The beginning of everything. When we start our investigations, it is good to start from the beginning of the universe. It was already stated above that the most common theory of the beginning of everything usually starts from the fact that the universe began by itself and then life on the surface of the earth gradually developed from it. This materialistic notion includes that all that is needed is time and matter and everything is possible; It does not take the Creator into account at all in its calculations.

    However, the essential thing is that the universe must have a beginning and that it cannot be eternal and infinitely old. Scientists' theories also prove that. For when they talk about the Big Bang, the birth of galaxies, stars, the solar system and the earth, they assume that these things had a beginning. They know they haven't always existed, even if they don't believe in special creation. They do not take God into account, but nevertheless rely on the fact that everything has a beginning.

    In addition, we can practically see that there has been a beginning. The so-called second main law of thermodynamics shows that the universe is heading towards heat death - towards a state where all temperature differences have disappeared and where the amount of usable energy decreases and eventually runs out. This decrease in the amount of energy can be compared in principle to when the wood in a campfire burns out. Once they burn out, they cannot be burned again - they are unusable. It shows how usable energy is decreasing all the time:

The energy doesn't really seem to disappear. The problem, however, is that it gradually changes into such a form that it can no longer be used. The entire universe is headed for heat death. The current universe and all its matter and energy decays into thermal energy that evenly fills the entire universe. When this happens, nothing can take place anymore. (1)

The fact that there are still temperature differences in the world and that the sun and stars shine and that there are still energy reserves inside the earth only show that the universe cannot be eternal and that it has not always been in the same state. Or if the sun and stars were old enough, there would be a uniform temperature everywhere and no movement due to temperature differences could be detected anymore. Everywhere would be equally cold and the stars would have gone out, but now it's not like that.

    The conclusion that can be drawn from the decrease in the amount of usable energy is that somewhere in the past there was a date and a moment when everything started. There must have been a moment when the clock, which is ticking towards heat death, started, and a moment when it all started. That's the only option, or else we have to abandon the second law of thermodynamics.

    The following quotes bring out the same point. They show how the theory of heat forces us either to believe that the world was created at a certain moment, or else we must assume that the laws of nature were different in the past than they are now:

Arthur Eddington (an English astrophysicist in the 1930’s): When we go back in time, we will come to a more and more organised world. Finally, we will come to a moment where all materials and energy are as organised as can be. We cannot go beyond this point. We have come to a point in time and space that cannot be crossed, and that can only be described by the word "beginning" (...) To me, it is completely natural to accept the conclusion that the current natural science offers for the future – the heat death of the universe. (2)

William Jevons (an English philosopher in the 1870s): We cannot trace the heat history of the universe too far into the past. At some point, we will get impossible results referring to such heat distributions, which cannot, according to the laws of nature, come from any preceding distribution. (...) The theory concerning heat forces us either to believe that the world has been created at a certain moment, or that the laws of nature have been different at an earlier point in time. (3)

Life must also have a beginning. When it was stated that the universe has a beginning, the same applies to life - it too must have a beginning. There must have been a moment when life, which is quite a fragile thing and which requires very specific conditions, has begun. At least there is nothing to show that it continued forever on earth.

    The main reason for the limited existence of life is the limited existence time of the sun. Since the sun cannot have existed forever and bring heat and light to the earth, there cannot have been life either. (The second main law of thermodynamics set limits on the existence of the sun. The sun is like wood in a campfire that only burns for a certain amount of time. After that it becomes cold and dark). Without the sun, the temperature would be almost -273 degrees, it would be dark and the water would be frozen - those would be conditions that would be impossible for life. No known life form could thrive in them, it would be impossible.

    So the conclusion is that when the sun cannot have always existed and bring heat to the earth, there cannot have been life either. The issue is so simple that it should awaken us. It also indicates that there must have been a moment when life came to be on the Earth. Scientists don't believe in creation, but if it isn't considered, then it must have started at some point anyway. Otherwise, we would again have to abandon the second law of thermodynamics.

    The following quote talks about the same topic. It shows how people do believe in the beginning of life, but how the same thing is still unclear to scientists. These kinds of conclusions are possible because people do not want to admit God’s share in the Creation.

Andy Knoll, professor of biology at Harvard University: In trying to bring together what we know about the deep history of life on planet Earth, the origins of life, and the stages of its formation that led to the biology that appears around us, we have to admit that it is shrouded in obscurity. We do not know how life began on this planet. We don't know exactly when it started, and we don't know under what circumstances. (4)

2. Has there been a Big Bang?

When we start to find out how the universe got its start, clearly the most common view nowadays is the so-called Big Bang theory that is also regarded as the standard theory. This theory is based on the notion that in the beginning, maybe around 15 billion years ago, there was no universe like today, i.e. there were no current stars, galaxies or any other celestial bodies - and of course no life. Everything was completely different compared to today.

