The Universe Archives

November 21, 2025November 20, 2025

Evidence for the Existence of a Creator in the Big Bang

Cosmology offers compelling evidence for the existence of a creator God. Many people in both religious and skeptical communities see the Big Bang theory as a threat to the credibility of the Genesis account and the existence of God. However, this is unfortunate because the Big Bang theory actually aligns with the Genesis account and presents a cause of creation that skeptics cannot explain.

Technology has confirmed the Big Bang. The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) provides the oldest record of the universe’s temperature and density from the very beginning. The latest CMB data show that the universe began with a hot Big Bang. Data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe verify that time started at the Big Bang.

The words of Genesis 1:1 fully correspond to this data. The first word in the Bible is “reshith,” meaning an absolute starting point. The next word refers to God, followed by “bara,” a term used exclusively for acts only God can perform. Then, we see the word is “shamayim,” meaning “heaved-up things.” The rapid expansion of the universe aligns perfectly with this wording.

Further study of the biblical record reveals the ongoing battle between good and evil and God’s creation of humans through whom that battle occurs. (See Job 1 and 2.) Skeptics cannot explain why humans exist. The greatest failure of atheism is that it offers no reason for the existence of the cosmos or human life. When science and religion conflict, it often indicates either poor science, poor religion, or both. Historically, this has been the case with the Big Bang theory, but as science progresses and people deepen their understanding of what the Bible truly teaches, we see that both science and Scripture provide strong evidence for the existence of a Creator.

Reference: American Scientist, November/December 2025, pages 353 -359.

October 31, 2025October 28, 2025

Earth Needs Jupiter

Jupiter is by far the largest planet in the solar system. Its mass is 2.5 times greater than the combined mass of all other planets in the solar system. It divides the planets of the inner solar system (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) from the outer planets (Saturn, Uranus, Neptune). We have previously mentioned that the gravity created by Jupiter’s mass acts as a shield to protect our planet from comets coming from outside the solar system. Additionally, Jupiter influences Earth’s climate cycle. More than that, Earth needs Jupiter for its very existence.

As the solar system was formed, Jupiter’s massive gravity prevented gas and dust in the inner solar system from being pulled into the Sun. These materials coalesced into the inner planets, including Earth. As the planets formed, Jupiter’s gravity helped stabilize the orbits. A recent study co-led by Andre Izidoro of Rice University in Houston demonstrated that Jupiter shaped the structure of the solar system. Earth needs Jupiter today, just as it needed it at the beginning.

According to Izidoro, “Jupiter didn’t just become the biggest planet—it set the architecture for the whole inner solar system. Without it, we might not have Earth as we know it.” As gas and dust swirled around the newly formed Sun, Jupiter’s massive gravity created ripples that formed rings of material which clumped together by gravity to form the inner planets. Earth needs Jupiter because, without it, the material that formed the planet would have spiraled into the Sun.

Genesis 1:1 tells us, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth,” but it doesn’t specify the process God used or how long it took. If the Bible included every detail, it would be an enormous book. But the Bible is not a science book, and scientists are still exploring the processes God used in creation. It is fascinating to consider how complex the creation process must have been, yet the first verse of the Bible contains the essential facts. There was a beginning. God did it. The creation of a functioning universe, a solar system, and a planet for human habitation is summarized in five Hebrew words—“reshith elohim bara shamayim erets.”

References: space.com and science.org

October 20, 2025October 20, 2025

Precisely Nothing – Is It Something?

What is “precisely nothing?” Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss used that phrase in the preface of his 2012 New York Times best-selling book titled A Universe from Nothing. Krass at that time was a professor at Arizona State University and head of the Origins Project there. He later lost that position due to “moral failure,” and is now an anti-theist blogger. An anti-theist is more than an atheist. He does not believe in God, but also actively opposes faith in a creator. Like other anti-theists, he believes that faith in God is not just wrong, but destructive to society.

On what did Krauss base his statement that there was “remarkable new support for the idea that our universe arose from precisely nothing?” Krauss suggests that quantum gravity fluctuations could allow for “the creation, albeit perhaps momentarily, of space itself where none existed before.” Furthermore, “small-density fluctuations in empty space due to the rules of quantum mechanics will later be responsible for all the structures we observe in the universe today. So we, and everything we see, result out of quantum fluctuations in what is essentially nothingness…” He further writes that the universe arose through “a process whereby the energy of empty space (nothing) gets converted into the energy of something.”

