Whether you believe in God or not, you have to accept that some uncreated entity, beyond our physical universe, acted to the origin of our universe over 13.6 billion years ago. Call it God, the multiverse, or quasicrystals, it is a major unsolved scientific mystery.

During Medieval times Christian theologians accepted the Ptolemaic earth centered Greek view of the universe as an absolute universal truth. Some Christians still think that humans must be at the literal center of God’s creation. 

Even in America today, many Christians avoid learning about new scientific discoveries. According to a study “Religious Understandings of Science”, among members of  non-Christian religions; 42 percent of Jews, and 52 percent of Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus (taken as a group) are twice as interested in new scientific discoveries compared to only 22 percent of Protestant evangelicals.

I do not know why they believe that the rarity of life in our universe proves that God must have created life only on this planet. Perhaps they believed that if intelligent life were found to exist on other planets; it would diminish the miracle of God’s creation of Human Beings. For me the opposite is true.

Mind-bending materials called quasicrystals have an orderly structure, but without a regularly repeating pattern. They’ve been found in meteorites, and in the debris from the first atomic bomb test. Scientists have now discovered that quasicrystals can theoretically inhabit an even stranger realm: spacetime, the blended mixture of time and space of Einstein’s special theory of relativity.

Instead of existing in two or three spatial dimensions, these quasicrystals’ structures can bridge space and time, physicists report in a paper submitted January 12, 2026 to arXiv.org. Although the quasicrystals are now theoretical, the researchers suggest that such spacetime quasicrystals can appear in nature, perhaps even underlying the structure of the universe.

“Surely your Lord is Allah, Who created the heavens and the earth in six periods of time…” (7:54), and “We created the heavens and the earth and all between them in six days…” (50:38).

At first there was nothing: no energy or matter, no change or time, no life, no love, no evolution, no light or darkness, no growth and decay, no music, no relationships; no feelings, no thoughts nothing at all: except the One of potentials; and then in a split microsecond the potentials for a whole universe existed. 

At the beginning of the creation of our universe there were zero atoms of matter; only subatomic particles of quark/gluons that turned into protons and neutrons in the first micro-fraction of a second, long before becoming atoms (tohu and vohu). 

Then, when the Universe was about 380,000 years old, the first atoms of matter were formed. These were hydrogen atoms, the simplest element in the periodic table. These atoms of hydrogen collected into gas clouds and began to cool gradually and settle within the small clumps or “halos” of dark matter that emerged from the Big Bang.  Dark matter neither reflects nor emits visible light, yet it makes up 85% of all matter in the Universe.

This cooling phase, known as the Cosmic dark ages (darkness on matter’s surface) lasted about 100 million years; the delay due to waiting for structure to form so that the gas (90% hydrogen plus 10% helium and little bit of heavier elements) can cool. Then the gas that had cooled inside the dark matter halos became gravitationally unstable, collapsing and coalescing, beginning the formation of the first stars — which became the very first galaxies ever formed.

With the formation of the first galaxies, the Universe burst into light (let there be light), bringing the cosmic dark ages to an end; and resulting in two different populations, like some of the recently discovered satellite galaxies orbiting our Milky Way galaxy.

The first was a very faint population consisting of the galaxies that formed during the “cosmic dark ages.” The second was a slightly brighter population consisting of galaxies that formed hundreds of millions of years later, once the hydrogen that had been ionized by the intense ultraviolet radiation emitted by the first stars was able to cool within more massive dark matter halos.

The intense ultraviolet radiation emitted by the first galaxies destroyed the remaining hydrogen atoms by ionizing them into a plasma state, making it difficult for this gas to cool and form new stars. The process of galaxy formation ground to a halt and no new galaxies were able to form for the next billion years or so.

Eventually, the halos of dark matter became so massive that even ionized gas was able to cool. Galaxy formation resumed, culminating in the formation of spectacular bright galaxies like our own Milky Way (firmament distinguishing the upper/earlier firmament from the lower/later firmament). These findings were published in the Astrophysical Journal in August 2018.

Although much of this current cosmology fits in neatly with Genesis, especially with the addition of  Isaac Luria’s insights of Tsimtsum and Tikun, the real issue is not how it all started (Tsimtsum); but how it all (human and extra-solar civilization) is going to end (Tikun).

