[geocentrism] From Rob Glover 2
- From: "Dr. Neville Jones" <ntj005@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: geocentrism@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 11:01:45 +0100 (BST)
...
Jack,
Did you mean Philip or me? Your note reads like it was addressed to me
rather than Philip.
I'm glad you read carefully through (what was intended to be) my
parting
statement. Now if you could apply some of it, we will be getting
somewhere.
"This is the problem that creationists have when dealing with
evolution.
Evolution contradicts the 2nd law of thermo-dynamics."
Could you state for me please, what you think the second law of
Thermodynamics is.
"The 'Big Bang' contradicts the basic law of cause and effect. The idea
that
at some point in 'time' there was nothing then it exploded into
something.
This is totally irrational."
I'm always a bit surprised that any Christian has a problem with the
Big
Bang. If you think about it logically, there are only two possibiliites
for
the Universe: 1) it has always existed, and is infinitely old, 2) it
began
to exist at a certain point and is a finite age.
1) of course matches the Hindu and Buddhist religions' traditional view
of
the Universe. 2) aligns with the Judaeo-Christian tradition.
Now 1) is scientifically expressed by the Steady-State theory of
cosmology,
and 2) is expressed by the 'Big Bang' and it the one which is currently
best
supported by the evidence of astronomy and physics. That's not to say
the
Big Bang has won, the debate goes on. But the general drift over the
past
half-century of evidence is that evidence tends to add to the support
of Big
Bang, and evidence arrives to weaken the Steady State hypothesis
further. I
am not a cosmologist, so I don't want to get into quoting scientific
papers.
But if evidence is pointing to Big Bang, I would have thought the
Hindus and
Buddhists would be getting out of their seats in consternation, while
the
Christians would be quietly smug. But the opposite seems to be the case
-
fundamentalist Christians still jump up and down, because Big Bang
doesn't
support the Bible _enough_!
The fact is, I don't know what triggered the Big Bang, neither does
Stephen
Hawking, and neither do YOU. At the moment, it is an 'unexplained
mystery',
and may be forever beyond the reach of human scientific enquiry.
However, particle physicists are already creating matter particles out
of
pure energy, using ring and linear supercolliders. Future projects such
as
the Large Hadron Collider will increase what scientists can
demonstrate,
perhaps creating such elusive particles as the Higgs Boson. Matter out
of
non-matter is not irrational. It's being done, now.
Rob.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jack Lewis [mailto:jandj.lewis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: 04 September 2004 08:58
To: geocentrism@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [geocentrism] Re-think
Dear Philip,
I would like to echo Neville's sentiment and prefer you to re-think
your
position and to remain on the list. I read carefully through your
advice
regarding the seeking of truth and came the conclusion that this was
exactly
what I was trying to say when I spoke of 'going back to basics'. This
meant
going back in scientific history to the time when science and
philosophy
were more or less the same. At some point in time someone decided to
suggest
another way of looking at the 'facts' as they were then known.
Therefore it
is necessary to go back and take another look at how science progressed
and
question every assumption that was made. It virtually impossible to do
this
by trying to pick-off the odd assumption in today's theories without
first
investigating the assumptions in yesterday's theories. Today;s theories
are
almost certainly based on yesterdays.
The problem is what do you do when you come up against a theory that
disregards basic physics? This is the problem that creationists have
when
dealing with evolution. Evolution contradicts the 2nd law of
thermo-dynamics. The 'Big Bang' contradicts the basic law of cause and
effect. The idea that at some point in 'time' there was nothing then it
exploded into something. This is totally irrational. It is as
irrational as
discovering a sealed cave deep inside a mountain, finding a button on
its
floor and coming to the conclusion that it must have just happened. No
matter how impossible the idea may seem, clearly it speaks, by virtue
of its
shape, that it was intelligently conceived. But as soon as this same
argument is applied to 'the origins of the universe and life' any
thought
that it was as a result of intelligence is discounted by default. It is
at
this point that creationists should simply rest their case. Until the
rationality that scientists like to think they monopolise
, is applied without prejudice, pretty much everything they say can be
dismissed. Once scientists embrace honesty and integrity and face up to
the
reality that there MUST have been an intelligently directed first
cause,
everything thereafter is just vanity. What you do with this realisation
then
falls into the realms of philosophy.
Since I am unable to make attachments in this forum, I shall send them
to
you privately. One is an article that was published in 'New Scientist'
in
May this year. I was surprised to read such an article that criticised
the
scientific handling of the Big Bang hypothesis by those who steward it.
The other is a creationist article on the same subject but written much
earlier.
Jack Lewis
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