"Say We believe in God and what is revealed to us and what was revealed to Abraham and Ishmael and I`saac and Jacob and the Tribes, and what was entrusted to Moses and Jesus and the prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them and to Him we have surrendered."
(Quran 3: 84)
The more we advance on the road
to science in all directions, micro and macro, the arguments in favor of an
intelligent creator become more and more eloquent. In the face of such facts
the least one can do is acknowledge the Creator. Deliberate attempts not to is
evidently dishonesty. With this thought in mind, I invite you all to examine the
contents of this page.
This paper DOES NOT present in
any way the Christian Creationist's position on humankind's origin.
THE CAUSE:
The Universe consists of billions of galaxies and
each galaxy has a vast number of stars. To study a galaxy, scientists record
light from it on a strip of film. If the galaxy is moving away from our galaxy,
the lines on the spectrum will be towards the red end of the film, this is
called red shift. By this mechanism scientists conclude that with the exception
of a few nearby galaxies, all the galaxies are moving away from us, and the
further away they are the faster they are moving away.
The Universe's expansion, discussed above began
with an explosive even, called the "big bang". In 1965 a type of
radiation called the "Cosmic Background Radiation" was discovered
(also called the microwave background radiation) by Arno Penzias and Robert
Wilson. All regions of the sky send the same amount of this radiation to the
earth.
This was the breakthrough for the big bang
theory. Long before 1965, it had been predicted by scientists that we should be
able to find energy remaining from the Big Bang. They had now factually
confirmed the faint remnant of the energy produced during the explosive birth of
the universe. This radiation has a temperature of 3K (therefore it is also
called 3K radiation) and it is very close to the value predicted by scientists
before it was discovered.
This radiation is much different to the radiation
coming from a particular portion of the universe since it cannot be increased or
decreased by pointing an antenna and is uniform from all locations to the earth.
In 1948, the "steady state theory" was
advanced which now has no followers and which was completely knocked out by the
above discovery of 3K radiation. Scientists today accept the Big Bang theory as
being the most reliable with the most evidence to back it up. However they do
not know what CAUSED the big bang. The standard big bang theory does not explain
what caused the big bang.
"Do not the unbelievers
see that the skies and the earth were one unit (joined together), then we split
them apart..." Quran 21:30
Big Bang impossible without
God:
To clarify some terms: If it is
said that the universe is OPEN, it means it will expand forever. If it is said
that it is closed, it will not expand forever. Whether a universe will expand,
depends on if its average density is less than or equal to its critical density.
Our universe at present according
to estimates has less than 20% of the density of matter to stop it from
expanding. For all intents and purposes it will continue to expand.
The universe is not
beginning-less. It was "born" out of the big bang and had a beginning.
Some people maintain the unscientific idea that the universe is beginning-less.
This has been proven wrong according to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. In a
closed system (by closed here we mean one which does not take energy from the
outside- this is different to the closed definition given above), entropy ( a
measure of the degree to which a systems energy is unavailable to perform useful
work) increases with time. To restate this:
"In a system which doesn't
take energy from the outside (like our universe), entropy increases with
time."
If the universe had existed
forever, we would see maximum entropy which we do not see at all, something
referred to as the fate of excessive expansion.
THE DARK NIGHT SKY PARADOX:
If the universe is infinite in
spatial extent then light from infinite number of stars would always be pouring
down on the earth from the skies. A simple mathematical calculation would show
that the sky would never be dark under such circumstances. The paradox can ONLY
be solved if we assume a finite age of the universe (a beginning). In such a
case which corresponds to reality, we are only able to see the light which has
had time to travel across space to earth since the beginning of the particular
star from which it comes (Davies, 46).
God needed for the Big Bang:
1.The Flatness Problem in
Cosmology:
The actual density of the
universe is average amount of matter or mass-energy per unit of space. If the
universe's actual density is greater than a particular critical density then the
universe will eventually stop expanding. Since after more than 10 billion years
of expanding, the universes actual density is pretty close to its critical
density, scientists conclude that at the time of the big bang, these two figures
must have been very close to each other.