As German-Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig pointed out; when it comes to God’s creation we are totally passive creatures, i.e. nature is what it is. When it comes to God’s revelation we are somewhat active, but only as receivers, transmitters, commentators and enactors. But when it comes to God’s redemption of the world and of humanity, we are full partners, for God will not redeem us without our free will participation. 

Thus, when Jews challenge God they do so based on a perceived injustice or unfairness in their partner’s activities. Abraham argues on behalf of the innocent living in Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:17-33). When the Jewish People built the golden calf, Prophet Moses argued on their behalf against the severity of God’s judgement {Exodus 32:7-14). 

Prophets Abraham and Moses didn’t challenge God in order to break the covenant. They were committed partners with God in the Covenant just as good marriage partners love each other even while disagreeing over some issue. My wife and I have always helped each other to draw close together, and we have never stopped communicating or making love. 

So too the relationship between God and Israel; with study being our form of communication; and doing mitzvot and celebrating Shabbat being our form of making love.

Both the Hebrew Bible and the Qur’an teach that the Living God created the whole universe to be conducive to the universal evolution of life. Recent astrophysical studies discover ever more evidence of the amazing understanding of this Biblical and Qur’anic view.

Space may be vast, but it isn’t lonely. New research indicates the Milky Way is teeming with billions of planets like ours, circling stars just like our sun. Astronomers calculate that in our galaxy alone there are at least 8-9 billion stars (22%) like our sun with Earth-sized planets that are ‘not too hot or not too cold’ for life to develop.

The Zabur of David says, “Your kingdom is a kingdom of all worlds; and Your dominion is for all generations.” (Zabur-Psalms 145:13); and the Qur’an says, “We have not sent you but as a blessing for all the worlds.” (Al-Anbiya 107). Muslim commentators say this refers to the 18.000 inhabitable worlds created by Allah. Our world is but one of them. (Mir’at-e-Kainat, vol.1, p.77) And the Zohar, the central book of Jewish mysticism, says there are more than 12.000 inhabitable worlds. (Zohar 2:196a)

It’s been only two and a half decades since the discovery of the first extrasolar planet around a star. Since then, scientists have learned that most stars have planets orbiting them, and that Earth-size planets are relatively common in close-in orbits that are too hot for life. But even if only one in a thousand earth size planets are in the habitable zone just right for life to develop; there must be millions of them.

All of the potentially habitable planets found in the team’s survey are around K stars, which are cooler and slightly smaller than the sun. But the researchers’ analysis shows that the result for K stars can be extrapolated to G stars like our sun. “If the stars in the Kepler field are representative of stars in the solar neighborhood, … then the nearest (Earth-size) planet is expected to orbit a star that is less than 12 light-years from Earth” the researchers wrote in their paper.

Each new discovery in astronomy yields new evidence of God’s wisdom and power. As Qur’an says, “Verily in the heavens and on the earth are signs for those who believe.” (45:3) And prophet David says, “The heavens declare the glory of God. The universe proclaims God’s handiwork.” (Zabur-Psalms 19:2)

Perhaps this is why Jews and Muslims are so open to learning about new scientific discoveries. During Medieval times Christian theologians accepted the Ptolemaic earth centered Greek view of the universe as an absolute universal truth. The Catholic Inquisition even punished those who dared to voice other ideas. Some Christians still think that human beings must be at the literal center of God’s creation.

Thus, even in America today, many Christians avoid learning about new scientific discoveries. According to a study “Religious Understandings of Science”, among members of non-Christian religions; 42 percent of Jews, and 52 percent of Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus (taken as a group) are twice as interested in new scientific discoveries compared to only 22 percent of Protestant evangelicals.

And according to a Gallup survey on human origins, 40% of Americans said they believe that God created humans in their present form. No evolution for them, because they think evolution is Godless.

But as Albert Einstein put it: “What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you ask, in asking it? I answer, people who regard their own life, and that of their fellow creatures, as meaningless, are not merely unfortunate, but almost disqualified for life.” (The World as I See It, Sacramento, Ca. Citadel Press, 1993 p.5)

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