    Instead, it is believed to have been characteristic of the beginning that all the matter in the universe was concentrated in only one point - a point whose volume was perhaps only the size of the pinhead (the idea of a pinhead appears in the publications of many who believe in this theory). There was no matter and no space beyond this point.

    Then, quite suddenly, something unexpected happened. TThe so-called Big Bang occurred and caused all the material to be hurled to every direction in space. The result was that the previous starting point no longer existed, but the gas that spread out into space began to expand wider and wider until it began to condense in some places. It is generally thought that galaxies, stars, and other celestial bodies were then born from these condensations, until finally the universe as we know was finished.

Is the theory satisfactory? When reading some publications, one can easily get the idea that the Big Bang theory is a fact that has been proven to be true and there is no reason to doubt it. Among scientists and in textbooks, it is clearly regarded as the best model of how everything has begun.

   However, there are problems with the Big Bang theory. Some researchers have pointed them out and noted that the theory is by no means undisputed. They have understood that science is not able to explain the beginning of the universe. It is problematic because it cannot be experimentally proven, and it is also impossible because we cannot go back to the past. The Big Bang is only an unproven theory that is needed mainly because people do not want to believe in God’s Creation work. The fact that the whole theory is on very shaky ground can be seen in the following quotes:

How did the universe finally come into existence? What happened precisely at the moment zero?

  We do not know. The universe about to be born – whose all material, radiation, and space would have fit inside the full stop ending this sentence – was so extremely hot and dense that it cannot be described by any theory of physics. Physicists cannot tell anything about the world until at the stage when it was a few centimetres in size and a billionth billionth billionth billionth part of a second old.

  We can only try and guess as comes to the events occurring before that. Some think that the universe was created, while others think that it was a question of a former space that had collapsed and now yet again began to enlarge. Yet others think that the universe came into existence from nothing. (5)

We cannot claim that science has solved the mystery of the universe once and for all. Far from it. So far, there are relatively few observations supporting the Big Bang theory, although some of them are very convincing. The majority of the researchers of the field regard the Big Bang theory as the model that can best explain these observations. In any case, we have not found a theory that could describe the first split seconds of the universe. We do not know how particles act and what kind of form the force of gravity gets when the particles have been packed into an extremely small space under enormous heat. The Big Bang is not a test that we could reproduce. (6)

New data differs enough from the theory’s prediction to destroy the Big Bang-cosmology (Fred Hoyle, The Big Bang in Astronomy, 92 New Scientist 521, 522-23 / 1981)

As an old cosmologist, I see the current observational data repealing theories about the beginning of the universe, and also the many theories about the beginning of the Solar System. (H. Bondi, Letter, 87 New Scientist 611 / 1980)

There has been remarkably little discussion of whether or not the big bang hypothesis is correct... many of the observations that conflict it are explained through numerous unfounded assumptions or they are simply ignored. (nobelist H. Alfven, Cosmic Plasma 125 / 1981)

Does the red shift prove expansion? Concerning the Big Bang and expansion, it is a thing that we cannot detect with the naked eye or even with a telescope, no matter how much we look. Revolving and rotary movements of the celestial bodies we can see – at least in the near space – but we cannot see expansion.

   Instead, some have used the redshift that can be observed in distant stars as an indirect and best evidence of the Big Bang. It has been thought that when the spectral lines of light from distant galaxies and stars have shifted towards the red end of the spectrum, it is an indication of expansion. Redshift values of these celestial bodies should indicate their escape velocity and distance, so that all bodies are drawing away from us at a velocity proportional to their distance.

  However, the use of redshift to support expansion is questionable. It is due to e.g. of the following factors:

The light of all stars is not red shifted. The first problem with redshift is that the light of all stars is not red shifted. For example, the Andromeda galaxy and some other galaxies show that their light is blue shifted, which means that they should be approaching us (It has been estimated that the Andromeda Galaxy is approaching us at 300 kilometres a second! On the other hand, the escape velocity of the Virgin Constellation should be 1,200 km/s and that of Quasar PKS 2000 as much as 274,000 km/s. Where do these more than a hundredfold differences come from, if everything began at the same point?) These types of exceptions indicate that the redshift values may have an explanation other than moving of celestial bodies away from us. They may not be related to their movement at all.

The values of adjacent galaxies. One problem with redshift is that some adjacent galaxies have completely different redshift values, even though they are connected to each other by a material bridge and thus close to each other. So if redshift really told the distance, these adjacent and interconnected galaxies should have the same redshift value, but they don't. This indicates that the redshift must be caused by some other factors. Therefore, it has been suggested that these redshifts could be caused by the stars' own internal reactions or radiation, which can also be detected from Earth.

