Polemics

How the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation falsified atheism

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Christianity and the progress of science
Christianity and the progress of science

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.

Here’s the history of how that discovery happened, from the American Physical Society web site:

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.

Positive arguments for Christian theism

Polemics

Jay Richards answers the objection “Who Designed the Designer?”

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Christianity and the progress of science
Christianity and the progress of science

So I have presented the evidence for a cosmic beginning and for cosmic fine-tuning many times to atheists, going slowly over the history of cosmology and astrobiology, pointing out the discoveries that led all the science-accepting grown-ups to accept the Big Bang cosmology and the cosmic fine-tuning.

A couple of examples of evidence for the cosmic beginning: cosmic microwave background radiation and nuclesosynthesis.

And some examples of cosmic fine-tuning would be the gravitational force and the strong force.

The response from atheists who listen to this evidence is usually something along the lines of “Am I going to Hell?” and “Who made God?” or “Who Designed the Designer?”

Well, I’ve answered the Am I Going To Hell response to scientific evidence for a Creator and Designer in another place. The response to the who made God question is simple: 1) scientists acknowledge the Big Bang as the beginning of all space, matter and time itself. 2) the cause of the beginning of time must exist outside of time, and the cause is therefore eternal, and CANNOT therefore come into being itself.

For an answer to the last question about the Designer, let’s turn to Jay Richards, probably my favorite Christian thinker, (tied with Stephen C. Meyer).

Watch this for two minutes:

I just want to make sure that everyone gets the two points there.

First point is obvious. When it comes to objects that have the appearance of design, we have to look at the features of the object itself. If the object exhibits hallmarks of design, e.g. – specified complexity, irreducible complexity, etc., then we have to compare the design and non-design explanations for the object and choose which is the most reasonable. We do not need to know anything about who the designer(s) are, and you can see this in other areas like SETI, where nothing at all may be known about the originator of a coded message from space, yet still naturalists can accept that a coded message was sent (e.g. – first 100 prime numbers in beats and pauses).

The second point is that atheists have to account for the fine-tuning within their worldview as well, and give an explanation that is more probable than a Designer.

Questions like “Who made God?” and “Who Designed the Designer?” are asked in order to avoid having to provide an explanation for the scientific evidence we have today. It’s not that atheists have the answer to the evidence, it’s that they want to ask silly questions in order to avoid having to comply (rationally speaking) with the scientific evidence they see with their own eyes. Today, we have the scientific evidence for a beginning of the universe, and for fine-tuning of the universe to support complex, embodied intelligent agents. So that’s why you need to focus them on the important question: what is the explanation for the scientific evidence within an atheistic framework – how do they fit the scientific evidence we have today into their worldview? 

You have to watch out for their response of forced ignorance in the face of scientific evidence and demand that they deal with the scientific evidence that we have today. The more progress we have made in science in the last 50 years, the stronger the evidence for a cosmic beginning and for cosmic fine-tuning have become. This isn’t going away. Denial of today’s evidence and hoping for reversals of what we know today is not a rational response to the scientific evidence of today.

Let me give you a case in point. There was a recent debate where a prominent atheist said he was not even sure that the universe began to exist, despite the fact that this is guaranteed under the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem. The BGV theorem says that any universe that is on balance expanding must have a cosmic beginning. (And our universe will be expanding outward, eternally) Atheists like to clump together on atheist podcasts, atheist blogs and atheist chat rooms where they can all agree amongst themselves that the universe didn’t have a beginning and wasn’t designed – so that they can keep living as if no one designed them for a purpose that might interfere with their desires. But this is just willful ignorance in the face of solid scientific evidence, and we need to demand that they account for the scientific evidence we have today within their worldview. We can’t allow them to continue in their Flat-Earth worldview because they just plug their ears and shut their eyes to the progress of science. Self-inflicted ignorance is not a rational response to the progress of science.

News

Obama was an active ally and supporter of Russia for his entire administration

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Can we all just get along? Hillary Clinton ended Republican-led opposition to Russian aggression
Hillary Clinton ended Republican-led opposition to Russian aggression

I guess everyone remembers how Hillary Clinton presented the Russian Foreign Minister with a “reset” button that they pushed together, signaling to the world that Democrat politicians wanted nothing to do with the view that there was anything morally wrong with Putin’s thugocracy.

But all of a sudden, the same Democrats who bent over for Russia for eight years are complaining about Russia today.

This article from National Review is a helpful reminder of exactly what the Democrats did with Russia during the last eight years.

Excerpt:

He reset with Russia shortly after its clash with Georgia in 2008. He concluded the New START agreement with Moscow that reduced our nuclear forces but not theirs. When candidate Mitt Romney warned about Russia in the 2012 campaign, Obama rejected him as a Cold War relic. The president then went on to forge an agreement with Russia’s ally Iran to allow it to preserve its nuclear program. During the red-line fiasco, he eagerly grasped a lifeline from Russia at the price of accepting its intervention in Syria. He never budged on giving Ukraine “lethal” weapons to defend itself from Russian attack. Finally, Obama cut U.S. defense spending and cracked down on fossil fuels, a policy that Russia welcomed since its economy is dependent on high oil prices.

Put all of this together, and it’s impossible to conclude anything other than that Obama was a Russian stooge, and not out of any nefarious deals, but out of his own naivete and weakness. Obama didn’t expect any rewards when he asked then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during a hot-mic moment at an international meeting to relay to Vladimir Putin his ability to be more “flexible” after the 2012 election; he was, to put it in terms of the current Russian election controversy, “colluding” with the Russians in the belief it was a good strategy. His kompromat was his own foolishness.

The cost of Obama’s orientation toward Russia became clearer during the past two weeks. When he pulled up short from enforcing his red line, an agreement with the Russians to remove Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons became the fig leaf to cover his retreat. This deal was obviously deficient, but Obama officials used clever language to give the impression that it had removed all chemical weapons from Syria. Never mind that Assad still used chlorine gas to attack his population — exploiting a grievous loophole — and that evidence piled up that Assad was cheating more broadly.

The Russians eagerly covered for Assad because he’s their client. What was the Obama administration’s excuse? It effectively made itself a liar for the Russians at the same time Moscow bolstered the Assad regime we said had to go, smashed the moderate opposition we were trying to create and sent a destabilizing refugee flow into Europe. This was a moral and strategic disaster.

Now, I’m pretty sure that if you ask a typical Democrat, they won’t remember any of the things that Obama did to embolden Russian aggression in the last eight years.

Remember this?

And how about this?

Obama was our President for the last eight years, and he supported our enemies (Russia, Iran, Cuba) and opposed our allies (Georgia, Ukraine, Israel). And now the Democrats complain about the evil Russians – the same evil Russians that they supported when they voted for Obama. They voted for the pro-Russia candidate and now they are complaining about the empowered Russia their President created. Obama sold our American foreign policy out for the Russians and the Iranians – that’s what Democrats voted for. TWICE.

Most people on the left can’t remember what Obama did in the last 8 years with Russia and Iran. Democrat political views just consist of demanding taxpayer-funded condoms, so that they can get drunk, get pregnant with a hot guy, then kill the baby or go on welfare. There really isn’t anything more to being a Democrat than that. Democrats today look at Syria and don’t realize that their President has been backing the two biggest Syrian supporters for the last eight years: Russia and Iran. They complain about the very situation that they created when they elected an America-hating progressive.

Foreign. Policy. Matters.