Say rather that Biologos is committed to following evidence wherever it leads. And it currently overwhelmingly leads to these very things you’ve rejected. If evidence ever started leading elsewhere, and started predicting past and future stuff better than current theories do, only then would you see the large ship slowly begin to turn. But turn, it does if evidence leads in other directions. So regarding EU, ‘wait and see’ might not be a bad attitude to have. But until that time when any such new evidence is produced, it’s unreasonable to expect everyone else to abandon successful (indeed as yet unrivaled) theories that have explained so much.
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No, I am certainly not a scientist. I do understand that GR provides us with useful tools and enables us to make predictions. Where I become a skeptic is that It’s also needed to explain the Big Bang - which is necessary to explain the whole of current cosmology. And that is closely linked to the ideas of chance-life- to-human-evolution. And that to me is hard to correlate with the Bible. A “god” striking the match of the Big Bang does not fit (for me) with the Genesis accounts or the rest of the Bible. The ability to have a personal relationship with the universe/human life Creator God is what I believe the Bible intends to lead us to. As you can tell, I don’t believe the Bible is the “words of man about God”. I believe it’s inspired and accurate words from God because of the tremendous amount of fulfilled prophecy and my personal experience. For me, it’s faith in that over “trust” in science. I believe some science is leading people away from the personal God I experience day to day. If your personal experience with God brings you peace, joy and love, and hope for eternal life because of Jesus, then we share the same faith. Both of us are probably chasing some rabbits trying to figure the material world out, but this personal God experience is what we were created for and more important (to me). I am so awed by the beauty and complexity of material world we live in and the display of the universe above. That inspires me to worship this Creator God of the Bible.
I think you’ve kind of gotten it backwards, though. Evolution (specifically common descent) was proposed and widely accepted by biologists long before Einstein thought of GR, and biologists will go on accepting and using its concepts regardless of what cosmologists decide about GR, EU, or anything else. Similarly, GR was proposed before the idea of the Big Bang was conceived and it was broadly accepted because of its success in predicting diverse phenomena. The Big Bang could go out the window tomorrow without disturbing GR.
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What is the EU’s replacement for this?
Do you realize just how complex this equation is? If you take a look at this article here, it is quite easy to see that there is more mathematical prowess than meets the eye:
Has EU provided an alternative to this? No, it hasn’t. Scouring the Thunderbird’s website shows that much. Now, there are limitations to general relativity, such as its to relation to quantum mechanics, but problems such have this have been known to theoretical physics for a long time. Again, there needs to be both reasonable reasons and explanations for phenomena described by GR that exist in reality if you want to discards it. That being said, you can’t say GR is wrong other than that it conflicts with your paradigm of how you think the world should work.
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Good point. Here is a general list from Wikipedia of all sorts of tests of general relativity that any alternative model needs to explain:
For me, nothing you can say @Geneo is going to convince me of the electric universe idea. To me, it’s not a matter of “considering options fairly” when, let’s face it, neither you or I are really capable of judging such topics… and even if we were, we still could be mistaken. What is important is, after we became convinced of the idea, to convince other scientists of our idea. It would be important to explain ALL of the observations of General Relativity (do you know and understand what all of them are?), and pass all of the tests GR has, and then make some novel predictions. Wikipedia also has a summary of alternatives to general relativity (and you can see they are very actively discussed by actual scientists- there is no conspiracy to not talk about them)… it’s just that they don’t work. They can’t describe the universe as well as GR and for now, any more discussion of the EU idea as legit is kind of a waste of everyone’s time.
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How many man-hours (person-hours?) have been spent here?
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Genesis says, “In the beginning God created space and matter. And the matter was without form and void, and darkness was on the the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was vibrating over the fluid matter”. This is a valid rendering of the ancient Hebrew. How the plasma soup of quantum particles became what is in front of us to examine now must be reverse engineered with the tools of empirical observation and mathematics. It makes for fascinating study to occupy a finite lifetime for scientists and philosophers alike. If an idea captures your imagination and excites your passion then go ahead and explore it. The excitement of thinking you may have figured something out is all that matters.
