Atheism and the suppression of science

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John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics in the University of Oxford, Fellow in Mathematics and the Philosophy of Science, and Pastoral Advisor at Green Templeton College, Oxford.

Atheism and the suppression of science, as well as atheism and the rejection of science, is one common criticism of atheism, as militant atheists have often suppressed scientific knowledge because it conflicts with a presupposed materialistic worldview.[1] According to Dr. John Lennox, a renowned professor, scientist and Christian apologist of the University of Oxford, many atheist scientists have not been compelled by science to accept a materialistic explanation of the universe; rather, an a priori commitment to materialism causes them to do so.[1] However, this is not Dr. Lennox's own formulation, but a viewpoint made explicit by many atheist scientists, such as Richard Lewontin, a biologist from Harvard University. Dr. Lewontin, in the New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997:31 entitled Billions and Billions of Demons (reviewing the book The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan) states:[2]

“ We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravangant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstatiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It's not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the unitiated. Moreover, that Materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.[2] ”

Christian,[3] Hindu,[3] Jewish,[2] and Islamic[4] scholars have agreed with Dr. Lewontin in stating that his atheism preceded and conditioned his view of science and that this same paradigm applies for many other militant atheists as well.[5] Indeed, many atheist states have promoted the rejection of objective science by conflating it with the worldview of atheistic materialism; for example, the Constitution of Albania in 1976 stated that "The State recognizes no religion, and supports and carries out atheistic propaganda in order to implant a scientific materialistic world outlook in people."[6] To carry out its goal, Albania, with its former policy of state atheism, executed eminent theists or imprisoned them in order to reeducate them, outlawed religious practice, mandated individuals to change their names if they were of a religious origin, and demolished every mosque, church, monastery, convent, religious school, hospital and orphanage, despite the objection of even some members of the communist ruling Party of Labour of Albania.[7]

Rejection of the Big Bang Theory

See also: Atheism and the origin of the universe

In 1931 Rev. Georges-Henri Lemaître, a Christian priest in the Catholic Church, suggested that the evident expansion in forward time required that the universe contracted backwards in time, and would continue to do so until it could contract no further, bringing all the mass of the universe into a singularity,[8] a "primeval atom" where and when the fabric of time and space comes into existence.[9]

According to this Big Bang cosmological physics model, the universe, originally in an extremely hot and dense state that expanded rapidly from this point and has since cooled by expanding to the present diluted state, and continues to expand today.[10] The American Chemical Society holds that the Big Bang theory is "the most widely accepted scientific model for the beginning of the universe"[11] that "explains the observable features of the universe as we know them today."[12]

As a theory which addresses the origins of the universe, the Big Bang has always carried theological implications, most notably, the concept of creatio ex nihilo, which stems from the Genesis creation narrative.[13] This perception was enhanced by the fact that the originator of the Big Bang theory, Monsignor Georges-Henri Lemaître, was a Roman Catholic Christian clergyman.[14] Pope Pius XII, declared at the November 22, 1951 opening meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences that the Big Bang theory accorded with the Catholic concept of creation:[15]

Rev. Georges-Henri Lemaître, Christian priest and physicist who proposed the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe, which implicated the theological concept of creatio ex nihilo.
Hence, creation took place. We say: therefore there is a Creator. Therefore, God exists! –Pope Pius XII[16]
Many Protestant Christian denominations, including the Anglican Church,[17] Lutheran Church,[18] and Methodist Church,[19] have also welcomed the Big Bang theory as supporting a historical interpretation of the doctrine of creation,[20] although other denominations, such as the Baptist Church,[21] have contested the theory.[22] Christians in denominations teaching Old Earth creationism,[23] Intelligent Design,[24] or evolutionary creation support the reconciliation of the Big Bang with the Genesis creation narrative.[25]

Young earth creation scientists contest the Big Bang Theory, stating that it is scientifically unsound, and that that sound biblical exegesis points to a young earth and universe.[26] Judeo-Christian theologians who hold to a young earth perspective argue that the Scriptures point to a young earth interpretation.[27]

Christianity, Judaism and Islam teach the concept of creatio ex nihilo, with supporters of the Big Bang theory in these religions pointing to the Divine as being the source of the event.[28] Due to the strong theological implications of the Big Bang, Paul Davies, an English physicist from Arizona State University has even stated "It may seem bizarre, but in my opinion, science offers a surer path to God than religion."[29] William Bonnor, an atheist scientist, rejected the Big Bang theory due to its theological implications, specifically "that it lent support to divine creation."[30] Similarly, in light of the theistic implications of the Big Bang, Fred Hoyle, an atheist scientist, did not accept the Big Bang,[31] preferring a model that did not have a single epoch of creation which would eliminate the need for a creator.[32] As a result, Fred Holyle, Thomas Gold, and Hermann Bondi developed the steady state theory, which appealed to atheist cosmologists because it avoided a creation event and the religious implications associated with one.[33] American astrophysicist Edward L. Wright has pointed out flaws of the steady state theory continuously.[34] Wright and other mainstream cosmologists reviewing Quasi-Steady-State (QSS) have pointed out new flaws and discrepancies with observations left unexplained by proponents of the theory, including Dr. Hoyle.[35] The steady state theory has not only been academically criticised for a lack of scientific evidence but for violating the second law of thermodynamics as well.[36]

Under the state atheism espoused by the Soviet Union, atheistic communists irrevocably opposed the Big Bang as the origin of the universe since it contradicted their materialistic worldview.[37] As such, English physicist and statistical thermodynamicist, Peter Theodore Landsberg, has written that this tension is often seen as that between a Christian-Judaic Big Bang and a communist-atheist steady-state model of the universe.[38] According to the ideology of the Soviet communism, as it was forumulated in the late 1930s, cosmologial models with heat death, and hence a finite upper time scale, were rejected as well because of their theistic implications.[39] In light of this fact, the Soviet government altered the very definition of the science of cosmology in order to support a materialistic worldview: the official definition of cosmology was altered so as to include the word "infinite" in order to support the atheist derived steady state universe.[40] In general, scientists and party philosophers in this nation worked to establish a view of science acceptable to atheistic communism.[41]

According to the Big Bang model, the universe, originally in an extremely hot and dense state that expanded rapidly from a singularity, has since cooled by expanding to the present diluted state, and continues to expand today.

For example, the problematic relationship of relativity theory and quantum mehanics to Marxist–Leninist philosophy was discussed amongst these individuals.[41] In other example, the law of entropy, including its cosmological implications, became a matter of dispute in the Soviet Union, where it was discussed in a variety of ways.[42] To some revolutionary minds, entropy seemed opposed to revolution.[42] Because the cosmological physics finding of the finite widening of the universe as well as astronomical idealism was thought to help clericalism, these concepts were attacked by Andrei Zhdanov, Stalin's chief ideologue, who in regards to Lemaître and his supporters stated that they were:

Falsifiers of science [who] wanted to revive the fairy tale of the origin of the world from nothing ... Another failure of the 'theory' in question consists in the fact that it brings us to the idealistic attitute of assuming the world to be finite. -Andrei Zhdanov, Chief Ideologue of Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union[43]

The atheistic ideological interference with cosmological theory took a new turn during the Cultural Revolution in the militant atheist Mao Zedong's empire, when Big Bang cosmology was declared a reactionary, anti-socialist pseudoscience.[44]

Rejection of Genetics

Table showing how the genes exchange according to segregation or independent assortment during meiosis and how this translates into Mendel's laws.

