Dr. Jeff Zweerink’s Presentation: “The Beginning and Design of the Universe"
It’s good to be here today…
Listened to a lot of cosmologist talk and there’s a very prominent cosmologist; atheist cosmologist named Lawrence Krauss; and he’s fond of making statements like this:
“The amazing thing is that every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left-hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It is really the most poetic thing I know about physics: you are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements – the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, and all the things that matter for evolution – weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way they could get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode... The stars died so you could be here today.” (Lawrence M. Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing)
Now, obviously Lawrence Krauss’s statements are specifically antagonizing Christians, but I think his statements are actually offensive to all forms of religion with a theistic worldview – those that argue for a God Who created the universe and all that it contains. Essentially Krauss argues that science can explain everything and therefore we don’t need a god. As a Christian who is a scientist I actually find a different conclusion: A theistic worldview provides the best explanation of all our scientific understanding of the universe. Let me say that again: A theistic worldview provides the best explanation of our scientific understanding of the universe. So let me share the three most powerful examples that support my conclusion.
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At the start of the 1900s scientists had an understanding of the universe characterized by three significant features. First, the universe was eternal and had existed forever. Second, the universe was static and unchanging on the largest scales. That doesn’t mean that planets didn’t orbit around stars but when you got out to big enough scales, the universe wasn’t changing. And third, as one moved through the universe the laws of physics changed in subtle ways.
Now, before describing how scientific advances through the 20th century changed this picture, I want to contrast this early scientific view with the universe described by scripture. Starting in the very first book we see that God created the heavens and the earth. In this description, God brought the universe into existence out of nothing. You know in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” That word for created is to bring into existence out of nothing. This isn’t that the universe existed and it was refashioned. God brought it completely into existence from nothing that existed before.
And this is an aspect that is very definitive about God being the Creator, the Fashioner Who brought everything into existence. If you look other places throughout the Bible specifically, the Prophet Isaiah talks about: “I am the Lord, the Maker of all things, Who stretches out the heavens, Who spreads out the earth by Myself.” (Isaiah 44:24)
And not only does this affirm this idea that God is the Creator of all things but it has this idea that the universe is also dynamic. That its being stretched out, or let’s say its being expended if you will. And if you go look at other prophets, the Prophet Jeremiah talks about universe this way:
“This is what the Lord says: ‘If I have not made My covenant with day and night and established the laws of heaven and earth.’” (Jeremiah 33:25)
It then goes on to say, if that's true if those fixed patterns are constant and the patterns of heaven and night are not constant then He's going to break His promises. And so God’s reliability is likened to how reliable the Creation operates.
And so you see this big contrast between the universe described through the prophets and the Torah and the scientific understanding then. Scientific understanding is the universe was eternal, while the theistic understanding is that the universe was created and it had a beginning. The scientific understanding said the universe is static and unchanging. But in the in the religious books the universe is dynamic on the largest scales. And in the scientific view the laws of physics change as you move throughout the universe. And yet the theistic worldview talks about how the laws of physics were constant, that the fixed patterns of day and night.
What is it that governs how day and night happen in the fixed patterns of the heavens? That's nothing other than the laws of physics. And so at the start of the twentieth century science thought that the universe was eternal, static and unchanging and governed by changing laws of physics. And yet God had revealed a universe that began to exist, was dynamic and governed by constant laws of physics.
So let's take a look at some of the important discoveries throughout the twentieth century. Well, during the early 1900s, Albert Einstein recognized this scientific description of the day and that the laws of physics changed as your move throughout the universe. And philosophically he didn't like the idea. So he set about developing a model of the universe where the laws of physics were constant. In doing so he developed this theory of special relativity and theory of general relativity. And the key feature of these theories that the laws of physics are constant, regardless of how you're moving or where you're located in the universe. Now I can tell you this, throughout the twentieth century scientists have thrown numerous experimental test to the theory of general relativity, to see if it's true or not and it has passed every one of those tests with flying colors. It is one of the best-established and best accepted scientific theories known today.
One of the consequences of the theory of general relativity is that when you solve the equations, the universe ought to be dynamic either expanding or contracting. Initially Einstein didn't like this idea, but re-measurements in the 1920 and 1930 showed that the universe is indeed expanding. Edwin Hubble looking out at these fuzzy blobs, they were called island universes at the time, we now call them galaxies; found that these galaxies behaved in a very peculiar fashion. The farther away a galaxy was, the faster it was moving away from us. This is a telltale signature of an expanding universe. And so general relativity predicted a dynamic or expanding universe. And the measurements of these distant galaxies showed that the universe was expanding and if it's expanding perhaps if you run time backwards there was a beginning.
Now scientists resisted this idea for quite some time and in fact they still resist it today. And they look for numerous ways to have an eternal universe, one that it existed forever. But in the 1960, with the measurement of the cosmic microwave background radiation, Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose and other scientists were able to show or develop some very powerful theorems. And these theorems showed that if general relativity is true and accurately describes the dynamics of the universe -and it's passed every test we've thrown at it- so all scientists believe this is the case. And, if the universe contains mass and we're pretty much guarantee that it is correct, then you can draw the conclusion that when you run time backwards, the universe has a boundary. Now stated another way the universe began to exist.
So in spite of the scientific view of the universe at the beginning, looking very different from the theistic worldview, significant and important discoveries throughout the twentieth century have demonstrated that we live in a universe that began to exist. The universe is expanding and the universe is governed by constant laws of physics. These three features our essential features of all Big Bang models. So what we see is that in other words the universe that God revealed to us through the Holy Books matches the universe we see when we study Creation.
Now in recent years scientists have proposed multiverse models where our universe is one of the great ensemble of universes. And this seems to challenge the notion of a beginning. In fact the first time I encountered this idea of a multiverse that was the challenge this guy was saying, ‘our universe may have had a beginning but if the multiverse exist is that really have a beginning or not.’ But I spent a lot of time studying the multiverse and what I know is this is that even if an inflationary multiverse exists, it’s still affirms the conclusion that the universe began to exist. Even the multiverse has a beginning.
