The more we advance on the road to science in all directions, micro and macro, the arguments in favor of an intelligent creator become more and more eloquent. In the face of such facts the least one can do is acknowledge the Creator. Deliberate attempts not to is evidently dishonesty. With this thought in mind, I invite you all to examine the contents of this page.
This paper DOES NOT present in any way the Christian Creationists position on humankind's origin.
The Cause:
The Universe consists of billions of galaxies and each galaxy has a vast number of stars. To study a galaxy, scientists record light from it on a strip of film. If the galaxy is moving away from our galaxy, the lines on the spectrum will be towards the red end of the film, this is called red shift. By this mechanism scientists conclude that with the exception of a few nearby galaxies, all the galaxies are moving away from us, and the further away they are the faster they are moving away.
The Universe's expansion, discussed above began with an explosive, called the "Big Bang". In 1965 a type of radiation called the "Cosmic Background Radiation" was discovered (also called the microwave background radiation) by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. All regions of the sky send the same amount of this radiation to the earth.
This was the breakthrough for the Big Bang theory. Long before 1965, it had been predicted by scientists that we should be able to find energy remaining from the Big Bang. They had now factually confirmed the faint remnant of the energy produced during the explosive birth of the universe. This radiation has a temperature of 3K (therefore it is also called 3K radiation) and it is very close to the value predicted by scientists before it was discovered.
This radiation is much different to the radiation coming from a particular portion of the universe since it cannot be increased or decreased by pointing an antenna and is uniform from all locations to the earth.
In 1948, the "steady state theory" was advanced which now has no followers and which was completely knocked out by the above discovery of 3K radiation. Scientists today accept the Big Bang theory as being the most reliable with the most evidence to back it up. However they do not know what CAUSED the Big Bang. The standard Big Bang theory does not explain what caused the Big Bang.
"Do not the unbelievers see that the skies and the earth were one unit (joined together), then we split them apart..." The Holy Qur'an, Chapter 21, Verse 30
Big Bang impossible without God:
To clarify some terms: If it is said that the universe is OPEN, it means it will expand forever. If it is said that it is closed, it will not expand forever. Whether a universe will expand, depends on if its average density is less than or equal to its critical density.
Our universe at present according to estimates has less than 20% of the density of matter to stop it from expanding. For all intents and purposes it will continue to expand.
The universe is not beginning-less. It was "born" out of the Big Bang and had a beginning. Some people maintain the unscientific idea that the universe is beginning-less. This has been proven wrong according to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. In a closed system (by closed here we mean one which does not take energy from the outside- this is different to the closed definition given above), entropy (a measure of the degree to which a systems energy is unavailable to perform useful work) increases with time. To restate this:
"In a system which doesn't take energy from the outside (like our universe), entropy increases with time."
If the universe had existed forever, we would see maximum entropy which we do not see at all, something referred to as the fate of excessive expansion.
The Dark Night Sky Paradox:
If the universe is infinite in spatial extent then light from infinite number of stars would always be pouring down on the earth from the skies. A simple mathematical calculation would show that the sky would never be dark under such circumstances. The paradox can ONLY be solved if we assume a finite age of the universe (a beginning). In such a case which corresponds to reality, we are only able to see the light which has had time to travel across space to earth since the beginning of the particular star from which it comes (Davies, 46).
God needed for the Big Bang:
1. The Flatness Problem in Cosmology:
The actual density of the universe is average amount of matter or mass-energy per unit of space. If the universe's actual density is greater than a particular critical density then the universe will eventually stop expanding. Since after more than 10 billion years of expanding, the universes actual density is pretty close to its critical density, scientists conclude that at the time of the Big Bang, these two figures must have been very close to each other.
They do not know why this was so. If it had not been so, and the actual density differed from the critical by even a tiny amount, either way, our universe would have ceased to exist after only a few million years. This is termed as the flatness problem. They do not know why both the figures were where they were supposed to be to make our universe still exist after 10 billion years.
