Prior to certain scientific discoveries, most people thought that the universe had always been here, and no need to ask who or what may have caused it. But today, that’s all changed. Today, the standard model of the origin of the universe is that all the matter and energy in the universe came into being in an event scientists call “The Big Bang”. At the creation event, space and time themselves began to exist, and there is no material reality that preceded them.
So a couple of quotes to show that.
An initial cosmological singularity… forms a past temporal extremity to the universe. We cannot continue physical reasoning, or even the concept of spacetime, through such an extremity… On this view the big bang represents the creation event; the creation not only of all the matter and energy in the universe, but also of spacetime itself.
Source: P. C. W. Davies, “Spacetime Singularities in Cosmology,” in The Study of Time III, ed. J. T. Fraser (Berlin: Springer Verlag ).
And another quote:
[A]lmost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the big bang.
Source: Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, The Nature of Space and Time, The Isaac Newton Institute Series of Lectures (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 20.
So, there are several scientific discoveries that led scientists to accept the creation event, and one of the most interesting and famous is the discovery of how elements heavier than hydrogen were formed.
Nucleosynthesis: forming heavier elements by fusion
The term nucleosynthesis refers to the formation of heavier elements, atomic nuclei with many protons and neutrons, from the fusion of lighter elements. The Big Bang theory predicts that the early universe was a very hot place. One second after the Big Bang, the temperature of the universe was roughly 10 billion degrees and was filled with a sea of neutrons, protons, electrons, anti-electrons (positrons), photons and neutrinos. As the universe cooled, the neutrons either decayed into protons and electrons or combined with protons to make deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen). During the first three minutes of the universe, most of the deuterium combined to make helium. Trace amounts of lithium were also produced at this time. This process of light element formation in the early universe is called “Big Bang nucleosynthesis” (BBN).
The creation hypothesis predicts that there will be specific amounts of these light elements formed as the universe cools down. Do the predictions match with observations?
Yes they do:
The predicted abundance of deuterium, helium and lithium depends on the density of ordinary matter in the early universe, as shown in the figure at left. These results indicate that the yield of helium is relatively insensitive to the abundance of ordinary matter, above a certain threshold. We generically expect about 24% of the ordinary matter in the universe to be helium produced in the Big Bang. This is in very good agreement with observations and is another major triumph for the Big Bang theory.
Moreover, WMAP satellite measurements of mass density agree with our observations of these light element abundances.
Here are the observations from the WMAP satellite:
Scientific observations match predictions
And here is how those WMAP measurements confirm the Big Bang creation event:
However, the Big Bang model can be tested further. Given a precise measurement of the abundance of ordinary matter, the predicted abundances of the other light elements becomes highly constrained. The WMAP satellite is able to directly measure the ordinary matter density and finds a value of 4.6% (±0.2%), indicated by the vertical red line in the graph. This leads to predicted abundances shown by the circles in the graph, which are in good agreement with observed abundances. This is an important and detailed test of nucleosynthesis and is further evidence in support of the Big Bang theory.
“An important and detailed test”.
For completeness, we should learn how elements heavier than these light elements are formed:
Elements heavier than lithium are all synthesized in stars. During the late stages of stellar evolution, massive stars burn helium to carbon, oxygen, silicon, sulfur, and iron. Elements heavier than iron are produced in two ways: in the outer envelopes of super-giant stars and in the explosion of a supernovae. All carbon-based life on Earth is literally composed of stardust.
That’s a wonderful thing to tell a young lady when you are on a date: “your body is made of stardust”. In fact, as I have argued before, this star formation, which creates the elements necessary for intelligent life, can only be built if the fundamental constants and quantities in the universe are finely-tuned.
Now, you would think that atheists would be happy to find observations that confirm the origin of the universe out of nothing, but they are not. Actually, they are in denial.
Here’s a statement from the Secular Humanist Manifesto, which explains what atheists believe about the universe:
Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.
For a couple of examples of how atheistic scientists respond to the evidence for a cosmic beginning, you can check out this post, where we get responses from cosmologist Lawrence Krauss, and physical chemist Peter Atkins.
You cannot have the creation of the universe be true AND a self-existing, eternal universe ALSO be true. Someone has to be wrong. Either the science is wrong, or the atheist manifesto is wrong. I know where I stand.
Prior to certain scientific discoveries, most people thought that the universe had always been here, and no need to ask who or what may have caused it. But today, that’s all changed. Today, the standard model of the origin of the universe is that all the matter and energy in the universe came into being in an event scientists call “The Big Bang”. At the creation event, space and time themselves began to exist, and there is no material reality that preceded them.
So a couple of quotes to show that.
An initial cosmological singularity… forms a past temporal extremity to the universe. We cannot continue physical reasoning, or even the concept of spacetime, through such an extremity… On this view the big bang represents the creation event; the creation not only of all the matter and energy in the universe, but also of spacetime itself.
Source: P. C. W. Davies, “Spacetime Singularities in Cosmology,” in The Study of Time III, ed. J. T. Fraser (Berlin: Springer Verlag ).
And another quote:
[A]lmost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the big bang.
