Physics Proves That God Exists
The BBC article below asks if physics can prove that God exists. In this BBC article (reproduced below), notice in the paragraph above the photo under the subheading “The Multiverse,” the statement that “our universe seems fine-tuned for life to exist”. We naturally ask, “How could fine-tuning occur without a designer?” Could a fine-tuned machine exist without a designer? Obviously not. This secular article gives some evidence that physics proves God exists!
“Do you know the laws of the universe? Can you use them to regulate the earth? (Job 38:33 NLT). These are extremely profound questions that God asked Job. Scientists today do not fully understand these laws that were set by the Creator. The BBC article below helps us to see some of the ever-increasing evidence of what the Bible said long ago:
“Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what he has made, so that people are without excuse”—Romans 1:20 NIV
Also, in this BBC article, notice evidence supporting the 2, 700 year old Biblical statement that God, “Stretched out the heavens” (Isaiah 45:12), that is, the universe has been expanding since its beginning.
The BBC article follows:
Can physics prove if God exists?
Getty ImagesIf there is a God, would they be bound by the laws of physics?
I still believed in God (I am now an atheist) when I heard the following question at a seminar, first posed by Einstein, and was stunned by its elegance and depth: “If there is a God who created the entire universe and ALL of its laws of physics, does God follow God’s own laws? Or can God supersede his own laws, such as travelling faster than the speed of light and thus being able to be in two different places at the same time?” Could the answer help us prove whether or not God exists or is this where scientific empiricism and religious faith intersect, with NO true answer? David Frost, 67, Los Angeles.
I was in lockdown when I received this question and was instantly intrigued. It’s no wonder about the timing – tragic events, such as pandemics, often cause us to question the existence of God: if there is a merciful God, why is a catastrophe like this happening? The idea that God might be “bound” by the laws of physics – which also govern chemistry and biology and thus the limits of medical science – was an interesting one to explore.
If God wasn’t able to break the laws of physics, she arguably wouldn’t be as powerful as you’d expect a supreme being to be. But if she could, why haven’t we seen any evidence of the laws of physics ever being broken in the Universe?
To tackle the question, let’s break it down a bit. First, can God travel faster than light? Let’s just take the question at face value. Light travels at an approximate speed of 3 x 10 to the power of 5 kilometres every second, or 186,000 miles per second (299,500km/s). We learn at school that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light – not even the USS Enterprise in Star Trek when its dilithium crystals are set to max.
But is it true? A few years ago, a group of physicists posited that particles called tachyons travelled above light speed. Fortunately, their existence as real particles is deemed highly unlikely. If they did exist, they would have an imaginary mass and the fabric of space and time would become distorted – leading to violations of causality (and possibly a headache for God).
It seems, so far, that no object has been observed that can travel faster than the speed of light. This in itself does not say anything at all about God. It merely reinforces the knowledge that light travels very fast indeed.
The Universe is expanding at a rate of approximately 70km/s per Mpc (1 Mpc = 1 Megaparsec or roughly 30 billion billion kilometres), so current estimates suggest that the distance to the edge of the universe is 46 billion light years. As time goes on, the volume of space increases, and light has to travel for longer to reach us.
There is a lot more universe out there than we can view, but the most distant object that we have seen is a galaxy, GN-z11, observed by the Hubble Space Telescope. This is approximately 1.2 x 10 x 23 km or 13.4 billion light years away, meaning that it has taken 13.4 billion years for light from the galaxy to reach us. But when the light “set off”, the galaxy was only about three billion light years away from our galaxy, the Milky Way.
We cannot observe or see across the entirety of the Universe that has grown since the Big Bang because insufficient time has passed for light from the first fractions of a second to reach us. Some argue that we therefore cannot be sure whether the laws of physics could be broken in other cosmic regions – perhaps they are just local, accidental laws. And that leads us on to something even bigger than the Universe.
The multiverse
Many cosmologists believe that the Universe may be part of a more extended cosmos, a multiverse, where many different universes co-exist but don’t interact. The idea of the multiverse is backed by the theory of inflation – the idea that the universe expanded hugely before it was 10^-32 seconds old. Inflation is an important theory because it can explain why the Universe has the shape and structure that we see around us.