They do not know why this was so.
If it had not been so, and the actual density differed from the critical by even
a tiny amount, either way, our universe would have ceased to exist after only a
few million years.. This is termed as the flatness problem. They do not know why
both the figures were where they were supposed to be to make our universe still
exist after 10 billion years.
" And the sky, we built it
with might and We cause the expansion of it." Quran 51:47
If the universe had been
expanding too rapidly, the clouds that formed the galaxies would have been
spread thin and pulled apart before gravity could dominate..... On the other
hand if the universe had started out expanding too slowly, it would have come to
a halt and started to re-collapse with galaxies falling towards each other. (Gribbins,
Rees 17)
If we push back to the earliest
time at which our theories of physics can be thought to have any validity, the
implication is that the "density-parameter" was SET in the beginning,
with an accuracy of 1 part in 10 to the power of 60 (10 followed by 60 zeroes).
Changing the parameter, either way, by a fraction given by a decimal point
followed by sixty zeroes and a 1
(0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001) would have
made the universe unsuitable for life as we know it. (Gribbens, Rees 18)
2.The Horizon or the Isotropy
Problem:
At around 300,00 years after the
big bang, all parts of the universe even separated by more than 20 times the
horizon distance, and expanding in opposite directions, in causally disconnected
regions (i.e. no cause or physical effect could pass from one region to the
other), began to expand with the same expansion rate and temperature.
No natural explanation exists to
explain how a chaotic explosion, the big bang resulted in a uniform expansion
pattern among causally disconnected regions, expanding in opposite directions.
Calculations indicate that when
the universe was a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth second old, it
consisted of 10 to the power 80 causally disconnected regions, and no physical
effect could have traveled from one region to another and yet 300,000 years
after, cosmic background radiation proves that they all started expanding with
the same expansion rate and the same temperature.
"... And He (God) inspired
in all the heavens their mandate (Koran 41:12)."
"And He(God) raised the
sky and set the balance.(Koran 55:7)."
In a rapidly expanding universe,
where matter is uniformly distributed how do galaxies form?
Calculations by cosmologists
indicate that matter in the early universe was uniformly distributed and hense
gravitational contractions (contraction is opposite of expansion) in an
expanding universe could not have taken place due to natural circumstances
unless some special features were built into they system about one second after
the big bang by intelligence.
If the big bang was a chance
event what we would see would be a disorderly arrangement of matter with no
galaxies and no order. Things were controlled by an intelligent designer
".....and we decked the
skies of the world with lamps.... such is the measuring of the Mighty (God), the
Knower. "Quran 41:12
Einstein's General Theory of
Relativity leads scientists to conclude that in its earliest instant, the
universe was infinitely dense where its diameter was zero, i.e. nothing:, yes
NOTHING. God creates out of nothing just like the Koran suggests.
Are there natural and sufficient
reasons for all of the universes physical characteristics?
There can be natural and
sufficient reasons for some physical characteristics of the universe but not
all. Without suitable constants, life as we know it wouldn't have existed and
there would be no one to wonder about the cosmos.
Consider this analogy by a
Canadian philosopher, John Leslie, suppose you are facing execution by a fifty
man firing squad. The bullets are fired and you find that all have missed their
target. Had they not done so you would not have survived to ponder the matter.
But realizing that you are alive, you would legitimately be perplexed and wonder
why (Gribbens, Rees 271).
1. The law of conservation of
mass and energy:
The mass-energy in the universe
neither increases or decreases. Therefore the total amount of mass-energy in the
universe has been the same and will remain the same. If someone were to figure
out the mass-energy total in the universe and give it a figure say X, no natural
explanation can exist on why it is X and not X+100 or X-100 and so on.
2. THE CONSTANTS:
There are no natural and
sufficient reasons why all of the universes constants have the values they have.
If they had different values, life would cease to exist. However they have the
values they have regardless of any physical necessity if we take God out of the
picture. Examples like, the Planck's constant, the speed of light, the electron
charge, the gravitational constant. These constants with the exception of the
gravitational constant have not varied more than one percent since the start of
the universe and are same throughout. The gravitational constant has varied
around ten percent.
