It was entertaining to listen to David Quinn, journalist, debate Richard Dawkins on religion. Once again, the religious apologist, here played by David Quinn, failed to provide any convincing argument (this is a trend I've noted in all the recent debates I've seen)
The arrogance of religious apologists is as always stunning, "You won't find an answer to where matter came from" and similar statements were common from David, not an expert in matters of cosmology or anything else scientific but former editor of the Irish Catholic . That he at the same time accuses scientists of being arrogant for their opposing claims (having shown progress in the understanding of the universe for well over 2000 years), is baffling. It's particularly ridiculous when most recent studies are already quickly unravelling what could lie beyond the Big Bang. The border of understanding is already moving beyond what people that possible a few years ago. This doesn't bother David Quinn, who happily takes it upon himself to make sweeping generalist, and completely unfounded statements on the probability of this.
Interestingly, he also (absurdly) claims that the existence of matter in the universe is the a rational proof for the existence of God and claims that Dawkin's mathematical model of infinite regress (proving that a supernatural creator could not exist) is nonsense. The latter is a bold statement given that mathematics have so far proven a profound ability to describe the workings of the universe, but the first statement is the most fallacious.
Science does not currently have a full understanding of what matter or "mass" is, but we do know for certain that its not a rigid immovable force as it was once construed. Instead its "mass-energy" or as Laszlo describes it "standing waves of particles" suspended on a the zero-point energy field in the quantum vacuum that composes the known universe. We do know, however, almost exactly how this came into being, we have a firm understanding of where it came from
The final argument from Quinn that everything needs a cause, just proves the man's limited understanding of modern physics (and another reason we should educate people more thoroughly on physics before they go out spouting outdated claims as facts in defense of the very thing that is threatening the scientific community who created it in the first place). The universe does not appear to be linear in time in the traditional way we understand it. It's likely that our universe was created based on the experiences created in earlier "Bangs" and earlier (currently co-existing) universes. So what lies beyond the very first Bang? We don't know at this stage, but what is the best chance of understanding this: Reading the latest developments on it, or trusting in the belief that a God created it, a theory that has stood unproven for two millenia without showing any promise of delivering any tangible proof.
Can we know the universe eventually. Yes, if the universe is indeed interconnected, it is not impossible that a being (perhaps humans) could reach a level of complexity where we could tap into the full memory of the universe back to the first Bang and perhaps beyond.
I unfortunately don't have time to pick apart his weird claim that morality is caused by free will and that free will cannot exist within the theory of evolution (with the latest models of an interconnected universe, it's doubtful if anything could be termed "free", but I'm sure mr. Quinn is happy to ignore this compounding evidence to safeguard his current worldview).
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