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The series of past events has been formed by adding one event after another.

Could you count down to today from an infinite past? ...-3, -2, -1, 0

What number would you start counting with? 10,000? 100,000,000?

Just for argument's sake, let's say you could do it. Why didn't you finish counting yesterday or the day before? After all, there have already been an infinite number of days.

In the 1920s, Russian mathematician Alexander Friedman and Belgian astronomer Georges Lemaitre used Einstein's general theory of relativity, and independently came up with models of an expanding universe.

In 1929 Edwin Hubble, through observations at Mount Wilson observatory, discovered light from distant galaxies appeared to be redder than expected.

The redshift was due to other galaxies moving away from us. This verified the models of an expanding universe.

As we go back in time, that expansion becomes an implosion. Eventually at some point the distance between everything becomes zero.

This is the beginning of space and time. There is nothing prior to this point. Once again we're faced with a universe that began to exist.

Second law of thermodynamics gives that unless energy is being fed into a system, that system will become increasingly disorderly.

Given enough time, all the energy in the universe will spread itself out evenly. This eventually leads to a heat death in which the temperature and pressure are the same everywhere, and the extinction of all life.

But if the universe has existed forever, why isn't it in a state of heat death today? If in a finite amount of time the universe will reach equilibrium, how is it that given an infinite past, it hasn't happened yet?

If on the other hand, it continues to expand infinitely, the universe will become cold, dark, dilute and dead. This leads to the same question as above.

"Now we see how the astronomical evidence supports the Biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and Biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy."

"Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover. That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact."

The Kalam Cosmological Argument

The Premises

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

2.The universe began to exist.

3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

#1 Whatever begins to exist has a cause

- Things don't come into being without any cause whatsoever

- If the universe came into being from nothing, why don't other things just pop into existence?

-This is constantly verified and never falsified. We have no evidence of anything ever coming into being from nothing.

Possible objections

- If everything has a cause, then what is God's cause?

Remember though, we did not say everything has a cause, we said that everything that begins to exist has a cause.

Our understanding of God is that He is eternal and uncaused.

Thermodynamics of the Universe

The universe began to exist

#2 The universe began to exist

Hilbert's Hotel

1) The infinite hotel is full but a new guest arrives

-Just add one to everyone's room number.

2) An infinity of new guests arrive

-Just multiply everyone's room number by two.

3) All guests in the odd numbered rooms leave.

-Hotel is now half empty even though same number there in the beginning. Divide by 2 and it's infinitely full again.

4) All guests check out, except for guests in rooms 1, 2 and 3.

-Same number checked out as when odd numbered guests left, but now only a finite number of rooms are full

NO VACANCY

Guests

Welcome

Philosophical Arguments:

1) An actually infinite number of things cannot exist.

2) You can't pass through infinite elements one at a time.

Scientific Arguments:

1) The expansion of the universe

2) The thermodynamics of the universe.

Expansion of the universe

How did we arrive at today?

We would never have reached today!

One more absurdity from eternal

past events

1x

2x

If they have been orbiting from eternity, the

number of orbits magically becomes equal.

Fine Tuning

The number of subatomic particles in the entire known universe is said to be around 10^80.

The weak force, one of the four fundamental forces of nature, is so finely tuned, that an alteration by one part out of 10^100 would have prevented a life-permitting universe.

Similarly a change in the cosmological constant by one part in 10^120 would have redenered the universe lift prohibiting.

Having an accuracy of one part out of 10^60 is like firing a bullet toward the other side of the observable universe, twenty billion light-year away, and nailing a one inch target.

#3 The universe has a cause

In order for something to have caused the universe, that cause must be beyond the universe.

That means the cause is beyond space and time, which makes it immaterial and nonphysical.

It must also be incredibly powerful to have created all matter and energy.

It must also be a personal being. If a cause is sufficient to produce its effect, if the cause is there, so must the effect. Therefore a personal being with a freedom of will is the best explanation.

God and the astronomers

- Robert Jastrow - PhD in theoretical physics, was founder of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and was it's director for 20 years. Taught geophysics at Columbia University and was Director Emeritus of Mount Wilson Observatory and Hale Solar Laboratory.

- Self proclaimed agnostic.

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