1. Introduction

One of the greatest controversies for centuries is that between theology and evolutionism. From the peculiar nature of our mathematically fine-tuned universe and the narrow ranges in which the constants of nature happen to be just suitable for the evolution of stars, planets, and living things, it may be reasonably hypothesised that our universe was created or designed. Those who favor "Big Bang" creationism claim the universe was created from a point of singularity which exploded; a view which has been criticized as religion masquerading as science (Joseph 2010a). Likewise, many theologians believe the universe was created, and that creation implies a creator, i.e. god. If from singularity, where did this singularity come from (Joseph, 2010a). If from God then where did this God the creator come from?

For the purpose of this paper, we refer to an cosmic consciousness which is simply defined as just the creator of our universe (or sub-universe; see below); no additional assumptions are made relating to personality, to benevolence, to perfection, to omnipotence, to eternality, to omnipresence and to omniscience. In this respect, this cosmic consciousness could be likened to the quantum field from which all existence emerges, at least, according to quantum theories of cosmology. Thus, our concept of a cosmic consciousness clearly differs from the religious concept of God. To avoid confusion, cosmic consciousness is used here instead of God without inverted commas. Also, such questions like whether either cosmic consciousness or God is perfect (Kraay 2008), whether the requirements of omnipotence and omniscience are consistent (on which see e.g. Martin 2007), and whether the existence of evil disproves creation (e.g. Bertrand 2009, Schellenberg 2000), do not affect our argument here. Obviously, the existence of cosmic consciousness in our sense needs not imply that arguments on the 'nonexistence of a God having the attributes that are commonly associated with the Judaic-Christian-Islamic God' (Stenger 2007) are necessarily incorrect. (Cf. Sobel 2004.)

We may still call the creator cosmic consciousness or in the wider sense of the term "God." In fact, in a recent issue of the Journal of Cosmology (vol. 7, May 2010), on 'Commentaries: Stephen Hawking's Aliens', several authors describes potential advanced aliens as 'gods'; albeit not in the theological sense, but as based on technological advances and the tendency of less developed people's to view those with superior technology as "gods." "It is conceivable that, in the billions of years since the Big Bang, other organisms evolved at some time and some place that have already mastered quantum mechanics … with unlimited capabilities …They would have become, by any human definition, Gods" (Allen 2010). "From the perspective of modern humans, these evolutionary advanced alien humans might seem as gods, even if they were still humans' (Joseph 2010b).

It is proposed that this cosmic consciousness created our sub-universe. Thus, this cosmic consciousness is probably much more advanced than the god-like aliens mentioned in the quotes above. However, as a thought experiment, we could ask: is it not conceivable that an advanced alien race, which evolved billions of years before the formation of our planet, may have also acquired the ability to create worlds and even entire universes, perhaps for their own entertainment, or even as an educational toy for their children? For the purposes of our paper, we do not define cosmic consciousness as a technologically advanced alien. Rather, cosmic consciousness here is still natural and in fact evolved from matter/energy in the wider universe (details below) and hence differs from the religious God taken as supernatural, or the alien-as-god which is simply a technologically advanced being from another, more ancient world.

An alien-as-god could be traced backwards in time to a primordial soup from which life emerged from energized chemicals. These 'gods" are after-the-fact, and evolved only after the universe was created. This would not be the case for cosmic consciousness the creator of this universe. So, where did cosmic consciousness come from? To say that God exists Initself with no beginning and end or beyond the constraint of time completely fails to provide an answer but really its own presumption destroys one of the strongest arguments for God's existence from design and perhaps also as inferred from quantum physics and evolution. Instead, consistent with a model of the universe which is infinite and eternal (Joseph 2010a), it is hypothesized that cosmic consciousness evolved in a higher Newtonian-like universe. As it is Newtonian-like, it needs no creator. From a set of compelling axioms, a proposition of Evolved-cosmic consciousness cosmology it is demonstrated that cosmic consciousness evolved in the wider universe and created, or brought into existence, our sub-universe or one identical to it. (Our sub-universe is the "Hubble Length" universe we observe and that presumably originated from the Big Bang about 13.7 billion years ago, assuming that the current dominant view of cosmology is correct.) Given five compelling axioms which will be discussed, and as based on the theory of evolution, the proposition of Axiomatic Evolved-cosmic consciousness Cosmology is valid.

