Will the Recently Found Higgs Boson (God Particle) Bring Atheists and Agnostics to Believe in God?

Posted on July 5, 2012 by Peter Guirguis • 43 Comments
Will the Recently Found Higgs Boson (God Particle) Bring Atheists and Agnostics to Believe in God?

Announcement: Typcially, posts on this blog are geared towards a Christian audience. However, due to the subject of today’s blog post and because there are atheists and agnostics in my social network, this post is geared towards a wider audience: believers in God, non-believers, and those who are still making up their mind.

July 4th, 2012 will be a day that goes down in history as the day that one of the most important scientific discoveries was announced.

On Wednesday, Scientists at the CERN research center near Geneva, Switzerland, unveiled their latest findings in their search for the Higgs boson, a subatomic particle key to the formation of stars, planets and eventually life after the Big Bang.

The Higgs boson is also known as the God particle because it explains why some particles have been observed to have no mass, a question that has baffled mankind for decades.

As the news was released on Wednesday, I came across lots of information about the Higgs boson. Today, I’ll be giving you some information about what this boson is and I hope that you’ll be encouraged to think more about what the implications of this discovery means to you.

What is the Higgs Boson?

I’ve looked high and low for the simplest explanation to the what the Higgs boson is and I’ve found that the Daily Hearld did a great job in explaining it in laymen’s terms:

“The Higgs boson is a hypothesized elementary particle that, if confirmed, would provide the mechanism by which the other elementary particles in the universe have mass.

Elementary particles are the smallest fundamental units of matter.

It was once thought atoms were the smallest. Then there was the discovery of the atomic nucleus and its composition of two types of subatomic particles: protons and neutrons. Protons and neutrons are themselves made of elementary particles called quarks.

This discovery led to understanding that all matter is made up of quarks and electrons. Discoveries over the last 80 years have shown that electrons are a member of a class of other elementary particles called leptons.

Elementary particles can be divided into two classes — fermions and bosons — which are defined by a quantum mechanical property known as “’spin.”

Scientists believe that, at a quantum level, the forces that cause quarks and leptons to attract or repel each other are carried by bosons.

The Standard Model of elementary particle physics is a theory that explains how quarks and leptons interact in terms of three forces: The electromagnetic force, strong nuclear force, and weak nuclear force.

The Higgs boson is notable in that its interactions with the other particles are thought to give these particles their mass, a fundamental constituent of our universe. The Higgs boson is also notorious as the only particle in the Standard Model that hasn’t been directly observed.”

Until now that is.

You can check out the rest of the Daily Herald’s explanation by clicking here.

Why is the Higgs Boson Called the God Particle?

In order for the Standard Model theory to be able to explain accurately why there’s some matter that appears to not have any mass, then it has to explain how there must be a force that’s holding all particles of matter together.  This force is created by particles known as bosons (source: Wired.com).

Peter Higgs came up with his theory that particles gain mass by going though the Higgs Field first in 1964. The only problem was that he needed to prove that the Higgs boson actually existed.

On July 4th, CERN, the worlds largest physics laboratory, confirmed that the Higgs boson does in fact exist, pending further testing.

In 1993, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon M. Lederman, wrote a book about the Higgs boson and called it, The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What is the Question? You can read the full story as to why he called it that by clicking here.

It’s important to note that Christians call it the God particle for a different reason than Lederman.

Why Do Christians Think the God Particle is Important?

There are a number of reasons but I’m going to give you two:

1. Most Bible scholars agree that Colossians 1:15-18 speaks of how Jesus Christ is the One who is holding all of the particles in the universe together. He is that invisible force that’s keeping elementary particles together when they should  be repelling each other instead.

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.

And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist . And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.”

The Greek translation for the word, “consist”, is synistēmi. The defintion of synistēmi is:

  • to place together, to set in the same place,to bring or band together
  • to put together, unite parts into one whole,
  • to be composed of, consist

Creation Speaks2. Our universe is extremely fine tuned for life. Slightly modify the strength of gravity, or the chemistry of carbon, or the ratio of the mass of protons and electrons, and biological systems become impossible to sustain life.

Check out this Bible verse:

[quote]The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork.[/quote] -  Psalm 19:1

To put it in laymen terms, the universe is such a complex place that it must have had a designer.  No matter how many billions of years may pass, its impossible that we can get this extremely intricate universe that we live in through the passing of time and the evolutionary process.

