I publish for blog readers the second part of the video (subtitled) of
the debate “Does God exist or not exist?” which I held against Luis Arbaiza,
representative of the Peruvian Association of Atheists, at the Faculty of Arts
and Human Sciences of the Major National University of San Marcos (Lima - Peru) on May 10, 2013.
Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QDZ-cniwaY
(This second part corresponds to reply, closing speech and questions of the
audience).
In what follows, the referential quotations that I used in my
interventions:
Reply
“The natural laws formulated mathematically in
quantum theory no longer deal with the elementary particles themselves but with
our knowledge of them”. (Werner Heisenberg, “The Idea of Nature in
Contemporary Physics”, en: Franklin Le Van Baumer ed., Main Currents of Western Thought, Yale University Press, New Haven,
1978, pp. 706-707)
“"If the
individual atom is anarchic, why would be this regularity in large numbers?
(...) I do not think there is any alchemy by which it can produce regularity in
large numbers on the base a mere whim in each individual case”. (Bertrand Russell, Religion and
Science, Oxford University Press, New York, 1980, pp. 160-161)
On Borde-Guth-Vilenkin Theorem, see: Alvin Borde,
Alan Guth y Alexander Vilenkin, “Inflationary space-times are incomplete in
past directions”, Physical Review Letters,
nº 90, 2003, pp. 151-301
“A remarkable thing about this theorem is its sweeping generality. We
made no assumptions about the material content of the universe. We did not even
assume that gravity is described by Einstein’s equations. So, if Einstein’s
gravity requires some modification, our conclusion will still hold. The only
assumption that we made was that the expansion rate of the universe never gets
below some nonzero value, no matter how small. This assumption should certainly
be satisfied in the inflating false vacuum.
The conclusion is that past-eternal inflation without a beginning is imposible”.
(Alexander Vilenkin, Many worlds in one:
The search for other universes, Hill & Wang Press, New York, 2006, p.
175)
“It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a
proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now
in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a
past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a
cosmic beginning”. (Alexander Vilenkin, Many
worlds in one: The search for other universes, Hill & Wang Press, New
York, 2006, p. 176)
“At this singularity, space and time came into
existence; literally nothing existed before the singularity, so, if the
Universe originated at such a singularity, we would truly have a creation ex nihilo”. (John Barrow y Frank Tipler, The Antropic Cosmological Principle, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986,
p. 442)
Closing speech
“Belief in the
explanation for everything in the future is an act of faith. By definition
unscientific”. (Luis Arbaiza, “Are the laws of nature finite or infinite?”, luisarbaizaescalante.blogspot.com,
June 13, 2008)
“The universe doesn’t have just a single history, but
every possible history. (… ) Ours is not the only universe. Instead, M-theory
predicts that a great many universes were created out of nothing”. (Stephen Hawking y Leonard
Mlodinow, The Great Design, Bantam
Books Press, 2010, pp. 7, 10)
“The universe appeared spontaneously
from nothing. (…) Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can
and will create itself from nothing”. (Stephen Hawking y Leonard Mlodinow, The Great Design, Bantam Books Press,
2010, pp. 136, 180)
