Order is a slippery concept, it can mean several different things depending on what you're talking about. Because its meaning can be subtle, the term is often misused. I hope in this article to shed a bit of light on how we can understand what order is in physics, and whether it can be applied coherently to the universe as a whole.
Even if we don't interpret Genesis as a literal account of creation, we still face the difficulty that parts of the account directly contradict science suggesting that, if science is correct, God lied to us about how he made the world.
A painting requires a painter. A building requires a builder. Creation requires a creator. Order requires an orderer. "On an atheist's worldview" - the theist claims - "how can there be order in the universe? How can a random, unintelligent explosion produce an ordered universe?"
In the next few posts I will be discussing the argument in favour of design presented by Douglas Axe in this book. Will he be able to put some thought-provoking evidence on the table? Or will the book fail to make any convincing case at all?
It's a term that creationists and other science-doubters like to abuse. When we try to explain to them how the Big Bang and evolution can explain the origins and development of life in the universe, their rebuttal is that they are "just theories".
While it's always healthy to be sceptical about things and to re-examine the evidence supporting your science, it seems a worrying number of people are taking this far too far. The bottom line is that there is a wealth of evidence that supports the Big Bang theory which no other known theory can explain.
Here's another video. I'm often asked how there can be no God if the chances of our planet being habitable are so slim. This is the reason why.
I think that "atheism of the gaps" is a legitimate fallacy, but not one that atheists often make. I think this term has the annoying potential to be thrown incorrectly at atheists if it starts becoming mainstream.
This is why I say that the universe must contain time. The universe is best thought of as a static 4-dimensional shape of which slices are all we can perceive. What really bites is that we all perceive different slices of this 4-dimensional shape, and how would that be possible if the universe were only 3D?
The Second Premise Having discussed the deficiencies of the first premise in my previous article (Part 1) we can now move on to the second premise. The second premise states that "The universe began to exist". Now I have actually written an article before about why it is exactly that it is misleading to say... Continue Reading →
