First, a news story – and then we’ll see how the accelerating universe relates to the existence of God.
Excerpt:
Three astrophysicists who discovered that the universe’s expansion is accelerating rather than decelerating, as had been expected, win the Nobel Prize in physics.
Adam Riess was sure he’d spotted a blatant error in his results. It was 1997, and the young post-doc’s measurements of distant, exploding stars implied that the universe was expanding at a faster and faster rate, instead of slowing down, as he had expected.
It wasn’t an error at all. Instead, what was at fault were some basic assumptions about the workings of the universe.
On Tuesday, the Johns Hopkins University astrophysicist received the Nobel Prize in physics for the revolutionary discovery and its implications, along with team leader Brian Schmidt of Australian National University and astrophysicist Saul Perlmutter of UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who had reached the same conclusion independently.
At the time of their work, astrophysicists believed that the rate of expansion of the universe — set in motion by the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago — would be slowing down as matter was pulled together by gravity. The goal at the time was to figure out how rapid the deceleration was.
What the two teams found instead was that the expansion of the universe was accelerating — an observation that could best be explained by the existence of a mysterious “dark energy” that pushes matter farther and farther apart.
Many scientists had thought that, just as the universe started with the Big Bang, it would end with a Big Crunch — with gravity pulling all the matter in the universe inward.
Does anyone remember that week that I wrote those posts about “Why I am not a… <insert some religion here>”? I explained why I was not all kinds of different religions and denominations, including Roman Catholicism, Calvinism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, etc. Everyone was offended and we fought about it. Ah, I remember it well.
Now let’s apply science to the Hindu religion and see if they go together, especially this new discovery about the expansion of the universe.
Why I am not a Hindu
- Hindu cosmology teaches that the universe cycles between creation and destruction, through infinite time.
- The closest cosmological model conforming to Hindu Scriptures is the eternally “oscillating” model of the universe.
- The “oscillating” model requires that the universe exist eternally into the past.
- But the evidence today shows the the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the big bang.
- The “oscillating” model requires that the expansion of the universe reverse into a collapse, (= crunch).
- In 1998, the discovery of the year was that the universe would expand forever. There will be no crunch.
- Therefore, the oscillating model is disconfirmed by observations.
- The oscillating model also faces theoretical problems with the “bounce” mechanism.
So that’s one reason why I am not a Hindu. And now we have more scientific confirmation that there is no cycle of universes coming into being and going out of being.
The absolute origin of the universe out of nothing is also incompatible with Buddhism and Mormonism and maybe other religions. They also require an eternally existing universe.
And modern cosmology disagrees with atheism, too
I think it’s important for all of you to be familiar with the scientific evidence for the Big Bang. It will help you with your cosmological argument, and it will help you to refute many, many other religions that require eternal universes, including atheism.
I wrote about how the Big Bang cosmology falsifies atheism before.
Excerpt:
According to the Secular Humanist Manifesto, atheism is committed to an eternally existing universe, (See the first item: “Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.”). If something non-material brought all existing matter into being, that would be a supernatural cause, and atheists deny that anything supernatural exists. The standard Big Bang theory requires that all the matter in the universe come into being out of nothing. The Big Bang has been confirmed by experimental evidence such as redshift measurements, light element abundances and the cosmic microwave background radiation. This falsifies eternal models of the universe, which are required by atheist Scriptures.
The experimental evidence that confirms the Big Bang creation out of nothing falsifies many worldviews. Those who care about evidence will have to choose some other religion that is compatible with what we know from science today.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
This was very helpful to me in my evangelistic outreach – I did not make the connection to Hinduism (or lack of connection) – thank you, WK!
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The big bang doesn’t permit many religions. It is solid evidence as you stated to falsify all but a few religions.
And as Christians we claim the judeo faith creator so it removes the best other option because we are the fulfillment or promise of the Hebrew faith
Even the massive size of the universe requires a powerful God. It is not a little Zeus or eastern God that can mane a universe of such incredible scale. It required a powerful omnipotent God where making a universe like we see was a trivial act power wise.
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WK, do you have any articles explaining why you think Catholicism and Calvinism are not Christianity? What about Orthodox?