Now this first piece of scientific evidence that we live in a big bang universe that began to exist, that it is expanding and is governed by constant laws of physics. This conclusion supports the Kalam cosmological argument. And that argument and syllogism form basically says whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe begins to exist. Therefore the universe must have a cause. Something outside the universe brought it into existence. Seems very consistent with the idea that there is a God who created the universe. So let's turn to the second piece of evidence. The second piece of evidence that points to the existence of a Creator, relates to the pervasive evidence of design and the universe.
Consider what it takes for humanity to live. I can count at least three things. First you got to have diamonds. No, I'm joking. You don't need diamonds but you need carbon, this was just the best picture of carbon that I could find. You need to have carbon. Second, you need to have water, since water is the liquid that allows all the biochemistry that life requires to take place. And third you need to have a planet where liquid water could exist in its liquid form with an abundance of carbon. Now as scientists try to understand how the universe is supportive of life, many come to the conclusion that the universe looks designed to support life. Let me share a couple of quotes by people who are self-professed atheists and agnostics. These are not people, religious people who are looking for God but this is what they have to say.
Fred Hoyle stated,
“A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology… the numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.” (Fred Hoyle, "The Universe: Past and Present Reflections", Engineering and Science, November, 1981. pp. 8–12)
Roger Penrose, colleague of Stephen Hawking, goes on to say, “I would say the universe has a purpose. It’s not there just somehow by chance.” (See A Brief History of Time (1991) film script - springfieldspringfield.co.uk) It is uncontroversial to say that the best scientific evidence indicates that the universe appears designed for life, and we see evidence for that design across the scientific disciplines.
Let's take a look at some of those areas where the universe looks designed to support life. We live in a universe with three large spatial dimensions of one time dimension. But we can analyze what would happen if the universe were different if it had two or one spatial dimensions. Three, four, five spatial dimensions. Multiple time dimensions. We can ask that question: So what happens if there were only two spatial dimensions? As it turns out if there were two or less spatial dimensions the universe is not complicated enough for life. Imagine an animal in two dimensions. If the animal has a passage for food intake, and a different passage to expel the waste, in two dimensions such passages would cut the animal in half. Now you might say well, you know maybe the food came back out the same way, but it misses the key point. In two dimensions there are not enough connections to be made for the complexity that life requires. It's not just about whether the food has to come out the same way it came in. It's actually far more fundamental.
So perhaps if one or two dimensions is too simple maybe if we had more spatial dimensions. That's better, would that adds to the complexity? And it turns out that that's not correct. If you go to four or five or more dimensions, it turns out that there are no stable orbits. Now this means two things, with more spatial dimensions, atoms are not stable. So the carbon and the nitrogen and the oxygen in the life requires wouldn't exist. And planets are not stable they cannot form stable orbits around stars, they either spiral very rapidly into the star or they spiral away from the star. And so you miss two of the key requirements for life if you have more than three spatial dimensions. You don't have the atoms that life requires and you don't have the planets that life requires.
Changing the number of time dimensions makes things even worse. Now, so if you look at this diagram here just as you change, the number of time dimensions you get into a lot of these places where physics is unpredictable. Now you may say, well I don't know how to do physics why is it necessary for it to be predictable? Again it turns out to be a more foundational principle than that. Because if physics isn’t predictable what that means is that measurements of what goes on right now, tell you nothing about what's happened in the past and will give you no insight as to what will go on in the future. So organisms that sense the environment and say there's food there and there's danger there, if physics is unpredictable, that's impossible. And so again the key features that life requires do not exist in any kind of universe except for a universe with three large spatial dimensions, and one time dimension.
So now let's turn our attention to the laws of physics. Particularly let's look at how carbon, oxygen and nitrogen exist in the universe. To do that we got a look a little bit about how the universe has developed over time. So in Big Bang cosmology, after the first few minutes the only elements that exist in the universe are hydrogen and helium. There are small amounts of lithium and beryllium but for all intents and purposes you can ignore that. All the elements heavier than this, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, those are formed in the hearts of stars. So Lawrence Krauss is very much right, the carbon and nitrogen and oxygen in our bodies, is the dust left over from stars, so we are made up of stardust. But as scientists have studied how well stars produced the carbon and the oxygen, they found huge deficiencies in how much they expected to be produced and how much was necessary for life to exist. Unless some remarkable coincidences were true.
In particular, the difficulty of producing carbon is that three helium nuclei have to come together to make carbon. So carbon has six protons and six neutrons, each helium has two protons and two neutrons. To get helium to come together to form carbon you have to have three of them come together at the same time. And because it's three of them coming together at the same time that's an incredibly slow reaction. However as scientists look more closely they recognize two important factors that allow the formation of carbon. First when two helium atoms come together, they can actually form a beryllium-8 nucleus. Two of them stick together, now that beryllium-8 nucleus is not actually stable. So it doesn't stick around for a long time. But it does stick around for a while. What that means is that in order for carbon to be made now another helium just has to come and hit that beryllium nucleus. That's a 2-body reaction that proceeds much more rapidly. So in order to form carbon this beryllium-8 nucleus speeds up the reaction considerably.
However even with this metastable beryllium-8 nucleus, stars would not produce enough carbon. Something else was missing. It's when scientists working on the problem recognized a solution that would produce carbon rapidly enough. If carbon had a particular energy level just above its ground state, so if this is its ground state they had energy level just a little bit higher, then the reaction would proceed much more rapidly. Now, this energy level was unknown at the time. But scientists subsequently studied this prediction made by Fred Hoyle and found that it indeed existed. And so without this stable brilliant eight nucleus and a finely tuned energy level for carbon the universe would produce insufficient carbon. Yet in order for the universe to contain sufficient carbon one more coincidence was necessary.
So if you take carbon and add one more helium nucleus to it it'll make oxygen. If oxygen had the same kind of energy state where here's oxygen and its ground state and there's this energy level right above then all of the carbon would have been converted into oxygen and again you end up with the universe with no carbon. And it turns out that the oxygen energy level was just below its ground state. And so therefore it doesn't exist. And so what you end up with is three coincidences. The beryllium eight is just stable enough it's not stable for a long time, that would use up all the helium. But it's stable enough that another helium can come in. And carbon has just the right energy level so that reaction proceeds rapidly and oxygen doesn't have that level so it doesn't proceed very rapidly at all.