It should be noted at this point
that these constants have been there since the beginning of the universe, a time
before life appeared. These and other strange laws of nature defy any natural
and sufficient reasons for their existence, the only valid explanation left is
that they were set by an intelligent designer:
"... the measuring of the
Mighty (God), the Knower." Koran 41:12
a According to the principle of
sufficient reason stated by G.W. Leibniz, "No fact can be real or existing
and no statement true unless there is a SUFFICIENT reason why anything is the
way it is and not otherwise."
Whereas scientists face an enigma
here which threatens the edifice of their work, the followers of the Koran face
no such enigma at all. God is the sufficient reason. The cause of the constants:
"To Him submits whatsoever
is in the heavens and the earth.." (Koran)
SUITABLE CONSTANTS:
i) ALL protons in the universe
have a positive charge of 1.6 X 10 to the power -19 coulomb. This causes the
various protons in the atoms to repel one another, but at the same time they
stay together since the attraction is 100 times stronger than the repulsion.
Now the proton has a mass that is
1836 times that of an electron. YET for some mysterious reason the charge on the
electron is the same as the proton, 1.6X10 to the power -19 coulomb. Suppose the
proton had a lesser charge than what it actually does, there is no reason why it
shouldn't have, there is no natural explanation on why it does, then the
attraction between protons would be much more than we see with present figures
and they would collide more.
This, scientists say would lead
to the stars using up their thermo-nuclear fuel in their cores much faster and
dying out in about 100 million years. On our planet it too about 3 billion years
for life to appear. If the lives of stars were 100 million years then life could
exist nowhere on the universe. An intelligent designer put the figures where
they were supposed to be, at 1.6X10 to the power of -19.
ii) The Strong Force: The
neutrons and protons in the nucleus of the atoms are referred to as nucleons,
since they exist in the nucleus. If the neutrons and the protons are separated
by more than a hundred billionth of a centimeter there is no mutual attraction
between them. However when separated by a distance of less than ten trillionth
of a centimeter, the feel a strong force of attraction. This is termed as a
Strong Force or Strong Nuclear Force.
Scientists calculate that during
the first few minutes after the expansion began, roughly 25% of the hydrogen in
the universe was converted to helium. Scientists say that if the strong force
had been any more intense (which requires a shift in a trillionth of a
centimeter or less), all of the universe's hydrogen would have been converted to
helium. In such a case life would never exist for
3 reasons:
i) No water without hydrogen.
ii) Hydrogen is necessary for
proteins and nucleic acids needed for life.
iii) Stars that have only helium
are extremely short lived and could never reach the three billion years figure
that our system took for life to appear.
What if the strong force were a
little weaker by a trillionth of a centimeter or less, things just wouldn't
exist as the protons could not stay together in the cores of atoms. It is an
acknowledged fact that if the Strong force was not between 0.1 f and 2 f (where
f is the strong force constant) life would not exist and nor would any order
like we see it.
The difference between the two
figures is less than microscopic and there is no explanation on why the numbers
were where they were. That happening by chance is by itself, other things being
constant, one in one million. When you take into account all the other
constants, the figure gets so small that to believe that life originated without
an intelligent designer becomes more absurd than a myth.
The law of conservation of mass
and energy discussed earlier makes it impossible to attribute a natural cause to
the start of the universe. The energy had to come from somewhere. The energy
whose radiation we still receive was provided by God.
"...whenever he decrees a
matter, he says Be and it is. (Koran)."
After exhausting all the other
alternatives, the only hypothesis that is supported by facts is that God created
the heavens and the earth.
At Planck time (which is 10 to
the power of negative 43 seconds) which was a microscopic fraction of the first
second after the universe began to expand, all the matter that we observe in the
universe was less than a tenth of a millimeter across in volume.
According to the black hole
theory, the gravity of this singularity would be so massive that apart from a
faint type of quantum radiation nothing at all could escape from it. Astronomers
know that no natural cause could have caused the explosion of energy given the
gravity of the singularity. No known natural force could have overcome even a
tenth of the gravity of the singularity at the time of the big bang.