But if inflation could happen once, why not many times? We know from experiments that quantum fluctuations can give rise to pairs of particles suddenly coming into existence, only to disappear moments later. And if such fluctuations can produce particles, why not entire atoms or universes? It’s been suggested that, during the period of chaotic inflation, not everything was happening at the same rate – quantum fluctuations in the expansion could have produced bubbles that blew up to become universes in their own right.
But how does God fit into the multiverse? One headache for cosmologists has been the fact that our Universe seems fine-tuned for life to exist. The fundamental particles created in the Big Bang had the correct properties to enable the formation of hydrogen and deuterium – substances which produced the first stars.
NasaThe physical laws governing nuclear reactions in these stars then produced the stuff that life’s made of – carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. How come all the physical laws and parameters in the universe happen to have the values that allowed stars, planets and ultimately life to develop?
Some argue it’s just a lucky coincidence. Others say we shouldn’t be surprised to see biofriendly physical laws – they after all produced us, so what else would we see? Some theists, however, argue it points to the existence of a God creating favourable conditions.
But God isn’t a valid scientific explanation. The theory of the multiverse, instead, solves the mystery because it allows different universes to have different physical laws. So, it’s not surprising that we should happen to see ourselves in one of the few universes that could support life. Of course, you can’t disprove the idea that a God may have created the multiverse.
This is all very hypothetical, and one of the biggest criticisms of theories of the multiverse is that because there seem to have been no interactions between our Universe and other universes, then the notion of the multiverse cannot be directly tested.
Quantum weirdness
Now let’s consider whether God can be in more than one place at the same time. Much of the science and technology we use in space science is based on the counter-intuitive theory of the tiny world of atoms and particles known as quantum mechanics.
The theory enables something called quantum entanglement: spookily connected particles. If two particles are entangled, you automatically manipulate its partner when you manipulate it, even if they are very far apart and without the two interacting. There are better descriptions of entanglement than the one I give here – but this is simple enough that I can follow it.
Imagine a particle that decays into two sub-particles, A and B. The properties of the sub-particles must add up to the properties of the original particle – this is the principle of conservation. For example, all particles have a quantum property called “spin” – roughly, they move as if they were tiny compass needles. If the original particle has a “spin” of zero, one of the two sub-particles must have a positive spin and the other a negative spin, which means that each of A and B has a 50% chance of having a positive or a negative spin. (According to quantum mechanics, particles are by definition in a mix of different states until you actually measure them.)
Getty ImagesThe properties of A and B are not independent of each other – they are entangled – even if located in separate laboratories on separate planets. If you measure the spin of A and you find it to be positive, then imagine a friend measured the spin of B at exactly the same time that you measured A. In order for the principle of conservation to work, she must find the spin of B to be negative.
But – and this is where things become murky – like sub-particle A, B had a 50:50 chance of being positive, so its spin state “became” negative at the time that the spin state of A was measured as positive. In other words, information about spin state was transferred between the two sub-particles instantly. Such transfer of quantum information apparently happens faster than the speed of light. Given that Einstein himself described quantum entanglement as “spooky action at a distance”, I think all of us can be forgiven for finding this a rather bizarre effect.
So, there is something faster than the speed of light after all: quantum information. This doesn’t prove or disprove God, but it can help us think of God in physical terms – maybe as a shower of entangled particles, transferring quantum information back and forth, and so occupying many places at the same time? Even many universes at the same time?
I have this image of God keeping galaxy-sized plates spinning while juggling planet-sized balls – tossing bits of information from one teetering universe to another, to keep everything in motion. Fortunately, God can multitask – keeping the fabric of space and time in operation. All that is required is a little faith.
Has this essay come close to answering the questions posed? I suspect not: if you believe in God (as I do), then the idea of God being bound by the laws of physics is nonsense, because God can do everything, even travel faster than light. If you don’t believe in God, then the question is equally nonsensical, because there isn’t a God and nothing can travel faster than light. Perhaps the question is really one for agnostics, who don’t know whether there is a God.
NasaThis is indeed where science and religion differ. Science requires proof, religious belief requires faith. Scientists don’t try to prove or disprove God’s existence because they know there isn’t an experiment that can ever detect God. And if you believe in God, it doesn’t matter what scientists discover about the Universe – any cosmos can be thought of as being consistent with God.
Our views of God, physics or anything else ultimately depends on perspective. But let’s end with a quotation from a truly authoritative source. No, it isn’t the Bible. Nor is it a cosmology textbook. It’s from Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett:
“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.”
