The Objective Observer

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Proof of God

• The Collected Arguments for God
• Creationists vs. Atheists
• Beating a Not-So-Dead God...Err, Horse
• Confessing My Sins
• The Scientific Theory of God
• Revelations
• Skipping To The End
• Why Pi?
• The FINAL Proof of God
• The Greek Creation "Myth"
• The Zodiac
• The Science of God
• Ozymandias Strikes Yet Again

OK, as you may have guessed, I happen to think that there is something that fits the classical description of “God” out there. Thus, one might argue that I cannot be objective on this matter. I disagree, but you can judge that for yourself. I came to my conclusions honestly; which is to say, objectively. I never took what priests, nuns and other religious people said about a “god” at face value and I never took what atheists or scientists; and yes there is a big difference, said at face value. I prefer to think for myself. Just give me the facts, I’ll sort through it and come to my own conclusions.

So, I want to share with you my own musings on this subject. And these come from a lifetime of contemplation. And no, I don’t spend every waking minute thinking about this stuff. My revelations regarding actually knowing for a fact that God exists are relatively recent, within the last few months. I will collect all of these arguments together in an upcoming essay, The Collected Arguments for God.

The basic problem with this subject is that people get all wrapped up in one side of this debate or the other and regardless of which side they choose they tend to completely discount the other side and view that side as “the enemy”. Creationists have railed for years against scientific knowledge that seems to contradict their version of events. For example, creationists have fought for years against the theory of evolution, even though it provides some of the strongest evidence IN FAVOR of the existence of God. Atheists rely heavily on science and berate creationists as being “unscientific”, “engaging in fantasy” and postulating about answers that are “impossible to prove empirically”. Never mind that their precious science suffers from the EXACT same fatal flaws.

So let’s take a look at three of the main sources of debate between creationists and atheists, the origin of the universe, the nature of the universe and the origin of life.

Let’s start with the origin of the universe. The creationists believe that “POOF! God created the universe”. ‘Nuff said. Atheists rely on science to explain the origin of the universe. The scientific explanation for the origin of the universe is POOF! the “Big Bang” created the universe.

Now, to be clear, the “Big Bang” theory states that all of the matter and energy in the universe was contained within a more or less infinitely dense “singularity”. During this earliest time, 13.7 billion years ago, from between zero to 10^-43 seconds, elementary particles did not exist and gravity, electromagnetism, and nuclear forces were all unified as a single force. This singularity then began to rapidly expand and cool. In fact, current scientific theories state that this singularity initially expanded at a rate faster than the speed of light. Incidentally, this means that the universe is actually bigger than we can possibly observe. Fun, huh?

So let’s look objectively at both of these theories. The first one forces me to believe in some kind of supernatural “thing” that created the universe. The second forces me to believe in a physically paradoxical “singularity” that essentially breaks every known law known to man and woman. Why is one “better” than the other? I cannot observe either one and they both point to a single, fantastic being or thing; one “God” and the other a “singularity”, that does not follow any of the rules.

But there is another problem with the “scientific” version of the creation of the universe. That problem has a name, it is called the “First Law of Thermodynamics”. In layman’s terms, this law states that matter cannot be created or destroyed. So, where did the matter and energy that formed this singularity come from? Perhaps there was a bigger bang before the Big Bang? We could call it the “Bigger Bang” theory and could say that this “Bigger Bang” created all of the matter and energy that formed the singularity of the “Big Bang”. Except, we would then have to have an “Even Bigger Bang” theory to create the matter and energy for the “Bigger Bang”. Damn.

So, looking at this objectively, I have two theories that can never be proven by any kind of direct, observational evidence. Both force me to believe in “magic”, if you will. Why is one better than the other? Now, falling back on Occam’s razor, Occam’s razor states that one should make no more assumptions than needed and that when multiple explanations are available the one that makes the least assumptions is preferred. Thus, one theory asks me to assume that there is a “God”. The other asks me to assume that the physical universe, for one time only, broke the First Law of Thermodynamics. It also wants me to assume that we can talk intelligently about something that happened 13.7 billion YEARS ago but in increments of zero to 10^-43 SECONDS. It also wants me to assume that things can move faster than the speed of light, something else that is supposed to be “illegal”, that all of the observed fundamental forces of nature were combined at one point, that elementary particles did not exist, and on and on and on. It seems to me that Occam’s razor would tend to choose the creationist explanation over the atheist explanation. Good ol’ Occam.