"....and We split them
apart." (Koran 21:30).
Consider this law in science:
Occam's Razor: "When giving explanations, it is better to give a simpler
explanation that assumes the existence of fewer unproved things."
Apart from providing even more credibility to what we've established above this
idea throws more light on:
i) why there is just one God and not gods given the organization and the
uniformity in the universe. The fundamental postulate of Einstien's Special
Theory of Relativity state this unity of law phenomena in nature. Consider what
the Koran says in 21:22.
ii) If there were more than one God then different parts of the universe would
not have worked with such uniformity as they did and as is always the case (when
two or more create something), parts of the matter in the universe would have
originated at different times. Yet scientists and laws are agreed on that the
big bang was when all energy and matter originated in the universe. Koran 29:31
should throw light on this.
THE PLANCK CONSTANT:
The Planck Constant is fixed at
6.6 X (10 to the power of -23) erg per second. It is a figure that shows up in
all major equations used by nuclear physicists. The energy used by anything is
always some multiple of Planck's Constant. There is no natural reason why the
Planck's Constant is where it is, it could be a lot higher or a lot lower, but
it has been balanced at this level without any natural reason.
The PC (Planck's Constant)
appears in an important formula used to determine the "Fine structure
Constant." The formula is e squared /hc where "e" is the electron
charge, "h" is the PC and "c" is the speed of light.
If the Planck's constant had been
greater by just 0.00000001, all the stars in our system would be red. If it was
lower by just 0.00000001 all the stars in our system would be blue.
The problem with red stars is
that they never erupt as supernova and if there are no supernova there are no
higher level elements which are necessary for life. If there were no supernova,
there would be no Carbon to start carbon-based life like us.
Blue stars on the other hand burn
only for a short time, i.e. around 150 million years. However it took nearly 3
billion years or more for life to emerge on earth. 150 million just wouldn't cut
it. The constant was set by the designer to make sure that life emerges when and
where He decided.
THE SPEED OF LIGHT
The speed of light is set at
3X(10 to the power 8) meters per second. It is an important constant which
figures in Einstien's
"E" is the energy
produced when matter is converted to energy in thermonuclear reactions in stars.
If the speed of light had been just a tiny fraction higher (and there is no
natural reason why it isn't) then thermonuclear reactions would produce over
10,000 times more energy and all the fuel in the star core would be used up much
quicker. Stars would die out much sooner than the 3 billion years it took for
life to emerge on earth. Hence life would never have happened.
On the other hand if it was just
a little tiny fraction lower, the early universe expansion would have been much
slower and long ago the universe would have suffered a gravitational collapse.
So both ways there would be no life. The constant was set by an intelligent
designer who had life as the goal.
NEUTRON MASS
Neutrons have a constant mass of
1.67 X (10 to the power of -24) grams. When outside an atom a neutron is very
unstable and quickly decays into a proton and electron. Inside the nucleus it is
stable and doesn't decay. Suppose that the mass of the neutron was 2% greater
than what it is now (and why shouldn't it have been?) neutrons would rapidly
decay and an atom would become unstable. As a fact, no higher elements would
exist which are necessary for life. The only element in the entire universe
would be hydrogen.
On the other hand, if the neutron
had a mass less than its current mass by a tiny fraction , the protons would
become unstable. This is because now the protons would have a higher mass than
neutrons in the nucleus and they would decay into neutrons or positive positrons
or pions. According to physicists, if the neutron mass was 0.998 of its present
mass, the decay of protons would make the existence of atoms impossible. There
would be no life. The designer had life in mind when He set the balance.
"...He (God) has set the
balance." Koran 55:7
d Donald Page of the Princeton
Institute of Advanced Study has calculated the odds against the formation of our
universe without God putting in the necessary constants. And the figure comes
out to be one out of 10,000,000 to the power 124. To see how impossible it is
compare this number to the total amount of subatomic particles in the whole
universe which has been calculated to be 10 to the power 80.
