28MAY2008
Dear Moderator, MM. Please consider posting the following in MM forum. Thanks. MG (USA).
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Reconciling Science and Religion: My response to Mr. Avijit Roy.
Mohammad Gani (USA).
I must thank you for taking this complex issue with interest and importance; especially on my view points. I pretty much have responded to your write up earlier; now it is the follow up for the Mukto-Mona readers and a new posting in NFB, as my response to your posting there. First of all, we are not engaged in any argument and as I understand; you are only bringing up some logical persuasions to convince our readers with the rhetoric's of poetic theories from Astrophysics and that I am coalescing science and God to co-exist. Is all our rhetoric only logical lies or logical truth? The readers shall come up with their own disposition at their free will.
Here we are looking for the truth, the only truth and nothing but the truth about the existence of God; and during this process, exchanging turbulent views shall not take us any near to a suspense point in disproving the existence of God; regardless how superior the logics are .
I knew of a professor entering to his classroom, then picking up his chair and placing it on his table. He then asked the students to prove that "This chair on the table does not exist!". Students started writing pages after pages on their logical arguments during 90 minutes class except one student who took only 10 second to respond and submit. Almost all students received D grade. The one who responded with 2 words in 10 seconds received an "A"! His response (answer) was "What chair?" I admired his (student) intelligent logical mind though in reality this chair does exist!
The beauty of the logical discussions is that more often it is truly amazing and visibly convincing too but in this complex situation, it is ending up absolutely without any merit of reality. Let me give you another example. Consider a democratic election process of a public office for a "Public physician". If a politician and a physician are the candidates for this position and that these 2 are scheduled for a debate in a public gathering; the doctor would utterly be eclipsed by the rhetoric and art of craftsmanship of the politician that shall make him win that election against all opposition including the physician. That does not mean that the politician is a better physician than the doctor himself. But we all know what exactly the absolute truth is.
Our intelligence, wisdom and knowledge from astrophysics combined simply fail to reach to the whole truth in disproving the existence of God. Also, the overall philosophy of science has given me the understanding to believe that it is not within Astrophysics realm to prove or to disprove God and I believe in limitation of human imaginations and science's intervention to infinite universe that moving fast to infinite time and space. This concept, I mean "infinite and space" is not precisely defined in science yet either. Our Astrophysics is sophomoric and more poetic that has not come up with any (applied) empirical /scientific evidence supporting all its theories on Universe and Space. Thus, Astrophysics is merely like Tagore's Art of unscientific love and eternity and we can not compare these theories with the science of other kind like thermodynamics, mathematics or any other applied science.
The philosophy of science has its own course and is certainly not to disprove the existence of God as we proudly and intelligently bring about. Science itself is silent in resolving the puzzles and mystery of origin and pre-origin state of super Space (all universes) that still remained a mystery, way beyond human imagination. What are available today, as you have referenced are only theories. Before the big bang, there was always "something, somewhere' and not to be able recognize it is truly unscientific and theories of Astrophysics are frivolous defense from our ignorance and failure. However, this failure should not lead to any absolute disposition towards determination of non-existence of God. Creator has not perhaps given us the ability of consuming and exploring his all mystery.
As I have mentioned earlier, something "infinite size" would never support motion to "infinite space". If so, all laws of our existence would be absolutely/ridiculously incompatible. Big Bang started from a huge dense "object". It also states that the "object" (?) is infinitely dense and has no (zero) volume, known as singularity. Now, how was this "dense object", say mass and/or energy created at the beginning, (if there was beginning before Big bang) and how could we prove or disprove our theory that mass/energy will remain constant? Yes, at one point and only one point it could be possible when Mass and/or Energy could be created at a singularity because all physical laws that could break them (crunch) down at a singularity. That is why we could only predict what happened in the universe immediately after the Big Bang but we do not know what happened at the instant of creation.
