This philosophy, which was originally formulated among the ancient Greeks, has also made an appearance from time to time in other cultures and has been advanced by individuals as well. It holds that matter alone exists and that it has done so for an infinity of time. From these tenets, it claims that the universe has also "always" existed and was not created.
In addition to their claim that the universe exists in an infinity of time, materialists also assert that there is no purpose or aim in the universe. They claim that all the equilibrium, harmony and order that we see around us are merely the product of coincidence. This "coincidence assertion" is also put forward when the question of how human beings came into being comes up. The theory of evolution, widely referred to as Darwinism, is another application of materialism to the natural world.
We just mentioned that some of the founders of modern science were faithful people who were in agreement that the universe was created and organised by Allah. In the 19th century, an important change took place in the attitudes of the scientific world with respect to this matter. Materialism was deliberately introduced to the agenda of modern science by various groups. Because the 19th century's political and social conditions formed a good basis for materialism, the philosophy gained wide acceptance and spread throughout the scientific world.
The findings of modern science however undeniably demonstrate how false the claims of materialism really are.
The Findings of 20th-Century Science
Let us recall the two assertions of materialism about the universe:
The universe exists in infinite time and, because it has no beginning or end, it was not created.
Everything in this universe is merely the result of chance and not the product of any intentional design, plan, or vision.
Those two notions were boldly advanced and ardently defended by 19th-century materialists, who of course had no recourse other than to depend upon the limited and unsophisticated scientific knowledge of their day. Both have been utterly refuted by the discoveries of 20th-century science.
The first to be laid in the grave was the notion of the universe existing in infinite time. Since the 1920s, there has been mounting evidence this cannot be true. Scientists are now certain that the universe came into being from nothingness as the result of an unimaginably huge explosion, known as the "Big Bang". In other words, the universe came into being-or rather, it was created by Allah.
The 20th century has also witnessed the demolition of the second claim of materialism: that everything in the universe is the result of chance and not design. Research conducted since the 1960s consistently demonstrates that all the physical equilibriums of the universe in general and of our world in particularly are intricately designed to make life possible. As this research deepened, it was discovered each and every one of the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology, of the fundamental forces such as gravity and electromagnetism, and of the details of the structure of atoms and the elements of the universe has been precisely tailored so that human beings may live. Scientists today call this extraordinary design the "anthropic principle". This is the principle that every detail in the universe has been carefully arranged to make human life possible.
To sum up, the philosophy called materialism has been utterly refuted by modern science. From its position as the dominant scientific view of the 19th century, materialism collapsed into fiction in the 20th.
How could it have been otherwise? As Allah indicates "We did not create heaven and earth and everything between them to no purpose. That is the opinion of those who are disbelievers." (Surah Sad: 27) it is wrong to suppose that the universe was created in vain. A philosophy so utterly flawed as materialism and systems based on it were doomed to failure from the very beginning.
Creation is a fact. we will be examining the evidence for this fact. We will see how materialism has collapsed in the face of modern science and also witness how wonderfully and perfectly the universe has been designed and created by Allah.
In its standard form, the big bang theory assumes that all parts of the universe began expanding simultaneously. But how could all the different parts of the universe synchronize the beginning of their expansion? Who gave the command?
Andre Linde, Professor of Cosmology 2
A century ago, the creation of the universe was a concept that astronomers as a rule ignored. The reason was the general acceptance of the idea that the universe existed in infinite time. Examining the universe, scientists supposed that it was just a conglomeration of matter and imagined that it had no beginning. There was no moment of "creation"-a moment when the universe and everything in it came into being.
This idea of "eternal existence" fit in well with European notions stemming from the philosophy of materialism. This philosophy, originally advanced in the world of the ancient Greeks, held that matter was the only thing that existed in the universe and the universe existed in infinite time and will exist endlessly. This philosophy survived in different forms during Roman times but in the Late Roman Empire and Middle Ages, materialism went into decline as a result of the influence of the Catholic church and Christian philosophy. It was after Renaissance that materialism began to gain broad acceptance among European scholars and scientists, largely because of their devotion to ancient Greek philosophy.