Our Concluding Comments:
“Can you direct the movement of the stars”—Job 38:31 NLT
“Praise him, sun and moon! Praise him, all you twinkling stars”—Psalm 148:3,4 NLT
The more science discovers about the way the universe works, the more evidence is uncovered that the Creator God exists!
3 thoughts on “Physics Proves That God Exists”
GW: Oh my goodness, this is going to be a long read and a long reply.
BA: The BBC article below asks if physics can prove that God exists. In this BBC article (reproduced below), notice in the paragraph above the photo under the subheading “The Multiverse,” the statement that “our universe seems fine-tuned for life to exist”.
GW: But it doesn’t seem fine-tuned to exist. This article is in error.
BA: We naturally ask, “How could fine-tuning occur without a designer?” Could a fine-tuned machine exist without a designer? Obviously not. This secular article gives some evidence that physics proves God exists!
GW: The term “fine tuning” does imply a tuner, i.e. a person who intentionally tunes. But the whole fine tuning argument, in its different forms, has been debunked. I even debunked it in my first book – God Wants You to be an Atheist.
BA: “Do you know the laws of the universe? Can you use them to regulate the earth? (Job 38:33 NLT).
GW: Yes, we do know some of the laws of the universe. Humans have used some geophysical laws to partly regulate the earth in a bad way, causing global warming and climate change.
BA: These are extremely profound questions that God asked Job.
GW: False. God does not exist and the story of Job is fiction. God would never make a bet with Satan. What a ridiculous idea!
BA: Scientists today do not fully understand these laws that were set by the Creator.
GW: You are begging the question – assuming there was a creator. You don’t know that, and nobody does. Actually, the universe is probably eternal, requiring no creator.
BA: The BBC article below helps us to see some of the ever-increasing evidence of what the Bible said long ago:
GW: False. The findings of science and some stories of the Bible are inconsistent or contradictory. Science has shown that species resulted from evolution, whereas the Bible says they resulted from a special creation by God. This is a contradiction. I think I’ll go with science.
BA: “Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what he has made, so that people are without excuse”—Romans 1:20 NIV
GW: Pure speculation. No proof. Not even good evidence for this.
BA: Also, in this BBC article, notice evidence supporting the 2, 700 year old Biblical statement that God, “Stretched out the heavens” (Isaiah 45:12), that is, the universe has been expanding since its beginning.
GW: God does not exist, and so he could do no stretching or anything else. The author had a one-third chance of being correct, just by chance – expansion, contraction, or remaining stable.
BA: The BBC article follows: Can physics prove if God exists? 1 March 2021. Monica Grady, The Open University
BBC: If there is a God, would they be bound by the laws of physics?
GW: Of course he wouldn’t since God would have created the forces of the universe, described by the laws of physics.
BBC: I still believed in God (I am now an atheist) when I heard the following question at a seminar, first posed by Einstein, and was stunned by its elegance and depth:
GW: So the author converted from Christianity to atheism. So did I.
BBC: “If there is a God who created the entire universe and ALL of its laws of physics, does God follow God’s own laws? Or can God supersede his own laws, such as travelling faster than the speed of light and thus being able to be in two different places at the same time?”
GW: That’s a pretty dumb question. If God did exist, then he created the laws of physics and could change them or supercede them anytime he wished.
BBC: Could the answer help us prove whether or not God exists or is this where scientific empiricism and religious faith intersect, with NO true answer? David Frost, 67, Los Angeles.
GW: There is no intersection. We have now proven by philosophy, science, and history combined that God does not exist!
BBC: I was in lockdown when I received this question and was instantly intrigued. It’s no wonder about the timing – tragic events, such as pandemics, often cause us to question the existence of God: if there is a merciful God, why is a catastrophe like this happening?
GW: I published an article about this. If God did exist, the Covid pandemic would not have occurred. But it did occur. Therefore, God does not exist.
BBC: The idea that God might be “bound” by the laws of physics – which also govern chemistry and biology and thus the limits of medical science – was an interesting one to explore.
GW: No, it’s a silly idea. See above.
BBC: If God wasn’t able to break the laws of physics, she arguably wouldn’t be as powerful as you’d expect a supreme being to be. But if she could, why haven’t we seen any evidence of the laws of physics ever being broken in the Universe?
GW: Again, if God did exist, of course he could break the laws of physics, and he would do so for loving or moral purposes.
