Smoot: “Is this then where scientific explanation breaks down and God takes over?"

"We are all literally made up of stardust," said astronomer George Smoot of the University of California's Space Sciences Laboratory and author of Wrinkles in Time. This much we know. But where that first pinpoint of intense energy came from—what unleashed its force to explode outward over billions of light-years of space; what set that power loose to evolve over the billions of years since into the intricately interconnected system of planets and stars; what brilliant design could set forth the pattern of development that could bring as complex a structure as humans into being—the scientists cannot explain or are uncomfortable explaining because it requires them to suddenly trade their theories and facts for the possibility that a supreme force beyond their explanations set it all in motion for a purpose. "Facing this, the ultimate question challenges our faith in the power of science to find explanations of nature," Smoot wrote. "Is this then where scientific explanation breaks down and God takes over?" "

"... the universe began in a sort of explosion, starting from infinite density and temperature, and has been expanding, thinning out and cooling ever since. The beginning was not like an ordinary explosion, in which debris flies out into a surrounding region of nonmoving space. Instead the big bang explosion began everywhere. There was no surrounding space for the universe to move into, since any such space would be part of the universe. The concept boggles the imagination...

... the universe was about 10(-8) seconds old (0.000,000,000,1) when its material was as a temperature of 10(+14) degrees (1,000,000,000,000,000). Any further extrapolation back in time toward the big bang, towards higher temperatures, enters the realm of speculation. Yet cosmologists have been forced to speculate. Many of the properties of the universe may have been determined in the first 10(-8) seconds and much earlier. If the grand unified theories are correct, then their most interesting effects would have happened when the universe was about 10(-35) seconds old...

The essential feature of the inflationary universe model is that, shortly after the big bang, the infant universe went through a brief and extremely rapid expansion, after which it returned to the more leisurely rate of expansion of the standard big bang model. By the time the universe was a tiny fraction (perhaps 10[-32]) of a second, the period of rapid expansion, or inflation, was over ... The epoch of rapid expansion could have taken a patch of space so tiny that it had already homogenized and quickly stretched it to a size larger than today's entire observable universe ... For the purpose of illustration, we will assume that the inflationary epoch began when the universe was 10(-35) seconds old and ended when it was 10(- 32) seconds old. At the beginning of the inflationary epoch, the largest region of space that could have homogenized would have been about 10(- 35) light seconds in size, or about 10(-25) centimeters, much smaller than the nucleus of an atom. At the end of the inflationary epoch, this tiny homogenized region would have been stretched to something like 10(+400) light years...

Numerically the Planck density is about 10(+93) grams per cubic centimeter. The infant universe had this enormous density when it was about 10(-43) seconds old."

Allan Lightman, Ancient Light
Harvard University Press 1991, p. 33-154.

"Atoms are so small that the full-stop at the end of this sentence contains more than one billion of them. Tiny as it is, an atom is entirely made up of empty space. The rest consists of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Protons and neutrons are found clustered together in a minute, extremely dense nucleus at the very centre of the atom. Little bundles of energy called electrons whiz around this nucleus at the speed of light. It is the presence of electrons that make the atom behave like a solid, in the same way that a fan blade spinning rapidly looks and behaves as if it were solid."

Dr. Trevor Day, Nicholas Harris,
The Incredible Journey to the Centre of the Atom
Orpheus Books Ltd., 1996.

"Most of the atomic mass is concentrated in a tiny nucleus, only a thousand-billionth of a centimeter in size. The nucleus is surrounded by a cloud of lighter particles—the electrons—extending out to a distance of perhaps a hundred-millionth of a centimeter. Thus, by far, the greater part of the atom is empty space."

Professor Paul Davies, God and the New Physics
Simon and Schuster, 1983, p. 146.
ISBN-10: 0671528068
ISBN-13: 978-0671528065

"The exponential factor implies that the odds against randomly- generated order increase astronomically. For example, the probability of a litre of air rushing spontaneously to one end of a box is of the order 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 zeros to one! Such figures indicate the extreme care with which low-entropy states must be selected from the vast array of possible states.

