We all (hopefully) know about the Big Bang. And even though that's not the only theory naturalists have on the creation of the universe, but it is the most prevailing and popular one, hands down.

When I was in 6th grade, I stopped believing in the Christian God and became somewhat of an atheist/new age kind of guy... Anyway, I believed that the universe was created by the Big Bang.

Fast foward to 10th grade and I'm a Christian again. Why? One of the reasons was because The Big Bang made no sense to me... I had never thought about it until the night after I became a Christian, and it simply made no sense. In the end, it wasn't logical.

What does everyone else think?

I think of it as you can't get shredded paper if you don't have any paper to shred what i am saying is for the big bang to be real the universe would of had to have come from somewhere I believe that that somewhere is god

so I do not believe in the Big Bang

**shrugs**

Makes sense to me (the Big Bang)

Even if it didn't, why would that make you turn to a god?

Isn't that a little...primitive? "I don't understand lightning, so I will sacrifice to the great thunder god in the sky"?

Wait...the Big Bang is a theory that explains the origin of the universe. It is what the universe came from. What the heck do you mean that the universe would have had to come from somewhere else for the Big Bang to be real?

so it makes more sense that things apparently appeared poof like magic from nothing? does that still happen now? are you aware that many christians accept the big bang?

something had to create the universe it couldn't have just popped up all by itself out of no where

I am aware. Thanks for catching me there... narrowing it down...

I find that The Big Bang without the help of God makes no sense. Okay, carry on.


How so?

It came from a speck of dust

People who say the big bang is unbelievable because it's the universe starting from nothing, need to read scientific (and nothing religious tainted.. pure unadultrated sciences and physiscs) papers on it.

It's not a universe starting from nothing. Infact, one of the theories is constriction/expantion. The "Big Bang" as it were, is when the "old" universe constricted to the point of "explosion" and is now expanding outwards again till it snaps back. So it's not starting from nothing.

If anything, Creationalism is just that, starting from nothing. We have a god who just.. came from nowhere, and snapped his finger. "Poof" here's the universe, galaxies, planets, life... from *nothing*

Then the idea that God created the universe (out of nowhere), must be invalid. The Big Bang does not claim that the universe came out of nowhere. If you are going to claim that a theory makes no sense, you should, at a minimum, learn what it is that the theory claims.

i agree with aquatus.

now why would it have to be bb or christian god though? are these the only two things you are aware enough of and you just have to pick one of them? as is often brought up, and gideon mentioned here, where is the logic in claiming the bb can not be possible but the universe just "poofing" into existance at the wave of a mighty hand is sensible?

I can explain the entire theory to you, if you have a few days. The question is more alone the lines of: how much are you interested in learning?

the big bang theory basically suggests that there is more than one universe and I do not believe that so I believe god created it all

I see how it is...

Just give me the basics. But beyond those silly science videos I was forced to watch in school.

I'm not saying it was the Christian God who created the universe, I'm not saying it wasn't. That's just what I believe.

Where did this "old" universe come from, I wonder?

God did not come just from nowhere. He has always existed. I will explain later on, my minor in theology doesn't work as well when I'm sleepy.

How does it do that?

And again, how is this reasoning any different from the cavemen who prayed to the great sky god because they didn't understand lightning?

"Where did this "old" universe come from, I wonder?"

Keep wondering. There are some things humans can't fully explain. And for that.. people write it off as "God"

Where did the old universe come from? The one before that... and so one and so forth. Where does it end? The future.

I'm interested in learning! Can you explain it to me?

i was wondering the same thing! there is something to be said about faulty reasoning.

Yes explain it too me too I might believe in god but that does not mean I am closed minded who knows i might actually learn something

why.. do I even.. try...

? Take a deep breath, Cougar...

who knows


certainly not me

Currently accepted big bang theory is only a theory, there are 'holes' in it. like the casual contact of all matter vs light horizons. basically, if it all started at the same point, why are there 'horizons' that light has yet to cross between galaxies at opposite ends of the universe if it all started from the same place?, this can only be explained by rapid inflation, super-cooling, and a gradual warm up of the expanding universe in its infancy. this to me seems far fetched. (there are other holes, but its been so long since ive read up on the subject, that i have forgotten. (i still have my books tho )

I have looked into alternate big bang theories, and the best ive read is by Joao Magueijo. Here's how it goes
there is energy in empty space (energy exists in the vaccum of space) otherwise light would not be able to travel through it. As the universe expands, any given point in space always has the same amount of energy (one square foot always has x amount of energy). How is this possible? energy cannot be created or destroyed (by man). If the universe is expanding, where does this energy come from? Tension. The force of the universe expanding causes tension that replaces the energy dissapated at any given point in space. So what?

