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Thursday, June 20, 2013

How do we reconcile our existence with God's creation?

This book appears to capitalize on the much publicized controversy regarding the teaching of Biblical evolution, referred to as intelligent design, as a biology subject. In the federal trial of Tammy Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District during the fall of 2005, Professor Behe of Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a leading proponent of intelligent design gave significant muscle to the argument of fundamentalist Christians that creationism has scientific backing. His argument rested solely on the fact that certain biological systems are too complex to have evolved through natural selection, hence they are created by an "Intelligent Being." Television and the media gave significant publicity to this trial which generated enormous public interest. This book makes references to Professor Behe, and attempts to relate God (the author refers to as Judeo- Christian-Islamic God) with laws of physics. The author is a physicist, and I was hoping to read a physical and philosophical discussion about space, time, and matter (or energy) from which life evolved, and invoke God's existence (or His non-existence) through His design of physical laws: These laws hold the ultimate truth. If physical laws are fully set to govern the universe; how would God give himself the option to intervene? The mystery perhaps lies in the physical laws themselves. In quantum reality, matter has wave-particle duality, hence physical existence at subatomic level becomes less-certain, and in fact certainty can be predicted only with a probability (in less certain terms.) Then how do we reconcile the classical reality we observe and experience with quantum reality? This is the area that needs most attention if anyone is addressing a serious physical and philosophical question such as, if God is real? This thought has crossed the mind of mankind ever since man set foot on this planet, but the author conducts his analysis in a "careless" manner. He asks himself several key questions, one of them is with respect to the origin of the universe. The author suggests that no known laws of physics are violated during the beginning, therefore it is not God created. The author has discussed the big bang purely from a classical standpoint without giving quantum physical treatment. It is widely believed that there are billions of parallel universes, also known multiverse. Our universe is just one island in Infinite Ocean, with billions of tiny islands, each of which could have there own laws of physics, more than three spatial dimensions, made of antimatter, different kind of forces, and different fundamental particles. Each of these universes is completely isolated by special theory of relativity.

On the lesser side of science, the author widely uses the term "Judeo-Christian-Islamic God" to refer to God, but doesn't explain how Christian God is the same as Islamic God. Is the author trying to be politically correct to increase marketability of his book or he doesn't understand the difference. The God of New Testament deeply believes in peace, forgiveness, harmony, coexistence and acceptance. This is quite contrasting to a "holy book" which preaches jihad, holy war, fatwa, death for apostasy, and intolerance to infidels which are based on revenge, retaliation, and tit-for-tat concepts. Author Moorthy Muthuswamy observes that about 65% of Koran and 75% prophet Muhammad's biography (Sira) call for violent conquest of infidels; one can see where the global Islamic terrorism is coming from.

At the end of each argument (many of these are not very convincing), the author concludes that "God doesn't exist." I did not itemize how many times I read that phrase in this book. In a scientific assessment, God is regarded as an entity, a creating potential, and the all pervading Supreme Consciousness. Albert Einstein, the greatest physicist of all time frequently referred to God in his discussions, but he did not imply any particular faith. Einstein saw beauty in God's design of spacetime, matter - energy relationship, spacetime - matter relationship, the symmetry in physical laws, mathematical elegance in the physical descriptions and cosmic wonders. One has to accept that religions are man-made and laws of physics are God-created. As long as this simple fact is not recognized, man will continue to fall into the pit he himself dugout.


Reference: God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist by Victor J. Stenger

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