And all three of those put together those amazing coincidences allow universe with lots of carbon in oxygen in it. In fact Fred Hoyle was the scientist who did a lot of the work discovering this. And his quote that I put up earlier about how a super intellect has monkeyed with physics as well as with chemistry and biology, was in response to recognizing these three amazing coincidences. Now I use the term coincidences. But I really think that the universe is designed to produce the carbon and oxygen the life requires.
So let's turn our attention to similar design features that also enable the universe to have the necessary hydrogen for life. And again to consider what happens in the early moments of the universe, there is only hydrogen and helium. But in those first few moments the universe is hot enough that hydrogen can come together and make helium. And it just adds one more proton or neutron and it eventually builds it up. And it turns out that hydrogen has one proton, there's a form of hydrogen with 1 proton and 1 neutron 1 proton or 3 neutrons. You can have a couple of different forms of helium that have up to 4 of your 2 protons and 2 neutrons. And it turns out that there is not an atom with this that has 5 where you add protons and neutrons and get to 5. Because if there were in those earliest moments of the universe all of the hydrogen would have been fused into these heavier elements. Like there’s not a 5-nucleon element and there's not an 8-nucleon element. And because of that most of the hydrogen is left in the universe it only at 75 percent of the atoms in the universe are hydrogen. If there were a 5-nucleon atom or a 8-nucleon on atom, all of the hydrogen would have been fused into something else. And with no hydrogen, you get no water.
So if we take a look at how the strong nuclear interaction, that's what determines how protons and neutrons join together. And the electromagnetic that's what determines how charges interact. You can make a diagram and don't get hung up on all the details of the diagram I just want you to notice this. If you ask the question, “Where do all the conditions necessary for life to exist in the universe all meet?” It turns out if you're down here, carbon is unstable clearly that's not sufficient for one. Up here you only have atoms that move close to the speed of light. Really not conducive to life. Up here all of the protons would be joined together and you would have no hydrogen left. It turns out that when you do all of the calculations the only place where all the conditions for life is matter this little teeny tiny region. Of all the different ways we could envision the laws of physics being put together, only a small range allows the elements that life requires. And so this really looks like we live in a universe that is designed to support life. And this points to design and that there is a Creator who fashion the universe for a purpose.
So let's look a little closer to home. We see evidence of design in the moon that orbits the earth. Not only is it pretty to look at during the night, but it actually is important. Now Jupiter and Saturn both have satellites that are larger than Earth's moon. But when compared to the size of its host planet, earth's moon is in a class by itself. The large size of the moon plays an important role in Earth’s capacity to support life. The moon stabilizes the rotation axis. Earth rotates around an axis. And the moon stabilizes that rotation axis, so it doesn't flip around. Without such a large moon, the Earth's rotation axis would wobble in that would cause catastrophic and violent changes to the Earth's climate. The moon prevents this wobble and the earth is maintained a climate conducive to life for billions of years. Perhaps more importantly the size of the moon also provides the critical heat that enables the planet to have tectonic activity.
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We think of earthquakes and volcanoes are bad, but they're just evidence of this tectonic activity that is crucial for regulating the climate of the earth as well as building the continents where the bulk of life live. And the gravitational tug of the sun and the moon and the Earth, heats up Earth's interior causing it to flex and stretch and compress. And this heat drives the plate tectonics on Earth’s surface. As scientists seek to understand how the Earth acquired such a large moon they recognize that it took a remarkable collision early in Earth’s history. This collision needed to happen at just the right speed, at just the right time, at just the right angle and with just the right sized object. It really is an unusual collision. The moon looks designed so that Earth can support life. And it also looks like the Earth is just the right size so the tectonic activity is not too large or too small. If it were larger the plates would be too thick and the tectonic activity would be too small. If it were any small tectonic plates would be much thinner and the tectonic activity would be too great. We live on a planet with just the right size so that the tectonic activity is just right.
I want to mention one more piece of evidence for design, that we see when we look inside the cell. When we study the genetic code we see that it's made up of four compounds represented by the letters U, C, G and A. I'm not going to go into all the details of that. I'm going to look at it from a computer-programming standpoint. So these letters come in groups of three that specify the production of amino acids. The sequence of 3 letters where each letter has 4 options means that there are 64 different possibilities, so 4 x 4 x 4. But they are only 20 different amino acids involved in life so this means that different combinations of three will produce the same amino acids. You know and so if you look here there are different combinations and you can have two different ones produce phenylalanine, there's leucine, and you can see that there is some redundancy there. Different combinations of letters still produce the same amino acid. To go on further, the amino acid sequences determine how proteins will fold. And sometimes, different amino acids will still produce the same protein folding.
And so that's really kind of the big thing, “do we get the right protein folding?” And so scientists can then ask the question “how well does this genetic code ensure that proteins fold and function properly even with mutations of these specific letters?” because we live in an environment where mutations are going to happen. So given that mutations are going to happen, how well does this code do what it is supposed to do? All right, the short answer is this; our genetic code is one in a million. If you ask how many different ways could you produce a genetic code, that corrects errors, this is one in a million and its ability to correct errors. Not only that it's it can carry multiple layers of code as well and I know from a computer-programming standpoint, error correcting in a code is incredibly important. Especially when you're carrying multiple lines of code that's very sophisticated programming and that looks like it's designed.
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So I am just kind of reminded of Francis Crick statement: “Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed but rather evolved.” I guess I disagree, when scientists look at the universe they see evidence of fine-tuning and design. We see fine-tuning in the fabric of space, in the form of the strength of the laws of physics and the size of the moon, the genetic code and many others that are not mentioned. It seems to me more reasonable to conclude that where we see a design, a “Designer” exists. And that a “Designer” created the universe to support humanity.
Now. Third point is that the laws of earth, when you look at the requirements for science. There are philosophical assumptions you have to make. And you have to ask the question, “What worldview anchors all of those assumptions?” And I'm just going to go through them rapidly, but the bottom line is going to be this: I have looked at the Christian faith, I know that it anchors all of these presuppositions that you have to do for doing science. And so anybody who wants to say, “Oh, science supports my worldview” has to ask the question: “Does your worldview anchor all the necessary presuppositions for science?”
