It requires more faith to be an Atheist Part 1

The Universe had a beginning

"Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind."

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein wanted the universe to be self-existent-not reliant on any outside cause-- but the universe appeared to be one giant effect. In fact, Einstein so disliked the implications of General Relativity (which is now proven to 5 decimal places) He tried to deny what he found by introducing a cosmological constant into his equations in order to show the universe was static and to avoid an absolute beginning.

Soon after British cosmologist Arthur Eddington conducted an experiment that proved that General Relativity was indeed true. The universe had a beginning. Like Einstein he was not happy with his findings.

Hubble then discovered a red shift in the light from every observable galaxy, which meant that the galaxies were moving away from a single point in the distant past. After his findings Einstein wanted to see for himself, he went up and this findings astounded him, he then said "to know how God created the world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thought, the rest are details."

In the beginning there was a great SURGE

The Second Law of thermodynamics is the S in SURGE. Thermodynamics is the study of matter and energy, the second law states, among other things, that the universe is running out of usable energy. With each passing moment, the amount of usable energy is growing smaller , leading scientists to the obvious conclusion that one day all the energy will be gone and the universe will die.

The Second Law is also known as the Law of Entropy, which is a fancy way of saying that nature tends to bring things to disorder. With time, things naturally fall apart. But if the universe is becoming less ordered, then where did the original order come from? Astronomer Robert Jastrow likens the universe to a wound up clock. If the wind-up clock is running down, then someone must have wound it up. This aspect of the second law also tells us that the universe has a beginning. Since we still have some order left the universe can not be eternal, because if it was we would have reached complete disorder by now.

U The Universe is expanding, how does this prove a beginning? If we could watch a video of the universe in reverse, we would see all matter in the universe collapse back to a point not even the size of a pinhead, but mathematically and logically to a point that is actually nothing (no space, no time, no matter). Once their was nothing and then, BANG, there was everything, the entire universe exploded into being! It is important to understand that the universe is not expanding into empty space, but space itself is expanding, there was no space before the big bang. In fact, there are no "befores" without time, and there was not time until the big bang (Time = space + matter)

Radiation. Technically known as the cosmic background radiation, this after glow is actually light and heat from the initial explosion. The light is no longer visible because its wave length has been stretched by the expansion of the universe.

Galaxy Seeds. These temperature ripples enable matter to congregate by gravitational attraction into galaxies. The satellite COBE was sent out to see if these ripple were out there. COBE not only found these ripples, but scientists were amazed in their precision. The ripples show that the explosion and expansion of the universe was precisely tweaked to cause just enough matter to congregate to allow galaxy formation, but not enough to cause the universe to collapse back on itself. ANY slight variation one way or another and none of us would be here to tell about it. In fact the ripples are so exact (down to one part in one hundred thousand) that George Smoot called them "machining marks from the creation of the universe" and the "fingerprints of the maker."

Einstein. The theory of General Relativity is the fifth line of scientific evidence that the universe had a beginning. This theory has been proven to 5 decimal places, demands an absolute beginning for time, space and matter. It shows that time, space and matter are co-relative. Meaning you can't have one without the others. From General Relativity scientists predicted and then found the expanding universe, radiation afterglow, and the great galaxy seeds that were precisely tweaked to allow the universe to form into its present state. Add these discoveries to the second law of thermodynamics and we have 5 lines of powerful evidence that the universe has a beginning.

Now that we have clarified that the universe started from nothing and created the universe as we know it today (0 + 0 = Everything). In part two I will talk about the 5 anthropic constants and much more.

"When it was his turn to speak, Kolenda held up my book and declared, 'These Christians are very narrow-minded people. I read Dr. Geisler's book. Do you know what he believes? He believes that Christianity it true and everything opposed to it is false! These Christians are very narrow-minded people!'

Well, Kolenda had also written a book which I had read before-hand. It was titled Religion Without God (which is sort of like romance without a spouse!). When it was my turn to speak, I held up Kolenda's book and declared, 'These humanists are very narrow-minded people. I read Dr. Kolenda's book. Do you know what he believes? He believes humanism is true and everything opposed to it is false! These humanists are very narrow-minded people!'" ("I don't have enough faith to be an atheist" by:

Norm L.Geisler and Frank Turek)

P.S. To anyone who believes in The principle of empirical verifiability:

The principle of empirical verifiability states that there are only two kinds of meaningful propositions: 1.) those that are true by definition and 2.) those that are empirically verifiable. Since the principle of emperical verifiability itself is neither true by definition nor empirically verifiable, it can not be meaningful.

Sources: I don't have enough faith to be an Atheist by, Norm L. Geisler and Frank Turek. The Bible. God and his People by, James L. Garlow.

Look for Part 2 soon!