Genesis and The Big Bang

[billybob323]

First off,

At any rate, it all seems like supposition to me (there existing an almighty, supernatural being paradoxically part of, and yet transcending, the universe), but that's strictly my opinion. I respect that there are many others who disagree with me.

I also respect your right to form and defend an opinion, and I would like to thank you for not turning this into a flame war (as often happens on the internet) and for challenging me (for if I was not challenged, I would not grow stronger).

 

Now then, like I said you are the first to tell me about the big crunch theory so there are still some things that confuse me. I do not believe that the big crunch is an integral part of the big bang, as the big bang just states that the universe exploded from singularity. I've never heard anyone else say it also involves all matter being pulled back into a singularity.

 

As for your challenge, the answer is quite simple: Mass and Energy are eternal, as they can neither be created nor destroyed - only converted/transferred.

 

Concerning the underlined section, mass and energy cannot decompose into something "useless". They can degenerate into lower-energy states, but all that is needed for this to change is to reintroduce the degenerated material with other degenerated material so that they may share/transfer electrons and bond

I understand thermodynamics, I understand conservation of mass/energy, I understand inertia. What I do not understand is how mass/energy after decomposing (per second law of thermodynamics) can regain "usefulness" or a higher form of energy after being reintroduced with other decomposed mass. Take a dead plant for example. A dead plant is composed of the same mass, cells, particles, etc of a living plant. Yet because it is dead, it can not grow and flourish like living plant, despite still having the cells that make photosynthesis possible. It can only decompose. Are you proposing that reintroducing this decomposed clump of matter with the sunlight and water that a living plant requires to grow will somehow cause the dead plant to un-decompose? No, in fact the moisture and sunlight only cause it to decompose faster.

 

I'm sorry if I still misunderstand. Thermodynamics state that all mass/energy breaks down. Nowhere have I heard anyone logically claim that you can make a higher form by combining lesser forms.

 

People could have still "chosen" whether to believe the Bible or not, and it would have had the added bonus of not instigating bloody conflicts amongst the believers. <--- This was the point I was trying to make in that quote.

Please tell me the wars to which you are referring and I will tell you how they were far more based on politics and the foolishness of man than the will of God.

 

if God is omniscient and is our creator, then how can 'free will' exist?

Omniscience is simply the ability to know everything. God knows everything, including all the choices we will make. This does not mean He forces us to do something other than what we choose, He simply knows what we are going to choose.

 

 

Agnostics are too sure of their stance?

Their stance is that they can't know. So they're too sure of not knowing?

 

What the deuce.

Agnostics believe that humans do not have the sufficient evidence to warrant either the affirmation or denial of a proposition. I was trying to say that they are too sure that there can not be enough evidence.

[Lateralus]

You obviously weren't trained in basic research and analysis either. And also, you don't have to be Christian to do the above. It takes a few moments and can be done at a library, school, church, hotel room, wherever.

You clearly don't get what I said. I underlined "Step 1: Find a Bible. A house without one is a sad house." and in response to that statement I posted that we weren't all raised Christian. Ergo, we might not have a Bible in our house.

 

He replied exactly to what you said. I'm not a Christian and I always keep a Bible on my bookshelf. Firstly because it's almost impossible to understand a huge chunk of Western society (historically, sociologically, and especially in terms of literature) without one and secondly because it's important to know your enemy. "The unbeliever knows his Koran best."

[Lenin64]

[spoiler=Kuh-razy probability]The idea that the universe is a product of chance requires belief in what scientists describe as many "lucky accidents" or "coincidences." For example, the universe is made up of an abundance of the simplest atoms—hydrogen and helium. Life, however, requires not only hydrogen but also an abundance of more complex atoms, especially carbon and oxygen. Scientists used to wonder where such precious atoms come from.

 

Is it just a coincidence that the complex atoms necessary to sustain life are manufactured inside certain giant stars? And is it just by chance that some of these giant stars explode as supernovas, spewing out their treasure chest of rare atoms? Sir Fred Hoyle, who was involved in the making of these discoveries, said: "I do not believe that any scientist who examined the evidence would fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed."

