So, Ray Comfort is still claiming that
an atheist is someone who believes that nothing made everything
Wrong Ray, very very wrong.
How many times do you need to be told that an atheist is someone who doesn’t believe in a god or gods. End of story. That particular belief doesn’t define what an atheist believes about other things, however, what it does do is to free our minds and open them up to the possibilities that begin to present themselves.
Trying to figure out what happened immediately prior to ‘The Big Bang’ isn’t easy. Our current physics models don’t work in the first few seconds after that event, so trying to extrapolate back from there opens up a can of worms. It is hoped that if we ever figure out the so called ‘Grand Unified Theory’ that it will answer a lot of these questions. However, there are still many theories that are quite interesting, here are two of which I find interesting.
The first postulates that space and time oscillate around these singularities. These oscillations stretch back infinitely in time, with no beginning, and no end. This is an explanation that should be particularly attractive to theists, as they should be quite comfortable with the concept of something that has no beginning.
The second idea actually supports Mr Comforts original quote. Quantum theory and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle actually suggests that tiny amounts of energy (and thus matter) can in fact spontaneously be created for very short periods of time. The effects of this have actually been observed. Whether this could in some way allow for the creation of a much larger amount of energy – and thus our universe – is unknown, but it’s certainly intriguing. If you want to learn more about this and other aspects of Quantum Theory, I can highly recommend Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You by Marcus Chown (his other books are very good too).
At the end of the day however, the fact that we currently are unable to give a definitive answer to ‘where did the universe come from’ as a very long way from proving that Goddidit.
Tags: Big Bang, Goddidit, Ray Comfort