How Hubble Killed God… 11 November, 2006
Posted by paralleldivergence in Brad & Phil, God, Hubble, astronomy.trackback
March 9, 2004: NASA releases a single image taken by the Hubble Space telescope that proves a fatal blow to the concept of God, but despite the compelling evidence, many simply don’t comprehend the significance of the image.
According to many interpreters of the Bible and the Book of Genesis, there is proof that the Earth and Universe is only 6,000 years old. Even scientists like Dr. Michael Brown, the Director and Principal Researcher of the Molecular History Research Center who graduated with a Ph. D. in Biology with an emphasis in Molecular Biology, will scientifically show you that carbon dating is wrong, the universe is stable and that we all descended from one 6,000 year old mother, Eve. Man was created by God in his own image for a special purpose. Different religions offer slightly different descriptions of that purpose, but clearly, it is widely accepted that we are God’s children and the Earth is the most important place in the universe.
OK. So in summary, the universe was created, the Earth was created and Man was created, all during Creation Week and all with supernatural logic and reason behind it. Some religions believe all of this, but dispute the “young Earth” assertions of Biblical Creationists. In Islam, Allah created the Big Bang and all the rules that followed it. The Earth took many years to form and every new scientific discovery can be explained away by attributing it to Allah. It just seems too convenient.
If you’re reading this at night, go get a plastic drinking straw and go outside and look up. What you can see with the naked eye from one position on Earth is about 2,500 stars at the most. All of them are in our galaxy, the Milky Way. The Milky Way contains somewhere between 200 and 600 billion stars (that’s billion, with ‘b’). The size of our galaxy is somewhere between 70,000 and 100,000 light-years across. The nearest star to our own Sun is Alpha Centauri and it’s only 4.35 light-years away. We all know that a light-year is the distance light travels in one year, but what it actually means to us is when we look up at the night sky and see Alpha Centauri, we are actually seeing what it looked like 4.35 years ago. We are looking back in time.
Now, find the Moon. Divide the diameter of the Moon by ten. It’s a pretty small spot, right? Pick any apparently black section of sky (between stars) of about a tenth of the moon’s diameter and look at it. There’s nothing there, is there? Now stare at that one little spot of the sky. That’s pretty much exactly what the Hubble Space Telescope did every night in late 2003. Over 400 orbits of the Earth, Hubble took 800 exposures of the same patch of space at varying focal lengths to produce an incredibly deep image. This image is known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (UDF).
[click for a larger image and more details about the HUDF]
If the distance across this image in space was scaled to the diameter of your drinking straw, the depth of this image would make your drinking straw 8 foot long. All those specks you see are not stars, they’re other galaxies. In this image alone, there are almost 10,000 galaxies. The nearest ones, those that appear as well-defined spirals and ellipses, are about one billion light-years away. In other words, this image is showing us what those galaxies looked like one billion years ago. The furthest galaxies in the image are shown as they existed only 800 million years after the universe was created and are some 13 billion light-years away.
Each of those galaxies comprises billions of stars, and if the Hubble UDF represents only one tiny part of the whole sky which is actually 12.7 million times bigger, we can only wonder at how many galaxies, stars and solar systems might fill our universe. If God or Allah created all of this, He did so an incredibly long time ago. If Man is the reason for Creation, why has intelligent Man’s existence only been for the last few thousand years? If Time since creation was a kilometre long piece of rope, intelligent Man is represented only by the last half-CENTIMETRE. If Man is the purpose of creation, why did it take so long to create Man? And what’s with all the over-the-top elaborate sky decorations? Surely some painted white dots on a big canvas hung around the Earth would have sufficed?
Thanks should go to Hubble for opening our eyes. If only some men would open theirs. Being a Christian or being a Muslim means being different. Being a Human means being the same.
ADDENDUM: This note was added about 14 hours after the original post to help address some of the hundreds of comments the post has received. Thanks to everyone for their thoughts. All comments and points of view are appreciated.
- The headline is meant to be sensational, but the article does not necessarily address the statement. The first line of the article refers to the concept of God.
- There are three dots after the title… (it means that the title is not conclusive in any way)
- In the article, there are a few links - eg. the one about proof the Earth is 6,000 years old. I didn’t write that. There is also a link to the Creationist/Scientist and to the Islamic point of view
- This is intended to be a sister article to an article I wrote last week: Which is Stronger: Manfluence or Godfluence?
- The whole purpose of the article is to get people to think. If the Hubble image makes you believe more in God, that’s great. If it makes you start to question things and look for more information one way or the other, that’s great too. But please don’t dismiss the article based on the headline. What it does highlight is there are many man-made concepts of God. Who’s to say which are right?
While many people have had their say on this article in the comments section, I’ve decided to close it now because much of it is becoming repetitive and while I feel I have not abused anyone with this discussion piece, some people seem to be abusive in their comments. I do not discount the possibility of a God, but I do dispute some people’s concept of God. We’re all entitled to our opinions without the threat of persecution.
Thank you.
I must credit my wife with the last statement about being different/same. We were talking this morning and that amazing bit of wisdom just poured from her. I’m so lucky.
fascinating post, but it doesn’t really prove that God is killed. Maybe just the notion that it took 6000 years to create humans.
Richard Dawkins killed God. Check out his latest book The God Delusion. great stuff.
“The Earth took many years to form and every new scientific discovery can be explained away by attributing it to Allah. It just seems too convenient.”
Just because there is no claim in Islam that even remotely contradicts science, you dismiss it by saying “it just seems to too convenient”. In Islam, God exists and however old, complicated, and miniscule the earth is, it is believed to be created by God. Again, this is an idea that can neither be proved or disproved. In the end, it boils down to picking up a tiny insect from the ground and asking yourself how such an amazing piece of machinery, art, beauty, and sophistication came into existence (all by itself?) and how it continues to reproduce. You can go by whatever answer satisfies you.
I recently found a very interesting website:
http://alreadylinked.com/
There you can purchase ad space for your Blog etc.
That photograph really makes me feel quite insignifigant on the face of things. Awesome though.
God is a matter of faith. But then so is much of science. I don’t believe in God but we still have no real explanation as to why we or the universe came to be. If the laws of physics say that energy and matter are all finite then where does our energy go when we die and where does it come from when new life is born?
Your article above is the sort of stuff we should really make more worthy of debate.
Just my two pence worth
I subscribe to no god(s). The closest I would get to is Zen Buddhism - but that image…. I remember when I saw it. Big. So big it’s beyond any possible imagination. And yet here in our tiny tiny part of all that we kill, maim, hurt.
It doesn’t matter who/what/if - it’s a ‘wow’ image.
How Hubble Killed God… come on! This is the STUPIDIST thing I’ve ever heard
Science isn’t a matter of faith, Puddlejumper. It does not take faith to understand that we do not have answers for everything.
Your interpretations are wrong. Only a small sect of christians believe the Earth is 6000 years old. Read “The Case for a Creator” and you’ll see that science actually points to a God creating Earth.
What I want to know is, “Where did God come from?”
Excellent article.
This is retarded…there’s a thousand other instances that prove that the bible is wrong taken literally, this proves nothing that hasn’t been proven before.
