The Big Bang, evolution, and God!

Originally posted by Ruby
"How can the world come into being without a Creator".?
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How can your creator come into being without a creator?

Once you figure that out, then why not just assume the world (I assume you mean universe) can do the same trick.

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.
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Why should he? Just because he creates something does not mean he cares about it. Heck, maybe he got old and died. If you could show that the universe was created (which you can't) all that would tell you is that there was a creator. It wouldn't tell you if he was a nice guy, or cared, or was still alive.

So, how do you see the universe coming into being without a creator?
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I think if there was a creator, he was outside of the universe - which means he is necessarily absent! Once the inflationary bubble takes off, you can't get back in...

No, I don't think there was a creator. I'm just saying, even if there was, it would be indistinguishable from if there wasn't.

What sort of proof is there for a big bang?
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Do atom bombs go boom? There ya go. Apparently our atomic theory is pretty dang accurate.

how is the conclusion reached that it's very very old.
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A large variety of ways. The Grand Canyon, for instance. You can measure how fast the water cuts into the rock, and then measure how deep the canyon is. It's a very, very deep canyon.

How do Christians argue that away?
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They don't. They simply assert that God created the world with the appearence of age. I don't know why they picked 6,000 years ago: God could have created the world with the appearance of age (including your memories, etc.) 20 minutes ago. Both arguments are equally valid. And equally compelling.

How can we be certain we descended from apes.
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Because we share their genes to 98%, and we don't share that many genes with any other animal. Ergo, we are most closely related to the apes. Chimpanzees, actually. And we didn't descend from them, but from the same ancestor. BTW, we do share 50% of genes with ameobas. Which indicates we are related to them, too.

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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Just more lies.

Sorry for all the questions.
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There's nothing wrong with questions.
 
Re: Re: The Big Bang, evolution, and God!

Yahweh said:

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.
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That is brilliant in its simple eloquence! I am going to plagiarize the $h!+ out of that. I may even take credit for it (if pretty ladies ask if I thought of it myself).
 
Here's a few of my personal fave creation/evolution websites. (Skipping stuff like TalkOrigins, that have already been posted.)

http://home.earthlink.net/~misaak/guide/list.html
http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/default.htm
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/archive/thomas_wedge.html

And I'll give you my personal answers to your questions. Forgive me if I repeat what others have already posted.

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?
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I don't know how to answer this. I'm an atheist. Because of some of the questions you bring up, and other things.

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 find the current scientifical explanation of the universe (Big Bang hypothesis) to be the most logical to me.

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?
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http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/212_fall2003.web.dir/brian_miller/hub.htm
http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni/uni_101bbtest3.html

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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Here's a link to my own webpage about creationist claims, and how dense they are.

http://www.angelfire.com/ak4/ratman/Chick.html

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.
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One thing to be aware of is that there are young earth creationists, old earth creationists, christian evolutionists, fundamentalists of many religions that support or deny the findings of science. Usually depending on what scientific finding is in conflict with their doctrine. ;)
 
Triadboy
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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:eek:
That's not true.

Apes and humans are descended from a common ancestor much older that Mitochondrial Eve (who would have been an entirely modern (biologically) human). And no human has ever had descendants that were apes.
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?)
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Unfortunately, this is another potentially lucky guess that looks like falling flat.
The most recent evidence indicates that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, not slowing down. So the "Big Crunch" end to the universe seems unlikely.

Hexxenhammer
What sort of proof is there for a big bang?

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).
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Actually, the background radiation is a red-shifted image of the universe when it cooled enough for protons and electrons to join and form neutral atoms. The universe became transparent at this point. But the fact that it is basically uniform in all directions provides evidence that the universe occupied a small region at some point in history - to allow the temperature to become equally uniform throught the universe. (Large scale, obviously - everyone knows the sun is hotter than the Earth!)

The main evidence for the BB is the expansion of the universe.
When you apply models of how the universe developed and elementary particles formed and combined, you get models that predict the relative abundance of the light elements like hydrogen/deuterium and helium and lithium. (The heavier elements are made in stars). This applies only to gas clouds that haven't been contaminated - deuterium and helium are created and burnt up in stars.

As far as a cause for the BB is concerned...
How do you tell which is cause and which is effect if time itself is being created? You can't say "whichever happened first", because time hasn't been created to measure "first".
 
I see you already got good responses, Ruby!

What I would like to do is welcome you to the world of people who think for themselves.:th:

You are now a skeptic! This does not mean that you cannot have religion, but it means that you have taken the great step to dare to ask questions. Congratulations!

You will find that not all questions can be answered, but that should not stop you from asking them. Nor should it make you accept unfounded answers.

Hans
 
Didn't notice anyone mentioning how the Big Bang theory got started. I think it was from the simple observation that all the galaxies out there are moving away from each other. Extrapolate back in time and the further you go back, the closer, more compact the universe is. Eventually you get to a point where everything must have been in one spot.

