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Atheist Physicists VS God our Creator

It is perfectly OK for Creationists to believe in Niels Bohr's 'Peek A Boo' universe.

  • yes

    Votes: 3 60.0%
  • no

    Votes: 2 40.0%
  • why on earth are atheist scientists so aggressive against God as our Creator!

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    5

Steven Merten

Active Member
‘I’m not afraid’: What Stephen Hawking said about God,
his atheism and his own death

“Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation. What I meant by ‘we would know the mind of God’ is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God, which there isn’t. I’m an atheist.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-his-atheism-and-his-own-death/?noredirect=on

In the 90s, I was watching a documentary, by Stephen Hawking, titled ‘The Cosmos’. It was awesome! It had many beautiful pictures of our universe, taken from our Hubble telescope. Hawking talked of the ‘big bang’ happening 13.8 billion years ago and the stages of evolution. All very interesting.

All of a sudden, in the video, Hawking is seen at the Vatican. Hawking is in full assault of the Catholic Church. The documentary shows Hawking with shadows of bars, from a window, and they are making him out to be persecuted by the Church, for his 'scientific' beliefs. Where on earth did this come from? I, a scientific Creationist, was insulted and hurt, by this aggressive, atheist attack on our God.

It seems Hawking spent a great deal of time in his life, running over to the Vatican, and he was not, it seems, seeking the salvation of his soul.

Neils Bohr (Father of Quantum Theory)
"It is meaningless to assign Reality to the universe in the absence of observation; in the intervals between measurement, quantum systems truly exist as a fuzzy mixture of all possible properties"

Verses

Albert Einstein
"I'd like to think the moon was there even when I wasn't looking at it." (Realism)​

In Quantum Mechanics (the study of subatomic particles), there are two lines of thought. Neils Bohr sees the universe as not existing when man is not looking at it. This is a very Creationist viewpoint. Then you have Albert Einsteins ‘Realism’, where he believes we are missing something about the actions of subatomic particles.

In the double slit experiment, subatomic particles are in superposition wave state, where they are in all possible places, with all possible properties. It is not until man observes/measures subatomic particles, that they materialize into a specific physical particle, in a specific place. Scientists describe it as the ‘universe’, which chooses where, and with what properties, a subatomic particle will transform into, when man observes/measures it. We, God’s faithful, see it as God who chooses where, and with what properties, a physical subatomic particle comes into existence, when man looks at it. Subatomic particles are the building blocks of everything in the universe.

So why are atheist physicists so incredibly aggressive against what we Christians believe as God as our Creator? Please, atheist scientist, just let we faithful to Jesus, take Niels Bohr’s side, with his ‘Peek A Boo’ universe, a universe which does not exist when man is not looking at it, and be at peace with one another.

 

Steven Merten

Active Member
@Steven Merten -

Do you realize that no atheists - physicists or otherwise - can respond to you and specifically your question regarding them - because you posted this in a DIR?

Hello RabbiO,
I have a similar thread over in Religious Forums, 'Evolution VS Creationism'. Please join me there for discussion on Neils Bohr's 'Peek A Boo' universe, a universe which does no exist when man is not looking at it, vs Albert Einstein's, 'Realism'.

Proven Science says there is No Universe without Conscious Man to Observe it.

Hear in our Catholic Forum, I wish to discuss atheist physicists attacking our God and our Catholic faith.
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
‘I’m not afraid’: What Stephen Hawking said about God,
his atheism and his own death

“Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation. What I meant by ‘we would know the mind of God’ is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God, which there isn’t. I’m an atheist.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-his-atheism-and-his-own-death/?noredirect=on

In the 90s, I was watching a documentary, by Stephen Hawking, titled ‘The Cosmos’. It was awesome! It had many beautiful pictures of our universe, taken from our Hubble telescope. Hawking talked of the ‘big bang’ happening 13.8 billion years ago and the stages of evolution. All very interesting.