BBC: To tackle the question, let’s break it down a bit. First, can God travel faster than light? Let’s just take the question at face value. Light travels at an approximate speed of 3 x 10 to the power of 5 kilometres every second, or 186,000 miles per second (299,500km/s). We learn at school that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light – not even the USS Enterprise in Star Trek when its dilithium crystals are set to max.
GW: Well of course, if God did exist, he could exceed the speed of light. He would be a supernatural being, not bound by natural laws. Duh. But we now know God does not exist.
BBC: But is it true? A few years ago, a group of physicists posited that particles called tachyons travelled above light speed. Fortunately, their existence as real particles is deemed highly unlikely. If they did exist, they would have an imaginary mass and the fabric of space and time would become distorted – leading to violations of causality (and possibly a headache for God).
GW: So far, something traveling faster than the speed of light has not been observed.
BBC: It seems, so far, that no object has been observed that can travel faster than the speed of light. This in itself does not say anything at all about God. It merely reinforces the knowledge that light travels very fast indeed.
GW: I agree with all of that. But if God did exist, he could cause himself or any object to move faster than the speed of light. After all, he would be all powerful. Duh.
BBC: Things get a bit more interesting when you consider how far light has travelled since the beginning. Assuming a traditional big bang cosmology and a light speed of 300,000km/s, then we can calculate that light has travelled roughly 1.3 x 10 x 23 (1.3 times 10 to the power 23) km in the 13.8 billion years of the Universe’s existence. Or rather, the observable Universe’s existence.
GW: Probably true. So what?
BBC: The Universe is expanding at a rate of approximately 70km/s per Mpc (1 Mpc = 1 Megaparsec or roughly 30 billion billion kilometres), so current estimates suggest that the distance to the edge of the universe is 46 billion light years. As time goes on, the volume of space increases, and light has to travel for longer to reach us.
GW: Probably true. So what?
BBC: There is a lot more universe out there than we can view, but the most distant object that we have seen is a galaxy, GN-z11, observed by the Hubble Space Telescope. This is approximately 1.2 x 10 x 23 km or 13.4 billion light years away, meaning that it has taken 13.4 billion years for light from the galaxy to reach us. But when the light “set off”, the galaxy was only about three billion light years away from our galaxy, the Milky Way.
GW: Probably true. But what does this have to do with God?
BBC: Many cosmologists believe that the Universe may be part of a more extended cosmos, a multiverse.
GW: Yes, many cosmologists think this, but I am not yet persuaded. No other universe has been observed, confirmed, or proven.
BBC: We cannot observe or see across the entirety of the Universe that has grown since the Big Bang because insufficient time has passed for light from the first fractions of a second to reach us. Some argue that we therefore cannot be sure whether the laws of physics could be broken in other cosmic regions – perhaps they are just local, accidental laws. And that leads us on to something even bigger than the Universe.
GW: Everywhere that the laws of the universe have been observed or tested, they have held up. No deviations. They are probably universal.
BBC: The multiverse. Many cosmologists believe that the Universe may be part of a more extended cosmos, a multiverse, where many different universes co-exist but don’t interact. The idea of the multiverse is backed by the theory of inflation – the idea that the universe expanded hugely before it was 10^-32 seconds old. Inflation is an important theory because it can explain why the Universe has the shape and structure that we see around us.
GW: But there could be inflation without other universes.
BBC: But if inflation could happen once, why not many times?
GW: Sure, it could happen, but we don’t know that it did.
BBC: We know from experiments that quantum fluctuations can give rise to pairs of particles suddenly coming into existence, only to disappear moments later.
GW: What the heck does this have to do with the God hypothesis?
BBC: And if such fluctuations can produce particles, why not entire atoms or universes?
GW: It’s possible, but super-improbable. Never been observed at the level of atoms or universes.
BBC: It’s been suggested that, during the period of chaotic inflation, not everything was happening at the same rate – quantum fluctuations in the expansion could have produced bubbles that blew up to become universes in their own right.
GW: Could have. No proof.
BBC: But how does God fit into the multiverse? One headache for cosmologists has been the fact that our Universe seems fine-tuned for life to exist.
GW: False. There is no evidence for fine tuning of the universe for anything. But if there were, then it has been fine tuned for the extinction of all life in the universe. Is that the kind of universe God would design, if he did exist? Of course not.
BBC: The fundamental particles created in the Big Bang had the correct properties to enable the formation of hydrogen and deuterium – substances which produced the first stars.
