Media.net

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Bill Nye, Black Holes and Evidence for God

In a recent debate, Bill Nye was asked the question "what would cause you to believe in God" and his answer was "evidence". I want to challenge Bill Nye on this for a second with a cosmic wonder, the black hole. Have you ever seen a black hole? In a picture maybe or on a video? I've seen lots, but you know what, they aren't real pictures. The truth is, we can't see black holes. We can't find them, we can't detect them and we have no idea if they are really there. We think they are, and there are things than help us guess they exist and even where they exist.

A black hole, in theory, is caused by a collapsed star that is a super dense mass of atoms, no empty space just packed in particles. It has major gravity, like a whole lot of gravity and it pulls everything down and smashes it to the thickness of an atom. It even traps light in the gravitational pull and nothing escapes. That is why we can't see it, we see things when light bounces off and comes back to our eyes. We also use radio waves and microwaves and sonar waves, all these things bounce back, just like light. We see the reflection. Black holes don't reflect, they don't send stuff out, so we can't see them. Guess that's a good reason they are called black holes.

Bill Nye believes in black holes, he has done shows on them. I believe in black holes too, but because I've seen one but for the same reason Bill does. I have seen the evidence. You see, when you have that much gravity, it effects things. Stars and planets and comets and stuff. They are influenced by the gravity, they lose energy, change orbits and are moved and otherwise changed. I can't see the black hole, but I see it's effects.

When I'm sitting in my living room, I can't see if there is a breeze outside. I can't hear it, I can't feel it, but I know if there is a breeze blowing. I can see the effects of the breeze on the trees and bushes. I see the evidence. It's true with a breeze, with a black hole and with God. I see the evidence of God in my life, in the life of other people and in the world. I know what He has done in my life, changed me and helped me. I have seen how He has worked in my wife's life and how she has grown in faith. I see Him working on my kids, on people at church, and those who were once far from God and now are close to God. I see the evidence of God, sometimes like branches swaying and sometimes like the pull of gravity so strong that not even light can escape.

My question for Bill Nye is, what evidence do you want? What does it look like? If the pull of gravity is enough for a black hole, isn't the work of God in the lives of believers enough evidence? If you don't have to see the black hole, why do you have to see God? You can't touch the black hole, you can hear it or see it or smell it. Why the black hole but not God?

7 comments:

  1. "The pull of gravity" is something you can directly measure scientifically and has been confirmed using many different methods. "The work of God in the lives of believers" is highly subjective and cannot be scientifically evaluated. You have therefore not provided any so-called "evidence" to consider.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice try, but we have no technology available to test the gravitational pull of an object we aren't standing on. The only "test" is to stand on a scale and compair the pull to earth. No stand alone method to test gravity. It's as subjective as the evidence of God in miracles and the lives of people. Science isn't infallible, it's highly subjective in astrophysics.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Gravity can be measured by observing the changes in the acceleration of bodies over time. We can even measure the difference in the gravitational field around a planet due to differences in land mass density (like mountains) using a special tool called a gravimeter, and we have done so on mars! Researchers even came up with a new method for measuring gravity recently (link: http://phys.org/news/2014-06-method-gravitational-constant.html)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Still won't measure black holes. We hypothise, compair but it's not a provable anomaly.

      Delete
    2. I'm an Engineering Tech student and I spend a lot of time in lab proving theories to myself as part of my education. It's how we learn. It is the same scientific process used in all fields of STEM background. I explore the theories that were conceived by, then proven by people MUCH smarter than myself. Theories that are accepted as "fact" but are ALSO MERELY the BEST ideas we PRESENTLY possess.

      My point is, ALL proven theories are subjective to evidence "apparent" to its beholders. Science, like faith, is a collective of evidence acknowledged by individual people while remaining generally unknown to those who have not actively observed its tangible effects.
      The BIGGEST argument for a faith in science is that it states it's case then proves itself by offering individually interactive experimentation, without which NO ONE would be compelled to accept it's claim.
      I challenge you, "Anonymous" to an experiment of Dan's choosing. An interactive and individual exploration along the very same principles of beholden proof used in the scientific process.
      Fair warning: If you accept, you better come prepared to learn because you can learn ALL that dude knows and TRULY still not have glimpsed a fraction of what there is to behold within his self-proven theory of a loving creator.

      Delete
    3. By the way this is a much better argument than Dan's, and I can appreciate its merit. But it's pretty close to the "everything is relative" cop-out argument. Just because I "take people's word for it" that scientific observations were done correctly based on scientific data, and other people "take other's word for it" when it comes to personal religious experiences, doesn't give one more merit than the other. The fact that tons of people have apparently verified said scientific studies, and the fact that they all match with my PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS gives them more merit to me.

      Delete
  4. "Scientists Detect Gravitational Waves, Proving Einstein Right" http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/science/ligo-gravitational-waves-black-holes-einstein.html?_r=1

    ReplyDelete