Astrophysics could not pass through the singularity to find out what happened before the Big Bang. Mysteries on singularities (more than one) are not over yet either. Singularities still exist today at the heart of black holes. A startling latest finding is that our cosmos may very well be able to reproduce itself through the functioning of Black Holes. Astrophysicists now explain that the bursting out of our universe in the Big Bang is the time-reversed mirror image of the collapse of a massive object into a Black Hole. Many of the Black Holes that form in our universe may thus represent the seeds of new universes with new "mini Big Bang" in them, collapsing the Black Holes themselves. Instead of a Black Hole representing a one way journey to nowhere, many researchers now believe (No proof) that it is a one-way journey to somewhere; to a new expanding universe in its own set of dimensions (Continuous and series of Big Bangs). The dramatic conclusion is that our own Universe may well have been born in this way out of a Black Hole in another universe! Isn't it a true puzzle, I mean a baby Universe inside a daddy Universe! Cool, but not that refreshing!
You see, Einstein was developing his theory of relativity 100 years ago; he considered the universe a static, unchanging system no larger than the cloud of stars that we now know to be only our galaxy. Today, we know that the universe is expanding rapidly and contains at least 50 billion galaxies, each with 100 billion or more stars. When our cosmos blossomed into existence from an area smaller than a pinpoint some 12 billion years ago, it indeed emerged out of "somewhere". Our modern physics has begun to ONLY speculate on the nature of this generative ground.
You have mentioned, "…..but that just raises the question of where the energy came from? The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero. ……that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle pairs. The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together. Thus, in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero".
My response: Energy concept, Big Bang and Entropy relationship; 2nd law of thermodynamics that says the equality holds for a reversible process and the inequality holds for irreversible process means that if some energy (heat) is converted entirely to work, some other must be rejected or lost to the surroundings while the 1st law only denies the possibility of creating or destroying energy. In our practical applications, Entropy is a clever mathematical technique of balancing the energy (Heat) of a system that widely used by scientist and engineers. This unavailable energy, also known as Entropy is real and does exist "somewhere" after the escape from a "system" though Engineers care less where it does go at certain point. The absolute entropy is a measure of "energy" that is no longer available to perform useful work within the current environment but not equals to zero energy. Unavailable Energy (Entropy) can not be concluded as equals to "does not exist" though its whereabouts is unknown to us. If this accumulated entropy could have caused the Big Bang, say it did; then these "unavailable energy" or Entropy did exist before the Big Bang! Now, who put this energy into the system or what exactly caused the Big bang is not explained by science yet? Combining "Negative and Positive energy" did not sum up to zero energy, instead produced only " energy" as we clearly see around us everyday except that matter/antimatter (also energy) have only been complying physical laws of Universe and our existence with appropriate manipulation. The best explanation could be zero volume but not zero energy! Now, who manipulated this process of Big Bang to satisfy Newton's 1st law of motion?
Zero volume and infinite density mass (or energy, you mentioned) concept: Indeed zero volume is dimensionless (say "nothing" here) but infinite "density" is NOT dimensionless, thus physically did exist before the Big Bang. You are obviously correct that "mass/matter" came out from energy after Big Bang but the energy itself did not came out from nothing, just violating law of science only ONCE 13 billions years ago; energy has always been there all the way to the "end" or to the "no end" .
Now "where did God come from?" God is always seen as an eternal being and therefore had no beginning. To begin at some point is to "not be eternal". Many religious theologians think of God existing outside of time and space and therefore outside of our universe, thus is not subject to its laws or logic. I was looking for some ideas about the nature of those that lies outside of our FINITE existence and then came to the belief in God by a long process of overcoming obstacles in my mind. I believe in "faith" but am disappointed at the way others use the word to mean that "faith" comes as an esoteric or ontological leap into the unknown where reason has failed. I have always believed that God exists and the evidence as I have observed indicates that He cannot but exist and it must logically follow that His intention was rooted in our relationship with Him. We do have an intuitive connection with the creator (God), universe and our capacity to use our intuition is still in its infancy given our early stage of learning. An empathic connection with the universe is nothing special; it is built into the systems of the cosmos. Our physical body does not stop at the edge of our skin, in stead extends into and is inseparable from the universe. Consciousness is found at every level of the cosmos and is not confined only within our brains, but extends beyond the body and can meaningfully interact with the rest of the universe in both sending and receiving communications. Our cosmos is responsive, conscious and alive as we are! Thus it is reasonable to believe in the existence of a mental component of the universe. If we believe in this mental component of the universe, then we can say that we are small pieces of God's mental apparatus.