“And the sky, we built it with might and we cause the expansion of it." The Holy Qur'an, Chapter 51, Verse 47
If the universe had been expanding too rapidly, the clouds that formed the galaxies would have been spread thin and pulled apart before gravity could dominate..... On the other hand if the universe had started out expanding too slowly, it would have come to a halt and started to recollapse with galaxies falling towards each other. (Gribbins, Rees 17)
If we push back to the earliest time at which our theories of physics can be thought to have any validity, the implication is that the "density-parameter" was SET in the beginning, with an accuracy of 1 part in 10 60 (10 followed by 60 zeroes). Changing the parameter, either way, by a fraction given by a decimal point followed by sixty zeroes and a 1 (0.00000000000000000000000000000
2. The Horizon or the Isotropy Problem:
At around 300,00 years after the Big Bang, all parts of the universe even separated by more than 20 times the horizon distance, and expanding in opposite directions, in causally disconnected regions (i.e. no cause or physical effect could pass from one region to the other), began to expand with the same expansion rate and temperature.
No natural explanation exists to explain how a chaotic explosion, the Big Bang resulted in a uniform expansion pattern among causally disconnected regions, expanding in opposite directions.
Calculations indicate that when the universe was a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth second old, it consisted of 10 80 causally disconnected regions, and no physical effect could have traveled from one region to another and yet 300,000 years after, cosmic background radiation proves that they all started expanding with the same expansion rate and the same temperature.
"... And He (God) inspired in all the heavens their mandate." The Holy Qur'an, Chapter 41, Verse 12
"And He (God) raised the sky and set the balance." The Holy Qur'an, Chapter 55, Verse 7
In a rapidly expanding universe, where matter is uniformly distributed how do galaxies form?
Calculations by cosmologists indicate that matter in the early universe was uniformly distributed and hence gravitational contractions (contraction is opposite of expansion) in an expanding universe could not have taken place due to natural circumstances unless some special features were built into they system about one second after the big bang by intelligence.
If the Big Bang was a chance event what we would see would be a disorderly arrangement of matter with no galaxies and no order. Things were controlled by an intelligent designer
".....and we decked the skies of the world with lamps.... such is the measuring of the Mighty (God), the Knower." The Holy Qur'an, Chapter 41, Verse 12
Einstein's General Theory of Relativity leads scientists to conclude that in its earliest instant, the universe was infinitely dense where its diameter was zero, i.e. nothing, yes NOTHING. God creates out of nothing just like the Qur'an suggests.
Are there natural and sufficient reasons for all of the universes physical characteristics?
There can be natural and sufficient reasons for some physical characteristics of the universe but not all. Without suitable constants, life as we know it wouldn't have existed and there would be no one to wonder about the cosmos.
Consider this analogy by a Canadian philosopher, John Leslie, suppose you are facing execution by a fifty man firing squad. The bullets are fired and you find that all have missed their target. Had they not done so you would not have survived to ponder the matter. But realizing that you are alive, you would legitimately be perplexed and wonder why (Gribbens, Rees 271).
1. The law of conservation of mass and energy:
The mass-energy in the universe neither increases or decreases. Therefore the total amount of mass-energy in the universe has been the same and will remain the same. If someone were to figure out the mass-energy total in the universe and give it a figure say X, no natural explanation can exist on why it is X and not X+100 or X-100 and so on.
2. The Constants:
There are no natural and sufficient reasons why all of the universes constants have the values they have. If they had different values, life would cease to exist. However they have the values they have regardless of any physical necessity if we take God out of the picture. Examples like, the Planck's constant, the speed of light, the electron charge, the gravitational constant. These constants with the exception of the gravitational constant have not varied more than one percent since the start of the universe and are same throughout. The gravitational constant has varied around ten percent.