Atheism was an integral part of Soviet ideology,[45] with the Soviet Union claiming that their "scientific atheism" was "the highest form of atheism" (vysshaya stepen' ateizma) and therefore be propagated as the most the only correct atheism, the orthodox disbelief.[46] In order to promote an atheistic Weltanschauung, the government of the U.S.S.R. established the Academy of Social Sciences under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.[47] The atheistic science promoted by the Soviet Union sought to destroy the credibility of faith for countless individuals.[48]

Mendelian genetics delineates the transmission of hereditary characteristics from parent organisms to their offspring, and is confirmed at the molecular level by the deciphering of the genetic code.[49] In the late 1940s, Joseph Stalin abolished Mendelian genetics throughout the Soviet Union,[50] using the fact that its founder, Gregor Johann Mendel, was a Catholic Christian priest, to discredit the science.[51]

A photograph of geneticist Nikolai Vavilov with his family.
In other words, Mendelian genetics was rejected by an atheistic government on the grounds that Rev. Mendel was a product of the Church, which promotes the existence of God, i.e. theism.[52] Stalin was inspired to do this after being convinced by an atheist botanist named Trofim Lysenko that classical genetics conflicts with the communist ideology of the state.[53] An entire area of science was suppressed for twenty-five years in which all existing genetic experimentation was destroyed, references to Mendel were removed, and the teaching of classical genetics was suppressed.[54] During this period, hundreds of geneticists who continued to uphold Mendel's genetic theory were imprisoned or executed, the most prominent being Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov, who was starved to death in the Gulag in 1943.[55] Moreover, the Soviet enforcement of Lysenko's genetic theory, also known as Lysenkoism, led to agricultural failure in Soviet Russia,[56] as well as what the National Academy of Sciences terms the "crippling of biology for decades."[57]

Rejection of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics

A graph delineating two quantum fields.

Under the state atheism of the U.S.S.R., many scientists proclaimed their wholehearted support of those parts of the present communist dogma which reject the freedom of opinion in scientific matters, and insisted on acceptance of officially endorsed theories, even if these were contradicted by unbiased experiments.[58] Historically, another product of atheism is the rejection of relativity and quantum mechanics, which was criticized on the grounds of contradicting atheistic dialectical materialism.[59]

The suspicions of the atheistic communist critics of quantum mechanics and relativity physics were heightened when several prominent Western European philosophers and scientists concluded that the probablilistic approach of quantum mechanics meant the end of determinism as a worldview, while the equivalence of matter and energy postulated by relativity theory marked the end of materialism.[60] Several of them concluded that relativity physics and quatum mechanics destroyed the basis of Marxist materialism.[60] Beginning in 1930 a worrisome danger arose with the appearance of the "Bolshevizers" of philosophy and science, younger militants taking advantage of Cultural Revolution then in progress and calling for the "reconstruction" of physics on the basis of dialectical materialism.[61]

Boris Hessen, a Jewish physicist who was censured and eventually executed under policies stemming from state atheism, due to his defense of quantum theory and relativity, which were declared as being contrary to materialism.

Boris Mikhailovich Hessen, a Jewish physicist,[62] attempted to defend quantum mechanics and relativity, but was denounced as a "metaphysicist of the worst sort," a "pure idealist," and as a deserter of the cause of materialism who interpreted relativity physics in the same spirit as the Western mystic astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington.[63] He was criticized for paying insufficient attention to the ideas of Engels and Lenin.[63] Particularly mistaken, said his detractors, was his definition of matter as a "synthesis of space and time," a wording that came from one of his defenses of relativity theory.[63] In the final resolution of the conference on the state of Soviet philosophy that was held in 1930, Hessen was censured by name twice, one for his philosophical views on relativity theory and again for his opinions based on quantum mechanics.[63] One of Hessen's critics, Ernst Kol'man, a Czech Marxist, stated that "wreckers" were trying to corrupt Soviet physics as "wreckers" had earlier tried to disrupt Soviet industry.[64] Kol'man stated that the "wreckers" in physics were trying to discredit materialism.[65] On 21 August 1936, Hessen was arrested and falsely charged with involvement in the terrorist activities of a Trotskyist-Zinovievist conspiracy.[64] On 20 December 1936 Hessen was executed by a firing squad;[64] Hessens' promotion of the theory of relativity resulted in his execution.[66]

Hessen's activities from his first major publications in 1928 to his arrest in 1936 can best be characterized by two main concerns: the defense of the relative autonomy of physics against interference in the content of physical investigation from without the positive elaboration of the compatibility and affinity of Marxist materialism with the newest developments in physics as opposed to classical physics.–The Social and Economic Roots of the Scientific Revolution by Gideon Fredenthal and Peter McLaughlin[67]
Hessen was rehabilitated in 1955 as he was found to be innocent post-mortem.[64]

Rejection of Resonance Theory

Commonly used as an example of resonance, the nitrate ion carries a formal charge of -1, where each oxygen carries a -⅔ charge and each nitrogen carries a +1 charge.

According to The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published in March 1953, "Practically all prominent scientists in the Soviet sphere have by now proclaimed their adherence to dialectical materialism, and many have actively engaged in a campaign of defamation of all scientists and scientific theories declared to be inimical to Stalinist faith. Mendelian genetics, resonance theory of chemical binding, the uncertainty principle (and quantum mechanics in general), the cellular theory of life–to name but a few prominent examples–have in turn been attacked as "idealistic" or "metaphysical," and more or less successfully eradicated from Soviet scientific scene–often with the apparently the eager help of representatives of the very disciplines that are most severely hit by these purges."[68]

Resonance is the chemical theory by which the actual normal state of a molecule is represented not by a single valence-bond structure but by a combination of several alternative distinct structures.[69] The molecule is then said to resonate among the several valence-bond structures or to have a structure that is a resonance hybrid of these structures.[69] The energy calculated for a resonance hybrid is lower than the energies of any of the alternative structures; the molecule is then said to be stabilised by resonance.[69] The difference between the energies of any one of the alternative structures and the energy of the resonance hybrid is designated resonance energy.[69] Under state atheism, criticisms of Linus Pauling's resonance theory, as well as of Christopher Ingold's chemical mesomerism theory, surfaced and gained further scrutiny after the Soviet organic chemist Walter Hückel labeled valence-bond resonance hybrid structures as idealistic and imaginary in character.[70] In general, atheistic communist scientists accused resonance of subjective idealism,[71] which presented chemistry with an ideological struggle as it was perceived to be at odds with atheism and its materialistic implications.[72] In Poland, which was located between two ideological curtains,[73] chemists organised meetings in which Pauling's resonance theory was condemned.[74]

A depiction of the mesomeric effect in the phenoxide (phenate) anion.

In 1951, under the Soviet "Report of the Commission of the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences", the theory of resonance was condemned.[75] Pauling himself was vilified by these atheistic communist scientists.[76]

Curricula under State Atheism

According to Harold J. Berman, a Harvard specialist in Soviet law, militant atheism was the official religion of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party was the established church.[77] Scientists and party philosophers in the Soviet Union worked to establish a view of science acceptable to Marxist–Leninist philosophy.[78]

The League of Militant Atheists worked to introduce anti-religious material in the Soviet education system.[79] In 1929, higher educational institutions were purged of believers and anti-religious departments were established.[79] Furthermore, atheist universities began to be founded, with eighty-four by 1931.[79] Under the state atheism of the Soviet Union, university students were presented with the following course descriptions:


Physics: The place of physics in anti-religious propaganda. Connection between ancient myths and the endeabor of man to discover the causal relationship between various natural phenomena. The expression of primitive man's helplessness to establish the true, scientific reason for the phenomena. Scientific method in thinking as the foundation of godlessness.



