A universe out of nothing vs God out of nowhere
Sherlock Holmes said: “when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” How does this apply to the universe?
Tag: Cosmology
The fine-tuning adventures of Luke Barnes
Cosmologist Luke Barnes, an expert on the scientific evidence for the fine-tuning of the universe, has published an argument for the existence of God.
Brute facts and reasons to believe
How do we explain the universe? Are there reasons to believe God made it, or it appeared out of nothing? Or should we give up on finding an explanation and say it just is (a “brute fact”)?
2. Was the universe designed, or random?
People tend to take a lot for granted. The sun keeps shining, the earth is full of useful minerals and gravity keeps us from flying off into space. We don’t think about it much, but what if things were different? What if gravity repulsed rather than attracted? What if we couldn’t sit on a chair […]
1. Why does the universe exist?
When thinking about possible evidence for the existence of God, it seems logical to start with the big picture, and work our way down to the more personal. So we start by considering the universe and the explanation of its existence. What is the universe? This may sound like the dumbest of questions, for we […]
Did the universe have a beginning? Did it arise from nothing?
I suppose it is quite natural to look at the night sky, especially away from city lights, and be in awe. When we learn that the universe apparently contains something like 100 billion galaxies, each with about 100 billion stars, our amazement and awe increase. It is also natural to ask where it all came […]
Stereoscopic vision and God
Stereoscopic vision is a useful and subtle aspect of how we, and some animals, see. Because our two eyes both face the front (unlike some animals and insects whose eyes face more left and right), they both see similar but subtly different views. For example, if two objects are in line, one behind the other, […]
Are we alone in the universe?
Contact with aliens is a popular theme in science fiction stories. Some people even think they have seen, or been contacted by, aliens. But so far, despite more than 30 years of a scientific Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), no evidence has been found that there is any intelligent life “out there”. But some new […]
How strong is the Kalam Cosmological argument?
A friend and I have been discussing the Kalam Cosmological argument recently, so I thought it might be worth posting about it. The Kalam argument has been used many times by philosopher William Lane Craig in public debates, with some success. His use of the argument is itself much debated on the internet. I have […]
Can we trust our intuition? (A question from a reader about the start of the universe)
I am grateful to a reader Mustahsin Mir, who asked me some questions about an argument in the book Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism by David Mills. I haven’t read the book, but the argument can be followed in Amazon’s Look Inside, with Mustahsin’s questions relating to the section on page […]