To: EnderWiggins
The simple truth is that the more and more we learn about the universe, the less and less there appears to be for God to do.The evidence for the big bang theory seems to be a severe counter example to this idea.
Everybody seems to agree that nothing comes from nothing. Before the Big Bang theory, naturalists simply considered the universe to be eternal. Super naturalists were divided on the point.
But the Big Bang evidence suggests that the entire universe and all its laws and physical properties did not not simply always exist. It doesn't prove this absolutely, but it gives us a point at which it is hard for any science to look beyond.
But to defend against the God-centric notions of the Big Bang theory in secular academia, it is now supposed that the entire natural universe is not the entire natural universe...so the word "cosmos" came into common use, and some very intriguing notions took shape. The most amusing being the multi-verse view, in which every possibility is balanced out in some alternate universe invisible to us. Now the multi-verse "theory" seems to be a bit of a stretch for me. But if it is true, presumably there must be an infinite number of other universes, with an infinite fraction of them having life, with an infinite fraction having horse-like life, with an infinite fraction of them having horse-like life which is pink and horned.
Of coarse such pink, horned, horses can not be seen or studied, because they are invisible to us in this universe. You just have to have faith in them I guess.
To: AndyTheBear
"But the Big Bang evidence suggests that the entire universe and all its laws and physical properties did not not simply always exist. It doesn't prove this absolutely, but it gives us a point at which it is hard for any science to look beyond."
Sorry, but your discussion here of the Big Bang and cosmology is not correct.
As you pointed out in a previous paragraph, everybody agrees that ex hihilo, nihil fit. Nothing comes from nothing. This is therefore one of the things that bot religionists and naturalists agree on... there was something before the Big Bang.
The Big Bang represents a singularity during which the entire universe had zero dimension and infinite mass. It was also durationless... it lasted for zero time. It stands as a cusp between the universe that exists after the Big Bang and the universe that existed before the Big Bang, just as a point on an infinite line demarcates what is before the point from what is after the point, yet the point itself has no dimension.
The Big Bang is not the point at which the universe began. It is the point at which the universe became like it is now.
"But to defend against the God-centric notions of the Big Bang theory in secular academia, it is now supposed that the entire natural universe is not the entire natural universe...so the word "cosmos" came into common use, and some very intriguing notions took shape. The most amusing being the multi-verse view, in which every possibility is balanced out in some alternate universe invisible to us. Now the multi-verse "theory" seems to be a bit of a stretch for me. But if it is true, presumably there must be an infinite number of other universes, with an infinite fraction of them having life, with an infinite fraction having horse-like life, with an infinite fraction of them having horse-like life which is pink and horned."
All of that is true with the exception that it hardly is in a reaction to "God-centric notions of the Big Bang theory." It is simply the actual result of very smart people studying the laws of nature and drawing the inevitable conclusions. Again, you have this very anachronistic idea that there is some sort of war going on between atheistic science and religion, and that scientists are actually trying to prove your religion false.
That conflict is entirely in your imagination.
To: AndyTheBear
“The simple truth is that the more and more we learn about the universe, the less and less there appears to be for God to do.”
“The evidence for the big bang theory seems to be a severe counter example to this idea.”
A good choice, Andy. Mathematician/ astronomer Fred Hoyle coined the term ‘Big Bang’ to disparage the idea. He refused to accept the Big Bang as being good science because he recognized its odd similarity to the opening of Genesis, and he was going to have none of that. That would eventually change for Hoyle, one of the pioneers of the anthropic principle.
114 posted on
02/14/2010 11:19:22 PM PST by
Pelham
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson