Can Christians believe in the Big Bang?

Great Debates
101

And any religion puts its god or gods at the beginning. The question remains - why should we give special credence to Christianity? I already agreed that this is a connection, but not a good one. Then you misdefined the first cause argument (I notice you snipped that piece). This argument is supposed to give justification for god belief - I don’t see any so far. “The Bible says it, and I believe it” might impress a Fundamentalist, but it doesn’t impress me. Want to try again?

Those who would like to read back will notice that the faith issue came up when someone said that the Big Bang was believed in through faith. That person rationally described what he meant by this, and the case is closed. If you have justified the statement that scientists believe in the BB through faith, I haven’t noticed it. Want to respond to my refutation?

And now with the ad hominem. Yawn. You can’t imagine what a chuckle saying that I don’t know anything about science is.

For me, I’d rather do research than read about the philosphy of doing research. The rest of it you can take to the pit, but I won’t be there, since you bore me.

102

The usual answer to this one is that since there must be an uncaused cause, God by definition is it, since God is eternal and therefore does not need a cause.

In the old days this could be answered by saying the universe had no beginning. Now we know it does, so this answer no longer works. Two possible answers are that we have found uncaused events (radioactive decay and quantum fluctuations, for two) so the assumption that each event must have a cause is invalid, and the first cause argument collapses.

Another possible answer is the metauniverse hypothesis. If our universe is spawned by another, which was spawned by another, perhaps the metauniverse (though not an individual universe) is eternal. There is not nearly enough evidence for this for it to be a very good refutation, though. (At least to my understanding.)

One more point - if God created the universe for us, how come it took 12 - 15 billion years for us to show up? We could instead have been inhabitants of one of the early planets with the proper elements for life. Maybe there was a god, and he did create the universe for a particular race, but that raced lived a long time ago in a galaxy far away :slight_smile: and we’re just accidental inhabitants of a leftover universe.

103

Also why did he create untold billions of other stars and planets?

I think this gets at one of the lesser debated aspects of these kinds of discussions, namely the assumption that HUMANS are the point of the universe. What reason do we have to suppose that we have any significance whatever in the universe. How do we know that we are anything more than a freak of evolution? How do we even know that we are the END of evolution? IIRC, neanderthal graves have been excavated which contain some possessions (weapons, food) of the deceased. this would seem to indicate that they believed that they would need these things in an afterlife. Therefore they had religion. They believed that they were special, that they were significant, that they were THE POINT. In fact, they were an evolutionary dead end. Recent DNA testing shows that they were not even our ancestors. How do we know that we are any more special.

Evolution of life on other planets is a mathematical certainty. Even if it is , say, a one in ten billion chance*, then it in a galaxy of five hundred billion stars (such as the milky way) it would happen fifty times. There are at least five hundred billion other galaxies. Do the math. and this is probably a conservative estimate. It would actually require supernatural intervention for there NOT to be life elsewhere. (Please do not take this to mean that I believe in UFO’s or alien abductions. I do not)
The evolution of INTELLIGENT life (for lack of a better word) would probably be more rare. even if we are extremely conservative and say that life evolves to our notion of sapiency, say one in a billion times that life occurs, we would still be left with about 250 thousand such instances in the universe. (and again, I am being ridiculously conservative here) In the grand scheme of the universe, this would be an extremely tiny number of instances, scattered over an incomprehensible distance (which is why I don’t believe in UFO’s) but still, it’s enough other “people” to trivialize our own arrogant presumptions about our own importance.

BTW, I didn’t know that anyone still bothered with the cosmological (“first cause”) proof of God. Anybody want to try Anselm next? How about teleology?

*all hypotheical “odds” are pulled directly from Diogenes’ ass.

104

To quote an ex-President, it all depends on how you define “is.” :smiley:

What is the Universe? To me, the definition would be the matter and energy in the space-time continuum that includes everything we can detect with our five senses plus the various detecting devices we have created (or can create). Is God “outside” this in some way? How? What does “outside the Universe” mean? Does that delimit Him to being solely “outside”?

Paul Tillich once worked a paradigm shift on the “unmoved mover”/“uncaused cause” conundrum by suggesting (and it wasn’t original with him) that God was not a being who was the cause of other things, but rather He was Being itself. That which is, is in Him.

To some extent, this leads theists into problems, since our understanding of what this entails means that an Entity creating a creation other than Itself does not correspond to this definition. On the other hand, some amorphous pantheos (i.e., deity of a pantheism) does not correspond to YHWH or to any other theism’s understanding of what God is.