Translated into a cosmological context, the conundrum is this. If the universe is simply an accident, the odds against it containing any appreciable order are ludicrously small. If the big bang was just a random event, then the probability seems overwhelming that the emerging cosmic material would be in thermodynamic equilibrium at maximum entropy with zero order. As this was clearly not the case, it appears hard to escape the conclusion that the actual state of the universe has been `chosen' or selected somehow from the huge number of available states, all but an infinitesimal fraction of which are totally disordered. And if such an exceedingly improbable initial state was selected, there sure had to be a selector or designer to `choose' it."

Professor Paul Davies, God and the New Physics
Simon and Schuster, 1983, p. 167-68.
ISBN-10: 0671528068
ISBN-13: 978-0671528065

"The accumulated gravity of the universe operates to restrain the expansion, causing it to decelerate with time. In the primeval phase the expansion was much faster than it is today. The universe is thus the product of a competition between the explosive vigour of the big bang, and the force of gravity which tries to pull the pieces back together again. In recent years, astrophysicists have come to realize just how delicately this competition has been balanced. Had the big bang been weaker, the cosmos would have fallen back on itself in a big crunch. On the other hand, had it been stronger, the cosmic material would have dispersed so rapidly that galaxies would not have formed. Either way, the observed structure of the universe seems to depend very sensitively on the precise matching of explosive vigour to gravitating power.

Just how sensitively is revealed by calculation. At the so-called Planck time 10-43 seconds (which is the earliest moment at which the concept of space and time has meaning) the matching was accurate to a staggering one part in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000. That is to say, had the explosion differed in strength at the outset by only one part in 10 (-60) (10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000, 000, 000, 000,000,000,000,000) the universe we now perceive would not exist."

Professor Paul Davies,
God and the New Physics, Simon and Schuster, 1983, p. 179
ISBN-10: 0671528068
ISBN-13: 978-0671528065

"Adi
In the beginning, to be sure, nothing existed, neither the heaven nor the earth nor space in between.
So Nonbeing, having decided to be, became spirit and said: "Let me be!''
He warmed himself further and from this heating was born fire.
He warmed himself still further and from this heating was born light.

TB II, 2, 9, 1-2

Numerous texts are to be found in the Vedic scriptures, of extraordinary diversity and incomparable richness, which seek unweariedly to penetrate the mystery of the beginnings and to explain the immensity and the amazing harmony of the universe. We find a proliferation of speculations, doubts, and descriptions, an atmosphere charged with solemnity, a sense of life lived to the full—all of which spontaneously bring to mind the landscape of the Himalayas. These texts seem to burst forth impetuously like streams issuing from glaciers. Within this rushing torrent may be discerned a certain life view, deep and basic, an evolving life view that can yet be traced unbroken from the Rig Veda, through the Atharva Veda and the Brahmanas, to the Upanishads.

What is fascinating about the experience of the Vedic seers is not only that they have dared to explore the outer space of being and existence, piercing the outskirts of reality, exploring the boundaries of the universe, describing being and its universal laws, but that they have also undertaken the risky and intriguing adventure of going beyond and piercing the being barrier so as to float in utter nothingness, so to speak, and discover that Nonbeing is only the outer atmosphere of Being, its protective veil. They plunge thus into a darkness enwrapped by darkness, into the Beyond from which there is no return, into that Prelude of Existence in which there is neither Being nor Nonbeing, neither God nor Gods, nor creature of any type; the traveler himself is volatilized, has disappeared. Creation is the act by which God, or whatever name we may choose to express the Ultimate, affirms himself not only vis-à- vis the world, thus created, but also vis-à-vis himself, for he certainly was neither creator before creation nor God for himself. The Vedic seers make the staggering claim of entering into that enclosure where God is not yet God, where God is thus unknown to himself, and, not being creator, is "nothing." "

