The First Argument
My encounter with a Christian professor of science led me to begin what became a five-month investigation into theism. I was a strong atheist at the time, so I had to call on my experience as an investigative journalist to overcome my bias against theism.
The first argument for theism I investigated in early 1971 was the ‘Cosmological Argument.’ My first response to the argument was — “what caused the cause?” Made sense. My experience, our experience, is in the physical universe. I did not create myself. I’m not alive today because I made myself a living being. I was conceived because of the biological facts of procreation. I was born and raised because my parents chose to give birth to me and raise me. I have a “cause” that I know well — my parents. The universe is alive and full of life. What was the cause of that life? What are the facts of its procreation, birth and development? Did the universe have a “parent?”
Here’s another question I considered. Could the cosmos create itself? Could something that didn’t exist create itself. It didn’t sound logical to me. How can something that doesn’t exist bring itself into existence? For that to happen the cosmos would have to both exist and not exist at the same time. That’s a logical contradiction.
Alright, another question. Could the cosmos be eternal? Many people believed that years before I began my investigation, but too many scientific discoveries had thrown cold water on the idea — the Second Law of Thermodynamics being one of them. This irrefutable law of physics states that the cosmos and everything in it is running out of energy. How could a cosmos that continually loses energy and is slowly dying be eternal? That theory didn’t work either. If the universe was eternal, it would have lost all its energy in eternity past. That means the universe we think we see no longer exists because it already ran out of energy long ago. If that’s true, then we’re not here. But, we are here.
Okay. So, that brings us back to what started the cosmos. What are our best choices? God? Big bang? Causal loops? Infinite causal chains? Something we haven’t considered yet — the “unknown known?” The Cosmological Argument got me searching for answers to important questions — questions that had life-altering answers.
Laws of Physics
The science professor I interviewed talked about how the Laws of Thermodynamics were in opposition to the theory of a “big bang” starting the universe. I looked it up and read about the First Law of Thermodynamics — “energy cannot be created or destroyed.” So, how could nothing (which had no energy) create something that had energy? I also learned about the Second Law of Thermodynamics which deals with the efficiency of energy. It states that “the energy available after a chemical reaction is less than at the beginning of the reaction.” Entropy was another way to understand the Second Law. It’s the process of gradual decline from order to disorder. The concept of “heat death” in the universe comes from that Law of Thermodynamics.
I must admit that digging into sciences in 1971 was fascinating, which was interesting given my previous disinterest in science as a youth. Something about what the professor said drove me to continue looking for answers to questions that seemed to rise continually in my mind.
The question about the beginning of the universe led to more questions — many of them about evolution. Evolution was something I had believed without question for as long as I could remember, but I was starting to have doubts. I was taught as a child and teen that ‘science’ had proven evolution, but had it really? Evolutionary science sounded good to me until I saw it challenged by ‘creation science.’ Some of the arguments led me to question what I had been taught. Here are a few examples:
Fossils: If evolution was true, where were all of the transitional fossils from millions of years of “evolving” from one species to another? Shouldn’t scientists have easily found billions or trillions of “proof” fossils instead of a small number of “questionable” ones? Why so much emphasis on finding “missing links” when tens of millions of years of living and dying creatures should have produced all the links necessary to prove evolution was true? Where were all the intermediate varieties that could be found everywhere? Shouldn’t we find all kinds of fossils showing species in various stages of change? Shouldn’t we see through the fossil record proof of every step of the creatures ‘evolving,’ especially in light of the length of time for macro-evolution to occur? You would think the earth would be filled with billions of tons of layers of these intermediate fossils that demonstrate gradual changes, but where are they?
Civilization: If evolution was true and humans began showing up in substantial numbers millions of years ago, why didn’t civilizations begin much earlier than just thousands of years ago? Where are the ‘tells’ (mound, hill, or small elevation) of villages and cities from millions of years ago? Why are the oldest remains of human life and invention measured in thousands of years instead of millions? If evolution was true and humans learned a little more with each generation through gradual evolution (growth and change), why don’t we have proof of their experiments and knowledge that date hundreds of thousands or millions of years into the past? Why didn’t written communication begin millions of years ago, or at least hundreds of thousands of years ago, instead of just ‘thousands’ of years ago? Where’s all the proof that humans evolved slowly and developed human skills over a very long period of time? The evidence, as I was beginning to see it, pointed to a more recent development of civilized skills. Did that also mean a more recent development of the humans who made up civilizations? Could it be that the beginning of the human race was thousands of years instead of millions of years ago?
Sex: How did asexualorganisms develop into sexual organisms? Asexual organisms would seem to have the advantage in an evolutionary world because all of them could reproduce. Sexual organisms would seem to have the disadvantage because only a fraction of them could actually reproduce another of its kind. It would seem that sexual males would be a wasted resource since they cannot birth one of their own. The difference in sex cell division between asexual species (mitosis) and sexual species (meiosis) seemed to also point to the greater efficiency of asexual over sexual. If evolution is the survival of the fittest, why would sexual species win over the asexual species? 100% of the asexual species were able to reproduce another one of their own. It seemed to me that evolution would have naturally selected asexual species as more efficient than sexual. Also, I wondered, where is the evidence of the gradual change from asexual to sexual in the fossil record? Shouldn’t we see all of the experimental parts and pieces from the sexual development through the millions of years of evolution?
The science professor I interviewed on my talk show explained that evolution was naturalistic, self-contained, non-purposive, directional, irreversible, universal, and continuing. He said that special creation was different from evolution in that it was supernaturalistic, externally directed, purposive, and completed, but was similar to evolution in that it applies universally and is irreversibly directional. He said that direction was downward toward lower levels of complexity and that the original creation, though perfect at the beginning, had been running down.
I wondered how creation would hold up under the light of the thermodynamic laws that gave evolution such a hard time. The professor said that creation actually predicted the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics. He said the First Law proved that the universe did not create itself and that nothing in natural law could account for its own origin. He said the Second Law proved that the universe was moving from order to disorder and its energy was less available now than before. Given enough time, the universe would die a “heat death.” The professor added that the fact that the universe was not already dead was proof that it is not infinitely old.
The professor pointed out some of the major differences between evolution and special creation —
Evolution – life evolved from non-life ... Creation – life came from life
Evolution – galaxies changing ... Creation – galaxies constant
Evolution – stars changing into other types ... Creation – stars unchanged
Evolution – heavenly bodies building up ... Creation – heavenly bodies breaking down
Evolution – rock formations different in different ages ... Creation – rock formations similar in all ages
Evolution – natural selection is the creative process ... Creation – natural selection is the conservative process
Evolution – mutations in organisms are beneficial ... Creation – mutations in organisms are harmful
Evolution – new kinds of life appearing ... Creation – no new kinds of life appearing
Evolution – man came from apes ... Creation – man created as man, no ape to human intermediates
He had my attention. Those are some big differences. However, the idea of the supernatural was not something I could easily accept as an atheist. I needed more evidence. What could he and others possibly say that would convince me that God exists?
More about that in the next part of From Atheist to Theist.
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