Any Toe Left to Stub?

The other half of the photo session of the death match actually relates to Ray's The Universe Eternal post. I created some inspirational posters relating to Ray Comfort.

I think Maragon made a decent summary response to Ray's Second Law of Thermodynamics post, pointing out the hypocrisy of using science to support claims.

Funny how theists hate and fear science when it says something about their worldview that they disagree with, but love and accept science when they think it's proving their point. You can't have it both ways; science either has the power to explain the universe around us, or it doesn't. Pretending to accept science when you mistakenly believe that it disproves other science is intellectually dishonest and a testament to how little you understand about the workings of this academic discipline.

I think there are two things to also point out, though. Her post overlooked the image. Darwin's theory has nothing to do with the big bang. I think "evolution" and "Darwinism" are used by Ray to mean anything which contradicts his scientific reading of the Bible, including evolutionary theory, radiometric dating, cosmological model of the universe, and so on. Ray also managed to overstep the broader question of the poster that the universe can't be eternal while God can, which is perhaps a subject for a later post.

In this post, Ray quotes Stephen Hawking from a 2004 lecture. The lecture he quotes from relates to a previous passage from A Brief History of Time he quote mined to suggest that Stephen Hawking believed in a Creator behind the Big Bang. As I pointed out in Another Toe-Stubbing Post on Hawking, though, the chapter discusses laws breaking down at singularities, finite space-time, and self-containment, and concludes the chapter with:

The idea that space and time may form a closed surface without boundary also has profound implications for the role of God in the affairs of the universe. With the success of scientific theories in describing events, most people have come to believe that God allows the universe to evolve according to a set of laws and does not intervene in the universe to break these laws. However, the laws do not tell us what the universe should have looked like when it started -- it would still be up to God to wind up the clockwork and choose how to start it off. So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?

As a fan of Hawking (and knowing Ray's propensity to quote mine), I spent some time reading the lecture. The lecture he quotes from actually covers much of the same stuff. When reading the lecture, I wondered where Ray got the quote from (as I doubt he has read the article, details further below). In searching for this quote to see if it was on a prominent site for quote mining, I found it posted a lot in forums with the follow statement made by posters at a few:

This is a very recent lecture. While he may have supported a universe without a beginning earlier in life, this definitely shows that he has changed his mind in favor of a beginning of the universe and time. (paraphrased)

This is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of Hawking's work and shows ignorance of it. To just provide you with a simple demonstration of this, what I quoted in a my previous post came from A Brief History of Time in 1988, the lecture was in 2004, and the following is from A Briefier History of Time (a revision and updating) in 2005 from the conclusion to Quantum Gravity in chapter nine (pg 103): (luckily I brought this book with me on my trip)

If there is no boundary to space-time, there is no need to specify the behavior at the boundary -- no need to know the initial state of the universe. There is no edge of space-time at which we would have to appeal to God or some new law to set the boundary conditions for space-time. We could say: "The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary." The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE. As long as we believed the universe had a beginning, the role of a creator seemed clear. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, having neither beginning nor end, then the answer is not so obvious: what is the role of a creator?

This is something the lecture touches on and if read to try to understand, rather than to quote, it becomes obvious. He discusses often what could have preceded the Big Bang, and then always dismisses them as speculation with the comment that we cannot know what happens before that as the laws of science break down in it. He mentions this even in the lecture Ray quotes from:

At this time, the Big Bang, all the matter in the universe, would have been on top of itself. The density would have been infinite. It would have been what is called, a singularity. At a singularity, all the laws of physics would have broken down. This means that the state of the universe, after the Big Bang, will not depend on anything that may have happened before, because the deterministic laws that govern the universe will break down in the Big Bang. The universe will evolve from the Big Bang, completely independently of what it was like before. Even the amount of matter in the universe, can be different to what it was before the Big Bang, as the Law of Conservation of Matter, will break down at the Big Bang.

Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang. Events before the Big Bang, are simply not defined, because there's no way one could measure what happened at them. This kind of beginning to the universe, and of time itself, is very different to the beginnings that had been considered earlier. (emphasis added)

I emphasized the passage where he discusses the beginning. He speaks of this "kind of beginning" of time (the big bang) is "different to the beginnings that had been considered earlier." What beginnings were considered earlier? The beginning of the universe as created by an external agency. And when Ray quotes that "this argument about whether or not the universe had a beginning..." is referring to this, as the section that precedes it reads:

It was therefore natural to believe that the human race, and maybe the whole universe, had a beginning in the fairly recent past. However, many people were unhappy with the idea that the universe had a beginning, because it seemed to imply the existence of a supernatural being who created the universe. They preferred to believe that the universe, and the human race, had existed forever. Their explanation for human progress was that there had been periodic floods, or other natural disasters, which repeatedly set back the human race to a primitive state.