 

To avoid extremes of temperature, the earth must orbit at the correct distance from the sun. In other solar systems, planets have been detected that orbit sunlike stars and are considered to be in the 'habitable zone'—that is, they are capable of sustaining liquid water. But even these so-called habitable planets may still not be suitable for human life. They must also rotate at the right speed and be the right size.

 

If the earth were slightly smaller and lighter than it is, the force of gravity would be weaker and much of the earth's precious atmosphere would have escaped into space. This can be seen in the case of the moon and the two planets Mercury and Mars. Being smaller and weighing less than the earth, they have little or no atmosphere. But what if the earth were slightly bigger and heavier than it is?

 

Then the earth's gravitation would be stronger, and light gases, such as hydrogen and helium, would take longer to escape from the atmosphere. "More importantly," explains the science textbook Environment of Life, "the delicate balance between the gases of the atmosphere would be upset."

 

Or consider just oxygen, which fuels combustion. If its level were to increase by 1 percent, forest fires would break out more frequently. On the other hand, if the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide kept increasing, we would suffer the consequences of an overheated earth.

 

Another ideal feature is the shape of earth's orbit. If the orbit were more elliptic, we would suffer unbearable extremes of temperature. Instead, the earth has a nearly circular orbit. Of course, the situation would change if a giant planet like Jupiter were to pass nearby. In recent years scientists have uncovered evidence that some stars have large Jupiterlike planets orbiting very close to them. Many of these Jupiterlike planets have eccentric orbits. Any earthlike planets in such systems would be in trouble.

 

This proves nothing. The universe is massive, huge, so big you don't even know how big it is. There are a lot of chances for Earth to appear, given the number of galaxies (somewhere around 50billion or so, I think) and the number of stars in each (around 500 billion). It's not like there was just one star where it was a "Ok, there's only one shot at this, let's hope it works!" sort of thing.

[warri0r45]

Why can't the Big Bang be done by the hand of God?

 

It could have, but it is next to impossible because it also could have been caused by the flying spaghetti monster, or one of the other infinite number of deity possibilities.

 

As I've said, the only thing that makes the christian god special is that the Christians killed everyone else.

 

Alright, I don't want to turn this in a "Is God real" discussion, but you cannot ignore the amount of miracles that are credited to Christianity. It's not like christians just killed everyone they saw and that's why they rule the world or whatever. So many people who lost cancer or other diseases by the power of prayer alone, there are many examples, even to this day, and all of them are carefully examined by a board of bisshops and doctors. Look, I'm not a devout Christian (hell, I'm close to being no Christian at all), but I do believe in God and this has always been something that made me feel like it confirms my belief.

 

Most so-called miracles can be explained, and for those that have no explanation, it doesn't automatically mean god did it. We don't know how something happens =/= god did it.

 

As for the power of prayer, scientific research has been mixed, and some larger studies have shown no effect. One, in which recovering heart patients were prayed for, showed a negative effect. However, I'd say that's just due to some experimental error (you wouldn't believe that god intentionally hurts people, would you?), just like the studies that have claimed to show a positive effect. If you really want to establish a new idea in science, especially such a controversial one, you need a consistant demonstration of the effect in question, and that's just not happened with studies on prayer.

 

You make prayer sounds like it's a steam engine. It's not something you just randomly turn on, it's not like you pray and *floop* everything just happens. Praying is something that shouldn't be done out of the pure believe that you'll get helped, but should be done to hold up a connection with God.

 

You're the one who made it sound like a "steam engine" Fadooda. I was merely saying that scientific evidence hasn't supported what you claimed. If you now want to say that prayer isn't for healing people but is rather for a connection with God than that's fine.

 

As another poster has said, isn't it convenient how you can say don't pray to expecting being helped, but in the times you are helped it must be God helping you. Frankly, this is the kind of thing that annoys me about religious thinking. Why be so kind to God? Why not question why prayer only works some of the time, seemingly at random (it's not like so called prayer-caused "miracles" are unique to Christianity, you know). It would seem that it's not God helping people get over their diseases, it's nature and cold heartless chance. Not as comforting, I know, but it's always better to accept the world as it really is.