Chemistry: Its importance for economic life in peace and war, in agriculture, and for working out a correct worldview. The part played by chemistry in the struggle against religious superstition.

Geology: Introduction to the Biblical religious point of view. Methods of geological reckoning of time compared with Church calculations. How old is the earth? Practical work for the study of the earth's surface. Belief in hell under the earth. Rejection of the religious expansion of the causes of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Mathematics: Mathematics as a scientific method for studying the phenomena surrounding us....Causes furthering the development of mathematics in antiquity and in our days. The "mathematical numbers" of pagan priests in ancient times. Legends about the supernatural origins of mathematical knowledge. The monopoly of mathematical knowledge demanded by pagan priests to enable them to oppress others.

Biology: A short history of biological science. The importance of biology for working out a dialectic-materialistic worldview. The importance of biology in medicine, technics, agriculture, and other branches of human life. Importance of biology for anti-religious propaganda.


Medicine: How religion looks on the cause of sickness. The modern scientific answer to this question. Contagious diseases. The origin and struggle against them. The founders of modern medicine. Serum, vaccination, and chemical therapeutics. Individual and social prophylactics. Religious ceremonies as a source of contagion.[80]

In addition to the antireligious substance of each course, the curriculum from the universities in the Soviet Union presented scientific findings correct or incorrect based on their supposed ideological positions, not on the objective, applied, and experimental essence of science.[80] Soviet militant atheists also believed science disproved religion because God remained unseen, his miracles were never subject to empirical verification, and certain religious stories were scientifically inconceivable.[81] Bruce Sheiman, himself a leader in the Atheism 3.0 movement, has criticised militant atheists for asserting that science is capable of determining the existence of God.[82]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 John Lennox. Same evidence, different conclusions: how?. Science and Ethics. Retrieved on 2011-03-05. “Some atheists are quite explicit that their atheism comes first. One of the most famous is Richard Lewontin, a profesor of genetics, who said it wasn't science that compelled him to accept a materialistic explanation of the universe. It was an a priori materialism. You start with that materialism and he said that materialism is absolute.”
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Shmuel Waldman. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: Convincing Evidence of the Truths of Judaism. Feldheim Publishers. Retrieved on 2011-03-05. “Consider the following remark made by Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin in the New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997:31 entitled Billions and Billions of Demons (reviewing the book The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan): "We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravangant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It's not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that Materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."” 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 David Bruce Hughes (Gaurahari Dāsānudās Bābājī). Śrī Vedānta-Sūtra, Adhyāya 1. The Esoteric Teaching. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “These frank and cynical statements of prominent so-called scientists reveal that their atheistic mindset is not the result of careful, unbiased empirical investigation of nature, as they try to reassure us. Their thinking is not scientific at all.” 
  4. ↑ Harun Yahya. Learning From The Qur'an. Idara Ishaaat-E-Diniyat (P) Ltd.. Retrieved on 2011-03-05. “A well-known geneticist and an outspoken evolutionist, Richard C. Lewontin from Harvard University, confesses that he is "first and foremost a materialist and then a scientist": It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, so we cannot allow a Divine foot in the door.” 
  5. ↑ God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? (John C. Lennox, Wilkinson House, Oxford, 2007). Georgia State University. Retrieved on 2011-03-05. “p 33 Deals with the disparity between philosphers like Kurtz who view naturalism as arising from science and scientists like Lewontin with his famous "we cannot allow a Divine foot in the door" quote and his affirmation that his naturalism and antipathy to faith preceded and conditioned his view of science.”
  6. ↑ Multiple references:
    William B. Simons, Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden. The Constitutions of the Communist World. Springer. Retrieved on 2011-03-05. “Article 37. The State recognizes no religion and supports and carries out atheist propaganda in order to implant a scientific materialist world outlook in people.” 
    Robert Elsie. A Dictionary of Albanian Religion, Mythology, and Folk culture. New York University Press. Retrieved on 2011-03-05. “Article 37 of the Albanian constitution of 1976 stipulated, "The State recognizes no religion and supports and carries out atheist propaganda in order to implant a scientific materialist world outlook in people."” 
    Richard Felix Staar. Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe. The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University. Retrieved on 2011-03-05. “By 1976 all places of worship had been closed. However, the regime has had to admit that religion still maintains a following among Albanians. In order to suppress religious life, the following article has been included in the 1976 constitution: "The state recognizes no religion and supports and carries out atheistic propaganda to implant the scientific materialistic world outlook in people" (Article 37). In its antireligious moves, the regime has gone so far as to order persons to change their names if they are of a religious origin.” 
  7. ↑ Multiple references:
    Richard Felix Staar. Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe. The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University. Retrieved on 2011-03-05. “By 1976 all places of worship had been closed. However, the regime has had to admit that religion still maintains a following among Albanians. In order to suppress religious life, the following article has been included in the 1976 constitution: "The state recognizes no religion and supports and carries out atheistic propaganda to implant the scientific materialistic world outlook in people" (Article 37). In its antireligious moves, the regime has gone so far as to order persons to change their names if they are of a religious origin.” 
    Edwin E. Jacques. The Albanians: An Ethnic History from Prehistoric Times to the Present. McFarland & Company. Retrieved on 2011-03-05. “Most of the religious leaders throughout the country were imprisoned for "reeducation" or executed. Then in 1967 every mosque, church, monastery and religious institution in the country was closed down, 2,169 of them, and every religious practice outlawed. In 1976 a new constitution was adoped, its article 55 strictly prohibiting all religious activies and propaganda.” 
    Edwin E. Jacques. The Albanians: An Ethnic History from Prehistoric Times to the Present. McFarland & Company. Retrieved on 2011-03-05. “Elderly villagers, even members of the Communist Party, objected strongly to the conversion of mosques into warehouses. The claimed that the mosque was a house of prayer, and to help secularize it was tantamount to raising one's hand against God. Northern mountaineers too insisted that the authorities should distinguish between the removal of politically unreliable priests and the fundamental human right to believe in God. Nevertheless, every mosque, church, monastery, convent, religious school, hospital or orphanage throughout the country was burned down, torn down or converted to serve what the state called "some more useful purpose."” 
  8. ↑ Paul J. Griffiths, Reinhard Hütter. Reason and the Reasons of Faith. T&T Clark. Retrieved on 2011-03-05. “We are now accustomed, however, little we may understand it, to the idea that the universe results from an "initial singularity" or a big bang–a kind of secular creatio ex nihilo.” 
  9. ↑ Georges-Henri Lemaître (1931). "The Evolution of the Universe: Discussion". Nature 128: 699–701. 
  10. ↑ Big Bang Cosmology. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Retrieved on 2011-03-05. “The Big Bang Model is a broadly accepted theory for the origin and evolution of our universe. It postulates that 12 to 14 billion years ago, the portion of the universe we can see today was only a few millimeters across. It has since expanded from this hot dense state into the vast and much cooler cosmos we currently inhabit. We can see remnants of this hot dense matter as the now very cold cosmic microwave background radiation which still pervades the universe and is visible to microwave detectors as a uniform glow across the entire sky.”
  11. ↑ Jerry A. Bell (2005). Chemistry: a project of the American Chemical Society. American Chemical Society, 167. Retrieved on 2011-03-05. “The most widely accepted scientific model for the beginning of the universe is called the Big Bang theory, according to which the universe began in a rapid expansion from an initial state of nearly infinite mass at nearly infinite density and temperature.” 