At the same time, it becomes a “contingent entity” in the atheist viewpoint, since it presupposes a character, i.e., deity, to the nature of existence that is not required by the evidence. A “stand-alone” Universe without such a God differs in no way from such a God except in that a deity is presumed to be the nature of existence, contrary to the implications suggested by William of Ockham.

However, it’s worth contemplating as a plausible answer to the “first cause” conundrum you posit. It certainly in no way contradicts Buddhism, nor even the immanence of God in Christian thought.

105

Voyager wrote:

That wasn’t the question.

Despite that you’ve attempted to change it with every post since my response, the question that remains is the one you asked: how does a Christian tie a first cause to Christianity.

You remember, don’t you? That’s the question that you claim you’d asked repeatedly without ever having gotten an answer. You are no longer to be believed.

So you allow some people to raise off-topic issues but not others (me). Your duplicity is no surprise.

God help us if you in fact are “doing research”. But I doubt you are.

106

This is also the Vedantic view of the universe . “Thou art that.”

Maybe it’s not so contradictory. Consider the meaning of YHWH. “I am what is” IOW “I am being itself?”

107

Umm - not quite. A Christian can tie the first cause to Christianity through faith. That is what you are doing when you give John as the tie, and that is fine - for Christians.

However, the first cause argument is supposed to convince non-Christians. The question was - if I am forced to accept that the uncaused first cause was a god, how do I know which one? If I already believe in a particular God, then the first cause argument is redundant. If I don’t believe in any god, the first step is to believe in some god, and the second step is to believe in some specific instance of a god.

I think that in Western culture we tend to see the Western god as the default god, and so make this leap without thinking. I’ve seen lots of other people do it too.

Done it, managed it, and asked to advise several well known agencies to fund it and set direction for it. But enough about me. How many articles in peer reviewed scientific journals have you published?

108

Voyager wrote:

No. Here’s what I responded to that you wrote on November 6 at 1:04 AM CDT: "I have asked many people in several fora how they would go from a first cause argument to Christianity. I have never gotten a response."

I gave you the definitive response.

No matter how many times you deny it, the record is there. It is remarkable that a man who insists (wrongly) that the validity of a scientific theory is proportional to its agreement with the evidence seems hell bent on remanufacturing (repeatedly) a version of history that flies in the face of evidence that is both highly visible and recent.

None at all. But I bet you’ve published as many as these guys. As you can see by viewing their credentials, they’ve published hundreds.

109

Libertarian,

How could a non-Christian (let’s say someone who has never heard of Christ) extropolate a triune prima motor from the first cause argument? (without reference to scripture, which would make first cause superfluous)

110

I suppose they were too smart to give a brain dead response like yours. I think that is obvious to anyone here. It appears that you are unable to give a reasonable response. I am not surprised. I suppose that “the Bible says so” is a definitive response to you. Pitiful.

That you are lying is obvious to anyone here. I said no such thing.

Well, that just proves you don’t hyave the slightest clue about what science is. I suppose you have read the icr pledge, right? That no matter what the evidence shows, the Bible is right. Is that what you believe? Is that science to you?

How many papers in real journals (not the ICR rag) have these guys published about creationism? And before you start talking about that evilolutionist conspiracy, you should know that the number of submissions of creationist papers was surveyed for the Arkansas case. The number was in the single digits. They may be dumb, but they are smart enough to know that their drivel couldn’t stand up to peer review. Here’s a hint - the National Enquirer is not a peer reviewed scientific publication.

111

I suppose they were too smart to give a brain dead response like yours. I think that is obvious to anyone here. It appears that you are unable to give a reasonable response. I am not surprised. I suppose that “the Bible says so” is a definitive response to you. Pitiful.

That you are lying is obvious to anyone here. I said no such thing.

Well, that just proves you don’t hyave the slightest clue about what science is. I suppose you have read the icr pledge, right? That no matter what the evidence shows, the Bible is right. Is that what you believe? Is that science to you?

How many papers in real journals (not the ICR rag) have these guys published about creationism? And before you start talking about that evilolutionist conspiracy, you should know that the number of submissions of creationist papers was surveyed for the Arkansas case. The number was in the single digits. They may be dumb, but they are smart enough to know that their drivel couldn’t stand up to peer review. Here’s a hint - the National Enquirer is not a peer reviewed scientific publication.

112

Voyager

I’m happy to see that I do not bore you after all.

Let me assist you with the ICR links. On the ICR page, when it says “For detailed information on his accomplishments, etc., click here,” move your mouse pointer over the blue underlined text, and then press the left mouse button.