The bible is not meant to be read literally…
@puddlejumper:
You’re misunderstanding the meaning of energy.
Energy cannot be created, but it can be converted from one form to another. For instance, a battery converts chemical energy into electrical energy and a dynamo converts kinetic energy (from a bike wheel) into electrical energy.
Also, when people talk about ‘our energy’, they are generally talking about spiritual energy, not physical energy. There is a difference. Scientists will tell you that human thought is just a highly-advanced chemical and electrical process in our brains. There is no evidence for a soul or spirit.
Great piece of writing, should be an eye-opener for many people, religious or not. That said, “How Hubble killed God” is a little over the top, don’t you think?
“According to interpreters of the Bible and the Book of Genesis, there is proof that the Earth and Universe is only 6,000 years old.”
You’d be mistaken if you seriously think that all Christians or Jews believe that particular claim. In fact, the majority of the adherents of both faiths believe differently. If anything, you’ve simply shown that the anti-intellectualism that is integral to Fundamentalism — an organized theological reaction that emerged in Christianity only around the turn of the 20th century — has little if any merit.
Of course, most scientists and science-minded individuals have this annoying tendency to set up religion as a straw man, without really knowing or investigating religion and its expressions. I mean, seriously… you could at least -talk- to a theologian from a respected institution, like the Harvard Divinity School or the Princeton Theological Seminary. A -real- scientist would investigate such things and cite their sources -before- making sweeping claims of how Christianity, Islam or any other major faith views diety.
This really does nothing to “kill” or disprove God. It may make the literal belief in the Genesis creation story seem silly, but it certainly is not a god-killer. To me that image is truly inspirational, and shows me just how great and truly big God really is.
As for the why, if we are so important to God are we such a small speck in time and space, and why did it take so long for us to come on the scene. I don’t really have the answer to that, but I would imagine that He went to all the trouble of creating such a massive universe to show us how much he cares. Also time is irrelevent for God, since He exists outside of time.
I realize you may not believe a thing that I wrote, but thats fine.
You’re just another example of the annoying people who take one small fact and extrapolate unsupported conclusions because their evidence *might* help to prove it. If you had any real understanding of the Christian faith you would know that you’re just taking steps toward cementing my belief in that faith. You look at that beautiful stretch of sky (which is only representing maybe a billionth of what Hubble can see) and you say, “Ha! Look how old and vast the universe is! Why would God take so long to create man?”
I look at that same stretch of sky and I say, “Ha! Look how old and vast the universe is! Why would God take so long to create man? Are we the pinnacle of His creation? Look what God has made for us to enjoy!”
You can take delight in attempting to disprove, but maybe you should convert your cynicism to something more productive. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to enjoy life and not give your weakly supported claim another thought. Come back with some intelligent discussion in your blog and we’ll talk.
In response to “Where did god come from?”….
the answer is easy. Man created god.
great article. the only thing i could possibly believe is a god is the Sun, as it shows up every day and does what it is supposed to. otherwise, forget it!
I think your article is fascinating and it makes me feel minuscule, yet your article does not answer any of the questions that would help to prove or disprove God. Albeit, you can’t completely prove or disprove God, it is useful to have a semblance of logic within the argument.
As for your statement, “And what’s with all the over-the-top elaborate sky decorations? Surely some painted white dots on a big canvas hung around the Earth would have sufficed?”, why do people create art? I am a photographer by hobby (a postdoc by occupation), and beauty is found in complexity and the complexity of simplicity. I am a Christian, and I imagine that people do not have the urge to create beauty because of some evolutionary adaptation. Art is in no way protective of our species.
In the Bible, it states that man was made in the likeness of God. If that is true, then God must love beauty for the sake of beauty. If we love to create, then God must love to create. Have you ever gotten satisfaction out of creating something for no apparent reason? I believe that feeling comes from the fact that we are made in God’s likeness.
Good article, yet I believe that Hubble just proves God to us. That expanse is complex and artful… it was made, and it is beautiful.
Thanks for pointing out that image. I’ve always thought of space as being big, real big…but this pic helps put “big” in context.
The workaround for the young earth theory is that God created the light in transit.
well as for one scientist noted “life form on this planet is a collection of accidental sequences that lead to the creation of carbon based life, in which both can be explained in physics and chemistry” problem is in science there isnt “accidental” everything in science is represented by formula or equation, for these limitations we call on religion or God as the source coz anything that we could not comprehend could only be attributed to the creation from a Supreme Human Being.
I’m willing to admit that there might be a god, in comparison to a mere human, but only because sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic. Or god-hood.
All-powerful, all-seeing, ever and ageless, the alpha and the omega? Then it’s also just another part of nature, nothing special.
Either god is a demonstrable, repeatable phenomenon, or it doesn’t exist. Just like “ether”, spontaneous generation of maggots from dead meat, the sun orbiting a stationary earth, and lots of other things that have been believed that turn out to be false.
I think his “proof” was that if we’re looking at universes that are billions of years old it discredits the notion that things got started 6000 years ago.
A small point about logic.
This argument does not disprove God per se. It disproves the concept that the Universe is 6,000 years old, and therefore that the Genesis book is to be taken literally.
Now, this has already been stated. But let me look at it this way: logic is the basis of research. If A implies not B, it does NOT follow that A implies not C, especially when we have no information regarding the fact that B implies C.
Meaning, if you ever tried to print this as a claim in a _scientific journal_, you’d be laughed at as not just any peer reviewer, but also anyone who knows the basic tenets of logic can disprove your claim.
True scientists are agnostic. If religion were wrong, then surely atheism would be just as wrong.
I’m a Christian and have no problem whatsoever with a universe that is billions of years old. For instance, check http://www.reasons.org.
This is a dumb argument, sorry. Just because it takes a billion years for light to travel to us from a certain galaxy doesn’t mean the galaxy had been there for a billion years. It could easily be that 6000 years ago, the universe was created with a whole bunch of photons already en route to us. I mean, the universe may have been created 5 minutes ago, right? I mean, God could create a universe in any state He chooses, so maybe he chose to make a universe in the very same state that ours was in, five minutes ago. So we’re made “pre-loaded” with our memories, etc.
And no stupid telescope picture can undercut that.
Look, I’m an atheist without any temptation to believe in a creator. I just don’t like seeing dumb arguments for the conclusion that I believe, because it makes the conclusion look dumb.
“Hubble killed God” — certainly one of the silliest and most assinine things I have ever seen in print. “Hubble proves Bible wrong”?? I could’ve gone along with that. I think Clarence Darrow had it right when, during the Scopes Monkey Trial, he pointed out that while the Bible said that God created the world in 6 days, it doesn’t state how long those days were.
The more I study Astronomy and other sciences, the more I am convinced that there *is* a God…what we do know about the creation of the Universe aka “Big-Bang Theory “– points to Genesis being correct, that the Universe was created in an incomprehensible blast of light and heat, that God said “Be”, and it was.
Science and God are *not* mutually exclusive…it just requires dumping all the hired-bullsh*t of dogmatic, organized religion at the side of the road and opening your mind. Free your mind and your a$$ will surely follow. ‘Nuff said…
.High*Ping*Drifter.
“When in doubt, I whip it out!”