Source: Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, The Nature of Space and Time, The Isaac Newton Institute Series of Lectures (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 20.
So, there are several scientific discoveries that led scientists to accept the creation event, and one of the most interesting and famous is the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation.
Bell Labs radio astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were using a large horn antenna in 1964 and 1965 to map signals from the Milky Way, when they serendipitously discovered the CMB. As written in the citation, “This unexpected discovery, offering strong evidence that the universe began with the Big Bang, ushered in experimental cosmology.” Penzias and Wilson shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978 in honor of their findings.
The CMB is “noise” leftover from the creation of the Universe. The microwave radiation is only 3 degrees above Absolute Zero or -270 degrees C,1 and is uniformly perceptible from all directions. Its presence demonstrates that that our universe began in an extremely hot and violent explosion, called the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago.
In 1960, Bell Labs built a 20-foot horn-shaped antenna in Holmdel, NJ to be used with an early satellite system called Echo. The intention was to collect and amplify radio signals to send them across long distances, but within a few years, another satellite was launched and Echo became obsolete.2
With the antenna no longer tied to commercial applications, it was now free for research. Penzias and Wilson jumped at the chance to use it to analyze radio signals from the spaces between galaxies.3 But when they began to employ it, they encountered a persistent “noise” of microwaves that came from every direction. If they were to conduct experiments with the antenna, they would have to find a way to remove the static.
Penzias and Wilson tested everything they could think of to rule out the source of the radiation racket. They knew it wasn’t radiation from the Milky Way or extraterrestrial radio sources. They pointed the antenna towards New York City to rule out “urban interference”, and did analysis to dismiss possible military testing from their list.4
Then they found droppings of pigeons nesting in the antenna. They cleaned out the mess and tried removing the birds and discouraging them from roosting, but they kept flying back. “To get rid of them, we finally found the most humane thing was to get a shot gun…and at very close range [we] just killed them instantly. It’s not something I’m happy about, but that seemed like the only way out of our dilemma,” said Penzias.5 “And so the pigeons left with a smaller bang, but the noise remained, coming from every direction.”6
At the same time, the two astronomers learned that Princeton University physicist Robert Dicke had predicted that if the Big Bang had occurred, there would be low level radiation found throughout the universe. Dicke was about to design an experiment to test this hypothesis when he was contacted by Penzias. Upon hearing of Penzias’ and Wilson’s discovery, Dicke turned to his laboratory colleagues and said “well boys, we’ve been scooped.”7
Although both groups published their results in Astrophysical Journal Letters, only Penzias and Wilson received the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the CMB.
The horn antenna was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990. Its significance in fostering a new appreciation for the field of cosmology and a better understanding of our origins can be summed up by the following: “Scientists have labeled the discovery [of the CMB] the greatest scientific discovery of the 20th century.”8
It’s the greatest scientific discovery of the 20th century.
In the New York Times, Arno Penzias commented on his discovery – the greatest discovery of the 20th century – so:
The best data we have [concerning the Big Bang] are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the bible as a whole.
Just one problem with the greatest scientific discovery of the 20th century: atheists don’t accept it. Why not?
Here’s a statement from the Secular Humanist Manifesto, which explains what atheists believe about the universe:
Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.
For a couple of examples of how atheistic scientists respond to the evidence for a cosmic beginning, you can check out this post, where we get responses from cosmologist Lawrence Krauss, and physical chemist Peter Atkins.
You cannot have the creation of the universe be true AND a self-existing, eternal universe ALSO be true. Someone has to be wrong. Either the science is wrong, or the atheist manifesto is wrong. I know where I stand.
I saw a couple of articles that I wanted to share with you. The first one is by Christian apologist Larry Taunton, who writes about which progressive Christians to ignore during elections. The second article is by Dr. James White, and he writes about why we shouldn’t listen to progressive Christians like John Piper, who aren’t able to perceive how progressivism threatens liberty.
I have been reflecting on the lessons of the Nazi occupation of Western Europe and those who did and didn’t collaborate with them for the simple fact that we are, unquestionably, witnessing the occupation of America’s public and private institutions by a homegrown enemy that hates America and all that it represents. After all, what is a General Milley if not the modern-day equivalent of Vidkun Quisling?
America’s conservative collaborators are those who have, for reasons that are not always clear, lent their platforms, sympathies, and intellectual support to the Radical Left if only by their unrelenting attacks on (mostly) red state conservatives who dared defy them and vote for Trump.
Tim Keller, who makes our list, has said that we must meet with “practitioners” of Marxism so that we might understand them. I have much preferred to meet with their victims. Our (adopted) daughter Sasha is one of them. Her life bears the unmistakable scars of that godless worldview. That Keller and Russell Moore (who also makes our list) would suggest—be it knowingly, naively, or only mildly—that such a murderous system has some resonance in Scripture, and Keller most certainly has, or that it is a “manufactured controversy” as Moore contends, is an intolerable outrage that must not go unchallenged.
He spends some time looking at the the work of the secularists and socialists from the other side. That is to say, he looks at the victims.
Here’s his list of the people who collaborate with the secular left:
Tim Keller
George W. Bush
Beth Moore
Russell Moore
Bill Kristol
David French
He’s got articles on each one, linked at the bottom of the post.
