The first challenge is demonstrably false. A review of my blogs alone will show that Big
Bang cosmology is not based on abstractions, but on actual observations of the
history of the expansion of the universe.
Images detected through the wide array of radio and optical telescopes
give visual view of this history. Mathematical
measurements pertaining to distances and the speed of stellar objects are
subject to relentless testing of a kind that becomes increasingly refined over
time. As a result of these studies the
scientific community has arrived at virtual certainty that the universe began
and continues to expand from out of a Big Bang beginning. With respect to the age of the universe, the assumptions all lie on exactly the
opposite (young-earth) side of the debate.
Cosmologist acknowledge no data whatsoever (because no such data exists)
that would indicate the universe is young.
It is instead the young-earth position that is grounded entirely on
assumptions (all of which are tied to their interpretation of the Bible). It should be added, in light of the challenges
of the hard scientific data, that “young-earthers” (I never intend this term as
an insult) are effectively approving the notion that God’s creative activity willfully
contradicts the testimony of nature. Yet
if such testimony is finally determined not to be a correct indicator of God’s
power (contrary to Romans 1:18f), then on what grounds are people ultimately to
be judged from nature for not believing in Him (Romans 1:18)?
As for the second and third challenges, it should firstly be
stated that the notion of an absolute beginning of the universe out of nothing
(Hawking’s “zero-volume” singularity) logically demands a transcendent and
personal Creator of all things who exists outside the cosmos. There is no rational way to argue that the Big
Bang supports atheism. Nothingness,
after all, allows not even the possibility of a natural cause of the universe. Now, young-earthers may be troubled by the
notion that the cosmos is billions of years old. But it is actually atheism that is discredited
by the fact that the universe had a beginning at all. Histories on the development of Big Bang
cosmology reveal that Albert Einstein initially resisted the Big Bang on the
grounds that it threatened his earlier assumption that the universe was
eternal. It was only after he became
convinced of the Big Bang that he renounced atheism and came to believe in
God. Significantly, as I have earlier
noted, famous out-spoken atheist Antony Flew also came to renounce his atheism,
in part, from conceding the reality of the Big Bang.
As for the third challenge, young earthers give the strong
impression from their literature that the successful discrediting of Darwinism logically
undermines the notion that the earth (and cosmos) is old. Yet the scientific dating of the cosmos has
nothing at all to do with Darwinian evolution.
The age of the universe is calculated by the distance across the cosmos
factored by the light travel times. Fossils
are irrelevant to the matter. As I
recently stated, I personally doubt Darwinism on scientific grounds. Yet I still find the standard dating of the
earth at 4.6 billion years to be inescapable in light of a whole host of
scientific facts. While young-earthers happen
to find this amount of time to be in conflict with their interpretation of
Genesis, that number is in reality far more threatening to the Darwinian
position. Francis Crick considered this
time-frame to be so tiny in comparison to the actual requirements for the
origin of the first life on earth (by his reckoning), he posed the theory (“directed
panspermia”) that the first (primitive) life to appear on earth must instead have
been transported across space from another planet. Such a proposal as his represents a tacit
admission of the utter bankruptcy of Darwinism in light of the Big Bang
timeframe.
For further study of these matters I urge your own
exploration of www.reasons.org
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