Nancy and I were sitting in a restaurant one day, and I was looking at the table at which we were sitting and looking at the sky. I realized that the atoms in the table and elsewhere resemble tiny universes or solar systems. They looked like planets orbiting a sun. Then I thought to myself that our universe could be an atom of a larger universe. Our creation reminds me of two mirrors facing each other. A reflection in one would reflect in the other mirror creating an infinite reflection. Could it be true that our solar system is an atom of our galaxy and our galaxy is an atom of our universe? Is our universe even a greater atom in a larger universe? Let us think on this.
Sorry to disappoint you and Nancy, but I fear that you are thinking according to an old obsolete understanding of the atom as a solar system with the sun as the nucleus with electrons/planets revolving around it.
It has been replaced by quantum physics with the electrons as clouds in quantum orbits.
Notwithstanding science fiction I would say that universes within universes are very unlikely.
I appreciate your answer although I do not believe I would agree. Best wishes. I have been offered membership in the American Science Affiliation, Progressive Creationism and Intelligent Design. I cannot accept BioLogos as a viable option. Yes, there is a God, and that God is the Creator written about in the Bible; however, I cannot accept a form of Darwinism. God bless.
Do you say this because you think Darwinism is “atheistic”? Or because you think the Earth is not 5 billion years old? Do you think the Earth is more like 5,000 years old?
Roger,
You seem to be holding on to the understanding that QM only applies to sub-atomic particles. However this understanding is not correct, QM is governing to both small and large particles including all matter, all fields, and waves.
Let me describe some recent observations and modeling. A super-massive black hole has been observed being orbited by a smaller black hole. Spacetime is wrapped around both black holes as you would expect from GR. Now for the interesting part. The orbit of the small black hole around the super massive black hole is not what you’d expect - an elliptical orbit like in the solar system.
Instead the orbit is like a three leaf clover. The orbit is in fact in quantized shells like you would see in an atom where the super-massive black hole is the central proton and the orbiting black hole is the electron. The system resembles an atom and the orbit behaves like a Quantum mechanical system of an electron orbiting a proton like in an electron shell. This incredibly large system is behaving according to both GR and QM.
You are trying to get me to answer questions. No, George, I believe that the earth and our cosmos are millions of years old. Progressive Creationism is closely related to Theistic Evolution; however, I will not get into that. You will have to forgive me, for I have Pink-eye, and my head is hurting. I know that Darwinism is atheistic; however, not all evolution is atheistic. I thank you for your question. I am not trying to rush time, but I was preparing my mother’s funeral today in 2006. I wish this day in 2015 were over. You may fine this amusing, but Nancy and I are going to an Independent Baptist Church for a Christmas service, and we shall attend mass on Christmas Eve at a Roman Catholic Church. My friend, Father O’Brien, invited us. He likes Southern Baptists.
I find your answer most interesting, Patrick. I know I said I was going to leave the blog, but I just find your answer very interesting. You have a great mind, Patrick.
Since BioLogos is NOT promoting Darwinism … what exactly triggered your mad dash out of the BioLogos door?
I really don’t have a clue what is bothering you about BioLogos?.. I hope your day ends as well as can be hoped for … and that you have a blessed weekend.
What if I tell you that I find the concept of Common Ancestry repugnant. I just do not believe that my cat, Joe Biden, is my distant cousin. Perhaps I believe in the Gap Theory. Does it really matter which creation model I accept? Dr. Arthur Custance, a scientist, accepted the Gap Theory. There are no transitional forms in the fossil record that I know of. Piltdown man was a fraud. Do I believe that God could have used any means to create? Yes! However, I have decided I believe in the Gap Theory, or am I just pulling your leg? Are there scientist who accept the Gap Theory? They are in a minority, but the answer is yes. Does the American Scientific Affiliation accept members who believe in Theistic Evolution or the Gap Theory? Yes, they do. I admit that there was a different world at one time here. Does that mean that Adam and Eve really did exist? I would say Yes! Which view will win out in the end? Time will tell, and it does not matter. God did it, and that is what matters.
If you believe God guided evolution … then you accept that God GUIDED the emergence of Tetrapods.
