Introduction - Part 2  

By Rich Deem 

Part 1 of the introduction for non-believers showed that strong atheism contradicts its own worldview by believing the universe has a natural cause despite the lack of observational evidence for such a belief. However, since there is no direct observational evidence regarding the origin of the universe, why should one believe the equally unobserved hypothesis that God created the universe? Although there is no direct evidence for the cause of the universe, we now have a fair amount of knowledge about the early history of the universe and the laws that govern it, which provide us with indirect evidence that a super-intelligent Agent designed the universe. In order to keep this essay brief, much of the supporting information will not be included. However, you can click the links to the full-length articles for the details.

Evidence for Design?

The best evidence for design can be seen in the nature of the universe and how it came to be. The process of discovery continues, since one of the fundamental properties of the universe, dark energy (or the cosmological constant), was discovered late in the last century. New studies continue to add to our knowledge about the universe and its extremely unlikely makeup.

The Big Bang

The Big Bang theory states that the universe arose from a singularity of virtually no size, which gave rise to the dimensions of space and time, in addition to all matter and energy. At the beginning of the Big Bang, the four fundamental forces began to separate from each other. Early in its history (10^-36 to 10^-32 seconds), the universe underwent a period of short, but dramatic, hyper-inflationary expansion. The cause of this inflation is unknown, but was required for life to be possible in the universe.

Excess Quarks

Quarks and antiquarks combined to annihilate each other. One would expect the ratio of quarks and antiquarks to be exactly equal to one, since neither would be expected to have been produced in preference to the other. However, miraculously, quarks outnumbered antiquarks by a ratio of 1,000,000,001 to 1,000,000,000. The remaining small excess of quarks eventually made up all the matter that exists in the universe.

Large, Just Right-Sized Universe

Even so, the universe is enormous compared to the size of our Solar System. Isn’t the immense size of the universe evidence that humans are really insignificant, contradicting the idea that a God concerned with humanity created the universe? It turns out that the universe could not have been much smaller than it is in order for nuclear fusion to have occurred during the first 3 minutes after the Big Bang. Without this brief period of nucleosynthesis, the early universe would have consisted entirely of hydrogen. Likewise, the universe could not have been much larger than it is, or life would not have been possible. If the universe were just one part in 10⁵⁹ larger,the universe would have collapsed before life was possible. Since there are only 10⁸⁰ baryons in the universe, this means that an addition of just 10²¹ baryons (about the mass of a grain of sand) would have made life impossible. The universe is exactly the size it must be for life to exist at all.

Early Evolution of Universe

Cosmologists assume that the universe could have evolved in any of a number of ways, and that the process is entirely random. Based upon this assumption, nearly all possible universes would consist solely of thermal radiation (no matter). Of the tiny subset of universes that would contain matter, a small subset would be similar to ours. A very small subset of those would have originated through inflationary conditions. Therefore, universes that are conducive to life “are almost always created by fluctuations into the[se] ‘miraculous’ states,” according to atheist cosmologist Dr. L. Dyson.³

Just Right Laws of Physics 

The laws of physics must have values very close to those observed or the universe does not work “well enough” to support life. What happens when we vary the constants? The strong nuclear force (which holds atoms together) has a value such that when the two hydrogen atoms fuse, 0.7% of the mass is converted into energy. If the value were 0.6% then a proton could not bond to a neutron, and the universe would consist only of hydrogen. If the value were 0.8%, then fusion would happen so readily that no hydrogen would have survived from the Big Bang. Other constants must be fine-tuned to an even more stringent degree. The cosmic microwave background varies by one part in 100,000. If this factor were slightly smaller, the universe would exist only as a collection of diffuse gas, since no stars or galaxies could ever form. If this factor were slightly larger, the universe would consist solely of large black holes. Likewise, the ratio of electrons to protons cannot vary by more than 1 part in 10³⁷ or else electromagnetic interactions would prevent chemical reactions. In addition, if the ratio of the electromagnetic force constant to the gravitational constant were greater by more than 1 part in 10⁴⁰, then electromagnetism would dominate gravity, preventing the formation of stars and galaxies. If the expansion rate of universe were 1 part in 10⁵⁵ less than what it is, then the universe would have already collapsed. The most recently discovered physical law, the cosmological constant or dark energy, is the closest to zero of all the physical constants. In fact, a change of only 1 part in 10¹²⁰ would completely negate the effect.

Click here for the full article.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under Christianity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.