It was Immanuel Kant who, during the European Enlightenment, reasserted and defended materialism. Kant declared that the universe exists for all time and that every probability, however unlikely, should be regarded as possible. Kant's followers continued to defend his idea of an infinite universe along with materialism. By the beginning of 19th century, the idea that the universe had no beginning-that there was never any moment at which it was created-became widely accepted. It was carried into the 20th century through the works of dialectical materialists such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
This notion of an infinite universe fit in very well with atheism. It is not hard to see why. To hold that the universe had a beginning could imply that it was created and that, of course requires a creator-that is, Allah. It was much more convenient and safer to circumvent the issue by putting forward the idea that "the universe exists for eternity", even though there was not the slightest scientific basis for making such a claim. Georges Politzer, who espoused and defended this idea in his books published in the early 20th century, was an ardent champion of both Marxism and materialism.
Putting his trust in the validity of the "infinite universe" model, Politzer opposed the idea of creation in his book Principes Fondamentaux de Philosophie when he wrote:
The universe was not a created object, if it were, then it would have to be created instantaneously by God and brought into existence from nothing. To admit creation, one has to admit, in the first place, the existence of a moment when the universe did not exist, and that something came out of nothingness. This is something to which science can not accede. 3
Politzer supposed that science was on his side in his defense of the idea of an infinite universe. In fact, science was to prove that the universe indeed had a beginning. And just as Politzer himself declared, if there is creation then there must also be a creator.
The Expansion of Universe and the Discovery of the Big Bang
The 1920s were important years in the development of modern astronomy. In 1922, the Russian physicist Alexandra Friedman produced computations showing that the structure of the universe was not static and that even a tiny impulse might be sufficient to cause the whole structure to expand or contract according to Einstein's Theory of Relativity. George Lemaitre was the first to recognize what Friedman's work meant. Based on these computations, the Belgian astronomer Lemaitre declared that the universe had a beginning and that it was expanding as a result of something that had triggered it. He also stated that the rate of radiation could be used as a measure of the aftermath of that "something".
The theoretical musings of these two scientists did not attract much attention and probably would have been ignored except for new observational evidence that rocked the scientific world in 1929. That year the American astronomer Edwin Hubble, working at the California Mount Wilson observatory, made one of the most important discoveries in the history of astronomy. Observing a number of stars through his huge telescope, he discovered that their light was shifted towards the red end of the spectrum and, crucially, that this shift was directly related to the distance of the stars from Earth. This discovery shook the very basis of the universe model held until then.
According to the recognized rules of physics, the spectra of light beams travelling towards the point of observation tend towards violet while the spectra of light beams moving away from the point of observation tend towards red. (Just like the fading of a train's whistle as it moves away from the observer) Hubble's observation showed that according to this law, the heavenly bodies were moving away from us. Before long, Hubble made another important discovery; The stars weren't just racing away from Earth; they were racing away from each other as well. The only conclusion that could be derived from a universe where everything moves away from everything else is that the universe constantly "expands".
Hubble had found observational evidence for something that George Lemaitre had "prophesized" a short while ago and one of the greatest minds of our age had recognized almost fifteen years earlier. In 1915, Albert Einstein had concluded that the universe could not be static because of calculations based on his recently-discovered theory of relativity (thus anticipating the conclusions of Friedman and Lemaitre). Shocked by his findings, Einstein added a "cosmological constant" to his equations in order to "make the answer come out right" because astronomers assured him that the universe was static and there was no other way to make his equations match such a model. Years later, Einstein was to admit that his cosmological constant was the biggest mistake of his career.
