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The Big Bang, evolution, and God!

Ruby

Graduate Poster
R
Joined
Jan 4, 2002
Messages
1,042
Hi again.

Some of the questions that my hubby and I wrestle with are things like, "How can the world come into being without a Creator".? While we can no longer believe in a personal God, we just can't fathom the Universe forming all by itself. However, this creates another dilemna because if we have to believe in a Creator, we have to ask why he is absent from people's lives. Why does he not make his presence clear and help us in our daily lives.

I realize that many Christians would say that God does help, heal, and rescue...........but as we all know...for every person who is healed or rescued, a thousand are not!! What sort of God is that?

So, how do you see the universe coming into being without a creator? And if you think there was a Creator, why is he absent?

What sort of proof is there for a big bang? What about the age of the earth............how is the conclusion reached that it's very very old. How do Christians argue that away?

How can we be certain we descended from apes. I was always told that some of the ape findings were planted and the others were skeletal remains of Orangutans or other apes.

Sorry for all the questions. I am just at a place where I need the whole picture......not just what Christian apologetics has spouted off.

Thanks!!!!!;)
 
Ruby said:
Hi again.

Some of the questions that my hubby and I wrestle with are things like, "How can the world come into being without a Creator".? While we can no longer believe in a personal God, we just can't fathom the Universe forming all by itself. However, this creates another dilemna because if we have to believe in a Creator, we have to ask why he is absent from people's lives. Why does he not make his presence clear and help us in our daily lives.

I realize that many Christians would say that God does help, heal, and rescue...........but as we all know...for every person who is healed or rescued, a thousand are not!! What sort of God is that?

So, how do you see the universe coming into being without a creator? And if you think there was a Creator, why is he absent?
Click to expand...


I have some knowledge of the main theories in cosomology, however, ultimately I would say I dont know. This is the problem I think many religious people have - they dont like not having an answer, so some, any answer must do.

We may never know exactly how the universe began. Some things may ultimately be beyond our knowledge.

What sort of proof is there for a big bang?
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AFAIK quite a bit. The background radiation of the 'big bang' has even be detected and measured.

What about the age of the earth............how is the conclusion reached that it's very very old.
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Radio-metric dating (not carbon dating! :) ) is used to date the age of the oldest rocks. Again, from what Ive read its a pretty accurate measurement.

How do Christians argue that away?
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From my experience, many christians argue the evidence away through half-truths, mis-understandings and down right lies. For exmaple, I ve heard christians mention carbon dating in relation to the age of the Earth. Cardbon datiing is only useful for dating aritcles upto about 70,000 years old - thus pretty useless for dating the age of the Earth. For longer time periods, isotopes with much longer half-lifes are used.

How can we be certain we descended from apes.
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The evidence is written in mine, yours and every human being's DNA. Fossil evidence also shows the connections.

I was always told that some of the ape findings were planted and the others were skeletal remains of Orangutans or other apes.
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This is a half truth. The search for human origins has, like most high profile activities. attracted hoaxers. There have been several well know hoaxes, such as Piltdown man, in the past. However, most of these hoaxs were un-covered for what they were fairly quickly - and it was science that found the specimens to be fraudulent. Some Chrisitians seem to hold the hoaxes as evidence against human evolution - which is ridiculous. There are plenty of genuine fossil speicmens around.

This, chrisitian page, shows many of the incorrect notions that are often put forward
http://www.human--evolution.com/ I do like the domain name of the page :) Some of the points on this page are down right lies. For example it claims that Neandertals were just diesased humans with bad posture!! :D


I'd be happy to discuss with you any of the points this site raises.

Sorry for all the questions. I am just at a place where I need the whole picture......not just what Christian apologetics has spouted off.

Thanks!!!!!;)
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Asking questions = Good.
Asking lots of questions = even better! :D
Not asking questions = very bad.