Although its important to note that some parts of the theory of evolution are true.  However, think about it this way:

A hurricane can go through a junk yard billions of times, but a Boeing 747 airplane will never come out of it. (help spread this truth)

Just like a Boeing 747 airplane has been carefully designed by engineers to fly people from one place to another, so has our universe been masterly designed by the Chief Designer for the purpose of sustaining life.

What Does This Mean For You, Christian?

If you’re a Christian, then you’re enjoying the Higgs boson news because it only confirms what you’ve already personally experienced:

There is a God and you can have a relationship with Him by believing in Jesus Christ. (help tell others about Jesus)

What Does This Mean For You, Atheist or Agnostic?

If you don’t believe in God or you are still making up your mind, I TOTALLY understand where you’re coming from.

I too once didn’t believe in God. When I went to college and I took my science classes, I ended up becoming an atheist.

Then I took my philosophy class and I ended up becoming an agnostic.

I partied hard, had lots of what I thought was “fun” back then, and for a period of 8 years, I was searching for truth.

Was the truth that there was no God? Or is there truly a God that can be known? (invite others to think about this question)

Even if there was a God, there still were several obstacles. Is God the God of Buddha? Is God the God of Islam? Is God the many gods in Hinduism? Is God just a bunch of positive thinking and karma?

Maybe we are ALL God! Or…

Maybe every belief system was right: There is no God, there is a God, and whatever anyone believes, then that is what will happen to him/her after they die.

I Had an Undeniable Experience

God and science don't collide, they compliment

God & science don’t collide, they compliment

I used to think about these things and I’d get frustrated because I wanted to find out if there was such a thing as an objective truth.

Finally one day, after a series of circumstances in my life, I decided to pray to God. I wasn’t really sure if and who would answer.

I remember saying, “God, if you’re out there, then please let me know! I believe that if You really do exist then you would want to talk to people, wouldn’t You? Or else, why would you create us? Or maybe I’m just talking to myself here & this is a waste of time?”

You see, even my prayer was confusing and didn’t make much sense. But the God of this universe heard my prayer, reached out to me, and showed me that He is real!

That’s how I became a Christian. I’d love to tell you one time more about all the details of my story but that’ll have to be in another blog post.

Questions For You

There’s so much we can talk about because we touched on some different subjects but they all have one unified theme. I’d love to hear from you on any of these questions in the comments section.

Please be nice and make sure that you follow my comments policy.

  • Do you believe in God? Why or why not?
  • Do you think there is such a thing as objective truth? Or does everyone just believe in whatever they want to believe?
  • What do you think happens after you die?
[image credits zmescience,  Jordan Rocque, and Dan Cogan]
  • Ste

    You appear to have not really understood, it scares me that people like you exist, I am surprised you haven’t gone down the ‘God put it there to test our faith’ route. Seriously.

    • http://dev.notashamedofthegospel.com/ Peter Guirguis

      The problem with your comment is that you failed to mention what you think I didn’t understand. As usual, your comment is without merit. I welcome disagreement with my point of view but at least try to make a point.
      @869eaad25c0ce9da3c2c928721d074f8:disqus

      • Jamie Twells

        I think what he is trying to say is that the Higgs particle has nothing to do with (the) God(s).

        • http://dev.notashamedofthegospel.com/ Peter Guirguis

          You are probably right Jamie, but he just needs to prove his point instead of just making allegations. Many atheists are emotionally charged.

          @google-b38a1c2c3dd69f3c6e9c91f0cf86097c:disqus

          • Joey

            Its not an atheist thing, its just a human thing. Most people are emotionally charged and have a hard time making a good argument in such circumstances. Also in terms of your argument you make the analogy of making an airplane requiring an engineer and saying that means the universe requires an engineer. As an engineer once as “Proof by analogy is fraud”. Which is to say that analogies are really just a way to help illustrate an idea they still need solid evidence to back them up which is not really shown in this article, hence you also seem to just be making allegations. So kindly prove your point and move on no need to berate others about not making comments with merit when your article doesn’t seem to have much merit either.

          • http://dev.notashamedofthegospel.com/ Peter Guirguis

            Thank you Joey for being so kind, gracious, and respectful in your comment – I really appreciate it :-)

            The point in this article wasn’t to prove that God exists, but the intention was to have open and respectful conversations with people of different points of view.

            In addition to my own personal experience, here is the logical argument that proves that there must be an eternal something or someone that created this universe:

            Premise #1: Something exists
            Premise #2: Nothing cannot create something
            Conclusion: Therefore, something must have always existed

            Do you agree with this?
            @908583f3f5c2088c6e48936bdc7bf185:disqus

          • http://www.facebook.com/RevDeath Joshua Holmes
          • http://dev.notashamedofthegospel.com/ Peter Guirguis

            Thanks Josh for sharing with us your point of view. Does abiogenesis give an answer as to how the universe first began?

