I was riding on a public bus today reading "Why there is no God" When someone asked me what started the big bang when i tried to go to answer but couldn't he then told me that he is Christan and that god did it and it was silly to think of such of thing called the 'Big Bang" of course i didn't believe him. But what did really start the big bang?
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@KingEliTheThird: "But what did really start the big bang?"
There are lots of theories, but no definitive answer yet. So the correct answer to your Christian interrogator is "We don't know yet. But one day we will."
At one time we didn't know the cause of most natural phenomena, so people substituted gods for science. Jupiter caused lightning, and Poseidon caused earthquakes and tsunami. As science reveals more and more about our world and the universe, the space for gods has shrunk. Theists cling to the remaining gaps in our knowledge as realms for their gods. Hence the expression "god of the gaps." The Big Bang is one of the last of those gaps. The origin of life is another. One day people will find answers to these questions, and the god of the gaps will dissipate into the hot air from which it was created.
The god believers have an answer for everything... gods did it. Atheists are prepared to say I Don't Know. I don't know what caused the big bang. There is lots of evidence that it happened. There is no evidence why it happened that I am aware of.
What caused gods to come into existence?
The "big bang argument" from Christians, (or any theist,) is a very well worn argument, commonly known as the "cosmological argument" or the "causal argument."
This argument from theist takes advantage of the current limits of human/science understanding of the universe and it's creation.
There are many powerful counter arguments to the theist use of the cosmological argument, but a simple response that most people can understand/grasp easily is:
"The basic cosmological argument merely establishes that a First Cause exists, it does not prove that your particular god exist in any way."
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The above statement assumes that the cosmological argument was proven true somehow via a: verifiable, repeatable test, which is impossible to do so far.
Or in short: even if you concede to the other person on the bus that he is right, it still does not prove his/her god.
A short list and place to get started: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument#Objections_and_count...
If you need further explanation, be happy to help.
Yeah, as the previous posters said, it is just god of the gaps, all over again.
Watch a show called The Inexplicable Universe with Neil Degrasse Tyson. In one of the later episodes (I think there are seven), he explains the leading theories as to how the Big Bang occurred. One of my favorite responses to the question, "What caused the Big Bang?" or "What came before the Big Bang?" is to say "The big foreplay, obviously." Gets them every time.
Hell yeah IU by NDT is one of my favorites. Good recommendation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxKgBkdOKr4
Best answer
The Big Foreplay caused the Big Bang is clearly the best answer of the day.
I'm not even sure there was a Big Bang.
Bullshit Harry T. The Big Bang has been proven. Take a science class. I doubt that you should even be in this section of the forum.
I said I'm not sure there was a big bang, I never said there wasn't, I never looked at the "evidence" that people refer to, so I haven't formed a belief yet. Besides, there are alternative theories that are accepted by many scientists as well. Quantum origins for example has been devised by Steven Hawking.
Just to be clear: the big bang theory is a theory the describes the homogeneous (English: well mixed), isotropic (English: also well mixed) expansion of a dense plasma (English: hot gas). This theory is extremely well tested. But of course the question then comes: where did the dense plasma come from? That is what you are referencing when you mentioned Hawking. There are several ideas that discuss how to get to the starting conditions of the big bang (dense plasma); none of these ideas replace the big bang theory, they are more like the prequel to it.
To confuse matters, there is an hypothetical event (the creation event, sometimes you'll hear stuff about a singularity, etc) that is sometimes called the big bang as well. The big bang theory has NOTHING to do with this hypothetical event.
Ok, but hot plasma being dispersed evenly a cross the universe does not necessarily mean all matter was once condensed into a spec. It violates the Pauli Exclusion Principle anyway.
Right, but remember that everything being condensed into a single point is a singularity; and as I pointed about before the Big Bang theory does not discuss a singularity.
Right, the Pauli exclusion principle presents a series of barriers to the amount you can compress fermions; but it does not apply to bosons.
But the universe is made up of fermions- it's testable too. No two objects can occupy the same space at the same time.
The current universe contains fermions. That doesn't tell us much about the early universe though, maybe there weren't any then (at this point it is just raw speculation). Anyway a singularity (most likely*) does not contain lots of fermions.
*It's something on the boundary of what is known; no one exactly knows what happens when neutrons in a neutron star (a star hell up against gravity by Pauli exclusion principle) don't generate enough degeneracy pressure to prevent further collapse into a black hole. It is assumed that the neutrons get exchanged for bosons though some unknown process (allowing the collapse to continue without the Pauli exclusion principle blocking it).
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Two photons can. Now you might argue that photons are not objects; and that's cool with me if that is how you feel about it. But there are particles that can exist in the same space at the same time.
But the universe is made up of fermions- it's testable too. No two objects can occupy the same space at the same time.
We're just the bits in motion from the time god popped a zit.
Big Bang has been recorded by scientist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16c5BZ3orjs
Ok myckob4, I believe you.
The Big Bang happened when Rick Sanchez put a spatially tessellated void (unbounded vacuum) inside a modified temporal field. It's basically a tiny universe inside a box or in other words a microverse.