  12. ↑ Jerry A. Bell (2005). Chemistry: a project of the American Chemical Society. American Chemical Society, 167. Retrieved on 2011-03-05. “Nevertheless, the Big Bang is the only scientific theory yet devised that explains the observable features of the universe as we know them today.” 
  13. ↑ Multiple references:
    Robert J. Russell. Cosmology: From Alpha to Omega. Fortress Press. Retrieved on 2011-03-05. “Amazingly, some secularists attribute to t=0 a direct implication. The June 1978 issue of the New York Times contained an article by NASA's Robert Jastrow, an avowed agnostic, entitled "Found God?" Here Jastrow depicts the theologians to be "delighted" that astronomical evidence "leads to a biblical view of Genesis." Though claiming to be agnostic, he argued without reservation for the religious significance of t=0: It is beyond science and leads to some sort of creator.” 
    Michael Corey. God and the New Cosmology. Rowman & Littlefield. Retrieved on 2011-03-05. “Indeed, creation ex nihilo is a fundamental tenent of orthodox Christian theology. Incredibly enough, modern theoretical physicists have also speculated that the universe may have been produced through a sudden quantum appearance "out of nothing." Physicist Paul Davies has claimed that the particular physicis involved in the Big Bang necessitates creation ex nihilo.” 
    Eric J. Lerner. The Big Bang Never Happened: A Startling Refutation of the Dominant Theory of the Origin of the Universe. Vintage Books. Retrieved on 2011-03-05. “From theologians to physicists to novelists, it is widely believed that the Big Bang theory supports Christian concepts of a creator. In February of 1989, for example, the front-page article of the New York Times Book Review argued that scientists argued that scientists and novelists were returning to God, in large part through the influence of the Big Bang.” 
    Neil A. Manson. God and Design: The Teleological Argument and Modern Science. Routledge. Retrieved on 2011-03-05. “The Big Bang theory strikes many people as having theological implications, as shown by those who do not welcome those implications.” 
    John Jefferson Davis. The Frontiers of Science & Faith. InterVarsity Press. Retrieved on 2011-03-05. “Genesis' concept of a singular, ex nihilo beginning of the universe essentially stands alone among the cosmolgies of the ancient world and exhibits, at this point, convergence with recent big bang cosmological models.” 
  14. ↑ People and Discoveries: Big Bang Theory, www.pbs.org
  15. ↑ Ferris, Timothy (1988). Coming of age in the Milky Way. Morrow, 274, 438. ISBN 978-0-688-05889-0. , citing Berger, André (1984). The Big bang and Georges Lemaître: proceedings of a symposium in honour of G. Lemaître fifty years after his initiation of big-bang cosmology, Louvainla-Neuve, Belgium, 10–13 October 1983. D. Reidel Pub. Co.. ISBN 978-90-277-1848-8. 
  16. ↑ David H. Clark, Matthew D. H. Clark. Measuring the Cosmos: How Scientists Discovered the Dimensions of the Universe. Rutgers University Press. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “The pope extrapolated the big bang hypothesis: "Hence, creation took place. We say: therefore there is a Creator. Therefore, God exists!"” 
  17. ↑ Al Webb. Anglican Head Rebuts Famous Scientist on God’s Role in Big Bang. EthicsDaily. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has flatly dismissed famed scientist Stephen Hawking's claim that gravity, not God, was responsible for creating the universe.”
  18. ↑ Ted Peters. Uses and Misuses of Creation. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “However, the God of the Bible does "new" things (Isaiah 43:19). God's creative activity was not over and done in the beginning. More is to come. Astrophysicists tell us that our universe is not eternal. It had a beginning, the big bang. It is constantly changing. New stars are born every day; while older stars morph through phases and die. The entire cosmos is expanding. It is likely that in the future the universe will wind down to a state of equilibrium and virtually die. Reality is not fixed. If we are to think of this universe as creation, we must think of it as a story, as a history, replete with change. In the dialogue between science and faith, theologians such as the late Arthur Peacocke and Robert John Russell stress continuing creation, creatio continua. One can hold together creatio ex nihilo applied to the beginning of creation's history while also holding that God's creative activity is ongoing, creatio continua.”
  19. ↑ Multiple references:
    Bishop Timothy W. Whitaker. Commentary: Why should I be a Christian?. United Methodist Church. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Today, the majority of physicists agree that evidence shows the universe had a beginning in an instant of a "big bang" of energy. While Christian teaching about the Creator is not bound to any scientific theory in any age, our best scientific evidence today is consonant with Christian teaching that has been based upon revelation for two millennia.”
    'Big Bang' Day. Methodist Church in Great Britain. Retrieved on 2007–10–18.
  20. ↑ Robert J. Russell. Cosmology: From Alpha to Omega. Fortress Press. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Conservative Protestant circles have also welcomed Big Bang cosmology as supporting a historical interpretation of the doctrine of creation.” 
  21. ↑ Will Southern Baptists Ignore the Ongoing Decline?. Southern Baptist Convention. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “hey are taught that God is good for Sunday but irrelevant to the rest of life. They are taught that science has all the answers to how the world was made, that is was made from chemicals that exploded in a big bang and slowly over billions of years it evolved to the point where we are now. They are taught that we have evolved from monkeys and apes, not that we are made in the image of God.”
  22. ↑ Multiple references:
    Dennis Brown, Stephen Morris. A Student's Guide to AS Religious Studies. WPG Group Ltd.. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Dependeing upon their theological viewpoint, Christians give different responses to the Big Bang and other theories of origin of the universe. For Christian fundamentalists, who uphold the literal truth of Genesis, the logic of the Big Bang is flawed.” 
    Gerald Leinwand. 1927: High Tide of the 1920's. Basic Books. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “But because no one was present at the creation and we may never find out exactly what happened, fundamentalists assert the Big Bang deserves no place in the school curriculum.” 
  23. ↑ Greg Neyman. Old Earth Creation Science: Dating Biblical Events in an Old Earth Framework. Answers in Creation. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “However, many Christians see the big bang within Genesis 1:1, and see no conflict.”
  24. ↑ Antony Latham. Was there a cause of the universe?. UK Centre for Intelligent Design. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “The second major piece of evidence for premise (2) is the big bang theory. We will not go into this now in any detail. Suffice it to say that this theory is held by the vast majority of cosmologists. The evidence for this comes particularly from two observations: firstly, the universe is expanding, as seen with the red shift of receding galaxies and secondly, the cosmic microwave background radiation surrounds us in every direction. The expansion can be run backwards in time and when we do that we come to a beginning. The cosmic background radiation has been very confirmatory of the afterglow from the big bang. Physicists tell us that it is at exactly the expected intensity.”
  25. ↑ Michael Anthony Corey. Evolution and the Problem of Natural Evil. University Press of America. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “In support of this notion, the Theistic Evolutionist points out that God could easily have programmed the entire history of cosmic evolution, including the rise of earthly life, into the very first sparks of the Big Bang, so that once the initial conflagration occurred, the subsequent process of cosmic development could have taken place entirely on its own, utilizing only the self-organizing properties of the materlial realm to lead the way.” 
  26. ↑ Multiple references:
  27. ↑ Multiple references:
  28. ↑ *Multiple references:
    Douglas Estes. The Temporal Mechanics of the Fourth Gospel: A Theory of Hermeneutical Relativity in the Gospel of John. Brill Academic Publishers. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Aside from a frew uncommon examples, the most notable proponent of finite time is the creatio ex nihilo view held by most of ancient Judaism and Christianity.” 
    Muhammad Hisham Kabbani. The Approach of Armageddon? An Islamic Perspective. Islamic Supreme Council of America. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “In theological terms, Allāh's attribute al-Khāliq, the Creator is unchanging and constant. Therefore it must be in continuous effect, i.e. that attribute must manifest in every moment. That is the meaning of al-Khāliq–the one who originates from nothingness. Therefore it must be Allāh's creative power is manifesting somewhere, at every instant, producing something from non-existence.” 
