Planets viewed from Earth as if they were at the distance of our moon [Video]

Planets viewed from Earth as if they were at the distance of our moon [Video]

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• Size Of A Planet (e-clecticism.blogspot.com)
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ERIS: World's first realistic simulation of the formation of the Milky Way - YouTube

ERIS: World's first realistic simulation of the formation of the Milky Way - YouTube

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• Milky Way galaxy re-created (cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com)
• Physicists Recreate The Formation Of The Milky Way (businessinsider.com)
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• First Glimpse Into Birth of the Milky Way (librarykvocf.wordpress.com)

Hawking and the Grand Designer MP3 by Peter S. Williams - Apologetics 315

A short time ago, Brian Auten posted a lecture by Peter S. Williams on Hawking's book The Grand Design.  take a listen if you missed it. 

Hawking and the Grand Designer MP3 by Peter S. Williams - Apologetics 315

Related articles

• Book Review: God and Stephen Hawking (debrakb.blogspot.com)
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High-Five of the Day #2 - Sunday Quote: Alexander Vilenkin on Cosmic Beginnings - Apologetics 315

Brian Auten posted a great quote Alexander Vilenkin. I love it. I think that this calls for a High-Five!

"It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape: they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning."
- Alexander Vilenkin

Sunday Quote: Alexander Vilenkin on Cosmic Beginnings - Apologetics 315

William Lane Craig's Questions for Stephen Hawking (MP3)

One of the big stories in the past week has been regarding Stephen Hawking trying to explain why have such an ordered universe without having to understand that God designed it. I was wondering what William Lan Craig thought about it and thanks to Brian Auten tweeting this link, I don't have to wonder.









rf_audiocast-2010-09-06-51320.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object)

They claimed to be wise | Uncommon Descent

I found the following quote on the Uncommon Descent blog:

Extracted from the UK Telegraph comes the faith creed of modern scientism.
“Evolution by natural selection, and all the other processes that produced our planet and the life on it, are sufficient to explain how we got to be the way we are, given the laws of physics that operate in our universe. However, there is still scope for an intelligent designer of universes as a whole. The designer may have been responsible for the Big Bang, but nothing more. A very advanced civilisation would have the ability to set precise parameters, thereby designing the universe in detail. It would not be possible – even at the most advanced level – for the designers to interfere with baby universes once they had formed. From the moment of its own Big Bang, each universe would be on its own.”

So let me see it I understand the argument. Although the universe is obviously designed and without a designer we have no real explanation for the laws of Physics, the author believes that the laws of physics are good enough to explain what happens after the big bang. The author even hypothesizes an advanced civilization having the ability to design the universe but doesn't explain any such evidence. So it's easier to agree to the possibility of an advance civilization designing the universe and/or all the laws of the universe snapping into place after the Big Bang (neither if which you have any evidence of) than it is to believe in God? Wow. Romans 1:18-32

¹⁸The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
²¹For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²²Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
²⁴Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
²⁶Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
²⁸Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. ²⁹They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, ³⁰slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; ³¹they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. ³²Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

They claimed to be wise | Uncommn Descent

YouTube - 'A Universe From Nothing' by Lawrence Krauss, AAI 2009

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I found this great lecture on the Internet from Dr. Lawrence Krauss whom I respect as a physicist and his ability to explain Physics to the general public. He is a gifted scholar and writer. I agreed with all the evidence and numbers and math he provided it all made sense. When he talked about the time in the early 20th century when it was proved that the Universe is not eternal and that there was a beginning and all the galaxies are rapidly expanding from each other, he pointed out that many religious people took it as proof that Genesis 1:1 is correct. He correctly points out that how you come to conclusion can be influenced by what you believe. During the course of the lecture, he stated that although it has been evidenced that the universe came from nothing, quantum mechanical pertubations (matter and energy spontaneously jumping in and out of existence) makes the creation of matter inevitable if there is truly a multiverse and we just just happen to live in the Universe where everything is optimum for our existence at the right time in the right place in our galaxy where we can actually measure and do all the science - collecting the evidence he presented. Therefore, according to him, there is no need for a creator because what we observe was inevitable. I find it interesting that through out the talk a lot of presuppositions were made that reflect his bias against religion.

1. There is a multiverse - multiple universes where the laws of physics are different in each one. And as yet we can't prove that.
2. He argues that there is no design because all possible realities exist but can't prove it.
3. He assumes that because so much of our observable universe is inhospitable to our form of life, we are anomaly and not special or favored or purposed in any way.
4. He also stated twice that we live in a universe where rare things happen often including life. If something happen rarely it can't happen often And where else in the universe is there any life at all?

As I said I agree with all of the evidence, math, and observable science that Dr. Krauss presented but it's his conclusions and his bias against the very thought of God that he is accountable to taints his conclusions. He neglected to mention why theists who understand Genesis 1:1 have no problem with the thought that the reality of space and time and everything in our universe came from nothing. Genesis 1:1 says exactly that but say that God caused it...he forced it. Krauss seemed to imply an eternal state of nothing that gave rise to the universe, but says nothing about where that singularity in fact came from.



YouTube - 'A Universe From Nothing' by Lawrence Krauss, AAI 2009

Anthropocentric Cosmology

My brother-in-Christ, Mariano, sent me the accompanying cartoon. He is right. It most definitely captures the anthropocentric cosmological argument perfectly. The argument is that the universe is balanced and optimized for human life. I however take the view that the universe is designed according to God's purposes and desires. We just happen to be part of those purposes.

Sunday Quote: Ed Harrison on Fine Tuning - Apologetics 315

I just found the following quote by Edward Harris, posted by Bryan at Apologetics 315. It's amazing.

Sunday Quote: Ed Harrison on Fine Tuning - Apologetics 315: "The fine tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence of deistic design. Take your choice: blind chance that requires multitudes of universes or design that requires only one."

- Edward Robert Harrison

I didn't know who Edward Harrison is so I looked him up. He's a noted cosmologist. You can read his latest text book on cosmology called Cosmology: The Science of the Universe which is also in the Google library. Although the man is dead he is credited with solving Olber's Paradox.

He had an astounding career and I don't think his comment about the design of the universe can be ignored.

Sunday Quote: Stephen Hawking on the Big Bang - Apologetics 315

Again Brian over at Apologetics 315 has done us a great favor it providing the following quote by Stephen W. Hawking

"The odds against a universe like ours emerging out of something like the big bang are enormous... I think clearly there are religious implications whenever you start to discuss the origins of the universe."

- Stephen W. Hawking

Sunday Quote: Stephen Hawking on the Big Bang - Apologetics 315:

“Fine Tuned Cosmos” by David Heddle (Faith and Science Part 2)

Brian, from the Apologetics 315 blog, has tweeted a very interesting article from
Thinking Christian. It is the 2nd part to an lecture I posted about last week. You can download or listen to the lecture at Thinking Christian.


This an awesome lecture by a capable physicist, David Heddle, Ph.D. and has provided a powerpoint that goes with this lecture. It's really fun and he lays out the arguments well. He has a blog called He Lives.

I thought that he put together a great argument of how current cosmology and physics confirm the evidence for the existence of God. He points out that the more we learn about the universe, the more we see more about how amazingly God put together the universe.

Here is David Heddle's powerpoint

FineTunedCosmos

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