FROM FATHER JOHN: “The more I study science, the more I believe in God.” ~ Albert Einstein. What can account for the existence of life on earth? It’s an important question we should all consider seriously. I read an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal on the day after Christmas. It was written by Eric Metaxas who is the author of Miracles: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How They Can Change Your Life. He reported that back in the 1960’s the United States government established a quasi-governmental agency called Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). There was a growing movement at the time where people believed that intelligent extraterrestrial beings and that all we had to do was find them. Thus, SETI. In the 1960’s, Carl Sagan announced in Time Magazine “that there were two important criteria for a planet to support life: The right kind of star, and a planet the right distance from that star. Given the roughly octillion—1 followed by 24 zeros—planets in the universe, there should have been about septillion—1 followed by 21 zeros—planets capable of supporting life.” (Metaxas, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 25, 2014) Unfortunately, he seems to have been wrong. SETI never found another planet capable of supporting life and was defunded by congress in 1993. As scientists learned more and more about the universe (physics, chemistry, planetology, astronomy, etc.) they discovered more and more criteria that had to be in place for life to exist on a planet. “Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life—every single one of which must be perfectly met, or the whole thing falls apart. Without a massive planet like Jupiter nearby, whose gravity will draw away asteroids, a thousand times as many would hit Earth’s surface. The odds against life in the universe are simply astonishing.” (Ibid.) So, the simple question -- what can account for the existence of life on earth? Another simple question -- is it really possible that random forces caused life to exist on earth? Or, isn’t it actually a sign of an un-scientific mind to think that all 200 criteria came together to somehow form the perfect conditions for life on this one planet but not on any other planets that we can find? But, there is something more to consider. “The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces—gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the “strong” and “weak” nuclear forces—were determined less than one millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction—by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000—then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp. Multiply that single parameter by all the other necessary conditions, and the odds against the universe existing are so heart-stoppingly astronomical that the notion that it all ‘just happened’ defies common sense. It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row.” (Ibid.) Fr, Georges Lemaître, a Belgian priest, astronomer and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Leuven, discovered the Big Bang Theory although he never called it that. He called it the hypothesis of the primeval atom. Fred Hoyle was an atheist and was the astronomer who first came up with the name the Big Bang Theory. He went on to say “that his atheism was ‘greatly shaken’ at these developments. He later wrote that ‘a common-sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with the physics, as well as with chemistry and biology . . . . The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.’ Theoretical physicist Paul Davies has said that ‘the appearance of design is overwhelming’ and Oxford professor Dr. John Lennox has said ‘the more we get to know about our universe, the more the hypothesis that there is a Creator . . . gains in credibility as the best explanation of why we are here.’” (Ibid.) So, to answer our simple question, what can account for the existence of life on earth? God, and God is the only credible scientific answer. Here’s just a few more thoughts from scientists to consider. “I believe that the more thoroughly science is studied, the further does it take us from anything comparable to atheism… If you study science deep enough and long enough, it will force you to believe in God.” ~ Lord William Kelvin, who was noted for his theoretical work on thermodynamics, the concept of absolute zero and the Kelvin temperature scale. “Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover…. That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.” ~ Robert Jastrow, Astronomer, physicist and founder of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies. “Those who say that the study of science makes a man an atheist must be rather silly.” ~ Max Born, Nobel Prize winning physicist, who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics. “God used beautiful mathematics in creating the world… God is a mathematician of a very high order and He used advanced mathematics in constructing the universe.” ~ Nobel Prize winning physicist Paul Dirac. “God created everything by number, weight and measure… In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence.” ~ Sir Isaac Newton, who is widely regarded to have been the greatest scientist the world has ever produced.
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 21:14:42 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015