  29. ↑ Karen Armstrong. The Case for God. Anchor. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Davies has confessed: "It may seem bizarre, but in my opinion, science offers a surer path to God than religion."” 
  30. ↑ Kragh, Helge. Cosmology and Controversy: The Historical Development of Two Theories of the Universe. Princeton University Press. 1999. pg 259. 'The atheist Bonnor rejected big-bang theory for largely the same reasons as Hoyle did; among these, that it lent support to divine creation. "The underlying motive is, of course, to bring in God as creator," Bonnor stated.'
  31. ↑ S.K. Basu. Encyclopædic Dictionary of Astrophysics. Global Vision Publishing House. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “While having no argument with Edwin Hubble's discovery that the universe was expanding, Hoyle disagreed on its interpretation. An atheist, he found the idea that the universe had a beginning to be philosophically troubling, as many argue that a beginning implies a cause, and thus a creator (see Kalam cosmological argument).” 
  32. ↑ David H. Clark, Matthew D. H. Clark. Measuring the Cosmos: How Scientists Discovered the Dimensions of the Universe. Rutgers University Press. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Hoyle wanted a universe without a beginning and without an end, a universe that had always existed and would always exist, a universe that did not have a single epoch of creation and therefore would not need a "creator"–a univserse that was truly eternal. Hence Hoyle, Bondi, and Gold produced their "steady state" hypothesis as an alternative to the big bang. The steady state universe was indeed envisaged as being eternal.” 
  33. ↑ Don O'Leary. Roman Catholicism and Modern Science: A History. Continuum International Publishing Group. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Several eminent scientists, especially those who were resolutely atheistic, repudiated the Big Bang theory. In 1948, Fred Holyle, Hermann Bondi, and Thomas Gold proposed an alternative explanation. Their steady state theory envisaged that the universe was unchanged in time and was uniform in space. matter was spontaneosly and continuously generated to fill the extra space caused by cosmic expansion. In the 1950s and early 1960s steady state theory offered a robust challenge to the idea of the Big Bang. Its appeal to atheistic cosmologists was that it avoided a creation event–with all its concomitant religious implications.” 
  34. ↑ Edward L. Wright; "Comments on the Quasi-Steady-State Cosmology". astro-ph/9410070, Astrophysics, abstract. 20 October 1994.
  35. ↑ Edward L. Wright. Errors in the Steady State and Quasi-SS Models.
  36. ↑ Carl Ferdinand Howard Henry. God, Revelation, and Authority. Crossway Books. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “In criticizing steady-state and oscillating models, William L. Craig contends that not only scientific evidence for an expanding universe but evidence from thermodynamics as well runs counter to theories of a perpetually existing universe ("Philisophical and Scientific Points to Creatio ex Nihilo," pp. 5-13, p. 9).” 
  37. ↑ Carl Ferdinand Howard Henry. Perspectives on science and Christian faith (American Scientific Affiliation) 53-54: p.208. https://books.google.com/books?id=9hTXAAAAMAAJ&q=suppression+of+science+atheism+soviet+union+big+bang&dq=suppression+of+science+atheism+soviet+union+big+bang&hl=en&ei=MQFyTaS9FsfOtwe6teHqDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA. Retrieved 2007–10–18. "The book is fascinating to read because of the author's knowledge of the communist atheistic propaganda concerning science and religion. The communists were irrevocably opposed to the Big Bang as the origin of the universe since it contradicted their materialistic beliefs.". 
  38. ↑ Multiple references:
    Peter Theodore Landsberg. Seeking Ultimates: An Intuitive Guide to Physics, Second Edition. Taylor & Francis. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Some people seem to have felt that there was a struggle between a Christian-Judaic Big Bang and a communist-atheist steady-state model of the universe.” 
    Isaĭ Shoulovich Davydov, Joseph Davydov. God Exists: New Light on Science and Creation. Schreiber Publishing, Inc.. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “It is the "theory" of the steady-state (and not the evolutionary) Universe which depicts the latter as eternal and unchanged and thus tries to refute the Biblical model of the creation of the world.” 
    Polly Jones. The Dilemmas of De-Stalinization: Negotiating Cultural and Social Change in the Khrushchev Era. Routledge. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “The theory of the 'Big Bang' was to be decisively repudiated.” 
  39. ↑ Helge Kragh. Entropic Creation. Ashgate Publishing. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “In part because of Engels's opposition to finite space and time, and because of the long tradition of associating these concepts with idealism, clericalism and bourgeois thought, infinite space and time became incorporated in twentieth-century dialectical materialism and in this way obtained status as official doctrines in communist thinking. According to the ideology of the Soviet communism, as it was forumulated in the late 1930s, cosmologial models with heat death, and hence a finite upper time scale, had to be rejected because of their theistic implications.” 
  40. ↑ Helge Kragh. Entropic Creation. Ashgate Publishing. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “The communist dogma of an infinite material universe even became enshrined in the officially aproved definition of cosmology. One such definition from the early 1950s reads: 'Cosmology is the study of an infinite universe as a coherent, single whole and of the whole religion embraced by observation as a part of the universe.” 
  41. ↑ 41.0 41.1 Helge Kragh. Entropic Creation. Ashgate Publishing. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “In the attempts to establish an ideologically acceptable view of science, the new physics became a matter of considerable controversy in the young Soviet Union. Physicists and party philosophers discussed the problematic relationship of relativity theory and quantum mehanics to Marxist-Leninist philosophy.” 
  42. ↑ 42.0 42.1 Helge Kragh. Entropic Creation. Ashgate Publishing. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “The law of entropy, including its cosmological implications, became a matter of dispute in the Soviet Union, where it was discussed in a variety of ways, not all of them related to physics. To some revolutionary minds, entropy seemed opposed to revolution.” 
  43. ↑ Helge Kragh. Entropic Creation. Ashgate Publishing. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Andrei Zhdanov, Stalin's notorious chief ideologue, said in a speech of 1947 that Lemaître and his kindred spirits were 'Falsifiers of science [who] wanted to revive the fairy tale of the origin of the world from nothing ... Another failure of the 'theory' in question consists in the fact that it brings us to the idealistic attitute of assuming the world to be finite.'” 
  44. ↑ Helge Kragh. Entropic Creation. Ashgate Publishing. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “The ideological interference with cosmological theory took a new turn during the Cultural Revolution in Mao Zedong's empire, when relativistic cosmology for a while was declared a reactionary, anti-socialist pseudo science.” 
  45. ↑ William Van Der Bercken. Ideology and Atheism in Soviet Union. Biblical Studies UK. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Étatism and atheism As an ideological monoculture, the Soviet state cannot recognise any alternative or competitive ideologies as being equal in value, whther on political grounds or in the area of Weltanschauung. To do would mean intellectual pluralism and the destruction of the essence of Soviet ideology.” 
  46. ↑ William Van Der Bercken. Ideology and Atheism in Soviet Union. Biblical Studies UK. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “In this criticism of the atheism of Russell it is apparent that Soviet atheism does not only deny the existence of God but expressly desires to propogate its denial of God as the only correct atheism, the orthodox disbelief. The "bourgeois atheism" of the West ten appreas as an error within atheism. In Soviet atheist literature the difference between "bougeois atheism" and its own scientific atheism is continually stressed. Soviet atheism is also called "the highest form of atheism" (vysshaya stepen' ateizma), and that is certainly the most correct assessment of Soviet atheism.” 
  47. ↑ William Van Der Bercken. Ideology and Atheism in Soviet Union. Biblical Studies UK. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “That is the science of "scientific atheism", whose orthodoxy is protected by the Institute of Scientific Atheism of the Academy of Social Sciences under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union” 
  48. ↑ Stephen Pickard. Creation and Complexity: Interdisciplinary Issues in Science and Religion. ATF Press. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “In theology, there is widespread reluctance among ordinary believers to consider any radically updated theology of creation, which hampers the efforts of theologians to counter the materialist propaganda of atheistic science that destroys the credibility of faith for countless young people.” 