The laws of physics must be uniform throughout the physical universe. The physical universe is a distinct objective reality. Not something that's just an illusion. The laws of nature exhibit order patterns and regularity. I think of Greek mythology where Zeus gets upset and throws up lightning bolts, that's not real conducive to science developing. The physical universe must be intelligible. The world is an object of rational study because it's not divine and therefore not an object to worship. The world is good and valuable and worthy of study. I remember reading about Siddhartha Gautama and how genuine enlightenment came from being detached from the world. Well, if you want to be detached from the world, why would you want to study it to figure out how it works?
Now the free agency of a Creator necessitates empirical methods that God could have done things different and so we have to measure what He actually did. God encourages, in fact, tells us to take dominion over the natural world. That encourages and propels science. Intellectual virtues make science essentially the part of God's moral law. Perhaps most important is that humans possess an ability to discover the universe's intelligibility. I asked the question does this make sense if atheism is true? I'm reminded of a quote by C.S. Lewis that I think summarizes it well.
“If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents – the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts – i.e., of Materialism and Astronomy – are merely accidental byproducts, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents.” (C.S. Lewis, Essays on Theology and Ethics, Cambridge, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1970, p.41)
If my brain is just an accident, why should it be able to describe the rest of the universe? Given these assumptions and philosophical presuppositions of the scientific enterprise one should ask the question: “What world view properly anchors these philosophical presuppositions?” A theistic worldview where God creates humanity with a purpose and a moral code and desire to worship and know God; that does anchor all those assumptions. I'm not saying that a scientist must be a theist to do science. But I am saying, that a scientist must adopt a worldview theistic for the scientific enterprise to progress consistently and do it over time.
So we live in a universe where the scientific description matches that revealed by God. We live in a universe that's designed to support life. And we live in a universe where a theistic worldview anchors all the presuppositions of science. To me that says the latest scientific evidence or our scientific understanding of the universe is best described or best accounted for, by a theistic worldview. That points to a God, Who created everything. Thank you very much.
The Expansion of Universe and the Discovery of the Big Bang
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The 1920s were important years in the development of modern astronomy. In 1922, the Russian physicist Alexandra Friedman produced computations showing that the structure of the universe was not static and that even a tiny impulse might be sufficient to cause the whole structure to expand or contract according to Einstein's Theory of Relativity. George Lemaitre was the first to recognize what Friedman's work meant. Based on these computations, the Belgian astronomer Lemaitre declared that the universe had a beginning and that it was expanding as a result of something that had triggered it. He also stated that the rate of radiation could be used as a measure of the aftermath of that "something".
The theoretical musings of these two scientists did not attract much attention and probably would have been ignored except for new observational evidence that rocked the scientific world in 1929. That year the American astronomer Edwin Hubble, working at the California Mount Wilson observatory, made one of the most important discoveries in the history of astronomy. Observing a number of stars through his huge telescope, he discovered that their light was shifted towards the red end of the spectrum and, crucially, that this shift was directly related to the distance of the stars from Earth. This discovery shook the very basis of the universe model held until then.
According to the recognized rules of physics, the spectra of light beams travelling towards the point of observation tend towards violet while the spectra of light beams moving away from the point of observation tend towards red. (Just like the fading of a train's whistle as it moves away from the observer) Hubble's observation showed that according to this law, the heavenly bodies were moving away from us. Before long, Hubble made another important discovery; The stars weren't just racing away from Earth; they were racing away from each other as well. The only conclusion that could be derived from a universe where everything moves away from everything else is that the universe constantly "expands".
Hubble had found observational evidence for something that George Lemaitre had anticipated a short while ago and one of the most important minds of our age had recognized almost fifteen years earlier. In 1915, Albert Einstein had concluded that the universe could not be static because of calculations based on his recently-discovered theory of relativity (thus anticipating the conclusions of Friedman and Lemaitre). Shocked by his findings, Einstein added a "cosmological constant" to his equations in order to make the answer compatible with the atheist view, because astronomers assured him that the universe was static and there was no other way to make his equations match such a model. Years later, Einstein was to admit that his cosmological constant was the biggest mistake of his career.
Hubble's discovery that the universe was expanding led to the emergence of another model that needed no fiddling around with to make the equations work right. If the universe was getting bigger as time advanced, going back in time meant that it was getting smaller; and if one went back far enough, everything would shrink and converge at a single point.
The conclusion to be derived from this model was that at some time, all the matter in the universe was compacted in a single point-mass that had "zero volume" because of its immense gravitational force. Our universe came into being as the result of the explosion of this point-mass that had zero volume. This explosion has come to be called the "the Big Bang" and its existence has repeatedly been confirmed by observational evidence.
There was another truth that the Big Bang pointed to. To say that something has zero volume is tantamount to saying that it is "nothing". The whole universe was created from this "nothing". And furthermore this universe had a beginning, contrary to the view of materialism, which holds that "the universe has existed for eternity".
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The Order in the Universe and Creation According to the Torah
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The Creation of the Heavens and the Earth
◉ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was form-less and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep... (Genesis, 1:1-2)
◉ And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse "sky"... (Genesis, 1:6-8)
◉ ... When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens... (Genesis, 2:4-5)
◉ You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them... the multitudes of heaven worship You. (Nehemiah, 9:6)
◉ And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters He called "seas"... (Genesis, 1:9-10)
◉ Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. (Genesis, 2:1)
◉ Praise the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, You are very great; are clothed with splendor and majesty... He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved. (Psalms, 104:1, 5)
The Creation of Celestial Bodies
◉ And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth. (Genesis, 1:14-17)
◉ O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! You have set Your glory above the heavens... When I consider Your heavens... the Moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is man...? (Psalms, 8:1-4)
The Creation of Night and Day
◉ God called the light "day," and the darkness He called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning... (Genesis, 1:5)
◉ As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease. (Genesis, 8:22)
The Creation of the HeavensWithin an Order
◉ This is what the Lord says, He Who appoints the Sun shine by day, Who decrees the Moon and stars to shine by night, stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the Lord Almighty is His name... (Jeremiah, 31:35-36)
◉ Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He Who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. (Isaiah, 40:26)
◉ Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the bear with its cubs? Do you know the laws of the heavens?... (Job, 38:32-33)
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The Triumph of the Big Bang
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In 1948, George Gamov carried George Lemaitre's calculations several steps further and came up with a new idea concerning the Big Bang. If the universe was formed in a sudden, cataclysmic explosion, there ought to be a definite amount of radiation left over from that explosion. This radiation should be detectable and, furthermore, it should be uniform throughout the universe.
