Atheism is dead; The Big Bang killed it

Frank Turek:

Once there was no time, no space, and no matter and then it all banged into existence out of nothing with great precision.
[...]
Dr. Robert Jastrow ... [former] director of the Mount Wilson observatory once led by Edwin Hubble:

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.

In an interview, Jastrow went even further, admitting that

“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.”

[...]
General Relativity expert Arthur Eddington admitted the same when he said,

“The beginning seems to present insuperable difficulties unless we agree to look on it as frankly supernatural.”

Why couldn’t natural forces have produced the universe? Because there was no nature and there were no natural forces ontologically prior to the Big Bang—nature itself was created at the Big Bang. That means the cause of the universe must be something beyond nature—something we would call supernatural. It also means that the supernatural cause of the universe must at least be:

· spaceless because it created space

· timeless because it created time

· immaterial because it created matter

· powerful because it created out of nothing

· intelligent because the creation event and the universe was precisely designed

· personal because it made a choice to convert a state of nothing into something (impersonal forces don’t make choices).

Those are the same attributes of the God of the Bible (which is one reason I believe in a the God of the Bible and not a god of mythology like Zeus).

I mentioned in the debate that other scientists who made Big-Bang-related discoveries also conclude that the evidence is consistent with the Biblical account. Robert Wilson—co-discoverer of the Radiation Afterglow, which won him a Noble Prize in Physics— observed,

“Certainly there was something that set it off. Certainly, if you’re religious, I can’t think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match with Genesis.”

George Smoot—co-discoverer of the Great Galaxy Seeds which won him a Nobel Prize as well—echoed Wilson’s assessment by saying,

“There is no doubt that a parallel exists between the Big Bang as an event and the Christian notion of creation from nothing.”

[...]
Dr. Jastrow, despite his agnosticism, told us where the evidence leads. He ended his book this way:

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

h/t