If God was to personally appear before us, in any form that was spectacular enough to convince us all that it was really Him. Then, we wouldn't really have any real choice about following Him. We know we had to. And when there is no choice, there is no opportunity for love. And that is what probably He wants. I have seen the recent debates over intelligent design versus evolution. The "finite" realities that are open and available for examination from the information contained in DNA, from the irreducible complexities in microbiology to the microwave background radiation have only contributed to some kind of logical conclusion of our world view that provides the unified field of knowledge offering only a totality of human experience.
Scientists do not know the dimension and/or area or existence of anything outside the "space and time" and its effects (if any) in explaining the "uncaused first cause" (Big Bang) as not being subject to cause and effect due to the fact that the creation event was not so much initiated within a sequential reality of our time and space but by an intelligence to will existence without all those applies to finite states. It is truly amazing to imagine that agents of intellectual capacities bound by the terms and theories of FINITE existence can really know the characteristics OUTSIDE our Time and Space! Very interesting but difficult to comprehend.
Our childhood, boyhood and perhaps youth have been different from our today's "adult mind" about God, religion and science that changed with circumstantial elements and variables. But these changes can not be absolute as well as one directional; instead are multi-directional systems in a complex system with billions of variables. Anything like Buckingham pie theorem or Reynolds's Numbers (Re) like dimensionless groups/ analyses have not yet been performed to set a standard yardstick on the complexities of those billions of unknown variables. Our "common sense" judgment can never resolve these complex issue.
Many people thought that Darwin's theory of evolution shall put an end of religions. But religious faith and concepts still holds sway over minds of billions of people throughout the world those believe that every words in Holy books are God's truth. I would not say that you have been brutally hostile only to the Quran, you are indeed equally or even more brutal to Hinduism or to other religions too. But what surprises me is your outbursts of emotion in desperately and aggressively ridiculing God and being cruel to Him when you say " Evil God does not exist". It indeed reflects the weakness of your frustrating mind in accepting your failure easily and not being able to close the issue with disposition in your favor/choice. Unfortunately, I do not foresee any prospect of arriving there anytime soon. I recognize your rights to say whatever you want say or the way want to say and you actually did too but calling God as "Evil God" was not that much necessary.
My last leg lands by telling you the following story on our "instant state of mind" over "true state of mind" during unforeseen circumstances. You could call it only chemical imbalance of our brain. But chemical imbalance is real, scientific and thus true too! But when and which is exactly the "true state" of our mind is still a debatable issue. Here is the story;
"An atheist was walking through the woods, admiring all that the "accidents" that evolution had created. "What majestic trees! What powerful rivers! What beautiful animals!" he thought to himself.
As he was walking alongside the river he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. Turning to look, he saw a 7-foot grizzly bear charge towards him. He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder and saw the grizzly was still behind him. So he ran even faster, so scared that tears came to his eyes. He looked again and the bear was even closer.
His heart was pounding and he tried to run faster. He tripped and fell to the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up and saw the bear right over him, reaching for him with his left paw and raising his right paw to strike. At that instant, the atheist cried out, "Oh my God...!"
Time stopped. The bear froze. The forest was silent. Even the river stopped moving.
A bright light shone upon the man and a voice came out of the sky. It was the Lord. "You deny My existence for all these years, teach others that I don't exist and even credit creation to a cosmic accident?" He thundered from the sky. "Do you expect Me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer?"
The atheist looked directly into the light. "I know it would be hypocritical to ask for Your help after all these years," he said, "but perhaps you could make the bear religious?"
"Very well," said the Lord. "I shall make the bear religious."
The light went out. Time resumed. The river ran. The sounds of the forest came alive again.
And the bear drew back, put both his front paws together and bowed his head in prayer: "Lord, for this food which I am about to receive, I am truly thankful................!!"
[This is my last response on this subject].
Mohammad Gani
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
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