    Due to the same thing, some researchers dispute the meaning of the entire redshift. They say or suspect that redshift need not have anything to do with expansion. In fact, the whole Big Bang theory is then devoid of its most important piece of evidence. It is also important to note the following statement by Steven Weinberg. He states that ”We do not actually observe the galaxies rushing away from us”. Instead, indirect redshift observations, which have been criticized by many, are used to support the Big Bang and expansion.

I do not want to imply that everyone is of the same opinion regarding the interpretation of the redshift. We do not actually observe the galaxies rushing away from us; the only thing that is sure is that their spectrums have moved towards red. Famous astronomers doubt whether the red shift has anything to do with the Doppler shifts or with the expansion of space. Halton Arp of the Hale Observatory has emphasized that groups of galaxies can be found in space where some galaxies have quite different red shifts; if these groups are really composed of galaxies that are close to each other, they could hardly move at very different velocities. Furthermore, Maarten Schmidt noticed in 1963 that certain kinds of objects resembling stars had enormously high red shifts, up to more than 300 per cent! If these "quasars" are at the distances that can be deducted from their redshifts, they must radiate an extremely large amount of energy in order to continue being so bright. It is also very difficult to measure the correlation between velocity and distance when the objects are really far away. (Steven Weinberg, Kolme ensimmäistä minuuttia / The Three First Minutes, p. 40)

The redshift changes from time to time. One peculiarity of some quasars is that their redshift changes periodically - often within a single day, and sometimes it is higher, sometimes lower. What causes such variations?

   If we were to draw a conclusion based on these changing red shift values, the conclusion would be that celestial bodies are sometimes moving away faster, sometimes slower, which phenomenon is however not known in the universe. It is more likely that the changing redshift values are due to internal reactions or unknown physical phenomena in the case of these quasars as well, and not to their escape motion, as shown in the following quote. These types of observations, like the previous ones, suggest that it is questionable to connect the redshift values with the expansion and the Big Bang:

Although the explosion theory has thus been supported by solid evidence, the matter cannot yet be considered resolved, as the interpretation of the redshift observation based on the theory has been the subject of doubts, which have been confirmed by some recent observations. Perhaps the redshift is not due to the escape of radiation sources, but to some as yet unknown physical phenomena. This notion can be justified, above all, by the so-called.... with observations of quasars. In these objects, which due to their high redshift were considered distant, rapidly receding and very large material formations, rapid fluctuations in the intensity of the radiation were found. This kind of behavior is very strange because it is hard to imagine a mechanism that would be able to affect those formations at least the size of the Milky Way within a few months. In the case of galaxies, the magnitude of the redshift turned out to depend on their type or position in the galaxy cluster. Furthermore, cases were found in which objects with small and big red shifts seemed to be in physical connection, close to each other. (Antti Jännes, Koululaisen uusi tietosanakirja, p. 1012)

What caused it? One important question about the Big Bang is what caused it, i.e. what "triggered" it?

    If we assume that the state of being before the big bang was static and stable, then what caused the explosion? (a static state was necessary because if there were temperature differences and movement, it would have exhausted all usable energy long before the supposed big bang)

    This is a good question, because if the state of an object or material has been immobile, static, and permanent throughout time, we cannot expect it to all of a sudden, by itself, turn into heavenly bodies, for example. This certainly would not take place: instead, everything would remain as it is.

   The law of stability also proves the unchanged state; according to it, if the state of an object is to be changed, an outside power is always needed – the change will never take place by itself. This means that, for example, a stone on the ground will never start to move by itself: instead, it will remain where it is until some outside force moves it – for example, if someone lifts up the stone and throws it away. In the same way, a snow-capped area can never start to melt away by itself, but warmth is needed to start the process. Only when the Sun starts shining and warming it, will the snow start to melt, otherwise it would remain eternally unchanged. There are many more similar examples.

  Martin Rees in his book "Avaruuden avainluvut" (pp. 109, 192) has told about the problem of the beginning and how difficult it is to explain the supposed beginning of the Big Bang. He states that there is no good explanation for it, because it is not known how it started (assuming that the Big Bang actually occurred, of course):

Even though the view of the beginning of the universe is logical, a few points still remain unexplained. The most notable of these is that this model does not give any explanation as to why the universe started to expand. (...) Instead, the model only describes what took place after the Big Bang, and does not mention how it started.

