Saturday 24 August 2013

Scientific proof of God's existence

The Age Old Question
More and more people are asking if God exists or not. But the question may be as old as creation itself. A believer like me would only say that even if Man is surrounded by not one but a thousand reasons that prove the existence of God, Man in his arrogance wants to think he is the creator and doer of everything.

Who Created The Universe?

 

Scientists and atheists proudly claim that the Big Bang Theory explains the Universe. Scientists are convinced that our universe began with one enormous explosion of energy and light, which we now call the Big Bang. This was the singular start to everything that exists: the beginning of the universe, the start of space, and even the initial start of time itself. Astrophysicist Robert Jastrow, a self-described agnostic, stated, "The seed of everything that has happened in the Universe was planted in that first instant; every star, every planet and every living creature in the Universe came into being as a result of events that were set in motion in the moment of the cosmic explosion...The Universe flashed into being, and we cannot find out what caused that to happen." Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in Physics, said at the moment of this explosion, "the universe was about a hundred thousands million degrees Centigrade...and the universe was filled with light." But there seems to be no plausible answer to why that explosion happened, or who or what caused it to happen. Could it not have been an act of God?

The Big Bang Theory

 

Further, Physicist Stephen Hawking, accompanied by Leonard Mlodinow, claim in their book, Grand Design, "God did not create the Universe and the Big Bang was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics. Because of the law of gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist."

Gravity Is A Force Too

 

But the law of gravity is a force and form of energy. Well, that certainly cannot exist on its own, in emptiness, can it? There has to be a source of power for that gravity to work as well. What caused the Universe to begin existing? Scientists know the Big Bang happened, but seem to have no explanation to why the sudden explosion of light and matter, happened

Nothing Comes From Nothing

 

As put forward by Anthony Kenny of Oxford University, "A proponent of the Big Bang theory, if he is an atheist, must believe that the universe came from nothing and by nothing." But surely that doesn't make sense! Out of nothing, nothing comes. So why does the universe exist instead of just nothing? Where did it come from? There must have been a cause which brought the universe into being."

Can An Explosion Create Intelligence?

 

If Big Bang happened, did it guarantee intelligent life? Of thinking humans, compassionate animals and perfectly synchronised bodies in which all organs function perfectly, and Nature, where sunrises and sunsets happen without a miss? Even scientists agree that the existence of intelligent life depends upon a complex and delicate balance of original conditions as given in the Big Bang.

Cause And Effect

 

So, for the sake of argument, just as whatever begins to exist has to have a cause, if the Universe began to exist because of Big Bang, there was a cause for it. The cause, whatever one may perceive it to be, has to be older than the Universe, and therefore, timeless or beyond time. Because it also created space, it must transcend space as well and therefore be an immaterial, not physical, being.

Laws of Nature

 
The very fact that Nature seems to operate under a systematic law - sunrises are followed by sunsets, tides rise and fall - is too much to be a mere coincidence, isn't it? As Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner in quantum electrodynamics, put it, "Why nature is mathematical is a mystery...the fact that there are rules at all is a kind of miracle."

Master Designer

 


The complexity of our planet points to a deliberate Designer who not only created our universe, but sustains it. The Earth is located at the right distance from the sun. If the Earth were any further away from the sun, we would all freeze. Any closer, and we would burn up. The human brain is another miracle - it processes an amazing amount of information. The eye is not far behind - it can distinguish among seven million colours.

The DNA Code

 

It's hard to believe the DNA code, which connects us to our ancestors and descendents in amazing ways, just happened. Just as a computer programme is made up of ones and zeros (like 1100101010110000), telling the computer what to do, the DNA code in each of our cells is made up of four chemicals that scientists abbreviate as A, T, G and C. These are arranged in the human cell (CGTGTGACTCGCTCCTGAT) and there are three billion of these letters in every human cell, telling each cell in our body what to do. I find it hard to believe that mere biology is any answer. There has to be a Master Programmer.

Evidence of God is Everywhere

It amazes me that God has surrounded us with so much of evidence about himself and has kept the question of his existence squarely before us, yet we refuse to acknowledge Him.

Nirgun Aur Nyare

In Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism, reality is seen as a single, qualityless, changeless Brahman. Ishvar is omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent. In Vaishnavism, Vishnu is equated to absolute God.