Beginning-less is illogical,
philosophically speaking:
If the universe was not created
then it must have existed for an infinite time in the past. However, us being in
the present makes such a statement preposterous. It is not possible to cross an
actual infinity. No matter how much you count or how much time passes, there
would still be more to count or more time to pass. This is what the definition
of actual infinity is.
It is non-finite it has no room
for growth. If the past were infinite, then to get to the present moment, we
would have had to cross an actual infinite. In the language of math and logic
this is gibberish. It is just like saying that you can jump out of a bottomless
pit. This concept throws light on the attributes of God, the creator also. The
one who started this himself must have had to be logically speaking, timeless
and unchanging.
DNA: Mark of the Creator
Some atheist scientists who were
unaware of the wonderful program, the complex mechanism of RNA and DNA were of
the "out-moded" opinion that due to favorable physical influences,
chemical compounds were able to spontaneously combine in an organized fashion
and hence, were by magic, able to produce the fantastic complex which we call a
cell, and then even more fantastic complexes like rudimentary living organism.
Wow, given that all their
intelligence and directed efforts to date have been unable to form one single
living cell in the laboratory, shows how much credibility we need to give to
this fairy tale.
Indeed for the smallest
macromolecules of a cell to form as a result of repeated attempts, such enormous
quantities of matter would have been processed that they would have filled
colossal masses on the scale comparable to the volume of the earth itself.
Contrary to this we see beauty and harmony in nature and variety of all created
things. Chance is totally inconceivable.
Oparine a modern Russian
biologist who is a well known materialist, rejects outright the theory of chance
in the formation of life. An article :"The current state of the problem of
the origin of life and its future perspectives," states from him, "The
entire network of perpetual preservation and reproduction of the totality of
conditions set by the external environment. This highly organized orientation
characteristic of life cannot be the result of chance."
The statement atheists make is
tantamount to saying, and note this, "Iron ore and coal at high
temperatures spontaneously formed steel particles and then those steel articles
without any intelligence involved by magic formed the Eiffel Tower and other
structures."
This statement sounds stupid, but
saying that a cell formed by itself is even more stupid because a cell is MUCH
MORE complex than any steel structure that human **INTELLIGENCE** (not chance)
has built.
In his book, The Origin of Life,
Oparine draws particularly relevant comparisons to convince the lay man of the
illogicality of theories pointing towards chance.
In 1954, he wrote: "It is as
if one jumbled together the printing blocks representing the twenty-eight
letters of the alphabet, in hope that by CHANCE, they will fall into a pattern
of a poem that we know. Only through knowledge and careful arrangement of the
letters and words in the poem however, can we produce the poem from the letters
(page 52)."
Each cell in the human body has a
"program" analogous to a computer program written down , so well
organized and regulated so as to function properly, the slightest malfunction
leads to deformities and monstrous growths [cancer is the case in point]. Each
cell functions like a computer, programmed to perform specific functions. It is
common knowledge that a computer will only function if it has been programmed.
Without programming you would
never see what you see on this page. A fact that implies the existence of a
programming intellect, that provides the information necessary to operate the
system. The programming intellect for the billions of living cells, unvarying
and uniform in his essence of programming is the One God.
"He (Moses) said (to
pharaoh), "Our Lord is He who gave to everything its creation, moreover
GUIDED it." Koran 20:5
There is a genuine enigma among
the community of biologists: The origin of the genetic code and how it increases
in information which leads to more and more complex structures. The only valid
explanation given the intelligent nature of the messages contained in the DNA is
that an intelligent designer was involved. We call him Allah, the God.
THE ENIGMA OF LIFE'S ORIGIN
The break between the living and
non-living is the most fundamental of all discontinuities seen in nature.
Natural Selection failed to explain this discontinuity, just as it failed to
explain the discontinuity between species which biochemistry made clear.
The "soup-theory"
mentioned briefly above is the most in thing among all the theories of the
origin of life in the scientific community. However, it poses many questions and
big problems and hence just like the pre-Miller time, it still remains an
enigma.
i) The "dawn-rocks" of
Western Greenland, the earliest dated rocks on earth, considered to be about
3900 Million years old (dating from about 400 million years after the formation
of the earth) don't show any trace of abiotically produced organic compounds.