Doesnt really solve how the universe was created. From what i have read, someone would have to exist in the 11th dimension to create the universe.
I agree. Organized religion is silly. But, the fact that there is light arriving on our planet now that is billions of years old only proves that the objects we see in that light existed billions of years ago. It doesn’t necessarily prove that Earth was here. So, God or whoever could have created the Earth 6000 years ago just in time for us to see the billion year old light. Anyway, religion and science don’t mix. To try and combine them is folly.
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard.” -Psalm 19
No offense, but I have seen this image a while ago. And it doesn’t disprove god either.
Your headline is not very scientific.
If a supernatural being exists, things can be created in any state he/she/it chooses. It isn’t possible to apply a human’s understanding of time & physics to a supernatural supposition.
Just because you observe celestial objects at “n” distance does not mean that they’ve moved there over time - if you really want to start with the statement that a supernatural being created it, they could’ve created it in any state.
Science cannot prove the non-existence of a creator.
You make a rather large assumption:
“If Man is the reason for Creation”
I’m no Biblical scholar, but last I was aware even those who have spent their lives reading the texts forward and backward hundreds of times did not have an answer for “The Meaning of Life”. The answer I’ve always heard from the ultra-religious is something along the lines of “Beyond Human Comprehension”.
I wouldn’t call myself a Christian or a Muslim or a Jew or a new-age freakshow, and religious zealots irk me to no end, but until NASA can prove what created all of those galaxies pictured - the ultimate origin of everything - I think it to be sheer arrogance for anyone to think they disproved thousands of years of scholastic thought based on a single press release image.
C’mon now.
I have always been fascinated with space since I was a kid in St. Patricks.
My family came to america and succeded they taught me everything about God
in the old Spanish Catholic way. My entire family is Catholic and we always try to be kind and hospitable to everyone. This same question you post is the one a I ponder every day of my life. They Bible must be wrong with all the evidence we see. There is no logic in believing that several apostles and human authors could have gotten the story right. That is ridiculous and it would be futile to cling to such a thought. I believe in the great Cosmos and I believe there is a Great Power out there that created all this. The human question is what, we answer by our vague image of what we know now.
However large, and grand this universe gets there will always be God in the Human mind. The stroy will change but God shall never die he is eternalin our minds. You can’t kill a thought that came from the very root of our neurotransitters. Some Great Power had to create all this. We answer it by saying God and we follow our religions because of tradition. Until science provides an answer no man will concede to your notion that God is dead. You may debate as long as you like, but I know this because I can’t concede without an answer. Answer me please.
Your stupid, you didn’t even provide an argument or support for your point. All you said was it was to extravegent and therefore God doesn’t exit. But if God is beyond comprehension can’t He make something such as that. Maybe next time you should think before writing eh?
[...] Link: How Hubble Killed God… [...]
While I agree that the pictures captured by the Hubble Telescope are amazing, and give us a bit more of a glimpse at the vastness and grandure of the universe in which we live, I don’t follow your logic in disproving the existence of God.
Honestly, I think that the number of people who are strict 6-day year creationists is greatly overestimated. The hebrew word we translate as “day” is used clearly elsewhere in the Bible to describe periods of time from 40 years to an unending period of time.
The other argument which reasons why would God take so long to create humans if we’re the point of creation is just silly. First of all we’re looking at it from our point of view, so of course, as soon as we exist, we’re going to be at the end of things created. Secondly, why would an eternal being be in any rush? Imagine you have an endless sheet of paper on which to draw a picture. Why would it matter if you draw everything in one corner or not?
Why would you want to prove that g-d is dead?
I personally am a Messianic Jew (meaning I am a Jew that believes that Jesus is the promised messiah). Now I’m not trying to convert anyone because I know there is strong opposition, as I know because I myself was in opposition when a close family member found the lord. I don’t understand why we have to be wrong for having faith. This doesn’t prove that he doesn’t exist because in genesis, it says that god created the heavens (including all these galaxies) in one day and the length of a day wasn’t defined until that first day, so that one day could have taken billions of years (Because the sun wasn’t in existence until that day).
lol if anything, this is more proff of God!
to those who say the majority of christians don’t believe in the 6,000 year myth, well you’re wrong. in 2004 gallup conducted a poll that asked respondents to agree with one of the following statements:
1) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process
2) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process
3) God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so
38% of people chose option 1
13% of people chose option 2
45% of people chose option 3
4% offered no opinion
that is absolutely insane. nearly half the respondents choose to be willfully ignorant in the face of indisputable proof that the universe if far, far older than 6,000 years. believing that rot is the same as believing in santa clause and the easter bunny. as for the rest of the respondents — those who realize the bible is a mish-mash of contradictions, moral imperatives and health and safety rules that cannot be reconciled when viewed through the eyes of modern man — to you i say, isn’t it nice to be able to pick and choose which parts of your belief system to believe in. the creation myth is clearly an allegory, according to you, but the resurrection really did happen!
poppycock. the bible is either the infallible and literal word of god, or it isn’t. if it isn’t then why follow the dictates of ancient, fallible and ignorant men. you think that corruption in the church is somehow a new thing, brought about by the likes of ted haggerd and james baker? dream on.
source: http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2004/US/724_public_view_of_creationism_and_11_19_2004.asp
WoW! …. Its 2006 and there are STILL educated people that believe in a divine creator? And whats worse is they feel that people should ‘respect’ their ‘faith’?
Its a shame because they miss the wonder that surrounds them every minute of every day. After all - its hardly a wonder if a ‘god’ can create whatever he/she wants…. Its only to be expected.
Screw that!
One point to consider, an omnipotent being could have created that light to reach earth/hubble telescope and skipped all the time that science requires for it have reached us. I am not a religious person in the slightest, but I have considered this proposition of how one can affirm the age of our planet by scientific method when in contradiction with the timing according to the christian bible and other sources and I have come to the conclusion that the christian ‘week’ of creation might possibly could have been 10 trillion years… then one could have a connection between creationism and evolution with both being correct.
This article assumes that Creation was the creation of EVERYTHING in the universe. If the Creation in the Bible was just the Earth and the surrounding solar system then the Hubble image doesn’t contradict anything.
This post is very interesting but illogical as you attempt to create a syllogism that holds no merit:
1. God exists
2. God created the Heaven and the Earth in seven days, 6000 years ago.
3. Therefore, if the universe is older than 6000 years, God does not exist.
If I may indulge myself:
1. I exist
2. I say that I have climbed Everest
3. When it is discovered that I have, in fact, not summited Everest it must be concluded that I do not exist.
The universe is one of two things: either billions of years old or 6000 years old and giving the appearance, through supreme trickery or through our fundamental misunderstanding of science, of being much older. THAT is thinking outside the box, sir.
So many people are giving you a hard time about this post but I think it should be called “How Hubble killed creationism as a science” and you could add it to the 1000 other “ologys” that also dissprove that notion. To say it kills “god” makes the assumption to broad and there is no scientific evidence at the moment pointing either way. Razas comment about “the cockroach is so well designed it must have a designer” surely has been rehashed so many times as to make it nearly pointless me saying this but I’ll do it anyway.