[Amaranth_GTO]

I believe in the big bang theory. The reason I don't believe in any form of creationism is that there are simply too many religions that exist and have existed to prove that one is right. The only reason most of the world is christian is because Theodosius made nicean christianity the official religion of the Romans. If history did not happen the way it did, most people could be polytheists like the Egyptians, Vikings, or Etruscans. Or we could be Buddhist, Taoist, Hindu, Sihk, or any number of religions.

 

To reply to billybob:

I understand thermodynamics, I understand conservation of mass/energy, I understand inertia. What I do not understand is how mass/energy after decomposing (per second law of thermodynamics) can regain "usefulness" or a higher form of energy after being reintroduced with other decomposed mass. Take a dead plant for example. A dead plant is composed of the same mass, cells, particles, etc of a living plant. Yet because it is dead, it can not grow and flourish like living plant, despite still having the cells that make photosynthesis possible. It can only decompose. Are you proposing that reintroducing this decomposed clump of matter with the sunlight and water that a living plant requires to grow will somehow cause the dead plant to un-decompose? No, in fact the moisture and sunlight only cause it to decompose faster.

The dead plant is dead because biological processes required for life, such as photosynthesis and respiration, are not occurring. This could be because proteins that make up the plant were denatured, faults in genetics of the plant have caused certain processes to not occur the way they should, or any number of other things. And decomposed mass and energy is different from a dead plant, the plant is still made up of large, complex molecules, while the decomposed mass is in a very simple form.

 

The big bang theory has scientific evidence behind it, while most religions, including Christianity, are attempted explanations of why things are the way they are. I haven't seen any science that proves that there is a god, or any other higher power.

[Rien]

Now then, like I said you are the first to tell me about the big crunch theory so there are still some things that confuse me. I do not believe that the big crunch is an integral part of the big bang, as the big bang just states that the universe exploded from singularity. I've never heard anyone else say it also involves all matter being pulled back into a singularity.

I'm surprised you've never heard of it, honestly. I assure you that it's not something I made up on the spot.

 

 

I understand thermodynamics, I understand conservation of mass/energy, I understand inertia. What I do not understand is how mass/energy after decomposing (per second law of thermodynamics) can regain "usefulness" or a higher form of energy after being reintroduced with other decomposed mass. Take a dead plant for example. A dead plant is composed of the same mass, cells, particles, etc of a living plant. Yet because it is dead, it can not grow and flourish like living plant, despite still having the cells that make photosynthesis possible. It can only decompose. Are you proposing that reintroducing this decomposed clump of matter with the sunlight and water that a living plant requires to grow will somehow cause the dead plant to un-decompose? No, in fact the moisture and sunlight only cause it to decompose faster.

 

I'm sorry if I still misunderstand. Thermodynamics state that all mass/energy breaks down. Nowhere have I heard anyone logically claim that you can make a higher form by combining lesser forms.

Rsautohater explained it well; even if plant matter is "dead", it's still composed of astoundingly complex compound chains and more. The degenerated material I was referring to would comprise mostly of varying forms of radiation (energy) and individual elemental atoms/simple compounds (matter). I state again that matter and energy can never degrade into "useless" material; even on the most fundamental of levels, chemical reactions can still occur and form increasingly complex products.

 

 

Please tell me the wars to which you are referring and I will tell you how they were far more based on politics and the foolishness of man than the will of God.

I'm well aware that no war has ever been fought over a single issue; there have always been ulterior motives at work. However, can you deny that the vagueness of biblical (and other religious) writings has, time and again, contributed considerably to many conflicts both in the past and present? If the Bible was divinely-inspired, then why does it cause such strife (even amongst fellow believers)?

 

 

Omniscience is simply the ability to know everything. God knows everything, including all the choices we will make. This does not mean He forces us to do something other than what we choose, He simply knows what we are going to choose.

 

I maintain that if God created us with full knowledge of the future, then our actions are not truly free, as nothing we can do can 'break the mould' or otherwise change what is to come (destiny).

 

Personally, I believe 'free will' exists, but, then again, I don't believe in the Judeo-Christian God (or any other defined deity for that part). I can't see how an omniscient, omnipotent creator and free will can coexist.

[elucin8er]

I read the original post, saw it was about religion and decided not to get into it. However, about the original post, why are you comparing the big bang to Genesis. The Big Band is EVIDENCE FOR creationism. We have strong evidence that it happened, trying to disprove the Big Bang is ridiculous. However, in support FOR the big bang, one is FOR either creationism or something not yet explained, because, no-one has a clue what sparked the big bang to happen and where the initial matter / anti-matter war arose from. THIS is creationism.