It should be noted at this point that these constants have been there since the beginning of the universe, a time before life appeared. These and other strange laws of nature defy any natural and sufficient reasons for their existence, the only valid explanation left is that they were set by an intelligent designer:
"... the measuring of the Mighty (God), the Knower." The Holy Qur'an, Chapter 41, Verse 12
According to the principle of sufficient reason stated by G.W. Leibniz, "No fact can be real or existing and no statement true unless there is a SUFFICIENT reason why anything is the way it is and not otherwise."
Whereas scientists face an enigma here which threatens the edifice of their work, the followers of the Qur'an face no such enigma at all. God is the sufficient reason. The cause of the constants:
"To Him submits whatsoever is in the heavens and the earth.." The Holy Qur'an, Chapter 3, Verse 83
Suitable Constants:
i) ALL protons in the universe have a positive charge of 1.6 * 10 -19 coulomb. This causes the various protons in the atoms to repel one another, but at the same time they stay together since the attraction is 100 times stronger than the repulsion.
Now the proton has a mass that is 1836 times that of an electron. YET for some mysterious reason the charge on the electron is the same as the proton, 1.6 * 10 -19 coulomb. Suppose the proton had a lesser charge than what it actually does, there is no reason why it shouldn't have, there is no natural explanation on why it does, then the attraction between protons would be much more than we see with present figures and they would collide more.
This, scientists say would lead to the stars using up their thermo-nuclear fuel in their cores much faster and dying out in about 100 million years. On our planet it too about 3 billion years for life to appear. If the lives of stars were 100 million years then life could exist nowhere on the universe. An intelligent designer put the figures where they were supposed to be, at 1.6 * 10 -19.
ii) The Strong Force: The neutrons and protons in the nucleus of the atoms are referred to as nucleons, since they exist in the nucleus. If the neutrons and the protons are separated by more than a hundred billionth of a centimeter there is no mutual attraction between them. However when separated by a distance of less than ten trillionth of a centimeter, the feel a strong force of attraction. This is termed as a Strong Force or Strong Nuclear Force.
Scientists calculate that during the first few minutes after the expansion began, roughly 25% of the hydrogen in the universe was converted to helium. Scientists say that if the strong force had been any more intense (which requires a shift in a trillionth of a centimeter or less), all of the universe's hydrogen would have been converted to helium. In such a case life would never exist for
3 reasons:
i) No water without hydrogen.
ii) Hydrogen is necessary for proteins and nucleic acids needed for life.
iii) Stars that have only helium are extremely short lived and could never reach the three billion years figure that our system took for life to appear.
What if the strong force were a little weaker by a trillionth of a centimeter or less, things just wouldn't exist as the protons could not stay together in the cores of atoms. It is an acknowledged fact that if the Strong force was not between 0.1 f and 2 f (where f is the strong force constant) life would not exist and nor would any order like we see it.
The difference between the two figures is less than microscopic and there is no explanation on why the numbers were where they were. That happening by chance is by itself, other things being constant, one in one million. When you take into account all the other constants, the figure gets so small that to believe that life originated without an intelligent designer becomes more absurd than a myth.
The law of conservation of mass and energy discussed earlier makes it impossible to attribute a natural cause to the start of the universe. The energy had to come from somewhere. The energy whose radiation we still receive was provided by God.
"...whenever he decrees a matter, he says be and it is. The Holy Qur'an, Chapter 2, Verse 117."
After exhausting all the other alternatives, the only hypothesis that is supported by facts is that God created the heavens and the earth.
At Planck time (which is 10 -43 seconds) which was a microscopic fraction of the first second after the universe began to expand, all the matter that we observe in the universe was less than a tenth of a millimeter across in volume.
According to the black hole theory, the gravity of this singularity would be so massive that apart from a faint type of quantum radiation nothing at all could escape from it. Astronomers know that no natural cause could have caused the explosion of energy given the gravity of the singularity. No known natural force could have overcome even a tenth of the gravity of the singularity at the time of the big bang.