All of a sudden, in the video, Hawking is seen at the Vatican. Hawking is in full assault of the Catholic Church. The documentary shows Hawking with shadows of bars, from a window, and they are making him out to be persecuted by the Church, for his 'scientific' beliefs. Where on earth did this come from? I, a scientific Creationist, was insulted and hurt, by this aggressive, atheist attack on our God.

It seems Hawking spent a great deal of time in his life, running over to the Vatican, and he was not, it seems, seeking the salvation of his soul.

Neils Bohr (Father of Quantum Theory)
"It is meaningless to assign Reality to the universe in the absence of observation; in the intervals between measurement, quantum systems truly exist as a fuzzy mixture of all possible properties"

Verses

Albert Einstein
"I'd like to think the moon was there even when I wasn't looking at it." (Realism)​

In Quantum Mechanics (the study of subatomic particles), there are two lines of thought. Neils Bohr sees the universe as not existing when man is not looking at it. This is a very Creationist viewpoint. Then you have Albert Einsteins ‘Realism’, where he believes we are missing something about the actions of subatomic particles.

In the double slit experiment, subatomic particles are in superposition wave state, where they are in all possible places, with all possible properties. It is not until man observes/measures subatomic particles, that they materialize into a specific physical particle, in a specific place. Scientists describe it as the ‘universe’, which chooses where, and with what properties, a subatomic particle will transform into, when man observes/measures it. We, God’s faithful, see it as God who chooses where, and with what properties, a physical subatomic particle comes into existence, when man looks at it. Subatomic particles are the building blocks of everything in the universe.

So why are atheist physicists so incredibly aggressive against what we Christians believe as God as our Creator? Please, atheist scientist, just let we faithful to Jesus, take Niels Bohr’s side, with his ‘Peek A Boo’ universe, a universe which does not exist when man is not looking at it, and be at peace with one another.

At it again, here, I see. ;)

To repeat the correction I made on your other thread in which this was mentioned, Bohr was not the "Father of Quantum Theory". There was no single "father" of it. The people generally considered the founding fathers include first and foremost Max Planck (after whom the famous constant is named that appears in every QM equation), then Bohr, Einstein (it is what he got his Nobel Prize for), Heisenberg, Dirac and Schrödinger. Probably I have left someone out.....

You do atheist physicists a disservice, I think. Most of the ones I have encountered are by no means "incredibly aggressive against" religious belief - they just do not share it. Physicalism is a perfectly understandable worldview, especially for a scientist, who after all employs methodological naturalism in his approach to understanding nature. It is really for believers to make the case for why we think there may be more than the mere physical world. I myself think the reasons are aesthetic, and/or due to personal subjective experiences - either way not the sort of reproducible evidence that science works with.

Contrary to what you suggest, the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM does not in any way suggest a Creator. Nowadays the usual view seems to be that what "collapses" the wave function is interaction of the system with another system, be that part of a measuring apparatus or another natural system. Bohr's original description has been revised a fair bit since his death.
 

Steven Merten

Active Member
At it again, here, I see. ;)

To repeat the correction I made on your other thread in which this was mentioned, Bohr was not the "Father of Quantum Theory". There was no single "father" of it. The people generally considered the founding fathers include first and foremost Max Planck (after whom the famous constant is named that appears in every QM equation), then Bohr, Einstein (it is what he got his Nobel Prize for), Heisenberg, Dirac and Schrödinger. Probably I have left someone out.....

You do atheist physicists a disservice, I think. Most of the ones I have encountered are by no means "incredibly aggressive against" religious belief - they just do not share it. Physicalism is a perfectly understandable worldview, especially for a scientist, who after all employs methodological naturalism in his approach to understanding nature. It is really for believers to make the case for why we think there may be more than the mere physical world. I myself think the reasons are aesthetic, and/or due to personal subjective experiences - either way not the sort of reproducible evidence that science works with.