[Gwasha]

Lets go back to physical science, where a simple law comes into play.

 

"Matter can neither be created or destroyed, only transformed."

 

Following that simple law, which has been in place for centuries, where did all the [cabbage] come from? With the big bang theory, a bang happens, and celestial bodies form. Not one asteroid, EVERY SINGLE object in the universe. Where did all that come from? I would love to learn more, as of right now, I do not know much.

 

If you can not tell from my statement, I am a christian, and believe that the Big Bang theory is false.

[Rien]

Lets go back to physical science, where a simple law comes into play.

 

"Matter can neither be created or destroyed, only transformed."

 

Following that simple law, which has been in place for centuries, where did all the [cabbage] come from? With the big bang theory, a bang happens, and celestial bodies form. Not one asteroid, EVERY SINGLE object in the universe. Where did all that come from? I would love to learn more, as of right now, I do not know much.

 

If you can not tell from my statement, I am a christian, and believe that the Big Bang theory is false.

Basically, you can't accept that the universe has always existed? Must it have been created at all, though?

 

Christians, in general, don't seem to have a problem thinking that their supposed supernatural creator has always existed (being without cause, essentially), so what is it about the nature of the universe itself that makes you incredulous?

 

You might want to read into Occam's razor.

[Iamdan]

[hide=]

Why can't the Big Bang be done by the hand of God?

 

It could have, but it is next to impossible because it also could have been caused by the flying spaghetti monster, or one of the other infinite number of deity possibilities.

 

As I've said, the only thing that makes the christian god special is that the Christians killed everyone else.

 

Alright, I don't want to turn this in a "Is God real" discussion, but you cannot ignore the amount of miracles that are credited to Christianity. It's not like christians just killed everyone they saw and that's why they rule the world or whatever. So many people who lost cancer or other diseases by the power of prayer alone, there are many examples, even to this day, and all of them are carefully examined by a board of bisshops and doctors. Look, I'm not a devout Christian (hell, I'm close to being no Christian at all), but I do believe in God and this has always been something that made me feel like it confirms my belief.

 

Most so-called miracles can be explained, and for those that have no explanation, it doesn't automatically mean god did it. We don't know how something happens =/= god did it.

 

As for the power of prayer, scientific research has been mixed, and some larger studies have shown no effect. One, in which recovering heart patients were prayed for, showed a negative effect. However, I'd say that's just due to some experimental error (you wouldn't believe that god intentionally hurts people, would you?), just like the studies that have claimed to show a positive effect. If you really want to establish a new idea in science, especially such a controversial one, you need a consistant demonstration of the effect in question, and that's just not happened with studies on prayer.

 

You make prayer sounds like it's a steam engine. It's not something you just randomly turn on, it's not like you pray and *floop* everything just happens. Praying is something that shouldn't be done out of the pure believe that you'll get helped, but should be done to hold up a connection with God.

 

You're the one who made it sound like a "steam engine" Fadooda. I was merely saying that scientific evidence hasn't supported what you claimed. If you now want to say that prayer isn't for healing people but is rather for a connection with God than that's fine.

 

As another poster has said, isn't it convenient how you can say don't pray to expecting being helped, but in the times you are helped it must be God helping you. Frankly, this is the kind of thing that annoys me about religious thinking. Why be so kind to God? Why not question why prayer only works some of the time, seemingly at random (it's not like so called prayer-caused "miracles" are unique to Christianity, you know). It would seem that it's not God helping people get over their diseases, it's nature and cold heartless chance. Not as comforting, I know, but it's always better to accept the world as it really is.

[/hide]

 

The thing is Fadooda, there are no miracles. Apparently somebody prayed and received so the prayer must have been answered. Maybe the natural course of events just unfolded.

 

Praying is pretty damn arrogant of Christians anyway - I know if I had some great master plan set I'd be pissed off if everyone bugged me constantly, asking me to change it.

 

Spin a wheel with 5000 numbers on it. We got 3487, any other number and a different church would have killed everybody else and you would be worshiping a different god.