Well.. recent observations show that the universe is not only expanding, but accelerating. this acceleration could possibly (in the far future) become unstable as the universe hurls itself apart. In doing so, there would be *massive amounts of energy* in this tug of war that would be forced to convert into matter (kind of like an old rubber band snapping, and leaving little bits where the snap occured).
The simplest atom that exists in this universe is hydrogen, its also the most abundant. Energy convering into matter would produce this atom.

The theory implies a cycle of generating new universes at a constant rate, as to where it started, or why its expanding...there are no probable theories, which is where belies come into play. that is your choice to make.



*the massive amounts of energy created by the more rapid expansion would enable light to travel faster than its currently accepted top speed, at the point where light would reach near infinite speed is when the universe would go 'bang' and create matter from itself.

All creation begins with nothing NO thing, I join the big Bang side. Namaste sheri

If one can imagine all of the matter and energy in the universe(s) being a singularity (point with no dimensions) I guess the Big Bang is an OK theory I can't do that. I think it is only bought into by scientists as a counter point to creation. All the energy and mass had to come from somewhere, I would guess, and that is what is missing in all of it. If nothing existed, there could be no big bang, and no creation, for that matter. If "God" is something other than imaginary, "God" has to be made of "something", whatever that something is . . . it can't possible be "nothing". Frankly, I don't think that we ever will know what really happened, or where it all came from.

i dealt with something similiar to this recently,

My Thread

and you guys just blew me off.

haven't any of you guys studied tao teh ching or kabbalah? Lao Tzu and the Sepher Yetzirah both spoke about the big bang (buy a copy or find your own link)

the Nothingness (Ain in sepher yetzirah, Tao in Tao Teh Ching) compresses itself and emerges at a single point (Ain Soph/Teh) to create the universe. Ain Soph Aur, (endless light, read: God/big bang), or Shen Teh (the Lord God of Heaven) manifests the Tree of Life/The Myriad Things and the Universe explodes. Lao Tzu says it best:


Apparently all you guys read is Carl Sagan (Skeptics) or the N.T.
Read, study, be eclectic. Learn Something.

Gideon

Another theory about how the big bang happened is that particles like atoms actually come in and out of exisctence and thus if one of those particles did come into existence it could actually create the big bang because all it would take is one particle, that just a theory i read about

I will explain the basics of the Big Bang as well as I can, but there are a few things I wish to go over first:

For starters, nothing in science is taken on faith. This is extremely important to understand. Assumptions can be made in science, however they must be clearly identified, and they can never go beyond a single level without becoming speculation. One single assumption is not necessarily speculation in and of itself.

Second: A scientific theory is not 'merely' a theory. To say things in that manner implies that theories are nothing more than idle thoughts imagined up around the water cooler, all equally valid, whether they explain why Johnson smiles too much at his secretary or how the universe began. A scientific theory is a specific explanation of an observed natural phenomena, and must be supported by objective evidence and/or a logical arguments, all valid. It must also meet all the pre-requisites of scientific methodology, and all protocols of verification, including dissemination and peer review in scientific journals, so that the entire community may scrutinize the theory and decide on its legitimacy. There is nothing simple at all about a scientific theory, and due to all the scrutiny it undergoes, once it has been declared valid, a scientific theory is as close as one can get to being a law without violating methodology.

Third: A scientific theory can be both valid and incorrect. It can also be both valid and incomplete, as is more commonly the case. Scientific theories are the best deduction that we are capable of making with the available data. There is absolutely nothing that would forbid the future emergence of new data, and nothing that would forbid the new formation of the adaptation of a theory to take that new data into account. Ultimately, what is important about theories is that their conclusions can be logically supported by their arguments.

Fourth: More than one theory can exist to explain a given phenomena. Perhaps only one is correct. Maybe all are correct. There is no hard and fast rule to dictate which it will be except for the test of time and the preponderance of evidence.

Fifth: Observation is not the only acceptable form of scientific discovery. Deduction is perfectly valid as well, as long as it is properly supported.

Sixth: There are limits to human knowledge. Not being able to explain every last little detail of a phenomena in no way invalidates the entire theory. Remember, the theory explains as well as it can within the limits of available data.

I believe those are all the points I wished to begin with, though more may come to light soon. The reason I wanted to say this beforehand is because I do not want people to begin accusing me of taking things on faith anytime I make a given claim simply because I do not give the full history behind every detail. Most of you realize that asking me to explain the history of physics to the present day within this thread is an exercise in futility, so if there is something that you wish details on, request them and I will explain; do not, however, begin using this as an example of taking facts on faith, or I will not be able to help but take it as a mild insult of sorts.

I will begin with a basic overview of the Big Bang, go on to how it was deduced, and then end with the limitations of the theory, and other theories that also exist to explain how the origins of our universe began.

Are there any questions before I begin?

Nope. I completely understood what you said.

