Razor Planet



Evidence for a Creator

10.1.2017

This is going to be a little different from most series I teach.

I’m going to give you lots of thoughts

Not a lot of Bible

Lots of stuff to think about …

Throughout history and up until 500 years ago humanity assumed there was someone out there

A “god” in one form or another

A creator who was responsible for the existence of everything

One of the common characteristics that anthropologist have among people around the world is the belief in a creation story and a creator

At least in the Western World the belief in a creator is not a unanimous reality any more.

Regardless of where someone lands on the creator/no creator discussion every open thinking person has to admit that the existence of a Creator cannot be proved or disproved.

No one was there.

There are/were no eyewitnesses.

A thinking person should wrestle with the question:

Is there evidence for a creator or not?

Is there more evidence for or against the existence of a creator?

This is such a vast and deep topic with countless rabbit trails we won’t even begin to scratch the surface.

I hope to give you enough evidence that you’ll conclude for the existence of a Creator

When we were in Chicago we went to the Field Museum.

Museum of natural history.

Picture: “Evolution is one of sciences best-supported theories”

So what exactly is a theory, exactly?

When someone you know says “I have a theory,” they might mean they have a hunch about something because it just makes sense.

Scientists use the word a bit differently. For an explanation to be a valid scientific theory, it has to be supported by evidence. Any new evidence puts the theory to the test. If the evidence does not support it, the theory is modified or rejected.

All available evidence, which includes fossils, comparative anatomy, and DNA, supports the theory of evolution as the scientific explanation for the rich diversity of life on earth.

Let’s start here – Just for the fun of it

Monkey Shines

Three monkeys sat on a coconut tree,

Discussing things as they’re said to be.

Said one to the others; “Now listen, you two,

There’s a certain rumor that isn’t true;

That man descended from our noble race.

The very idea is a big disgrace

For no monkey ever deserted his wife,

Starved their babies and ruined their life.

And you’ve never known a mother monk,

To leave her babies with others to bunk;

Or pass them on from one to another,

Till they scarcely know who is their mother!

And another thing you never see,

A monk build a fence ‘round a coconut tree,

And let the coconuts go to waste,

Forbidding other monks to even taste,

Why, if I’d build a fence around a tree,

Starvation would force you to steal from me!

Here’s another thing a monk won’t do;

Go out at night and get on a stew,

Or use a gun, or a club, or a knife,

To take some other monkey’s life.

Yes, man descended – the ornery cuss –

But, brother, he didn’t descend from us!

For countless centuries humanity has been peering into space – pondering some big questions

How does the human race fit into everything that exists?

What does everything that exists mean to human beings?

How do I fit into the universe?

What does the universe mean to me?

Before we watch the clip

Everything about our understanding of the universe, life – on the macro-scale/micro-scale has changed over the last 70 years.

We know so much more about the Universe, and we know much more about the Inner-verse

Power of telescopes traveling through space – Hubble

Power of microscopes traveling into inner space

Take note when the video shows where our solar system is about the Milky Way Galaxy

Where the Milky Way Galaxy is about the cluster of galaxies we belong to

Where the cluster of galaxies that include ours is in relationship to the Universe

Just last week the first planet landing in outer/deep space when Cassini ended its mission around Saturn and crashed on the planet in a suicide mission

Cassini sent back to earth data about a hurricane at the south pole of Saturn that was 5,000 miles across

Powers of 10 – 1977

3500 years ago - David wrote these words

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? (Psalms 8:3-4 NIV)

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. (Psalms 19:1-4 NIV)

What do I have to do with the Universe?

What does the Universe have to do with me?

How did all of this get here?

The first words of the Hebrew Bible

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1 NIV)

The secular words that declare the beginning goes like this:

In the beginning the BIG BANG created the heavens and the earth.

Theists one side and atheist on the other side – and everyone in between now agree

Everything started at one specific moment in time

Big Bang

“In the beginning there was an explosion, which occurred simultaneously everywhere, filling all space from the beginning with every particle of matter rushing apart from every other particle. … The universe was filled with light.” Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes

The idea of the Big Bang was first put forward by Dr. Edwin Hubble.

The man that the Hubble telescope is named after.

Hubble’s theory was that:

At one time, all matter was packed into a dense mass at temperatures of many trillions of degrees. Then, about 14 billion years ago, there was a huge explosion. As a result of that explosion, all of the matter that forms the galaxies, stars, black holes, planets were born. The explosion of the Big Bang resulted in the universe as we know it.

For sake of what we’re talking about let’s assume that matter and energy has always existed.

Matter and energy were packed in a tight ball/ powerful energy and temperatures and then at just the right moment BANG!

It all started.

Before we go any further we need to look at the Law of Probability

Law of probability

Dr. Emile Borel, one of the world’s foremost experts on mathematical probability, formulated what scientists and mathematicians alike refer to as the basic “law of probability”.

The law states that the occurrence of any event in which the chances are beyond one in one followed by fifty zeroes, is an event that we can state with certainty will never happen, no matter how much time is allotted and no matter how many conceivable opportunities could exist for the event to take place.

Grain of sand

Think about this --- Imagine all the grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth.

Grab one grain of sand.

Then engrave the grain of sand with a special message known only to you.

Then travel somewhere in the world and bury that grain of sand somewhere on Earth.

Now blindfold someone, and have them start hunting for the grain of sand

The chance a blindfolded person would ever discover that one grain of sand on their first pick

Mathematician conclude that the chance would 1/1020

(one chance in 100 billion billion.)

Rubik’s cube

Blindfold someone, give them a Rubik’s cube

If the person could make 1 move per second, it would take quadrillion years to solve this cube

Which is 100,000 times the age of the universe.

