This is a YEC claim I heard from my YEC friend a few years ago, his source was a book called Is God Past His Sell By Date (I don’t think he is, unlike Dawkins and Hawking) by a certain English YEC called John Blanchard. He claimed that Dawkins and Hawking admitted it is impossible because nothing can come from nothing due to the First Law of Thermodynamics. It seems absurd to me that they would really say this (after all, it only rules out an atheistic big bang).
Has anyone else heard this claim? Can someone fact check if this is real?
I dont know much about this. But since hawking’s death many articles about his multiverse theories etc have been popping up on any scientific paper from belgium. Could it be because of his multiverse theory that he claims the above things? Ive actually not read much about the multiverse so im just guessing.
Not really. One type of “atheistic big bang” perhaps (unless you can somehow show that our something coming from anything definitely means a “god” exists). I can’t see that this would unduly trouble them.
I could imagine that they might have said something like it’s impossible for something to come from nothing and the writer has extrapolated that to get to “the Big Bang is impossible”. But it would just be wild speculation
This claim seems like the claim that Darwin admitted on his deathbed that he didn’t believe in evolution. Good wishful thinking for opponents of the theory, since if the originator of the idea renounced it, everyone else should do so too
Hawking radiation shows that a black hole will eventually evaporate, and some other mathematics says that the collapse of stars under a certain size will not form a black hole, but this does not rule out the big bang. Since conditions at the time of the big bang do not fit into our modern knowledge of physics, there is some chance that the universe began with something other than a singularity, but if not, we would have to come up with another explanation for the cosmic background radiation that was taken as proof of the big bang.
I would call that a bit of a bait and switch since Hawking thinks the Big Bang came from something. It’s like saying that thermodynamics makes cloud formation impossible because clouds can’t come from nothing.
Not really. Hawking favor models in which according to him, taliking about the begining of the universe “doesn’t make sense”:
Dawkins on the other hands is an enthusiast of the idea that the big bang came from eternal inflation (he wrote the preface to Krauss book about that), so no, neither of them think that the big bang is impossible or even inexplicable. What I’ve seem both of them admit, like many other atheists, is that we don’t know/can’t answer where the laws of physics come from, we must take them as a given. Theists and deists on the other hand can say “the laws came from God”, even though an atheist still can claim that this doesn’t answer the question, but just kicks it a level above.
I actually like it, but it still does not answer where the laws of physics came from, moreover, it assumes that a handful of them were present before the big bang, which we can’t confirm at all.
I think the problem lays in the fact that many atheists, especially younger and more religion-hating ones think that atheism is some kind of inevitable conclusion you draw from learning science, I lost the count of how many times people said to me things like “the reason Stephen Hawking is an atheist is because he knows to much about the universe to believe in God”, which is totally false, Elaine Ecklund’s research has shown that most atheist scientists claim themselves that their atheism pre dated their formal training and knowledge in science, and even today some big names in cosmology like George Ellis and Don Page are devout christians, but you do have this idea in the popular imaginary that knowing more about cosmology and science in general makes you an atheist, even religious people buy it some time and thus become hostile to science. I think that is the real big reason why so many new atheists think that shoving theorys of physics in peoples faces is somehow a form of argument against religion.
Anyways. Most of these people who have a “scientific atheism” can only say one of these as an argument:
-“Believing in magical sky fairies automatically makes you an imbecile” (one of them actually told me that)
Its funny because I have an atheist friend who firmly believes in ESP and still tells me that even though he doesn’t have any formal knowledge about science, hahaha. That is the point, many of these people don’t even know what they are talking about, they just take for granted that science somehow disproves God.
-“God did not create man, man created God”
That is a circular argument:
God does not actually exist, it is just an idea, therefore man created God, therefore God does not exist.
-“Religion was invented to oppress the poor/ignorant”
Even atheists that work with the evolution/psychology of religion mostly don’t buy this idea.
-“God is just scientific ignorance that gets smaller as science progresses”
God of the gaps strikes again. It is funny how atheists often invoke God of the gaps and Occam’s Razor as arguments against God when the original proponents of these ideas/critiques were people from the church.
-(Any quote by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and their favourite, Neil deGrasse Tyson)
Its funny since Neil deGrasse Tyson himself has declared many times that he is not an atheist, but an agnostic, but people try to force him in that category against his will.
I will take my time and read it. I actually like Carroll a lot, he is a convict atheist but he is usually very polite and respectful when engaging these religion/science debates.
Exactly like my ESP friend (2), haha
Me too, but on the atheist side, although I was not hostile to religious believers.
Even if it was proved, I don’t think it would pose any threat to theism, unless you are too attached to some specific arguments like Kalam’s cosmological argument. I will take my time to see this video as well latter.
I remember seeing his debate with WLC and i was directly hit by how respectful he was. Also with kevin scharp. I ask myself why some people dont take that stance.
God is nothing. God is not a thing, but the Source of all Reality. Christians say that God created the universe out of nothing. The Big Bang theory says that the universe came into being “out of nothing.” No matter, no energy, no time, no space. Absolute nothing.
The Big Bang theory is not deny the existence of God. In fact since only God could create the universe out of nothing, it affirm the existence of God. Both Hawking and Dawkins claim that the universe was created out of nothing and thus deny the reality of the Big Bang, even while it has very clearly scientifically verified.
This demonstrates how desperate atheists have become when our best science disproves their beliefs.
Hmm, Im no highly educated man , but I don’t think that is the only answer …
Hawking’s latest paper seems to conflict that .