It might also be further queried: Why was there a wider universe, rather than nothing? As the wider universe could be Newtonian like, it needs no creator. Alternatively, one may prefer to consider an infinite quantum field with subquantum fields which come in and out of existence. The existence of a infinite universe does not require a creator, and the many world theory of quantum physics presents us with the likelihood that there may be universes so completely alien from our own that life as we know it does not exist. Our peculiar and bio-friendly sub-universe could just be one universe among many and not all are structured alike. In this case, it could be argued that there are multiple universes, or as Joseph (2010a) puts it, "bubble universes", which emerge from a quantum foam and are separated by branes, or membranes. Not all universes are alike, and thus in some universes life may have emerged, evolved, acquired intelligence, and then like the imagined aliens-as-gods, created this universe, which is a sub-universe within its own.

2. A Logical Proof of the Existence of cosmic consciousness and the Creation of our Sub-Universe

The existence of an Anthropic Creator can be deduced from 5 basic axioms.

Axiom 1. First Law of Thermodynamics: 'Nothing comes from nothing (ex nihilo nihil fit); nothing could ever have ' (lyrics of a song in the film The Sound of Music).

The first law/axiom refers to the conservation of mass/energy or something more general. Things can only be transformed, not created out of nothing, or disappear into nothing. Taking the 'nothing' as referred to here as absolute nothing, this axiom has never been violated. We first learned of the conservation of matter. Then we learned of the possible conversion between matter and energy according to the famous Einstein's equation of E = mc² and generalized the conservation law accordingly. If we learn further that mass/energy may also be converted into and from something else, we may just generalize this conservation law further. What about the Big Bang? Even if that was the instance cosmic consciousness created our universe, it was not from nothing, but from a singularity which must have existed prior to the Big Bang (Joseph 2010a). cosmic consciousness and "God's" universe already existed then. cosmic consciousness just created our universe from something in cosmic consciousness's universe, just like we can make a clock from something in our universe. "The idea that things can come into being uncaused out of nothing is worse than magic. At least when a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat, there's the magician and the hat!" (See Strobel 2004, p.99).

Axiom 2. Accumulation of Strictly Positive Probabilities towards Certainty as Time Approaches Infinity: In infinite time, what could happen with strictly positive probabilities will happen (Joseph 2010a,b).

Things that could not happen or things that have a zero probability of happening, such as logically impossible things, will not happen. For something that could happen, the probability of it happening in a given period, say a year, may be very small. However, no matter how small this probability, as long as it is strictly positive (i.e. positive and finite) say one out of a trillion, the probability that it will happen increases as more and more time is allowed. For example, consider the simple case where the probability of a certain thing happening in any one year is independent of each other. (The axiom still holds for dependence or interdependence cases though the speed of accumulation may be slower, needing more time to offset this.) If it has 10% chance of happening in any one year, then the chance that it will happen (at least once) is 19% in two years, 65.132% in ten years, and more than 99.99% in 100 years. If we reduce the one-year probability to just 1%, the 100-years probability is reduced to 63.4%, but the 1000-years probability is still more than 99.99%. Thus, as we reduce the one-year probability (but not to zero), we can make up by increasing the number of years, still getting virtual certainty. Thus, if the number of years is increased sufficiently, anything that has strictly positive probabilities of happening will happen with virtual certainty.

Consider the arguments for and against an Earthly abiogenesis. A single cell is so complex that statistically the probability of life beginning on Earth is a few hundreds millions years is completely improbable. As Joseph and Schild (2010) put it, although there was insufficient time for life to have been created on Earth, in an infinite universe, with infinite locations, and infinite combinations of the correct chemicals, life may have arisen infinite times.

Before stating the next axiom, let us define the wider universe as one that include our universe (or sub-universe) and possibly include higher or other universes if they exist.

Axiom 3. Existence of Things: Something exists in the wider universe. At the level of pure logic, this axiom may or may not be true. Logically, it is possible that nothing has ever existed and nothing will ever exist. However, 'I think, therefore I am' (René Descartes, the father of modern philosophy and modern mathematics). So, each of us knows with certainty that we exist. From our senses, reasoning, and scientific studies, we also know with almost certainty that other things also exist. If something exists in our universe, it exists in the wider universe as our universe is part of the wider universe. Thus, Axiom 3 is obviously true.

Axiom 4. Possibility of Evolution: Given some suitable environments/conditions, non-living things could evolve into living things, and living things of less complex species could evolve into more complex species through mutation and natural selection or other means.

Note that Axiom 4 is stated in a hypothetical form of just some possibilities. It does not rely on or imply that living things on Earth actually evolved as stated. However, those who believe that life originated on Earth must accept Axiom 4. Moreover, those who believe life on Earth came from other planets, or was formed in a nebular cloud (Joseph 2010a, Joseph and Schild 2010), and those who believe in creation must still accept Axiom 4 as logically possible, for even in the Bible it is claimed that God gave Earth the power to create life. Given some suitable conditions (which may or may not be similar to those that existed on Earth), life had to originate (Joseph and Schild 2010), and life has evolved .

