The Greatest Scientific Question

[Tinky]

It is extremely unlikely that anyone of us would be born into this world. The unlikely odds are so massively stacked against us that the human mind is almost incapable of comprehending it. Because we do exist, it’s vital for us to ponder what makes it possible for us to be here.

The number of atoms in the entire observable universe is estimated to be around of10⁸⁰; that would be a 10 with 80 zero after it. The number of atoms in the human body would be 7²⁷. Another way of looking at us is that we have 10 trillion cells in our body with each cell having 100 trillion atoms.

To give you any idea of how difficult it would be to arrange the atoms that comprise you by pure chance. Let us first start on a very small scale. Most people are familiar with the Rubik’s Cube puzzle toy. It is a 3x3x3 square with six sides and 54 faces. A Rubik’s Cube has approximately forty-threequintillion possible combinations.

You would need a truly mammoth sized-cube to account for the atoms in our body. The atoms that make up our puzzling fleshly body need to bond together in very special ways. Further complexity is added by the fact that atoms have subcomponents, and their subcomponents have their own subcomponents.

To have a Rubik’s Cube that matches the difficult factor of our existence it would have to be at least the size of our universe, with the individual squares the size of a hydrogen atom. Since only the hand of God could turn a cube so large, I came up with a mathematical formula to express the odds against a group of atoms randomly arranging themselves into us. It would have to be at least a trillion to the power of trillion to the power of a trillion.

None of the Dominant Views Make Sense

Our existence throws a monkey wrench into the current understanding of how the universe operates. Most scientists believe that we are on a one-way trip in a universe that is destined to expand forever into a cold-dead world that’s devoid of life. It’s rather strange that we would have a front-row seat right at the moment the universe is in its prime.

If the universe is endless, we really shouldn’t be here in the first place. The odds against our existence would be: 1 vs. a number that would go on for infinity.

The biblical view has its own problems to consider. Since there have been only about 10 billion people on Planet Earth, I can exhaust the odds of any one of us existing from just the atoms in one of my genes. We might think we are special because we won the life lottery, but that doesn’t explain how we beat out an infinite number of potential people who could have easily taken our place.

Just with our parents alone, long odds are against us being, born. A fertile woman has 100,000 viable eggs on average. A man will produce about 12 trillion sperm over the course of his reproductive lifetime. The probability of that one sperm with half your name on it hitting that one egg with the other half of your name on it is one in 400 quadrillion. The math grows exponentially massive as you work you back through the generation that finally ends at Adam and Eve.

Anchored to the Ultimate Foundation of Matter

For a long time I was troubled by how we fit into such a vast and ever-shifting universe. One day it dawned in me that we are not tied to matter in our physical state. The atoms that make up your body, are not the same atoms that your where born with. Our physical existence can be best described as a wave that transmits through this life -- much like water waves transmit through the ocean.

Of course, the Bible says we have souls, which contain the heart of our consciousness. Since we have no way of examining a soul, I can only use our mortal bodies as a point of reference.

In some way we are connected to the ultimate foundation of matter. We have come a long way since Anaximenes of Miletus claimed in 600 BC that everything was made of air, fire, earth and water. Right now, fermions are believed to be the smallest unit of matter. As we continue our quest to find even small units, we may reach a point where matter cannot be divided into a smaller particle. It is here where the ultimate foundation of matter remains constant.

A good example of this could be how a hard drive functions. The data on the platters can be written and changed numerous times, but the platters themselves are static. Somewhere on those platters is the data that records our existence. It remains permanent based on God’s will.

Two Possible Answers

I’ve given much thought to what can account for extremely long odds on our existence. I came up with two possibilities: The first one relies on random chance without God’s involvement and the second one has God exploring all possibilities at the same time.

Random Reincarnation

In a universe where their is no God to make decisions on who will exist, everything that happens would be based on pure random chance. With no limit on time and the ways that matter could arrange itself, it is possible to have endless cycles where every possibility would eventually play out.

I was going to call this sub-heading, “Atheistic Reincarnation.” I assumed that people who rejected God would be open to this option. Strangely, atheists reject any possibility of life after death. I go into greater detail of this reality in my article titled:“Atheism - A Cult of Death.”

I did find one academic that held to this view: Jonathan Rowe, an astronomer from Harvard, said, “If time is infinite on both ends, then we have infinite rolls of the dice of probability. That means, however infinitesimally small the probabilities that brought “you” into existence, with enough rolls of dice, “you” will come into existence again, and again and again forever. And if time is infinite in reverse, “now” isn’t the only time “you” existed. Accordingly, “you” have always existed and always will.”

If our existence is totally dependant on the random arrangement of matter, it is possible that we have been down this path before. Dice have six sides, so every number will come up, on average, every six rolls.

One reason why random chance may seem impossible is because it takes so long to occur. I’ve spoken with several people who automatically conclude that very remote odds are unattainable because they go beyond the limits of our minds.

Imagine allowing a small boat to freely float the world’s oceans; each day a one-ton weight would be randomly dropped from the sky. With the worlds’ oceans stretching over 139 millionsquare miles, it would be very hard to strike the boat. As the millions of years turned into billions, trillions of years, you would eventually reach a day where the randomly dropped weight would find its target.

Even if you had universe of oceans to hide that tiny boat, the weight would still eventually connect with the target. Since time passes instantly for people who don’t yet exist, the process required to form us would be no obstacle.

One obvious negative of random reincarnation is being trapped in an endless loop of futility. We spend a lifetime gaining knowledge and then at death we loose everything. All our friendships, achievements, and lessons learned from previous lives are all lost.