The Big Bang (ruthlessly compressed)

Our universe, the matter within it, and possibly time itself, began approximately 15 billion years ago, when a singularity containing all the energy of the universe expanded explosively, creating within itself the known universe, matter, and time.

The theory can be accredited to Edwin Hubble (not Carl Sagan), who made the discovery that the universe was continuously expanding. According to his observations, galaxies where moving away from each other and from us at a velocity proportional to the distance. What this means, in terms of logical deduction, is that if everything moves in proportion (in the case of our universe, twice the distance equates to twice the speed of movement), is that every galaxy took the same amount of time to arrive at their current position from a common distance. In other words, the only way in which the galaxy’s movements today could have come about is by all of them beginning from a single point and ‘exploding’ forth to their current locations. This explosion is referred to as the Big Bang.

Considering how utterly simplistic this description is, I fully expect you all have a ton of questions, so please ask them now.

The Big Bang theory is as likely as God being real (not too likely).

Excellent question. Clearly displays a desire to learn.

I have a question. How did Mr. Hubble come to the conclusion that galaxies were moving away from each other and us at any given velocity? You said he came upon this 'according to his observations'. If you don't mind, could you elaborate on a few of these observations?

You see.. that's why we send telescopes and probes in space... so we can watch/record/learn

Not a problem. He was observing in pretty much the most direct sense of the word: He was looking at the galaxies through the eyes of the 100 inch telescope at the Mt. Wilson observatory.

What Hubble was doing at the time was taking snapshots of cepheid variables and other galactic structures for the purpose of classification. He developed his own system, which is still in use today, and it was this system, one part of which required brightness, that led him to notice the property of redshift in the stars.

Redshift is the red stripe in a spectrograph that indicates what sort of elements make up a star. They have a very constant degree of degredation in proportion to distance traveled. Hubble noticed that there was a direct correlation between the decrease in strength, meaning the distance, and the location of the particular galaxy. It was this proportion (basically, twice the velocity equates to twice the distance traveled), that led him to realize that the universe was expanding. This eventually became Hubble's Law (or Hubble's Constant, as it is better known today), which is still in use today to predict the past and future locations of galactic objects.

On top of that, he also observed that all objects seemed to be moving away from here equally in all directions. In other words, the point from which all objects where moving away from was not centered in any particular location. Having established that the galaxies were moving, and that they were moving away from all directions equally, he had to deduce how this was possible. The conclusion that he came to was that it wasn't the galaxies themselves that were moving, but rather the universe
expanding, and carrying the galaxies with it.

This being the case, then the reverse of it would be that, by the galaxy compressing, all objects would eventually find themselves together in one single point. In other words, mathematically, everything had to have had one singularity as a starting point, in order for everything to finish up where it is today.

So, clear as mud?

Interestingly enough, another scientist had already independently deduced that the universe also expanded and contracted. Albert Einstein published his General Theory of Relativity in 1917, but, even though his conclusion had led to a curved space being able to expand and contract, he decided that it was simply too wild an idea, and left it out of his theory. When he learned of Hubble's discovery, he personally went to congratulate him and thank him for helping him to correct what he publicly announced to be the "worst blunder I have made in my life."

exactly.
the problem with the begining of the universe, is that no idea; creation, evolution, or otherwise, is logical at all. somehow you have to get yourself to believe that in the begining of it all there was absolutely nothing, and then whether by god or science, all this stuff just suddenly appeared, the whole thing is impossible to truly comprehend.

First of all you can't assume everything has to have been created. Because you seem to not have a problem with accepting the fact that god has no creator. "blah blah cause he's infinite uhuhhuh" well we can very well say the same thing about the universe: it is infinite.

Although I don't believe in the Big Bang, I do think the universe is infinite, without beginning and without end.

The Big Bang sounds too childish to me.

Well, most theories about the universe agree with half of what you say. According to science, the universe has no beginning or end, but it is finite.



Childish?

Not technical? Complex?

Are you talking about the scientific theory, or the fairy tale one hears around the layman campfires?

In reality it probably isn't childish at all. But when your teacher gives you handouts where the author gives a basic overview without any explanations other than "that's just the way it is." it's kind of hard to belive it. Although if you can give me a correct description...who knows.

You know how a star collapses, forms a black hole then at the center ( singularity ) all its mass still exists but in an extremely small space. When looking at the big bang it is like reversing time or events of a dying star, as hawkings said.

When a Star compresses its MASS into into a infinitely small Singularity. It is basically Everything Into nothing.

Now if you reverse the events of that you have Nothing into everything !

I think that the big bang was a massive chain reaction that lead to everything we see today.

Do you have any questions about what I have already posted?

What caused the explosion?

From what I learned in class, there are two ideas of what may happen concerning the Big Bang theory. Either it will continue to expland until it fades away or it will reverse and collapse back in on itself. I'd like the idea of it collapsing back in on itself, as that would mean it ends the way it started. Which means it continues infinitely. But since no one can prove what, in the end, will happen, I can't bring myself to believe it.

