The philosophy of Atheism in its fundamental sense tends to laud
rationale and logic, but is actually considerably irrational. Its propagators
and prophets tend to put a lot of stock in “empirical methods” and “logical”
arguments but its core stays away from rational thought and logic. In this
work, we shall analyze the rationale to renounce and denounce the essence of
atheism.
To start with, atheists, sadly, don’t realize that by adhering to
an empirical method one can never disprove God’s existence because in order to
disprove existence of God experimentally, one ought to possess comprehensive
knowledge of everything. In other words, one ought to be omniscient, which
consequently and by definition would make him God. Hence, the only one who is
qualified for disproving the existence of God empirically, is God himself.
If we continue to apply the sets of laws built by atheists on the
logic they have developed, we see a similar result. The “people of science”
laud scientism, which is a view that a proposition is not true if it is not
proven scientifically. This idea is self-defeating, because the idea of
scientism itself can’t be proved scientifically. As we dig deeper into atheism
we find the immature argument of existence of evil and suffering in the world
which sadly, presupposes that a good God wouldn’t allow suffering and evil to
persist in the world. We have Carl Sagan admirers assuming the eternity of
universe but, unfortunately, their wishy-washy arguments are clearly refuted by
the Big Bang theory and the second law of thermodynamics. And then we have the
Prophet of Atheism, Richard Dawkins and his book, ‘The God Delusion’ which
simply presents, few rehashed arguments in a new fancy look. Dawkins considers
his best argument to be the ‘larger problem’ of who designed the designer of
the universe [1].
The argument in its entirety is flawed. If the Designer itself has
a Designer then the Designer of the Designer would have yet another Designer,
and so on and on to infinity, which if taken into account from a broad
perspective would suggest that the Universe existed forever thereby
contradicting with the Big Bang theory. This implies that the Designer is
uncreated and therefore eternal.
God’s existence is not merely logically promising but also
philosophically, very essential. I shall be presenting two arguments in this article
1. Argument from causality: The Quran presents the following argument: “Or were they created by nothing? Or were they the creators (of themselves)? Or did they create heavens and earth? Rather, they are not certain.”[2]
Let’s scrutinize this verse.
(a) “Or were they created
by nothing?..”
Created by nothing? Does it sound rational? Forget being rational,
is it even close to sane? It’s an
undeniable philosophical principle that nothing comes out of nothing. Consider
an example of, say, a “BOOM” explosive noise. Obviously, this ‘BOOM’ sound
would have a cause which your curious eyes would look for. In order for
something to even BEGIN to exist, it must have a cause/creator.
(b) “Or were they the
creators (of themselves)?”
Now that we know, that there must be a cause for any entity which
begins to exist, the subsequent question arises who that cause/creator is? Did
that very entity create itself? Surely not! Because that would imply that it
must exist and not exist at the same time which is logically incoherent. Before
proceeding any further, let’s quickly summarize the above discussion:
1. Anything which BEGINS to exist has a cause/creator.
2. If Universe began to exist it must have a cause/creator.
Now, let us dissect and confront the concept of the origin of
universe. Did it BEGIN to exist or, is it eternal? If the former is true, the
conclusion would be that there is a cause/creator of this mind boggling
universe, while the latter being the truth would imply that the universe
doesn’t have any creator/cause. In the light of science, I can assert with full
conviction that yes, it did begin to exist. The Second Law of thermodynamics is
the irrefutable argument for my claim that the universe had a beginning; this
scientific concept is infused with a particular law called the ‘law of entropy’
which explains the directions of various processes that occur in the natural
world. ‘Entropy’ is a measure of how energy is distributed evenly in a system.
For instance, he
at always flows from a body of a higher temperature or energy to
one of a lower temperature or energy.
According to the second law of thermodynamics, processes in a
closed system tend to go towards higher entropy. If we apply second law of
thermodynamics to this universe we would reach the conclusion that the universe
must have begun to exist at some point of time, the universe being a closed
system. If the universe had never had a beginning of existence (if it was
eternal), it would imply that the universe had been existing for an infinite
amount of time which would be highly illogical since with so much time this
universe would have already been in a state of heat death or ‘thermodynamic
equilibrium’ because when a system is in thermodynamic equilibrium, transfer of
energy gets neutralized within. Hence, as the universe continues to expand it
will gradually become cold and dead. Since universe is not suffering from any
heat death, it can be unambiguously inferred that it must have begun to exist
at some point of time.
