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| ISBN-13: | 9781514451496 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Xlibris US |
| Publication date: | 02/05/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 104 |
| File size: | 206 KB |
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The Big Questions Made Easy
And How Reason Leads to Faith
By Doug Zimmer
Xlibris
Copyright © 2016 Doug ZimmerAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5144-5150-2
CHAPTER 1
Why This Book?
I applied mine heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason of things ... Ecclesiastes 7:25
(King James Version – This will be noted as KJV after this notation)
There are more than a few books that address the big questions through either faith or reason. Most are philosophical treatises that require some thought to comprehend. My desire was to address some of the important issues in life in simple terms that anyone can grasp easily. I have always had the ability to break down complex issues into easy to understand language that anyone can grasp.
My hope is to involve you, the reader, in the process as a jury using circumstantial evidence to decide about some of life's great issues. Is God real? Why a Messiah? Is the Godhead a Trinity or separate personages? Why do bad things happen to good people? What is the purpose of life? People have always struggled with these questions.
Since there can never be a definitive answer to God's reality (unless you personally get to meet Him) circumstantial evidence is the best way to come to conclusions. Faith and the promptings of the Holy Ghost is the only way to truly know God, but sometimes it is necessary to find faith. Finding faith can come through reason, which is what this book will help with. Circumstantial evidence is a method of drawing inferences from clues. While an inference may not seem like strong evidence, multiple inferences pointing in the same direction should be considered in shaping a conclusion. Imagine how many murderers would get away with their crimes if we insisted that only direct observation by a multitude of individuals could be used to convict in a felony crime. Very few murderers commit their acts where there is a high likelihood of being caught in the act.
If the police found the murder weapon in someone's home, blood on that individual's clothing that belonged to the victim, a motive for the crime that only the suspect had, the suspect's DNA at the crime scene, and witnesses that came forward testifying that the suspect said he planned to kill that victim you would need to consider the possibility that the suspect was guilty. There can be, of course, extenuating circumstances and we can be thankful for reputable defense attorneys that honestly seek for those circumstances.
When building a case in the following chapters for the subjects above I hope to build a solid case that is convincing. There will no doubt be those who try to refute the evidence as a defense attorney would. If you are that defense attorney I can only suggest that your integrity, your character, and your eternal destiny rest on finding the truth. You will neither gain nor lose assignments or promotions based on the outcome of these cases so, of course, be true to yourself.
I have always struggled with life's big questions and I think that seekers of truth will find my arguments compelling. My hope is that all will employ their mental faculties to the fullest in deciding for themselves.
The difficulty in this endeavor is that men are a combination of passion and reason.
Reason helps us to accept and to work within the law and to live within societal norms. Reason also makes us aware that there is something greater than ourselves at work in the universe (as I hope you will see in this writing).
Passion can drive our actions. Without passion our reason would amount to philosophical debates and arguments, often without ensuing action. Without reason our passions can take us down paths of illegality, immorality, selfishness, crudeness, and other anti-social behaviors.
Reason then is the bridle that controls and reins in our passions so that our actions will lead us to truth.
Why am I saying this? Men's passions over the years have prevented reason from determining their beliefs. Because religious ideas are a matter of faith it is easy to let passions overcome reason. This is why I put reason first in this book.
My hope is that you will continue on a journey of reason with me. While we cannot 'turn off' our passions, we can 'bridle' them long enough to examine the facts. I hope that you will want to follow a journey of reason to see how it leads to answers to the big questions and to faith.
I have taken life's experiences, answers to prayers, secular and religious text studies; and then using the method of examining circumstantial evidence I have come to the conclusions that you will find in this book. You will find that each chapter builds a bridge to reach the next chapter in sequence. Skipping ahead to subjects of interest will cause you to have gaps in the logic and missing evidence. I encourage a start to finish approach.
This is a book of searching for the Truth and I hope that you will join me in that search, even if it leads you to different conclusions than the ones that I arrived at.
Life is a mosaic. I hope when you finish this book that you will be able to see the multi-dimensional beauty that God has prepared for your life through having a plan and a purpose.
My journey for truth has not ended and I hope it will never end. I hope that you will share my journey so far.
CHAPTER 2Is There a God?
We should always start at the beginning and with the biggest question. The atheist Bertrand Russel reportedly said, "Without a God there is no purpose in life". Without a God there also could be no religion. Even the atheists would have no religion if it was certain that God did not exist (to be explained later in this chapter). If I successfully make the case in this chapter that God does exist then we can use this foundation to discuss issues in the following chapters. If one were to continue to not believe in a God after following the evidence below, then one must indeed side with Mr. Russell in concluding that there is no purpose to life. At that point there is no reason to finish this book. What, after all, is a life without purpose? Certainly, without a God all events must be random and meaningless and there can be no foundation for morality, no way to find happiness, and no hope for the future. Without a God and an afterlife there is no hope. Life is difficult and then you die ...