Contrary to what you suggest, the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM does not in any way suggest a Creator. Nowadays the usual view seems to be that what "collapses" the wave function is interaction of the system with another system, be that part of a measuring apparatus or another natural system. Bohr's original description has been revised a fair bit since his death.

Hello exchemist,
How did an electron ‘evolve’ to know when man is looking at it, and thus change its course in the past of physical time, rather than intelligent design, from our God?

In the Stephen Hawking ‘Cosmos’ video, Hawking was at the Vatican trying to force Pope John Paul II to admit that the ‘big bang’ was what the Church sees happening in the bible. Later, Hawking goes on to explain what happened before the ‘big bang’, meaning, before God’s Creation. I say he did this to mock God. God Created all that is from nothing. There were no ‘quarks’, ‘strings’, electrons, protons or empty space before God’s Creation. The whole physical realm came into existence upon God’s Creation.

Subatomic particles not only know when man is looking at them, they also know when man is going to look at them in the future, and thus change their course in the past, by a future event. Hawking implied that subatomic particles somehow evolved from quarks and strings. So how did electrons ‘evolve’ to know when man is looking at them and thus change their course in the past of physical time?

For those of you reading along, here is a video on how electrons change their course in the past, due to man observing/measuring them, in the future.

 
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Steven Merten

Active Member
Hello All,
For those of you reading along, here is an excellent video on the double slit experiment. It shows how subatomic particles change their course, when man looks at them.

 

MonkeyFire

Well-Known Member
All you need is faith itself, and there is only one faith, and if your not his friend or lover you will go without fire.
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
Hello exchemist,
How did an electron ‘evolve’ to know when man is looking at it, and thus change its course in the past of physical time, rather than intelligent design, from our God?

In the Stephen Hawking ‘Cosmos’ video, Hawking was at the Vatican trying to force Pope John Paul II to admit that the ‘big bang’ was what the Church sees happening in the bible. Later, Hawking goes on to explain what happened before the ‘big bang’, meaning, before God’s Creation. I say he did this to mock God. God Created all that is from nothing. There were no ‘quarks’, ‘strings’, electrons, protons or empty space before God’s Creation. The whole physical realm came into existence upon God’s Creation.

Subatomic particles not only know when man is looking at them, they also know when man is going to look at them in the future, and thus change their course in the past, by a future event. Hawking implied that subatomic particles somehow evolved from quarks and strings. So how did electrons ‘evolve’ to know when man is looking at them and thus change their course in the past of physical time?

For those of you reading along, here is a video on how electrons change their course in the past, due to man observing/measuring them, in the future.

No, this is all a popular misunderstanding. In the early days of QM (i.e. Bohr's time) they spoke a lot about the wave function collapsing (i.e. the alternative states a wave function can sometimes represent - as probabilities - becoming "resolved" into one or other state) as a result of being "observed". Later the language changed to be that of being "measured". More commonly today, it has changed again to "interacting". Though it is fair to say that there is still a lot of philosophical argument about what QM really says to us about the physical world. More here: Interpretations of quantum mechanics - Wikipedia

Just think what happens when you make a measurement and observe it. You have to build a detection system or apparatus of some sort. It is part of this which interacts with the QM entity you wish to observe and this interaction "collapses" the wave function by detecting the entity in a definite state. Clearly, if it were really the act of observation that causes the resolution, you would have to suggest that physics behaves differently when the experimenter goes to get a cup of coffee. And then, what or who counts as an observer? Supposes the laboratory cat watches the dial or screen? Does that count? Or a passing wasp? It becomes ridiculous.

There is an age old philosophical question (cf. Bishop Berkeley) about whether objects continue to exist when they are not observed. You can, if you want, contend that they blink out of existence when unobserved. But since, that if that were to happen, it would be impossible ever to detect it, what would such a notion add to our appreciation of the world, apart from introducing needless complexity and confusion? When we say something "exists", what we really mean is that "it behaves, to us, at all times, as though it is there". We cannot mean anything more, since we are who we are.

