A lot of people in the "rational" West will have you believe that only dumb people accept the existence of God. I want to demonstrate that one can argue for God and do it well - ie rationally, logically, reasonably and even scientifically. So don't let pseudo-scientists bully you into thinking they have a monopoly on knowledge or brains. They don't.
You will notice that all my arguments are based on information sourced from science books and magazines. I don't read religious literature. I'm a Deist. I don't have religion.
Back in 2007, physicist Paul Davies came out with a book called The Goldilocks Enigma. Remember the story of Goldilocks and the 3 bears? That little blond kid found Father Bear's porridge too hot and Mother Bear's too cold. Baby Bear's was just right. The Goldilocks Enigma simply asks "Why is the universe just right for life?"
This is something from The Australian about the book:
It deals with this deeply intriguing circumstance: "If almost any of the basic features of the universe, from the properties of atoms to the distribution of galaxies, were different, life would very probably be impossible." Like Goldilocks's porridge, the universe is just right. Our existence hangs by a thread.
According to Davies, there are more than 30 known examples in physics and cosmology of extraordinarily precise fine-tuning. For instance, the ratio of the mass of the neutron to that of the proton is 1.00137841870. Without that slight deviation in weight (the neutron is about 0.1 per cent heavier), there would be no atoms, no chemistry, no life.
Davies details several other mind-boggling examples. The "biggest fix" of all, he contends, relates to so-called dark energy, the anti-gravity force that permeates space. That force is almost but not completely counteracted by negative dark energy: the cancellation effect is complete to one part in 120 powers of 10. Life would not be possible if the net force were different by a single power of 10. The odds of the right value having arisen by chance is the same as tossing heads 400 times in a row.
The scientists will try to explain it all away, but the indisputable fact remains that for some uncanny unsettling reason, everything in the universe came together precisely for life to exist.
[Graphic from kinderisfun.com]