What annulled gravity? In the case of the initial state of the Big Bang, it has been suggested that "all matter was once tightly pressed together" and that "the universe was super dense and hot in its initial state – perhaps something that physics now calls a 'singularity', i.e. a point with an infinitely high density". (the text in quotes is from Tieteen maailma: Maailmankaikkeus, “Encyclopedia of the Earth” p. 105, 106). Likewise, it has been explained that the initial state of the Big Bang is completely comparable to black holes, with the only difference being that the former involved the entire matter of the universe, while the latter was only a local state. Both are assumed to have been and are singularities, i.e. states where the density and gravity are so immense that no other force can overcome gravity (for example Stephen W. Hawking, Ajan lyhyt historia, p. 62, 80). Even at the speed of light, which is considered to be the fastest possible, escape would not have been successful, as it would also have been prevented by gravity. The following example of black holes refers to this:

From the inside of this surface, nothing enters the outer universe, not even light. Time and space on the inside of the surface are so distorted that the beam of light inevitably turns back. Leaving a black hole is as impossible as going back in time. (Martin Rees, Avaruuden avainluvut, p. 66)

A good question based on the previous one is what caused the explosion and expansion? If gravity has prevented all escape (= explosion), it means that no explosion and expansion could have even started. It would have been impossible, because the same gravity that has shrunk the mass to a point, or singularity, cannot suddenly change and stop working.

    There have been attempts to explain the matter, e.g. by the cosmic removal force, but if all material had been condensed together because of the force of gravity, so that no other force could overcome it, then how could the same gravity suddenly stop working? The same physical laws that have shrunk mass to a point, or singularity, cannot suddenly stop working. Not taking it into account would be like saying that the known laws of physics have no meaning at all, even though they still affect our daily lives. Such is not worth to take into consideration, if it is a question of real science:

Some researchers speak willingly about ”a wrong vacuum” that was in the beginning, and think that they can, in this way, explain the origin of energy and material by means of a so-called “inflation model”. This is a mathematical feat that requires, among other things, the transformation of attraction into a removal force during “the first 10^-32 seconds”. (7)

All from one point? The Big Bang theory entails that all material had in the beginning condensed into one place, the volume of which was perhaps only the size of a pinhead, until the explosion took place. The next quote describes this:

All material that we know to be in billions of galaxies, was compressed to a pinhead-sized point. Our own visible Milky Way was smaller than an atom in it. (8)

But what does common sense say? If it is assumed that a new, similar universe would now emerge from a space the size of a rock chip, how many would believe it? How many normal people would consider that possible?

   So when you ask an ordinary person how possible it is that a new universe like the present one could be born from, for example, an ordinary chip of a stone (in the Big Bang theory, it is supposed that everything came into being from a pinhead-sized space) what would he answer?

• Approximately one hundred billion galaxies with one hundred billion stars in each

• Mountains

• Seas, lakes, and rivers, in which we can swim and fish

• Mankind

• Barking dogs

• Twittering birds

• Whining mosquitoes

• Our senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste

• Feelings, such as love, grief, anger, fear, pleasure

• Sun that sends out just right amount of warmth

• Rain

• Metals that can be used for shipbuilding

• Apples, strawberries, blueberries, peas

• Octopus, whales, kangaroos, lions, hippos, cheetahs, crocodiles, ostriches, sheep, eagles, bats, butterflies, ants

• Giant sequoias and other beautiful trees and flowers

What would the plain man answer and how reasonable would he consider the whole issue when holding a chip of stone in his hand? Is it not likely that his answer would be something to the effect: “Don’t be crazy, that’s just an impossible idea! Such a universe cannot be born from a small stone. How could anyone believe in such foolishness?”

    So a lot of faith is required if we assume that all life, the multiplicity of nature and the entire current universe have come from a space the size of a pinhead. There's a real weirdness to it. In general, the explosion does not create any order, and if we also assume that all the things around us and the heavenly bodies started from one tiny point, it is one of the biggest insanities of science.

3. The birth of galaxies and stars

As we continue to deal with the early stages of the universe according to the most common theories, galaxies and stars come next.

    It has been assumed that they formed in such a way that when the Big Bang happened at the beginning, the hydrogen gas created from this explosion spread into space. Then the same gas, which had been spread around the space due to the force of the explosion, suddenly began to condense into galaxies and stars - albeit as a result of a slow process. It was made possible by small densifications that are believed to have been evenly distributed after the Big Bang. It has been estimated that this process of condensation of gas and dust took place over millions of years, until our existing galaxies and stars were born.

Is the theory satisfactory? When it comes to the birth of galaxies and stars, some publications give the impression that this issue has already been resolved and clarified, as has the Big Bang. It has been suggested that this is a proven fact that is not to be doubted, but only believed. Many really think that celestial bodies are formed in the manner described above.   

