Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Einstein and God

Einstein and God

There seems an endless fascination among the religious to quote Einstein and cite his references to God. They quote Einstein to leverage his scientific brilliance and by extension, justify the existence of a God and justify why people of lesser intelligence should believe. They insinuate that If Einstein believed there to be a God, surely he is smart enough to know better, therefore God exists and so everyone should believe. This assumes that Einstein, when using the word God, meant exactly the same definition of God that a believer has in their mind. Even believers can't agree on the true definition of God, so what are the chances of it matching what Einstein meant. Probably low to none.

If we take a look back over the history of science and scientists who believed in God, we could find many such examples. Brilliant minds, observing and discovering brilliance in science, nature, mathematics and physics to name just a few. For each observation and/or discovery, they formed an extensive hypothesis, which turned into a theory and is eventually accepted as fact through application of scientific method. This theory is peer reviewed, critically analysed, verifiable and backed up by evidence. The discoveries, hypothesis and theories put forward by Einstein are continually challenged and are proven correct on a daily basis via their real world application and experiment.

Now turn your gaze towards Einstein in regards to the idea of God. It is essentially irrelevant who or what posits the existence of God. A layman, a builder, a computer programmer or a brilliant scientist can all state their belief in God but, as certain as the passing of time, the idea and existence of God has failed peer review, has not survived critical analysis, cannot be verified and is not backup up by evidence. Ignore this at your peril. God is not even a theory in the eyes of the scientific method. At most it is a highly unsubstantiated and unverifiable hypothesis and as such, Einstein, as with all others before him, have come no closer to proving God, even if that is what he meant.

The scientific method is consistent. It continues to provide evidence beyond doubt that a majority of the Bible stories didn't happen and easily dismisses poorly presented, inconsistent and unverifiable claims that God exists. Through all of the hard work, it continues the confirm the theory of evolution, the theory of gravity, the theory of special relativity, theory of general relativity, mathematics, general physics and quantum physics, to name a few. The gaps for God to sit in are constantly being removed by the scientific method to such an extent that theists now move God outside of the physical world, to other realms not observable or available for analysis.

This puts a theist in a very difficult position. Place confidence in Einstein to prove and justify the existence of a God but on the other hand, deny the scientific method that continually invalidates and dismisses the foundation documents, stories within the Bible and, of course, God.

Using Einstein to justify a God, or your belief in God, is absurd.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Who created the Creator?

Who created the Creator?

When discussing matters of the existence of the universe, a theist might be compelled to state “God created the Universe”. They easily accept this as fact and shut down their brain having satisfied their requirements for an answer. Others may ask, “Who created the Creator?”. It is such an obvious question to ask and is just like a child asking “Why?”.

I’ve asked this question and could ask the same question into infinity and never have an answer. Even if we are living in a computer simulation, the creator of the computer simulation would have to come from somewhere as well. Up until this point, we have no answers for how the Universe got here and pretending that a book has the only answer is narrow minded and short sighted.

Even well substantiated theories like the Big Bang, are generally outside of my understanding. I can’t grasp true nothingness. Sure, I can understand the idea of a black void or a vacuum, but these concepts represent something. A black void exists and so does a vacuum. However, given the evidence, a Big Bang most likely did happen and is a theory based on what we can and have observed. Does anyone know what came before, or existed before the Big Bang? No. Scientists constantly hypothesis and discuss possibilities but no-one truly knows. There are no absolutes.

Those, who reject the Big Bang theory explain that something can’t come from nothing. It does sound implausible but what is more implausible, the idea that God has always existed and he (?) created the Universe or that the Universe just came into existence? A theist expects the evidence to be presented to back up the Big Bang theory but requires no such evidence for their own position. Apparently they just know that God created the Universe.

It is absurd to suggest that a God, who is all powerful and all knowing, is sufficiently complex to create a universe and everything within it, listens to prayers and meddles with physical reality as needs be, just exists and has always existed. How about coming down from your theistic high horse and saying “I don’t know”.

You don’t know, I don’t know, the best minds in the world don’t know. If you think you know, you are deluded or are wrong.