Speculation - 2025 August

There is an axiom in science … that in the absence of data one is free to speculate.

Speculation can be an excellent starting point for designing experiments and testable hypotheses. However, until those experiments are done, it is not science. - Edward Peltzer

(Quote context and citations are in the note links).

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In the middle of last week my kayaking buddy messaged me to see if I could go on a trip to Cape Flattery and Point of Arches. Cape Flattery is the very farthest northwest tip of the Olympic Pennisula. Point of Arches is about 10 mi south, just beyond Shi Shi Beach. The ocean swells were to be unusually low, so it would be ideal for exploring around the rocks.

I was able to take the time off work, so Sunday I joined them near Neah Bay on the Makah Indian Reservation. We car-camped by Hobuck Beach and day-tripped with the kayaks. For the first day we launched at Neah Bay, went around the tip of Flattery and came back to Hobuck.

Last year I had visited the pennisula and hiked to the Cape Flattery viewpoint. The coast line from there is very beautiful and rugged. There were caves all around, and so I was looking forward to seeing them from the water.

However, when we got to Flattery I was not prepared for how cool it was! There were caves everywhere, some small, some big, and some connected to others. So, those were not just caves - they were tunnels!

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I was stopped in the car, and another car was beside me. It was a gorgeous, bright, warm spring morning. There was a young person in the other car - slouched and bored. It looked as if they felt life was meaningless in that moment.

I was not bored because my day would be full of tasks and events. Did that make my life more meaningful? I wondered if even though my day would be busy, could it also be a spiritual day?

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Our universe happens to exist. Most people subscribe to the Big Bang model and its description of cosmological origin. In this, our universe began in the finite past, bursting into existence from a single point and expanding out to size.

All things naturally physical (including energy and matter), all physical laws of our universe, all space and even time itself did not exist without this initial singularity. Absent this singular event, nature itself did not exist. Therefore, since the event was not of nature, it was by definition super-natural. In the Big Bang model, the origin of the universe was supernatural.

Others believe the universe had an infinite past, always existing with its characteristic features. This view would seem to make the issue of origin disappear, but it does not.

In our physical world, real infinities are never actual because they are unable to exist. There cannot be an infinite quantity of things because there are a finite number of particles available in the universe. There cannot be an infinite number of events because then there would never be an event to start the event sequence. Infinities are mental concepts only which are physically impossible, and so infinity itself is supernatural.

However, we exist. Since an infinite past in our natural world is impossible, an infinitely old universe would also be supernatural.

Therefore, the existence of the universe through either the Big Bang or an infinite past is supernatural. Since most scientific lines of evidence point to the Big Bang, it is generally the preferred view.

So then, because our universe exists, everyone believes in at least one great miracle.

Mechanistic Causes

Since everything that begins to exist has a cause, the next great question is what was the cause of the Big Bang? We already know it was not natural (of our universe); however, it might still be a mechanistic cause. A huge issue that this cause must also explain is why our universe is constructed with hyper precision to support life.

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I was born into a Christian family. However, today my view on Christianity is not the same as it was when I was a child.

Often a person remains in the religious belief system they grew up in. If they do leave their belief system it may be for reasons that involve experience, rationales or evidence. I however am still a Christian, and it is because of evidence, reason and experience.

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Good News: Read all about it!

Find out about

• The Simple Good News
• values that you (and others) can choose that strengthen relationships
• how this makes sense of spiritual things that are otherwise confusing
• and please choose this way of living

This is an approach for living based on what Jesus taught and is pragmatically useful both for those that follow Jesus or for those that just admire him.

I'm Larry Grove, and my wife is Melanie. We have three adult sons and our family has continued to grow.

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