These are the lectures that made me who I am today. Each of these is awesome. If you only have time for two, listen to Dr. Bradley’s Journey to Faith and Giants in the Land.
Dr. Walter L. Bradley
Ph.D. in Materials Science, University of Texas at Austin, 1968
B.S. in Engineering Science, University of Texas at Austin, 1965
B.S. in Chemistry, University of Missouri
M.A. in Philosophy, University of California Riverside
Th.M. in Theology, Dallas Theological Seminary
Ph.D. in Philosophy, University of Southern California
D.Theol., University of Munich
Ph.D., University of Birmingham (UK)
M.A., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
M.A., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
B.A., Wheaton College
Lawrence Krauss is a physicist who affirms that the entire physical universe appeared out of nothing. How well does his theory hold up?
This review of Krauss’ book was written by a non-theist in the liberal New York Times.
Excerpt:
Lawrence M. Krauss, a well-known cosmologist and prolific popular-science writer, apparently means to announce to the world, in this new book, that the laws of quantum mechanics have in them the makings of a thoroughly scientific and adamantly secular explanation of why there is something rather than nothing.
[…]Never mind. Forget where the laws came from. Have a look instead at what they say. It happens that ever since the scientific revolution of the 17th century, what physics has given us in the way of candidates for the fundamental laws of nature have as a general rule simply taken it for granted that there is, at the bottom of everything, some basic, elementary, eternally persisting, concrete, physical stuff. Newton, for example, took that elementary stuff to consist of material particles. And physicists at the end of the 19th century took that elementary stuff to consist of both material particles and electromagnetic fields. And so on. And what the fundamental laws of nature are about, and allthe fundamental laws of nature are about, and all there is for the fundamental laws of nature to be about, insofar as physics has ever been able to imagine, is how that elementary stuff is arranged. The fundamental laws of nature generally take the form of rules concerning which arrangements of that stuff are physically possible and which aren’t, or rules connecting the arrangements of that elementary stuff at later times to its arrangement at earlier times, or something like that. But the laws have no bearing whatsoever on questions of where the elementary stuff came from, or of why the world should have consisted of the particular elementary stuff it does, as opposed to something else, or to nothing at all.
The fundamental physical laws that Krauss is talking about in “A Universe From Nothing” — the laws of relativistic quantum field theories — are no exception to this. The particular, eternally persisting, elementary physical stuff of the world, according to the standard presentations of relativistic quantum field theories, consists (unsurprisingly) of relativistic quantum fields. And the fundamental laws of this theory take the form of rules concerning which arrangements of those fields are physically possible and which aren’t, and rules connecting the arrangements of those fields at later times to their arrangements at earlier times, and so on — and they have nothing whatsoever to say on the subject of where those fields came from, or of why the world should have consisted of the particular kinds of fields it does, or of why it should have consisted of fields at all, or of why there should have been a world in the first place. Period. Case closed. End of story.
What does it mean? It means this. Physical laws are merely a description of how physical entities operate. They do not explain where the physical entities being described came from. Physical laws are like traffic laws – they describe how cars are supposed to drive around on roads – but they don’t create the cars!
In any case, if you would like to find out how well Krauss’ ideas hold up in a debate, you can watch him debate William Lane Craig right here:
On Monday, an academic freedom bill, SB 893, passed the Tennessee State Senate by avote of 25-8. The bill enjoyed bipartisan support from all the Republicans, and over 35% of Democrats, in the Tennessee State Senate. The proposed legislation is a standard academic freedom bill that would apply generally to the teaching of controversial scientific theories, not just evolution. It contains the following good language:
“The teaching of some scientific subjects required to be taught under the curriculum framework developed by the state board of education may cause debate and disputation including, but not limited to, biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.”
“Neither the state board of education, nor any public elementary or secondary school governing authority, director of schools, school system administrators, or any public elementary or secondary school principal or administrators shall prohibit any teacher in a public school system of this state from helping students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught within the curriculum framework developed by the state board of education.”
“This section only protects the teaching of scientific information, and shall not be construed to promote any religious or non-religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs or non-beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or non-religion.”
Thus, the bill includes a clear statement that it only applies to teaching science and does not protect teaching religion. Don’t expect that to satisfy critics, who will predictably ignore the actual language of the bill and falsely claim it would introduce religion in the classroom.
Make sure you read that part in bold, because it’s not going to be reported in the media that way. They’ll report the exact opposite of what the bill says, and probably mention Noah’s Ark. In fact, they already have done so.
Naturally, the Darwinism/global warming cult is not happy about students being allowed to ask questions and debate the scientific merits of controversial theories:
The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is already mocking SB 893 as the “Tennessee monkey bill”– reminiscent of the law passed in the 1920s that criminalized the teaching of evolution in Tennessee, leading to the Scopes trial. However, the situation is the reverse of what it was in the 1920s. Today, Darwin-skeptics are the ones fighting for intellectual freedom, while Darwin-promoters try to squash and censor opposing views. The NCSE’s “monkey bill” comparison is completely inapt: the effect of this bill would be to bring more, not less, instruction on evolution into the classroom. That’s precisely why the Darwin lobbyists don’t like it. It would allow students to learn the scientific weaknesses in biological evolution in addition to the strengths.
If secularism stands for anything, it stands for indoctrination and restricting free inquiry. They don’t like debates. They get very uncomfortable with disagreement and different opinions. They want uniformity of thought.
WINTERY KNIGHT 