Albert Einstein was at one time an atheist who, in the course of studying the vastness of the universe and the minute details of atomic physics decided there had to be a creator; he decided that it was not possible for everything to have happened by accident. He said "Gentlemen, the deeper that I delve into the sciences of this universe, the more clearly I believe that one God or force or influence has organized all of it for our discovery". (Psalm 19:1 "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork" - KJV)
I hope to show that science points to the existence of God through a few different disciplines.
Big Bang Theory
Let's look at the Big Bang theory. The essence of this theory is that all matter was condensed from gravitational pull into a single point the size of the period at the end of this sentence. The energy created by this caused an explosion and the result of that explosion was that all of the matter in that little point became the present universe. That means that scientists believe that over 100 billion galaxies, each with an average of 100 billion stars (most of them larger than our star, the sun) and corresponding planets were encompassed in that period at the end of this sentence. Incidentally, if I can be a little irreverent for a moment, if God is a man, and men love explosions, I don't exclude the possibility of a Big Bang beginning to the universe. I just have trouble with trillions upon trillions of tons of matter coming from a pinpoint to fill the universe. Science does not allow for something to come from nothing, and true scientists should also not allow for that explanation.
Anthropic Principle
While we're on the subject of the universe, there are scientific calculations concerning what would have to happen for life to exist on a planet. There are over 200 different things that make life possible on this planet, some to such specificity that they must be correct to incredibly high factors. Cosmological factors comprise the Anthropic Principle and can be found in 'The Anthropic Cosmological Principle' by John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tippler from the Oxford University Press. Some samples follow:
For a star to burn long enough for life to develop on an orbiting planet electromagnetism must be thirty nine times stronger than gravity.
Density determines gravity. If gravity is sufficiently strong the universe will stop expanding and collapse. If it is too weak the universe will expand forever. It appears to be expanding at a rate that allows for life to form, possibly because of theoretical forces such as dark matter slowing the expansion.
A large planet's gravity can deflect asteroids and comets. Jupiter does this for the Earth. It even absorbs some hits for the Earth.
Earth's electromagnetic field blocks solar radiation. This is accomplished by the two most inner core layers of the Earth.
The size and distance of our moon ensures climate stability by minimizing changes in the Earth's tilt. Without a tilt, Earth wouldn't have seasons. A severe tilt would result in extreme seasons. As little as a one to two degree tilt could produce the ice ages that the Earth has gone through.
The water on our planet's surface should have evaporated early in our existence as a molten hot new planet under a hot sun. Fortunately for us, it not only stayed, but has molecular qualities that cause it to expand as it freezes. This keeps it from sinking during ice ages where it would likely never thaw. It cleans, heals, and nourishes. Life could not happen without its precise molecular make-up. Water molecules on comets, for instance, are put together differently and therefore have different properties. The two hydrogen and one oxygen atom that make up the water molecule can be combined in different fashions. It is our good fortune that they are combined as they are.
The force binding nucleons into nuclei, is 0.007. If it were 0.006, only hydrogen could exist, and complex chemistry would be impossible. If it were 0.008, no hydrogen would exist. Almost all organic life contains hydrogen, so life could not exist without this specificity.
Dark energy is expanding the universe. This rate of expansion opposes the force of gravity that could potentially collapse the universe. Dark energy is thought to be about 74% of the universe, yet no one is able to describe or identify it. It just keeps forming to fill the void caused by the expansion of the universe and to prevent the universe from collapsing.
The number of spatial dimensions in space-time, is 3. Life could not exist if there were 2 or 4 because gravity would react differently. Planets might fly off into space or collapse into stars.
If radiation was smoother, then stars, star clusters, and galaxies would not have formed. If radiation was coarser then the universe by now would be mostly black holes and empty space.
Scientists develop theories and write equations based on those theories. Often experiments prove the theory and the accompanying equations to be correct. One of those theories was not only that there are smaller particles than atoms, but a theory of how those particles acquired mass. When scientists used the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to smash an atom they found one of the particles they were expecting, but did not find others and did not find the correct mass. The results of that experiment "rule out any chance of life, unless the universe is shaped by inexplicable fine-tuning" (Quanta Magazine, June 1, 2013, Natalie Wolchover).