"....and we split them apart." The Holy Qur'an, Chapter 21, Verse 30
Consider this law in science: Occam's Razor: "When giving explanations, it is better to give a simpler explanation that assumes the existence of fewer unproved things."
Apart from providing even more credibility to what we've established above this idea throws more light on:
i) Why there is just one God and not gods given the organization and the uniformity in the universe. The fundamental postulate of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity state this unity of law phenomena in nature. Consider what the Qur'an says in Chapter 21, Verse 22
ii) If there were more than one God then different parts of the universe would not have worked with such uniformity as they did and as is always the case (when two or more create something), parts of the matter in the universe would have originated at different times. Yet scientists and laws are agreed on that the Big Bang was when all energy and matter originated in the universe. The Holy Qur'an, Chapter 29, Verse 31 should throw light on this.
The Planck Constant:
The Planck Constant is fixed at 6.6 * 10 -23 erg per second. It is a figure that shows up in all major equations used by nuclear physicists. The energy used by anything is always some multiple of Planck's constant. There is no natural reason why the Planck's constant is where it is, it could be a lot higher or a lot lower, but it has been balanced at this level without any natural reason.
The PC (Planck's constant) appears in an important formula used to determine the "Fine structure Constant." The formula is (e 2 / h * c) where "e" is the electron charge, "h" is the PC and "c" is the speed of light.
If the Planck's constant had been greater by just 0.00000001, all the stars in our system would be red. If it was lower by just 0.00000001 all the stars in our system would be blue.
The problem with red stars is that they never erupt as supernova and if there are no supernova there are no higher level elements which are necessary for life. If there were no supernova, there would be no Carbon to start carbon-based life like us.
Blue stars on the other hand burn only for a short time, i.e. around 150 million years. However it took nearly 3 billion years or more for life to emerge on earth. 150 million just wouldn't cut it. The constant was set by the designer to make sure that life emerges when and where He decided.
The Speed of Light
The speed of light is set at 3 * 108 meters per second. It is an important constant which figures in Einstein’s
Famous formula E=m*c2.
"E" is the energy produced when matter is converted to energy in thermonuclear reactions in stars. If the speed of light had been just a tiny fraction higher (and there is no natural reason why it isn’t) then thermonuclear reactions would produce over 10,000 times more energy and all the fuel in the star core would be used up much quicker. Stars would die out much sooner than the 3 billion years it took for life to emerge on earth. Hence life would never have happened.
On the other hand if it was just a little tiny fraction lower, the early universe expansion would have been much slower and long ago the universe would have suffered a gravitational collapse. So both ways there would be no life. The constant was set by an intelligent designer who had life as the goal.
Neutron Mass
Neutrons have a constant mass of 1.67 * 10 -24 grams. When outside an atom a neutron is very unstable and quickly decays into a proton and electron. Inside the nucleus it is stable and doesn't decay. Suppose that the mass of the neutron was 2% greater than what it is now (and why shouldn't it have been?) neutrons would rapidly decay and an atom would become unstable. As a fact, no higher elements would exist which are necessary for life. The only element in the entire universe would be hydrogen.
On the other hand, if the neutron had a mass less than its current mass by a tiny fraction, the protons would become unstable this is because now the protons would have a higher mass than neutrons in the nucleus and they would decay into neutrons or positive positrons or pions. According to physicists, if the neutron mass was 0.998 of its present mass, the decay of protons would make the existence of atoms impossible. There would be no life. The designer had life in mind when He set the balance.
"...He (God) has set the balance." The Holy Qur'an, Chapter 55, Verse 7
Donald Page of the Princeton Institute of Advanced Study has calculated the odds against the formation of our universe without God putting in the necessary constants. And the figure comes out to be one out of 10,000,000 124. To see how impossible it is compare this number to the total amount of subatomic particles in the whole universe which has been calculated to be 10 80.