Some people may doubt even just the possibility of non-living things evolving into living things. However, the recent creation of a bacterial cell controlled by a chemically synthesized genome by scientists of the J. Craig Venter Institute (Gibson， et al. 2010; see also a recent special issue on this remarkable event: "Artificial Life: Scientific Revolution? Or the End of Life as We Know It?: in the Journal of Cosmology, June 2010) lends further strong support to the possibility of the evolution of non-living things into living things.

A question arises as to the possibility that life and the evolution of life may only be possible in our peculiar sub-universe but not possible in the wider universe or in other universes. However, if evolution is possible in our sub-universe, it should definitely be also possible in the wider universe, as our sub-universe is just part of the wider universe even if those other universes are separated by branes. On the other hand, if our sub-universe was created to be particularly biofriendly, the wider universe before the creation of our sub-universe could be much less suitable for the evolution of living things like those of Earth. However, a lower degree of suitability does not mean absolute impossibility. Axiom 4 only requires some (possibly very small but strictly positive) possibility of evolution somewhere in the enormous wider universe. Just 0.00000 ... 1% probability within ten quintillion years would be sufficient. If the universe is infinite and eternal, as some scientists claim (Joseph 2010a), then there has been ample time for life to evolve in infinite locations. The Darwinian theory of evolution was published in 1859 and the applicability of the principles therein (inheritance, mutation, and natural selection) need not be confined to our peculiar sub-universe. Moreover, evolution could be but need not necessarily be similar to the Darwinian evolution on Earth (see commentaries Journal of Cosmology vol. 7, May 2010). Thus, it cannot be denied that evolution had some positive possibilities in the wider universe.

Axiom 5. Possible Development of Science and Technology to Very High Level: When living things evolved to a level capable of using science and technology such as the current level of Homo sapiens on Earth or even beyond, it may be possible for them to evolve further by evolution and/or they may enhance their capabilities through science and technology possibly including (but need not be confined to) technology-enhanced functions and genetic engineering (Joseph and Schild 2010; see also commentaries Journal of Cosmology vol. 7, May 2010). This development could reach levels difficult for us to imagine.

Again, Axiom 5 only states some possibilities. It does not rule out the possibility that 999,999 cases out of a million attempts at genetic engineering may end up in disasters. As long as there is some slight chance of further advancement to very high levels (perhaps after billion times of starting from scratch), the axiom is satisfied. The experience of Homo sapiens on Earth has already demonstrated some degrees and levels of such possibilities. Three hundred years ago, if people were told that we can watch in a box (TV set) people dead for decades talking and doing things, they would have regarded this as nonsense. In the absence of disasters (in their presence, many times of starting from scratch may be needed), the levels of technology that could be reached in hundreds/thousands/billions of years from now are certainly difficult for us to imagine now (Joseph 2010a; Joseph and Schild 2010). Thus, Axiom 5 is compelling.

Somewhat surprisingly, from these five compelling axioms, the following proposition of Axiomatic Evolved-cosmic consciousness Cosmology can be proved.

3. Proposition 1 (Axiomatic Evolved-cosmic consciousness Cosmology):

cosmic consciousness evolved and created our sub-universe or one identical to our sub-universe.

Proof: Since something exists in the wider universe (Axiom 3) but nothing comes from nothing (Axiom 1), things in the wider universe must have existed forever, with an infinite past. (Joseph (2010a,c) has provided considerable evidence favoring an infinite, eternally recycling universe where the simplest of atoms, hydrogen, are assembled through the combination of elementary particles, gravity, and energy, in spaces smaller than a Plank length, and where complex molecules including those comprising light, planets, and stars, are continually broken down and then reassembled. In an infinite universe which is eternal, and which may be comprised of infinite "bubble universes" or multiverses, life could have arisen infinite times and evolved in infinite ways into increasingly complex species.

As the wider universe is no smaller than our sub-universe (probably very much larger or even infinite) and the latter is already very large, from Axiom 4, the possibility that in at least some place in the wider universe, conditions are suitable for such evolution must be positive over say any given period of one hundred trillion years. (According to current science, Homo sapiens evolved on Earth within a few billion years.) Given such evolution, and given much more time for further evolution and/or for the use of technology (Axiom 5), the possibility that the evolution/technology leads to some species of living things much more advanced than Homo sapiens and to the level of cosmic consciousness that is capable of creating and actually did create our sub-universe or one identical to it must also be positive, even if possibly quite small. As the wider universe has existed forever (just proved above), that small probability (say 0.000 ...1%) over any quintillion years would already have cumulated into 99.99999 … % = 100% (Axiom 2). It is thus certain that cosmic consciousness created our sub-universe or one identical to it.

