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The Universe is Old

In 1989, NASA launched a very ambitious project into orbit in the form of a satellite. It was called the “Cosmic Background Explorer” (COBE), a satellite designed to measure radiation from interstellar sources. To the scientific community’s surprise, it detected a large amount of background radiation - coming in from every direction in the universe. What the satellite was detecting was the residual effect of very hot elements, decayed over time. The question is — where did all of this radiation come from? The scientific community’s resounding answer: The Big Bang.

For years, scientists had to debate whether the Universe came into existence or was always here (the “Steady State hypothesis”). When it was confirmed by COBE that the universe had Cosmic Background Radiation, the scientific community immediately siezed it as definitive proof that the Universe had originally been infinitesimally hot, and infinitesimally dense. Since this was an unstable configuration, the “Big Bang” is what occurred after it. Due to the interwoven nature of space and time, we can say that the Universe “began” at the Big Bang. It is roughly estimated, through careful mathematics, that the Universe is 13.7 billion years old. Since the COBE satellite, the Wilkinson Microwave Anistropy Probe has taken its place in the sky, exploring the radiation that is the photograph of our universe as it was in the past.

The Universe is Expanding

Think of a time when you’ve stood by a roadway, watching cars pass you by. Have you noticed that the pitch of the sounds of car engines change as the cars move toward you and then move further away? It’s true. This effect is known famously as the “Doppler Effect.” As a car moves toward you, the sound waves are compressed in the air in front of the moving vehicle and the engine sounds higher in pitch as it approaches. As the car passes you, the air behind the car expands, the sound waves expand, and the noise from the engine lowers in pitch. This is a canonical example of the Doppler Effect in action.

But what does this effect have to do with cosmology? Well, there’s some more physics involved but the theory is the same. Light (that is emitted from stars) is made up of waves, much like sound in the air is. (Light is also made up of particles, which is known as the Wave-Particle Duality). Light however, does not need a medium such as air to propagate — it can move through a vacuum. Knowing that light behaves like a wave however, allows us to apply Doppler Effect principles to all light sources. Due to the Electromagnetic Spectrum, we know that as light increases in frequency (just like when the sound from our car on the road is coming toward us), it shifts in colour toward the blue end of the spectrum (known as a “blue-shift”). As light decreases in frequency (just like when the car moves away from us), light will shift towards the red end of the spectrum (known as a “red-shift”). With this information in hand, we know that if a light-source is moving toward us it will have a “blue-shift” and if it moves away, it will have a “red-shift.”

So, what happens when we take a look at the stars? Can we see if they are moving toward us or away from us? Well, with nothing to compare the original hue of the light, it’s impossible to tell if the light is moving towards or away from us. Not to despair though — our physicist friends probably have some more physics tricks for us. It is well known that each element (gases in particular) have a certain absorption of light. When used with the process of absorbption spectroscopy, we can determine which elements are present when analyzing a light source. This is where we use Fraunhofer lines to determine the type of gas being received. How does this help us though? Well, we know what type of gases are typically in stars. We also know what the absorption lines are for these gases from stationary sources of light. We can show that the difference between absorption patterns for stationary sources of light and moving sources of light are, in fact, different. So, when we take a look at a star’s hue through a spectrometer and recognize the elements that comprise the star’s atmosphere, we can see whether it has been red-shifted or blue-shifted.

After all that - what is the result? If the universe was truly static, we’d expect a mix of blue-shifted and red-shifted stars as they all fall toward and move away from each other under the weight of gravity. Surprisingly, most stars are red-shifted, meaning that they’re all moving away from us. But what does that mean about the nature of the universe? As a visual example, consider yourself in the center of a large sphere. Then pretend someone inflates the sphere with you inside it. As the sphere inflates, all points on the surface of the sphere move away from you. Using these tools of deduction, we can prove that the Universe, is in fact, expanding.

What motivation is there for god?

Many see god as a “creator”, a being that “started” or “created” the universe. For those that believe that a god has other properties, we will address these properties in future articles. At present, we will concern ourselves with the notion that “god” created our universe.

Is god inside or outside the Universe?

While this seems like an odd question - in what plane of existence would “god” exist? Can we place a creator inside the creation? Many people like to imagine god as a unifying force (Buddhism utilizes this philosophy) or a force that exists “all around us”, like the original idea of luminiferous aether, the medium that light supposedly propagated through. But does it make sense that a creator would exist on the inside of its creation? Certainly not initially. Could god enter the universe after it has been created? The problem with this idea that god can enter into the universe once its been created breaks the essential properties of god. For instance, god is supposedly omnipresent, that is, all around us. If god were to exist in the universe, the laws of the universe would apply, and thus it is impossible for such a god to be present in “all points of the universe.” Many properties of god that theists promote would essentially break down and submit to what we formally know as our natural laws.

What’s the “first cause” argument?

This is one of the more fallacious arguments typically put forth by apologists to try and argue that there must be a god to cause everything to exist. Here are the basic rules:

1. Every effect has a cause(s).
2. Nothing can cause itself.
3. A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
4. Therefore, there must be a first cause; or, there must be something which is not an effect.

The argument for the existence of the universe is as follows:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe had a cause.

The problem with this argument is very simple - the first required assumption. We know that inside our universe, this assumption is true and we can trace all effects back to the first cause known as the “Big Bang.” However, outside our universe, we cannot state with certainty that there is a need for such a formal requirement. Ironically, this is precisely the logic theists will use to try and convince others that there is a god: the universe needs a cause to exist, but god can exist outside of our universe and does not need a first cause to “exist.” Of course, you might be inclined to ask: if god does not need cause to exist, why should the universe? And finally, how do we know we only need one god to initiate first cause? Do we need multiple or perhaps an infinite gods to make this happen?

Occam’s Razor

To solve this predicament of which model to use, science has an unofficial rule to designing theories: Occam’s Razor. You may have heard the adage: “the simplest explanation is usually the right one;” this is essentially Occam’s Razor in a nutshell. So, the question before us is as follows: considering that the laws outside our universe may not neccessarily require a first-cause argument, does the existence of god help or hinder this view of how the universe came into existence? Occam’s Razor suggests that if we’re considering a situation that requires god then universe, or just universe, god can be “razored” out. The requirement to need an “all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present” god to create the universe is hurting our model of existence in terms of simplicity. Logically, we can conclude that we do not need god in the causal chain equation and accept the fact that the universe does exist, has always existed, and did not need an outside force to cause it to exist. William of Ockham would be proud.

What if Occam’s Razor is wrong?

You might be puzzled about why we can apply Occam’s Razor in such a theological case. Nobody actually knows what exists outside the universe - perhaps it really is a realm of god or gods that go about creating universes. Maybe they have a whole collection of universes sitting on their godly shelves. The question before you though is: if this were the case, is this relevant? Does the idea of this realm have any affect on what you do in this realm?

The answer is no. We can equate this situation to popular ideas in dimensional theory. Consider a simple two-dimensional construct - the mathematical x-axis and y-axis. Think of this construct as a sheet of paper - it has width and height. Notice that movement in one dimension does not neccessarily mean a change in the other. For instance, on a piece of paper we can trace a straight line across the width of the page all while maintaining the same distance from the top of the page (a change in the x-axis, but stationary in the y-axis). Conversely, we can trace a straight line down the side of the page all while maintaining the distance from the edge of the page (a change in the y-axis, but stationary in the x-axis). This simple idea can show how movement in one dimension does not affect positioning in either a lower or higher dimension. To take this idea to the universal stage, if we consider the exterior of the universe outside our four-dimensional space-time construct, we know that anything that occurs in the higher dimensions does not affect our positioning in our four dimensions. For instance, if a theoretical god decided to use our universe as a soccer ball and kick it around for a few hours along a fifth dimension, there will be no movement in our four dimensions.

In conclusion, if you have a requirement to believe that Ockham’s rule is in fact wrong, and you still need to have a god to create the universe, you still must concede that such a god is not relevant to our universe. Any action that god takes outside the universe has no effect on our contained universe. Likewise, any action that we take in our four dimensional universe has no affect on our position outside our universe.

Note: If you’d like to know more about some popular theories about dimensional theory, there is a flash animation found at http://www.tenthdimension.com/ that illustrates how mathematics can abstractly describe the usual four dimensions and what properties the upper dimensions must have.

Conclusions

Atheism is the lack of belief for a god. For atheists, Occam’s Razor makes the most sense and the argument for the existence of god stops there. For theists however, they cannot accept the Occam’s Razor rule and still require or desire the existence of god outside the universe. While this is a defensible position to take, the folly of theists is that they take this argument a step further, and make unfounded claims such as god coming into people’s lives and god constantly making slight adjustments to the world to better people’s outcomes. If theists were to stop their beliefs at simply believing that there is an irrelevant god that exists outside the four dimensions, atheists would not be able to form an argument against such a position because it is irrefutable - the outcome is based solely on whether you’d like to use Occam’s Razor or not. Unfortunately, theists do not like the idea of an irrelevant god, and instead try to give god relevance to the actions inside the universe; a position which atheists can easily refute.