Scientists are unable to explain why the Big Bang did not create equal amounts of matter and anti-matter, which would have neutralized one another. For some unknown reason more matter than anti-matter was created so that we (and everything else in the universe) could exist.
The universe did not start out having carbon, the basic building block of life. It was necessary for billions of years to pass in a stable universe to create carbon, which would not have happened without the factors listed above. And in regards to carbon and life, let's talk about DNA.
DNA
Bill Gates said "human DNA is like a computer program, but far more advanced than any software ever created". The essence of this is that many scientists believe that a computer program far more advanced than we are capable of creating was condensed into a microscopic size by accident.
Fred Hoyle argued for a fine-tuned Universe in his 1984 book 'Intelligent Universe'. He compares "the chance of obtaining even a single functioning protein by chance combination of amino acids, to a star system full of blind men solving Rubik's Cube simultaneously". Our microscopic DNA carry about 7 billion amino acid bases that it uses to build proteins which in turn control the structure, function, and regulation of the body's tissues and organs. It is necessary to use an electron microscope to see DNA and yet it's 7 million bases form into about 20,000 genes to create around 100,000 proteins that build and maintain life.
Fibonacci Numbers
Consider the randomness that would be evident in a universe that was created by accident, as evolutionary science suggests. There should be no evident patterns in nature. The Fibonacci numbers seem to contradict that logic. The Fibonacci numbers at its simplest is a sequence that adds the prior 2 numbers to achieve the next number, after the first two: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, etc ...
What makes this simple progression so unique is that you will find it throughout nature and it has multiple patterns woven into the original pattern. As an example of patterns woven into the original, you can take any ten consecutive Fibonacci numbers and find the sum to be divisible by eleven. There are so many patterns that it took the following book to detail a few. (See 'The Fabulous Fibonacci Numbers' by Alfred S. Posamentier and Ingmar Lehmann).
The reproductive patterns of rabbits, the genealogy of male bees, spiral patterns on pineapples, pine cones, daisies, and sunflowers all exhibit this pattern. And this list goes on.
The ratio of two consecutive Fibonacci numbers approaches what is known as the golden ratio. This ratio can be found in great architecture and art, such as the Parthenon, the ratio of its sides forming the golden ratio (1.618). This ratio is also found in the great pyramid at Giza. And in Leonardo Da Vinci's 'Vitruvian Man' and 'Mona Lisa'.
Modern psychological studies have shown this ratio to be pleasing to the eye, but early architects and artists certainly knew this instinctively. The Fibonacci sequence was not even introduced until 1202 and was not fully understood as we know it today until several hundred years later.
Why would this apparent beauty of symmetry exist in a random accidental creation?
Evolution
I am a simple man who sees things in a simple manner and I enjoy making things simple for others as well. The atheist view is that single cell animals were created by accident and that we evolved, as did all animal life, from that humble beginning. The other alternative is that we were created by intelligent design. So in an effort to try to see things as an atheist would see them let's start with accepting evolution as fact and see where it takes us.
To have evolved one must have a starting point, so let's assume that it's a one-celled animal; let's make it an amoeba. If you're going to have an accidental creation, it is likely going to start with a small accident. An amoeba reproduces by splitting in two and eats by engulfing its food. If we were to evolve from an amoeba we would need to do so quickly since they have a one to two day life cycle. (In fairness there are other one-celled animals that live for more than 2 days. While this would make a difference in the argument for evolution, if you follow all of the following arguments I don't think you will find that it would make a substantial difference.) Darwin's theory is that all changes are accidents that happen to accommodate changes in our environment or to adapt to the current environment. Accidental evolution would certainly make sense because I know of no one that can will himself to be taller, or change his eye color (without contact lenses), or alter their anatomy in any way that does not require surgery or hormone treatments. If we can't will ourselves to be different, then certainly any changes must be accidental.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Big Questions Made Easy by Doug Zimmer. Copyright © 2016 Doug Zimmer. Excerpted by permission of Xlibris.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Chapter 1 Why This Book?, 1,Chapter 2 Is There a God?, 4,
Chapter 3 Where to learn about God?, 13,
Chapter 4 The Physical Nature of God, 20,
Chapter 5 A Discussion of Mormonism, 23,
Chapter 6 Modern Day Revelation, 33,
Chapter 7 The Trinity versus the Godhead, 37,
Chapter 8 Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?, 51,
Chapter 9 The Purpose of Life, 58,
Chapter 10 Free Will or Destiny?, 67,
Chapter 11 Types and Shadows, 70,
Chapter 12 Seeking Spiritual Truth, 73,
Chapter 13 My Journey (Conclusion), 82,
Acknowledgements, 87,
Appendix:, 89,