So, no one (to my knowledge) has been in a time machine and went to the beginning, so it's impossible to know for sure that there was a big bang that created the universe.If there was a big bang, then there was obviously something around at that time, so what if, at the beginning of the universe, GOD caused the Big bang? Then, as thousands of years passed, He let the creation take place on it's own (unless He chose to intervene), and created everything we see today like that?
Thoughts?
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What caused the Big Bang? We don't know yet. It's ok to say we don't know. That's what science is for. We can put forward all kinds of hypotheses, and then use science to test them. The methods we use must be capable of replication by others, and they must be open to peer review. That really eliminates the faith factor. We can't test it and we can't replicate it because it only exists in someone's imagination.
Your hypothesis is that god triggered the Big Bang. It's your hypothesis, so how are you going to test it?
By putting forward your god hypothesis, you've actually created another problem. If god triggered the Big Bang, what triggered god? Do you have a hypothesis for that? At what point do you apply Occam's razor?
In the case of the big bang, existence could not occur before the big bang, as the space in which things could exist didn't even exist.
Saying your god was around before(and caused) the big bang would be like me saying my plastic cup started plastic production BEFORE PLASTIC WAS EVEN DISCOVERED.
Notice the erroneous state of the above?
I have read physicists description of the Big Bang (Expansion) to the first billionth of a second. An awesome series of events that do not require the intercession of mythological beings. I prefer reality without gods.
A wise application of Occam's razor!
1) We have evidence of the Big Bang.
http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-powered-the-big-bang/
And it didn't happen "thousands of years ago, it happened about 13.7 BILLION years ago.
"What if...."
And there's the rub. When you get into "what if..." you are just guessing. For your guess, you have no basis to develop a theory. Science and logic do not work that way.
It was a [theory]. And my basis was the bible, which states that God made the earth in [six] days.
"It was a hypothesis."
"hypothesis
In science, a hypothesis is an idea or explanation that you then test through study and experimentation."
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/hypothesis
Nope. Not a hypothesis. What you've stated can't be tested.
Hawk Flint - "that God made the earth in seven days"
wasn't it 6 days? lol
-------------------------
/e and as others have pointed out, that isn't a theory or a hypothesis.
So I made a common mistake. So what? And it is a theory, abstract reasoning; speculation. A day for God is more than 24 hours, it is a thousand (or more) years. That is written in the Bible. 2 Peter 3:8–9 reads,"Yet do not forget this thing, friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." Six days, six thousand (or many more) years...just speculation. I wanted opinions on it, that's all.
[This post has been edited three times Lol]
Well I should say your idea isn't a scientific theory.
The big bang is a scientific theory.
2 Peter 3:8-9 seems to be a late attempt to calm the restless faithful who have been promised a quick return of Jesus! Nothing was happening, so you get some later material (of which this is one example) telling the faithful not to worry. Rather than a claim that a day (in God's reckoning) really is a 1000 years (which would make Jesus' promised immediate return wholly absurd), I see it as a way of saying that God will act soon enough as he sees fit. There may be a little wait, but you will see it fulfilled.
To understand the reason for the "days." And verse states that,"The LORD has hurt us, but He will heal." On the third "day" they will be healed, is later in this book.
http://www.119ministries.com/teachings/video-teachings/detail/the-lost-s...
Big Bang is a theory. God is a myth.
A theory requires substantiated evidence. God is a myth that requires belief without evidence.
As far as a goes day is more than a thousand years. That is a misquote of the bible, and nowhere does the bible justify its mistake of how old the universe is.
The ONLY point of conjecture of how long a "day" is is in Genesis 1:1
"1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters."
Since god created light and therefore a day after that point a day is well defined.
So again you make a huge assumption about a day being longer than 24 hours. All translations define a day as 24 hours, and since the bible says that god created everything in six "days", we can derive that the bible says that god created everything within 6 24 hour periods. Given that god need rest on the seventh day, it is logical that he needed rest during his work period. Also, it is logical that god couldn't just pop everything into existence all at once. he had to think of it, of which he was unable to conceive of all at once. Thus we can surmise that god has limits to his powers.
You might think that all these ideas about his limits are not logical, but they are far more plausible than the theory that the bible meant that the days initially are thousands of years old.
My assumption comes directly from the information provided by the bible itself. The idea that a day is not a real day is an apologist assertion after the fact and after science has proven the real age of the Earth and the Universe.
mykcob4,
As for those "days" in Genesis I, the Hebrew author goes to the trouble to insert the "evening" and "morning" bit which is the definition of their 24-hour day. Therefore, it would be silly to insert geologic ages for "day!" In addition, a god who creates everything in 6 days is pretty impressive by ancient standards; a god who needs billions of years to do the job would be a positive weakling!
