28th June 2004, 9:22 PM
Sorry Cr...whatever the karp your name is. But, even as a Christian, I must point out, logically, that from a scientific perspective that article is fundamentally flawed. It goes onward under one assumption, that science holds that the universe can't sufficiently explain it's own existance on it's own terms. Steven Hawking would beg to differ, nay, he would DEMAND difference. Via his latest models of the universe, he has reached the conclusion that the universe very well CAN exist without a cause being needed. Essentially, he's found a model that, similar to God, exists as an eternal being with no beginning and no end. In this model, time has a sort of imaginary dimension that is lateral to the "real" time direction. The big bang and the heat death elements of the universe are not an actual start and end in this model, but rather two poles, like a planet. And, like a planet, the poles do not funcion as true starts and ends but are just there. The universe takes a planet-like shape in this model based on probable realities. At one end, the only possible reality is the single point there is, there are no other variations, there is no "more crunched" universe than infinity. At the other end, where the universe has evaporated away infinitly, there are no other possibilities beyond that. The universe can't be dissolved further than infinity. As you get away from each pole, the configurations of the universe's matter get more and more varied as the universe gets further from that pole. Near the crunch end, where it's still very small, the matter can be in various different places, but the arrangements still aren't nearly as varied as when matter has spread out more with more room to be in varied places. Near the end, when things are REALLY spread out, the number of arrangements shrink because, though there are still many varied configurations that are possible, there aren't as many because the ones where all the matter is closer together are not possible in this case, since the universe has to be spread out this far that means matter has to be in configurations that sorta form a large surrounding sphere of matter on the outside, leaving only a bit that can be in varied locations in the vast, yet creamily empty, center. Essentially, this model, where POSSIBLE realities are considered the second dimension of time, and the ACTUAL reality path the universe takes is considered the 1st dimension of it (and the one that matters), ends up being a self sustaining reality with two fixed poles that exists all on it's own without needing to be created. There is no time "before" the big bang because the universe can't be crushed any further, and the only thing that makes time matter are the possible realities. It would seem that time flows from the crushed reality to the spread out reality from our perspective though. That still needs explaining.
Anyway, as a Christian I do believe the universe requires God and so do the people in it, but my point here was that there IS in fact a way to view the universe that makes it self explaining and self sustaining, which, considering that was the entire basis of that argument that supposedly prooves the existance of God, pretty much tears it apart from the foundation.
Then again, as Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy shows, if God ever proved his own existance, that would be the ultimate proof He doens't exist :D, since Christianity is based on faith.
Anyway, as a Christian I do believe the universe requires God and so do the people in it, but my point here was that there IS in fact a way to view the universe that makes it self explaining and self sustaining, which, considering that was the entire basis of that argument that supposedly prooves the existance of God, pretty much tears it apart from the foundation.
Then again, as Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy shows, if God ever proved his own existance, that would be the ultimate proof He doens't exist :D, since Christianity is based on faith.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)