Within two decades, observational proof of Gamov's conjecture was forthcoming. In 1965, two researchers by the name of Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered a form of radiation hitherto unnoticed. Called "cosmic background radiation", it was unlike anything coming from anywhere else in the universe for it was extraordinarily uniform. It was neither localized nor did it have a definite source; instead, it was distributed equally everywhere. It was soon realized that this radiation was the echo of the Big Bang, still reverberating since the first moments of that great explosion. Gamov had been spot-on for the frequency of the radiation was nearly the same value that scientists had predicted it would be. Penzias and Wilson were awarded a Nobel prize for their discovery.
In 1989, George Smoot and his NASA team sent a satellite into space. Called the "Cosmic Background Emission Explorer" (COBE), it took only eight minutes for the sensitive instruments on board the satellite to detect and confirm the levels of radiation reported by Penzias and Wilson. These results conclusively demonstrated the existence of the hot, dense form remaining from the explosion out of which the universe came into being. Most scientists acknowledged that COBE had successfully captured the remnants of the Big Bang.
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The cosmic background radiation discovered in 1965 by Penzias and Wilson is regarded as incontrovertible evidence of the Big Bang by the scientific world.
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More evidence for the Big Bang was forthcoming. One piece had to do with the relative amounts of hydrogen and helium in the universe. Observations indicated that the mix of these two elements in the universe was in accord with theoretical calculations of what should have been remained after the Big Bang. That drove another stake into the heart of the steady state theory because if the universe had existed for eternity and never had a beginning, all of its hydrogen should have been burned into helium.
Confronted by such evidence, the Big Bang gained the near-complete approval of the scientific world. In an article in its October 1994 issue, Scientific American noted that the Big Bang model was the only one that could account for the constant expansion of the universe and for other observational results.
Defending the steady-state theory alongside Fred Hoyle for years, Dennis Sciama described the final position they had reached after all the evidence for the Big Bang theory was revealed:
There was at that time a somewhat acrimonious debate between some of the proponents of the steady state theory and observers who were testing it and, I think, hoping to disprove it. I played a very minor part at that time because I was a supporter of the steady state theory, not in the sense that I believed that it had to be true, but in that I found it so attractive I wanted it to be true. When hostile observational evidence became to come in, Fred Hoyle took a leading part in trying to counter this evidence, and I played a small part at the side, also making suggestions as to how the hostile evidence could be answered. But as that evidence piled up, it became more and more evident that the game was up, and that one had to abandon the steady state theory. (Stephen Hawking, Evreni Kucaklayan Karınca, 1993, p. 62-63)
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Distinguishing Between Science and Materialism
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The theory of evolution has no scientific basis, on the contrary, evolutionist claims conflict with scientific facts. In other words, the force that keeps evolution alive is not science. Evolution may be maintained by some "scientists," but behind it there is another influence at work.
This other influence is materialist philosophy. The theory of evolution is simply materialist philosophy applied to nature, and those who support that philosophy do so despite the scientific evidence.
This relationship between materialism and the theory of evolution is accepted by "authorities" on these concepts. For example, the discovery of Darwin was described by Leon Trotsky as "the highest triumph of the dialectic in the whole field of organic matter."1 The evolutionary biologist Douglas Futuyma writes, "Together with Marx's materialist theory of history and society…. Darwin hewed the final planks of the platform of mechanism and materialism."2 And the evolutionary paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould says, "Darwin applied a consistent philosophy of materialism to his interpretation of nature."3
Materialist philosophy is one of the oldest beliefs in the world, and assumes the absolute and exclusive existence of matter as its basic principle. According to this view, matter has always existed, and everything that exists consists of matter. Materialism denies the evident existence of a Creator.
So the question becomes one of why the materialist point of view is false. One method of testing whether a philosophy is true or false is to investigate the claims it makes about science by using scientific methods. For instance, a philosopher in the tenth century could have claimed that there was a divine tree on the surface of the moon and that all living things actually grew on the branches of this huge tree like fruit, and then fell off onto the earth. Some people might have found this philosophy attractive and believed in it. But in the twenty first century, at a time when man has managed to walk on the moon, it is no longer possible to seriously hold such a belief. Whether such a tree exists there or not can be determined by scientific methods, that is, by observation and experiment.
We can therefore investigate by means of scientific methods the materialist claim that matter has existed for all eternity and that this matter can organize itself without a supramaterial Creator and cause life to begin. When we do this, we see that materialism has already collapsed, because the idea that matter has existed since the beginning of time has been overthrown by the Big Bang theory which shows that the universe was created from nothingness. The claim that matter organized itself and created life is the claim that we call the theory of evolution—which this book has been examining—and which has been shown to have collapsed.
However, if someone is determined to believe in materialism and puts his devotion to materialist philosophy before everything else, then he will act differently. If he is a materialist first and a scientist second, he will not abandon materialism when he sees that evolution is disproved by science. On the contrary, he will attempt to uphold and defend materialism by trying to support evolution, no matter what. This is exactly the predicament that evolutionists defending the theory of evolution find themselves in today.
Interestingly enough, they also confess this fact from time to time. A well-known geneticist and outspoken evolutionist, Richard C. Lewontin from Harvard University, confesses that he is "a materialist first and a scientist second" in these words:
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, so we cannot allow a Divine [intervention]… 4
The term "a priori" that Lewontin uses here is quite important. This philosophical term refers to a presupposition not based on any experimental knowledge. A thought is "a priori" when you consider it to be correct and accept it as so even if there is no information available to confirm it. As the evolutionist Lewontin frankly states, materialism is an "a priori" commitment for evolutionists, who then try to adapt science to this preconception. Since materialism definitely necessitates denying the existence of a Creator, they embrace the only alternative they have to hand, which is the theory of evolution. It does not matter to such scientists that evolution has been belied by scientific facts, because they have accepted it "a priori" as true.
This prejudiced behavior leads evolutionists to a belief that "unconscious matter composed itself," which is contrary not only to science, but also to reason. The concept of "the self-organization of matter," which we examined in an earlier chapter, is an expression of this.