          • http://www.facebook.com/RevDeath Joshua Holmes

            No, abiogenesis gives us a answer to how life first began. Just because you don’t have a answer for something don’t mean that you should immediately say god did it.
            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps
            Christians also use to believe that the earth was the center of the universe and that the stars were just holes in the black dome that was the sky. Just because you don’t have an explanation doesn’t mean that your god did it, and even if it did i don’t see how that argument would give your god more credibility than the gods of other religions.

          • http://dev.notashamedofthegospel.com/ Peter Guirguis

            I clicked on the link that you provided but I don’t see that in the article that it states how life all began. Am I missing something here?

          • http://www.facebook.com/RevDeath Joshua Holmes

            The article wasn’t about how life all began. Abiogenesis already does that. You’re asking about how the Big Bang started. I’m comfortable saying that I don’t know that answer to that question. Neither do you. You say God did it and you think that answers everything. The article that I posted points out the flaws in this type of thinking. When you start to attribute all of the gaps in scientific understanding with a supernatural explanation all you get is a Deity that shrinks as scientific understanding grows. Lack of evidence is evidence of nothing. Just because science doesn’t have an explanation doesn’t automatically mean that the explanation is God.

          • http://dev.notashamedofthegospel.com/ Peter Guirguis

            And that’s why I point out my personal experience. That’s exactly what it is, it’s personal. I don’t think that anyone has been able to disprove that God doesn’t exist and that the evidence for intelligent design is more than the answers that we have today. No one will ever be able to accurately answer how the Big Bang first started because it will always need a first cause that is eternal.

          • http://www.facebook.com/RevDeath Joshua Holmes
          • http://dev.notashamedofthegospel.com/ Peter Guirguis

            Okay Josh, I took a look at this link. I respectfully disagree with premise number 2 (there can be no infinite regress). The reason why I disagree is because God is infinite and eternal therefore He does not need a first cause.

          • shep

            Physics disagress with this logical argument.

            Vacuums have been observed to have nothing, then something, then nothing again (virtual particles).

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle

          • http://dev.notashamedofthegospel.com/ Peter Guirguis

            The problem with this is that you need the law of gravity in order for this to be true. When we say that nothing cannot create something, that means that the law of gravity cannot exist either therefore creating a problem with using virtual particles as an argument.

        • http://dev.notashamedofthegospel.com/ Peter Guirguis

          I think it has everything to do with God, especially when Christians take a look at it from a Biblical lens

  • Court

    The “god particle” is short hand for “that goddamned particle” they could as yet not test for or see.

    You obviously have no idea what you just wrote about, or physics in general.

    • http://dev.notashamedofthegospel.com/ Peter Guirguis

      Yes, I’m aware that that was how the term “God particle” came about. I came across this information in my research and that’s why I refer to Mr. Lederman in my article. I was saying that that term has another meaning for the Christian.

      If you are going to try to say that I don’t have a point then you will actually have to prove it.

      @7ec50249e66522344d5b511e25239b9b:disqus

      • Red

        I think he is trying to say (and quite accurately) that you are INTENTIONALLY misleading your readers by cherry-picking the history involved in the naming of the particle. Not only have you failed to give an accurate report as to why the particle is coined the ‘God’ particle, but you have drawn dubious (again probably intentional due to confirmation bias) lines to scripture, and the verses you have used have so little to do with the Higgs field that, coupled with your previous explanation, anyone with a basic understanding of the sciences at work can tell that you yourself have no working knowledge of the principles at play here.

        • http://dev.notashamedofthegospel.com/ Peter Guirguis

          First of all, I’m not cherry picking anything. I give a link to the entire story behind how the God particle got its name and people are free to check it out. Additionally, I explicitly write in the article that Christians call it the God particle for different reasons than the scientific community.

          I think that you being so emotional it’s causing you to make false allegations against me. You take my words and you twist them to give them the meaning that you desire. It’s also obvious that you haven’t read the entire article or that if you read it, then there were some parts that you just weren’t able to comprehend. Best of luck to you.

      • Joey

        Just want to reiterate, you have not proved anything either. You
        1. Cited some passage in the bible which can vaguely be analyzed as relating to the Higgs Boson
        2. Make an analogy to universe requiring an engineer because a Boeing does

        All you seem to do is insinuate that the Higgs Boson proves something religious people already believe, but you do not actually prove it in any way. So you have a point, but you also don’t prove it so not sure why you continue to ask other to do what you have not.