Hubble's discovery that the universe was expanding led to the emergence of another model that needed no fiddling around with to make the equations work right. If the universe was getting bigger as time advanced, going back in time meant that it was getting smaller; and if one went back far enough, everything would shrink and converge at a single point. The conclusion to be derived from this model was that at some time, all the matter in the universe was compacted in a single point-mass that had "zero volume" because of its immense gravitational force. Our universe came into being as the result of the explosion of this point-mass that had zero volume. This explosion has come to be called the "the Big Bang" and its existence has repeatedly been confirmed by observational evidence.
There was another truth that the Big Bang pointed to. To say that something has zero volume is tantamount to saying that it is "nothing". The whole universe was created from this "nothing". And furthermore this universe had a beginning, contrary to the view of materialism, which holds that "the universe has existed for eternity".
The "Steady-state" Hypothesis
The Big Bang theory quickly gained wide acceptance in the scientific world due to the clear-cut evidence for it. Nevertheless astronomers who favored materialism and adhered to the idea of an infinite universe that materialism seemingly demanded held out against the Big Bang in their struggle to uphold a fundamental tenet of their ideology. The reason was made clear by the English astronomer Arthur Eddington, who said "Philosophically, the notion of an abrupt beginning to the present order of Nature is repugnant to me".4
Another astronomer who opposed the Big Bang theory was Fred Hoyle. Around the middle of the 20th century he came up with a new model, which he called "steady-state", that was an extension of the 19th century's idea of an infinite universe. Accepting the incontrovertible evidence that the universe was expanding, he proposed that the universe was infinite in both dimension and time. According to this model, as the universe expanded new matter was continuously coming into existence by itself in just the right amount to keep the universe in a "steady state". With the sole visible aim of supporting the dogma of "matter existed in infinite time", which is the basis of the materialist philosophy, this theory was totally at variance with the "Big Bang theory", which defends that the universe had a beginning. Supporters of Hoyle's steady state theory remained adamantly opposed to the Big Bang for years. Science, however, was working against them.
The Triumph of the Big Bang
In 1948, George Gamov carried George Lemaitre's calculations several steps further and came up with a new idea concerning the Big Bang. If the universe was formed in a sudden, cataclysmic explosion, there ought to be a definite amount of radiation left over from that explosion. This radiation should be detectable and, furthermore, it should be uniform throughout the universe.
I will add more later need sleep now
In addition to their claim that the universe exists in an infinity of time, materialists also assert that there is no purpose or aim in the universe. They claim that all the equilibrium, harmony and order that we see around us are merely the product of coincidence. This "coincidence assertion" is also put forward when the question of how human beings came into being comes up. The theory of evolution, widely referred to as Darwinism, is another application of materialism to the natural world.
We just mentioned that some of the founders of modern science were faithful people who were in agreement that the universe was created and organised by Allah. In the 19th century, an important change took place in the attitudes of the scientific world with respect to this matter. Materialism was deliberately introduced to the agenda of modern science by various groups. Because the 19th century's political and social conditions formed a good basis for materialism, the philosophy gained wide acceptance and spread throughout the scientific world.
The findings of modern science however undeniably demonstrate how false the claims of materialism really are.
The Findings of 20th-Century Science
Let us recall the two assertions of materialism about the universe:
The universe exists in infinite time and, because it has no beginning or end, it was not created.
Everything in this universe is merely the result of chance and not the product of any intentional design, plan, or vision.
Those two notions were boldly advanced and ardently defended by 19th-century materialists, who of course had no recourse other than to depend upon the limited and unsophisticated scientific knowledge of their day. Both have been utterly refuted by the discoveries of 20th-century science.
The first to be laid in the grave was the notion of the universe existing in infinite time. Since the 1920s, there has been mounting evidence this cannot be true. Scientists are now certain that the universe came into being from nothingness as the result of an unimaginably huge explosion, known as the "Big Bang". In other words, the universe came into being-or rather, it was created by Allah.
