I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (16 page)

personal, in order to choose to convert a state of nothingness into the time-space-material universe (an impersonal force has no ability to make choices).

These characteristics of the First Cause are exactly the characteristics theists ascribe to God. Again, these characteristics are not based on someone’s religion or subjective experience. They are drawn from the scientific evidence we have just reviewed, and they help us see a critically important section of the box top to this puzzle we call life.

C
ONCLUSION
: I
F
T
HERE
I
S
N
O
G
OD
, W
HY
I
S
T
HERE
S
OMETHING
R
ATHER THAN
N
OTHING
?

Years ago, I (Norm) debated an atheist at the University of Miami on the question “Does God exist?” After I presented much of the evidence we have reviewed here, I had the opportunity to ask my opponent some questions. Here’s what I asked him:

“Sir, I have some questions for you: First, ‘If there is no God, why is there something rather than nothing at all?’” I then proceeded to ask a few more questions, thinking he would answer them in sequence.

Now, usually when you debate someone, you’re trying to persuade the audience. You don’t expect to get your opponent to admit he’s wrong. He’s got too much invested in his position, and most debaters have too much ego to admit an error. But this guy was different. He surprised me when he said, “Regarding the first question, that’s a good question. That’s a
really
good question.” And without any other comment, he went on to answer my second question.

After hearing the evidence for the existence of God, this debater was left questioning his own beliefs. He even attended a follow-up meeting and expressed that he had doubts about atheism. His faith in atheism was waning. Indeed.

“If there is no God, why is there something rather than nothing?” is a question that we all have to answer. And in light of the evidence, we are left with only two options: either
no one
created something out of nothing, or else
someone
created something out of nothing. Which view is more reasonable? Nothing created something? No. Even Julie Andrews knew the answer when she sang, “Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever could!” And if you can’t believe that nothing caused something,
then you don’t have enough faith to be an atheist!

The most reasonable view is God. Robert Jastrow suggested this when he ended his book
God and the Astronomers
with this classic line: “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”
³⁹

4

Divine Design

“Only a rookie who knows nothing about science
would say science takes away from faith. If you really
study science, it will bring you closer to God.”

—JAMES TOUR, NANOSCIENTIST

THE ASTRONOMICAL EVIDENCE for God
must
be strong when atheistic physicists admit that “the universe exploded out of nothingness,” and agnostic astronomers claim that “supernatural forces” were so at work in the beginning that scientists are led back to “a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries” (see chapter 3). But the scientific evidence for God does not end with the Cosmological Argument. For many, the
precision
with which the universe exploded into being provides even more persuasive evidence for the existence of God.

This evidence, technically known as the Teleological Argument, derives its name from the Greek word
telos,
which means “design.” The Teleological Argument goes like this:

1. Every design had a designer.

2. The universe has highly complex design.

3. Therefore, the universe had a Designer.

Isaac Newton (1642–1727) implicitly confirmed the validity of the Teleological Argument when he marveled at the design of our solar system. He wrote, “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.”
¹
Yet it was William Paley (1743–1805) who made the argument famous by his commonsense assertion that every watch requires a watchmaker. Imagine you’re walking along in the woods and you find a diamond-studded Rolex on the ground. What do you conclude is the cause of that watch: The wind and the rain? Erosion? Some combination of natural forces? Of course not! There’s absolutely no question in your mind that some intelligent being made that watch, and that some unfortunate individual must have accidentally dropped it there.

Scientists are now finding that the universe in which we live is like that diamond-studded Rolex, except the universe is even more precisely designed than the watch. In fact, the universe is specifically tweaked to enable life on earth—a planet with scores of improbable and interdependent life-supporting conditions that make it a tiny oasis in a vast and hostile universe.

These highly precise and interdependent environmental conditions (which are called “anthropic constants”) make up what is known as the “Anthropic Principle.” “Anthropic” comes from a Greek word that means “human” or “man.” The Anthropic Principle is just a fancy title for the mounting evidence that has many scientists believing that the universe is extremely fine-tuned (designed) to support human life here on earth.

In this vast and hostile universe, we earthlings are much like astronauts who can survive only in the small confines of their spaceship. Like a spaceship, our earth supports life as it hurls through lifeless space. But also like a spaceship, a slight change or malfunction in any one of a number of factors—in either the universe or the earth itself—could fatally alter the narrowly defined environmental conditions we need to survive.

Apollo 13,
one of the most challenging and famed missions in the history of NASA, will help drive this point home. We’re going spend the next few pages aboard
Apollo 13
. And as we do, we’ll point out some of the anthropic constants that make our lives possible.

H
OUSTON
, W
E
H
AVE A
P
ROBLEM
!

It’s April 13, 1970, more than two days since Mission Commander Jim Lovell and two other astronauts blasted out of the earth’s atmosphere on
Apollo 13
. They are now flying through space at more than 2,000 miles an hour, eagerly anticipating a walk that only a few men had taken—a walk on the surface of the moon. Everything is going as planned on their magnificently designed spacecraft. In Lovell’s own words, he and his crew are “fat, dumb, and happy.” But all of that is about to change.

At 55 hours and 54 minutes into the mission, shortly after com pleting a TV broadcast back to earth, Lovell is putting wires away when he hears a loud bang. He initially thinks it’s just Pilot Jack Swigert playing a joke by secretly actuating a noisy valve. But when he sees the concerned expression on Swigert’s face—an expression that reveals “It’s not my fault!”—Lovell quickly realizes that this is no joke.