4. The Big Bang

Suppose that the Big Bang that led to our sub-universe took place 13.7 billion years ago (as is currently estimated, see Joseph 2010a) and that our sub-universe had no history previous to that. Our axioms ensure that cosmic consciousness evolved and created our sub-universe or one identical to our sub-universe sometime during the indefinite past. They do not ensure that this creation took place at some specific time. For any particular period of say one billion years, the probability of such creation taking place could be quite low. (For simplicity of argument, ignore the case that the created sub-universe identical to ours is not our sub-universe in the following.) Does this logic mean that the probability that cosmic consciousness created our sub-universe 13.7 billion years ago is very low? No! This answer comes from the anthropic principle (many authors take this principle to mean that our universe has been fine tuned to support intelligent life; see Carter 1974, Barrow & Tipler 1986. However, as used here, it just means this: Since we are definitely here now, the actual situation must be consistent with this fact.). Pure logic does not ensure a high probability that the creation took place around 13.7 billion years ago. However, we already know that we exist now and that our universe exists, even if it were not created in a big bang, but through other mechanisms. While cosmic consciousness could have created our sub-universe at different points in time, then if there was a Big Bang which took place about 14 billion years ago, this would mean that cosmic consciousness created our sub-universe about 14 billion years ago.

This proposition should not at all be surprising, given that the theory of the Big Bang was in fact first proposed by a Catholic priest in order to make the Bible scientific (Joseph 2010a,b), and numerous scientists have drawn parallels between the Big Bang theory and the story of Genesis, and/or have advanced the belief this universe was created according to a "supernatural plan" including Arno Penzias who won the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physics for the discovery of the cosmic background radiation of the 'big bang"(see Joseph, 2010a,b). It is for these and other reasons that scientists such as Joseph (2010a,b) ridicule the Big Bang theory.

Most scientists accept the Big Bang as proven fact. Joseph (2010a), however, details numerous flaws in this theory, and instead proposes an eternally recycling universe which has no ending and no beginning, but which extends eternally for all eternity. Yet, even in an infinitely recycle universe, there are endings and beginnings, and Joseph's (2010a) model allows for "bubble universes" which emerge and disappear back into the quantum foam. In such a scenario, it could be that cosmic consciousness emerges from this quantum foam, and cosmic consciousness is responsible for the creation of this sub (bubble) universe, which may have been fashioned 13.7 billion years ago.

5. Falsifiability:

Is our argument falsifiable? Yes! As it is derived from the five axioms above, the falsification of any of these axioms destroys our proposition. For example, if it could be established that something could actually emerge spontaneously from absolute nothing, from true vacuum (not just false vacuum), then our proposition does not follow. [However, the peculiarity and hence non-naturalness of the 'absolute nothing' that could give rise to something still needs some explanation or a creator.] Secondly, if it could be convincingly shown that some logical mistake has been committed in the reasoning leading from the five axioms to the proposition (the author is confident that this is definitely not possible), the proposition also collapses. Could the proposition itself be falsified directly? As pointed out by Susskind (2004), many great ideas have been accused of unfalsifiability but later ways for falsification/verification have been found. Moreover, if the "correctness of the idea is obvious … who cares if they can't falsify it".

6. "God's" Performance.

The universe has behavior and can be understood through the "universal language" of math. Some scientists have said "God must have been a mathematician." Einstein (1926) quipped: "God does not play dice with the universe."

It could also be said that intelligence is involved in the universe, and this intelligence is also what we are calling cosmic consciousness. It may be a mistake, however, to believe that cosmic consciousness is anything like modern humans, or even an advance alien species. Although this sub-universe is fine tuned for intelligent life, this does not mean that other sub-universes are fine tuned for life or intelligences similar to our own. Therefore, we cannot say what cosmic consciousness is, other than to say the intelligence that is cosmic consciousness (and which could have evolved in the wider universe as argued in this paper or emerged from the quantum foam as in Joseph 2010a) created this sub-universe.

If we accept the possibility that our sub-universe was created by cosmic consciousness, how do we assess "God's" performance (if we dare) in this creation? Some have said that this creation is of a mediocre standard, as our world is rather imperfect. Others (e.g. Pilpel 2007) use this imperfection to argue against creation. This argument is based on the presumption that created things must be 100% perfect. This presumption is questionable, to say the least. (Cf. Steinberg 2007). Also, the claim of "imperfection" is based on a belief that humans are the measure of all things. From the perspective of cosmic consciousness what humans see as "imperfect" may actually represent limitations in the human mind and the inability to take a god-like perspective.