What I find especially humorous to Ray using this lecture is that Hawking actually specifically addresses the beginning of the universe which Ray supports (biblical/created) and the different "kind of beginning" which the Big Bang is. This is the continuation from the previously emphasized passage:

These [different kinds of beginnings considered earlier] had to be imposed on the universe by some external agency. There is no dynamical reason why the motion of bodies in the solar system can not be extrapolated back in time, far beyond four thousand and four BC, the date for the creation of the universe, according to the book of Genesis. Thus it would require the direct intervention of God, if the universe began at that date. By contrast, the Big Bang is a beginning that is required by the dynamical laws that govern the universe. It is therefore intrinsic to the universe, and is not imposed on it from outside.(emphasis added)

After this he discusses some historical attempts to get around the Big Bang beginning, then past light cones, then quantum effects impact on the Big Bang theory, then imaginary time and its implication on real time, and then finally the self-contained, no boundary condition. If all this seems confusing (as it should) but at the same time interesting (as it also should), I strongly recommend reading the lecture yourself, reading some Wikipedia entries on the subjects, and also reading A Brief History of Time, A Briefer History of Time, and The Universe In a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking to find out what Hawking really believes, studies, and lectures on, rather than listening to Ray to divine such knowledge.

Answers-in-Genesis: Answers-for-Comfort

Answers in Genesis shares Comfort's anti-science view of the world in that it is a young-Earth creationist organization. Like I do with Ray's blog, I subscribe to Answers in Genesis. The thing I find most humorous about Answers in Genesis site is they write volumes of articles aimed at fellow young-Earth creationists to dissuade them from obviously flawed arguments so as not to be further embarrassed by them (such as this 20 page article urging young-Earth creationists to stop making biblical arguments for geocentricity).

Ray has recently written a series of blogs defending his use of quotes from Hawking and Einstein to paint the picture that they believe in God. This is, of course, an obviously flawed use to any educated individual. Like they so often do, Answers in Genesis has published an article urging young-Earth creationists (like Ray Comfort) to stop doing this.

...Hawking's phrase [to know the mind of God] is shorthand for the Theory of Everything. All three physicists — like most physicists of this century — describe themselves as agnostics or atheists. They do not believe in a Person who created the Universe.' Likewise, Professor Davies does not believe in a personal creator-God either.³

Physicists tend to use religious terminology because it graphically expresses the religious/philosophical nature of their thoughts and the sense of almost religious reverence they feel about their subject. Like the 'liberal' theologians, they use the language of orthodox Christianity, but in using the words they do not mean what we may think they mean.

Ray should really take a note from his anti-science fellows. Quote mining is despicable, especially when done by the anti-science uneducated.

Another Toe-Stubbing Post on Hawking

Congratulations everyone! Ray has finally given context to the Stephen Hawking quote in his header with his latest post. Or... has he? Here is what he gives us:

"In the hot big bang model described above, there was not enough time in the early universe for heat to have flowed from one region to another. This means that the initial state of the universe would have to have had exactly the same temperature everywhere in order to account for the fact that the microwave back-ground has the same temperature in every direction we look. The initial rate of expansion also would have had to be chosen very precisely for the rate of expansion still to be so close to the critical rate needed to avoid recollapse. This means that the initial state of the universe must have been very carefully chosen indeed if the hot big bang model was correct right back to the beginning of time. It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us." Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time, p. 127.

Yes, that is what is written at the end of a paragraph on page 127 in chapter eight. Referring to the book which I own, it is the concluding paragraph of a four page discussion of what the anthropic principle is The chapter is concerning the origin and fate of the universe. Since it is concerning the origin of the universe, he naturally brings up the perceived role of God, as he does elsewhere in the book. What Ray neglects to mention is that the chapter ends on page 141.

What happens between pages 127 and 141? What happens is the context he does not give you. He sets up the rhetorical proposition on page 127 and after explaining more of the origin of the universe and how it started, he revisits it briefly on page 136:

If Euclidean space-time stretches back to infinite imaginary time, or else starts at a singularity in imaginary time, we have the same problem as in the classical theory of specifying the initial state of the universe: God may know how the universe began, but we cannot give any particular reason for thinking it began one way rather than another. On the other hand, the quantum theory of gravity has opened up a new possibility, in which there would be no boundary to space-time and so there would be no need to specify the behavior at the boundary. There would be no singularities at which the laws of science broke down, and no edge of space-time at which one would have to appeal to God or some new law to set the boundary conditions for space-time. One could say: "The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary." The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed, It would just BE.

It was at the conference in the Vatican mentioned earlier that I first put forward the suggestion that maybe time and space together formed a surface that was finite in size but did not have any boundary or edge. My paper was rather mathematical, however, so its implications for the role of God in the creation of the universe were not generally recognized at the time (just as well for me). At the time of the Vatican conference, I did not know how to use the "no boundary" idea to make predictions about the universe. [...] (emphasis added on parts about God)

After a little more explaining about the implications of his proposal, discussion of evidence, discussion of the nature of time, he concludes by weighing in on the rhetorical proposition which he set up on page 127 by concluding the chapter with:

The idea that space and time may form a closed surface without boundary also has profound implications for the role of God in the affairs of the universe. With the success of scientific theories in describing events, most people have come to believe that God allows the universe to evolve according to a set of laws and does not intervene in the universe to break these laws. However, the laws do not tell us what the universe should have looked like when it started -- it would still be up to God to wind up the clockwork and choose how to start it off. So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator? (emphasis added on parts about God, which happens to be all of it)

Ray's extraction of one or two sentences or even an entire paragraph is the essence of quote mining:

Quote mining is the practice of purposely compiling frequently misleading quotes from large volumes of literature or speech.