Sediments from various parts of the earth dated between 3900 and 3500 million
years old also show no signs of any abiotically produced organic compounds. Like
is the usual case with evolutionary theory by Natural selection, paleontology
doesn't support it.
ii) In the Presence of oxygen,
any organic compounds formed on the early earth would be rapidly oxidized and
degraded. It is for this reason that advocates of the "soup" theory
suggest (without any geo-chemical evidence to support what they are
conjecturing) an early earth without oxygen. Only such an atmosphere would
protect the compounds which would then collect as the "soup".
However this poses further
problems. Without oxygen, there is no ozone layer in the upper atmosphere, which
protects the earth from a lethal dose of ultra-violet radiation. In such a
scenario, any organic compounds formed would break down in an instant. The
empirical absence of organic compounds in Martina soil proves this. The late
Carl Sagan recognized this when he stated that in the absence of oxygen, a
lethal dose of ultraviolet radiation would reach the earth in 0.3 seconds.
iii) The presence of water
inhibits amino acids from joining together to form proteins, since amino acids
dissolve readily in water. To overcome this however our ingenious atheist
scientists have tried to "invent" another scenario. Sidney Fox says
that the amino acids got washed to a hot pan like land. However experiments have
shown that heating amino acids gives no proteins but a dark tar.
However they did some other
manipulations by mixing and matching one part of three different amino acids to
a beaker of purified amino acids they managed some joinging among them. However,
that didn't yield any proteins but a chemically different product which is now
called proteinoid. The scientific community has thrown this theory out the door.
One of the strongest critics of this theory was Stanley Miller.
Hoyle and his colleague
Wickramasinge calculated the odds of the random formation of a single enzyme
from amino acids anywhere on the early earth's surface as being 1 in 10 to the
power 20 ( add 20 zeros after 10 to appreciated how impossible it is to get one
enzyme anywhere on this earth from amino acids given the soup).
But wait there are not only one
but two thousand enzymes, so the chance of obtaining all of these randomly would
be 1 in (10 to the power of 20) the whole thing to the power of 2000. The number
is so small that it cannot be distinguished from zero. It could never have
happened even if the whole universe was soup.
Perverted Standards:
The human eye cannot see x-rays,
electricity, magnetic fields etc, yet no man of science would dispute with their
existence based on fact and proof. Yet with just as much or more proof on God
being the creator, the same scientist makes the excuse, "We cannot see
him."
If today we were to receive even
one intelligent message from space, scientists as a whole after confirmation
would conclude that yes, intelligent life in space has been confirmed. Yet when
millions of intelligent messages are found in our DNA, the same scientists don't
even look at it in consideration of an intelligent creator. Perverted standards.
The fact is that the world owes
its being to something other than itself. The laws of nature did not create the
universe since they cease to exist at the earliest point in creation. The laws
of mechanics did not originate the laws of mechanics because when the universe
was a singularity, they did not exist.
The laws of evolution don't come
about through the laws of evolution because in order to work they require a
pre-existing order and pre-existing entities governed by that order.
Acknowledgments:
Mahin, Mark, "The New
Scientific Case for God's Existence." Mindlifter Press. 1985
Bucaille, Maurice,
"What is the Origin of Man" Seghers, Paris. (reproduced by
permission of the author).
Koran: Translation from the
Arabic.
Asadi, Muhammed A. Koran: A
Scientific Analysis. 1992.
Fred Hoyle And N. C
Wickramasinge. Evolution from Space. Simon & Schuster 1981. NYC , page
23
Dietrick E. Thomsen,
"The Quantum Universe: A zero point fluctuation."
Science News (3 August
1985), page 73.
J.P Moreland, Kei Nielsen.
Does God Exist?. Prometheus Books. NY 1990.
John Gribber, Martin Rees:
Cosmic Coincidences. Bantam Books 1989.
Behe, Michael J. Darwin's
Black Box. The Free Press 1996