So at this stage one can invoke Ockham's Razor and say that to suppose things blink out of existence when unobserved is an unnecessary additional hypothesis - and reject it. So I am with Einstein on that.

Hawking, by the way, would not have to "force" the Pope to think that the Big Bang is what the bible describes in Genesis (although in allegorical terms). That is already an absolutely standard view, shared by most educated Catholics, of whom the Pope, being a Jesuit, is of course one. So Hawking would have been preaching to the converted.

My impression is that you are trying to "force" on readers a false antithesis between some sort of imagined "atheist physics" and religious belief. But science takes no position on religion either way. Attempts to co-opt it as objective evidence for or against God are doomed to failure, in my opinion.

One of the reasons I am here on this forum is to do my bit to dispel the false idea that religion and science are in opposition in some way. Having grown up with both, this something I feel quite strongly about.
 

Steven Merten

Active Member
No, this is all a popular misunderstanding. In the early days of QM (i.e. Bohr's time) they spoke a lot about the wave function collapsing (i.e. the alternative states a wave function can sometimes represent - as probabilities - becoming "resolved" into one or other state) as a result of being "observed". Later the language changed to be that of being "measured". More commonly today, it has changed again to "interacting". Though it is fair to say that there is still a lot of philosophical argument about what QM really says to us about the physical world. More here: Interpretations of quantum mechanics - Wikipedia

Just think what happens when you make a measurement and observe it. You have to build a detection system or apparatus of some sort. It is part of this which interacts with the QM entity you wish to observe and this interaction "collapses" the wave function by detecting the entity in a definite state. Clearly, if it were really the act of observation that causes the resolution, you would have to suggest that physics behaves differently when the experimenter goes to get a cup of coffee. And then, what or who counts as an observer? Supposes the laboratory cat watches the dial or screen? Does that count? Or a passing wasp? It becomes ridiculous.

There is an age old philosophical question (cf. Bishop Berkeley) about whether objects continue to exist when they are not observed. You can, if you want, contend that they blink out of existence when unobserved. But since, that if that were to happen, it would be impossible ever to detect it, what would such a notion add to our appreciation of the world, apart from introducing needless complexity and confusion? When we say something "exists", what we really mean is that "it behaves, to us, at all times, as though it is there". We cannot mean anything more, since we are who we are.

So at this stage one can invoke Ockham's Razor and say that to suppose things blink out of existence when unobserved is an unnecessary additional hypothesis - and reject it. So I am with Einstein on that.

Hawking, by the way, would not have to "force" the Pope to think that the Big Bang is what the bible describes in Genesis (although in allegorical terms). That is already an absolutely standard view, shared by most educated Catholics, of whom the Pope, being a Jesuit, is of course one. So Hawking would have been preaching to the converted.

My impression is that you are trying to "force" on readers a false antithesis between some sort of imagined "atheist physics" and religious belief. But science takes no position on religion either way. Attempts to co-opt it as objective evidence for or against God are doomed to failure, in my opinion.

One of the reasons I am here on this forum is to do my bit to dispel the false idea that religion and science are in opposition in some way. Having grown up with both, this something I feel quite strongly about.
Hello exchemist,
If all the subatomic particles in the universe are in superposition, wave state, what do you say that universe looks like?
 

Steven Merten

Active Member
Neils Bohr
"It is meaningless to assign Reality to the universe in the absence of observation; in the intervals between measurement, quantum systems truly exist as a fuzzy mixture of all possible properties"
Hello Everyone,
Does everyone else following along understand that if all the subatomic particles in the universe are in superposition, wave state, there is no universe?

Did everyone watch the Space Time video?

 

exchemist

Veteran Member
Neils Bohr
"It is meaningless to assign Reality to the universe in the absence of observation; in the intervals between measurement, quantum systems truly exist as a fuzzy mixture of all possible properties"
Hello Everyone,
Does everyone else following along understand that if all the subatomic particles in the universe are in superposition, wave state, there is no universe?