  49. ↑ Multiple references:
    John M. Ziman. Reliable Knowledge: An Exploration of the Grounds for Belief in Science. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “It would be to deny the validity of a theoretical system such as quantum mechanics, to which we owe our stocks of nuclear weapons. Who would doubt the credibility of Mendelian genetics, now completely confirmed at the molecular level by the deciphering of the genetic code?” 
    Richard M. Burian. The Epistemology of Development, Evolution, and Genetics. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “The central point of the synthesis was to demonstrate the adequacy of Mendelian genetics (including especially population genetics) plus an updated version of Darwin's theory of evolution by means of natural selection, joined in the manner illustrated in the founding documents, to serve as the theoretical basis for explaining all of evolutionary phenomena.” 
  50. ↑ Atlas World Press Review, Volume 24. Atlas Information Services. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “The story begins in the late 1940s when Stalin had "abolished" Mendelian genetics throughout the Soviet Union.” 
  51. ↑ Multiple references:
    Isis, Volume 37. History of Science Society, Académie internationale d'histoire des sciences. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “The fact that Mendel was a priest has been similarly used to discredit his ideas.” 
    (1952) Eugenics: Galton and After. Duckworth. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Was not Mendel a priest ? If, as the reactionaries maintain, genetic processes are subject to the laws of chance ...” 
  52. ↑ Multiple references:
    George Aiken Taylor (1972). The Presbyterian Journal, Volume 31. Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Mendel, of course, must be discredited, in Communist thought, because he was a product of the West and of the Church.” 
    (1945) The Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy, Volumes 23-27. Australasian Association of Psychology and Philosophy. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “He trenchantly criticises Lysenko's vilification of the work of Mendel and Morgan as "fascist, bourgeois-capitalistic, and inspired by clerics" (that Mendel was a priest is taken as sufficient to discredit his experiments).” 
  53. ↑ (1980) Life in the Balance. Victor Books. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “In the Soviet Union, for example, a botanist named Lasenko convinced Stalin back in the 30s that genetics was incompatible with the development of Communism. As a result, genetics was suppressed in Russia for about 25 years.” 
  54. ↑ Multiple references:
    Anna C. Pai (1974). Foundations of Genetics: a Science for Society. McGraw-Hill. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “An entire area of science was suppressed for 20 years. Vavilov and other geneticists were arrested, imprisoned, and finally perished. All existing genetic experimentation was destroyed, and references to Mendel and Darwin were removed.” 
    Bertrand Russell, Andrew G. Bone. The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell Volume 29: Détente or Destruction, 1955-57. Routledge. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “In the late-1930s the Soviet biologist and agronomist Trofim Lysenko obtained publica backing from Stalin for his theory of environmentally aquire characteristics. Lysenko's "Marxist" doctrine promised to enhance productivity in Soviet agriculture, whereas the accepted principles of heredity propounded first by Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) were condemned for resting on "bourgeois" foundations supported by research in the capitalist West. After Lysenko became president of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences in 1938, and until his questionable the-ories were finally discredited in the mid-1960s, the study, theaching and practical application of orthodox genetics was effectively suppressed–the most dramatic example of "Stalinization" in Soviet science.” 
    (1980) Life in the Balance. Victor Books. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “In the Soviet Union, for example, a botanist named Lasenko convinced Stalin back in the 30s that genetics was incompatible with the development of Communism. As a result, genetics was suppressed in Russia for about 25 years.” 
  55. ↑ Multiple references:
    Andrew Pinsent. New Atheists and Old Atheists. Philosophy Now. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Since the CPSU was so keen to identify its type of atheism as the essential component of the ‘scientific, materialist weltanschauung’, problems tended to arise when scientific theories seemed to be in disagreement with the ideological positions of the party. One common consequence, at least during the Stalinist period, was simply to deny that the problematic sciences were true sciences. The most notorious episode was the banning for nearly two decades of the study and research of Mendelian Genetics (incidentally, founded by a Catholic monk). During this period, hundreds of scientists were imprisoned or killed, the most prominent being Nikolai Vavilov, who was starved to death in the Gulag in 1943. (A striking contrast with Galileo, who died in his bed.) Furthermore, as late as 1948, Soviet astronomers resolved to oppose the ‘reactionary-idealistic’ theory that is today called the Big Bang – first proposed by another Catholic priest, Fr Georges Lemaître. This theory of a finite widening of the universe would help ‘clericalism’, they warned.” 
    Harun Yahya. Communism in Ambush. Global Publishing. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “In 1948, it was forbidden to be educated or do research in the area of classical genetics. Those geneticists who rejected Lysenko's evolutionist thesis, and continued to support Mendel's genetic discovery, were secretly arrested and executed. Meanwhile, Lysenko's agricultural policy created widespread lack of productivity. For example, he claimed that putting seeds in cold water for a while before being sown, would make them gain resistance to cold weather conditions.” 
    Anna C. Pai (1974). Foundations of Genetics: a Science for Society. McGraw-Hill. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “An entire area of science was suppressed for 20 years. Vavilov and other geneticists were arrested, imprisoned, and finally perished. All existing genetic experimentation was destroyed, and references to Mendel and Darwin were removed.” 
  56. ↑ Harun Yahya. Communism in Ambush. Global Publishing. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “In 1948, it was forbidden to be educated or do research in the area of classical genetics. Those geneticists who rejected Lysenko's evolutionist thesis, and continued to support Mendel's genetic discovery, were secretly arrested and executed. Meanwhile, Lysenko's agricultural policy created widespread lack of productivity. For example, he claimed that putting seeds in cold water for a while before being sown, would make them gain resistance to cold weather conditions.” 
  57. ↑ On Being A Scientist: Responsible Conduction in Research. National Academy of Sciences (U.S.); Committee on the Conduct of Science, National Academy of Engineering; Institute of Medicine. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “The ideological rejection of Mendelian genetics in the Soviet Union beginning in the 1930s crippled Soviet biology for decades.” 
  58. ↑ Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Mar 1952. SAGE Publications. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Speeches and writings of prominent Soviet scientists have been quoted, proclaiming their wholehearted support of those parts of the present communist dogma which reject the freedom of opinion in scientific matters, and insist on acceptance of officially endorsed theories, even if these are contradicted by unbiased experiments–the only valid test of a theory in the eyes of a scientists.” 
  59. ↑ Multiple references:
    Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Mar 1952. SAGE Publications. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Certain physicial theories, including relativity and quantum mechanics, were sporadically attacked by party philosophers; but in vain did these critics invoke Marx and dialectical materialism–political leaders were loath to frighten the hen they expected to lay many golden eggs.” 
    Rosalind J. Marsh. Soviet Fiction Since Stalin: Science, Politics and Literature. Rowman & Littlefield. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “The author uses a broad definition of 'science' which enables here to cover topics ranging from de-Stalinisation, nationalism and anti-Semitism in science, to Lysenko and scientific charlatanism; the Soviet rejection of relativity theory and quatum mechanics, the atom bomb, and also such general problems as secrecy, careerism and bureaucracy.” 
  60. ↑ 60.0 60.1 Rosalind J. Marsh. Science in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Short History. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “The suspicions of the Soviet critics of quantum mechanics and relativity physics were heightened when several prominent West European philosophers and scientists concluded that the probablilistic approach of quantum mechanics meant the end of determinism as a worldview, while the equivalence of matter and energy postulated by relativity theory marked the end of materialism. Several of them concluded that relativity physics and quatum mechanics destroyed the basis of Marxist materialism.” 
