Paul Davies has moved from promoting atheism to conceding that "the laws [of physics] ... seem themselves to be the product of exceedingly ingenious design." (Superforce, p. 243) He further testifies, "[There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all ... it seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature's numbers to make the Universe ... The impression of design is overwhelming." (The Cosmic Blueprint, p. 203)
Paul Davies
Superforce, p. 243
The Cosmic Blueprint, p. 203
“The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming.”
Freeman Dyson
Disturbing the Universe
New York: Harper & Row, 1979, p. 250
"The law that entropy always increases--the second law of thermodynamics--holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations-then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation--well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics, I can give you no hope. There is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation. This exaltation of the second law is not unreasonable. There are other laws which we have strong reason to believe in, and we feel that a hypothesis which violates them is highly improbable; but the improbability is vague and does not confront us as a paralysing array of figures, whereas the chance against a breach of the second law (i.e. against a decrease of the random element) can be stated in figures which are overwhelming."
Arthur Eddington
The Nature of the Physical World
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1928, 74-75.
"The scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation ... His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection."
Albert Einstein
“The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron …. The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been finely adjusted to make possible the development of life.”
Stephen Hawking
“Many people do not like the idea that time has a beginning, probably because it smacks of divine intervention. . . . There were therefore a number of attempts to avoid the conclusion that there had been a big bang.”
Stephen Hawking
A Brief History of Time
New York: Bantam, 1998, 49
"A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with the physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question."
Sir Fred Hoyle
"For the scientist who has lived by faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."
Robert Jastrow
God and the Astronomers
“On Earth, a long sequence of improbable events transpired in just the right way to bring forth our existence, as if we had won a million-dollar lottery a million times in a row. Contrary to the prevailing belief, maybe we are special …. It seems prudent to conclude that we are alone in a vast cosmic ocean, that in one important sense, we ourselves are special in that we go against the Copernican grain.”
Robert Naeye
“OK, Where Are They?”
Astronomy, July 1996, p.36
"We can't understand the universe in any clear way without the supernatural."
Allan Sandage
“Philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of Nature is repugnant to me … I should like to find a genuine loophole.”
Arthur Eddington
“The End of the World: From the Standpoint of Mathematical Physics”
Nature, vol. 127 (1931) p. 450
Einstein tried to avoid such a beginning by creating and holding onto his cosmological “fudge factor” in his equations until 1931, when Hubble’s astronomical observations caused him to grudgingly accept “the necessity for a beginning.”
A. Vibert Douglas
“Forty Minutes With Einstein”
Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada
Vol. 50 (1956), p. 100Einstein quote cited in
Fred Heeren
Show Me God: What the Message from Space Is Telling Us About God
Day Star Publications, 2000, pp. 107-108
“The big bang theory requires a recent origin of the Universe that openly invites the concept of creation.”
Fred Hoyle
The Intelligent Universe
New York: Holt, Rinehard, and Winston, 1983), p. 13
“If we accept the big bang theory, and most cosmologists now do, then a ‘creation’ of some sort is forced upon us.”
Barry Parker
Creation—the Story of the Origin and Evolution of the Universe
New York & London: Plenum Press, 1988, p. 202
Compared to the alternative of supposing that matter and energy somehow always existed, British physicist Edmund Whittaker says, “It is simpler to postulate creation ex nihilo—Divine will constituting Nature from nothingness.”
Edmund Whittaker cited in
Fred Heeren
Show Me God: What the Message from Space Is Telling Us About God
Day Star Publications, 2000, pp. 121
“We do, of course, have an alternative. We could say that there was no creation, and that the universe has always been here. But this is even more difficult to accept than creation.”
Barry Parker
Creation—the Story of the Origin and Evolution of the Universe
New York & London: Plenum Press, 1988, pp. 201-202
Einstein later chided himself for introducing his famous fudge factor in order to make his theory fit. He called the addition of his cosmological constant “the greatest blunder of my life.” (cited by Richard Morris, The Fate of the Universe, New York: Playboy Press, 1982, p. 28) He wrote: “The mathematician Friedmann found a way out of the dilemma. His results then found a surprising confirmation by Hubble’s discovery of the expansion (of the universe).” (cited by Barry Parker, Creation—the Story of the Origin and Evolution of the Universe, New York & London: Plenum Press, 1988, pp. 53-54). After this Einstein wrote not only of the necessity for a beginning, but of his desire “to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thought, the rest are details.” (cited by Nick Herbert, Quantum Reality—Beyond the New Physics, Garden City, New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1985, p. 177).
Fred Heeren
Show Me God: What the Message from Space Is Telling Us About God
Day Star Publications, 2000, pp. 135
“There is no doubt that a parallel exists between the big bang as an event and the Christian notion of creation from nothing.”
George Smoot
“Until the late 1910’s humans were as ignorant of cosmic origins as they had ever been. Those who didn’t take Genesis literally had no reason to believe there had been a beginning.”