Again, we (theists and atheists knowledgeable in the writings of these great men) do not protest because we wish to have these great men on "our side" (which especially isn't the case for protesting theists); we simply want these men's beliefs accurately portrayed and not mangled by the likes of Ray Comfort. To the point, one of the greatest men, if not the greatest man (at least in science), to have ever lived was Isaac Newton. We do not protest when Ray trots his name out as Newton was a devout Christian and wrote at lengths on it. Using Newton as an argument for theism, or Hawking and Einstein as an argument for atheism is ridiculous, though, as it is a fallacious appeal to authority.


As a final thought, I think it's interesting the nature of the rhetorical proposition Stephen Hawking made. He makes the statement that it seems that there must have been a Creator, based on the origins of the universe. There's a famous quote mining example from Darwin wherein he makes a similar rhetorical proposition that there seems there must have been a Creator, based on the complexity of the eye. In fact, Ray also does quote mining on Darwin with this very passage. The embolden part is the part which is quote mined from it:

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound.

Ray was being deliberately dishonest in this latest post by making it appear he's giving it context. In fact, he's not giving you anymore context; rather, he's just taking more out of context. Given the context of the rest of the chapter, it clearly shows he is using it as a rhetorical statement.

Does this matter to Ray? Of course not. He is disinterested in the truth or sound arguments, as it seems.

Einstein MUST Have Believed in a Creator

One of the many things I genuinely appreciate about Ray Comfort (and there are many) is that he actually reads and replies to some of the comments in his blog. He does not ignore them, nor does he only reply to those praising him. As such, I was going back through his recent posts since he posted that despicable post about Einstein believing that the Bible is the "Word of God." In a comment to the post Quote-mining From an Atheist Site, one individual writes:

Seriously, Ray, I think that it is disingenuous of you to have that quote from Einstein at the header of your website.

Einstein was not a Christian, and he did not believe in Jesus, nor did he beleive [sic] in a personal God.

You should remove that quote and replace it with some bible verse.

To this, Ray had the following to say:

I have never said that Einstein was a Christian, that he believed in Jesus or in a personal God. He wasn't dumb. He knew there was a Creator, because creation couldn't have created itself. Something that didn't exist, can't create itself...because it didn't exist. It's impossible. Whatever created, had to be eternal. That's obvious to a thinking person. (emphasis added)

Firstly, from this I have a new quote I can mine to put in my header, namely:

I have never said that Einstein was a Christian, that he believed in Jesus or in a personal God. He wasn't dumb.

But secondly, I think this comment really sheds light on why he uses these mined quotes and also how he could so mangle a quote by reading his own view into it as to argue that Einstein believed the Bible was the "Word of God." It is because Ray's argument is that Einstein must have believed in God. He says that Einstein knew there was a Creator and then tacks on his argument about creation couldn't have created itself. Where has Einstein ever said this? Where has he ever said there was a Creator? He lived a little before the time of Hawking's developments, but I am sure he wouldn't play a god of the gaps type argument.

Nonetheless, this post shows why Ray interprets the quotes the way he does. He doesn't understand how someone could not believe the same as He. As such, he reads his own arguments, understanding, and definitions into the writings of great men. To his oft-repeated argument:

Something that didn't exist, can't create itself...because it didn't exist. It's impossible. Whatever created, had to be eternal. That's obvious to a thinking person.

Then, as a "thinking" person, Ray, you must also concede that the Creator must have at a Creator-creating Creator. After all, the Creator "can't create itself... because it didn't exist."

I know what he's thinking: "But ah! JT! That only applies to things that didn't exist; God, however, always existed." That's Ray's false premise. "Something that didn't exist." Absolutely, something that didn't exist could not create itself. But that argument for God only works if you assume that everything at one point didn't exist and that God always existed. That is called the fallacy of begging the question and an arbitrary false premise.

As anyone who has read Stephen Hawking's many books and articles knows, which you must have seeing as how you quote him in your header. The quote Ray has mined from Stephen Hawking comes from Chapter 8: The Origin and Fate of the Universe from his bestselling book A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes (it may have also come from A Briefer History of Time, but I am still in the middle of that book). The quote comes from roughly the middle of it when he is discussing the governance of the universe and some people's view of the role of God. In the same fashion as Ray, I will also quote from the same Chapter 8, with context, by leaving you the concluding paragraph of that chapter:

The idea that space and time may form a closed surface without boundary also has profound implications for the role of God in the affairs of the universe. With the success of scientific theories in describing events, most people have come to believe that God allows the universe to evolve according to a set of laws and does not intervene in the universe to break these laws. However, the laws do not tell us what the universe should have looked like when it started -- it would still be up to God to wind up the clockwork and choose how to start it off. So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?