So on to the nature of the universe. Creationists say that the universe follows “God’s law” and was created with life and, particularly; us humans, in mind. Simple enough. Atheists, again, fall back on what scientists say. Can’t these guys think for themselves? Anyway, prevailing scientific theory is pretty much general disagreement about the nature of the universe. And to scientists, the nature of the universe is explained by one’s interpretation of quantum mechanics. The most popular interpretation is called the “Copenhagen Interpretation”. The next most popular is the “Many-Worlds Interpretation” (MWI) and then there are a whole host of others like “Consistent Histories”, “Transactional Interpretation”, “Consciousness Causes Collapse” and the “Bohm Interpretation”. Essentially, all of these theories suffer from one or more problems. For instance, depending upon which theory you choose, you have to abandon determinism, locality, causality, realism, relativity or some other “ism” or “ity”. Alternatively you can believe that there are an infinite number of unseen and undetectable parallel universes.

Now, I may be going out on a limb here, but I believe; as Einstein used to say, that the moon really does exist, even when I am not looking at it. This is one of the problems with the most popular quantum mechanics interpretation, the “Copenhagen Interpretation”. And unlike Stephen Hawking, I also have a problem with any theory that forces me to believe, or assume, an infinite number of parallel universes that cannot be detected; which is what MWI does. And those are the MOST POPULAR interpretations of the physical universe by scientists. Holy cow! Are you kidding me? And yet these “scientific” theories are supposed to be held in higher regard than a theory about “God”? Why? They seem just as fantastical and unrealistic to me and, again, Occam’s razor would tend to favor a theory of “God” over the others. It is also interesting to note that the existence of a “God” that can observe everything simultaneously neatly resolves the most problematic paradox of the Copenhagen Interpretation, that the moon, theoretically, would not exist unless somebody is looking at it.

So now on to the creation of life. And again, creationists believe that God said “Let there be life!” and there was. Mind you, he didn’t say, “Hmmm, let’s liven this place up.” or “Let there be some life all up’n here!”, he actually stated, out loud and in English no less, “Let there be life!”. Then, and only then, was there any. Atheists yet again fall back on scientists to explain the origin of life. And scientific explanations regarding the origin of life make quantum mechanics interpretations look good by comparison. Basically, to believe in a scientific explanation for the origin of life, one might as well believe in alchemy or “spontaneous combustion”. OK, so I am being a little over dramatic, but not by much. You really have to believe that organic compounds and life came from inorganic compounds and non-life and that this switch from inorganic to organic occurred spontaneously (by “magic”).

Other than the obvious host of assumptions that you have to wade through to make that little trip I have always had one big problem with scientific explanations for the origin of life. And that big problem is the apparent uniqueness of the event. Why, if the Earth is apparently the greatest vehicle ever created to host life (4 billion year track record and still going strong) and if the creation of life can just occur “spontaneously” through basic chemical and other physical processes, then why isn’t life being created all the time? I mean, what was unique about the Earth in the past that is different than today? Why would life be able to exist on the Earth today but not be conducive to the formation of new life? If life was spontaneously created on the Earth through chemical and physical processes in the past, then it should still be being created today by those same chemical and physical processes. Side note, the “Clay Theory” of life proposed by Dr A. Graham Cairns-Smith is actually pretty intriguing and, oddly, fits with a lot of early mythology. Other explanations basically give up and point to “little green men”. Yes, actual scientific theory points to extraterrestrial origins for life. I thought that respectable scientists generally railed against the “I believe”, little green men from Mars, flying saucer, UFO folks.

Again, if you look at all of this objectively, I do not see that the creationist’s explanation for the origin of life as any more or less flawed than scientific explanations. And, Occam’s razor yet AGAIN comes out in favor of the creationists.

So I am left to ask why? Why are creationists held is such disregard by so many in the atheist and scientific community when those people have nothing better to offer, and in many cases have much worse to offer? Are “scientific” explanations better simply because they were not uttered by a creationist? Are “scientific” explanations better simply because they are more complex? Do “scientific” explanations provide any more insight or resolution on the questions of the origin of the universe, nature of the universe or origin of life than explanations offered by creationists? I say no. There is nothing intrinsically better about either the explanations offered by creationists or the explanations offered by scientists. And atheists add absolutely nothing of their own to the debate whatsoever, other than to say, “Well, the creationists are wrong.” Here’s a thought, how about ADDING something to the debate and analysis. Simply saying “Nope, that’s not right.” adds absolutely zero to the discussion. Think for yourselves.

So, to wrap this all up, if you look at these questions objectively, I do not understand why creationist theories are held in such low regard by so many. Yes, they are simple and yes they cannot be proved. But what we are given in contrast are incredibly complex theories that are internally inconsistent and ALSO cannot be proved. Why would someone looking at things objectively want to rule in favor of either one? Guess what? The real truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. It is probably a whole hell of a lot more complicated than what we are led to believe by the creationists, but, then again, it probably DOES involve something that generally fits the classical description of “God”.