   However, in this matter, scientists are on a weak ground. They do not have a clear idea of the initial stages, which, of course, is natural, since none of us witnessed these events. The genesis of celestial bodies remains an enigma, although it is claimed otherwise. In particular, the emergence of galaxies is considered problematic. There is absolutely no decent evidence of this:

I do not want to claim that we really understand the process that created the galaxies. The theory on the birth of the galaxies is one of the major unsolved problems in astrophysics and we still seem to be far from the actual solution even today. (Steven Weinberg, Kolme ensimmäistä minuuttia / The First Three Minutes, p. 88)

With a high degree of certainty, stars are born from sparse interstellar gas in just this way. We can hope that the same thing would happen throughout the Universe and trigger the formation of galaxies. Therein lies the big problem - that is not happening... We need better observation-based evidence of how galaxies and the large-scale structures of the universe were born. We are not yet able to make such observations of ordinary galaxies... (Malcolm S. Longair, Räjähtävä maailmankaikkeus / The Origins of Our Universe, p. 99,109)

Properties of gas. When we start to study the problems related to the creation of galaxies and stars, the first of them is how the gas that got spread around the space due to the force of the Big Bang has started to condense into galaxies and stars. It is known from physics how the basic nature of gas is that it always fills as much space as is given to it. Therefore, it would spread and escape only deeper into space. It would escape deeper into space, and no celestial bodies could even form. That would be impossible and instead all matter should be evenly distributed in space. It proves against the theory.

   Some researchers have tried to solve this problem by proposing that matter condensations and disturbances took place at some point after the Big Bang. However, this raises another big problem: nobody has been able to properly explain how these matter condensations  were formed.

However, the big problem is, "How did it all start?" How did the gas, from which the galaxies originated, originally gather together so that the process of star birth and the great cosmic cycle could be triggered?... We must therefore find physical mechanisms that generate condensations in the homogenous matter of the universe. This sounds very easy, but it actually leads to profound problems. (Malcolm S. Longair, Räjähtävä maailmankaikkeus / The Origins of Our Universe, p. 93)

Little evidence for the formation of galaxies and stars. When it comes to the birth of galaxies and stars, it has been suggested that all that is needed is sufficient gas in one place, and they will be created by themselves. It has also been explained that stars are currently being formed in certain nebulae, such as the Orion constellation.

     In response one might state that, generally speaking, we cannot be sure whether some fog clouds are accumulating or dispersing. A person's lifetime is usually not long enough to observe these phenomena. Thus, it is possible that if we think we see a new star, it may simply be that the same star has been invisible behind a cloud of fog all along, but now only emerges, e.g. due to the rotation of the celestial bodies or the movement of the nebula. This, then, is not necessarily a new star; the star is only "coming into view."

    On the other hand, if the formation of galaxies and stars is so simple, then where is the evidence for their formation? When it has been assumed that there are about a hundred billion galaxies in the sky, each of which would have a hundred billion stars, and if this is divided by 10 billion (the assumed age of the universe has been 10-15 billion years), it would mean that every year 10 new galaxies and 1000 billion new stars should be born! Such a number of new stars and galaxies should surely be detected somehow, but why can’t we detect it?

    It shouldn't even be difficult to detect, because scientists believe they can see only the past from space. Then you would only need to look at different distances between 1 light year and 10-15 billion light years - there would be a choice in looking - then you should definitely see the formation of celestial bodies. However, this is not detected.

The birth of revolving and rotary movements is a mystery. If in the beginning there was only centrifugal motion caused by the Big Bang, how could this motion suddenly change into revolving and rotary movements that can be observed everywhere in space? No revolving or rotary motion can begin without the influence of another force. What caused these new directions of movement?

  Assuming that the Big Bang really happened, it would have caused motion in only one direction: away from the source of the explosion. No revolving and rotary movements could then even occur, but everything would proceed directly away from the starting point. A good question to ask is, how did these motions come into existence? They could not have started by themselves; this goes against all the known laws of physics. Why are these movements found and observed everywhere in space? Such facts show how shaky the theory of the origin of the universe is.

4. The birth of the solar system and Earth

As regards the birth of the solar system and the Earth, the most common theory is that in the beginning, there was only one rotating cloud of gas and dust from which the Sun and planets gradually began to form.

   As this cloud rotated at a great velocity, only its central part stayed in place, and from it the Sun was formed; through collisions and mergers, the separate parts began to form into larger pieces until, finally, they became planets. It is believed that the whole solar system and the Earth came into existence from this one gas-dust cloud.

Is the theory satisfactory? When we start to study the possibility that the solar system and the Earth came into being in the way described above, we must note that there are many problems with the theory. In fact, the problems are so huge that according to some researchers, the whole solar system should not even exist. This suggests that the theory of their birth cannot rest on a firm foundation:

Even nowadays, when astrophysics has progressed enormously, many theories concerning the origin of the solar system are unsatisfactory. Scientists still disagree about the details. There is no commonly accepted theory in sight. (Jim Brooks, Näin alkoi elämä, p. 57 / Origins of Life)

All presented hypotheses about the origin of the solar system have serious inconsistencies. The conclusion, at the moment, seems to be that the solar system cannot exist. (H. Jeffreys, The Earth: Its Origin, History and Physical Constitution, 6^th edition, Cambridge University Press, 1976, p. 387)