        • http://dev.notashamedofthegospel.com/ Peter Guirguis

          Well then, I guess we are in a stalemate now, aren’t we? :-)

      • benanov

        You don’t have a point, because you fundamentally misunderstand the premise. The particle, only theorized at the time was given its nickname out of frustration, not because of any religious reason. Attempting to provide a religious reason to a scientific discovery is exactly what Higgs *didn’t* want.

        • http://dev.notashamedofthegospel.com/ Peter Guirguis

          It’s not about Higgs, it’s about something bigger and about whether there is proof of intelligent design or not. If you take a look at the beginning of the blog post, I point out that this blog post is geared towards Christians, atheists, and agnostics. With that in mind, different parts of the blog posts are going to resonate with others and some other groups are not going to see eye to eye.

          Additionally, no where in my blog post do I say that the purpose of my article is to prove that there is a God. I talk about the HIggs boson and all of my sources are cited, then I talk about it from a Christian perspective, then I talk about my own position.

          What’s wrong with that? Seems like you are quite an intolerant person and that you are emotionally charged. That’s no way to be rational.

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  • Justin

    “A hurricane can go through a junk yard billions of times, but a Boeing 747 airplane will never come out of it. ”

    This is just wrong. It is not an accurate analogy of the evolutionary process. I’m not going to do your homework for you but please look into this. I don’t want you to seem ignorant of the facts.

    “Our universe is extremely fine tuned for life. Slightly modify the strength of gravity, or the chemistry of carbon, or the ratio of the mass of protons and electrons, and biological systems become impossible to sustain life.”

    You can say that it is fine tuned AFTER THE FACT! We are here so of course it is conducive to us being here. Besides you can only say that it is “tuned” for life AS WE KNOW IT. What about other forms of life? Ones we can’t imagine given our specific scenario.

    “If you’re a Christian, then you’re enjoying the Higgs boson news because it only confirms what you’ve already personally experienced: There is a God and you can have a relationship with Him by believing in Jesus Christ.”
    I don’t see your connection? Does it confirm the Islamic and Jewish god too? These two statements are asserted as fact but have no actual connection. How does the Higgs Boson confirm this?

    • http://dev.notashamedofthegospel.com/ Peter Guirguis

      Hi Justin, here are my responses to your comments:

      1) The analogy about the airplane is not 100% perfect and I’m sure you’ll agree, that there is not going to ever be a 100% analogy that will ever suffice. However, this analogy does accurately portray the point that I wanted to make. That point is that the universe is too complex for there to not be a designer and that time and processes cannot result in the intricate universe that we have today.

      2) As far as the universe being fine-tuned, I defer back to the point that I make in my point #1.

      3) The point that I was making here is from a Christian perspective. The thing that is unique about the Christian belief system is that it allows you ( the believer) to have a personal relationship with God. Since you are a nonbeliever, I can see how you can not see the relevance.

      Like I said at the beginning of my blog post, this blog post is written for Christians, atheists, and agnostics so not all parts are going to resonate with everyone.

      4) I answered all of your questions now I have a question for you. What caused the Big Bang to occur?

      • Justin

        1) Not only is it not perfect, it is completely different. If you don’t understand this then I suggest you look into the arguments against that analogy.

        2) Your first point is flawed. You can’t say that it is too complex…how could you possibly know this? Why can time and processes not account for the complexity of the universe? How did you determine this? It seems like you just deny it because it conflicts with your already decided world-view.

        3) Ok. I understand what you are saying, but I still don’t see how the Higgs Boson confirmes the Christian world view. If the Higgs Boson is determines to be the “cause”(if causality even applies at that point) of the Big Bang then you will attribute it to God. It is just goal post shifting. Personal experience is not a good way to determine fact. Plenty of Muslims have personal experiences “proving” that they are right. There is no reason for anyone else to believe that either of you are right.

        4) I don’t know. There isn’t enough information to determine what “caused” the Big Bang. How did you come by your information that it was caused by the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible?

        • http://dev.notashamedofthegospel.com/ Peter Guirguis

          I’m glad that you answered that you don’t know the answer to my question. If you are okay with not knowing, then please – there is no need to respond to this comment. You can just keep on believing that there is no God and I will just keep on believing that there is a God.

          How do I know this you may ask? Because like I pointed out in my blog post, it’s due to my personal experience. All that one has to do is truly seek God with all of his heart and God will reveal himself to that person. But it must be done with sincerity and it must be genuine.

