Tag Archives: Origin of the universe

Videos

Stephen C. Meyer explains the evidence for the Big Bang on John Ankerberg show

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This is a short post, because I can’t embed the video – so I’m just going to post the link to the Lightsource web site which has the video.

Here’s a web page from Caltech that goes over 3 of the 6 evidences for the Big Bang.

Excerpt:

Three main observational results over the past century led astronomers to become certain that the universe began with the big bang. First, they found out that the universe is expanding—meaning that the separations between galaxies are becoming larger and larger. This led them to deduce that everything used to be extremely close together before some kind of explosion. Second, the big bang perfectly explains the abundance of helium and other nuclei like deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen) in the universe. A hot, dense, and expanding environment at the beginning could produce these nuclei in the abundance we observe today. Third, astronomers could actually observe the cosmic background radiation—the afterglow of the explosion—from every direction in the universe. This last evidence so conclusively confirmed the theory of the universe’s beginning that Stephen Hawking said, “It is the discovery of the century, if not of all time.”

The article explains all three evidences in detail. It is important to show atheists how the progress of science has dashed their hopes for an eternal, uncaused universe. One discovery – that could be reversed. Two discoveries – that’s conclusive. Three – discoveries – that’s an open and shut case. (And there are three more discoveries not mentioned in the article – the second law of thermodynamics, radioactive element abundances and the stellar lifecycle itself).

And, of course, William Lane Craig uses this scientific evidence in his kalam cosmological argument, which is described in a peer-reviewed paper from this Astrophysics journal.

Podcasts

Frank Turek explains the kalam argument and some objections to it

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His latest show focus on three of the better known scientific arguments for the existence of God. The argument from the origin of the universe, the argument from the cosmic fine-tuning, and the argument from biological information. He is especially focused on the first argument. He answers about a half-dozen objections raised by university students during his most recent speaking engagements on secular college campuses.

If you need a refresher on the kalam argument, read this first.

The MP3 file is here.

Topics:

Atheist dogma
– they pre-suppose natural causation and no evidence can overturn the assumption
– they rule out intelligent causes before they look at the evidence
– they rule out supernatural causes before they look at the evidence
– the assumption of naturalism is just a philosophical assumption
– the assumption is not subject to debate – they just believe it on faith
– the view that all truth must be detected with scientific methods is self-refuting

How atheists oppose the origin of the universe:
– that’s a god of the gaps argument
– you have to find an answer to problems that fits with my assumption of naturalism
– who made God?
– quantum mechanics shows that things can pop into being uncaused – maybe the universe did too
– given enough time, the universe will pop into being out of nothing

Responses:
– the cause of nature’s coming into existence cannot be inside of nature
– if nature has a beginning, then the cause of the beginning cannot be natural
– nature is the effect, the cause cannot be natural – it must be supernatural
– the only objection to the origin of the universe is the pre-supposition of naturalism
– but naturalism is not science – it’s a faith commitment to an unproven assumption
– only an agent with free will can cause an effect when/where there is no physical cause
– the inference to a supernatural cause is not based on ignorance, but on what we know
– the scientific evidence for the origin of the universe is the foundation of the argument
– the scientific evidence has gotten strong as more discoveries emerged
– regarding quantum mechanics, the particles do not come into being from nothing
– the virtual particles come into being from a vaccuum, which is not nothing
– to say that events occur without causes is to deny the scientific method itself

Videos

Video of William Lane Craig explaining the Kalam cosmological argument

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This is the video from his appearance at Saddleback Church (Rick Warren) that got such a big response. Saddleback is a pretty ordinary church, which lots of people with different levels of knowledge. How did Bill explain the Kalam argument to so many different ordinary people?

Watch and see!

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

    You can also find a more technical version of the lecture here. This version is based on a research paper published in an astrophysics journal, and was delivered to an audience of students and faculty, including atheist physicist Victor Stenger and prominent atheist philosopher Michael Tooley, at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Craig has previously debated Stenger and Tooley. And they both asked him questions in the Q&A of this lecture.

    You might also be interested in this exchange in which William Lane Craig takes on prominent atheist Daniel Dennett.

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