Rotation speed. One problem concerns the speed of rotation. If the Sun and the planets actually came into being in the above-mentioned manner, the rotation speed of the original gas cloud should have been a lot greater than the Sun's current rotation speed. As the rotation speed now is approximately 2 km/s, the original rotation speed should have been about 1,000 km/s. Why is the speed nowadays so low, only 1/500 of the supposed original value? What has caused the speed to diminish so enormously? Jim Brooks has explained this problem in the following way:

The largest difficulty with this theory has to do with the impulse moment of the planets and the Sun. It seems that the primeval nebula has not been able to rotate quickly enough for the rings to come loose. According to mathematical laws, the total impulse moment of the solar system has remained the same in all of its development stages. If the known total impulse moment were to come completely to the Sun, the Sun would rotate about fifty times faster around its axis than at present, in other words, one circuit in half a day. As a consequence, the centrifugal force at the Sun's equator would increase. This would reduce the Sun's force of gravity only by 5%, and so the rings could not come loose. So, our calculations imply that the centrifugal force could not have been able to hurl the planets from the Sun into the outer space. (Jim Brooks, Näin alkoi elämä / Origins of Life, p. 53)

Another problem with rotation speed is that if rotation threw the planets away from the sun, then why does the sun rotate slower than the planets (e.g. Earth rotates on its axis more than 25 times faster than the sun)? Why does it rotate slower than the planets, when it should rotate many times faster than them?

 For when experiments have been carried out with a spinning-top, experiments show that small objects that have been discarded lose their speed much sooner than the spinning-top itself. In other words, the spinning-top, which remains spinning, retains its speed much higher than the outgoing bodies. Why is it that the rotation speeds between the Sun and the planets are quite the opposite to what we should expect? What has slowed the Sun's rotation speed so considerably compared to the planets?

Distances. The second problem is the distance of planets from the Sun. Since the diameter of the Sun is now about 1.4 million kilometers and the initial cloud was only 2–3 times larger, we can pose the question of how, when studying these figures, can the planets be so far away from the Sun? The Earth is about 150 million kilometers away from the Sun, and Pluto almost forty times further away or a distance of about 5,900 million kilometers, which is over 4,000 times the Sun's diameter. These figures are huge. How could the bodies in question be flung so far away from the proximity of the Sun's gravity if they were initially attached to each other?  What threw them so far, when the Sun’s own rotation speed is now only 2 km/s?

Composition and atmospheres of planets. The biggest problem in the birth of the solar system is related to the different composition of the sun, planets and moons. If they were born from a common gas cloud, they should also have the same composition, but they don't have. Differences can be observed e.g. in the following matters. They show how big problems are encountered if we stick to current theories: 

• 99 per cent of the Sun consists of light elements, i.e., hydrogen and helium, but the Earth has only about one percent of these elements, and it is composed of 99 percent heavy elements. What could be the cause of such broad differences if the Sun and the Earth originate from the same initial nebula? Other inner planets’ composition is also different to the Sun, which poses another similar issue. These kinds of dissimilarities are difficult to explain from the common initial nebula.

• There are such huge differences in composition of the Earth and its moon and the other inner planets that it is difficult to think that their origin could be the same and they could have been born from the same initial cloud.

• There are enormous differences between the Earth and the large outer planets and their moons. The composition of the Earth is totally different than that of these outer planets, which are composed of light elements.

• There is plenty of water on Earth, but the other planets are almost completely devoid of water.

• The atmospheres notably differ from each another. There are at least the following differences:

• Earth: 78% nitrogen, approximately 21% oxygen plus argon and other gases.

• Venus: 97% carbon dioxide, 2% nitrogen and less than 1% water vapor 

• Mars: 95% carbon dioxide, the rest nitrogen and argon

• Jupiter: Approximately 82% hydrogen and 17% helium

Movements. If we propose that the planets and moons have the same origin, then their movements should also be similar. All of them should rotate approximately to the same direction, since they have all come into existence from the same rotation.

   However, this is not the case. As one studies the movements of these celestial bodies, one finds that many of them are rotating in exactly the opposite way as one could expect. These differences would certainly not be possible if they really had the same origin. Here are some differences:

• Venus rotates around its axis to the opposite direction than the other planets.

• Four of Jupiter's moons, one of Uranus' moons, and Neptune's second moon or the large Triton revolve around their mother planet to the opposite direction than the other moons.

• The planet Uranus is also an exception; its axis is almost on track level, while the axes of the other planets are nearly perpendicular to their track level.