In other words, reality doesn’t matter?
Who’s reality? Solomon tells us in Ecclesiates that everything is meaningless and much study wearies the body. Truth is an opinion with no power other than the passion of belief that it inspires. The only absolute ‘truth’ is death that the Bible often refers to as ‘judgment’. The awareness of that reality has driven human activities since the beginning of literate language 6000 years ago. Keep the faith!
Solomon was making a philosophical statement that nothing in this world can provide ultimate purpose and satisfaction other than God. “Meaningless” in this context does not imply that the world is deprived of a standard of truth, but that those things cannot provide a purpose, a “meaning of life” if you will. You not only seem to use postmodernist ideas to justify people believing in unscientific paradigms, but you also impose a modern philosophy on the Biblical text that didn’t exist in it in the first place.
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I agree, and it’s probably why I prefer to read about things in science that lead to hope, peace and joy which (for me) is more on the EU side than our current cosmology.
There are major differences in the resulting world views between these two models.
Electric Universe proponents believe in a resonantly connected universe which is self-organizing, and where entropy can decrease. In the EU worldview, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The universe is consciousness filled with instantaneous information transfer via resonant connection. Overall the EU worldview highlights and emphasizes cosmic connectivity. (It makes me think about the Creator God who is present everywhere and leading us through his Holy Spirit),
The standard cosmology model does not have a formally articulated or expressed world view. One has to try to figure it out, and what I come up with from it’s proposed theories and concepts, and from what it does not say, is that it is a worldview that is disconnected, random, chaotic, unconscious, and purposeless, with ever increasing entropy. (This makes me think of a hopeless, dark future, without a Creator God).
“…language….is not simply a tool of communication, but a means by which people demonstrate their commitment, in one way or another, to certain ideologies or dogmas.” Anwar Eisharkawy, PhD, "A Critical Discourse of Analysis of Power and Ideology, 2011
I’m trying to communicate that I’m committed to the inspired Word of God first of all, and that’s why I’m drawn to the science behind the EU theory more than the current model of cosmology. By the way, it may not be much, but EU claims a perfect history of predictions. This might not be considered as much, but please remember the EU is a new model. It does not claim to have everything figured out. Here’s five predictions…
- That solar radiant energy is due largely to transmutation of elements in the electrically active solar plasma. This was confirmed by the Sapphire experiments in 2019.
- The electrical flash discharge preceding the impact of a copper projectile on Comet Temple One.|
- The surface of Saturn’s moon Titan has distinctive lightning scars called Lichtenberg patterns with virtually no large craters.
- Successful predictions about what would be found by the Parker Solar Probe at the heliopause.
- Successful predictions about the heat from Saturn’s north pole.
.
That is not dissimilar to reading fiction for whatever emotional boost someone might receive from it. And your ‘science’ should be in scare quotes. (But that would be antithetical to peace. XD )
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That is typical of misuse of postmodernism that I have encountered in both Christianity and atheism: rationality is just another narrative, eternity just another construct arbitrarily subjected to it.
Why waste any time waiting to see?
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You have answered your own question as to whether or not EU is legit. It clearly is not legit as science when it is influenced by some desired worldview. It fits better into the realm of astrology than astronomy or cosmology. Many people believe in and find comfort in astrology so you are not alone. If you wish to attach the vibrating Spirit of God to a scientific theory you could find it in String Theory if you like. The hope, peace and joy of life is meant to be found in following Jesus, not a scientific theory.
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The current consensus on climate change makes me have less hope, less peace, and less joy, so does it make sense for me to just reject it?
Interestingly enough, Augustine preferred the flat earth cosmology for theological reasons…
[Augustine] was familiar with the Greek theory of a spherical Earth, nevertheless, (following in the footsteps of his fellow North African, Lactantius), he was firmly convinced that the Earth was flat, was one of the two biggest bodies in existence and that it lay at the bottom of the universe. Apparently Augustine saw this picture as more useful for scriptural exegesis than the global Earth at the centre of an immense universe.- Leo Ferrari, “Rethinking Augustine’s Confessions, Thirty Years of Discoveries”, Religious Studies and Theology (2000).