The Overseer of Karma

 

Vedanta says one of the proofs of God's existence is the law of karma. Adi Sankara, the Indian sage who consolidated the doctrine of Advaita Vedanta, was of the opinion that karma or our actions by themselves cannot bring about the proper results in the future, not can an unseen force provide the metaphysical link between work and its results. He believed that the fruits of labour are administered through a watchful agent, a supreme being, who is Ishvara.

Happiness, Unhappiness Our Doing

 
A major argument against God is that if God exists, then why so much misery? However, let me quote the Nyaya school of thought to say that it is our karma which make us experience happiness or unhappiness, wealth or poverty. This school believes that God is the one who dispenses the fruits of our actions.

Implications Of This Questioning


According to William Lane Craig, whether one believes in God or does not believe in God, one cannot be indifferent to God. He says "Does God exist" is one of the most important questions a person can consider. Our belief in the existence of God has enormous implications on our views of life, humanity, morality and destiny.

Nothing Moderate About It

Craig quotes British writer C S Lewis as saying that "God is not the sort of thing one can be moderately interested in. After all, if God does not exist, there's no reason to be interested in God at all. On the other hand, if God does exist, then this is of paramount interest, and our ultimate concern ought to be how to be properly related to this being upon whom we depend moment by moment for our very existence."

Three Reasons Why God Is Important

Craig outlines three reasons why God's existence makes a difference. The first, according to him, is: If God does not exist, life is ultimately meaningless. If your life is doomed to end in death, then ultimately it does not matter how you live. In the end, it makes no ultimate difference whether you existed or not. Sure, your life might have a relative significance in that you influenced others or affected the course of history. But ultimately, mankind is doomed to perish in the heat death of the universe. Ultimately, it makes no difference who you are or what you do. Your life is inconsequential. Thus, the contributions of the scientist to the advance of human knowledge; the research of the doctor to alleviate pain and suffering; the efforts of the diplomat to secure peace in the world; the sacrifices of good people everywhere to better the lot of the human race - ultimately all these come to nothing. Thus, if atheism is true, life is ultimately meaningless."

No God, No Hope

The second argument, he says that if God does not exist, then we must ultimately live without hope. "If there is no God, then there is ultimately no hope for deliverance from the shortcomings of our finite existence. For example, there is no hope for deliverance from evil. Although many people ask how God could create a world involving so much evil, by far most of the suffering in the world is due to man's own inhumanity to man. The horror of two world wars during the last century effectively destroyed the 19th century's naive optimism about human progress. If God does not exist, then we are locked without hope in a world filled with gratuitous and unredeemed suffering, and there is no hope for deliverance from evil. Or again, if there is no God, there is no hope of deliverance from aging, disease, and death. There is no afterlife beyond the grave. Atheism is thus a philosophy without hope."

Experiencing His Love

Thirdly, he concludes, "On the other hand, if God does exist, then not only is there meaning and hope, but there is also the possibility of coming to know God and his love personally. Think of it! That the infinite God should love you and want to be your personal friend! This would be the highest status a human being could enjoy! Clearly, if God exists, it makes not only a tremendous difference for mankind in general, but it could make a life-changing difference for you as well."

No Right Or Wrong

Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19th century atheist who proclaimed the death of God, however, admitted that the death of God meant the destruction of all meaning and value in life. Without God, there is no absolute right and wrong which imposes itself on our conscience.

The Bible's Take

Jesus says, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world” (Psalm 19:1-4). “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14:1).

Hindu Kaliyuga

Hinduism talks of Kaliyuga as the final phase of existence in one cycle of existence, where Man is at his lowest, spiritually speaking. Therefore, expecting him to even believe in God is a huge task.

An Intelligent God

To believe that there is an intelligent person behind the Universe, seems to make much more sense than an atheistic view that the universe just happened by chance, doesn't it...

Science Discovers God

Consider the case of Professor Antony Flew, the renowned British philosopher belonging to the analytic school of thought, who - for more than half a century - was considered the world’s leading atheist. He advocated the need for believing that one should always presuppose the non-existence of God until empirical evidence proves otherwise. Then, in December 2004, Prof Flew, now aged 81, shocked his followers and the rest of the believing and unbelieving world by saying that he had changed his mind and now believed in God - more or less based on scientific evidence - because a super-intelligence was the only good explanation for the origin of life. And what was this evidence? In a publicly released video called "Has Science Discovered God?", Prof Flew specifically stated that biologists’ investigation of human DNA "has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved."
by Book Nook

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