Showing posts with label Cosmology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cosmology. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Can God Create and Object So Big He Cannot Move It?

Black Hole in the universe

Image via Wikipedia

This is another supposed contradiction that Atheists like to throw out to challenge the idea of an all powerful (omnipotent) God.   The argument creates a dilemma in that God is either not omnipotent because He cannot create such a thing or He is not omnipotent because He cannot move it.  The problem though is not in the dilemma, but with the question itself.  The question is logically flawed. 

Remember for the Atheist (as I have said before) this is an absurd question.  Why a person would want to know if an imagined being could move and immovable object is confusing to me.  It would seem that putting energy in to such fiction would be a waste of time.  In short I would quickly say that any fantasy being could move any fantasy object without any problem while still creating something that is unmovable at the same time.  This is fantasy after all.

Moving on though to the question at hand.  The goal is to call into question the Omnipotence of God.  In my estimation we cannot in our finite understanding be aware of what omnipotence is.  If we could understand the most powerful force in the universe we would just be scratching the surface of understanding omnipotence.  If it takes 70,000 computer processors to figure out the merging of two black holes, then understanding omnipotence is a bit more processing power than my tiny brain can handle.  At best we can imagine that God is more powerful than the most powerful thing we can think of. 

My concern though is for the second half of the question.  First the size of the object.  For an object to be so big it would have to be larger than the force trying to move it.  Omnipotence by definition is infinitely powerful.  So in this case our object would have to be infinitely large.  Creating an infinitely large object would displace everything else in existence.  It would be the utter obliteration of everything (Including God Himself?).  This would make such an object a fantasy.  It would be an unreal object.  Can God create something that does not have the possibility of existing.  No!  Why?  Because it is a contradiction.  For an object to exist it must be finite and if it is finite then God can move it.  Something finite cannot be infinite.  So such an object cannot logically exist.

Next looking at the properties of Objects.  I would say that moveability  is a universal property of objects.  Throughout the universe we see objects in motion.  There is no corner in which we find something that is not moving in some way, shape, or form.  I propose that it is not possible for an immoveable object to exist.  Everything is in motion in some manner.  Even Black holes (in my limited understanding) are in motion.  So if the most massive objects that we are aware of are in motion then an object even more massive would have to be in motion as well.  What is more motion is measured relative to another object.  So in order to test whether it was not moved there would need to be two of these immoveable objects.  I am having trouble imagining one now we need two.  Hmm!

One more thing, the laws of astrophysics would indicate that as an object got larger it would reach such a size that the gravitational pull of that object would begin to pull itself into itself creating a black hole.  As that object became more massive then it would reach the mass of the universe.  What is larger than the mass of the universe?  I am not sure, but if our universe is moving I am not sure what a black hole more massive than our universe would be?  Singularity perhaps.  Could God move it?  Yes  we exist don't we.   So you see no matter the enormous mass of this supposed object it would have the quality of moveably.  An immoveable object is a contradiction in and of itself.  So it cannot exist. 

In conclusion then the question is illogical.  Illogical questions can be answered however you want, but you will never know nor can you arrive at the correct answer. 

I have a question for the Atheist.  Can any researcher create a computer simulation of an immoveable object?  They might want to start here and get up to speed.  This simulation took 70,000 processors three months to compute.  I wonder how they connected all those laptops :-) .  Here is what they produced. 

 

Well at least we know the object is bigger than the little guy on the left and also bigger than the guy on the right Notice the little ripple at the end as it takes the little black hole into itself. 

God Bless You

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Sunday, December 12, 2010

First Cause

Universe

Image via Wikipedia

As it seems to me there are three competing theories for the origin of the material universe.  1) One all the material for the universe is eternal.  2) The existence of material is cyclical that is to say that some future event caused the material to appear in the distant past.  3)  That the material has a beginning.

At the present time it would seem that evidence is point to the fact that our universe had a beginning.  It also looks like it will have an end.  The end will either be a cooling off and dying or at some point collapsing upon itself.  This would make the material of our universe not eternal, but keeps open the possibility that other universes have loaned our present universe eternal matter. 

It is this evidence that to me presents the strongest case that the material universe is not eternal.  If present observable universe is not eternal then something has caused it to exist.  There are a few theories.  Singularity which is the predicted initial state of the universe.  The best non-technical way to describe it is a black hole on a massive scale in which the entire contents of the universe exists in a tightly compacted point.  A second theory is that proceeding the "Big Bang" there was a "Big Crunch" and that the universe has always existed in a state of expansion or collapse in a never ending cycle of death and rebirth.  A third is that our universe is actually one of many.  The beginning of our universe was created at the collision of other universes. 

Each of these theories contains their own particular difficulties.  The problem with each of these theories is that they are beyond science.  They rely on observing the universe as it is now and modifying the theory to conform to the present data.  What ends up happening is a system in which most of what we know about the physical universe does not conform to the scientific laws that have been established.  So the theory becomes more and more complicated to account for new information.  What is also interesting is that you find scientists using a peculiar word more and more frequently.  "I believe that..."  It is this that leads me to think that scientific cosmology at some point becomes an article of faith.  That is to say we reach the limit of what is knowable and have to accept the resulting explanation by faith.  Most will deny this and say they are making predictions based on what they are observing.  Funny though when someone with an alternate cosmology suggests they are doing the same they are closed out of the game so to speak. 

So here are the competing explanations for our universe which is nearly unanimous that it had a beginning.  1) The universe existed in a very tightly condensed point so tightly condensed that we cannot even begin to imagine it.  It then violated every conceivable physical law that we know of (or rather the laws did not exist yet) and exploded.  Over time it expanded fast enough to escape the singularity and cooled.  As it cooled the physical properties and laws begin to take shape.  And all of this was random unguided chance.  2) the universe has always existed in an expanding or contracting form.  We are currently in an expanding form.  At some point in the future the universe will not be able to continue to expand and will be pulled back into itself in a grand collapse.  Only to start the rebirth of a new universe.   This one is a bit more challenging in that it uses physical laws to collapse the universe, but violates nearly all of them to create it.  3) Ours is not a unique universe.  In fact there are many universes that have always existed and when they collide in random fashion they create new universes (of which our is a product). 

In short we either have a random purposeless unguided process, which violates nearly every thing we know about the physical universe which explodes or collides into existence.  Or a supernatural intelligent creator that has spoken out of nothing all that is into existence.  He builds out of nothing a universe that is orderly and purposeful. 

As you might expect I am partial to the second story.  But given that at some level each of these explanations must be taken by faith (belief) I really wonder why anyone would rather have a random, unguided, purposeless universe.  I suppose the greater question for me is that if the universe is random, unguided, and purposeless, then why should there be any order at all.  It seems quite contradictory that out of an early existence in which no physical laws exist that this chaos should form something orderly.  In that respect it is God creator ex nihilio (out of nothing) that seems to me to be the most reasonable explanation of our existence and the order contained within it. 

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