I hope I was of some help. Ive only answered what I quickly as to some points I could remeber. If there's anything more specific or detailed you'd like to know, just ask. I'll answer what I can and im sure other people round here will also.
 
Roger has good links there. Talkorigins is a great site. I'll give you my short 2 cents.

So, how do you see the universe coming into being without a creator?
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Don't know. It's that easy. The Big Bang (or as it should be called The Gigantic Space Kablooie) is the beginning. We can't know (yet) anything about what came before. But really, there was nothing before. No space, no time, no universe. Lots of people think God caused the Big Bang. I have no problem with this. It's kind of a deist blind watchmaker kinda belief.



What sort of proof is there for a big bang?
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Good proof. We detect the cosmic background radiation all around us in every direction. This is the leftover energy from the Big Bang (someone please, please correct me if I screw up here, I ain't no scientist).

What about the age of the earth
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We can date rocks (I mean tell their age, not DATE them, unless you're a geosexual I guess). The oldest rocks are about 4 billion years old. This jibes with what we know about stellar (star) formation and the age of the Sun and solar system.
How do Christians argue that away?
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They don't. They try, but they're wrong.
How can we be certain we descended from apes. I was always told that some of the ape findings were planted and the others were skeletal remains of Orangutans or other apes.
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Despite what some fundies would have you think, the family tree of humans is very full, and there are no missing links. You can draw a (curvy) line from ape to human with no gaps. The planted remains they're talking about is the "Piltdown Man" This is a hoax from the turn of the century that Anthropology does nothing to hide. An English fossil hunter found a human skull and an Orangutuan jaw. I think the skull was old, but the jaw was stained to look old. Put them together and it looks like a smart (big skulled) ape-man (because of the jaw with no chin). This was revealed as a hoax over 60 or 70 years ago. No modern science uses Piltdown man in the human family tree.

Hope that helps.:)
 
There is a creator in that something or some process created what we call the universe, it's just that most religion insists on personifying this "creator" and give it moral authority. Once you think about it the whole parent/child psychological thing gets obvious.

Christians argue against science by assuming what they believe is right, and going forth explaining the apparent differences between religious teaching and scientific theory/fact. Fossils? Planted as a test of faith. Earth appears older than what the Bible says? God created it old as a test of faith. We can't prove that this isn't so, but at some point I questioned it enough and turned a corner where I realized just how much religious dogma affected my sensibilities. Once you abandon the overriding assumption that religious teaching is infallable, these explainations begin to seem absurd.

Religion gets away with this because people are emotionally invested and would rather believe an on the surface reasonable explaination than to think critically. I've been there. There is some part of the mind (my mind at least) that resisted the obvious because I felt like an idiot for believing that stuff in the first place. Admitting to myself I was "wrong", or at least that my beliefs were unfounded was brutal and difficult.
 
Ruby,

If there is/was a Creator, where did he come from?

Let me guess, "He was always there". Gosh, that just clears it all up for me. The competing explanations have to make sense, but the same requirement is not applied to the religious explanation.
 
You are assuming that the universe "came into being".

I would say that existence as such can't be created, nor destroyed. It is eternal.

Whether big bang was a result of some earlier state of universe, or a cause of some "super-universe" or some other possibility (I know of a couple of cyclical theories which don't have the entropy problems), science will eventually tell us.
 
Thanks everyone!!!

I'll get back to this thread later as I need to go cook supper for now.;)
 
Ruby said:
Hi again.
Click to expand...
Hi! :)

Some of the questions that my hubby and I wrestle with are things like, "How can the world come into being without a Creator".? While we can no longer believe in a personal God, we just can't fathom the Universe forming all by itself. However, this creates another dilemna because if we have to believe in a Creator, we have to ask why he is absent from people's lives. Why does he not make his presence clear and help us in our daily lives.
Click to expand...
Watch out for the people who say "The universe didnt just 'create' itself", they usually have a poor understanding of the beginnings of the universe, and somehow they tend to conclude "Well, the universe didnt just make itself, therefore proving creationism" (Thats a very common form of Flawed Logic).