DARWINS THEROY OF EVOLUTION IS SCIENTIFIC FACT
I’m not actually sure how so many people in america get science and faith confused.
WHOA!!
I now realize I am wrong. How could I be so ignorant! Through this image, it is clear that God is dead!
Guess what?
We’re ultimately still going to die.
People take the Bible, and believe everything in it is 100% fact, or thought to be that, so when discoveries like this happen, they can claim God isnt real. Durring Biblical times, 7 was considered a large number, hence the use of 7 alot in the Bible. Second, there was nothing in Genesis about how long those 7 days were. God measured those days, not the rotation of the earth along its axis. So, the 7 days in Gods eyes could have been Billions of years, it could have been just seconds. The idea that something that was a giant ball that suddenly imploded is very far fetched. From what I have heard, before the “big bang” there was a white, hot orb, which was a solid, that wasn’t made of Atoms. How can this thing suddenly implode, there is no imbalance for it to blow up. That is more far fetched than an Omnipotent being created everything that is. God let us have an amazing world to live in, and let us have alot to explore.
[...] Source: How Hubble Killed God… « Parallel Divergence [...]
Well, it just shows rather that there is a God, so your conclusion is wrong, I hope you open your eyes, have a good day and a good life, bye
Great post. While this doesn’t disprove God, it CERTAINLY disproves Christianity and fits right into Islam
I do not understand how discovering the universe is more complex than we had previously thought proves that God does not exist. How does complexity disprove a creator when it should prove there is one. We will never know everything about everything because we are finite, we cannot understand the infinite nature of God. What we can understand is God created us out of love so that He can have a relationship with us. We have damaged that relationship through sin yet God restored it by sacrificing of his son, Jesus. Christianity is not about how old the earth is or how many galaxies there are, its about a God who loves us and a God who is willing to sacrifice his only son so that He may know us.
It’s a very cool picture though, I just see it a an awesome creation God which is the same thing I see when I look at the world around me.
The Bible, the Coran… where written by very inteligent people of their time. But they wrote that because they didn’t know better. Nowadays they are just like Little Red Rinding Hood, only longer and more complex, but just that: stories.
As I appreciate the authors insight at pointing out that the bible doesn’t explain creation as science now knows it, but one thing is for sure, I find that a picture like the hubble deep field only further convinces me there is a God.
Let’s not get to hung up in the details but rather the spirit of the bibles teachings. I am a converted athiest, who personally knows the power of God through practical means of being a recovered alcoholic. God is and I know God is because when I truley made an effort to be a better person and do spiritual things like pray, right wrongs I commited to others and do a self appraisal of my failings, I was delivered from my alcoholism through a power that is NOT mine.
I choose to believe in God and this explanation makes the most sense for me.
1) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process.
I believe God guided the entire development of the universe from before the big band forward. As science uncovers the mysteries of the universe the more unimaginable and truley mind boggling facts and theories are revealed. The forming of the universe and everything in it must have had and had some divine guidance which ultimately leads to intelligent life like ours and the sure exisitence of other intelligent life. That in itself is truely amazing.
I only point you to this website because your article does not kill God, anyway I believe as the LDS church does as to the nature of God, and feel that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints answers your questions. I am not trying to slam you so please don’t take it that way. Simply I know that God loves us and wants us to get our answers. Anyway if you are interested in answers to your questions let me know and I will send you a reply. If anything I think Hubble Deep Field only inspires us to seek God more not scoff at his existence.
If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.
Voltaire
The real question is what proof is there for a god?
All we know comes from the bible/koran/etc. If someone came up to you today and told you that there was ab invisible force that cannot be felt/seen/heard/etc. but controlled everything and you had never heard of the bible before, you would probably think that they had serious problems.
Ryan, it contradicts everything given that these religions consider Man and the Earth to be the most important objects in creation and the ultimate result of the process.
This image shows just how miniscule and unimportant we are.
Jaffa hit the nail on the head for me. Religion is a fog that prevents people for seeing the true wonder of nature and the evolving of life from the basic molecular building blocks to what we have today. Who’s even to say that life is the end result of that path?.
Glory in that and not pointless mythology. How anyone can explain all that spectacle away with the four words ‘The work of god’ is just beyond me.
@Ryan.
In the beginning there was the word. And the word was god.
I think we can safely say that Creationism is the creation of everything.
Your logic is a farce.
You make the assumption that we are the only intelligent life in the universe, an assumption of which you have no base or evidence. I’d say you are little more than a pessimist.
All the deep field proves is that the universe is very big and very old. It says nothing to the intent or presence of a Creator. What arrogance, to presume we are the only intelligent life in all of that vast expanse of space.
As has been said time and again:
Science explains how.
Religion attempts to explain why. It just might not always be right
puddlejumper:
When we die, our energy gets distributed into our environment. The body decomposes and creates heat. Worms and insects eat out flesh and draw strength from it. Nutrients filter into the ground and are used by plants to grow.
When we’re in the womb, the energy for the growing baby comes from the food consumed by the mother. Plants and animals that profited from our dead bodies (and those of all once-living things) end up on our dinner plate.
Sure, matter and energy are finite, but LOOK at the HUDF. That’s a lot of matter and engergy visible in just .000000079% of the sky
The concept of God has nothing to do with how old some crazy backwards Christians believe the world is.
The true concept of religion or faith is meant to supplement science, not replace it in understanding truth. Its just too bad that some people out there take a book with random people’s writings that were not compiled by the founder of the faith as absolute fact, despite the overwhelming evidence to the opposite.
The world not being flat doesn’t discount God. And in science, no theory can be proven (ie: God), but it can be disproved. No such evidence to the latter exists…
Crap… didn’t know these were in reverse chronological order…
Well, the SOL killed the Hubble during the Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie, so that makes everything even, right?
If the baby is the reason for the nursery, why do parents get the nursery ready months in advance??
how pathetically short sighted your pretentious blog is. man is imperfect. our understanding of God is imperfect. we take our first bleary eyed look into the void and see his beauty reflected; but you reject it with a weak attempt at pseudo-intellectualism.
btw, tell your wife that closing the soul to belief makes her as different from me as she portends with her witty attempt at Reader’s Digest melodrama.
Anybody ever think that maybe all of those say 956 billion other galaxies are paper wads on gods huge art desk. maybe we are just another try at what he/she is trying to get to.
As has been stated several times before, this certainly does not “kill God” as the title suggests. You have lumped the vast array of Christian and other religious beliefs into one fundamentalist belief that most Christians are embarrassed by.
If anything, that picture makes a stronger case for a “god” or some kind of higher being that brings some kind of meaning and order to the vastness of the universe.
Dumb article. What scholar acknowledges the possibility that God made “everything” 6000 years ago but ignores the possibility that God could just as easily make light in transit?
So children lets remember that there are two ways to prove something doesn’t exist:
1) go to everything that does exists and show that the thing you are proving is not one of everything
2) prove that the thing in question cannot exist (i.e. it is a contradiction)
Maybe think next time…and don’t forget that when you don’t have all the answers…God still does. =)
Great post. You raised some interesting questions.
In Islam (and a lot of Muslims don’t know this), humans are not the first of such intelligent creation. There have been other intelligent creatures that have come and gone in this universe, not just Earth.