Evolutionist propaganda, which we constantly come across in the Western media and in well-known and "esteemed" science magazines, is the outcome of this ideological necessity. Since evolution is considered to be indispensable, it has been turned into a taboo subject by the circles that set the standards of science.
Some scientists find themselves in a position where they are forced to defend this far-fetched theory, or at least avoid uttering any word against it, in order to maintain their reputations. Academics in Western countries have to have articles published in certain scientific journals in order to attain and hold onto their professorships. All of the journals dealing with biology are under the control of evolutionists, and they do not allow any anti-evolutionist article to appear in them. Biologists, therefore, have to conduct their research under the domination of this theory. They, too, are part of the materialist order, which regards evolution as an ideological necessity, which is why they blindly defend all the "impossible coincidences" we have been examining in this book.
The Definition of the "Scientific Cause"
The German biologist Hoimar von Ditfurth, a prominent evolutionist, is a good example of this bigoted materialist understanding. After Ditfurth cites an example of the extremely complex composition of life, this is what he says concerning the question of whether it could have emerged by chance or not:
Is such a harmony that emerged only out of coincidences possible in reality? This is the basic question of the whole of biological evolution. ...Critically speaking, we can say that somebody who accepts the modern science of nature has no other alternative than to say "yes," because he aims to explain natural phenomena by means that are understandable and tries to derive them from the laws of nature without reverting to supernatural interference.5
Yes, as Ditfurth states, the materialist scientific approach adopts as its basic principle explaining life by denying "supernatural interference," i.e., creation. Once this principle is adopted, even the most impossible scenarios are easily accepted. It is possible to find examples of this dogmatic mentality in almost all evolutionist literature. Professor Ali Demirsoy, the well-known advocate of evolutionary theory in Turkey, is just one of many. According to Demirsoy, the probability of the coincidental formation of cytochrome-C, an essential protein for life, is "as unlikely as the possibility of a monkey writing the history of humanity on a typewriter without making any mistakes."6
There is no doubt that to accept such a possibility is actually to reject the basic principles of reason and common sense. Even one single correctly formed letter written on a page makes it certain that it was written by a person. When one sees a book of world history, it becomes even more certain that the book has been written by an author. No logical person would agree that the letters in such a huge book could have been put together "by chance."
However, it is very interesting to see that the evolutionist scientist Professor Ali Demirsoy accepts this sort of irrational proposition:
In essence, the probability of the formation of a cytochrome-C sequence is as likely as zero. That is, if life requires a certain sequence, it can be said that this has a probability likely to be realized once in the whole universe. Otherwise some metaphysical powers beyond our definition must have acted in its formation. To accept the latter is not appropriate for the scientific cause. We thus have to look into the first hypothesis.7
Demirsoy writes that he prefers the impossible, in order not to have to accept supernatural forces—in other words, the existence of a Creator. However, the aim of science is not to avoid accepting the existence of supernatural forces. Science can get nowhere with such an aim. It should simply observe nature, free of all prejudices, and draw conclusions from these observations. If these results indicate that there is planning by a supernatural intelligence, which is the case in every corner of the universe, then science must accept the fact.
Under close examination, what they call the "scientific cause" is actually the materialist dogma that only matter exists and that all of nature can be explained by material processes. This is not a "scientific cause," or anything like it; it is just materialist philosophy. This philosophy hides behind such superficial words as "scientific cause" and obliges scientists to accept quite unscientific conclusions. Not surprisingly, when Demirsoy cites another subject—the origins of the mitochondria in the cell—he openly accepts chance as an explanation, even though it is "quite contrary to scientific thought":
The heart of the problem is how the mitochondria have acquired this feature, because attaining this feature by chance even by one individual, requires extreme probabilities that are incomprehensible... The enzymes providing respiration and functioning as a catalyst in each step in a different form make up the core of the mechanism. A cell has to contain this enzyme sequence completely, otherwise it is meaningless. Here, despite being contrary to biological thought, in order to avoid a more dogmatic explanation or speculation, we have to accept, though reluctantly, that all the respiration enzymes completely existed in the cell before the cell first came in contact with oxygen.8
The conclusion to be drawn from such pronouncements is that evolution is not a theory arrived at through scientific investigation. On the contrary, the form and substance of this theory were dictated by the requirements of materialistic philosophy. It then turned into a belief or dogma in spite of concrete scientific facts. Again, from evolutionist literature, we can clearly see that all of this effort has a "purpose"—a purpose that requires maintaining, at no matter what cost, that living things were not created.
Coming to Terms with the Shocks
As we recently stressed, materialism is the belief that categorically rejects the existence of the nonmaterial (or the "supernatural"). Science, on the other hand, is under no obligation to accept such a dogma. The duty of science is to observe nature and produce results.
And science does reveal the fact that living things were created. This is something demonstrated by scientific discoveries. When we examine the fantastically complex structures in living things, we see that they possess such extraordinary features that they can never be accounted for by natural processes and coincidences. Every instance of extraordinary feature is evidence for an intelligence that brought it into being; therefore, we must conclude that life, too, was created by a power. This power belongs to a nonmaterial wisdom—the superior wisdom of the All-Powerful God, Who rules all of nature… In short, life and all living things were created. This is not a dogmatic belief like materialism, but a plain fact revealed by scientific observation and experiment.
We see that this fact comes as a terrible shock for scientists who are used to believing in materialism, and that materialism is a science. See how this shock is described by Michael Behe, one of the most important scientists to stand against the theory of evolution in the world today:
The resulting realization that life was designed by an intelligence is a shock to us in the twentieth century who have gotten used to thinking of life as the result of simple natural laws. But other centuries have had their shocks, and there is no reason to suppose that we should escape them.9
Mankind has been freed from such dogmas as that the world is flat, or that it is the center of the universe. And it is now being freed from the materialist and evolutionist dogma that life came about by itself.
The duty that befalls a true scientist in this respect, is to do away with materialist dogma and evaluate the origin of life and living things with the honesty and objectivity befitting a real scientist. A real scientist must come to terms with the "shock," and not tie himself to outdated nineteenth-century dogmas and defend impossible scenarios.