As is evident from the above argument, the universe did begin to
exist. Therefore, it must have a cause/creator just like any other entity. For
example, for a chair to begin to exist, it must have a cause/creator which is
its carpenter.
As of now, let me draw the inferences:
1. Anything that BEGINS to exist has a cause/creator.
2. Universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, universe has a cause/creator.
2. Argument from Design: The intricate brilliance of the created order giving structure to our universe indicates the existence of an infinitely intelligent Designer, because our universe is extremely fine-tuned to make its existence and existence of human life possible. It’s intuitively obvious that merely an unplanned, unexplained accident could never be solely capable of producing the order, beauty, elegance, and the seeming purpose that we experience in the natural world around us.
Below are few examples and observations that appreciate how
finely-tuned and intricately designed our universe is.
• The Strength of Gravity & the Atomic Weak Force: Physicist P.
C. W. Davies has calculated that a change in the strength of gravity or of the
atomic weak force by only one part in 10100 would have prevented a life
permitting universe. [3]
• Big Bang’s Low Entropy Condition: Roger Penrose of Oxford
University has calculated that the odds of the Big Bang’s low entropy condition
existing by chance are on the order of one out of 1010 (123). Penrose comments,
“I cannot even recall seeing anything else in physics whose accuracy is known
to approach, even remotely, a figure like one part in 1010 (123).” [4]
• Volume of the phase space of possible universes: Roger Penrose
of Oxford University states “In order to produce a universe resembling the one
in which we live, the Creator would have to aim for an absurdly tiny volume of
the phase space of possible universes” Now, how tiny is this volume? According
to Penrose the volume of the phase space would be 1/10 to the power of X which
is 10123. This is smaller than the ratio of a Proton! This precision is much,
much greater than the precision that would be required to hit an individual
proton if the entire universe were a dartboard! [5]
• If the strong nuclear force were 2% stronger than it is (i.e.,
if the coupling constant representing its strength were 2% larger), while the
other constants were left unchanged, diprotons would be stable and hydrogen
would fuse into them instead of deuterium and helium. This would drastically
alter the physics of stars, and presumably preclude the existence of life
similar to what we observe on Earth. The existence of the di-proton would
short-circuit the slow fusion of hydrogen into deuterium. Hydrogen would fuse
so easily that it is likely that all of the Universe’s hydrogen would be
consumed in the first few minutes after the Big Bang. [6]
This intelligent design of universe doesn’t simply imply existence
of a creator but also furthers God as an Omniscient (all knowing) and Most-Wise
being. Therefore, the theory of accidental creation of our extremely fine-tuned
universe, for no reason at all, is utterly irrational and absurd. These are
signs which God has provided us to reflect on. The Quran mentions these signs
in several verses, such as following:
“In the creation of the heavens and Earth, and the alternation of
the night and day, and the ships which sail the seas to people’s benefit, and
the water which God sends down from the sky – by which He brings the Earth to
life when it was dead and scatters about in it creatures of every kind– and the
varying direction of the winds, and the clouds subservient between heaven and
Earth, there are signs for people who use their intellect.” [7]
Atheists feel they have taken a heroic position by relinquishing
the belief in existence of God. There are prejudiced people, both atheists and
theists, who have prejudged an issue and believe stubbornly whatever they
prefer, no matter how many facts and reasons show otherwise. Better ask
yourselves whether you are prejudiced or open minded? Whether or not you are
willing to change your mind if sound arguments are presented to you? I hope
readers will be intellectually sincere in choosing sides.
References
[1] The God Delusion, p157-158
[2] Quran, 52:35-36
[3] Hugh Ross, The creator and the Cosmos, p115
[4] Roger Penrose, “Time Asymmetry and Quantum Gravity,” in
Quantum Gravity 2, ed.C. J. Isham, R. Penrose, and D. W. Sciama (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1981), p. 249; cf. Hawking and Penrose, Nature of Space and
Time, pp. 34-35.
[5] Penrose 1989, p.343
[6] Paul Davies, 1993. The Accidental Universe , Cambridge University
Press, p70-71
[7] Quran, 2:164
By Fuzail Ahmad