George Smoot and Keay Davidson
Wrinkles in Time
New York: William Morrow and Company, 1993, p.30
“There is no explanation in the Big Bang theory for the seemingly fortuitous fact that the density of matter has just the right value for the evolution of a benign, life supporting universe.”
Robert Jastrow
God and the Astronomers, second edition
New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1992, p. 93
“The Hubble Law is one of the great discoveries in science; it is one of the main supports of the scientific story of Genesis.”
Robert Jastrow
God and the Astronomers, second edition
New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1992, p. 53
“Certainly there was something that set it all off. Certainly, if you are religious, I can’t think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match with Genesis.”
Robert Wilson
An interview with Fred Heeren
Show Me God: What the Message from Space Is Telling Us About God
Day Star Publications, 2000, p. 157
“If you’re religious, it’s like looking at God.”
Milton Rothman
“What Went Before?”
Free Inquiry, vol. 13, no. 1 (Winter, 1992/93), p.12
Context: George Smoot commenting on the discovery by the COBE Science Working Group of the expected “ripples” in the microwave background radiation. He called these fluctuations “the fingerprints from the Maker.” Smoot draws attention not only to the fact that his team had provided more evidence for the creation event, but for a “finely orchestrated” creation event. Stephen Hawking was so impressed with this finding that he called it “the most important discovery of the century, if not of all time.”
Fred Heeren
Show Me God: What the Message from Space Is Telling Us About God
Day Star Publications, 2000, p. 177
“How is it that common elements such as carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen happened to have just the kind of atomic structure that they needed to combine to make the molecules upon which life depends? It is almost as though the universe had been consciously designed…”
Richard Morris
The Fate of the Universe
New York: Playboy Press, 1982, p. 28
“In order to make a universe as big and wonderful as it is, lasting as long as it is—we’re talking fifteen billion years and we’re talking huge distances here—in order for it to be that big, you have to make it perfectly. Otherwise, imperfections would mount up and the universe would either collapse on itself or fly apart, and so it’s actually quite a precise job. And I don’t know if you’ve had discussions with people about how critical it is that the density of the universe come out so close to the density that decides whether it’s going to keep expanding forever or collapse back, but we know it’s within one percent.”
George Smoot in an interview with Fred Heeren
Show Me God: What the Message from Space Is Telling Us About God
Day Star Publications, 2000, pp. 168
“The big bang, the most cataclysmic event we can imagine, on closer inspection appears finely orchestrated.”
George Smoot and Keay Davidson
Wrinkles in Time
New York: William Morrow and Company, 1993, p.135
“The question of ‘the beginning’ is as inescapable for cosmologists as it is for theologians.”
George Smoot and Keay Davidson
Wrinkles in Time
New York: William Morrow and Company, 1993, p.189
“the essential element in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis is the same; the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply, at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy.”
Robert Jastrow
God and the Astronomers, second edition
New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1992, p. 14
Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking mentions the ratio between the masses of the proton and the electron as one of the many fundamental numbers in nature, and comments, “The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life.”
Stephen W. Hawking
A Brief History of Time—From the Big Bang to Black Holes
New York: Bantam Books, 1988, p. 125
"Every one of these forces must have just the right strength if there is to be any possibility of life. For example, if electrical forces were much stronger than they are, then no element heavier than hydrogen could form ... But electrical repulsion cannot be too weak. if it were, protons would combine too easily, and the sun ...(assuming that it had somehow managed to exist up to now) would explode like a thermonuclear bomb."
Richard Morris
The Fate of the Universe
New York: Playboy Press, 1982, p. 153
"If the strong nuclear force were slightly weaker, multi-proton nuclei would not hold together. Hydrogen would be the only element in the universe."
Hugh Ross
The Fingerprint of God, second edition
Orange, CA: Promise Publishing Co.
1989, 1991, pp. 121-122
"Stronger (nuclear) forces would cause all of the primordial hydrogen -- not just 25% of it -- to be synthesized into helium early in the history of the universe. And without hydrogen, the stars could never begin to shine."
Richard Morris
The Fate of the Universe
New York: Playboy Press, 1982, p. 153
“To make sense of this view (design as opposed to accident), one must accept the idea of transcendence: that the Designer exists in a totally different order of reality or being, not restrained within the bounds of the Universe itself.”
George F. R. Ellis
Before the Beginning – Cosmology Explained
London and New York: Boyars/Bowerdean, 1993, 1994, p. 97
“The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.”
David
Psalm 19:1-2
“Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? … Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator …”
Isaiah 40:26a, 28a
“For this is what the Lord says—He who created the heavens, He is God; He who fashioned and made the Earth, He founded it; He did not create it to be empty; but formed it to be inhabited.”
Isaiah 45:18
“… what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For 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.”
Paul
Letter to the Romans 1:19:20