Now the nature of the universe when everything on that spot, how it came to be and why it burst out sending this mess everywhere... still working on the details.
 
What a great thread!!!

Thanks everyone for all these links...

There are so many great resources out there.. It boggles my mind to consider the ridiculous grip, that religion has on our culture...
 
FireGarden[b] said:
Apes and humans are descended from a common ancestor much older that Mitochondrial Eve (who would have been an entirely modern (biologically) human). And no human has ever had descendants that were apes.
[/B]
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Humans are apes

ape-tree.gif


Image from: http://www.chrismaloney.com/seed/seed1.html
 
Tony said:

From one of the links posted.

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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Boy, you mangled that one The theists are the ones demanding that the nontheistic answer be more logical than what their own answer can provide.

To go further, the theistic answer is an argument from ignorance. Even if the Big Bang is false, or is not the ultimate answer, that does not mean that Joe Creator is responsible.
 
Re: Re: The Big Bang, evolution, and God!

Originally posted by Yahweh ]Hi! :)
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).
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Yes, this is one of the biggest arguments for the existence of God. In fact, it is the one thing that neither myself or my hubby can comprehend.....that is, how the world came into being without a creator.

(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.
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That's way over my head!!:-(

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.)

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.

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.
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Yep, that makes sense. I do get tired of the old "God works out of time" or "God's ways are not our ways".

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).

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.
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Well, you've done great so far.

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".
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So it seems.


"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.
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That's a fact I totally forgot about.

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... )


:) [/B]
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lol:wink8:
 
Re: Re: The Big Bang, evolution, and God!

Dub said:
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.
AFAIK quite a bit. The background radiation of the 'big bang' has even be detected and measured.
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.
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Ah, that's good to know.

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.
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There's some new theory from Creationsits about the speed of light playing into it. Know anyhting about that?



The evidence is written in mine, yours and every human being's DNA. Fossil evidence also shows the connections.
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How do Creationists argue this away?



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.



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. [/B]
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Thank you very much!!!:D
 
Suddenly said:
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.
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That's for sure. I've felt downright anger at some of the nonsense Christianity filled me with.

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.
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Yep, me too...of course......I came on here pretty much in that state of mind.


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. [/B]
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I't great to be free, isn't it? I am almost there.:eek:
 
arcticpenguin said:
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. [/B]
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LOL. :D
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Re: Re: The Big Bang, evolution, and God!

Yahzi said:
How can your creator come into being without a creator?

Once you figure that out, then why not just assume the world (I assume you mean universe) can do the same trick.
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That sounds logical.


Why should he? Just because he creates something does not mean he cares about it. Heck, maybe he got old and died. If you could show that the universe was created (which you can't) all that would tell you is that there was a creator. It wouldn't tell you if he was a nice guy, or cared, or was still alive.
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I don't think I can accept that idea.


Do atom bombs go boom? There ya go. Apparently our atomic theory is pretty dang accurate.

A large variety of ways. The Grand Canyon, for instance. You can measure how fast the water cuts into the rock, and then measure how deep the canyon is. It's a very, very deep canyon.

They don't. They simply assert that God created the world with the appearence of age. I don't know why they picked 6,000 years ago: God could have created the world with the appearance of age (including your memories, etc.) 20 minutes ago. Both arguments are equally valid. And equally compelling.

Because we share their genes to 98%, and we don't share that many genes with any other animal. Ergo, we are most closely related to the apes. Chimpanzees, actually. And we didn't descend from them, but from the same ancestor. BTW, we do share 50% of genes with ameobas. Which indicates we are related to them, too.

Just more lies.

There's nothing wrong with questions. [/B]
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Thanks!! Lots to think about here!:book:
 
It always amazes me when people can't believe that the universe can't exist or have come into being with out a creator, but then don't question that if there were a creator, where the heck did that being come from? *Something* had to come from nothing in that scenario.

Also, let me state that we are apes, we are members of the Great Ape family, i.e. Primates and Hominidae. As for descending from apes, well, we didn't descend from the apes that are existant today, but from a common ancestor, which split off millions of years ago, and began the journey to what we are today.

It is definitely more plausible to me than say, some improbable being decided on a whim to create his/her/its/their own playthings; what a depressing thought to exist only for the pleasure and whimsy of some being that doesn't even bother to show up occasionally.
 
MRC_Hans said:
I see you already got good responses, Ruby!

What I would like to do is welcome you to the world of people who think for themselves.:th:

You are now a skeptic! This does not mean that you cannot have religion, but it means that you have taken the great step to dare to ask questions. Congratulations!

You will find that not all questions can be answered, but that should not stop you from asking them. Nor should it make you accept unfounded answers.

Hans
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Thanks!!:D
 
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