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The Signs in the Qur'an in Regard to Creation of the Universe
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In addition to explaining the universe, the Big Bang model has another important implication. As the quotation from Anthony Flew cited above points out, science has proven an assertion hitherto supported only by religious sources.
This truth is the reality of Creation from nothingness. This has been declared in the holy books that have served as guides for mankind for thousands of years.
In the only book revealed by God that has survived completely intact, the Qur'an, there are statements about the Creation of the universe from nothing as well as how this came about that are parallel to 20th-century knowledge and yet were revealed fourteen centuries ago.
First of all, the Creation of this universe from nothingness is revealed in the Qur'an as follows:
He (God) is the Originator of the heavens and the earth…(Surat al-An’am, 101)
Another important aspect revealed in the Qur'an fourteen centuries before the modern discovery of the Big Bang and findings related to it is that when it was created, the universe occupied a very tiny volume:
Do those who are unbelievers not see that the heavens and the earth were sewn together and then We unstitched them and that We made from water every living thing? So will they not have faith? (Surat al-Anbiya, 30)
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There is a very important choice of words in the original Arabic whose translation is given above. The word ratk translated as "sewn to" means "mixed in each, blended" in Arabic dictionaries. It is used to refer to two different substances that make up a whole. The phrase "we unstitched" is the verb fatk in Arabic and implies that something comes into being by tearing apart or destroying the structure of ratk. The sprouting of a seed from the soil is one of the actions to which this verb is applied.
Let us take a look at the verse again with this knowledge in mind. In the verse, sky and earth are at first subject to the status of ratk. They are separated (fatk) with one coming out of the other. Intriguingly, cosmologists speak of a "cosmic egg" that consisted of all the matter in the universe prior to the Big Bang. In other words, all the heavens and earth were included in this egg in a condition of ratk. This cosmic egg exploded violently causing its matter to fatk and in the process created the structure of the whole universe.
Another truth revealed in the Qur'an is the expansion of the universe that was discovered in the late 1920s. Hubble's discovery of the red shift in the spectrum of starlight is revealed in the Qur'an as:
It is We Who have built the universe with (Our creative) power, and, verily, it is We Who are steadily expanding it. (Surat adh-Dhariyat, 47)
In short, the findings of modern science support the truth that is revealed in the Qur'an and not materialist dogma. Materialists may claim this all to be "coincidence" but the plain fact is that the universe came into being as a result of an act of Creation on the part of God and the only true knowledge about the origin of universe is to be found in the word of God as revealed to us.
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Confessions of Evolutionists Stating that the Universe Has a Beginning
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Until the beginning of the 20th century, the prevailing view was that the universe was of infinite dimensions, and that it had always existed, and would continue to exist for ever. According to this view, known as the Static Universe Model, there was no question of the universe having any beginning or an end.
This perspective, which represents the basis of materialist philosophy, regarded the universe as being a stable, fixed and unchanging accumulation of matter, while denying the existence of any Creator. This view is still accepted, in various forms, by evolutionists for ideological reasons. They espouse their claims by maintaining that the universe is eternal end without end. This view, refuted by science, is used by its supporters to keep the false religion of Darwinism alive, in the face of all the scientific evidence.
Today, modern physics has proven with a certainty that does not permit any hesitations or objections, through many experiments, observations and calculations, that the universe had a beginning and was created in a single moment with an explosion known as the Big Bang. This utterly repudiated all evolutionists’ accounts, claims and statements to the effect that matter and the universe are without beginning or end.
Anthony Flew (British philosopher known for several decades as an atheist but who later acknowledged that atheism is an empty philosophy and stated that he believed in God. He expressed his views about how the Big Bang proved Creation as follows):
Notoriously, confession is good for the soul. I will therefore begin by confessing that the Stratonician atheist has to be embarrassed by the contemporary cosmological consensus. For it seems that the cosmologists are providing a scientific proof, that the universe had a beginning. So long as the universe can be comfortably thought of as being not only without end but also without beginning, it remains easy to urge that its brute existence, and whatever are found to be its most fundamental features, should be accepted as the explanatory ultimates. Although I believe that it remains still correct, it certainly is neither easy nor comfortable to maintain this position in the face of the Big Bang story.10
Dennis Sciama (Together with Fred Hoyle defended steady-state theory):
Defending the steady-state theory alongside Fred Hoyle for years, Dennis Sciama described the final position they had reached after all the evidence for the Big Bang theory was revealed. Sciama stated that he had taken part in the heated debate between the defenders of the steady-state theory and those who tested that theory with the hope of refuting it. He added that he had defended the steady-state theory, not because he deemed it valid, but because he wished that it were valid.
Fred Hoyle stood out against all objections as evidence against this theory began to unfold. Sciama goes on to say that he had first taken a stand along with Hoyle but, as evidence began to pile up, he had to admit that the game was over and that the steady-state theory had to be dismissed.11
Stephen W. Hawking:
Why should the Universe be in a state of high order at one end of time, the end that we call the past? Why is it not in a state of complete disorder at all times? After all, this might seem more probable. And why is the direction of time in which disorder increases the same as that in which the Universe expands? One possible view is that God simply chose that the Universe should be in a smooth and ordered state at the beginning of the expansion phase. We should not try to understand why, or question His reasons because the beginning of the Universe was the work of God. But the whole history of the Universe could be said to be the work of God.12
Prof. Fred Hoyle (British astronomer and mathematician):
The Big Bang theory holds that the universe began with a single explosion. Yet as can be seen below, an explosion merely throws matter apart, while the Big Bang has mysteriously produced the opposite effect-with matter clumping together in the form of galaxies.13
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Why are Proteins Constituted of Only 20 of the 200 Amino Acids?
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In theory, one would expect the number of amino acids in nature to be far more than 200. Even in human body, many amino acids not used in human proteins are used in the body's metabolic functions. Why, therefore, do proteins select only 20 amino acids when so many are more available?
We can answer this question by examining proteins' functions and structures. In order to perform their functions essential to life, proteins need to possess specific features, and amino acids are one of the main elements that give them those properties. For instance, it is essential that an amino acid possess hydrophobic (or water-repellent) side chains. But these side chains must not be very large, or else it will be impossible to pack and install them inside the proteins.
Side chains must also possess two features known as helix and layered formations. As a result of these, a protein can assume a three-dimensional form, and these are also essential for the protein to work properly.