In Islam God has said to have created humans to test them, as he did with other creations before. The Quran also points out to the existence of 6 other “Earths” in this Universe; a possible indication of other life forms out there.
Maybe you haven’t considered this:
Christians believe that when God created trees, for instance, he created adult trees that were mature. When he created lions, he created adult lions. When God made Adam and Eve, they were adults. It’s the “Which came first: the chicken or the egg?” discussion. God created full, lush, and matured ecosystems.
Now apply this to the discussion. When God made the stars, he didn’t make them as if they just had appeared, he made them so humans could appreciate his handiwork. He didn’t create them and then Adam and Eve had to wait years until they saw the first stars and then their children saw more, etc.
What this article is trying to do is disprove God. This is not original or new, people have been trying to disprove God since sin has been around. Just remember what the Bible says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” (Isaiah 55:8 NIV)
The bottom line is that everyone has a belief. Some believe there is a God and some believe there is not a God. We all have faith in something. Some have faith that there is no God, and some have faith that there is a God. You have faith in what you just wrote. You don’t know most of it for sure. You just believe (or have faith) that science is correct. You have no way of counting billions of stars for instance. You just simply have faith in the information that NASA and other scientist publish. And…thats ok. Some people just have faith in something else. It takes just as much faith to believe there is a God as to believe there is not. Some day we will all find out.
Acknowledging the possibility that Einstein’s Special Relativity theory might eventually be proven correct, this merely reinforces my suspicion that the Creator is/was/will be a hot blonde female physics graduate student and we are the mid-term exam. Rationale:
1. No sense of time but very good at confusing the heck out of everyone else with it;
2. Exceptionally excellent visual design component integration with diametrically opposite intellectual depth;
3. Occasional flashes of brilliance in concept (Einstein, Fermi, Planck, Newton, Aristotle, Pythagorus, Bach, Lizst, Hawking, etc.) but generally substandard mass production (republicans, democrats, religious bigots, televangelists, etc.)
4. Eager to demonstrate diversity of skills (copious species, geni, phyli, races, languages, dialects, skin colors, etc.) but failure to integrate common components to ensure survivability of all (war, disease, natural disasters, etc.)
5. No proofs accompanying the experiment to backtrack the process
Get a grip, folks: If you haven’t figured out by now that Existence is one big, incredibly huge poetic joke and the only reason we’re here is to provide the punch line, you deserve all the stupor of thought that your wee little minds can fathom!
(No actual sacred icons were hurt in the production of this message)
Oh the website is my name… but you have to click on it… or just type in LDS.org or you can email me at rahn then the number two @ symbol cox. net
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn is relevant to this discussion. Current culture preaches that man is supreme in this world and/or that the world was created for him. When you see the vastness of the world portrayed by the hubble telescope image it helps to reinforce how little of the world we are a part of. I personally do not think that this has any relationship to whether there is or is not a god. I do think it puts us in perspective.
Ishmael is a good read.
http://www.ishmael.com
I think it’s important to define faith here; Faith being belief in the absence of proof.
We really have no proof conclusive proof either way that god exists or doesn’t exist.
Things that are generally accepted in the scientific community being the Big Bang theory for creation. To understand the big bang theory it should be noted that for a brief period of time (right before the big bang, imagine a billionth of a second or less) the universe consisted of an infinetley dense ball of unified energy (while no theory exists to explain that it seems at the time be the best explanation), mass didn’t exist until AFTER the big bang when photons collided creating charged wave patterns (or what we understand as protons, neutrons and electrons).
For some this singularity of unified engergy that can’t curently be explained is proof of god (IE miracle: or god himself)
It also should be noted that the universe could have ben created with many photons already in transit creating those images in the hubble telescope, there is no law of physics that says a photon must originate from point A in a state of rest (at least not on the I know of)
Lastly it should be noted that the old testament (the one that most people have problems with) was written in a very ancient language that probably didn’t have the vocabulary for explaining quantum and advanced classical physics, AND it’s been translated and retranslated countless times since it was FINALLY written down, it should also be noted that several jewish texts AKA old testament fodder were destroyed during roman occupation of israel (mostly due to anti-foreigner sentiment among the jewish community, some texts only being written in greek were destroyed)
If being aethist means simply being skeptic in the face of a lack of proof then I’m afraid that very few actual aethists exist and I doubt you’re one of them.
Re: Paul
“Just because you observe celestial objects at ‘n’ distance does not mean that they’ve moved there over time - if you really want to start with the statement that a supernatural being created it, they could’ve created it in any state.”
Think about it a minute. What does “light year” mean? If something is 1 light year away, it takes light from it one year to get here. If you’re seeing something a billion light years away, a billion years must have elapsed for the light to get here for you to see… It doesn’t matter, for the sake of this argument, how long the galaxy took to get out there, but how long its light took to get here.
Anyway, about the whole thing, maybe a creator put together the weird and wonderful world we see as part of His dramatic program to put humanity in the way of the curse of hereditary damnation and then turn around to offer them a deal for redemption - which is in a nutshell the mainstream Christianity I was brought up with - but if so, then the creator looks more insane than He did before we learned so much about the universe.
Kill God? RUBBISH. If there is something that makes me believe even more in God it’s the immense nature of our universe. Something huge like that CAN’T be a coincidence. And if you think it can, what about us humans? Also a by-mere-chance thing? If you really think very hard about it, you’ll realize that it’s all nonsense. “Killed God” my ass..
I don’t see how this is a fatal blow to God. In the first place, the Bible was not written by God, therefore the author of Genesis didn’t have God’s datebook to decide exactly when creation occurred. Those who take the Bible literally down to the word have missed the entire point of God’s and Jesus’s message in it. It is instructions for the soul, not body. If you do believe that Genesis was divinely inspired, how are you certain that the 7 days of creation are literal 24 hour days?
Religion should not be seen as a block to scientific discovery, but unfortunately it usually is. People are too stubborn to compromise between their beliefs and scientific fact. I personally believe in a divine being, being that I am Roman Catholic, but I do not follow extremest christian beliefs that dictate such minute things as the time of creation.
My $.02…
You are sooo wrong. Not all religions claim that the earth and universe is around 6000yrs. What they say is that MAN is about 6000 years not the earth or universe. This judgment is based on Bible chronology. The Bible doesn’t have anything in it that claims the earth/universe is 6000yrs old. Both the universe and earth were created loooong before man. People just believe in too much scientific crap that seems to have forever changing theories.
Read the following article for a better understanding of creation/evolution.
http://www.watchtower.org/library/g/1996/1/22/article_01.htm
I read this article and realize there only must be a God. Thanks for opening my eyes even more. He must be pretty big
The rules of science are what we perceive the world to be.
We have defined what it means to “alive”, yet even using these rules we cannot prove something is NOT alive, only that it is alive. The reason for this is that the things we see in this universe can only be observed for x amount of time. If we assume something to be not alive then we must say that it does not perform those things that living beings perform. But we cannot say that it does not perform these things because it might take that thing x + 1 time to perform it. Thus, science cannot say something is not alive.