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What!!!!!
Just because I am not Calvinist (entirely) that doesn’t mean that I think they are not Christians. I only ever read Calvinist theologians, because they are conservative.
My views that differ with Calvinism are not very different from Calvinism:
http://freethinkingministries.com/a-molinistic-model-of-monergism/
As far as Catholicism, I wouldn’t say that everyone who claims to be Catholic isn’t a Christian, but it’s pretty clear to me that they’ve gone away from Biblical Christianity, so I personally wouldn’t be one.
There are some splendid Catholics I read and admire on many points, not the least of which are Jay Richards and Jennifer Roback Morse. John Zmirak is awesome on nearly everything. Ryan Anderson on marriage. Robert George and Christopher Kaczor on pro-life issues. Michael Behe on intelligent design.
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I’m of the same mindset as you are on Calvinism and Catholicism. One thing I will say in favor of Catholicism is that their Sanctity of Life and Sanctity of Marriage line up better with the Bible and science than any other denomination, IMO. I think the laity are weak on the Bible and are poorly catechized, however, but that is changing for the better.
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IMHO and FWIW (which is very little) Calvinism seems to make the most sense based on what we know about the world and universe. (Although I am not a practicing Calvinist). I don’t even play one on TV.
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Here’s my view, pretty close to Calvinism, but avoids all the problems:
http://freethinkingministries.com/a-molinistic-model-of-monergism/
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I go by authority of scripture before any claim to a school of theology. Argue from biblical text, the original language, the context of the scripture or society if you disagree on a view of scripture but it has to be based upon coming to a correct understanding of what the scripture says.
Pure catholicism has had error introduced though the years. You can be a Christian and catholic but I agree I wouldn’t want to be in the church. Also it just seems way to dull for my liking too, and that isn’t a theological issue just pwn personal taste.
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I attend a Catholic church in my area fairly regularly, because it is the best pro-life church by far out of about 200 churches. A couple of things I will say in favor of Catholicism, while not being able to cross that line, are that the services are more reverent and holiness-seeking than a lot of worship-group style churches, which can come across more concert-like. Their hymns are quite beautiful, and there is also an element of “marching into spiritual warfare” that exists in their services that does not exist in most non-Catholic churches.
Along those lines, I have noticed that priests who come out to our sidewalk are completely unsurprised by the demonic warfare that they witness. But, non-Catholic pastors who come out are blown away and almost never return. (The exceptions make the rule.) So, along with the Sanctity of Life and Marriage and the more reverent worship atmosphere, I think we should add the superior preparation for spiritual warfare to the things we can learn from really strong Catholics (not the many nominal or cultural ones).
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The Catholic Church can change and has a lot through the years. They tend to make changes more slowly which today may be a good trait with the wackiness we see in the world.
The old ideas of the pope next to godlike authority, the people can’t read the Bible at all and have to listed to leaders alone to interpret it, etc are less than they used to be.
No church has full truth. A bad church leader can lead the people astray with too much power. But there is nothing biblical about congregational power and the ideas of the people drive what the ministry does or if pastors stay.
Any system can have good or bad points. No check to powers is when the main issues come in and it doesn’t seem like the Catholic church has ultimate unchecked power
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Indeed. The Catholic Church was ahead of its time, and the clear science, on abortion and contraception, and the Catholic laity are holding this Pope’s lost-in-translation issues to the fire.
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Did anyone read my why I am not a Catholic post?
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Yes, it was really good, and I agree with it – those are the same reasons I am not a Catholic.
That doesn’t mean that there is NOTHING to admire in Catholicism.
BTW, I just saw this and immediately thought of you: https://babylonbee.com/news/congregation-prays-graduating-senior-be-protected-from-basic-secular-arguments-they-never-bothered-to-prepare-her-for/
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I shared it in the blog’s Facebook page, it was so good. Everyone is saying that it’s true though, not satire. I agree, this is pretty normal for Evangelical Christian churches, sadly. People want to feel good, and it’s all me me me me my feelings my desires me me me.
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It is 100% true and sadly so!
And don’t even get me started on the silence from the pulpit on abortion.
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