5. The birth of life

One of the basic assumptions of the theory of evolution is that life arose from non-living matter. It has been thought that it could have happened spontaneously by itself, as long as the conditions were right. Usually, such conditions mean an atmosphere that contained hydrogen, methane, ammonia and water vapor, but not the most important substance for us today, free oxygen. Second, different types of radiation and lightning had to occur in this same atmosphere. It should have caused the chemical changes that eventually gave rise to the building blocks of life, amino acids. For example, the school textbook (Koulun biologia, lukiokurssi 2-3, 1987, Tast – Tyrväinen – Mattila – Nyberg, p. 172). explains the matter and how it was possible to prepare amino acids in the laboratory. There are also two other quotes. They show that it has been impossible to experimentally prove the borth of life by itself and that it clearly goes against practical observations:

In the beginning, the atmosphere of the Earth contained, in addition to water vapor, hydrogen, ammonia, and methane gases. Since there was no oxygen in the atmosphere, the ozone layer did not protect the Earth. Therefore, the ultraviolet rays of the Sun were able to freely penetrate the surface of the Earth. Rain washed ingredients from the mainland into the seas making them salty.

   (...) The formation of organic material from simple substances has also been experimentally proven. In such experiments, electrical discharges were conducted into a closed container containing methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water vapor. The result was many organic substances, e.g. amino acids.

The abiogenesis theory that prevailed in the 1700s suggested that organisms were born from lifeless materials. In the 1860s, Louis Pasteur proved this untrue. According to the present view, abiogenesis has indeed happened, but apparently only once. (Koulun biologia, lukiokurssi 2-3, 1987, Tast – Tyrväinen – Mattila – Nyberg, p. 172)

It has been impossible to produce life in a laboratory. However, this has been attempted by man only for some decades. Nature had time for hundreds of millions of years and countless warm ponds on the deserted surface of the earth as a testing ground. It was enough that life started in one pond. From there it spread to all parts of the globe. (Heikki Oja: Polaris, p. 144)

Are the theories satisfactory? As we start to study the mystery of the birth of life, we must note that the issue is not as simple as some publications suggest. Usually, in this area the experiment with birth of life by Miller has been discussed, but, interestingly enough, Stanley Miller took a more cynical attitude to the theory later in his life. J. Morgan tells in an interview about Miller's attitude:

He was indifferent about all suggestions about the origins of life, considering them “nonsense” or “paper chemistry”. He was so contemptuous about certain hypotheses that when I asked his opinion about them, he only shook his head, sighed deeply and sniggered – like trying to reject the madness of the human race. He admitted that scientists may never know exactly when and how life started. “We try to discuss a historical event that is clearly different from normal science”, he noted. (9)

Nevertheless, our next task is to investigate this field, and we can be certain to encounter insuperable problems. The composition of the atmosphere in the beginning and the formation of proteins are especially problematic:

Composition of atmosphere in beginning. As stated, the above-mentioned theory supposes that in the beginning, the atmosphere included hydrogen, ammonia, and methane, but no free oxygen at all, because free oxygen would have prevented the generation of proteins and stopped the reactions at the very beginning.

   However, if we look into this matter, it does not seem likely and against it are the following points:

Precambrian rocks. One thing speaking against an oxygen-free atmosphere are Precambrian rocks. Many Precambrian rocks that have been defined to be the oldest ones include oxygenated iron minerals, which indicate that there was oxygen already at that stage. The idea that there would have been no oxygen in the atmosphere in the beginning clearly goes against these practical observations. Ken Towe explained the problem:

There is an unsolved problem associated with the study of the early Precambrian period. On the one hand, it is admitted that the early Earth lacked gaseous oxygen and that life began in such an environment. On the other hand, many Precambrian rock types, including the oldest known deposits, contain oxidized iron minerals. So there was free oxygen at the time of their formation. Where did it come from? (p. 115, Jim Brooks Näin alkoi elämä / Origins of Life)

Was the composition the opposite of what it is now? The theory presented above includes an idea that the composition of the first atmosphere was just the opposite of what it is now; in the beginning, there was no oxygen but there were hydrogen, methane, and ammonia, while the current atmosphere is the opposite of this. (The current atmosphere contains 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 0.9% argon and 0.1% other noble gases and carbon dioxide.)

   However, the radical change in the atmosphere is difficult to prove in practice. It is based solely on the assumption that the birth of life is assumed to have required an oxygen-free atmosphere, since the formation of amino acids would not have been possible otherwise. There is no other reason for such an assumption and it is not supported by practical finds. Here it is a question of what one wants to believe, not what can actually be known.

Gases lighter than oxygen. One assumption regarding the early atmosphere is that gases lighter than oxygen would have remained in the atmosphere, but not oxygen itself. However, it seems impossible. Why would hydrogen have remained in the earth's atmosphere instead of oxygen, since it is the lightest of all gases and is the first to escape into space? Most likely, it would have escaped immediately into space, already because it is believed that the primordial sphere was hot and the earth's crust partially melted. The hotter it is, the easier it is for gases to escape. The movement of a gas intensifies as heat rises. An atmosphere containing hydrogen would probably not have remained intact for long (it has been thought that this kind of an atmosphere prevailed on the Earth for millions of years) and the amino acids would not even have had time to form.

Is oxygen dependent on photosynthesis? Generally, it is supposed that oxygen appeared on the Earth because of photosynthesis, which generated the oxygen. It has been thought that green plants caused the oxygen level of the atmosphere to increase.