 

Rien_Adelric brings up a good point - Especially if we take the many worlds theory into consideration which would mean there is a dimension outside time, so the universe's existence wouldn't need to be contained by it.

[l0rd]

I'm not going to bother reading the rest of this thread, so pardon my redundancy.

 

Genesis was contrived by man and consists of countless scientific fallacies (now deemed allegories or things that cannot be understood by humans). Unless someone gives me a real reason to give Genesis more credibility than say...a Native American or Scientology creation story then they are all on equal ground.

 

On the other hand, the Big Bang theory consists of realistic circumstance. I'm sure an astrophysicist and a cosmologist could break down for you the math behind the critical mass, the formation of the galaxies, and all else that the Big Bang theory consists of.

 

One thing that really shows ignorance to me is when someone attacks the Big Bang theory because it does not tell us how the first matter came into existence. That is a different topics and there are theories on that as well. But they are irrelevant to each other.

[Rebdragon]

Lets go back to physical science, where a simple law comes into play.

 

"Matter can neither be created or destroyed, only transformed."

 

Following that simple law, which has been in place for centuries, where did all the [cabbage] come from? With the big bang theory, a bang happens, and celestial bodies form. Not one asteroid, EVERY SINGLE object in the universe. Where did all that come from? I would love to learn more, as of right now, I do not know much.

 

If you can not tell from my statement, I am a christian, and believe that the Big Bang theory is false.

The current popular theory (or probably hypothesis) I know of is based on matter-antimatter creation and annihilation. Apparently, for some reason I'm not going to try and begin to understand, over long periods of time matter-antimatter interactions tend to generate a net result of a small amount of positive matter. Over time this accumulates, and the minute amount of matter in the universe today is formed.

 

Now, where the energy for that matter-antimatter reaction comes from, I don't know. Could be zero point energy. But then I don't know how the space for zero-point energy came to exist. Really, it doesn't matter what theory you use, eventually you hit a wall.

[elucin8er]

I'm not going to bother reading the rest of this thread, so pardon my redundancy.

 

Genesis was contrived by man and consists of countless scientific fallacies (now deemed allegories or things that cannot be understood by humans). Unless someone gives me a real reason to give Genesis more credibility than say...a Native American or Scientology creation story then they are all on equal ground.

 

On the other hand, the Big Bang theory consists of realistic circumstance. I'm sure an astrophysicist and a cosmologist could break down for you the math behind the critical mass, the formation of the galaxies, and all else that the Big Bang theory consists of.

 

One thing that really shows ignorance to me is when someone attacks the Big Bang theory because it does not tell us how the first matter came into existence. That is a different topics and there are theories on that as well. But they are irrelevant to each other.

 

If one were to read the Bible literally, they would get nowhere. It is the world's most famous book in which many great minds to this day are STILL trying deciefer, to no avail. Such information cannot be given lightly, and until our minds evolve we may never know the full truths.

 

As for the big bang, this is an arguement FOR creationism, not against it. For the people proving the big bang to disprove God, you are actually suggesting creationism is a fact. The big bang was an event which it's "bang" cannot scientifically be explained. The evidence for the big bang is overwhelming, no-one can deny that. If you look far enough into the sky, you can see the evidence for it.

 

The topic title is pointless, the arguement swings in both ways for creationism and hence pro-religion. Until someone here can explain how the big bang started, this post is over.

[l0rd]

I'm not going to bother reading the rest of this thread, so pardon my redundancy.

 

Genesis was contrived by man and consists of countless scientific fallacies (now deemed allegories or things that cannot be understood by humans). Unless someone gives me a real reason to give Genesis more credibility than say...a Native American or Scientology creation story then they are all on equal ground.

 

On the other hand, the Big Bang theory consists of realistic circumstance. I'm sure an astrophysicist and a cosmologist could break down for you the math behind the critical mass, the formation of the galaxies, and all else that the Big Bang theory consists of.

 

One thing that really shows ignorance to me is when someone attacks the Big Bang theory because it does not tell us how the first matter came into existence. That is a different topics and there are theories on that as well. But they are irrelevant to each other.

 

If one were to read the Bible literally, they would get nowhere. It is the world's most famous book in which many great minds to this day are STILL trying deciefer, to no avail. Such information cannot be given lightly, and until our minds evolve we may never know the full truths.