GW: They had properties, but not “correct properties.” “Correct” implies that the outcome was known ahead of time. It wasn’t.
BBC: Nasa Could quantum physics help explain a God that could be in two places at once? (Credit: Nasa)Nasa
GW: No. If God did exist, he would not be bound by quantum physics and he would be everywhere present at once, not just in two places.
BBC: The physical laws governing nuclear reactions in these stars then produced the stuff that life’s made of – carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. How come all the physical laws and parameters in the universe happen to have the values that allowed stars, planets and ultimately life to develop?
GW: Just a brute fact of the universe. Maybe they could have had no other values. There is no proof that they could have been different.
BBC: Some argue it’s just a lucky coincidence. Others say we shouldn’t be surprised to see biofriendly physical laws – they after all produced us, so what else would we see?
GW: I suggest that orderliness is an intrinsic and eternal property of an eternal universe. That explanation works and is the simplest, so we should favor it.
BBC: Some theists, however, argue it points to the existence of a God creating favourable conditions.
GW: But the God hypothesis has now been falsified.
BBC: But God isn’t a valid scientific explanation.
GW: “God exists and created the universe” is a viable hypothesis, but it has finally been falsified. Even Richard Dawkins has said that it is a scientific hypothesis.
BBC: The theory of the multiverse, instead, solves the mystery because it allows different universes to have different physical laws. So, it’s not surprising that we should happen to see ourselves in one of the few universes that could support life.
GW: The multiverse hypothesis is actually a competitor to the fine tuning hypothesis. You don’t need any fine tuning, if the physical constants are just randomly assorted within the infinite set of universes. Frankly, I am not convinced of either hypothesis.
BBC: Of course, you can’t disprove the idea that a God may have created the multiverse.
GW: But you can disprove the existence of God. I’ve done it many times.
BBC: If two particles are entangled, you automatically manipulate its partner when you manipulate it
GW: Not necessarily. It may be that the partner particles were put in opposite states at the start, and their differing states observed later on.
BBC: This is all very hypothetical,,..
GW: Not all of it is hypothetical. The universe is expanding. Some particles are entangled. All life will go extinct. Other things are hypothetical.
BBC: and one of the biggest criticisms of theories of the multiverse is that because there seem to have been no interactions between our Universe and other universes, then the notion of the multiverse cannot be directly tested.
GW: At least not yet.
BBC: Quantum weirdness. Now let’s consider whether God can be in more than one place at the same time.
GW: If God did exist, he would be everywhere at once. So, at the time of the Holocaust, he would have been in Germany and in surrounding countries while the Jews were being murdered by the millions. Would he have allowed it? Of course not. So, we know he doesn’t exist.
BBC: Much of the science and technology we use in space science is based on the counter-intuitive theory of the tiny world of atoms and particles known as quantum mechanics.
GW: True, but so what?
BBC: The theory enables something called quantum entanglement: spookily connected particles. If two particles are entangled, you automatically manipulate its partner when you manipulate it, even if they are very far apart and without the two interacting. There are better descriptions of entanglement than the one I give here – but this is simple enough that I can follow it.
GW: See my alternative explanation, presented earlier.
BBC: Imagine a particle that decays into two sub-particles, A and B. The properties of the sub-particles must add up to the properties of the original particle – this is the principle of conservation. For example, all particles have a quantum property called “spin” – roughly, they move as if they were tiny compass needles. If the original particle has a “spin” of zero, one of the two sub-particles must have a positive spin and the other a negative spin, which means that each of A and B has a 50% chance of having a positive or a negative spin. (According to quantum mechanics, particles are by definition in a mix of different states until you actually measure them.)
GW: That’s one explanation, but there are others.
BBC: The properties of A and B are not independent of each other – they are entangled – even if located in separate laboratories on separate planets. If you measure the spin of A and you find it to be positive, then imagine a friend measured the spin of B at exactly the same time that you measured A. In order for the principle of conservation to work, she must find the spin of B to be negative.
GW: Their different spins could have been determined at the point of release.
BBC: But – and this is where things become murky – like sub-particle A, B had a 50:50 chance of being positive, so its spin state “became” negative at the time that the spin state of A was measured as positive. In other words, information about spin state was transferred between the two sub-particles instantly. Such transfer of quantum information apparently happens faster than the speed of light.
GW: That is only one interpretation. There are others.
