The closest that we have to a center is an event horizon that we can't see beyond and that event horizon encompasses us in every direction. It is the same as every point on the surface of the earth could be considered the center. In other words it is a meaningless concept.
Careful, you're sounding rather alarmingly geocentric there, LeGrande.
In their influential but highly technical book, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, Stephen Hawking and George Ellis introduce their section on the big bang cosmology with the following general remarks:
‘However we are not able to make cosmological models without some admixture of ideology. In the earliest cosmologies, man placed himself in a commanding position at the centre of the universe. Since the time of Copernicus we have been steadily demoted to a medium sized planet going round a medium sized star on the outer edge of a fairly average galaxy, which is itself simply one of a local group of galaxies. Indeed we are now so democratic that we would not claim that our position in space is specially distinguished in any way. We shall, following Bondi (1960), call this assumption the Copernican principle’ [emphasis added].45
This notion used to be called the ‘Cosmological principle’.46,47 Note carefully that Hawking and Ellis call it an ‘assumption’ and an ‘admixture of ideology’—a presupposed idea not required by observations. Their phrase ‘we would not claim …’ is actually a dogmatic claim: the Earth is not in a special position in the cosmos. They go on to say:
‘A reasonable interpretation of this somewhat vague principle is to understand it as implying that, when viewed on a suitable scale, the universe is approximately spatially homogenous’ [emphasis added].48
‘Spatially homogeneous’ means ‘uniformly spread throughout all available space’. Hawking and Ellis are claiming that at any time space is completely filled with matter-energy. There never were any large empty volumes of space, and there never will be, they say.
They make this leap of faith because observations show that the universe is isotropic or spherically symmetric around us, meaning that from our vantage point it looks much the same in all directions. Ordinarily, Hawking and Ellis point out, this would mean, ‘we are located near a very special point’ 49—such as the centre. That conflicts with their desire that the Earth not be in a special location, so they seek a less troubling cosmology,
‘… in which the universe is isotropic about every point in space time; so we shall interpret the Copernican principle as stating that the universe is approximately spherically symmetric about every point (since it is approximately spherically symmetric around us).’49
As they then show, cranking this rather bizarre assumption into the mathematics of general relativity results in the various forms of the big bang theory.
Let’s delve into the motive for the presupposition. Why should big bang theorists go to all this trouble to contrive a cosmology in which the Earth is not in a special place? Astrophysicist Richard Gott, in the introduction to an article specifically devoted to the Copernican principle, unveils the reason:
‘The Copernican revolution taught us that it was a mistake to assume, without sufficient reason, that we occupy a privileged position in the Universe. Darwin showed that, in terms of origin, we are not privileged above other species. Our position around an ordinary star in an ordinary galaxy in an ordinary supercluster [the local group of galaxies] continues to look less and less special. The idea that we are not located in a special spatial location has been crucial in cosmology, leading directly to the [big bang theory]. In astronomy the Copernican principle works because, of all the places for intelligent observers to be, there are by definition only a few special places and many nonspecial places, so you are likely to be in a nonspecial place’ [emphasis mine].50
The word ‘likely’ above reveals a lot. Richard Gott evidently believes we are where we are by accident! It apparently doesn’t enter his head that an intelligent Designer, God, might have placed us in a special position in the cosmos on purpose. Thus the ultimate motive behind the Copernican principle is atheistic naturalism. Since that is the driving philosophy behind naturalistic evolutionism, Gott’s reference to Darwin is appropriate. The big bang and Darwinism are two halves, physical and biological, of an atheistic origins myth.
Thus, Christians who support the big bang theory should realize that they are unwittingly denying their God and compromising with a godless worldview.
http://creation.com/our-galaxy-is-the-centre-of-the-universe-quantized-redshifts-show-journal-of-creation-tj