The 20th century has also witnessed the demolition of the second claim of materialism: that everything in the universe is the result of chance and not design. Research conducted since the 1960s consistently demonstrates that all the physical equilibriums of the universe in general and of our world in particularly are intricately designed to make life possible. As this research deepened, it was discovered each and every one of the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology, of the fundamental forces such as gravity and electromagnetism, and of the details of the structure of atoms and the elements of the universe has been precisely tailored so that human beings may live. Scientists today call this extraordinary design the "anthropic principle". This is the principle that every detail in the universe has been carefully arranged to make human life possible.
To sum up, the philosophy called materialism has been utterly refuted by modern science. From its position as the dominant scientific view of the 19th century, materialism collapsed into fiction in the 20th.
How could it have been otherwise? As Allah indicates "We did not create heaven and earth and everything between them to no purpose. That is the opinion of those who are disbelievers." (Surah Sad: 27) it is wrong to suppose that the universe was created in vain. A philosophy so utterly flawed as materialism and systems based on it were doomed to failure from the very beginning.
Creation is a fact. we will be examining the evidence for this fact. We will see how materialism has collapsed in the face of modern science and also witness how wonderfully and perfectly the universe has been designed and created by Allah.
In its standard form, the big bang theory assumes that all parts of the universe began expanding simultaneously. But how could all the different parts of the universe synchronize the beginning of their expansion? Who gave the command?
Andre Linde, Professor of Cosmology 2
A century ago, the creation of the universe was a concept that astronomers as a rule ignored. The reason was the general acceptance of the idea that the universe existed in infinite time. Examining the universe, scientists supposed that it was just a conglomeration of matter and imagined that it had no beginning. There was no moment of "creation"-a moment when the universe and everything in it came into being.
This idea of "eternal existence" fit in well with European notions stemming from the philosophy of materialism. This philosophy, originally advanced in the world of the ancient Greeks, held that matter was the only thing that existed in the universe and the universe existed in infinite time and will exist endlessly. This philosophy survived in different forms during Roman times but in the Late Roman Empire and Middle Ages, materialism went into decline as a result of the influence of the Catholic church and Christian philosophy. It was after Renaissance that materialism began to gain broad acceptance among European scholars and scientists, largely because of their devotion to ancient Greek philosophy.
It was Immanuel Kant who, during the European Enlightenment, reasserted and defended materialism. Kant declared that the universe exists for all time and that every probability, however unlikely, should be regarded as possible. Kant's followers continued to defend his idea of an infinite universe along with materialism. By the beginning of 19th century, the idea that the universe had no beginning-that there was never any moment at which it was created-became widely accepted. It was carried into the 20th century through the works of dialectical materialists such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
This notion of an infinite universe fit in very well with atheism. It is not hard to see why. To hold that the universe had a beginning could imply that it was created and that, of course requires a creator-that is, Allah. It was much more convenient and safer to circumvent the issue by putting forward the idea that "the universe exists for eternity", even though there was not the slightest scientific basis for making such a claim. Georges Politzer, who espoused and defended this idea in his books published in the early 20th century, was an ardent champion of both Marxism and materialism.
Putting his trust in the validity of the "infinite universe" model, Politzer opposed the idea of creation in his book Principes Fondamentaux de Philosophie when he wrote:
The universe was not a created object, if it were, then it would have to be created instantaneously by God and brought into existence from nothing. To admit creation, one has to admit, in the first place, the existence of a moment when the universe did not exist, and that something came out of nothingness. This is something to which science can not accede. 3
Politzer supposed that science was on his side in his defense of the idea of an infinite universe. In fact, science was to prove that the universe indeed had a beginning. And just as Politzer himself declared, if there is creation then there must also be a creator.
The Expansion of Universe and the Discovery of the Big Bang
The 1920s were important years in the development of modern astronomy. In 1922, the Russian physicist Alexandra Friedman produced computations showing that the structure of the universe was not static and that even a tiny impulse might be sufficient to cause the whole structure to expand or contract according to Einstein's Theory of Relativity. George Lemaitre was the first to recognize what Friedman's work meant. Based on these computations, the Belgian astronomer Lemaitre declared that the universe had a beginning and that it was expanding as a result of something that had triggered it. He also stated that the rate of radiation could be used as a measure of the aftermath of that "something".