          If you’re okay with the problems that are in the theory of evolution and you’re not open to there being a different answer to how and why we are here, then we will continue to have our differences.

          The major problem with the big bank is that it has no answer as to what caused the Big Bang and it causes people to reach the conclusion that the universe came from “nothing”. That is an impossibility.

          • Justin

            1)I said I don’t know because I don’t know. Not because I am fine with not knowing. What I care about is whether my beliefs are true or not. I would rather say that I don’t know then hold a false belief because it fits with my already established worldview. You can keep believing that there is a God and I will keep believing that your claims are unjustified…and for good reason.

            2)Personal experience is not a valid form of knowing things. You can know that you had an experience…but this does not validate it as true. People have experiences about every god…everyday…all the time. This is not proof of their position being true.

            3)Problems in evolution? As opposed to problems in I.D.? Yea, I’m ok with the problems in evolution…they are small differences…nothing that would rattle the foundations of the Theory.

            4)The fact that the Big Bang Theory does not say what “caused” it is not a problem…because it does not address that. I certainly did not say that it came from nothing but I don’t accept that the laws of causality were valid “before” the Big Bang. Which makes the idea of “caused” seem irrelevant anyways.

          • http://dev.notashamedofthegospel.com/ Peter Guirguis

            Okay Justin, thank you for taking the time to express your points of view. In this case, we will just agree to disagree with each other because we will just keep on going and going. I wish you all the best :-)

  • Alex

    I kinda understand both sides of the coin to Christianity and Atheism. But the same question plagues both a divine creator and the big bang…. How could something come of nothing? Who made God? How did the universe suddenly appear from ‘nothing’?

    Because that question has not yet been answered I am agnostic, and don’t let where we come from and why we’re here hurt my noggin to much. I just enjoy life for now.

    • http://dev.notashamedofthegospel.com/ Peter Guirguis

      I love your comment and your heart Alex! Truly, I believe that your comment shows that you are a thinker. All those questions that you posted in your comment are valid and they do have answers. Here is what I propose

      1) How can something come from nothing? You’re absolutely right, there must have always been something/someone that existed.

      2) Who made God? No one, He is eternal and has always existed. Since something exists today that is finite, then there must have been something that has always existed. This cannot be broken and it is a must.

      3) The Bible in the very first chapter says that God made it from nothing.

      4) Since you are agnostic, have you ever thought about seeking God to see if he will respond?

      @9768e19678e4430d3eb526d61302306f:disqus

      • http://twitter.com/loperoni jorge lopera

        1 contradicts with 2 and 3 for your information

        • http://dev.notashamedofthegospel.com/ Peter Guirguis

          I don’t agree that they contradict each other.

      • Derek

        By that same token (#2), the universe could also be eternal and God could have been the first thing that the universe created… Whatever excuse you want to give for God being eternal can also be applied just as equally to the universe leaving God as a superfluous notion.

        • http://dev.notashamedofthegospel.com/ Peter Guirguis

          That’s actually impossible, we know through science that the universe is not eternal and that it actually had a specific point when it began.

  • God

    I am an atheist, but decided that like you, if God will reveal himself to me in a personal experience, I will accept him and become a Christian!

    Unfortunately, I made this decision LONG ago and asked God to show himself to me. He never did. I guess he wants me not to believe in him, and go to hell. What up wit dat, God?

    • http://dev.notashamedofthegospel.com/ Peter Guirguis

      Ha ha, that’s funny :-)

      Well can I ask you more about what you did in order to seek God? How did you do it?

  • Derek

    Saying that the world is too complex to not have been designed is really a silly argument…

    I’ll give this example: Start with a letter of the alphabet, any letter. For each turn, you can add a letter, remove a letter, or change an existing letter but there always has to be at least 1 letter. Continue this for 1000 turns. How many actual words were formed? How many non-words were formed?

    This is evolution. Adding/removing/changing letters is a mutation. Viable words are species that are alive and surviving. Non-viable words are species who have died or gone extinct. If you continued this “evolutionary process” for 1,000,000,000 turns, you’d have nearly every word in the English language. Now imagine that we’re not choosing words based on whether or not they already exist in the language. How many words would we have after that?

    Lastly, someone would look at this giant list of words afterward and said “Oh, man… I can’t believe someone came up with all these crazy words!” In reality, they were randomly generated by mutations over billions of turns. It only seems complex after the fact. While it’s happening, though, it’s incredible to see.

    • http://dev.notashamedofthegospel.com/ Peter Guirguis

      This example is so flawed because look at who is adding and removing the alphabet letters! It’s me, a human being which is the same as an intelligent designer :-)

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