# What if the Big Bang and Genesis are compatible explanations? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 21, 2004, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-big-bang-and-genesis-are-compatible-explanations/281071 "2004-12-21T22:59:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2004, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-big-bang-and-genesis-are-compatible-explanations/281071/61 "2004-12-23T19:55:10Z")
> [@](#): > > I think a lot of religious Americans know this, and are afraid deep down that faith will not be enough for them, and so just assume by default that there is evidence. (See the polls.) That’s why they react so badly when science rubs their faces in evidence that goes against this. In my experience you are far more likely to hear the statement “evolution disproves god” from a fundamentalist than from a scientist or even from an atheist. Believing that, they have no choice but to reject science. That’s because at best science can only poke holes in specific creation accounts, such as Genesis. Scientists will assume God could exist and Genesis be false, and an atheist can’t disprove that God exists by pointing to the fact that science only elimates a few religions as being valid. Christians are stuck with only one possible creation account. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2004, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-big-bang-and-genesis-are-compatible-explanations/281071/62 "2004-12-23T22:31:01Z")
> [@](#): > > However, you seem to be hinting that I shouldn’t continue to post in this thread. Feel free to not respond, if my posts don’t interest you. Serious misreading! I have suggested that I was going to bow out because it did not seem that I understood your intention. That hardly counts as a hint that you should depart. In your most recent post, you seem to be saying that science and religion are not compatible in the way that skew lines do not cross. I have no problem with that perspective. When you earlier stated that you did not see why they would be considered compatible, I read that (in the context of the other posts) that you were claiming they were _ **in** _compatible. I have no disagreement with the “skew line” analogy. ---
**Author:** ![kangaroo\_in\_black](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7feea3/32.png) [@kangaroo\_in\_black](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kangaroo_in_black)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-big-bang-and-genesis-are-compatible-explanations/281071/63 "2004-12-30T08:59:02Z")
> [@GomiBoy](#): > > So, **Voyager** , what if the ‘dates’ and times in Genesis are totally arbitrary? > > I agree, 7 / 4 billion comes up with some funky dates that don’t gibe with either Biblical studies or carbon dating of stuff. But why does our definition of ‘day’ have to coincide with God’s (or Yahweh’s or Allah’s or Cthulu’s)? > > And just cause the Bible doesn’t specifically speak of Dinosaurs doesn’t to my mind mean it is untrue either way; lots of other species of animals, even those alive today, aren’t mentioned in the Bible. Well the times can match up if you use time dilation. Granted that means that whatever reference frame is referred to in Genesis has to be moving at a _significant_ fraction of the speed of light w.r.t to the reference frame of the rest of the universe. Significant fraction is (1 - 2.298742\*10-23) c Now that’s fast! ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-big-bang-and-genesis-are-compatible-explanations/281071/64 "2004-12-31T03:53:22Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > (The Moody Bible Institute is simply not a good source for “biblical scholars.”) [Hijack]Most Moody faculty are not young-earth creationists. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-big-bang-and-genesis-are-compatible-explanations/281071/65 "2004-12-31T07:23:49Z")
> [@furt](#): > > [Hijack]Most Moody faculty are not young-earth creationists. Perhaps, but all the Moody publications on Creationism I’ve seen are Young Earth. Any Gap-theory materials from Moody? (Gap theory- there was an original creation from billions of years ago which was inhabited by dinosaurs & eventually humanoid primates, this was destroyed in the fall of Lucifer & the Six-Day Creation of Genesis is actually a RE-Creation about 6000 yrs ago. This is based on the remote possibility that Gen 1:2 can be translation “the earth BECAME without form and void…”) ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-big-bang-and-genesis-are-compatible-explanations/281071/66 "2004-12-31T07:38:54Z")
May I recommend Gerald Schroeder’s GENESIS AND THE BIG BANG for a Jewish perspective? He suggests that the theory of relativity reconciles the billions of years of time-space Cretion with the six days of the Creator’s perspective. He’s written other books suggesting God creating Adamic humanity in evolving us from humanoid primates & that the “sons of God/Nephilim” passage of Genesis 6 refer to the intermingling of the two. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-big-bang-and-genesis-are-compatible-explanations/281071/67 "2005-01-02T05:37:49Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > Perhaps, but all the Moody publications on Creationism I’ve seen are Young Earth. The Moody Press and the radio network tilt more to the fundamentalist side; the school is considerably less so. > [@](#): > > Any Gap-theory materials from Moody? Not to my knowledge. I also spent a year at the school founded by CI Scofield (Phila College of Bible), who invented the Gap theory, and the faculty _there_ were pretty much embarrased to have it brought up. Things like 6 literal days and the “gap theory” are very much the province of the Jack Chick/Bob Jones fringe. Nearly everyone outside of there hold to some variant of a day-age type of position. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-big-bang-and-genesis-are-compatible-explanations/281071.md?page=3)