The theoretical musings of these two scientists did not attract much attention and probably would have been ignored except for new observational evidence that rocked the scientific world in 1929. That year the American astronomer Edwin Hubble, working at the California Mount Wilson observatory, made one of the most important discoveries in the history of astronomy. Observing a number of stars through his huge telescope, he discovered that their light was shifted towards the red end of the spectrum and, crucially, that this shift was directly related to the distance of the stars from Earth. This discovery shook the very basis of the universe model held until then.
According to the recognized rules of physics, the spectra of light beams travelling towards the point of observation tend towards violet while the spectra of light beams moving away from the point of observation tend towards red. (Just like the fading of a train's whistle as it moves away from the observer) Hubble's observation showed that according to this law, the heavenly bodies were moving away from us. Before long, Hubble made another important discovery; The stars weren't just racing away from Earth; they were racing away from each other as well. The only conclusion that could be derived from a universe where everything moves away from everything else is that the universe constantly "expands".
Hubble had found observational evidence for something that George Lemaitre had "prophesized" a short while ago and one of the greatest minds of our age had recognized almost fifteen years earlier. In 1915, Albert Einstein had concluded that the universe could not be static because of calculations based on his recently-discovered theory of relativity (thus anticipating the conclusions of Friedman and Lemaitre). Shocked by his findings, Einstein added a "cosmological constant" to his equations in order to "make the answer come out right" because astronomers assured him that the universe was static and there was no other way to make his equations match such a model. Years later, Einstein was to admit that his cosmological constant was the biggest mistake of his career.
Hubble's discovery that the universe was expanding led to the emergence of another model that needed no fiddling around with to make the equations work right. If the universe was getting bigger as time advanced, going back in time meant that it was getting smaller; and if one went back far enough, everything would shrink and converge at a single point. The conclusion to be derived from this model was that at some time, all the matter in the universe was compacted in a single point-mass that had "zero volume" because of its immense gravitational force. Our universe came into being as the result of the explosion of this point-mass that had zero volume. This explosion has come to be called the "the Big Bang" and its existence has repeatedly been confirmed by observational evidence.
There was another truth that the Big Bang pointed to. To say that something has zero volume is tantamount to saying that it is "nothing". The whole universe was created from this "nothing". And furthermore this universe had a beginning, contrary to the view of materialism, which holds that "the universe has existed for eternity".
The "Steady-state" Hypothesis
The Big Bang theory quickly gained wide acceptance in the scientific world due to the clear-cut evidence for it. Nevertheless astronomers who favored materialism and adhered to the idea of an infinite universe that materialism seemingly demanded held out against the Big Bang in their struggle to uphold a fundamental tenet of their ideology. The reason was made clear by the English astronomer Arthur Eddington, who said "Philosophically, the notion of an abrupt beginning to the present order of Nature is repugnant to me".4
Another astronomer who opposed the Big Bang theory was Fred Hoyle. Around the middle of the 20th century he came up with a new model, which he called "steady-state", that was an extension of the 19th century's idea of an infinite universe. Accepting the incontrovertible evidence that the universe was expanding, he proposed that the universe was infinite in both dimension and time. According to this model, as the universe expanded new matter was continuously coming into existence by itself in just the right amount to keep the universe in a "steady state". With the sole visible aim of supporting the dogma of "matter existed in infinite time", which is the basis of the materialist philosophy, this theory was totally at variance with the "Big Bang theory", which defends that the universe had a beginning. Supporters of Hoyle's steady state theory remained adamantly opposed to the Big Bang for years. Science, however, was working against them.
The Triumph of the Big Bang
In 1948, George Gamov carried George Lemaitre's calculations several steps further and came up with a new idea concerning the Big Bang. If the universe was formed in a sudden, cataclysmic explosion, there ought to be a definite amount of radiation left over from that explosion. This radiation should be detectable and, furthermore, it should be uniform throughout the universe.
I will add more later need sleep now
