The Science of God - how a lover of physics found the truth in Christianity

Chapter 14 - the one Big question

Okay, now that we're back on track, we can focus on the single question an atheist must answer. And I think you'll see that it takes just as much, if not more, faith to be an atheist as it does to be a Christian. It is important to bring any debate back to it's initial premise. Don't get sidetracked by questions of morality or evolution, we can deal with those later. And deal with them we will. But before we head down those paths, you, I, and your non-believing friends (yes, we can be friends) must answer this one question:
1. Did time, matter, and space suddenly appear from nothing or was there a cause?
This is critical. Don't miss it. The argument that the universe has existed for all eternity has long ago been dispelled. The greatest discovery to ever befall the argument for God is the Big Bang Theory. The Big Bang Theory proved that the universe has a starting point. Recent discoveries of echoes and radiation patterns give more proof to the theory. The fact that the universe is expanding, and expanding away from a very specific central point, buries any notion that everything we see in the sky and beneath our feet has simply always existing.
Now back to the question.
There can be only two answers. There is no third option.
Either time, matter, and space appeared like a rabbit out of a magicians hat or something that exists outside of time, matter, and space caused it. And here's the big issue for atheists: anything with a beginning must have a cause. This is basis of scientific discovery. Nothing in nature simply appears on its own. Nothing doesn't cause something.
We get into trouble with atheists when we give a name to that external cause. A science-fiction fan would readily accept the idea of a force outside of our dimension that possesses no mass and is not limited by the dimension of time. But, God forbid, we give that force a name.
For now, we'll leave it at that question. Ponder it. Do your own research. Let your mind explore the options. And let it explore the potential of your answers. The deeper you dive into science, especially where the origins of the universe are involved, the more likely you are to run headlong into unavoidable questions. And greater truths.