 

As for the big bang, this is an arguement FOR creationism, not against it. For the people proving the big bang to disprove God, you are actually suggesting creationism is a fact. The big bang was an event which it's "bang" cannot scientifically be explained. The evidence for the big bang is overwhelming, no-one can deny that. If you look far enough into the sky, you can see the evidence for it.

 

The topic title is pointless, the arguement swings in both ways for creationism and hence pro-religion. Until someone here can explain how the big bang started, this post is over.

 

1. You can not rationally say that one supernatural belief is better than another because it is "famous" or is accepted by more people.

2. I suggest you look for answers for the origins of the "bang" that have real probability before you start looking into physically impossible (or hysterically improbable) answers, such as creationism. Also, I suggest you learn more about the Big Bang and the behavior of matter in hypercritical mass before you say that science cannot explain the "bang".

3. Sorry to sound patronizing, but when religious people try to use scientific theorem in hopes of shedding more credibility on their supernatural theory, I can't help but laugh at the obvious oxymoron.

[dusqi]

I'm not going to bother reading the rest of this thread, so pardon my redundancy.

 

Genesis was contrived by man and consists of countless scientific fallacies (now deemed allegories or things that cannot be understood by humans). Unless someone gives me a real reason to give Genesis more credibility than say...a Native American or Scientology creation story then they are all on equal ground.

 

On the other hand, the Big Bang theory consists of realistic circumstance. I'm sure an astrophysicist and a cosmologist could break down for you the math behind the critical mass, the formation of the galaxies, and all else that the Big Bang theory consists of.

 

One thing that really shows ignorance to me is when someone attacks the Big Bang theory because it does not tell us how the first matter came into existence. That is a different topics and there are theories on that as well. But they are irrelevant to each other.

 

If one were to read the Bible literally, they would get nowhere. It is the world's most famous book in which many great minds to this day are STILL trying deciefer, to no avail. Such information cannot be given lightly, and until our minds evolve we may never know the full truths.

 

As for the big bang, this is an arguement FOR creationism, not against it. For the people proving the big bang to disprove God, you are actually suggesting creationism is a fact. The big bang was an event which it's "bang" cannot scientifically be explained. The evidence for the big bang is overwhelming, no-one can deny that. If you look far enough into the sky, you can see the evidence for it.

 

The topic title is pointless, the arguement swings in both ways for creationism and hence pro-religion. Until someone here can explain how the big bang started, this post is over.

 

 

Some theories/models suggest that the universe is cyclic. E.g. See Ekpyrosis.

 

I recently attended a lecture by a cosmologist who is also ordained as a priest. His view was that it's silly to use God as the answer for the Big Bang because if we do explain why the Big Bang happened, then God's place will be gone. This seems similar to me to how we eventually explained how humans formed (evolution), and how the sun rises (gravity) - things that were previously left to God's doing. The priest's view is that God is operating "behind the scenes", making the physical laws work (which I think is rubbish, but at least he does not use the "God of the gaps").

 

 

Since religious people read this thread, I'd like to ask a question that I recently read elsewhere that seems to pose a problem, although years of experience tells me that someone will have an answer (even if I disagree with it, I will respect that you have one). If animals do not have souls but humans do, at what point in evolutionary history did the soul suddenly appear?

[elucin8er]

I'm not going to bother reading the rest of this thread, so pardon my redundancy.

 

Genesis was contrived by man and consists of countless scientific fallacies (now deemed allegories or things that cannot be understood by humans). Unless someone gives me a real reason to give Genesis more credibility than say...a Native American or Scientology creation story then they are all on equal ground.

 

On the other hand, the Big Bang theory consists of realistic circumstance. I'm sure an astrophysicist and a cosmologist could break down for you the math behind the critical mass, the formation of the galaxies, and all else that the Big Bang theory consists of.

 

One thing that really shows ignorance to me is when someone attacks the Big Bang theory because it does not tell us how the first matter came into existence. That is a different topics and there are theories on that as well. But they are irrelevant to each other.

 

If one were to read the Bible literally, they would get nowhere. It is the world's most famous book in which many great minds to this day are STILL trying deciefer, to no avail. Such information cannot be given lightly, and until our minds evolve we may never know the full truths.