The dialog between Astronauts Lovell, Swigert, Fred Haise, and Charlie Duke (Duke being on the ground in Houston) goes like this:

Swigert: Houston, we’ve had a problem here.

Duke: This is Houston. Say again, please.

Lovell: Houston, we’ve had a problem. We’ve had a main B bus undervolt.

Duke: Roger. Main B undervolt.

Haise: Okay. Right now, Houston, the voltage is . . . looking good. We had a pretty large bang associated with the caution and warning there. And as I recall, main B was the one that had an amp spike on it once before.

Duke: Roger, Fred.

Haise: That jolt must have rocked the sensor on oxygen quantity 2. It was oscillating down around 20 to 60 percent. Now it’s full-scale high.

At this point, the astronauts are not entirely sure what is happening. Oxygen tank sensors appear to be erratic. They’re showing the tanks have as little as 20 percent to the impossible quantity of over 100 percent. Meanwhile, despite Haise’s initial observation that “the voltage is looking good,” multiple Master Caution warnings on the ship’s electrical systems are telling the opposite story.

Within a few minutes, the dire nature of the problem becomes apparent.
Apollo 13
doesn’t have just a sensor problem. It has an actual problem. Their spacecraft—now nearly 200,000 nautical miles from earth and heading away from home—is quickly losing oxygen and power. Two of the three fuel cells are dead, and the third one is depleting rapidly. Haise notifies Houston about the power situation:

Haise: AC 2 is showing zip. . . . We got a main bus A under-volt now. . . . It’s reading about 25 and a half. Main B is reading zip right now.

Lovell then reports the oxygen problem:

Lovell: And our O2 quantity number 2 tank is reading zero. Did you get that?

Houston: O
₂
quantity number 2 is zero.

Then, as Lovell looks out a hatch, he sees what appears to be a gas venting into space from the side of their spacecraft.

Lovell: And it looks to me, looking out the hatch, that we are venting something.

Houston: Roger.

Lovell: We are . . . we are venting something out into the, into space.

Houston: Roger. We copy, you’re venting.

Lovell: It’s a gas of some sort.

That gas is later confirmed to be oxygen. Although the crew doesn’t know this yet, oxygen tank 2 has just exploded and damaged oxygen tank 1 in the process. Lovell can’t see the damage, just the venting gas.

Anthropic Constant 1: Oxygen Level
—On earth, oxygen comprises 21 percent of the atmosphere. That precise figure is an anthropic constant that makes life on earth possible. If oxygen were 25 percent, fires would erupt spontaneously; if it were 15 percent, human beings would suffocate. Lovell and his crew must now find a way to maintain the right level of oxygen in their ship.

But oxygen is not their only problem. Like the atmosphere on earth, a change in one constant on the spacecraft can affect several others that are also necessary for life. The explosion creates a shortage not only of oxygen but also of electricity and water. On
Apollo 13,
water and electricity are produced by combining oxygen with hydrogen in the fuel cells. Without oxygen, there will be no way to manufacture air, water, or power. And since they are in the vacuum of space, there’s no source of oxygen from the outside.

The situation is so unimaginable that Jack Swigert would later say, “If somebody had thrown that at us in the simulator,” meaning a quadruple failure of fuel cells 1 and 3 and oxygen tanks 1 and 2, “we’d have said, ‘Come on, you’re not being realistic.’”

Unfortunately, this isn’t the simulator but a real emergency in a spacecraft two-thirds of the way to the moon. What can they do? Fortunately, there’s a lifeboat. The Lunar Module (LM, known as “the lem”) has provisions that can be used in an emergency. The LM is the craft attached to the top of the Command Module (CM) that two of the astronauts are scheduled to ride down to the moon while the third astronaut orbits above. Of course, the moon landing is about to be called off: saving the lives of the astronauts is now the new mission of
Apollo 13
.

In an effort to save power for reentry, the astronauts quickly power down the Command Module and climb into the LM. But even with the LM, the astronauts are by no means out of the woods. They still have to sling around the moon in order to get back to earth. This will take time—time they don’t have. The LM has provisions designed to sustain two men for about forty hours, but they need to sustain
three
men for
four days!

As a result, every effort is made to conserve water, oxygen, and electricity. All nonessential systems are shut down—including heat—and the astronauts decrease their water consumption to one small cup per day. Haise, feeling ill, soon begins to run a fever, and all three of the astronauts slowly begin dehydrating. This makes concentration more difficult.

Unfortunately, with most automated systems shut down, concentration becomes more and more critical. Besides slinging around the moon, the crew needs to make several manual course corrections to ensure they hit the proper reentry angle and to speed up their trip home. To do so, they’ll have to manually navigate by the stars. But since debris from the explosion continues to envelop the ship in the vacuum of space, the astronauts can’t distinguish the stars from sunlight reflecting off the debris. Consequently, they are reduced to using the earth and the sun as navigational reference points by lining them up in a spacecraft window.

Using this rather crude method, they check their calculations again and again to ensure they are correct. They have little room for error. In fact, they must aim the ship for reentry at a point no less than 5.5 degrees and no more than 7.3 degrees below the earth’s horizon (from the spacecraft’s point of view). Any deviation from that range, and their ship will either skip off the earth’s atmosphere or burn up in too steep a descent.