Research has shown that of the 20 amino acids used in proteins, most are hydrophobic side chains. Half possess a-helix properties and the other half, b-layer properties.
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1. Pro
2. Gly
The amino acid structure of the protein collagen is seen. As you see, one of each three amino acids is glycine (Gly). Being very small, glycine is the most suitable amino acid for the structure of collagen.
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Examine the properties of these 20 amino acids one by one, and you can understand why they have been specially selected for proteins. For instance, even glycine—the smallest and simplest amino acid—has a very important role to play in collagen, which is one of the most important proteins. If the three amino acids that comprise collagen, one is glycine. Its small dimensions play an important role in the structure of collagen, by permitting the chains comprising the protein to bind tightly together, which increases the resistance of the collagen fibers. Collagen fibers have been determined to have greater tensile strength than steel. If another side-chain amino acid were used in place of glycine, the resulting collagen fibers could not possess the same level of tensile strength. At the same time, were it not for glycine, the collagen fibers would also lack enough strength to bind cells to one another.
As you can see from this brief description, there is a consciousness and planning behind the selection of these 20 specific amino acids from among the 200 occurring naturally. Had this selection taken place at random, then the proteins necessary for life could never have formed. If only a single amino acid were any different from how it needs to be, a vital function would collapse, and life would therefore become impossible. It is apparent that there are conscious systems, rational selection, and order in every phase of life.
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God, Not Chance, Created The Universe
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The universe was created in a moment by Almighty God telling it “Be!” Created in such a short time, the universe still possesses a glorious variety and harmony. God’s creation of the entire universe is a great blessing for human beings, because it shows us that we are under the control of the Omniscient God.
The universe, which enfolds outer space and all things, possesses an immaculate creation, matchless systems and includes our Earth with a balance and order meeting all the conditions needed to sustain life. All scientific findings in the 20th and 21st Centuries in particular show that the universe is the result of an immaculate creation. The one truth revealed by science is that All-Mighty and All-Knowing God created the universe.
The Observable Universe
Researchers calculate the age of the universe at 13.8 billion years. However, that calculation is based on the link between the speed of light and distance, and a distance of 13.8 billion light years is observable from the Earth. This is rather like only being able to see a certain distance around from a ship in the middle of the ocean. In the same way, scientists are able to see a distance of 13.8 billion light years from the Earth with their telescopes. As shown by the use of the word “observable,” we are still unaware of the existence of a region beyond that distance. It is therefore impossible for us to acquire absolutely definitive information about the age of the universe or its dimensions. However, the scientifically proven fact is that this universe we are still unable to observe is constantly expanding. Another interesting feature of the universe, whose age we are unable to calculate, is that it was created from nothing in the explosion known as the “Big Bang.” The universe we cannot observe, and whose age we do not know, survives at this wondrous size within a flawless order at the command of our Almighty Lord. In revealing this matchless creation of the universe in the Qur’an, Almighty God also reminds us of His greatness:
“Do those who are disbelievers not see that the heavens and the earth were sewn together and then We unstitched them and that We made from water every living thing? So will they not have faith?” (Surat al-Anbiya, 30)
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The Sensitive Tasks of Supernovae in the Universe
A giant star destroys itself in a huge explosion and all the matter it contains is scattered at high speed in all directions. The light emitted during this explosion is thousands of times more powerful than that normally given off by the star. The scattering of a star in this way is known as a supernova.
Astronomers estimate that these explosions serve to carry matter from one point in the universe to another. The stellar wastes scattered in the explosion are believed to collect in other corners of the universe and to form new stars or stellar systems. According to this hypothesis, the sun, the planets in the solar system and of course our earth all emerged as the result of a supernova explosion in very, very remote times.
The amazing thing however is that supernovae, which might look like ordinary explosions at first sight, are in fact built around highly sensitive balances. As Michael Denton writes in his book Nature’s Destiny:
The distances between supernovae and indeed between all stars is critical for other reasons. The distance between stars in our galaxy is about 30 million miles. If this distance was much less, planetary orbits would be destabilized. If it was much more, then the debris thrown out by a supernova would be so diffusely distributed that planetary systems like our own would in all probability never form. If the cosmos is to be a home for life, then the flickering of the supernovae must occur at a very precise rate and the average distance between them, and indeed between all stars, must be very close to the actual observed figure. (Michael Denton, Nature’s Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe, New York: The Free Press: 1998, p. 11)
Perfect Order in the Solar System
One of the areas where we can most clearly observe the regularity in the universe is the solar system, home to our earth. The solar system contains eight planets and 54 satellites dependent on those planets. In order of their proximity to the sun, these planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus. The only one of these planets and 54 satellites with a surface and atmosphere suited to life is our Earth.
When we look at the structure of the Solar System, we again encounter a remarkable balance. The effect that protects the planets from being cast off into the icy depths of space is the balance between the “gravitational attraction of the sun” and the “centrifugal force” of the planets. Due to its great gravitational force, the sun attracts the planets toward it, while they try to escape from it through the centrifugal force set up by their orbits. However, if the planets’ orbits were slightly slower, these planets would be pulled toward the sun and be swallowed by it in a tremendous explosion.
The opposite might also apply. If the planets orbited the sun slightly faster, the power of the sun would be unable to restrain them and the planets would simply spin off into the void of outer space. Yet this highly sensitive balance has been put in place, and the system survives because it is maintained by that balance.
At this point it needs to be stated that the balance in question is instituted separately for each planet because the planets lie at very different distances from the sun. Their masses are also very different. They all therefore need to have different orbital velocities in order not to fly away into space or plunge into the sun. Almighty God reveals this glorious order He has created in this verse:
“It is not for the sun to overtake the moon nor for the night to outstrip the day; each one is swimming in a sphere.” (Surah Ya Sin, 40)
Each one of the planets in the universe, great or small, is a component that is of crucial importance to this order. Neither their positions in space nor their courses are at all random: On the contrary, they are all created with numerous details, some of which we know and others not, and for a specific purpose. Indeed, of all the factors that affect the balances in the universe, just a minute change in the position of the planets would be enough to tear apart all these inter-related balances. Yet these balances are never compromised, and the perfect order in the universe continues uninterrupted. This is the immaculate creation by Almighty God.
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