Another scenario is when we say that the universe is x years old. We can come to conclusions by studying our environment and its properties. But what if our universe was created as I typed the letter ‘I’ and all of the “evidence” of our past was placed within this universe. How can ANYONE who was created within this universe say that the universe is only 5 minutes old. Thus these people from their perception of the world cannot understand the truth.
This is the same thing as hibernating a computer and copying its image over to another computer. A process cannot tell how long ago the computer has been on for.
From the point of view of Sikhs, the description of God has not been proven wrong. The description of what science clams to see is not proven wrong either.
Sikhism says that what we perceive from our senses is not how world actually is. That is another reason Science cannot prove/disprove the theory of God.
Science is starting to become another religion. The bad part about this is that since Science claims the truth to be what we perceive and thus to make decision only based off of what we perceive, it redefines what the meaning of life is. According to science us humans are no different then computers. A computer turns on communicates with the world and reacts to it. That is exactly what a human being is, if they do not attempt to understand God. Thus, just like computers humans are worthless and expendable.
Thus following the belief of “science” their would be more trouble within this world.
Sikhism also says that those who do not attempt to reach God, are worthless. It would make no difference if they had been born or not. Even though their existence is meaning less, they are still loved equally by God. Thus a Sikh also loves even those who are useless. (Science does not).
If you want to study a religion that upon disproving you could disprove the existence of God, you should learn about Sikhism.
Has anyone seen the picture of outer space that closely resembles a cross section of a neuron in your brain. I think it’s all a simulation. None of this is real. Good day.
Your assumption that “6000 years” is in earth years is your first problem. In science, all parameters of any theory must be clearly, and factually defined before making any comparisons that prove or disprove another theory.
Science cannot answer all the questions we could ever ask. Remeber Godels theorem?
So its illogical to expect science to determine if there’s a God or not.
“Is not God in the height of heaven? and behold the height of the stars, how high they are!” –Job 22:12
“When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou has ordained; What is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!” –Psalm 8:3-4,9
“He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names. Great is our Lord, and of great power his understanding is infinite.” –Psalm 147:4-5
“Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light. Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord: for he commanded, and they were created.” –Psalm 148:3-5
Now, don’t pat yourself on the back too much because we have only begun to scratch the surface in our knowledge and understanding of the God of the universe. I know your post sounds rather intellectual and fascinating, but you are really only asking “Which came first? The Chicken? Or the egg?”
The answer is simple really, because wouldn’t God have created the world to exist as if it had always been?
At the moment of creation, the grown chicken would have existed without ever being hatched. Mature plants would reproduce seeds yet never having been planted in the first place. Huge trees would have had many years worth of rings and the universe’s stars and galaxies would have shined as if forever light-years away although in reality everything created would have been ONLY DAYS OLD after creation.
There’s a vast creation beyond our current knowledge just waiting to be discovered everyday by instruments such as the Hubble. Rather than show that no God exists, quite the opposite is true. We constantly discover that we really dont know very much at all about our world and this should give us pause in declaring that God is dead. Because how can we claim to be so sure about Him, when we evidently know so little about His creation?
Discoveries in science only strengthen my faith. To know that such an amazing and complex God cares anything about us at all (as shown through Jesus Christ in God’s message to us the Bible), shows His tremendous love for His most prized and highest creation–you and I.
I truly believe the universe is billions of years old, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a “God”. I can say with confidence that man’s ability to understand what’s around him is not without error. I don’t believe it took 6000 years and I’m quite sure our understanding of God in all areas is quite flawed. But our determination and desire is helping us to understand scientificly that there is a purpose to the things we are finding all around us, yet must not conclude our findings and establish it as fact, as we all have learned so many times that there is so much more to the things we had “just” discovered. There have been thousands of scientists who have staked a claim that their findings have lead to a so-called undisputable fact, only to find later on that either it wasn’t true or there was more to the story than what we could see at the time. And with God, come on the bible was written 400 years after Jesus by King James’s scribes . as if there wasn’t going to be any error or political influence involved in writting that book. I sure the day is coming that we will all be surprised as to how all this came to be, just don’t be so hasty to leave out God
I can live with the idea of there being a God who designed and orchastrated this universe. But in the attempt to understand and interperet God will at first lead us to an understaning no diffrent that child
BTW if you want to know how Sikhism says how this world will come to live in peace, here it is:
The world will only come to live in peace once we realize the truth. Once we realize the equality in man and the rest of the universe. All other religions/science try to separate God’s creations in “good” and “bad”, when in reality God does not perceive anyone as good or bad. Who are we to try to judge others, if God has not passed judgment. Once people realize that God does not see the color of one’s skin nor the language of ones tongue in which one tries to repeat God’s name, we will come to realize the truth and thus fall in love with God and understand his greatness.
If you think about this from the perspective of Science.
All objects including living beings are created from the same basic elements - TRUE.
Good and bad are just relative to ones experience - TRUE.
This article just like religious fanatics is trying to separate God’s creations be claiming to understand the “truth”.
i understand you wanted a catchy title, however… i find it extremely stupid. the abovesuggested one could do a much better job. but in general i consider this whole true/false arguing absolutely pointless and boring - people who take creationists and Bible literally are just as naive as their opponents.
Wow. This has to be one of the ignorant things I’ve ever read in my entire life. Just goes to show that just because you can publish something on the internet doesn’t mean you should.
I’m a Christian and I’m studying for my Ph.D in Applied Physics. My faith isn’t challenged by questioning the Genesis account of creation, since I believe we are saved by Jesus’ work on the cross alone, and not by any legalistic adherence to theologically minor points such as Genesis 1.
But I can’t rule out Genesis. The truth is that there’s a heck of a lot that we don’t understand about physics at points of singularity. And Genesis doesn’t say much about the conditions in which the Earth was created. So who knows? Perhaps it is possible that “6 days” is correct with some very strange physics occurring at creation. My point is, I can’t rule it out. God is infinite and our understanding is finite.
I believe the difference is in how one views the world. ‘Enlightened’ people believe that, given sufficient time, humanity can understand and conquer all problems. Others believe that there are things beyond our comprehension, that there is something “more” to the world than what can be measured.
Part of wisdom is realizing when you don’t (or can’t) have all the answers, judging for yourself and coming to your own conclusions. I can accept that we disagree, and I respect your point of view…. But can you accept that I am intelligent enough consider these things for myself, and come to a different conclusion?
I agree with everything that you stated except that Hubble killed God. Just because Christianity states one thing doesn’t mean that all religions do. In fact, I don’t believe that we were created in God’s image. God is too beautiful to be put into an image we can see on this Earth. Furthermore, science is provable and if God truly made the Earth and all things on it, science should conform to what God has said in His books. If the books say something different, then obviously they are wrong since we can prove and test science. When you find that science and religion go together in one book, then you have found the truth.
Check out the Qur’an: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8552135092079886288
Science and religion are in perfect harmony. All that modern science has come up with today, is in perfect agreement with the Qur’an, including your points about astronomy which were very well thought out.
God is seperate from time. He createdtime.
Science is just figuring out the amazing things God already did.