I suppose you could put your own SPIN on it if you really must. Something like this:
God makes Tetrapods… in a way that makes it impossible to tell from the fossils whether he used “natural law” - - or if God POPPED THEM OUT of his “Instamatic Life-Maker” machine.
Then God makes mammals … same thing - - either he used “natural law” … or he POPPED THEM OUT of his “instamatic”.
Then God makes primates … again … same thing.
Regardless of what spin you put on it, if you believe God took millions of years to do it … that’s “God-Guided Evolution”… and you are a friend of BioLogos. Maybe a very unusual friend. But certainly you are no 6-Day Young Earth Creationist. Which Christians among us can INSIST that God cannot miraculously make every step in evolution look as though there was no God actually executing each step? None that I can think of. If God invested that kind of effort in a multi-million year effort … over the course of millions of years … then he pretty clearly wants us to understand that it took millions of years!
My point? As long as you think in millions of years … instead of a handful of days … you belong here.
I would say that we are living off our relations, aren’t we, Patrick? Does that make you a vampire or a zombie? What is your scientific opinion on that? Is your real name Dr. Hannibal Lector? I find that amusing, don’t you? A quote from a very scientific film: " Listen, listen, the children of the night, what music they make! or in German: Hoeren Sie! Hoeren Sie! Die Kinder der Nacht, was fuer eine Musik sie machen. Should I call you Count Dracula? I could call you Bella Lugosi
Post Scriptum: I am really a Progressive Creationist, which is part of Intelligent Design. I feel that Hugh Ross is a great scientist. Have a good sleep today, Bella!
I enjoy your point George; however, Gap Theorist say that those odd creatures we see were made in a separate creation. They are no relation to us, because God destroyed that creation for some reason. Reason unknown. We are therefore separately created and unrelated to them.
I’m no zealot. My description in my last post specifically ALLOWS for them to be brand new creations … but created by God in a way that it LOOKS like there was a common ancestor.
Frankly I think it’s a pretty weird position to adopt. And I’d be kind of surprised if this is actually your position. But “non-shared ancestry that looks JUST LIKE shared ancestry” is well within the various BioLogos scenarios where God directs the rise of humankind!
We may get an objection here or there from someone who is not used to thinking at the very margins of God-centered evolutionary scenarios.
As I say above … if you think God really did work that hard to create different life forms over the course of millions of years - - even though he could have done it differently - - then he must think it is pretty important that we accept it took millions of years.
Henry, you don’t have to be a carbon-copy Evolutionist. You just have to agree that whatever God did - - he took millions of years to do it.
Actually, I only said I believe in the Gap Theory to get one of your responses. I believe in progressive creationism and intelligent design. Dr. Hugh Ross is a great scientist.
Based on this explanation in Wikipedia … I can see that there is only a handful who might hold to this:
“Progressive creationism (see for comparison intelligent design) is the belief that God created new forms of life gradually over a period of hundreds of millions of years. As a form of OLD EARTH creationism, it accepts mainstream geological and cosmological estimates for the age of the Earth, some tenets of biology such as microevolution as well as archaeology to make its case.”
" In this view creation occurred in rapid bursts in which all “kinds” of plants and animals appear in stages lasting millions of years. The bursts are followed by periods of stasis or equilibrium to accommodate new arrivals. These bursts represent instances of God creating new types of organisms by divine intervention…"
“The view rejects macroevolution because it is biologically untenable and not supported by the fossil record, and it rejects the concept of universal descent from a last universal common ancestor. Thus the evidence for macroevolution is considered wrong, but microevolution is accepted as a genetic parameter designed by the creator into the fabric of genetics to allow for environmental adaptations and survival.”
This position is fairly DRAMATIC in terms of its MAXIMAL belief in God’s involvement in the rise of all creatures - - especially humankind.
I’m sure there are some BioLogos folks who would object to a view like this . . . but frankly, I think there is a home for this position within the BioLogos “battle front”. For God to do things this way … it’s got to be important for to God (in your view of God) to LOOK as though God was using evolution.
While I agree that the scenario you are proposing may be difficult (if not technically impossible) for us to distinguish from BioLogos given the data we have, I worry about the motivations someone would have to want to read this view onto the data. I know this isn’t a good day for you so I don’t mean to be upsetting you but the only reason I can see for this preference is pride that somehow we’re “too special” for our body vessels to have been created using evolution. But you probably see it differently so I’m curious as to how you see it?