1/1015

Law of Probability – more than 1/1050 – will never happen regardless of how much time or chances.

Let’s look at the Universe

“Over the past thirty years or so, scientists have discovered that just about everything about the basic structure of the universe is balanced on a razor’s edge.” Dr. Robin Collins

There are more than 35 different conditions of the universe and its physical laws that must be precisely fine-tuned for physical life to be possible.

The margin of error is so tiny to be negligible

The conditions must be precise

I want to talk about four of them.

In the Big Bang

A powerful enough expansion rate.

The birth of the universe had to begin with enough force, or life couldn’t exist.

Stephen Hawking states, “If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present size.”

A controlled expansion rate.

The expansion rate had to be powerful enough for the universe to avoid collapsing back on itself.

If the outward force had been even a fraction greater, it would have created a situation where gravity would have been unable to pull particles together to form stars and planets.

Force of gravity.

Necessary Gravitational Accuracy

If the gravitational force was altered by 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000001 %

neither Earth nor our Sun would exist.

The mass density of the universe.

If the universe is more dense than critical, the gravity of all the stuff in the universe will be able to overcome the expansion, causing it to stop, and eventually re-collapse.

If the density in the universe is smaller than the critical density, then the expansion will continue forever.

For physical life to exist, the mass density of the universe must be fine-tuned to better than

Necessary Mass Density Accuracy

1/1060 ---- 1 in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion

Those are four of the more than 35 conditions

1. A powerful enough expansion rate

2. A controlled expansion rate

3. The precise force of gravity

4. The exactness of the mass density

There are at least 31 more conditions

According to the Big Bang theory, all this incredibly precise fine-tuning was programmed into the initial conditions of the first micro-second of the explosion that began our Universe.

At that moment the force, rate and ratios of expansion, the mass, density, antimatter, matter, etc., were set in place, eventually leading to a habitable planet called Earth.

The Precision of the ‘Bang’

It has been computed that the explosion would have had to have been accurate to within 1/1060

1/10, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Remember the Law of Probability states that anything 1/1050 cannot happen by chance – regardless of time/conditions

Donald Page of Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study has calculated the odds/chance of the more than 35 conditions combining to make life possible --- 1/10 124

A number beyond imagination.

The fact that the force of gravity just happens to be the right number with “such stunning accuracy is surely one of the great mysteries of cosmology.” Paul Davies – The Accidental Universe – Cambridge University

“The conclusion must be that we live in a world of astronomical unlikelihood.” Physicist Paul Davies

“So far, no theory is even close to explaining why physical laws exist, much less why they take the form they do. Standard Big Bang theory, for example, essentially explains the propitious universe in this way: ‘Well, we got lucky.” U.S. News and World Report

University of Washington professors Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee conclude in their book, Rare Earth, that the conditions favorable for life must be so rare in the universe that not only intelligent life, but even the simplest of animal life is exceedingly rare in our galaxy and in the universe.

Their writings has led their readers to the conclusion expressed by the book reviewer from the New York Times: “Maybe we are alone in the universe, after all.”

A couple more thoughts outside the 35+ conditions for life

Fragmentation of Colliding Objects.

Evidence is clear that when objects are attracted to each other – they don’t stick but they fragment

The Lack of Uniformity to the ‘Bang’

Ripples in a pond.

Blender – probability – not be uniform

There are vast spaces of emptiness

Huge supercluster ribbons and great sheets of galaxies that stretch millions of light years across the universe separated by enormous voids.

There are gigantic clusters of quasars.

Spin of Planets and Moons

If the Bang occurred – all the planets and moons should spin in the same direction

Venus, Uranus, Pluto – rotate opposite all the other planets in the solar system

Of the 60 moons in our solar system – 6 rotate opposite

Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune all have moons that go in both directions.

Go back to what I said, “let’s assume matter and energy has always existed.”

Where did the matter come from?

Where did the stuff come from to Bang?

This is important either matter and energy has always existed or there is an eternal being that created matter

Something doesn’t come from nothing

Ask Marilyn - Marilyn Vos Savant

“I assume that you, like most intellectual types, are not a religious person. So what do you think of the Big Bang theory?” Robert Steele, Sarasota, Fl.

“I think that if it had been a religion that first maintained the notion that all the matter in the entire universe had once been contained in an area smaller than the point of a pin, scientists probably would have laughed at the idea.”

“The odds against a universe like ours emerging out of something like a big bang are enormous … I think there are religious implications whenever you start to discuss the origins of the universe. Dr. Stephen Hawking

Advocates of Evolution – or of a non-personal force behind our existence are so troubled by the probabilities, complexities and intricacies that they give intelligence to matter and the process.

“If this is the best way to make a universe, how did the universe find that out?” Astronomer George Greenstein

Is there more evidence for a designer or the universe out of chance?

Not everyone thinks so

“The most reasonable belief is that we came from nothing, by nothing, and for nothing.” Atheist Quentin Smith

Let me go back to Genesis 1

Genesis 1 and 2 is a poetic description of the creation

Genesis 1 and 2 is not a science text

It is not a description of when or how creation occurred

Genesis really has two big ideas

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1 (NIV)

God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good… Genesis 1:3-4 (NIV)

God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” … And it was so. … And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:10 (NIV)

God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds. And it was so. … God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:11-12 (NIV)

God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, … God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. … And it was so. … And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:14-18 (NIV)

God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” … and it was so. … God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:20-21 (NIV)

God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. … God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:24-25 (NIV)

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, . … And it was do. … Genesis 1:31 (NIV)

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. Genesis 1:26-31 (NIV)

There are two this we know from Genesis 1 and 2

God created

Everything He created was good

Implications for accountability, eternity, purpose, destiny … the list could go on and on

There is so much more to come.

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