 

As for the big bang, this is an arguement FOR creationism, not against it. For the people proving the big bang to disprove God, you are actually suggesting creationism is a fact. The big bang was an event which it's "bang" cannot scientifically be explained. The evidence for the big bang is overwhelming, no-one can deny that. If you look far enough into the sky, you can see the evidence for it.

 

The topic title is pointless, the arguement swings in both ways for creationism and hence pro-religion. Until someone here can explain how the big bang started, this post is over.

 

1. You can not rationally say that one supernatural belief is better than another because it is "famous" or is accepted by more people.

2. I suggest you look for answers for the origins of the "bang" that have real probability before you start looking into physically impossible (or hysterically improbable) answers, such as creationism. Also, I suggest you learn more about the Big Bang and the behavior of matter in hypercritical mass before you say that science cannot explain the "bang".

3. Sorry to sound patronizing, but when religious people try to use scientific theorem in hopes of shedding more credibility on their supernatural theory, I can't help but laugh at the obvious oxymoron.

 

I'm sorry, I don't understand. Not once did you explain how the big bang occured.

 

The theory of matter waging in a 'war' against antimatter is plauseable, however it does not explain what caused the initial reaction to occur. Science cannot explain exactly what caused the big bang, so I do not find your patronising tone justified. Creationism gets a point in favour of the big bang, and as soon as people start linking science and religion instead of seperating them, the more progress we'll make.

[jasignhagj]

If the possibility of earth as we know it is one in a trillion, what says that the big bang has'nt happened a trillion times, and this time it happened to create us. the other times the universe may have been just a mass of rocks and gasses, but this time, a strange event happened and life was created.

[dusqi]

Science cannot explain exactly what caused the big bang, so I do not find your patronising tone justified. Creationism gets a point in favour of the big bang, and as soon as people start linking science and religion instead of seperating them, the more progress we'll make.

 

 

Some theories/models suggest that the universe is cyclic. E.g. See Ekpyrosis.

 

Some suggest an infinite number of universes E.g. See Inflation.

 

We'll have our best shot at finding out with some of our new satellites and the LHC.

 

 

As soon as people start linking science and religion, that's when no progress will be made at all. We'll say that "God did it" and go home. I mean, that's basically what you're saying isn't it - science can never find out what caused the Big Bang, so we might as well say that God did it.

[Amaranth_GTO]

Since religious people read this thread, I'd like to ask a question that I recently read elsewhere that seems to pose a problem, although years of experience tells me that someone will have an answer (even if I disagree with it, I will respect that you have one). If animals do not have souls but humans do, at what point in evolutionary history did the soul suddenly appear?

I'm not one of the religious people, but studies have been done that show some animals are self aware, or have literal consciousness of themselves. I don't know if this equates to having a soul, but it means the animals have a consciousness and are aware of themselves.

Humans are not the only creatures who are self-aware. Thus far, there is evidence that bottlenose dolphins, some apes, and elephants have the capacity to be self aware. Recent studies from the Goethe University Frankfurt show that Magpies may also possess self-awareness.

 

The theory of matter waging in a 'war' against antimatter is plauseable, however it does not explain what caused the initial reaction to occur. Science cannot explain exactly what caused the big bang, so I do not find your patronising tone justified. Creationism gets a point in favour of the big bang, and as soon as people start linking science and religion instead of seperating them, the more progress we'll make.

I'll prove the big bang scientifically when you prove the existence of a god scientifically. As has been said, science and religion cannot be linked, because "god did it" will be the answer to anything we can't explain. We used to think it was god who kept the sun rising and falling, now we know it is because of earths rotation on its axis. We used to think that god just made all the animals and humans, now we know about evolution.

[elucin8er]

We'll say that "God did it" and go home. I mean, that's basically what you're saying isn't it - science can never find out what caused the Big Bang, so we might as well say that God did it.

 

I like this point, it's very true, as is this:

 

As has been said, science and religion cannot be linked, because "god did it" will be the answer to anything we can't explain. We used to think it was god who kept the sun rising and falling, now we know it is because of earths rotation on its axis. We used to think that god just made all the animals and humans, now we know about evolution.