Is what Krauss calls “precisely nothing” actually nothing? You may have the same feeling that I have that someone is trying to fool you into believing nonsense. When he writes that “getting something from nothing is not a problem,” I have trouble believing him. Perhaps I am simple-minded, but I prefer a simple explanation of why there is something instead of nothing. It’s explained in a video called a “Proof of God in 3 Minutes.” I encourage you to watch it by clicking HERE.

June 2, 2025June 1, 2025

Why We Care About Entropy

As a high school physics teacher, I frequently found myself challenged to keep my students interested. Some subjects were easy, but others were challenging, and the kids became bored very quickly. An example of the latter was a unit on the laws of thermodynamics. The second law, also known as the entropy law, states that a closed system tends to become increasingly disordered over time. Entropy is a statistical measure of disorder. During that unit of study, I once had a student who said, “Who cares?” There are good reasons why we care about entropy.

My response is that entropy is a design feature of the cosmos that produces black holes, but it also allows us to breathe and have engines in our cars. As a public-school teacher, I could not bring my religious views into the classroom, but it also disproves one of the atheist arguments against the existence of God.

When we say that God has always existed and He created the cosmos, atheists ask, “Then who created God?” They suggest it is easier to believe that matter has always existed. Why we care about entropy is that it shows that matter and the cosmos have not always existed.

Every reaction in the physical world reduces the amount of energy available to do work. The total energy in the cosmos available to do work is constantly decreasing, eventually becoming zero, and entropy will be maximum. That means the cosmos could not be eternal, and it must have had a beginning. There must be a cause for that beginning, and that cause is God.

May 12, 2025

The Creation of Matter from Nothing

In high school, I enjoyed science and decided that I wanted to be a scientist of some kind. I entered Indiana University and enrolled in an astronomy course at the feet of one of the great astronomers of the day. In that course, we studied the problem of origins — the creation of matter from nothing. As we discussed this subject, we went into various theories that had been proposed.

When we got to the conclusion of the discussion, I asked the professor which of the theories was the most acceptable one that satisfactorily explains the creation of matter from nothing. He leaned over the desk, looked me straight in the eye, and said, “Young man, you need to learn to ask intelligent questions.”

I did not appreciate the professor’s response, so I said, “Well, what do you mean?” He said, “This is not a question that a scientist tries to answer. This is a question for the philosopher or theologian, but this is not something that falls into the realm of science.” In today’s discussions of black holes and parallel universes, things have not changed. The fundamental question of the creation of matter/energy from absolutely nothing is not an area that can be scientifically explored.

I had always felt that science could ultimately answer all the questions humans have. I believed there was no challenge that science could not eventually resolve. Yet this learned man, an expert in his field, said that this was an area that the scientist should not even try to answer. It was totally beyond the capacity of science to explain and explore.

That was more than 50 years ago. Today there are even more questions science can’t answer, and one of the remaining unanswered questions involves the creation of matter from nothing.

This was adapted from “Why I Left Atheism” by John N. Clayton. You can read the entire story HERE.

May 9, 2025May 8, 2025

Confidence in Astronomical Observations

Some people have asked how we can know that astronomers’ statements about the evolution and demise of stars are factual. This question is usually asked by those in religious denominations that demand a young Earth, which means a young cosmos. Even though the time factors are much longer than human existence, we can have confidence in astronomical observations.

Although humanity has not been around long enough to observe the complete life of a star, we have seen intermediate steps in star evolution. Astronomers plot the luminosity (brightness) of stars against their surface temperature (or color/spectral type) with graphs called the Hertzsprung-Russell (H-R) diagram. It’s a powerful tool for classifying stars, studying their evolution, and understanding their properties. An example is the Crab Nebula.

