δw = PdV where P is Pressure and V is VIOLENCE

(ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 8/29/08)

I had an interesting thought while Corey was walking me back to my car earlier in the week. We had been discussing different fallacies in the idea of Creationism when the First Law of Thermodynamics came up. (If you're not familiar with the Laws of Thermodynamics, I wont hold it against you. Just go learn it.) Creationists often use the Second Law of Thermodynamics to show the improbability of the universe's natural self-creation (or the Big Bang Model). Of course, no scientists find controversy between the Laws of Thermodynamics and the Big Bang. Only creationists see a problem.

What I don't understand is how Creationists can be so quick to spit out laws of entropy, but fail to acknowledge that their Creator "Theory" breaks the First Law of Thermodynamics and, of course, the Law of Conservation of Energy. If we define God as omnipotent, then he must be able to create the universe. But if God created the universe, surely he used energy to do so. And according to Thermodynamics, who God's followers so love, God must have transmitted some of his own energy into those creations. Because energy cannot be created or destroyed, it had to have simply changed from the energy of God's power to the physical universe itself. It took his energy to create the Earth for us to live on, the Sun to give us warmth, and the Moon and stars as pretty ornaments for us to look at. This means God LOSES some of his energy as he creates because it is transferred to what he creates.

This means God cannot have created the universe and be omnipotent and the same time. An all-powerful God would only be "kind of" powerful if he could not retain the exact amount of energy before, while and after creating the universe. But we know that the First Law of Thermodynamics states that this IS NOT possible.

In fact, the idea of a God Creator breaks every single law of Thermodynamics, including conservation, entropy, equilibrium, even absolute zero (I might do a blog post on God and Absolute Zero later on). So is it completely hypocritical that Creationists use Laws of Thermodynamics as "cannon fodder" against Rationalists while ignoring how the laws pertain to their own beliefs? It's not possible to deny this.

If I hear a Creationist ramble about the Laws of Physics EVER, I might be tempted to bash them in the face with a Geiger Counter.

But I'll resist. I hope.