   However, this is not necessarily true: instead, some of the oxygen may have been created by the ultraviolet light of the Sun that disperses water and produces oxygen and ozone. It would rather be a strange combination if there was no free oxygen in the earth's atmosphere, when it must have been present at the same time in water and water vapor together with hydrogen. This selective appearance has hardly been possible. Oxygen must have been present even then.

  Another piece of evidence contradicting the idea that the atmosphere of the Earth was oxygen-free is the oxygen found from Mars. The plasma spectrometer Aspera, sent to Mars to take tests, measured that as much as 3.5 tons of oxygen is carried every hour by solar winds from the gas perimeter of Mars into space. This proves that the existence of oxygen is in no way dependent on organic activity, i.e., on photosynthesis. It also proves that there could have been free oxygen on Earth in its early stages as well.

Formation of proteins is another problem. Because if, in spite of everything, it is assumed that amino acids would have been created in an oxygen-free atmosphere and survived the ultraviolet radiation by penetrating water – as has been hypothesized – we come across a whole new set of difficulties. (Getting into water was necessary because there was no oxygen in the atmosphere and thus no protective ozone layer. Without ozone the ultraviolet radiation would have quickly destroyed the newborn amino acids. This creates a considerable problem: amino acids could not have been formed in an oxygenous atmosphere, and in an oxygen-free atmosphere they would have been immediately destroyed. Both alternatives – an oxygenous and an oxygen-free atmosphere – would have been detrimental to amino acids.) 

   The difficulty is: how could amino acids have combined with proteins in water? If there were a surplus of water, it would not have assisted the formation of proteins; instead, quite the contrary would have occurred. It would have caused the already formed combinations to return back to their structural elements. Such reactions are always dependent on conditions, and under the influence of excess water, they would only go backwards, back to their original state as amino acids, not forward at all. No compounds could even have been formed:

According to the marine hypothesis, chemical evolution and the birth of life took place in the sea or in a pond. However, under these conditions, the spontaneous generation of the macromolecules necessary for the creation of life is not possible. Let's imagine the birth of a large protein molecule in water. When amino acids join each other with a peptide bond, one water molecule is always released. The larger polypeptides are produced, the more water accumulates on the right side of the reaction equation. At least according to the currently valid laws of chemistry and physics, the reaction reverses if there is enough water, i.e. spontaneous hydrolysis of the generated molecules takes place. Someone would have to be constantly removing the water to keep the protein together. (Mikko Tuuliranta, Evoluutio – tieteen harha-askel?, p. 18)

Because a peptide bond is thermodynamically unstable in an aqueous solution, the formed proteinoid would be extremely prone to hydrolytic decomposition in the warm seas that prevailed in the beginning. Thus, no private protenoid can be assumed to have survived for long. This fact creates a fundamental problem. (Lehninger A.L., Biochemistry, p. 1041, Worth Publishers, Inc., [1975])

No life. If the formation of proteins in water had been possible despite everything, new problems would arise. The reason is that even if protein molecules were created from amino acids, the molecules are still missing what would make them living matter. It is a question of a more refined form of a dead material; just as iron, plastic, and rubber can be formed into a car, but there is no life in this car. Similarly, a dead body contains exactly the right substances and the right structure, but it also has no life. The right substances and structures would therefore not help much in solving life. Correct materials alone cannot bring about life:

And we have not still touched the problem itself: the birth of life. Egg protein is not life; it is only one of the materials that form a living organism. Even if we had an entire Earth full of egg protein, we still would be no closer to the solution. We can prove that life creates and uses egg protein, but there is not a single shred of evidence that egg protein creates life. (Thoralf Gulbrandsen: Puuttuva rengas [Jakten på apemennesket], p. 41).

Imperfect theories. The next comments indicate well how problematic the birth of life is and how the evidence for it is lacking. There is still a big gap between a living and a lifeless material, and the researchers have not made any progress in the matter in the last century. It has been impossible to solve the problem of the birth of life:

Paul Davies: “When I began to write this book, I was convinced that science had almost solved the mystery of the birth of life. (…) I have spent one or two years studying this area and now I think that there is an enormous gap in our knowledge. We have, of course, a good idea of the time and place of the birth of life but there is still a long way to go to understanding the series of events. This gap in our understanding is not mere ignorance about some technical details but it is a notable conceptual defect. (…) Many researchers are careful to say publicly that the birth of life is a mystery, although behind closed doors they openly admit to being confused… (10)

Andy Knoll, professor of biology at Harvard University: In trying to bring together what we know about the deep history of life on planet Earth, the origins of life, and the stages of its formation that led to the biology that appears around us, we have to admit that it is shrouded in obscurity. We do not know how life began on this planet. We don't know exactly when it started, and we don't know under what circumstances. (11)