Professor Raimundo Panikkar, The Vedic Experience
www.cybrlink.com/vedtoc.htm

"Mr. Horgan contends that science is a victim of its own success. Astronomers have seen as much of the universe as they ever will. Physicists have probed as deeply into the nature of matter as practical experiments will allow. And biologists have been finished since Darwin conceived of evolution in the 1850s... Mr. Horgan says scientists are just fooling themselves... We'll never know what existed before the universe began, what processes give rise to consciousness, or what physical rules lie beyond the ones that are currently understood, he argues. Those things simply lie beyond the reach of scientific investigation, so any theorizing or speculating about them is what he labels "ironic" science. "It's ironic in the sense that real science can be taken as literally true," Mr. Horgan said. "They have gone beyond what science can do... It is meaningless in human terms... It doesn't tell us about the purpose of the universe and our place in it, and all those sorts of things."

The Globe and Mail, August 13, 1996

"In recent times there has been a proliferation of literature drawing parallels between holonomis theories of light, quantum physics, and the mystics' view of integral wholeness. As a culture we have looked primarily to Western science to alleviate human suffering and to understand our purpose in the scheme of things. But is science capable of freeing us from all suffering? Can science guide us to a direct mystical experience through the bliss of integrating with the One Light? Is there a parallel between modern physics and the yoga of sacred art regarding the nature of light and consciousness?...

The mechanistic parameters of Western science have permeated our perceptions, our thinking, our emotions, and even our ways of relating to one another. The result had been nothing less than a total fragmentation of our collective consciousness. The scientific worldview has led to the neglect of our intuitive spiritual perceptions and the creative developments of our souls—which, according to the sages of the East, are there to lead to greater understanding and release us from ignorance, laws of duality, and suffering. Because it is constrained within the laws of polarities, science by itself cannot help us to achieve wholeness. As Yogananda says:

"The entire phenomenal world is under the inexorable sway of polarity; no law of physics, chemistry, or any other science is ever found free from inherent opposite or contrasted principles.

Physical science, then, cannot formulate laws outside of maya: the very fabric and structure of creation . . . Future scientists can do no more than probe one aspect after another of her varied infinitude. Science thus remains in a perpetual flux, unable to reach finality..." "

Judith Cornell, PhD., Mandala: Luminous Symbols for Healing
Theosophical Publishing, 1994 p. 27-29.

"We are all literally made up of stardust," said astronomer George Smoot of the University of California's Space Sciences Laboratory and author of Wrinkles in Time. This much we know. But where that first pinpoint of intense energy came from—what unleashed its force to explode outward over billions of light-years of space; what set that power loose to evolve over the billions of years since into the intricately interconnected system of planets and stars; what brilliant design could set forth the pattern of development that could bring as complex a structure as humans into being—the scientists cannot explain or are uncomfortable explaining because it requires them to suddenly trade their theories and facts for the possibility that a supreme force beyond their explanations set it all in motion for a purpose.

"Facing this, the ultimate question challenges our faith in the power of science to find explanations of nature," Smoot wrote. "Is this then where scientific explanation breaks down and God takes over?" "

Walter Mercado, Beyond The Horizon: Visions of a New Millennium
A Time Warner Company, 1997 p. 51-2.

NOTE: If this page was accessed during a web search you may wish to browse the sites listed below where this topic or related issues are discussed in detail to promote global peace, religious harmony, and spiritual development of humanity:

www.adishakti.org/
www.al-qiyamah.org/
www.adi-shakti.org/  — Divine Feminine (Hinduism)
www.holyspirit-shekinah.org/  — Divine Feminine (Christianity)
www.ruach-elohim.org/  — Divine Feminine (Judaism)
www.ruh-allah.org/  — Divine Feminine (Islam)
www.tao-mother.org/  — Divine Feminine (Taoism)
www.prajnaaparamita.org/  — Divine Feminine (Buddhism)
www.aykaa-mayee.org/  — Divine Feminine (Sikhism)
www.great-spirit-mother.org/  — Divine Feminine (Native Traditions)

"Now, the principle of Mother is in every, every scripture - has to be there." Shri Mataji, Radio Interview 1983 Oct 01, Santa Cruz, USA