7. Concluding Remarks

Our proposition of Axiomatic Evolved-cosmic consciousness Cosmology reconciles religious beliefs (at least some essential parts) with science and evolutionism. It accepts the compelling scientific evidence for evolution on earth that culminated in Homo sapiens, and the proposition that evolution does not stop with humans but may continue into the future (Joseph and Schild 2010). Since there are planets in our own galaxy which are over 13 billion years in age, whereas Earth is only 4.6 billion years old, and if life is everywhere as many believe, then evolution would have also continued on these older planets with life forms so evolved, they may appear to us as "gods" whereas we might seem like reptiles in comparison (Joseph and Schild 2010).

The same proposition holds for those universes which are older than our own and where the Anthropic Principle in these other universes is completely alien to the Anthropic Principle which characterizes the fine tuning of this sub-universe. Life in these other universes may be so alien to life on Earth, that it may not be recognizable as life. And ancient life in one of these "many worlds" may be so evolved as to exist in a shape, form, and reality, which we cannot conceive (See Strobel 2004, Nakhnikian 2004, Kafatos 2009, Kak 2009, and Stapp 2009 for the discussion of such problems).

A major criticism of the Big Bang, centers on these questions: Why should the universe have been created, and what existed before the big bang (Joseph 2010a). As Joseph (2010a) points out, even if there was a big bang which exploded from a point of singularity, then that singularity existed prior to the Big Bang. He also asks, why should the big bang have occurred at that moment in time? What caused the Big Bang. As Joseph (2010a) points out, "be it quantum physics, astrophysics, classical physics, particle physics, general relativity, and so on, none of these fields of science can explain why there should have been a Big Bang" No facts, no evidence, no theories, not even a reasonable scientific hypothesis has been put forward to explain why the universe should have had a beginning or what caused the so called Big Bang. Therefore, the standard Big Bang explanation is the "Universe was self-creating." However... Judeo-Christian religion employs identical terminology when describing cosmic consciousness as the creator; that is, "god the creator became god the creator at the moment of creation, and thus god is self-creating."

Central to the theory of the Big Bang is a creation event. Creation implies a creator. Effect (the Big Bang) has a cause. This creator was cosmic consciousness. This cosmic consciousness evolved in a higher universe that could be Newtonian-like and hence may not need to be created. The wider universe or cosmos has existed forever. The proposition is consistent with observed/known facts. It is consistent with the origin and evolution of Homo sapiens and when applied to wider universe explains the origin of cosmic consciousness who created our sub-universe. It assumes the least needed for this double explanation and hence is most economical.

Alternatively, if the "many worlds" theory of quantum physics is correct, if there are parallel universes or "bubble universes" and if this created universe is just one of many, then something that existed before this sub-universe was created, must have created this sub-universe.

A common argument against "God the creator" goes like this: If the universe was wonderfully designed by God, God must be even more wonderfully designed. God must then have a designer. This goes into an infinite regress, or 'turtles all the way down' (Cameron 2007), i.e. the Earth sitting on the top of a turtle... . Our argument removes this problem of infinite regress as it provides an explanation for the evolution of the creator cosmic consciousness from the wider universe. Alternatively, as detailed by Joseph (2010b), the universe does go all the way down to infinity; space is divisible forever, but at the measure known as the Planck Length, space is so small that matter within this space collapses into a black hole, releasing energy and elementary particles which are then reassembled into atoms, molecules, and so on. Infinite regress takes us to the quantum foam, from which all existence has its source. The quantum foam is not "God." Instead, in this scenario, God became cosmic consciousness when God emerged form that foam and began to evolve, and that evolution led to a cosmic consciousness which created this sub-universe in what has been called the "Big Bang."

Just as it is claimed that the Big Bang universe is "self-creating", then "God the Creator" became the creator at the moment of creating. However, it is also possible that this cosmic consciousness and the universe this cosmic consciousness dwells in, was also created by a "God." As Joseph (2010a) puts it: "Even the gods may have gods who have gods." Infinite regress can go both directions, particularly in a universe with is infinite and eternal and which is comprised of sub-universes or "many worlds."

There is no reason to assume evolution stops with humans, and there is every reason to assume evolution continues and has continued on planets and in universes older than our own. In an infinite universe, cosmic consciousness has had infinite time to evolve.