Beginning-less is illogical, philosophically speaking:
If the universe was not created then it must have existed for an infinite time in the past. However, we being in the present makes such a statement preposterous. It is not possible to cross an actual infinity. No matter how much you count or how much time passes, there would still be more to count or more time to pass. This is what the definition of actual infinity is.
It is non-finite it has no room for growth. If the past were infinite, then to get to the present moment, we would have had to cross an actual infinite. In the language of math and logic this is gibberish. It is just like saying that you can jump out of a bottomless pit. This concept throws light on the attributes of God, the creator also. The one who started this himself must have had to be logically speaking, timeless and unchanging.
DNA: Mark of the Creator
Some atheist scientists who were unaware of the wonderful program, the complex mechanism of RNA and DNA were of the "out-moded" opinion that due to favorable physical influences, chemical compounds were able to spontaneously combine in an organized fashion and hence, were by magic, able to produce the fantastic complex which we call a cell, and then even more fantastic complexes like rudimentary living organism.
Wow, given that all their intelligence and directed efforts to date have been unable to form one single living cell in the laboratory, shows how much credibility we need to give to this fairy tale.
Indeed for the smallest macromolecules of a cell to form as a result of repeated attempts, such enormous quantities of matter would have been processed that they would have filled colossal masses on the scale comparable to the volume of the earth itself. Contrary to this we see beauty and harmony in nature and variety of all created things. Chance is totally inconceivable.
Oparine a modern Russian biologist, who is a well known materialist, rejects outright the theory of chance in the formation of life. An article:"The current state of the problem of the origin of life and its future perspectives," states from him, "The entire network of perpetual preservation and reproduction of the totality of conditions set by the external environment. This highly organized orientation characteristic of life cannot be the result of chance."
The statement atheists make is tantamount to saying, and note this, "Iron ore and coal at high temperatures spontaneously formed steel particles and then those steel articles without any intelligence involved by magic formed the Eiffel Tower and other structures."
This statement sounds stupid, but saying that a cell formed by itself is even more stupid because a cell is MUCH MORE complex than any steel structure that human **INTELLIGENCE** (not chance) has built.
In his book, The Origin of Life, Oparine draws particularly relevant comparisons to convince the lay man of the illogicality of theories pointing towards chance.
In 1954, he wrote: "It is as if one jumbled together the printing blocks representing the twenty-eight letters of the alphabet, in hope that by CHANCE, they will fall into a pattern of a poem that we know. Only through knowledge and careful arrangement of the letters and words in the poem however, can we produce the poem from the letters (page 52)."
Each cell in the human body has a "program" analogous to a computer program written down, so well organized and regulated so as to function properly, the slightest malfunction leads to deformities and monstrous growths [cancer is the case in point]. Each cell functions like a computer, programmed to perform specific functions. It is common knowledge that a computer will only function if it has been programmed.
Without programming you would never see what you see on this page. A fact that implies the existence of a programming intellect, that provides the information necessary to operate the system. The programming intellect for the billions of living cells, unvarying and uniform in his essence of programming is the One God.
He (Moses) said (to pharaoh), "Our Lord is He who gave to everything its creation, moreover GUIDED it." The Holy Qur'an, Chapter 20, Verse 5
There is a genuine enigma among the community of biologists: The origin of the genetic code and how it increases in information which leads to more and more complex structures. The only valid explanation given the intelligent nature of the messages contained in the DNA is that an intelligent designer was involved. We call him Allah, the God.
The Enigma of Life’s Origin
The break between the living and non-living is the most fundamental of all discontinuities seen in nature. Natural Selection failed to explain this discontinuity, just as it failed to explain the discontinuity between species which biochemistry made clear.