In 1054, astronomers saw a star explode. The debris pattern of the explosion resembles a crab, so astronomers call it the Crab Nebula. Almost a millennium later, measurements show that the nebula is roughly 10 light years in diameter and is expanding at 1,500 kilometers per second. Observations of the Crab Nebula by the Hubble telescope in 2005 and the Webb telescope in 2023 show steps in the life of a star. Observations of other stars provide more information about a star’s lifetime, giving us confidence in astronomical observations.

Even though I didn’t see the launch, if I see a rocket climbing higher in the sky with every passing second, I know it was launched. I can even compute the launch time. When a car comes to a stop, leaving tire tracks, I know the car was going fast when someone applied the brakes. Every day, we understand evidence of a process without seeing it from start to finish. Astronomers come to understand the life history of stars in the same way.

As we have pointed out before, the Bible does not tell us the age of the cosmos or Earth. We can have confidence in astronomical observations. Young-earth theology is not only in opposition to the evidence but is also inconsistent with the biblical account.

References: apod.nasa.gov for May 8, 2025, and Wikipedia.

February 26, 2025February 26, 2025

The Mysterious Neutrino

A fascinating science story involves the mysterious neutrino. The famous Italian physicist Enrico Fermi gave it that name, which means “little neutral one.” When I was a graduate student at Indiana University, we were told that neutrinos are the binding energy holding neutrons together. A neutron consists of an electron and a proton held together, making a neutral particle. When a neutron decays, it releases an electron and a proton. Measuring the energy of these two particles leaves a tiny amount of energy unaccounted for. Neutrinos explain that missing energy.

Scientists later discovered that the mysterious neutrino is present anytime there is a change in a nucleus. Neutrinos are so tiny they can go through virtually anything, making them extremely difficult to detect or measure. Researchers obtained neutrino measurements by putting detectors made of glass spheres on the Mediterranean Sea floor and reported their findings in February of 2023. Now, we know that some neutrinos are 30 times more energetic than any previously known neutrinos. They are vastly more energetic than photons that make up visible light, X-rays, and ultraviolet rays.

The media has named the mysterious neutrinos “ghost particles” because of their properties. The truth is that neutrinos tell us that what holds matter together is not the physical material we can sense. Science does not fully understand matter and the particles of which it is made—electrons, protons, and neutrons. Those particles are made of energy in a form different from what we learned in chemistry class. What message about God can we see in the mysterious neutrinos?

The Bible tells us that God is not a man. Isaiah 55:8-9 finds God saying “…my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” In Acts 17:28, Paul described the nature of God by saying, “…in Him we live and move and have our being.” John 1:14 tells us that the God of Israel BECAME flesh and lived for a while among us.” In Exodus 33:18-23, Moses asks God to show himself, but God tells Moses no human can see Him and live (verse 20). These passages tell us that God is not a physical being, and what He does is not by the processes that humans can use.

The more we know about what holds matter together, the more we realize that God’s methods and design are not by physical processes we know, understand, or can duplicate. It reminds us of the words of David in Psalms 8:3-4: “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him. You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.”

References: CNN Science and Wikipedia

February 4, 2025February 3, 2025

UFO/UAPs and Common Sense

Over the 56 years of this ministry’s existence, we have heard many UFO claims. The only progress that has been made is to change “Unidentified Flying Objects” (UFOs) to “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena” (UAPs). We still see huge amounts of taxpayer money and large segments of the media devoted to UFO/UAPs when we can solve the issue with a little common sense.

On November 13, 2024, two subcommittees of the House Oversight Committee held a joint hearing on UAPs. One witness, journalist Michael Shellenberger, submitted 214 pages of testimony and published an article alleging that the government is running a highly secretive program called “Immaculate Constellation” with “hundreds, maybe thousands” of images and videos of UAPs.

Before we resort to common sense, let us clearly state this is not a biblical issue. Could God have created life elsewhere? Of course, He could. The Bible only describes Earth but tells us that there is a war between good and evil (Ephesians 6:12), and it could be happening in more than one place. Science fiction writers have proposed this for many years.

There is big money in UFO/UAPs with movies, books, newspapers, magazines, video games, and television shows providing a gold mine for people with great imaginations. Common sense says that there will be people who will see this and get rich from it, but there are some common sense reasons not to take these claims too seriously:

1) There is no reason for aliens to play games with us. If they had the technology to prevent us from seeing them, they would have used it without giving us a fleeting view.

