Thursday 29 August 2013

The Age Old Question -------------- does god really exists?

Photo: Shiva's Spirituality

The Age Old Question -------------- does god really exists? 

More and more people are asking if God exists or not. But the question may be as old as creation itself. A believer like me would only say that even if Man is surrounded by not one but a thousand reasons that prove the existence of God, Man in his arrogance wants to think he is the creator and doer of everything.

Scientists and atheists proudly claim that the Big Bang Theory explains the Universe. Scientists are convinced that our universe began with one enormous explosion of energy and light, which we now call the Big Bang. This was the singular start to everything that exists: the beginning of the universe, the start of space, and even the initial start of time itself. Astrophysicist Robert Jastrow, a self-described agnostic, stated, "The seed of everything that has happened in the Universe was planted in that first instant; every star, every planet and every living creature in the Universe came into being as a result of events that were set in motion in the moment of the cosmic explosion...The Universe flashed into being, and we cannot find out what caused that to happen." Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in Physics, said at the moment of this explosion, "the universe was about a hundred thousands million degrees Centigrade...and the universe was filled with light." But there seems to be no plausible answer to why that explosion happened, or who or what caused it to happen. Could it not have been an act of God?

Further, Physicist Stephen Hawking, accompanied by Leonard Mlodinow, claim in their book, Grand Design, "God did not create the Universe and the Big Bang was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics. Because of the law of gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist."

But the law of gravity is a force and form of energy. Well, that certainly cannot exist on its own, in emptiness, can it? There has to be a source of power for that gravity to work as well. What caused the Universe to begin existing? Scientists know the Big Bang happened, but seem to have no explanation to why the sudden explosion of light and matter, happened.

As put forward by Anthony Kenny of Oxford University, "A proponent of the Big Bang theory, if he is an atheist, must believe that the universe came from nothing and by nothing." But surely that doesn't make sense! Out of nothing, nothing comes. So why does the universe exist instead of just nothing? Where did it come from? There must have been a cause which brought the universe into being."

If Big Bang happened, did it guarantee intelligent life? Of thinking humans, compassionate animals and perfectly synchronised bodies in which all organs function perfectly, and Nature, where sunrises and sunsets happen without a miss? Even scientists agree that the existence of intelligent life depends upon a complex and delicate balance of original conditions as given in the Big Bang.

So, for the sake of argument, just as whatever begins to exist has to have a cause, if the Universe began to exist because of Big Bang, there was a cause for it. The cause, whatever one may perceive it to be, has to be older than the Universe, and therefore, timeless or beyond time. Because it also created space, it must transcend space as well and therefore be an immaterial, not physical, being.

The very fact that Nature seems to operate under a systematic law - sunrises are followed by sunsets, tides rise and fall - is too much to be a mere coincidence, isn't it? As Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner in quantum electrodynamics, put it, "Why nature is mathematical is a mystery...the fact that there are rules at all is a kind of miracle."

The complexity of our planet points to a deliberate Designer who not only created our universe, but sustains it. The Earth is located at the right distance from the sun. If the Earth were any further away from the sun, we would all freeze. Any closer, and we would burn up. The human brain is another miracle - it processes an amazing amount of information. The eye is not far behind - it can distinguish among seven million colours.

It's hard to believe the DNA code, which connects us to our ancestors and descendents in amazing ways, just happened. Just as a computer programme is made up of ones and zeros (like 1100101010110000), telling the computer what to do, the DNA code in each of our cells is made up of four chemicals that scientists abbreviate as A, T, G and C. These are arranged in the human cell (CGTGTGACTCGCTCCTGAT) and there are three billion of these letters in every human cell, telling each cell in our body what to do. I find it hard to believe that mere biology is any answer. There has to be a Master Programmer.


It amazes me that God has surrounded us with so much of evidence about himself and has kept the question of his existence squarely before us, yet we refuse to acknowledge Him.

Shiva's Spirituality

The Age Old Question -------------- does god really exists? 

More and more people are asking if God exists or not. But the question may be as old as creation itself. A believer like me would only say that even if Man is surrounded by not one but a thousand reasons that prove the existence of God, Man in his arrogance wants to think he is the creator and doer of everything.

Scientists and atheists proudly claim that the Big Bang Theory explains the Universe. Scientists are convinced that our universe began with one enormous explosion of energy and light, which we now call the Big Bang. This was the singular start to everything that exists: the beginning of the universe, the start of space, and even the initial start of time itself. Astrophysicist Robert Jastrow, a self-described agnostic, stated, "The seed of everything that has happened in the Universe was planted in that first instant; every star, every planet and every living creature in the Universe came into being as a result of events that were set in motion in the moment of the cosmic explosion...The Universe flashed into being, and we cannot find out what caused that to happen." Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in Physics, said at the moment of this explosion, "the universe was about a hundred thousands million degrees Centigrade...and the universe was filled with light." But there seems to be no plausible answer to why that explosion happened, or who or what caused it to happen. Could it not have been an act of God?

Further, Physicist Stephen Hawking, accompanied by Leonard Mlodinow, claim in their book, Grand Design, "God did not create the Universe and the Big Bang was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics. Because of the law of gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist."

But the law of gravity is a force and form of energy. Well, that certainly cannot exist on its own, in emptiness, can it? There has to be a source of power for that gravity to work as well. What caused the Universe to begin existing? Scientists know the Big Bang happened, but seem to have no explanation to why the sudden explosion of light and matter, happened.

As put forward by Anthony Kenny of Oxford University, "A proponent of the Big Bang theory, if he is an atheist, must believe that the universe came from nothing and by nothing." But surely that doesn't make sense! Out of nothing, nothing comes. So why does the universe exist instead of just nothing? Where did it come from? There must have been a cause which brought the universe into being."

If Big Bang happened, did it guarantee intelligent life? Of thinking humans, compassionate animals and perfectly synchronised bodies in which all organs function perfectly, and Nature, where sunrises and sunsets happen without a miss? Even scientists agree that the existence of intelligent life depends upon a complex and delicate balance of original conditions as given in the Big Bang.

So, for the sake of argument, just as whatever begins to exist has to have a cause, if the Universe began to exist because of Big Bang, there was a cause for it. The cause, whatever one may perceive it to be, has to be older than the Universe, and therefore, timeless or beyond time. Because it also created space, it must transcend space as well and therefore be an immaterial, not physical, being.

The very fact that Nature seems to operate under a systematic law - sunrises are followed by sunsets, tides rise and fall - is too much to be a mere coincidence, isn't it? As Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner in quantum electrodynamics, put it, "Why nature is mathematical is a mystery...the fact that there are rules at all is a kind of miracle."

The complexity of our planet points to a deliberate Designer who not only created our universe, but sustains it. The Earth is located at the right distance from the sun. If the Earth were any further away from the sun, we would all freeze. Any closer, and we would burn up. The human brain is another miracle - it processes an amazing amount of information. The eye is not far behind - it can distinguish among seven million colours.

It's hard to believe the DNA code, which connects us to our ancestors and descendents in amazing ways, just happened. Just as a computer programme is made up of ones and zeros (like 1100101010110000), telling the computer what to do, the DNA code in each of our cells is made up of four chemicals that scientists abbreviate as A, T, G and C. These are arranged in the human cell (CGTGTGACTCGCTCCTGAT) and there are three billion of these letters in every human cell, telling each cell in our body what to do. I find it hard to believe that mere biology is any answer. There has to be a Master Programmer.


It amazes me that God has surrounded us with so much of evidence about himself and has kept the question of his existence squarely before us, yet we refuse to acknowledge Him.

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