15 September 2009

Book Review: There is a god by Antony Flew - 3

The third card in Flew's table is the existence of nature.

Quoting the lyrics of Richard Rodgers,
Nothing comes from nothing,
Nothing ever could.


He immediately points out the atheist's reasoning for the ultimate begining. It was acknowledged that Every system of explanation must start somewhere, and this starting point itself cannot be explained by the system. Then what value judgement do we apply to alternate possible explanation may be found. In this case, it is the god-placebo verse the big bang-placebo. In the god version, we cannot explain the background radiation we detected in the Universe, we cannot explain the red-shift of the spectrum from stars, ... and a whole set of observed, repeatable data. On the other hand, the big bang theory explains the background radiation, the red-shift and much more.

Whether it is quoting Stephen Hawking or David Conway, the beginning assumption is a personal subjective choice. I don't see quoting anyone famous can add value to the argument. At the end of the day, this is a fundamental philosophical question which has been with us since the beginning of conscienceness and I don't pretend I have any better answer.

But if you force me to take a stance, I will go for the big bang theory because of its additional value in explaining phenomenon which cannot be explained by the other alternative.

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