  61. ↑ Rosalind J. Marsh. Science in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Short History. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Beginning in 1930 a worrisome danger arose with the appearance of the "Bolshevizers" of philosophy and science, younger militants taking advantage of Cultural Revolution then in progress and calling for the "reconstruction" of physics on the basis of dialectical materialism.” 
  62. ↑ Thomas Söderqvist. The History and Poetics of Scientific Biography. Ashgate Publishing. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Boris Mikhailovich Hessen was born in 1893 to a middle-class Jewish family in Elizavetgrad (known as Kirovongrad during the Stalinist era) in the Ukraine. His father was a bank clerk, and the young Boris led a comfortable existence. His radical political awareness developed at his secondary school, the Gymnasium in Elizavetgrad where he was also noted as a talented mathematician. Because he was Jewish, he could not attend a university course in Russia, so he went to Edinburgh University in 1913-14 to study science and mathematics, joined by his friend I.E. Tamm, the guture Nobel Prize winning Russian physicist in 1958 with Cherenkov Frank (for discovering 'the Cherenkov Effect'), who also attended the Elizavetgrad Gymnasium (as had the biologist B.M. Zavadovsky, also a childhood friend), and a whole community of Russian students unable to attend the Russian universities.” 
  63. ↑ 63.0 63.1 63.2 63.3 Rosalind J. Marsh. Science in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Short History. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Hessen and his views on physics came under very heavy criticism at a conference on the state of Soviet philosophy that was held Octover 17-20, 1930, Although present, he was not permitted to speak in his own defense. He was denounced as a "metaphysicist of the worst sort," a "pure idealist," and as a deserter of the cause of materialism who interpreted relativity physics in the same spirit as the Western mystic astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington. He was criticized for paying insufficient attention to the ideas of Engels and Lenin. Particularly mistaken, said his detractors, was his definition of matter as a "synthesis of space and time," a wording that came from one of his defenses of relativity theory. In the final resolution of the conference Hessen was censured by name twice, one for his philosophical views on relativity theory and again for his opinions based on quantum mechanics.” 
  64. ↑ 64.0 64.1 64.2 64.3 Rosalind J. Marsh. Science in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Short History. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “On August 21, 1936 Hessen was arrested and charged with involvement in the terrorist activities of a Trotskyist-Zinovievist conspiracy. At the trial on December 20, 1936 Hessen and two alleged co-conspirators were convicted of complicity in the 1934 murder of S.M. Kirov and of planning terror attacks on leading Soviet officials. All three were condemned together. Hessen and one of the others (Arkady Ossipovich Apirin) were executed by firing squad that same day. The third accused (Arkady Mikhailovich Reisen) was sentenced to ten years penitentiary and died in prison. In 1955 Hessen was rehabilitated.” 
  65. ↑ Rosalind J. Marsh. Science in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Short History. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “One of Hessen's bitterest critics was Ernst Kol'man, a Czech Marxist who had emigrated to the Soviet Union. In an article published in January 1931, Kol'man maintained that "wreckers" were trying to corrupt Soviet physics just as wreckers had earlier tried to distrupt Soviet industry. The implication was serious, since the engineering "wreckers" had been brought to trial and many of them imprisoned. Kol'man in the same article tried to illustrate how the wreckers in physics were trying to discredit materialism: "Matter disapprears, only equations remain" - this Leninist description of academic papism in modern physics gives the clue to the understanding of the wrecker's predilection for the mathematization of every science. The wreckers do not dare to say directly that they want to restore capitalism, they have to hide behind a convenient mask. And there is no more impenetrable mask to hide behind than a curtain of mathematical abstraction.” 
  66. ↑ Tamera Dorland. The Heirs of Archimedes: Science and the Art of War through the Age of Enlightenment. The MIT Press. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “From the perspective of the history of science, the military context of early modern science attracted serious attention before the advent of the Cold War–beginning with Boris Hessen. A prominent Soviet physicist, he actively promoted Einstein's theory of relativity during the early Stalinist era–a position that ultimately resulted in his execution by the late 1930s.” 
  67. ↑ Boris Hessen, Henryk Grossmann, Gideon Freudenthal, Peter McLaughlin. The Social and Economic Roots of the Scientific Revolution. Springer. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Hessen's activities from his first major publications in 1928 to his arrest in 1936 can best be characterized by two main concerns: the defense of the relative autonomy of physics against interference in the content of physical investigation from without the positive elaboration of the compatibility and affinity of Marxist materialism with the newest developments in physics as opposed to classical physics.” 
  68. ↑ The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists March 1953. SAGE Publications. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Practically all prominent scientists in the Soviet sphere have by now proclaimed their adherence to dialectical materialism, and many have actively engaged in a campaign of defamation of all scientists and scientific theories declared to be inimical to Stalinist faith. Mendelian genetics, resonance theory of chemical binding, the uncertainty principle (and quantum mechanics in general), the cellular theory of life–to name but a few prominent examples–have in turn been attacked as "idealistic" or "metaphysical," and more or less successfully eradicated from Soviet scientific scene–often with the apparently the eager help of representatives of the very disciplines that are most severely hit by these purges.” 
  69. ↑ 69.0 69.1 69.2 69.3 Theory of Resonance. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Theory of Resonance, in chemistry, theory by which the actual normal state of a molecule is represented not by a single valence-bond structure but by a combination of several alternative distinct structures. The molecule is then said to resonate among the several valence-bond structures or to have a structure that is a resonance hybrid of these structures. The energy calculated for a resonance hybrid is lower than the energies of any of the alternative structures; the molecule is then said to be stabilized by resonance. The difference between the energies of any one of the alternative structures and the energy of the resonance hybrid is designated resonance energy.” 
  70. ↑ Ursula Klein. Tools and Modes of Representation in the Laboratory Sciences. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “In the meantime, criticisms surfaced in the Soviet Union of Pauling's resonance theory, as well as of Christopher Ingold's more clearly chemical mesomerism theory. These criticisms picked up objections made earlier by the organic chemist Walter Hückel, the brother of the theoretical physicist and molecular-orbital theorist Erich Hückel, that Pauling's valence-bond resonance hybrid structures were idealistic and imaginary in character, and, in Soviet ideological language of the early 1950s, "nothing but bourgeois mysticism."” 
  71. ↑ Gustav Andreas Wetter. Dialectical Materialism: a Historical and Systematic Survey of Philosophy in the Soviet Union. Greenwood Press. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “The resonance theory was accused of subjective idealism, agnosticism and mechanism: idealism, because it turned a ...” 
  72. ↑ Multiple references:
    The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists September 1989. SAGE Publications. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Linus Pauling's theory of resonance presented Soviet chemistry with an ideological structure, and something similar happened with Albert Einstein's theory of relativity.” 
    Walter Bruno Gratzer. A Bedside Nature: Genius and Eccentricity in Science, 1869-1953. Macmillan Magazines. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Linus Pauling's resonance theory oj the chemical bond came in for particular opprobrium, and the deadly epithet ...” 
    Ernest B. Hook. Prematurity in Scientific Discovery: On Resistance and Neglect. University of California Press. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “A better, i.e., "purer," example of rejection on ideological grounds is the Soviet condemnation of Linus Pauling's resonance theory of the chemical bond because it was viewed (and feared) as idealistic and in conflict with a determinist Marxist-Leninist ideology (Graham 1972, pp. 297-323, 530-37; Goertzel and Goertzel 1995, pp. 118-19).” 