We don't know. Our current science has been able to take us to the point a merest fraction after the explosion, but we haven't yet gotten to the explosion itself yet. Anything about the explosion or what came before it is not yet a part of the Big Bang theory.



Do you hold that same standard for everything else? Unless you know every detail, how it begins, and how it ends, with proof for it all, you do not believe in it?

It is a basic tenet of science that it is quite likely that we will never know everything there is to know. Accepting our limitations is a simple fact of life. We deduce as much as we can with the available data, and freely admit that we do not know what we do not know. Hopefully, in the future, further data will takes to greater understanding.

Of course, I can make an observation, say, that of a truck going east on the I-10 Freeway somewhere east of Phoenix. I observe that it is going 60 mph. By a simple calculation I can posit that the truck left Los Angeles some 10 hours or so ago. The problem is, I have no idea of just where that truck actually came from . . . it might well have come from Flagstaff, and turned east from the I-17 to the I-10, although at my point of observation it is going directly (well, almost) from Los Angeles. The situation is even worse with the universe. All we know about it is what we can see with telescopes and the naked eye (as to position et. al., of stars) And the trouble with that is that we don't have a clue (well, perhaps some speculation) as to where any of those stars we see really are. Moreover, even the distance away from us is only apparent. We can only tell for sure, since light does have a velocity of travel, and presumable travels in a straight line (except where it does get bent by gravity), is where those stars were when they emitted the light we see now. If the star was 3 billion light years away from where we are now when it emitted the light we see now, then its apparent position is where it was 3 billion years ago, not where it is at the present time. And if there is truly an expanding universe, then all stars of a certain apparent distance would have to all be on one side of the earth, the side in a straight line towards the point of singularity. The universe was supposedly considerably smaller then, and earth would be now well away from that earlier universe (I am using the term universe to include all stars in existance). The expanding universe theory is not based on direct observation of the actual movement of stars, but is derived from primarily the red shift. It is impossible to directly measure the movement of stars, because the closest is still way to far away to measure any discernable change in angle over time. It may not be all speculation, but there are a load of assumptions in the theory, any of which may not be correct. Assumptions tend to make an ASSoutofUandME. Interesting theory and certainly fun to discuss, but I am not completely buying into it just yet. I have to always keep in mind that I have yet to see astronomers be right in their predictions made prior to out space craft getting somewhere and actually taking photographs and sending them back. I do have to say, astronomers have to be the most surprised people on earth, since they are always surprised by what our space craft find. What gets sent back seems never to be what they anticipated.

yes, larry. our models do a very poor job of projecting (forward or backward). yet while unproven, the most important part of the model is valid - it gives us a framework from which to compare observation against.

Well let's look at it this way. Why should you believe what I have to tell you if I have equal or less proof that what you believe?

It's not that I don't like the Big Bang theory, I just don't see why I should switch beliefs and ideas when there isn't any real reason to do so.

Actually, you left out a very important clue. The distance between galaxies is increasing in all directions, and not from any one specific point. It is this piece of data that indicates that the universe is expanding, as opposed to galaxies and such simply moving away as from an explosion. It is because the distances are increasing but the actual galactic objects themselves are not, that we can claim that things are expanding away from one central point, not moving from one central point.



Right, That is why we use the proportions and ratios, rather than actual physical locations of the universe. It doesn't matter where the stars were 3 billion years ago, but rather what the ratio of its distance to velocity, is compared to another star.



No, no...

let me think here...

Objects in the universe are not moving through space away from each other (I'm talking in terms of the Big Bang, not about galaxies and such migrating through the universe, which of course they do). It is not the galactic objects that are expanding, but the universe itself that is expanding, and moving the objects with it as it does.

Did that clear it up a little? This is a very important point that needs to be clearly understood in order to realize why a singularity is the logical expected origin of the Big Bang. If anyone has any questions about this point, about how the universe is expanding, but the actual objects within it aren't moving, please ask.



Again, it is not the physical distance that matter, but their movement as measured by velocity and distance. It is the ratio we are interested in, not the mileage.



We...haven't actually gotten to the assumptions yet. This is all fairly direct and objective stuff.



Oh, no doubt...We are receiving tons and tons of new data every single time we get another mssion back on earth. I can't say I agree that our astronomers haven't been able to predict quite a few interesting things, but that is for another topic. Like I said, there is no shame in admitting what our limitations are.

You don't have to switch beliefs or ideas. I would ask, however, that you use the same standards to judge the ideas that appear before you. If you understand what the claim that the Big Bang is making is, and how it came about it, then it is your choice to believe it or not. Simply dismissing something out of hand, or worse, based on faulty information merely because you don't feel it merits the effort to learn, that just doesn't seem like a good idea.