2) A vast percentage of UFO/UAP claims have been exposed as frauds or shown to have an understandable cause. Reflections off the canopy of military aircraft at high speeds and weather phenomena have caused many military pilot sightings.

3) Satellites in orbit could make UFP/UAP sightings. However, the claims have all come from sightings on the ground or planes in the Earth’s atmosphere. To reach these locations, an alien must pass by the International Space Station, and no unexplained sightings have come from that source.

4) Nobody has suggested good reasons for aliens with the technology to travel huge distances to Earth. The closest galaxy to us is 152,000 light years away. That means it would take well over 152,000 years traveling at the speed of light to get here. Why do it? What would we have to offer? Saying that relativity would cause time to slow down does not answer the fact that the home planet would age more than 300,000 years while the aliens journey to Earth and back.

We need to work at solving our problems here on Earth and not obsess over the paranoia of UFO/UAPs. Jesus Christ gives us a way to solve the issues tearing America and the world apart. Will we allow God to bless America or continue to entertain ourselves with fictional stories and claims that offer no help for what ails us? Stay tuned!

— John N. Clayton © 2025
Reference: “Inside Capitol Hill’s latest UFO Hearings” in Time magazine, December 9, 2024, page 16.

January 24, 2025January 20, 2025

Possible Astronomical Catastrophes

The media often fills a void in natural disasters on Earth by headlining possible astronomical catastrophes. A recent example was a headline in USA Today stating that a “Rare but extreme solar event could disrupt life on earth.”

The article tells us that a solar superflare would fry communications satellites and produce electric currents strong enough to paralyze the power grid. The article tells us that in 1859, a violent solar storm knocked out the telegraph network in large parts of northern Europe and North America. It said if a solar superflare happened today, it would knock out phone services, GPS, credit card authorization, and weather and climate monitoring. The USA Today report is taken from the peer-reviewed journal Science, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

So, what is the danger of a solar superflare to you and me? The answer to that question is “virtually none.” The point is that solar superflares occur in stars like our Sun roughly once every 10,000 years. The flare in 1859 was not a solar superflare but merely a flare for which the nascent electric industry was unprepared. Today, such a flare would not significantly affect today’s telegraph or phone service.

The lack of possible astronomical catastrophes shows the intelligence and design built into our planet and solar system. A G-2-type star, like our Sun, has infrequent occurrences of solar superflare. Other spectral classes of stars can have solar superflares every 1000 years. That means the occurrence of life on a planet around another star is highly unlikely, if not impossible.

In his 1956 CBS television program “Our Mister Sun,” the late Dr. Frank Baxter said, “The more we know of the creation, the closer we get to the Creator.” The lack of solar superflares is another example of the truth of his statement.

— John N. Clayton © 2025
Reference: “Rare but extreme solar event could disrupt life on earth” on USA Today December 6, 2024

January 23, 2025January 20, 2025

Alien Civilizations in Space – WOW!

On August 15, 1977, astronomer Jerry Ehman looked at a printout of signals received by the “Big Ear” radio telescope at Ohio State University. He saw a signal that astronomers associated with SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) had suggested would be a natural calling frequency for alien civilizations. Ehman circled the signal and used a red pen to write “Wow!” in the margin. The signal has never been seen again, and no explanation of its origin has worked until now.

Astrobiologist Abel Mendez at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo Observatory has discovered a cosmic hydrogen cloud that can emit light like a laser. Scientists have built hydrogen masers, and they have seen a few of them in space, but this is the first one at this frequency.

If this discovery turns out to be correct, it can complicate things for the SETI researchers looking for alien civilizations in space. Those folks would like to find a source for some of the things that are attributed to God. By explaining away claims of action by God, they feel they can discredit the Bible and eliminate God from the picture.

We have pointed out that the Bible is silent on life elsewhere in the creation, but if there is, God created it. Rejecting God because they can find an explanation rooted in alien civilizations is a step of faith for these people. However, explaining life on Earth as seeded by alien life is not logical. It does not explain the origin of the alien life. Over and over, attempts to find signals from aliens have proven unsuccessful, and this is just one more.