  73. ↑ The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists February 1965. SAGE Publications. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Scientifically, Poland then lay between two curtains, one cutting off the Soviet Union, the other cutting off the West.” 
  74. ↑ The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists February 1965. SAGE Publications. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Meetings of the same character were held in Poland of chemists condemning Pauling's resonance theory, which, of couse, none of them understood.” 
  75. ↑ Carsten Reinhardt. Chemical Sciences in the 20th Century: Bridging Boundaries. Wiley-VCH. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Pauling's theory of resonance was viciously attacked in 1951 by a group of chemists in the Soviet Union in their Report of the Commission of the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences.” 
  76. ↑ Multiple references:
    Arthur Greenberg. From Alchemy to Chemistry in Picture and Story. Wiley-Interscience. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Pauling's resonance theory was considered “revisionist” in Stalin's Soviet Union and he was vilified by staunch Communists.” 
    Arthur Greenberg. Nobel Prize Winners: an H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary. H.W. Wilson. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Ironically, he came under attack in the Soviet Union during the same period because his resonance theory of chemical bonding was ...” 
  77. ↑ Multiple references:
    Harold Joseph Berman. Faith and Order: The Reconciliation of Law and Religion. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. Retrieved on 19 October 2009. “One fundamental element of that system was its propogation of a doctrine called Marxism-Leninism, and one fundamental element of that doctrine was militant atheism. Until only a little over three years ago, militant atheism was the official religion, one might say, of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party was the established church in what might be called an atheocratic state.” 
    J. D. Van der Vyver, John Witte. Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective: Legal Perspectives. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Retrieved on 19 October 2009. “For seventy years, from the Bolshevik Revolution to the closing years of the Gorbachev regime, militant atheism was the official religion, one might say, of the Soviet Union, and the Communist Party was, in effect, the established church. It was an avowed task of the Soviet state, led by the Communist Party, to root out from the minds and hearts of the Soviet people all belief systems other than Marxism-Leninism. This was surely the most massive and the most powerful assault on traditional religious faith that was ever launched in the history of mankind.”  Harold J. Berman (1998). Freedom of Religion in Russia: An Amicus Brief for the Defendant. HeinOnline. “from the Bolshevik Revolution to the closing years of the Gorbachev regime, militant atheism was the official religion, one might say, of the Soviet Union, and the Communist Party was, in effect, the established church.”
  78. ↑ Multiple references:
    Helge Kragh. Entropic Creation. Ashgate Publishing. Retrieved on 28 July 2011. “In the attempts to establish an ideologically acceptable view of science, the new physics became a matter of considerable controversy in the young Soviet Union. Physicists and party philosophers discussed the problematic relationship of relativity theory and quantum mechanics to Marxist-Leninist philosophy.” 
    James Thrower (1983). Marxist-Leninist Scientific Atheism and the Study of Religion and Atheism in the USSR (Religion & Reason). Walter de Gruyter. Retrieved on 28 July 2011. “By epistemological and logical analysis the atheist must show that religion's use of science is fradulent, and that on the contrary, modern science confirms the philosophical, i.e., dialectical materialistic, basis of 'scientific atheism'. Further, extensive sociological investigations are necessary to find the explanation for the vestiges of religion surviving in the USSR today.” 
  79. ↑ 79.0 79.1 79.2 Sabrina P. Ramet. Religious policy in the Soviet Union. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved on 2 August 2011. “The entire educational system felt the incursion of official atheism. During the 1920s the government had insisted that lessons in schools should be non-religious, but from 1929 it pressed for the introduction of positively anti-religious material. Higher educational institutions were purged of believers in 1929, and anti-religious departments began to be established there on the initiative of the League of Militant Atheists. Atheist universities began to be founded; there were eighty-four by 1931.” 
  80. ↑ 80.0 80.1 Paul Froese. The Plot to Kill God: findings from the Soviet experiment in Secularization. University of California Press. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “The course syllabi from the atheist universities of the Soviet Union indicate how the topic of atheism was presented as a historically logical outcome of scientific development; Soviet college students chose from the following course selections: Physics: The place of physics in anti-religious propaganda. Connection between ancient myths and the endeabor of man to discover the causal relationship between various natural phenomena. The expression of primitive man's helplessness to establish the true, scientific reason for the phenomena. Scientific method in thinking as the foundation of godlessness. Chemistry: Its importance for economic life in peace and war, in agriculture, and for working out a correct worldview. The part played by chemistry in the struggle against religious superstition. Geology: Introduction to the Biblical religious point of view. Methods of geological reckoning of time compared with Church calculations. How old is the earth? Practical work for the study of the earth's surface. Belief in hell under the earth. Rejection of the religious expansion of the causes of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Mathematics: Mathematics as a scientific method for studying the phenomena surrounding us....Causes furthering the development of mathematics in antiquity and in our days. The "mathematical numbers" of pagan priests in ancient times. Legends about the supernatural origins of mathematical knowledge. The monopoly of mathematical knowledge demanded by pagan priests to enable them to oppress others. Biology: A short history of biological science. The importance of biology for working out a dialectic-materialistic worldview. The importance of biology in medicine, technics, agriculture, and other branches of human life. Importance of biology for anti-religious propaganda. Medicine: How religion looks on the cause of sickness. The modern scientific answer to this question. Contagious diseases. The origin and struggle against them. The founders of modern medicine. Serum, vaccination, and chemical therapeutics. Individual and social prophylactics. Religious ceremonies as a source of contagion. What stands out in these syllabi, in addition to the antireligious substance of each course, is the way in which the curriculum appears to ignore the objective, applied, and experimental essence of science. Instead, scientific findings are presented as correct or incorrect based on their supposed ideological positions. Religion is presented as the historic cofounder of scientific advancement, with atheism providing the philosophical framework from which to conduct accurate science.” 
  81. ↑ Multiple references:
    Paul Froese (2008). The Plot to Kill God: findings from the Soviet experiment in Secularization. University of California Press. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Militant atheists also believed science disproved religion because God remained unseen, his miracles were never subject to empirical verification, and certain religious stories were scientifically inconceivable. Following World War II and after the dissolution of the League of Militant Atheists, Soviet officials started a campaign to produce natural-scientific arguments against belief in God. For instance, Soviet scientists placed holy water under a microscope to prove that it had no special properties, and the corpses of saints were exhumed to demonstrate that they too were subject to corruption. These activities indicated that atheist propgandists held a very literal interpretation of religious language; for them, holy water and the bodies of saints were expected to hold some physical sign of their divinity.” 
    Christian De Duve (2002). Life Evolving: Molecules, Mind, and Meaning. Oxford University Press. Retrieved on 28 July 2011. “Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, a naturalistic view of the origin of life does not necessarily exlude beleif in a Creator. The notion, propagated at the same time, though for opposite reasons, by militant atheistic scientists and by many antiscientific circles, that the findings of science are incompatible with the existence of a Creator is false.” 
  82. ↑ Bruce Sheiman. An Atheist Defends Religion: Why Humanity is Better Off with Religion Than Without It. Penguin Books. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “The militant atheist asserts, incorrectly, that science is capable of determining the nonexistence of God.” 

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