This blog has nothing to do with plastic surgery, but don’t go away!
Recently there has been a lot of buzz about Stephen Hawking’s new book THE GRAND DESIGN. In his book, Hawking has dismissed the notion of God, saying that the discovery of other planets orbiting around a sun shows the Earth is not unique in the universe. He also says the universe could be created out of nothing “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist”.
In a Discovery channel episode (I love the Discovery channel, so please watch it!) a physicist from California Institute of Technology has a theory our world as we know it is a computer program similar to SimCity. He believes in the future, the power of computing will be so immense a computer program can be created such as our world. The players, incidentally, are we, but in the distant future! To prove his point, this physicist points out our world is made up of small particles, just as a digital photo is made up of tiny pixels.
The argument God does not exist is not new, and scientists have been debating this issue for centuries.
I am by no means a physicist, and who am I to dismiss Stephen Hawking’s or other physicists’ idea? This is my humble opinion about the existence of God.
As a physician, a part of me is based in science. I do believe there is enough evidence to say the Bing Bang theory is true and that is how our Universe was created. But where did the original mass come from? According to Hawking, because of the existence of the law of gravity, our Universe was created out of nothing. Yet, how can gravity work on nothing? There has to be “some thing” there, no matter how small, for gravity to have worked on, gradually increasing the size and gravitation pull of this object, eventually leading to the Big Bang. This “some things” must have been very small, even smaller than the atoms, meaning it may have taken billions of years just to form the mass. So where do these things come from? Physicist have found very small particles which are created out of nothing (in other word, they come and go). This, to me, means these particles are unstable, and can only live for fractions of a second. Is the law of gravity strong enough to have formed an initial mass from these unstable particles? I doubt it. To me, therefore, the question of the original origin of the Universe still has not been answered.
Regarding the “Sim City” theory, our Universe may be a computer simulated program, but it still does not answer the origin of the Universe which houses us (the players of the game) in the future!
There is a wonderful DVD available called “In the Womb”. Using 4-D ultrasound, the fetus has been transformed into a three dimensional figure (with the assistance of computer imaging), giving incredible detail into the growth of a child in womb. It is amazing how the two halves of chromosomes (one from the mother and one from the father) join and signal an incredible sequence of events, leading to formation of a complex organism. Yes, the scientific side of me says it is conceivably possible, with 5 billion years of evolution, each generation of organisms become more complex, and the formation of a child is nothing but a gradual evolution of chemical and biological systems. How drab! Why not be romantic and believe there is higher being responsible for this wonderful event?
I believe in a higher being, because it gives me hope. Hope is the engine which drives human beings. People, who commit suicide, do so because they have lost all hope. We get up in the morning, hoping for a better day (I am not aware of any one hoping for a worse day!).
Physicists, so far, have been unable to disprove the existence of God, so my thoughts are just as valid as any other theories out there.
I once had a friendly argument with an agnostic about the existence of God. I asked this person if he was in a plane, and the plane started to go down and a plane crash was imminent, would he, even for one second, not say “God help me’? He was silent.
I, by no means, am trying to convince any one to change their views. Just something to think about!
Michael A. Jazayeri, M.D. is a board certified plastic surgeon in Santa Ana with over 10 years of experience. His office is located in Orange County, California. To schedule a complimentary consultation, please call (714) 834-0101.