You’ll find that, for example, Duane Gish, Ph.D. Biochemistry, has published in Journal of American Chemical Society, Journal of Pediatrics, *Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics *, Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, Biochemical and Biophysical Research Committee, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Biochemical Pharmacology, Abstract of American Pharmacology Association, and Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

Obviously, doctorates and published articles don’t necessarily mean much about how well a man understands science.

I don’t think your tu quoque appeals to the gallery are helping you. You asked for a tie between first cause and Christianity. I gave you the core Christian tenet that Christ was with God in the beginning, that Christ is in fact God, and that all things were created through Him. That is how one goes from first cause to Christianity.

You wrote, on November 6, at 1:04 AM CDT, “it is acceptance of the best theory that fits the facts”.

As I explained to you then, your definition of science is actually the definition of pseudo-science. Like Creationism, for example. The Creationists say the same thing you do, that their theory is the most valid because it best fits the facts.

Popper showed that any theory, from Marxism to Freudianism, can find in everything facts that fit. It is falsification that separates real science from what you believe.

113

You did notice that I said about creationism didn’t you? The problem with these guys is that when anything gets in the way of their religion, it must be wrong. I wonder if they would have done so well if their chemistry and hydrology got in the way of the Bible? You will give me cites of peer reviewed papers on creationism in non-creationist journals, right? Notice I didn’t accuse them of not understanding science, just of not being true scientists (at least as far as evolution/creationsim is concerned), since they prejudge the results of their investigations.

Translation: I still can’t respond to a connection involving reason and not assertion, so I’ll repeat what I said for the third time. I believe Diogenes asked you a reasonable question also, which you didn’t respond to.

You really should try to read what I wrote at least once or twice before you repeat it. Notice I said the best theory that fits the facts - not any theory that fits the facts. I would hardly consider a theory that has been falsified to be best in any sense (though clearly creationists do.) Popper, to give him more credit than you do, did not simply say that a valid theory cannot have been falsified - that is trivial. He said that a valid theory must be falsifiable. Honest creationism, which says that the world was created 6k or so years ago, has been falsified - about 2 centuries ago. Dishonest creationism keeps on inventing new pseudo-explanations for discoveries that they do not predict. Sure, any evidence of an old earth could have been planted by the creator for reasons known only to it. Such a hypothesis is unfalsifiable - do you agree?

We need to throw in predictive power also as a mark of a good theory. Creationism predicts all sorts of stuff that haven’t been found. The Big Bang theory successfully predicted the distribution of hydrogen and helium discovered, and the cosmic background radiation.

The Big Bang can be easily falsified - just find evidence of a 30 billion year old galaxy. There might still be some sort of singularity, but so much of what we think we know would be wrong as to make people start looking at things all over again. So, do you agree that the Big Bang could be falsified? And, that it is the best theory fitting the facts now known? (By Big Bang I mean Big Bang and inflation, since without inflation there are serious problems, and because inflation predicts things that have been discovered.

Finally, if you say that Marxism and Freudianism are not scientific theories you won’t get an argument from me. I quite agree,

114

Everyone here seems to be overlooking what the Bible actually says. It states, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. It says nothing of anything outside of planet earth other than Heaven. It also mentions ‘waters’ before God even creates light on the earth. Also, the Bible never states how long ago the earth was formed. So how do we know that God didn’t create all of Space and then billions of years later, create our planet. The bible says that God’s time isn’t our time, so this idea isn’t that far fetched.
[[MOD EDIT: please note that this post revives a thread from November 2002]]

115

And what you seem to be overlooking is that this argument was over and done with eleven years ago, and it doesn’t need you to step in at this point - when some of the posters in it have been banned, and some have died - to set everyone straight. :smack:

116

I think I’m the only one still standing. :frowning: (Frown because no matter how it looks, I really like debating with Lib.) I also note that some stuff we said is no longer allowed.
But this is an example of the challenge I brought up in the other thread, and one response to it.

117

Have another look. There are still quite a few of them about the place, so it’s not as bad as all that. :slight_smile:

118

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:

[QUOTE=Pius XII]
…it would seem that present-day science, with one sweep back across the centuries, has succeeded in bearing witness to the august instant of the primordial Fiat Lux [Let there be Light], when along with matter, there burst forth from nothing a sea of light and radiation, and the elements split and churned and formed into millions of galaxies.
[/QUOTE]

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.)

119

But can christians believe in zombies? You know, the dead rising and all that.

120

Only the “reverse” kind, that beg you to eat their flesh. Sort of like a zombie in Soviet Russia, I guess.