will believe anything since they are so easily persuaded? Children don’t accept the possibility of God because they fear hell. Children don’t believe in God because they want heaven, either. Children don’t really comprehend heaven and hell. They typically don’t believe in God for what they get out of it. So why, then?
“I’m not an atheist, and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.” —Albert Einstein, cited in Antony Flew’s book, There Is A God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind
I have a very young nephew that loves going to church with his grandmother, and talks of loving Jesus. He prays to Jesus—whom my nephew equates to being God—in front of his unbelieving father and mother. My nephew doesn’t know that his parents do not believe what he believes. His parents will tell you that Jesus is a well-constructed fairy tale. My nephew knows what a fairy tale is. He knows that Santa Claus is a fairy tale. God isn’t. He’s seen Santa Claus at the shopping mall. Today, he knows that shopping-mall Santa is just a guy. My nephew has never seen God. Yet he thanks God for provisions and asks protection for those he loves. But he doesn’t ask God for stuff. He asks providing adults for stuff. But my nephew surely believes in God… quite enthusiastically, I might add. So why, then?
What if children believe because they are innocent? Children are not ridden with guilt. They’re not ashamed. They don’t have reason to believe that the so-called nature of God is to condemn them to hell. There is a certain purity in their belief and, dare I say, faith in God. Kids are commonly confident in their belief in God; compelled in their belief, as though they’re in on something the rest aren’t as sure of. And since that induces discomfort in the adults they’re with, they’re ridden off as naive and gullible. Give the kids time; they’ll grow out of it.
When children fall away is when they have lost their innocence, and have been swayed to fear God, rather than embrace their faith in God as they once did. They grow up and become prone to doubting that God loves them. These kids get hurt by religious adults the they have come to know to be hypocrites. Should children have it repeated to them—especially by adults that claim to believe in the same God they believe in—that they are guilty of this and that, these kids tend to develop that profound feeling of shame to the point they are convinced that God cannot love them. As they rebel in their shame in an attempt to protect themselves, they often misguidedly reject what they’ve believed in about people, and what they’ve believed about God.
Adolescent kids typically don’t care about the origins of life and such when they tell me they don’t believe in God. They have rejected the idea of the God that allows bad things to happen to good people and condemns people to hell. These young people have been betrayed and scorned by love. Why put any confidence in a belief in God when they have moved away from believing in love at all?
But then I ask them, “If you don’t believe in God, what do you believe in?”
Most of these older kids I interact with professionally have not really contemplated that.
These adolescent minds are back to needing something they can sink their teeth into; back to struggling to believe in a God they cannot see. They want tangible proof. It is then incumbent on me to apply reason and sensibility to break through emotionally-charged objections that fuel their doubt. So I again point to things they really do not see but see rather see the evidence of that feeds their understanding, and begins to make some sense.
Blind Trust
How have you experienced what you have not seen? How might you explain what you understand about the experience?
No one has seen warmth with their eyes, nor heard it with their ears, but we have known warmth from within, having felt it; having experienced it. How is warmth experienced? Is warmth experienced physically? Is warmth experienced psychologically… emotionally?
How do you know that you have experienced warmth? Warmth can be comforting, whether physically or emotionally. Warmth can be applied to a sense of acceptance and belonging, and is, therefore, inviting. When experienced physically, warmth can feel good, or feel burdensome (too warm). While warmth is known to be experienced on so many levels often not easily explained, one knows that they’ve had the experience. Warmth, or the absence of it, can have a life-changing effect. While you may not always be able to describe it, warmth is an experience you have come to know, pursue, and even rely on.
You have not seen or heard compassion, but you have experienced compassion. You have known compassion from within. The same can be said for mercy and love. You don’t see it. You don’t hear it. You experience it. From what you have experienced, it is known to you. When you experience love and mercy, it’s more than a feeling. It’s effects can be compelling; profound even, drawing you in. It’s as though you cannot help but to be grateful, and to respond in kind. Warmth, compassion, love, mercy, and generosity are experiences that are genuine and immeasurable—priceless—and when experienced, are undeniable.
“Recently I have gone back to church regularly with a new focus to understand as best I can what it is that makes Christianity so vital and powerful in the lives of billions of people today, even though almost 2000 years have passed since the death and resurrection of Christ. Although I suspect I will never fully understand, I now think the answer is very simple: it’s true. God did create the universe about 13.7 billion years ago, and of necessity has involved Himself with His creation ever since. The purpose of this universe is something that only God knows for sure, but it is increasingly clear to modern science that the universe was exquisitely fine-tuned to enable human life. We are somehow critically involved in His purpose. Our job is to sense that purpose as best we can, love one another, and help Him get that job done.” —Richard Smalley (2005), winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Having come to know God in my experience, I am able to interact in relationship with God. Billions of people through history lay claim to that. People pray to God and experience God’s response to their prayer. Sometimes, God’s response to their prayer is extraordinary, other-worldly, miraculous, and certainly beyond explanation. That’s been my undeniable experience.
Then I will ask them, “If God didn’t always exist, what did?” I work to wiggle into what they care about and try to get them to care about that question. They usually do.
If God made them and loves them, has every resource there is to bless them, would they want that? If God’s love could replace what hurts, would they want that?
At some point then, like everyone else, they get to choose. With young people, once slipping past those emotional objections, the intellectual choice to believe in the possibilities around believing in God are not quite as challenging.
Because God is love, and God is life, and God has afforded all people the choice to make up their own minds, we as a people (at least for now) get away with denying God. Because we are selfish and choose selfishly to benefit ourselves, we make poor, bad, foolish, unhealthy, destructive choices. Then, when the outcomes of our entitled behavior affect us adversely, and ripple through one another until they are permanently embedded into our social reality, we cannot blame ourselves. We blame God. And for now, get away with that because God loves and will not hold us responsible.
God sent a sacrifice to cover the debt owed to one another for our selfishness against ourselves and each other. God loves us with so much compassion and mercy that God has carved a path out of our mess and built for us a bridge back into his generous favor. Anyone that believes in the treasures of paradise on the other side of the bridge hesitates not in crossing. That’s all I am going to say about that, here.
“That our idea of God corresponds as nearly as possible to the true being of God is of immense importance to us… where it is inadequate or out of plumb the whole structure must sooner or later collapse.” —A.W. Tozer
Acceptance in the reality of God tends to lie in the perception of who and what God is. If God embodies the sovereign standard throughout the universe, and God is loving and accepting of me, then I am all in with God. If God is judging me, critical of what I want and do, why would I want anything to do with God? A predatory, condemning God is not good for me. I am not at all comfortable with that. That God is a taker of life and must not exist. But… hmm… What if God accepts and loves me, and judges and opposes things that I do when I do not live up to his standard; yet is compassionate, merciful, a giver of life, and remains generously favorable towards me? What then?
“To me it is unthinkable that a real atheist could be a scientist… Religion and science, then, in my analysis are the two great sister forces which have pulled, and are still pulling, mankind onward and upward.” –—Robert Andrews Millikan, 1923 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the elementary charge of electricity, and on the photoelectric effect
“If God didn’t always exist then, well… what did?” continues with Why Heaven AND Hell?