Did everyone watch the Space Time video?

But they are not all in superposition, so the scenario you outline does not, and will never, arise.

Look, I wonder from your previous posts if you are confusing the wave nature of QM entities with this idea of superposition, which is a much more specialised and rarer phenomenon. The wavelike nature is something that all QM entities share. One consequence of this is that there is a limit to how much information about a QM system can be determined by observation (Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle). But these entities can perfectly well interact - in their wave form, if you like - to produce all the physics, chemistry and biology we see in the cosmos, without these properties being determined by an observer. Practically the whole of my own discipline of chemistry is about this. (The chemical bond is a QM wave phenomenon. The patterns in the properties of elements, that give rise to the Periodic Table, are a direct result of the wavelike QM of the electrons in atoms with different nuclear charges. And so on.)

QM entities, observed or otherwise, are certainly not in a state in which they are "a mixture of all possible properties". So I would appreciate you providing the source for your "quotation" from Bohr, as it strikes me as fishy. Either it needs some context around it, to clarify what he was talking about, or it is a made up quotation.
 
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Steven Merten

Active Member
But they are not all in superposition, so the scenario you outline does not, and will never, arise.

Look, I wonder from your previous posts if you are confusing the wave nature of QM entities with this idea of superposition, which is a much more specialised and rarer phenomenon. The wavelike nature is something that all QM entities share. One consequence of this is that there is a limit to how much information about a QM system can be determined by observation (Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle). But these entities can perfectly well interact - in their wave form, if you like - to produce all the physics, chemistry and biology we see in the cosmos, without these properties being determined by an observer. Practically the whole of my own discipline of chemistry is about this. (The chemical bond is a QM wave phenomenon. The patterns in the properties of elements, that give rise to the Periodic Table, are a direct result of the wavelike QM of the electrons in atoms with different nuclear charges. And so on.)

QM entities, observed or otherwise, are certainly not in a state in which they are "a mixture of all possible properties". So I would appreciate you providing the source for your "quotation" from Bohr, as it strikes me as fishy. Either it needs some context around it, to clarify what he was talking about, or it is a made up quotation.
Hello Exchemist,
What do you say the PBS Space Time Video is talking about, when they talk of Neils Bohr's 'Peek A Boo' universe, a universe which does not exist when man is not looking at it?

 

exchemist

Veteran Member
Hello Exchemist,
What do you say the PBS Space Time Video is talking about, when they talk of Neils Bohr's 'Peek A Boo' universe, a universe which does not exist when man is not looking at it?

I don't generally watch videos. I find 10 minutes of video has about the same information content as text that can be read in under 2 minutes. But I've skimmed this one and yes, it's just a spoon-fed account of the Copenhagen interpretation. Matt O'Dowd, the Australian presenter, seems to be kosher.

But I cannot find the words attributed to Bohr about QM entities being a fuzzy mixture of all possible properties, anywhere. I continue to be bothered by "all possible properties". This sounds wrong. If it is a genuine quotation, rather than paraphrasing by the makers of the video for a lay audience, I can only think there will be some context around it that is important to make sense of it.

As I have indicated several times now, it is FALSE to claim QM suggests nothing exists when it is not observed. What it says is that the values of properties are indeterminate until the the wave function collapses. But the entity exists all right - that is what the wave function describes. If it did not exist, its wave function would vanish!

Our modern models in physics and chemistry work in terms of these wave functions and their interactions. We don't need to measure exact properties all the time. We throw away the old Newtonian mechanics - the ball and stick models - and calculate the behaviour of the world using the wave functions instead. These tell us what ranges of properties we can expect to measure at any point, if we choose to do so.