The "soup-theory" mentioned briefly above is the most in thing among all the theories of the origin of life in the scientific community. However, it poses many questions and big problems and hence just like the pre-Miller time, it still remains an enigma.
i)The "dawn-rocks" of Western Greenland, the earliest dated rocks on earth, considered to be about 3900 Million years old (dating from about 400 million years after the formation of the earth) don't show any trace of abiotically produced organic compounds. Sediments from various parts of the earth dated between 3900 and 3500 million years old also show no signs of any abiotically produced organic compounds. Like is the usual case with evolutionary theory by Natural selection, paleontology doesn't support it.
ii) In the Presence of oxygen, any organic compounds formed on the early earth would be rapidly oxidized and degraded. It is for this reason that advocates of the "soup" theory suggest (without any geo-chemical evidence to support what they are conjecturing) an early earth without oxygen. Only such an atmosphere would protect the compounds which would then collect as the "soup".
However this poses further problems. Without oxygen, there is no ozone layer in the upper atmosphere, which protects the earth from a lethal dose of ultra-violet radiation. In such a scenario, any organic compounds formed would break down in an instant. The empirical absence of organic compounds in Martina soil proves this. The late Carl Sagan recognized this when he stated that in the absence of oxygen, a lethal dose of ultraviolet radiation would reach the earth in 0.3 seconds.
iii) The presence of water inhibits amino acids from joining together to form proteins, since amino acids dissolve readily in water. To overcome this however our ingenious atheist scientists have tried to "invent" another scenario. Sidney Fox says that the amino acids got washed to a hot pan like land. However experiments have shown that heating amino acids gives no proteins but a dark tar.
However they did some other manipulations by mixing and matching one part of three different amino acids to a beaker of purified amino acids they managed some joining among them. However, that didn't yield any proteins but a chemically different product which is now called proteinoid. The scientific community has thrown this theory out the door. One of the strongest critics of this theory was Stanley Miller.
Hoyle and his colleague Wickramasinge calculated the odds of the random formation of a single enzyme from amino acids anywhere on the early earth's surface as being 1 in 10 20 ( add 20 zeros after 10 to appreciated how impossible it is to get one enzyme anywhere on this earth from amino acids given the soup).
But wait there are not only one but two thousand enzymes, so the chance of obtaining all of these randomly would be 1 in (10 20) 2000. The number is so small that it cannot be distinguished from zero. It could never have happened even if the whole universe was soup.
Perverted Standards:
The human eye cannot see x-rays, electricity, magnetic fields etc, yet no man of science would dispute with their existence based on fact and proof. Yet with just as much or more proof on God being the creator, the same scientist makes the excuse,” We cannot see him."
If today we were to receive even one intelligent message from space, scientists as a whole after confirmation would conclude that yes, intelligent life in space has been confirmed. Yet when millions of intelligent messages are found in our DNA, the same scientists don't even look at it in consideration of an intelligent creator. Perverted standards.
The fact is that the world owes its being to something other than itself. The laws of nature did not create the Universe since they cease to exist at the earliest point in creation. The laws of mechanics did not originate the laws of mechanics because when the universe was a singularity, they did not exist.
The laws of evolution don't come about through the laws of evolution because in order to work they require a pre-existing order and pre-existing entities governed by that order.
Acknowledgments:
1. Mahin, Mark, "The New Scientific Case for God's Existence." Mindlifter Press. 1985
2. Bucaille, Maurice,"What is the Origin of Man" Seghers, Paris. (reproduced by permission of the author).
3. Qur'an: Translation from the Arabic.
4. Asadi, Muhammed A. Qur'an: A Scientific Analysis. 1992.
5. Fred Hoyle And N. C Wickramasinge. Evolution from Space. Simon & Schuster 1981. NYC , page 23
6. Dietrick E. Thomsen,"The Quantum Universe: A zero point fluctuation."
7. Science News (3 August 1985), page 73.
8. J.P Moreland, Kei Nielsen. Does God Exist?. Prometheus Books. NY 1990.
9. John Gribber, Martin Rees: Cosmic Coincidences. Bantam Books 1989.
10. Behe, Michael J. Darwin's Black Box. The Free Press 1996
- Muhammad A Asadi.