This comment is directed to those of you with faith in a god who are attacking the title of this post. It is a “headline” it is designed to grab your attention. It should spark thought not retaliation. It even has three periods at the end to remind you to keep reading and to keep thinking. Those of you who follow the tennants of a set of books that are constantly interpreted and re-interpreted should know better than to take four words at face value. Why not twist the meaning of the words to say what you would like them to mean the same way you’ve done with your holy books.
empT3:
First, an atheist is not simply someone who is skeptical in the face of a lack of proof. An atheist affirms that God is a fiction. Proving there is no God is futile (as proving a negative generally is) and proving there is one is unnecessary because of faith. The whole proof argument is time poorly spent, as, outside Math and Philosophy classes, proof of most things is impractical anyway. We find a way to proceed with confidence using a probabilistic sort of reasoning. This particular atheist, for instance, considers his capacity for spotting Bronze Age mythology sufficient for moving past the supposed conundrum of proof.
Second, are you seriously suggesting that if Old Testament writers had the vocabulary to discuss quantum mechanics then a more accurate explanation would be found in that text? I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but are you falling back on the old argument that God revealed His truth in terms humans could understand? My response to that has always been, if God was trying so hard to be understood, then why are religions so saturated with mysteries?
This is a plain reiteration of an old argument. It would take a stupid God to create all those galaxies and stars so far away that the light would never reach us, wouldn’t it? How illogical is it to consider that a God who created sources of light (stars) is incapable of creating rays of light between them? This is the “appearance of age” counter to your challenge, and it is the only consistent means of considering any type of creation ex nihilo whatsoever. A created human being would have blood already pumping in his veins, would have electrical signals already flowing between neural synapses. If so, why rule out rays of light between stars that give an appearance of age?
Since this post didn’t do it for me, allow me to invite you to read the question that will kill Darwin.
i disagree with the fact that the universe was created 6000 years ago. i study the bible and nothing in the bible says that…better, if you read with attention you can conclude that there was life before us…
i believe that the universe can have million and millions of years, i believe that earth can have million and millions of years, but “our” earth, our living earth have 6000years…i believe in that…its a matter of faith!
That doesn’t explain anything about there not being a God. Cause it doens’t explain how anything came together by science.
It’s scary to read so many comments trying to validate their beliefs in a child’s story.
Being scared of death makes you come up with some strange comforts, like religion.
If only people were greatful for being alive, rather than trying to prove the equivilant of the easter bunny and santa exists.
If scientology lasts for 1500 years, will that make it as valid as Islam is now? 2,000 years later, will it have the standing of Christianity? We know it is utter rubbish now, but time seem to prove otherwise.
Get over what you read in a book, written by HUMANS, clueless humans at that.
Great picture, it would be amazing to know what is there… not even starting with string theory etc.
to all of the athiests out there:
I am a believer in God. I believe in heaven and hell, and a code of moral conduct. I am a follower of the teachings of Jesus. I seek to help my fellow man, live in an upright way, do harm to no one, and be at peace with all mankind, using my particular religious framework. this provides me with a stable happy life, with friends who love me and count on me, a community of like minded individuals who are there for me when I need them, and the hope of an afterlife. If, when I die, there is no afterlife, will I know it? no I will not, and I will have still died a happy man, with a legacy left to my childrens children. so now I that I am pushing up daises I wont know that either, I wont even know that I was wrong about any of it, my concousness will just wink out of existence! whereas you mr or mrs athiest, will definately know it if you are wrong, and when you stand before your creator you will have a lot to answer for. either way I win, because if there is no afterlife, and you and I are both dead, you wont even be able to say “see I told you so!” think long and hard about this before you thumb your nose at God!
oh and by the way there are just as many scientific proofs for a young earth old universe theory. no one was there at the beginning, it is all a matter of faith. and darwinism is not scientific fact it is just as religious as any other belief system.
Oh and don’t start with the ‘faith’ stuff. Faith in what? What someone else wrote thousands of years ago?
“Thanks should go to Hubble for opening our eyes. If only some men would open theirs. Being a Christian or being a Muslim means being different. Being a Human means being the same. Comments are appreciated.”
That just about says it all. Jai Ma!
If god can do anything, why does he need to prepare at all??
What youre saying is that the only path to “god” is christianity or being a muslim.
Just because you may have –apparently– tried to disprove two religions you havent destroyed the notion there god exists. You have only sorda kinda killed (through flawed logic) that one concept of god may be incorrect.
Somethin created us. God
http://www239.pair.com/nanden00/chc/
Wow, that was really stupid.
Here’s an excellent debate on this very topic.
http://www.veritas.org/3.0_media/talks/147
Sorry mike, God forgot to leave his signature on our DNA structure, but a number of other species did during “Evolution”.
Who are we meant to believe? Ramblings of an old book where stoning women is all good, our something we can actually develop and study.
Oh, I remember. Faith.
Ah yes - Man is the pinnacle of God’s creations…
God made the Universe in all its glory - trillions upon trillions of stars and everything in-between, a planet for us to live on, and all the species we share it with, just so we can fight, kill, rape and destroy it all in His name…
yeah right…
Religion is a crutch for the weak-minded, nothing more. If you feel a need for faith or religion just to explain your existence, ask yourself why you need it - are you deficient? Are you unable to exist without requiring that a concrete force or being is watching over you? Are you so afraid of death that you have to believe in an after-life? When you die, thats it - you are dead. There is no Hell, no Heaven, you are DEAD, you cease to exist. Don’t be afraid to die, because when you are dead, you won’t have regrets, you won’t be sad, because you are DEAD…
Why do you live your life according to a book written centuries ago by men who had no means of explaining the phenomenon of the world around them? If the book of Genesis can be proven to be completely false, how can any of the other books be taken seriously?
If God is all knowing, all-seeing, and all-powerful, why do we have mass-murders? Why do we have rapes? Why do we have plagues and epidemics ravaging the innocent? Why are there babies dying in incredible pain and suffering all over the world? God could stop it right? He could cure all illness in a flash right? Well if God truly exists then would he really want humanity to be murdering each other in his name? He must be a sadistic freak then - watching us all the time while we suffer and die. Hmm - the next time you have a loved one dying and you pray to God for help and he doesn’t answer - think of this; God has the power to cure your loved one - if he doesn’t, its because he wants you to suffer, he killed your loved one - Oh boy, what a wonderful loving God he is huh?
If you can’t live your life without religion, without a straw to grasp at, you are weak. You are holding the rest of the world back by trying to impose archaic and medieval customs on everyone else because you are afraid of change.
It is interesting to read about Dr. Michael Brown, and it reminds me of a passage of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian. This is what he says:
“You all know, of course, that there used to be in the old days three intellectual arguments for the existence of God, all of which were disposed of by Immanuel Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason; but no sooner had he disposed of those arguments than he invented a new one, a moral argument, and that quite convinced him. He was like many people: in intellectual matters he was skeptical, but in moral matters he believed implicitly in the maxims that he had imbibed at his mother’s knee.”
Well its just sad how hard scientist try to disprove religion, yet they can never really do it. I don’t get why they need too, your gonna die anyway. And whats with the name “Hubble killed god” whoever wrote that is a stupid idiot like common that article proved nothing. All it said was that theres stars in the universe. Why don’t you scientist us your time to find cures for desises or invent a new product that will help people don’t wast your time on god, we’ll see what happens in the end.