I must say that you have given a good response. I choose not to accept an evolution model due to the fact that there are no transitional forms to be seen in the fossil record. If any form of evolution is true, then we should see a slowly transformation from one species to another. I do not see that. Yes, God could have used any method to create; however, I do not see any transformational forms. I only see micro-evolutionary changes within a species. Could God through Christ have created through Theistic Evolution, Yes. Did he? That is the question. Since there are no transformational forms, I must agree with Dr. Hugh Ross. I do not mean to be rude, but why can you not see it another way? Surely you must know that there are not any true transformational forms. However, I do know one place that might support Theistic Evolution. Can you tell mean which English speaking country that is? I have given you the hint. That was kind of me, wasn’t it? What do you say? In any case, we may never really know this side of heaven (Revelation 21).
You will believe whatever you will, of course. But your discussion of what “transitional forms of evolution” would look like seems to be rather self-imposed.
Wikipedia has a whole LIST of transitional fossils (see link at bottom).
And under the heading of Transition Fossil, we find this discussion:
"Transitional versus ancestral: A source of confusion is the notion that a transitional form between two different taxonomic groups must be a direct ancestor of one or both groups. The difficulty is exacerbated by the fact that one of the goals of evolutionary taxonomy is to identify taxa that were ancestors of other taxa."
“However, it is almost impossible to be sure that any form represented in the fossil record is a direct ancestor of any other. In fact, because evolution is a branching process that produces a complex bush pattern of related species rather than a linear process producing a ladder-like progression, and because of the incompleteness of the fossil record, it is unlikely that any particular form represented in the fossil record is a direct ancestor of any other.”
" Cladistics deemphasizes the concept of one taxonomic group being an ancestor of another, and instead emphasizes the identification of sister taxa that share a more recent common ancestor with one another than they do with other groups."
" There are a few exceptional cases, such as some marine plankton microfossils, where the fossil record is complete enough to suggest with confidence that certain fossils represent a population that was actually ancestral to a later population of a different species.[10] But, in general, transitional fossils are considered to have features that illustrate the transitional anatomical features of actual common ancestors of different taxa, rather than to be actual ancestors.[11]"
I’m sure you won’t be moved by any of this … but you should understand why there are so few of you who share this belief.
Considering that God was very careful to make SMALL mammals first … then BIG mammals… and first SMALL primates … followed by LARGE primates …
… we can only conclude that God wants us to believe that Evolution works as evolutionary scientists describe…
In the quote above, this special mention is made: “There are a few exceptional cases, such as some marine plankton microfossils, where the fossil record is complete enough to suggest with confidence that certain fossils represent a population that was actually ancestral to a later population of a different species.”
Please be kind enough to use the @Relates code to let me know when you are responding to my comments. Just using my name or quoting from the comment does not work.
Now I have continually told you all of your examples of QM have involved subatomic particles only. You have not demonstrated how the Uncertainty Principle affects the movements of the sun, you and I, or any other familiar object in our world.
Now you come up with an example which seems to be different, some black holes. However as I pointed out before, black holes are not everyday matter. They are the results of stars which have burnout and imploded. Thus they are not made up of atoms and molecules, but solely a collection of subatomic particles crushed by gravity. Thus it is no surprise that they would be governed by quantum physics as well as relatively, as I have said all along.
It is interesting that the small electron is orbiting the larger one like an electron, rather than a planet, because it suggests to me that we might have an example of the strong force working on the macro level. According to the standard model of physics the strong force governs the make up of a atom and thus the strong force is the power behind quantum physics, however this is not made explicit in all the discussion of QM.
Your example of the black holes also demonstrates that QM is not the source of disorder in the universe, but a different type of order for subatomic particles from atomic and larger particles. God is not limited to a uniform kind of order as humans seem to be. This reality frankly is another evidence that God created a universe which is far beyond our imaginations, but still within our ability to understand in a basic way when we allow God’s reality to speak to us, rather than dictate to God how it must be.
A quote from a very scientific film: " Listen, listen, the children of the night, what music they make! or in German: Hoeren Sie! Hoeren Sie! Die Kinder der Nacht, was fuer eine Musik sie machen. 