This one on David French has a wonderful concluding paragraph, which will be recognized by those who have seen the famous movie “The Bridge on the River Kwai”:
One senses that French has gone so far in his Never Trumpism that he simply can’t turn back. That has put him in the intellectually untenable position of blaming the debacle in Afghanistan on the American people instead of the Biden administration; justifying lockdowns, vaccine passports, General Mark Milley’s insubordination if not outright treason; denying his belief in “generational white guilt” while lending his support to a kind of “institutional racism” that ends in generational white guilt; and, perhaps most bizarrely, he attacks opponents of Critical Race Theory, an idea rooted in Marxism which is, in turn, atheistic to the core.
[…]David French’s collaboration is that of Alec Guinness’s Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai, priding himself on the preservation of his principles and good manners as he aids the enemy in the building of a vital bridge that will enable them to continue to kill his fellow countrymen. One wonders, however, if he’ll ever have Nicholson’s revelation:
“What have I done?”
I really recommend you read the article, and the linked articles on each collaborator at the bottom. This is actually the most important lesson of the 2020 election. Millions of Christians trusted progressive Christians to tell them who to vote for. The progressive Christians focused on Trump’s mean tweets, and ignored all the wins in fiscally policy, social policy and foreign policy. Wins that were documented by people who are concerned with the effects of POLICY, rather than with VIRTUE SIGNALING. People like the Susan B. Anthony List – a leading pro-life group that specializes in policy and law. Learning about specific actions and policies was too much work for low-intelligence people like Beth Moore and Russell Moore. Easier to read tweets, and virtue signal off of them.
Dr. Piper completely missed the reality of the connection of the governmentally mandated, “take these or lose your job, your business, your freedom, your children, your life” vaccines and the rest of the current rush into global secular totalitarianism. How can this not be a part of one’s calculations? We all know this jab will not be the end of the series. The “boosters” are already being administered. Once one submits to the first in the series, upon what basis does one object to the next, and the next? Upon what basis do we define “public health emergencies” in the future? The CDC has already, at the very same time they are in control of our lives and livelihoods regarding C0vid, proclaimed the use of transgender pronouns a “public health” issue.
It is undeniable that the vaccines are not a solo issue. They are coming to us after mask mandates and church closures and pastoral imprisonments and before the next onerous demands from governments drunk on the power that inevitably comes from the rise of secularism. The secular state is far worse than the ancient pagan context of Rome (which was bad enough), for by its very definition it must be ultimate in all things as there is no Creator.
Why Piper does not see the role the vaccines play in the overall demands of the newly empowered totalitarianism I cannot say, but it is not the first time he has missed the role a particular element plays in the whole. Mean, arrogant tweets are, in the overall scheme of things, significantly less important than the fact that the Biden regime is intent upon forcing your children to celebrate drag queens and likewise just as intent upon taking control of every aspect of your life to force you to live in denial of the lordship of Christ.
What Piper has missed, badly, is the role these vaccinations play in a much bigger, much more basic movement into a technologically based, chemically and medically controlled secular totalitarianism. That elephant is intent upon staying, and until we are all intent upon removing him from the living room, he will continue to create soul-destroying havoc for all. Oh that John Piper would stop examining the tip of one of his tusks and help us all with the bigger issue.
Previously, I wrote about Dr. Wayne Grudem’s response to John Piper. Dr. Grudem is my favorite theologian. He wrote some things that are routinely ignored by progressive Christians:
[I]f Democrats gain control of our government and the Supreme Court, and enact their desired policies, no Christian taxpayer will be free to say, “I refuse to pay that portion of my taxes that the government is using to pay for abortions.” No business owner will be free to say, “I will not buy medical insurance for my employees that pays for abortions and sex-change surgeries.” There will be only two choices: violate your conscience or else be driven to bankruptcy or go to jail.
[…]Donald Trump is not the only person we are voting for. It is remarkable that the Trump administration has elevated so many self-professing evangelical Christians – far more than any in my lifetime – into positions of high influence in our government. They also provide role models for Americans. To vote for Trump as president is also to vote for Mike Pence as vice president, Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State, Ben Carson as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, Russell Vought as director of the Office of Management and Budget, and numerous others.
[….]A presidential election is not deciding what is most important in all of life, which is certainly our relationship with Christ. Paul writes, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. (Phil. 3:8). A presidential election is simply choosing the leaders of our government. In such a situation, the primary purpose is to decide what kind of government we will have, and in that situation policies and laws are not the only consideration, but they are the most important consideration.
Conservatives keep reading things like this and saying “well, I’m going to vote the right way”. But we need to share these articles so that a majority of people vote the right way. That’s how we win elections. And we can’t afford to lose another one in 2024. The stakes are too high. Next time, we have to make sure that everyone – not just us, but everyone – understands the cost of listening to the pious progressive “Christian” leaders. Next time, we really have to focus on policies and results. Not on tweets and virtue signaling. Christianity is a truth-centered religion. It’s not some tool for narcissistic people to pick up and use to gain applause.
WINTERY KNIGHT 