 

Both points are probably the huge fault in suggestions such as mine, and in many debates this is the MAIN counter arguement when taking the approach I took. I believe it comes down to faith for now, and later when the Bible is deciphered correctly we will have the answers. No this is not a fact, this is merely an act of faith from me.

 

Only on the point of the Big bang am I still correct, but if your points repeat themselves, soon I won't be, this is true. If one were to take a look at the big picture and not the single point ( assuming you take the Bible literally, in which religion does ) then I am wrong, as is those certain points of religion.

[Amaranth_GTO]

Scientists seem to go about this the wrong way.

 

When creationists ask where the Universe came from, why not reply asking where God came from?

The question's been asked, but no one has answered. This is actually something that interests me, I would have asked my priest today but I'm a little too sick for church (yes, I do go to church even though I'm not a creationist)

[assassin_696]

What a strange question Adrenal. Generalising, it's like asking why do you believe empirical evidence over any other explanation?

 

Sunli's long post has probably been answered but I don't really have time to read all the thread to see where, so I'll simply say your point is valid but has been addressed long ago by the anthropic principle. Whether or not you find that a convincing explanation is up to you, but as warri0r pointed out the odds are small but someone has to win the lottery.

[warren211]

I'm a practicing Catholic, and from the teachings i've received, Genesis isn't a history textbook. It's not to be taken literally, nor is the rest of the Bible, because if it was to be taken literally then the world would be a mere 6000 years old, and fossil evidence has shown that is clearly false. But the human author of Genesis, like the author of Revelation, used a hell of a lot of symbolism in the writings. The 6 "days" of creation are are not 24 hours. After all, God lives in eternity. Time units are meaningless. Each biblical Day in that book could have varied from a split second to 65million years in the human scale of time. And since no one has yet found the conversion formula for eternity to time units, this explanation seems pretty reasonable. The Bible itself isn't a history and science textbook. It is for dealing with matters of faith and faith only. I'm amazed that people treat the Bible as what it's not supposed to be (a textbook on the sciences), then easily disprove it as false because it's "facts" are flawed, and then believe they have crumbled the foundation of the Christian faith. Unless you're a fundamentalist, or someone desperate for a way of disproving the bible when clearly you can't fight science facts with faith facts, the Bible is not something to be taken literally on matters such as the history of the universe.

[Iamdan]

I'm a practicing Catholic, and from the teachings i've received, Genesis isn't a history textbook. It's not to be taken literally, nor is the rest of the Bible, because if it was to be taken literally then the world would be a mere 6000 years old, and fossil evidence has shown that is clearly false. But the human author of Genesis, like the author of Revelation, used a hell of a lot of symbolism in the writings. The 6 "days" of creation are are not 24 hours. After all, God lives in eternity. Time units are meaningless. Each biblical Day in that book could have varied from a split second to 65million years in the human scale of time. And since no one has yet found the conversion formula for eternity to time units, this explanation seems pretty reasonable. The Bible itself isn't a history and science textbook. It is for dealing with matters of faith and faith only. I'm amazed that people treat the Bible as what it's not supposed to be (a textbook on the sciences), then easily disprove it as false because it's "facts" are flawed, and then believe they have crumbled the foundation of the Christian faith. Unless you're a fundamentalist, or someone desperate for a way of disproving the bible when clearly you can't fight science facts with faith facts, the Bible is not something to be taken literally on matters such as the history of the universe.

 

See, the bible is supposed to be taken literally. Do you really think when it was first written everyone gathered in church and discussed the symbolic importance of things? No. The only reason why fundamentalism is dying out, is because science is moving forward. Christianity needs to change it's story as it crumbles or die out - it twists it's own logic until you can't disprove it.

 

It is constantly changing to suit science. Now you have theories like god causing evolution, prayers only being answered 'some of the time' and that god isn't perfect after all. All of them weak changes to the story, as a result of being backed into corner by science and logic.

[i_love_burritos]

What a strange question Adrenal. Generalising, it's like asking why do you believe empirical evidence over any other explanation?

 

Things have gotten out of my hands.

 

I never intended for this thread to become so large, nor did I expect the level of involvement from many users.

 

The question I was asking, asked the user less to determine which one of them was valid, but why.