@ Hawk Flint
I think that this is a completely fair question.
Just as you say, it's impossible to know for sure that there was a big bang that created the universe.
(As a side note, I'd just like to point out that there are many different pieces of supporting evidence for the Big Bang Theory, that corroborate each other.)
"...what if, at the beginning of the universe, GOD caused the Big bang? Then, as thousands of years passed, He let the creation take place on it's own (unless He chose to intervene), and created everything we see today like that?"
Sure, it's possible. Just as it can't be proven, it can't be disproved. You are describing a deist god, who sparked creation.
But, since there is no supporting evidence to base such a belief on, it requires faith.
By faith I mean "belief without sufficient evidence". I don't mean "hope" or "trust".
By belief, I mean believing in something based on some degree of supporting evidence. (I use the word with different meaning sometimes, like when referring to "people who believe in god" or "believers", since "faithers" isn't a word).
I'm guessing you have faith in a god, and that this god initiated the creation of the Universe and sparked life?
Ps
Regarding the words "theory" and "hypothesis", I tried to get that clarified in a thread earlier. It's good to learn the terms and understand the difference, as it removes some of the unnecessary misunderstandings.
http://www.atheistrepublic.com/comment/34705
Ds
Imagine if we could get "faithers" into a dictionary Lol. That'd be hilarious. On your post you put:
Theory (in common language):
- A proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural.
So I'm being theoretical, you say?
No, I wouldn't presume to say what you meant. I just wanted to provide the definitions.
I leave it to you to assess what you actually meant.
Very often, when a believer uses the world "theory", they don't use it in the sense it's used in for example "The Theory of Evolution" which means a scientific theory. This causes unnecessary confusion and misunderstandings.
[Edited to improve my intended message]
When I said,"So I'm being theoretical, you say?" I was intending to ask if the definition of theory matched what I was saying.
Post edited into Oblivion.
What about my question?
"I'm guessing you have faith in a god, and that this god initiated the creation of the Universe and sparked life?"
I believe in the Biblical God, who I believe made science. And no that's not because I don't have much knowledge of it. I don't think about the origins of the universe much, but so far I have come to believe that God used science as well as supernatural powers to create the universe and life on earth.
Chapter 1
[1:1] In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,
[1:2] the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.
[1:3] Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.
[1:4] And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.
[1:5] God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
[1:6] And God said, "Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters."
[1:7] So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so.
[1:8] God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
[1:9] And God said, "Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so.
[1:10] God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
[1:11] Then God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it." And it was so.
[1:12] The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good.
[1:13] And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
[1:14] And God said, "Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years,
[1:15] and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth." And it was so.
[1:16] God made the two great lights - the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night - and the stars.
[1:17] God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth,
[1:18] to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.
[1:19] And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
[1:20] And God said, "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky."
[1:21] So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good.
[1:22] God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."
[1:23] And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
[1:24] And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind." And it was so.
[1:25] God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.
[1:26] Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."
[1:27] So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
[1:28] God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."
[1:29] God said, "See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.
[1:30] And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so.
[1:31] God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Nothing here is scientific!
How come this creation story doesn't mention bacteria? Microbes make up about one-half of the Earth's biomass, so they should rate a mention in god's to-do list. And none of those green plants for food would grow without bacteria to fix nitrogen in the soil.
Maybe god didn't have a microscope.
Or a telescope!
I just searched through this list again, and I think god forgot to create the atmosphere.
"Let there be oxygen that all living creatures may breathe so that they can burn food for energy and exhale carbon dioxide for the plants to use in their photosynthetic processes and return yet more oxygen, and let there be nitrogen, and water vapor, and all the myriad trace gases, and ozone to block the harmful rays from the greater light (oops). And god saw that it was good, and that Adam's lips had stopped turning blue, and he was pleased."
But then he realized he had forgotten to turn on gravity! So he quickly wrote up a law that required all large objects to pull things twords them. He saw that everything was no longer shooting into space, and was pleased.
Do those HAVE to be in?
Only if you want the Earth to be habitable. Only if your creation myth is truly based on arcane supernatural knowledge, and not on the limited knowledge of bronze age nomadic goat-herders.
I meant that He didn't HAVE to say that He did it in order for Him to do it.
@Hawk Flint
"I meant that He didn't HAVE to say that He did it in order for Him to do it."
So the story is very specific about all the things that bronze age people were likely to know about, such as fish, cattle, leafy plants, birds, creepy-crawlies, stars, etc., but omits vital, fundamental things that require modern knowledge. Surely this appears contradictory even to you?
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