Of course, these calculations quickly get a lot more complicated than ordinary Newtonian mechanics in complex systems, such as multi-electron atoms and molecules. So in chemistry we use a lot of approximations to avoid the need to do horrendous multi-body QM calculations all the time. The trick in science is often to to pick the most appropriate model for the task, from a hierarchy of models of varying exactness and complexity. For example the engineer does not use relativity, usually, because Newtonian mechanics will do. But for GPS, for example, General Relativity has to be used or it won't work.

The same goes for QM in the chemistry lab. It is just that we are always aware that nature, at the atomic scale, seems to be composed of waves representing the square root of a probability distribution, rather than Newtonian "particles" with exact properties. One gets used to it after a bit;).
 

Steven Merten

Active Member
I don't generally watch videos. I find 10 minutes of video has about the same information content as text that can be read in under 2 minutes. But I've skimmed this one and yes, it's just a spoon-fed account of the Copenhagen interpretation. Matt O'Dowd, the Australian presenter, seems to be kosher.

Helo exchemist,

Simple videos, like this PBS Space Time video, bring the understanding of a ‘Peek A Boo’ universe, to the other 99.99999% of the world population that are not physicists. Thank you for indicating that Matt O’Dowd's ‘Peek A Boo’ universe, a universe which does not exist when man is not looking at it, is kosher.

PBS Space Time, and Neils Bohr’s, ‘Peek A Boo’ universe, is Creationist. A universe which does not exist until Adam opens his eyes to observe/measure it, is Creationism.

We are Catholics, (you are Catholic, right?), our big worry is Atheist Scientists deceiving people away from our Lord God and Savior, Jesus Christ, and His Promise of eternal salvation. According to the PBS Space Time and Neils Bohr, ‘Peek A Boo’ universe, a universe which does not exist when man is not looking at it, model, atheist scientists like Stephen Hawking, do not even have the science right.
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
Helo exchemist,

Simple videos, like this PBS Space Time video, bring the understanding of a ‘Peek A Boo’ universe, to the other 99.99999% of the world population that are not physicists. Thank you for indicating that Matt O’Dowd's ‘Peek A Boo’ universe, a universe which does not exist when man is not looking at it, is kosher.

PBS Space Time, and Neils Bohr’s, ‘Peek A Boo’ universe, is Creationist. A universe which does not exist until Adam opens his eyes to observe/measure it, is Creationism.

We are Catholics, (you are Catholic, right?), our big worry is Atheist Scientists deceiving people away from our Lord God and Savior, Jesus Christ, and His Promise of eternal salvation. According to the PBS Space Time and Neils Bohr, ‘Peek A Boo’ universe, a universe which does not exist when man is not looking at it, model, atheist scientists like Stephen Hawking, do not even have the science right.
Yes I am a Catholic but not a halfwit. You are not listening to a word I say and you are talking stupid crap. I have not endorsed, in any way at all, this imbecile idea of yours that QM says the world does not exist unless observed by Man.

Why are you constantly repeating this nonsense, instead of responding to the points made in my posts? Are you a robot? Demented? Or just an idiot? Whichever it is, you have exhausted my patience and my goodwill towards you.

I will however continue to point out to other readers the falsehoods you are trying to promote on this forum.
 
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exchemist

Veteran Member
You are not listening to a word I say and you are talking stupid crap.

Why are you constantly repeating this absurd nonsense about QM claiming the would does not exist unless observed by man? Are you a robot? Demented? Or just an idiot? Whichever it is, you have exhausted my patience and my goodwill towards you.

I will however continue to point out to other readers the falsehoods you are trying to promote on this forum.
Wow! How scary can it be to discuss PBS Space Time’s, Neils Bohr’s, ‘Peek A Boo universe’?

It would not be, if you would only discuss it, instead of just mindlessly repeating the same phrase over and over again, like a robot.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
Personally, I have no problem with atheists, including any physicists who may be atheists (most are actually agnostics, btw).

I believe in Divine creation but just don't ask me for the pre-BB details as it's well above my pay-grade.

To the OP question, I answered "yes" because there simply is no way to tell how God did it.
 
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