(Someone correct me if I'm wrong, I dont know my early universe theorems like I should...) One of the things I've always considered was the First Law of Quantum Mechanics (It might be the first, it might be another... I've forgotten). The First Law Of Quantum Mechanics states something along the lines of "Energy can spontaneously arise from a vacuum". It sounds like it should be breaking the First Law of Thermodynamics, not quite. The Laws of Quantum Mechanics are Quantum Physics, the Laws of Thermodynamics are Newtonian Physics. But, I dont consider myself near qualified enough to answer the question, so dont quote me on it.

I have a book on Quantum Mechanics in the library downstairs, I'll see what I can fish out of it.

And if anything, we simply dont know how the universe came about, and it would be irresponsible and ignorant of use to try to invent a random fact like "God made the Big Bang happen" to explain unknown phenomena such as the Big Bang. (Keep in mind, there are other scientifically sound theories, not just the Big Bang.)

I realize that many Christians would say that God does help, heal, and rescue...........but as we all know...for every person who is healed or rescued, a thousand are not!! What sort of God is that?
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No worries. People have survived every kind of cancer, accident, natural disastor, disease, and war that has ever happened. They just "survive", we dont need to invent something like "God let them survive", its not good to try to apply miraculous claims to clearly unremarkable events.

So, how do you see the universe coming into being without a creator? And if you think there was a Creator, why is he absent?
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I stand by a few philosophies (being a Philosopher and all...): All things in the universe can be explained in terms of matter and natural phenomena, nothing in the universe can escape the laws of physics. Anything that does not hold true to those 2 criteria cannot and do not exist.

God has been recorded as performing events that exist outside of Physics, God himself (as an entity) cannot be explained in terms of matter. Using my Philosophizing, God doesnt exist.

Finally, to answer the question, the universe came about the way it did naturally, no deity required (not like one could exist in the first place).

What sort of proof is there for a big bang? What about the age of the earth............how is the conclusion reached that it's very very old. How do Christians argue that away?
Click to expand...
I dont know enough, nor do I consider myself qualified enough to answer the first question. But, you have to remember, the Big Bang is a theory. In this case, The Big Bang theory is a large collection of widely accepted facts and laws to explain the formation of the universe.

The age of the earth is about 4.55 billion years old (+/- 1% or so).

We reach the conclusion that the earth is very old first via common sense. Its absurd to believe the earth isnt very old (Evolution is a very slow process, the formation of planets is a very slow process, the oldest rocks have been dated to be 3.8 billion years old and minimally you would expect the earth to be at least as old as the rocks formed on it). Second, we use U-235 and Pb-207 somehow or another to help us determine the age of the Earth. The number 4.55 billion wasnt just pulled out of the air, unfortunately again I dont consider myself qualified enough to answer it.

Christian apologetists have a habit of making of their own science to favor their own beliefs. For instance, I'm sure you've heard the absurd "dust that has accumulated on the moon" theory, it supposedly disproves Old Earth theories... yeah, only if accept pseudoscience as a means of reasoning. The most you can possibly get out of pseudoscience is "vaguely sounding scientifical".

How can we be certain we descended from apes. I was always told that some of the ape findings were planted and the others were skeletal remains of Orangutans or other apes.
Click to expand...
"If humans came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys" is a very common misconception. Evolution does not state nor imply monkeys evolved into humans, it states Humans and Apes have a common ancestor.

Take a real life example: If you have a kitty that has a litter of kittens, all the kittens have 2 direct common ancestors. Creationists have this confused with "The mommy cat evolved into the younger kittens" (do ya see what I mean... because I dont :D... )

Sorry for all the questions. I am just at a place where I need the whole picture......not just what Christian apologetics has spouted off.