BBC: Given that Einstein himself described quantum entanglement as “spooky action at a distance”, I think all of us can be forgiven for finding this a rather bizarre effect.
GW: I agree.
BBC: So, there is something faster than the speed of light after all: quantum information.
GW: False. The speed limit of light is for one particle or object TRAVELING from point A to point B. In entanglement, there is no proof that a particle traveled.
BBC: This doesn’t prove or disprove God, but it can help us think of God in physical terms – maybe as a shower of entangled particles, transferring quantum information back and forth, and so occupying many places at the same time? Even many universes at the same time?
GW: This is complete nonsense. If God did exist, he would be a spiritual being, not a physical being. He would be supernatural, not natural. He would be the creator of natural laws and not subject to them himself. (On the other hand, he would create moral laws to which he would subject himself by choice. But moral laws are not physical laws.)
BBC: Science requires proof, religious belief requires faith
GW: That is a misleading statement. For any assertion about reality to be considered true, proof is required. It doesn’t matter whether the assertion is scientific, philosophical, religious, or historical.
BBC: I have this image of God keeping galaxy-sized plates spinning while juggling planet-sized balls – tossing bits of information from one teetering universe to another, to keep everything in motion.
GW: That is not my image at all. My image is of God creating a self-sustaining universe, not requiring his intervention, but in which he could intervene if he wanted.
BBC: Fortunately, God can multitask – keeping the fabric of space and time in operation.
GW: This is begging the question – assuming that God exists without justification or proof. As I said earlier, if God did exist, he would not need to sustain the existence of our universe. If he needed to, that would be an inferior product.
BBC: All that is required is a little faith.
GW: Faith is just belief without sufficient evidence or logic. People believe in God through faith. But new and improved arguments prove that God does not exist. So faith is in vain.
BA: Has this essay come close to answering the questions posed?
GW: No way!
BA: I suspect not:
GW: You suspect correctly.
BA: if you believe in God (as I do), then the idea of God being bound by the laws of physics is nonsense, because God can do everything, even travel faster than light.
GW: Yes, that would be true if God did exist. But he doesn’t.
BA: If you don’t believe in God, then the question is equally nonsensical, because there isn’t a God and nothing can travel faster than light. Perhaps the question is really one for agnostics, who don’t know whether there is a God.
GW: It is no longer rational to be either a theist or an agnostic. Why? Because we now know that God does not exist.
BA: This is indeed where science and religion differ. Science requires proof, religious belief requires faith.
GW: Religion just has lower standards than science for belief. Faith is belief on the basis of insufficient evidence or logic.
BA: Scientists don’t try to prove or disprove God’s existence because they know there isn’t an experiment that can ever detect God.
GW: False. Argument 81 mentioned an experiment whose results, along with philosophical premises, proved that God does not exist. So science can be used to disprove God.
BA: And if you believe in God, it doesn’t matter what scientists discover about the Universe – any cosmos can be thought of as being consistent with God.
GW: False. Our particular cosmos is contradictory to the existence of God. I have a dozen arguments which show this. You have seen three or four of them.
BA: Our views of God, physics or anything else ultimately depends on perspective.
GW: There is only one valid perspective – the perspective of Reason.
BA: But let’s end with a quotation from a truly authoritative source. No, it isn’t the Bible. Nor is it a cosmology textbook. It’s from Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett:
BA: “Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong.
GW: False. Light does not think. It is not a person.
BA: No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.”
GW: Darkness does not wait. It is not a person. What a dumb thing to say, not authoritative at all.
BA: Our Concluding Comments: “Can you direct the movement of the stars”—Job 38:31 NLT
GW: No human person can direct the movement of the stars, and God doesn’t exist.
BA: “Praise him, sun and moon! Praise him, all you twinkling stars”—Psalm 148:3,4 NLT
GW: The sun and moon are not persons and so they cannot praise anybody.
BA: The more science discovers about the way the universe works, the more evidence is uncovered that the Creator God exists!
GW: Pure nonsense! By a combination of philosophy, science, and history we have proven that God does not exist. There are over a dozen proofs of this.
GW: I have presented several proofs that God does not exist on this website, and nobody has found an error in any of them.
The BBC article honestly made mention of the fact that a common sense interpretation of the facts indicates the universe is fine-tuned to exist. You’re in denial. Your book did not debunk this.
All proven science indicates the universe had a beginning.
God didn’t “bet” with Satan. Satan challenged over Job. God told Satan that he could anything he wanted to Job except kill him.
The “multiverse” theory just makes the problem worse for atheism.
The BBC article makes the insurmountable point that all the values of the laws of the universe are just exactly where they need to be for stars, life, etc.
Your “proofs” of God’s nonexistence, are flimsy.
BA: The BBC article honestly made mention of the fact that a common sense interpretation of the facts indicates the universe is fine-tuned to exist.
GW: No, there is no good evidence or good interpretation of the evidence to indicate that the universe is fine-tuned. That idea has been refuted by me in my first book and by many other persons, including physicist Victor Stenger.
BA: You’re in denial.
GW: You are in denial that fine tuning has not been proven. It is just a fanciful speculation. We don’t even know if those physical factors could vary at all.
BA: Your book did not debunk this.
GW: It certainly did! Read pages 83-88 for a thorough debunking.
BA: All proven science indicates the universe had a beginning.
GW: False. We’ve been over this many times. The consensus of the relevant scientists is that we do not know if the universe had a beginning or not. But as I have told you many times, there are four good reasons to think it is eternal.
GW: Argument 110. Version II.
Argument Against the Existence of God from an Eternal Universe, Version II: 6-20-2024, 7-1-2024
1. Definition: God is 1) the HYPOTHETICAL, unique, exclusive, supernatural, independent, spiritual, normally invisible person, conscious intelligent agent, or sentient entity. He is OMNI lasting (eternal), present, knowing, powerful, intelligent, rational, creative, and resilient (invincible). He is also OMNI loving, compassionate, and moral with respect to other persons. He fills the roles of cosmos designer and producer (creator), occasional interventionist in the world, and afterlife manager who decides the favorable or unfavorable disposition of human souls after they die. or 2) the greatest imaginable possible person (the “GIPPer”) who, if he existed, would possess all desirable traits to their highest degrees and no undesirable traits, and who would be worthy of our greatest respect, admiration, and worship.
2. If God did exist, then he caused the universe to come into existence.
3. The universe is all energy-matter now existing.
4. Energy-matter can be neither created nor destroyed since the time it was concentrated in the primordial particle just prior to the Big Bang.
5. It is unlikely that Newton’s laws of motion, Einstein’s relativity, quantum mechanics, the First Law of Thermodynamics, and other laws and theories, all true after the Big Bang, will be violated, overturned, or contradicted for the time before the Big Bang. Instead, it is likely that they will just be incorporated or fit into a grand synthesis of physics, currently beyond our grasp.
6. A fundamental physical law which has applied to energy-matter for 13.8 billion years since the Big Bang is very probably going to apply to energy-matter before the Big Bang.
7. Although not known for certain, it is very probable that energy-matter could neither be created nor destroyed even before the primordial particle and the Big Bang.
8. Since energy-matter now exists and it is very probable that it could be neither created nor destroyed even before the primordial particle and the Big Bang, then it is very probable that it has always existed. It is very probable that it never came into existence. It is very probable that it never had a beginning.
9. Therefore, it is very probable that the universe has always existed, never came into existence, and never had a beginning. And so, it is very probable that the universe is eternal.
10. Since it is very probable that the universe is eternal, it is also very probable that God does not exist.
BA: God didn’t “bet” with Satan. Satan challenged over Job. God told Satan that he could anything he wanted to Job except kill him.
GW: The bet which God made with Satan is that Satan could not corrupt Job. The story is fiction. If God did exist, he would never create Satan in the first place or he would never give Satan permission to harm Job. Completely ridiculous!
BA: The “multiverse” theory just makes the problem worse for atheism.
GW: No, it doesn’t. It is fully consistent with either atheism or theism. But it competes with or conflicts with your pet fine-tuning theory. If the physical constants are randomly distributed to different universes, then there is no point in fine tuning the constants for one of them. We just happen to live in one universe with constants consistent with life. No big deal.
BA: The BBC article makes the insurmountable point that all the values of the laws of the universe are just exactly where they need to be for stars, life, etc.
GW: Nobody knows that. There is only one universe to look at – our own. All the physical constants are what they are. Just brute facts. They resulted in the origin of life and will result in the extinction of all life. Is that the kind of universe God would create, if he did exist? Of course not.
BA: Your “proofs” of God’s nonexistence, are flimsy.
GW: False. They are strong, rational, and correct. You have found no error in any of them.