NGC6960, the Veil Nebula (Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Continuing my response \u2013 this is Part Two of Three \u2014 to the implicit challenge offered up by a devotee of a particularly simplistic and historically uninformed scientism, which reads as follows:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nYou won\u2019t find even one instance where science has had to say it was wrong, and someones sacred scriptures from antiquity got it right.\u00a0Not. one. time. not. one. item.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
We continue with the opposed notions of a created universe, associated with mainstream Christianity, and a universe that simply is and always has been, which was, until very recent times, the consensus of science:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
This static view of the universe \u2013 which allowed for internal movements of energy and matter, but not for either origination or decay \u2013 remained the scientific consensus until the end of the First World War.\u00a0 Religious ideas of creation were regarded as outdated mythological notions, completely incompatible with cutting-edge scientific knowledge.\u00a0 Then, slowly but surely, evidence began to accumulate suggesting that the universe, far from being eternal, had an origin.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nAlister McGrath, The Big Question: Why We Can\u2019t Stop Talking about Science, Faith and God<\/em>\u00a0(New York: St. Martin\u2019s Press, 2015), 80.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
And now for some notes drawn chiefly from McGrath, The Big Question<\/em>, pp. 80-82:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Three dramatic alterations in our understanding of the cosmos occurred during the years 1900-1931.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
First, the accepted value of the star system \u2013 our galaxy, as we now see and understand\u00a0\u2013 increased tenfold.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Second, thanks to the work of Edwin Hubble (1883-1953), we learned that other star systems or galaxies exist beyond the Milky Way.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Third, we discovered that the universe is expanding.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The eventual implications of that third discovery were astounding.\u00a0 The plain implication was that, if the historical tape were played backward, the universe would return to \u2013 and, thus, must have originated from \u2013 an extraordinarily dense initial state.\u00a0 The universe seemed to have had a beginning<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some atheist scientists, such as Fred Hoyle and Steven Weinberg, . . . were worried that the idea of the universe having an origin \u201csounded religious\u201d or resembled the biblical account of creation found in the book of Genesis.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nHoyle\u2019s \u201csteady state\u201d model of the universe was the preferred cosmology of atheists at the time, as it eliminated any possibility of a \u201ccreation.\u201d\u00a0 Speaking at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1967, Weinberg remarked that \u201cthe steady state theory is philosophically the most attractive theory because it least resembles the account given in Genesis.\u201d\u00a0 He then ruefully added, \u201cIt is a pity that the steady state theory is contradicted by experiment.\u201d <\/span><\/strong>(<\/span>McGrath,\u00a0The Big Question<\/em>, p. 39)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
And, indeed, it was in the 1960s that the pendulum began to swing toward what Hoyle had derisively called the \u201cBig Bang.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The most important reason was the 1965 discovery of cosmic background radiation \u2013 an echo of the primal \u201cexplosion\u201d \u2013 by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Virtually all scientists now agree, for a multitude of reasons, that the universe \u2013 space and time, or, together, space-time \u2014 began about 14 billion years ago in an incomprehensible \u201cBig Bang.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It is often said by atheist apologists that science has eroded the plausibility of faith over the last century. \u00a0Perhaps that may be true in some respects, yet in others it is demonstrably false. \u00a0The \u201cstandard cosmological model\u201d resonates strongly with a Christian narrative of creation, much to the annoyance of\u00a0atheists such as Steven Weinberg.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>(<\/span>McGrath,\u00a0The Big Question<\/em>,\u00a0p. 82)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Part Two of Three.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Continuing my response \u2013 this is Part Two of Three \u2014 to the implicit challenge offered up by a devotee of a particularly simplistic and historically uninformed scientism, which reads as follows: \u00a0 You won\u2019t find even one instance where science has had to say it was wrong, and someones sacred scriptures from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Veil](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/05\/799px-Veil_Nebula_-_NGC6960.jpg\")
<\/a>