True scientists are agnostic. If religion were wrong, then surely atheism would be just as wrong.(I agree)
Excellent article. Absolutely fascinating. Religion is silly.
The photo doesn’t disprove God or some higher power. It disproves all the organized religions that people follow. If a power, that is greater than my ability to understand, somewhow began the “Big Bang” that is the
present understanding of our universe…I somehow have a real issue understanding how He/She decided to give humans all these rules…don’t eat pork…worship on Saturdays….worship on Sundays…women are subserviet to men…either convert your neighbor or kill him
Religion is a fable…good stories with a purpose…but that is all there is to it. Any Christians or Muslims want to explain why we haven’t seen any miracles since we have had the ability to investigate and measure things with real science and procedures…it’s because there weren’t any miracles. But they made great stories to manage and control the masses of uneducated peoples.
The body of Human knowledge just keeps getting larger and larger. The confined dogma of the worlds religions just keep getting harder and harder to justify…except with blind faith
This is a reasonable debate point to raise, and as a Christian I am happy to see it debated on the internet, however there are two valid answers for it:
1) Not all Christians believe that God created the world/universe about 6000 years ago. Many believe he let it sit for millions/billions of years before man was then created last. Time to God is not the same as time for man. He is eternal, so billions of years as we know time is not a problem for him. The human mind has trouble comprehending it, but we are so puny compared to someone who can create the universe, we shouldn’t try and impose our limited concepts onto God.
2) If God created all those millions of galaxies with billions of stars, created all matter and the laws by which they work, then He is truly omnipotent and quite capable of making everything look as if it is really old. He could have changed those laws for a time, making the speed of light millions of times faster than it is now. This is part of the Apparent Age theory of creation. Why would God want to do this? Some people say it’s too much like a trick. There is a simple answer. He doesn’t want science to be able to measure and prove that the universe is 6000 years old, because then man would be forced to admit there is a God, because no alternate theory would cover it. God doesn’t want people to be forced into believing Him, He wants to require faith. So He doesn’t let science prove He exists. So if he made it 6000 years ago, I believe He also used Apparent Age.
Therefore your post does not prove that God doesn’t exist, nor even disprove the young earth theory of creation, as long as you include Apparent Age with young earth. Some Christians do believe in young earth without Apparent Age and then yes your post of course causes them pretty fatal problems.
With regards to humans being created in the last small portion of time - how do you know that those other galaxies don’t have vast civilizations already build and earth is just a new place?
Studies show that upwards of 90 percent of people who are involved in car accidents on any given day ate breakfast that day. Therefore, it must be reasoned that eating breakfast causes car accidents.
You can look for data to support any theory and you can interpret it to support that theory, but truth remains truth, whether or not you believe it.
It’s of little importance really whether or not we believe that God exists. What is important is that God believes WE exist. And then take it from there.
You’re an idiot… this does not prove that God does not exist… only that the story of creation is not meant to be taken literally
tchilds:
I suppose truth doesn’t matter to you then? god is not the only path to a happy and fufilling life, and if the cost of having that is belief in a false idol (not to mention countless atrocities committed in its name), then I say no.
And no, a 6000 year universe is simply absurd. You can simply say that “god did it”, and I would have no retort, since god can do anything. But that pretty much ends any rational discussion. And how about that creation of the earth in 6 days thing… doesn’t that kind of go against scientific fact? Oh right, 6 days isn’t really 6 days to a god.
Evolution is not a belief system. It is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. It is definitely far more developed than the theory of gravitation, which has actually undergone major changes in the last century.
I’m technically agnostic, but only in the sense that being athiest is a slap in the face to my religious friends. I think most non-religious people are the same way - they do not proclaim “I am an athiest, and proud of if” just to be polite.
This is not proof. It just shows that the wonder of our universe is bigger than we thought.
What is time to God? God by the definition in the Bible is outside of it. We interperate the Bible to say that the Hebrew word day means 24 hours. The word for day in the Genesis is YOWM. I looked up its definition: YOWM: sunrise to sunset; sunset to sunset; a space of time (defined by an associated term); an age; time or period (without any reference to solar days)
So if one day is a space of time. It does not necessarily mean 24 hours. It could have been billions of years.
There are ten events in which chapter 1 of Genesis describes.
1. Time and Space created at a single instance
2. It goes on a describes the earth as formless and void. An important point is that the second verse describes the point of view. The point of view of the narrative is from the surface of the planet. Not from out in space.
3. The atmosphere goes from opaque to transluecent.
4. water is separated from land.
5. Early vegitation appeared
6. Atmosphere went from transluecent ot clear. Allowing the sun and moon to be clearly visible from the surface.
7. Life began in the oceans, then early flying creatures.
8. Later large animals appeared.
9. Lastly, man appeared.
10. God rested from creation. God is still resting from creation. We are still in the seventh day of creation. One day God will start creating again after Man has been restored to grace.
Genesis is not a science text. It just states the origin of the universe and of man. Man’s original state. His fall from grace and his need of salvation. That theme plays over and over throughtout the Bible.
I believe if you look at look at my simple list of events that they are in the right order. The random chance is that happening by itself is 1/10!.
kaza
What if, when God created the universe, he created it complete with a 15 billion year history. If so, then to science it wouldn’t matter when the universe was created and to religion it wouldn’t matter how old the universe is. Apples and oranges people.
man, now this is what you get - i hope you are reading this and have read every single comment people post. think well about what you’ve written and i’d love to see your response to this avelanche. please drop me a note when you’re done - i’m not your regular reader. i’d suggest you to watch “elegant universe” and consider what science actually is…
[...] I read some of the top posts, fastest growing blogs, and new posts from WordPress from time to time. So I read How Hubble Killed God… just now. I’m actually getting quite fed-up with the topic, but I’ll write something again. This is just some short thoughts, but it might give a possible alternative. I also agree with Hubble, but won’t credit it for killing God. [...]
Absolutely this kills any ridiculous fundamentalist christian notions of a 6,000 year old earth. Implying these Hubble data killed any notion of god is pure ignorance.
Only the US seems to believe that the world is only a few thousand years old. the bible says that science is there to help describe the world. they are turning faith into dogma. that is not what relegon should be.
Well, if God existed it would be quite a long shot to say that Hubble Killed God.
But the photo do prove one thing. Hubble definitely killed your perception of the Creator God. It didn’t necesserrily kill the Creator God, but your perception… definitely.
Your polemic is against a God that created the universe 6000 years ago, with man as his reason for creating it. Well, that perception is challenged by Hubble. But that is just a perception. A lot of us have a completely different perception of God…
I also agree with Hubble, but won’t credit it for killing God.
http://emergingsa.wordpress.com/2006/11/12/how-hubble-killed-god-emerging-reaction/
Bobby:
Many scientists are agnostic or believe in god. Those who do try to disprove it do so because religions is dangerous.
ask yourself, how many people each year are killed by religion? I bet it’s just as bad as any individual disease.
And no, religion is not a source of morality. Morality is inherent in man, and I think it’s a pretty dark world-view to think that people behave ethically only out of fear of divine retribution.
This article doesn’t bring any new information to the table.
“In [the] beginning God created the heavens and t