It implies , if my understanding is correct , that our universe is from the universe before it , like an infinite progression , it appears he even proposes a method to test it .
This ofcourse doesn’t deny the existence of God , from my humble perspective , but is consistent with other perceptions of God.
Patterns repeating , much like fractals do .
Or for a more poetic thought , the nature of an artist.
The drive to create .I personally feel driven to create , it is in my nature as an artist to not be idle in my creativity .I love to create , it fullfills me .
I have heard many atheist ask " what did God do before the big bang ?" …my simple mind answers " create , a creator creates " …
Jesus said “God is a spirit” , just because we can’t measure something by our standards ,doesn’t negate it’s possibility. We are limited in our ability to percieve time , space , dimensions ,etc …we observe through our limited windows (eyes) ,even among the animals our field of vision is limited .
I hesitate to say consciousness is a nothing ( no thing ) , it may be that we find it is everything .
The simulation hypothesis could hint to this .
The observation factor in the double slit experiment ( wave function collapse) may point to this too ,something is observing on the quantum level .
If the wave function collapse occurs because of observation , then something was observing the big bang ,or matter would not have formed from the energy .
I fully accept that I am only a novice in these concepts , and could be entirely wrong .
These are just my thoughts on it .
I hope that we are agreed that God is eternal, without beginning, while the universe, the physical is not eternal, has no beginning.
If the universe is going to be recycled and has been recycled, it means that matter is eternal with God. This is not possible. God is self created. Matter is not.
Nor does God need a multiverse to design a universe for humans to live in. Our universe is formed through purpose, not by chance.
Agreed , alpha and Omega , the beginning and end , the creator .
Matter is just a form taken by energy , energy may be eternal , I’m not qualified to make the claim in certainty. Even if energy is eternal , then it is the substance by which God creates . The canvas the artist paints on …
I assume God " needs" nothing , but a multiverse doesn’t exclude a creator , the mathematician that designed the equation is still the designer .
It is my nature to reconcile my faith with evidence.
If a multiverse we’re proven , it just means I need to reconcile my understanding of God …
A living word of God is applicable or it is dead ,in my opinion .
" A new heaven and new earth , and the old shall pass away " …perhaps this could mean a multiverse ? We don’t know until we look …
An equation built to create our known existence ( universe ) is with purpose …agreed , not by chance
I don’t think we should care what Richard Dawkins thinks about the Big Bang Theory… or even Stephen Hawking. This is like someone quoting Charles Darwin to ‘disprove’ evolution while ignoring mountains of actual evidence.
There is a difference between the Big Bang Theory (which does NOT describe what happened in the absolute ‘beginning’ of our universe but describes very well what happened beginning 0.000000000000001 seconds after it ‘began’) and the Origins of the Cosmos. It’s like the difference between the Theory of Evolution and Abiogenesis which creationists seem to be confused on as well.
Don’t read apologist literature if you want to learn about science.
As for the first law of thermodynamics, presumably the original author is trying to say that energy cannot be created or destroyed. It is also a nice law to quote by creationists who blabber about something can’t come from nothing even though very few (if any) cosmologists argue for such a model. Furthermore, is not an absolute law. It can be broken and is broken all the time in the quantum world of which was definitely present in the early universe. And then, to make matters even worse, the total energy of the entire universe might even be exactly zero.
4b) The conservation of energy is better understood in relation to what’s called Noether’s theorem which basically tells us that the conservation of energy is a ‘law’ simply because the laws of physics are invariant in time. We do not know if that would be the case in the ‘creation’ of our universe and therefore all arguments from creationists utilizing the first law are based solely on ignorance.
That statement is not true. It is like saying that you hear a shot and turn immediately and see a person with a smoking gun aimed at a dying victim and saying that you have no idea who killed him or her because you did not see him or her shoot the victim.
In terms of abiogenesis you do not hear the shot, do not know the means of committing the crime, and you do not see the perpetrator. All you know is that life had a beginning sometime, somehow, some place
Nice to see you again Roger. We’ve been over this already… multiple times: see here, here, here, or here.
The reason the Big Bang is a successful scientific theory is that it can describe mathematically how the universe evolved after it began. We can experimentally test up to approximately 10 billion electron volts at the Large Hadron Collider which would tell us what the Physics of the universe would have been like about 0.000000000000001 seconds after it ‘began.’ We understand very well the Physics of what particles would have existed and how they would have formed. We understand the formation of the first nuclei (as predicted by Big Bang Nucleosynthesis) which actually describes the distribution of elements that we measure nearly 14 billion years later. We predicted the Cosmic Microwave Background (based on atomic physics and black body radiators) and then later measured it. Everything about the Big Bang Theory has been quite remarkable…
BUT, we cannot experimentally measure any energies before 10^-15 seconds after the unvierse ‘began.’ As in… they are in the category of theoretical physics and in many cases, remain in the realm of untestable hypothesis. Certainly quantum mechanics would have been important in this regime… but so would general relativity… but the two don’t talk to each other! Hence the previous video I shared on Quantum Gravity and the fact that nobody knows how to successfully unite the two yet tells me you are blowing smoke at me again.
In summary: We do not know in the scientific sense what happened before this point. Many cosmologists are actively trying to solve such problems. Yes, Stephen Hawking was one of them and there are many others. But just because we do not know what happened before a certain point doesn’t mean that the Big Bang Theory is in any way invalidated.
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gbrooks9
(George Brooks, TE (E.volutionary T.heist OR P.rovidentialist))
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