Also interestingly enough, some people preferred the steady-state model of cosmology for similar reasons you like the EU cosmology:
Christians in the field like Robert Millikan, W. H. McCrea or the mathematician Bishop of Birmingham Ernest Barnes and some noted theologians who preferred a model of continuous creation emphasizing the creative and preservation activities of God.
Or some like Atheist Fred Hoyle preferred the steady-state model since, in his opinion, the Big Bang model presumed a creator and lined up too much with some Christian theology.
Maybe none of these are good reasons to accept or deny scientific theories, what do you think?
Would you say that it’s a waste to talk about why the EU model is wrong scientifically, since your preference for the model is based off of “the inspired word of God?” Would that be a more fruitful place to take this discussion?
Yeah… do you want to go down this route? Or would it be a waste of time to discuss the so called SAFIRE project since you already believe in it for theological reasons?
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That’s because the resulting world view of Big Bang gravity cosmology is that of a disconnected, random, chaotic, unconscious, and purposeless, universe with ever increasing entropy.
To me that is not what the Bible tells us. I have not said EU has much figured out and is, or isn’t “Biblical”.
There’s a lot of BioLogos posts that jump to conclusions, but that is to be expected as the EU and the Big Bang cosmology are incompatible. The power of public discourse of cosmology is in the hands of our “current science” committed to the Big Bang. I’m not surprised that most BioLogos contributors double down, and are not even willing to consider new understandings. Time will tell as the many satellites will show us more and more of the universe.
From this perspective language is always about power and control, and is never arbitrary. With respect to science, those working within a model that is as deeply entrenched and as heavily funded as the current Standard Model of cosmology, yield an ultimate power to define and control the discourse around cosmology, including what is acceptable, and what is not to be taken seriously.
I agree with Ghada Chelhade, PhD, Discourse Analyst, who says, “Given the careers and funding at stake, and given the power it (the standard model) has to define and shape the discourse, it is not surprising that mainstream science and cosmology would dismiss or mock any alternative model that threatens or undermines it. Moreover once this becomes the official discourse on cosmology, (i.e that the standard model is acceptable and alternative models that deviate from it unacceptable), it functions as a form of neuro-linguistic programming that ultimately signals to the broader population how they should think about cosmology.”
I would be glad to hear discussions about the EU findings as they come out, but I doubt that will be here on this forum.
So, I’ll end my thoughts in this dialogue with a note of thanks to everyone who posted. This all helped me think things through as I run into people who just accept the big picture public narratives that come from scientific research which rises to influence public opinion, and has that ability to control the message.
All of science is void of teleology. If you find otherwise, then what you are following is probably not real science, but most likely pseudoscience. Here is a BioLogos classic (in my opinion) on how we are fine with atheistic meteorology despite the Bible making many statements about God being in charge of the rain. I think it applies to all fields of science:
https://biologos.org/articles/atheistic-meteorology-or-divine-rain
This is just a lazy statement all pseudoscientific groups make. They claim conspiracy, don’t actually understand what goes into mainstream scientific consensus, then never publish any real science of their own.
I don’t think that you do, because you basically ignored all of the legitimate critiques of the idea here and admitted you don’t believe in EU because of the evidence.
What did you actually learn? Besides just accusing us all of being shills and brainwashed by “big science?”
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That conspiratorial framing right there tells me that any time spent on EU would be a waste.
Mainstream science is accepted not because it is some protected turf, but because it has been enormously successful in explaining a great range of phenomena, including astronomical. We do not need an alternative explanation where there already exists certainty, and where our understanding does not rise to certainty, crackpot ideas can be ruled out with certainty.
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EU can’t even explain what our satellites have already uncovered. That’s the problem. For starters, the Big Bang theory predicted a cosmic microwave background which has been verified by many satellites. The COBE and WMAP satellites have even mapped the tiny fluctuations in the CMB. EU fails to explain these observations, as well as many others such as the wavelength independent redshift seen in the spectra of distant galaxies.
It isn’t the fault of the scientific community that EU is bad science.
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