# Can Christians believe in the Big Bang? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 4, 2002, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-christians-believe-in-the-big-bang/135217 "2002-11-04T14:31:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Call_Me_Shirley)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-christians-believe-in-the-big-bang/135217/121 "2013-11-12T14:40:45Z")
Hey, Liberal is back! Hi Liberal! ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-christians-believe-in-the-big-bang/135217/122 "2013-11-12T17:26:35Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Well, given the fact that it was a Belgian priest, Monseigneur Georges Lemaître, who came up with the whole thing, which was later enthusiastically adopted by Pope Pius XII: > I would say that at leasts some Christians don’t have a problem with the Big Bang. > > (I confess I haven’t read the entire (zombie) thread, but I did a search for Lemaître, who doesn’t seem to have been mentioned.) I went to MIT with a guy who is now an astronomer at the Vatican, and I’d bet anything that he accepts the Big Bang. Like evolution, no belief is really necessary any more. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-christians-believe-in-the-big-bang/135217/123 "2013-11-12T18:39:07Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I went to MIT with a guy who is now an astronomer at the Vatican, and I’d bet anything that he accepts the Big Bang. Like evolution, no belief is really necessary any more. The Vatican hires astronomers? Why? Are they looking for Heaven? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-christians-believe-in-the-big-bang/135217/124 "2013-11-12T19:38:50Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > Only the “reverse” kind, that beg you to eat _their_ flesh. Sort of like a zombie in Soviet Russia, I guess. I don’t think Lazarus asked anybody to take a nibble. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-christians-believe-in-the-big-bang/135217/125 "2013-11-12T19:45:14Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Yo’re implying that the account of Goldilocks and the three ursines isn’t literally true?!?! > > I beg you to reconsider; look at the evidence all around us - rocking chairs, beds and hot porridge are not hard to find. Sometimes the beds are soft to find, but other times they’re just right. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-christians-believe-in-the-big-bang/135217/126 "2013-11-12T19:55:17Z")
I may have replied to this old thread, but that was the old me. The simple answer is yes because there is a different time frame mentioned in the Bible (1 day is like a 1000 years). And my own take on it, just because of the pun intended. To me everything is alive, Mother Earth, with the Sun her heart, our planet her womb, etc. This goes for the universe as well. All has a point of birth, and point of conception, which comes from sex between higher beings, so yes the Big Bang, means exactly that, The moment of conception from sexual intercourse that created our universe. Peace ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-christians-believe-in-the-big-bang/135217/127 "2013-11-12T20:31:00Z")
I can’t believe I’m the first person to note this: Not only CAN a Christian believe in the Big Bang Theory, it was a Catholic priest who first came up with the idea! > **[Georges Lemaître](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre)** > > Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître (/ləˈmɛtrə/ lə-MET-rə; French: \[ʒɔʁʒ ləmɛːtʁ\] (listen); 17 July 1894 – 20 June 1966) was a Belgian Catholic priest, theoretical physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Louvain. He was the first to theorize that the recession of nearby galaxies can be explained by an expanding universe, which was observationally confirmed soon afterwards by Edwin Hubble. He first derived "Hubble's law", now calle Lemaître ... ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-christians-believe-in-the-big-bang/135217/128 "2013-11-12T21:18:56Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > I can’t believe I’m the first person to note this: > > Not only CAN a Christian believe in the Big Bang Theory, it was a Catholic priest who first came up with the idea! > > [Georges Lemaître - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre) Well, I guess there’s late, and there’s [too late](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=16840758&postcount=118)… 😛 ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-christians-believe-in-the-big-bang/135217/129 "2013-11-12T21:31:48Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Well, I guess there’s late, and there’s [too late](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=16840758&postcount=118)… 😛 Major apologies- I DID scan for Lemaitre’s name on all three pages before posting, but I was still WAAAAAAAY too late. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-christians-believe-in-the-big-bang/135217/130 "2013-11-12T21:51:26Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Major apologies- I DID scan for Lemaitre’s name on all three pages before posting, but I was still WAAAAAAAY too late. No issue, I cunningly hid it by copying the little accent on the i from wikipedia (and I meant too late in the sense that I also was astonished that it hadn’t come up when the thread was current originally). ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-christians-believe-in-the-big-bang/135217/131 "2013-11-12T22:39:08Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > And my own take on it, just because of the pun intended. To me everything is alive, Mother Earth, with the Sun her heart, our planet her womb, etc. This goes for the universe as well. All has a point of birth, and point of conception, which comes from sex between higher beings, so yes the Big Bang, means exactly that, The moment of conception from sexual intercourse that created our universe. > > Peace I love your non-skeddo theology. ---
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-christians-believe-in-the-big-bang/135217/132 "2013-11-12T22:49:30Z")
The question is a simple one with a complicated answer. Some Christians can believe in both, they are the intelligent ones who accept that the bible was written by an almost stone age people to try and get a view of something that was beyond their understanding, hell it’s still beyond our current understanding. The issue that raises it’s head is that some people take the view that the bible is 100% factually correct, this is not the view of the majority of religious folk around the world. So why pick Christianity over another faith? Well I would put that down to an accident of geography, you are more likely to pick a faith you were brought up in. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2013, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-christians-believe-in-the-big-bang/135217/133 "2013-11-13T16:53:14Z")
> [@Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](#): > > Hey, Liberal is back! Hi Liberal! No, still hasn’t posted in more than 3 years. If you didn’t notice this thread is over 10 years old. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2013, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-christians-believe-in-the-big-bang/135217/134 "2013-11-13T17:26:45Z")
Perhaps I am being pedantic, but it is rather telling that there is an implicate assumption in the OP that the creation stories in Genesis are Christian. As near as anyone can figure these stories have been pretty much unchanged since around 500 years before there was a Jesus, much less a devoted fan club…and established in oral tradition far previous to then. Basically all the Abrahamic religions share the same creation myths, so there is no reason it should be harder for a Christian to lend credence to the Big Bang than a Jew or a Muslim. Actually Muslims tend toward more literalism IME, so I’d expect the BBT more heavily deprecated in that population. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2013, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-christians-believe-in-the-big-bang/135217/135 "2013-11-13T17:42:38Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I don’t think Lazarus asked anybody to take a nibble. I was talking about the other guy who came back from the dead. You know, the one who was pissed off and told people “EAT ME!” but that got misconstrued somehow. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2013, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-christians-believe-in-the-big-bang/135217/136 "2013-11-13T19:46:52Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > The view that the bible is, in every respect, a literally and factually correct account of What Actually Happened is > > (a) relatively modern, and > > (b) held only by a small minority of Christians, > > so, in general, there is no problem about being a Christian and simulateously accepting the insights of modern science regarding the development of the cosmos. > > Those Christians who do hold the literal view are (i) very voluble, and (ii) largely concentrated in the United States, and this perhaps affects the view of Christianity which many Americans have. > > Quite why this view should have taken such (relatively) strong hold in the United States is a fascinating speculation, but not one for this thread. thank you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-christians-believe-in-the-big-bang/135217.md?page=6)