Thanks!!!!!;)
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:)
 
Here's an excellent link to explain through physics why the Universe did not need a creator.

http://www.positiveatheism.org/crt/stenger1.htm

"Every measurement that we make indicates that the total energy of the Universe is balanced between the rest energy that's in the matter, the kinetic energy that's in the motion of objects, and then this is balanced by a negative potential energy of gravity. And the total energy is very close to zero. So, if the total energy is zero, and if you had zero energy to begin with, there was no violation of energy conservation. There was no miracle that created energy at the beginning of the Universe (other than, perhaps, a little quantum fluctuation that is, again, in agreement with existing knowledge, and so would not be a miracle)." Victor Stenger - Particle Physicist
 
Ruby,
Please believe in your own personal deity, humans are the link between the worlds, thou art god. Or at least you have the phone number.

As for the created Universe, Steven Hawkings discusses this from the point of view of a physicist would like there to be a god.

Some of the more recent cosmologies say that our universe budded off another universe and that as long as all the universes balance out it doesn't matter.

Life is great, we exist, we can love and find beauty. Such is enough.

Blessed Be!
 
arcticpenguin said:


If there is/was a Creator, where did he come from?

Let me guess, "He was always there". Gosh, that just clears it all up for me. The competing explanations have to make sense, but the same requirement is not applied to the religious explanation.
Click to expand...


From one of the links posted.

They argue that the most reasonable hypothesis is that the cause of the universe is God. This theory hinges on the assumption that it is obviously true that whatever begins to exist has a cause.
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So its illogical that god doesn’t have a cause, buts it logical that the universe doesn’t have a cause? That's a convenient arrangement.
 
Hexxenhammer said:

We can date rocks (I mean tell their age, not DATE them, unless you're a geosexual I guess).
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A Geosexual!?

:dl:

Best laugh I've had all day!
Now I know what to say to my geologist dad!
 
Tony said:
So its illogical that god doesn’t have a cause, buts it logical that the universe doesn’t have a cause? That's a convenient arrangement.
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Don't act stupid. It's obvious that's not what AP was proposing; he was criticizing a common theistic argument.
 
I believe the Hindu idea of the universe is a cosmic egg expanding and then collapsing in on itself which causes it to blow up again! The period of time between the collapses are billions and billions of years. (if I remember right. Any Hindus here?)
 
Ruby said:
"How can the world come into being without a Creator".? While we can no longer believe in a personal God, we just can't fathom the Universe forming all by itself.

I'm merely a Kabibulator operator, but I believe Quantum Physics allows for the creation of matter out of seemingly nothing.

I realize that many Christians would say that God does help, heal, and rescue...........but as we all know...for every person who is healed or rescued, a thousand are not!! What sort of God is that?

God of the Gaps....along with Allah, Vishnu, Ahura Mazda, etc

What sort of proof is there for a big bang?

Not only is everything rushing away from everything else (like dots on the surface of a balloon being blown up), but the 'echo' of the explosion can still be heard. And you can see it! Turn on your TV to a channel with 'snow' - those 'snow dots' are in the frequency range of the 'bang echo'! (I forget the range)


What about the age of the earth............how is the conclusion reached that it's very very old. How do Christians argue that away?

The important thing to realize is it's not just 'science' that determines this - it is all the varied disciplines within science: geology, astrophysics, biology, etc. They all come to the independent conclusion that the Earth is very old.

How can we be certain we descended from apes.

This is a common misconception - stemming from the Scopes Monkey Trial. Through Mitochondrial DNA mapping (This DNA is from the mothers side and remains unchanged) - we came from a woman in Africa (50,000+ years ago). Someone in her lineage, bore offspring that eventually became what we know as apes. We didn't descend from them - we are cousins.
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Ruby said:
How can we be certain we descended from apes. I was always told that some of the ape findings were planted and the others were skeletal remains of Orangutans or other apes.
Click to expand...

This essay gives a good example of the evidence we have supporting common descent of humans and our fellow apes.

Oh, and this page from NASA discusses the COBE satellite and it's discoveries regarding evidences for the Big Bang.
 
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