Divine Creator

The other possibility for our existence involves a Supreme Being choosing to form us. If you believe in the existence of God, there is no problem with the creation of complex life. The only mystery is figuring out why God would pick us out of an infinite number of possible candidates.

We humans can only do one thing at a time. God may have the ability to perform multiple tasks all at once. What may have made us seem the unlikely winning ticket in the lottery of life is the fact that God selected every possible number combination before the drawing.

One of the logical objections to creationism that is unexplained exists of an entity that is already endowed with complexity. The obvious question is, “Who made God?”

We don’t have an answer to that question.

However, once you have a Super Being, a supernatural drama unfolds. Because the Lord is an intelligent being, He is able to beat random chance to the punch. By having God in the process, you dramatically increase the chances for our existence.

Because God is a supernatural being, his ability to create items with an intricate structure is far superior to what can be accomplished by just random chance.

Here is an illustration to outline my point: If a comet struck the earth, it is mathematically possible to have the energy of the impact to cause a vast number of atoms bond together to form all the buildings that make-up New York City. This option is extreme unlikely because you would need to hit a zillion holes-in-one all at the same time just to form one component of a building. However, if the comet strike was repeated an endless number of times, you would eventually arrive at a point where New York City was formed. Because we humans have the ability to think and create a higher order of things, we are the ones who accomplished this task, well ahead of random chance.

Even though Man is an extreme unlikelihood himself, but once you have him, the possibilities are endless. Human beings have created thousands of cities all over this planet.

God is vastly more complex than Man, but once you factor Him in you add a new dimension of unlimited possibilities. Because He has the power to explore every avenue of possibilities, it is likely that he has done so.

Don’t Blow Your Opportunity

A key reason why I would have to choose the Divine Creator option over random reincarnation is because of the unlikelihood of life forming on earth. If there is no, God, living organisms would have likely formed somewhere else in the universe and then found their way here. Evolutionists presumptuously claim that we are the starting point of life.

It may seem bewildering that there could be endless copies of us that God may have created across a multitude of dimensions. Since I already have to share the Creator with 10 billion on this planet, it’s only a small leap to share God with my clones. As long as the greatness of God expands with the numbers, I don’t feel at any loss.

If God has exhausted all the possibilities in creating us, then it’s important for us to make the right decision to persevere the opportunity we have been granted. While atheists can, at best, only hope to be trapped on an endless merry-go-round, we have the chance to enter into a personal relationship that will last for all eternity.

Romans 10:13-17

“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?

And how shall they preach, except they be sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

http://www.rapturere...m/rr-exist.html

[hippias]

Hello Tinky, I don't quite understand your probability argument: Do you try to figure out the likelihood of forming a human-being by atoms on a random path? I don't think that anyone would suggest that this is the way life came into existence.

There are laws of nature that govern the behaviour of particles etc. and these laws may very well drive atoms and molecules into certain shapes. The probality of forming a nice and regular soduim-chloride crystal by accident is almost zero, yet it happens every day and you could produce nice ones at home if you like, because the laws nature make them possible and even prefer this regular and symmetric appearance of sodium-chloride under certain conditions.

Life MAY have developped in a similar way, from low to higher complexity - with or without a good portion of luck. But no one would seriously suggest that an approbiate mixture of atoms happened to come together at the right spot so that they bound and thus built a life-form. You have to take the laws of nature into account which prefer some developments before others. No one would seriously expect an impact of a comet forming a city. But no one wonders that they form nice and circular shaped holes in the ground.

[JohnD]

Hello Tinky, I don't quite understand your probability argument: Do you try to figure out the likelihood of forming a human-being by atoms on a random path? I don't think that anyone would suggest that this is the way life came into existence.

There are laws of nature that govern the behaviour of particles etc. and these laws may very well drive atoms and molecules into certain shapes. The probality of forming a nice and regular soduim-chloride crystal by accident is almost zero, yet it happens every day and you could produce nice ones at home if you like, because the laws nature make them possible and even prefer this regular and symmetric appearance of sodium-chloride under certain conditions.

Life MAY have developped in a similar way, from low to higher complexity - with or without a good portion of luck. But no one would seriously suggest that an approbiate mixture of atoms happened to come together at the right spot so that they bound and thus built a life-form. You have to take the laws of nature into account which prefer some developments before others. No one would seriously expect an impact of a comet forming a city. But no one wonders that they form nice and circular shaped holes in the ground.

I think she just copied what was on the website she cited.

[JohnD]

1st Law of thermodynamics proves the universe is not eternal but is cooling down towards maximum entropy.

2nd Law of thermodynamics is the law of conservation and dictates that from nothing nothing comes.

We are here, but we shouldn't be... not according to physics.

Nothing can just suddenly comes into being from nothing.

Only answer is that which we have had since long before scientific method...

Someone greater than the universe and able to transcend the bounds of physics created the universe with a very specific design and purpose.

When I get an evolutionist to this point in the old infinite regression argument (to God) they ask "okay, who made God?"

Walter Martin had a very good response for this.

"Okay, we are back to biogenesis which evolutionist claim they cannot answer and insist creations cannot answer since the same argument back to God only goes beyond God and solves nothing. Right?"

"Right" says the atheist.

"Okay so was are at God and you say 'who made God?' right?"

"Right."

"Let's stop here a moment and have a talk with God...

"We have arrived at You in our infinite regression argument. Who made You?"

God responds "It doesn't matter who made Me, I made YOU! Obey Me!"

[Tinky]

1st Law of thermodynamics proves the universe is not eternal but is cooling down towards maximum entropy.

2nd Law of thermodynamics is the law of conservation and dictates that from nothing nothing comes.

You have those mixed up. The first law is the law of conservation, and the second is the entropy law.

[MorningGlory]

Great post, Tinky! It makes total sense to me.