Big Bang doesn't imply a beginning to the universe?

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Bing bang is still the most widely accepted theory describing the beginning of our universe (discovered by no other than a Catholic priest by the way). There are many things that indirectly point us toward it.

The fact that it’s been proven that the universe is expanding, this logically means that it had to be all together at one point in the past. Much like when you roll up a “yoyo” before throwing it.

This early light — sometimes called the “afterglow” of the Big Bang — is more properly known as the cosmic microwave background (CMB). It was first predicted by Ralph Alpher and other scientists in 1948, but was found only by accident almost 20 years later.

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The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the universe tends toward high entropy. If the universe had an no beginning all the energy from all stars would have already been spent and then the universe would enter into a “heat death”. However we see stars are still being created, although those dying outpace the ones created and we will inevitably reach a “heat death”.
 
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Aquinas11 said:
Yes. Science explains matter , but not why there is matter.
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To explain is to give the reasons why. To a certain extent science does that, too, but it never really carries its search to the find the ultimate explanation, reason or cause of a phenomenon. And insofar as it falls short of the ultimate reason, it also falls short of explanatory power. That is why science’s “explanation” often ends up being just a description of physical reality rather than a true explanation. The Big Bang theory is an example. It is, as John10 said in the post just below yours, “the most widely accepted theory describing the beginning of our universe.”

Science wants an “explanation” in terms of the measurable and observable. And it will pursue its search to find out what is the cause of the cause of the cause of a phenomenon. But when it reaches the point where the cause that explains a phenomenon is no longer measurable nor observable, then it stops. Science is not interested in finding anything that is neither measurable nor verifiable by experiment. So, to find the ultimate cause, one would have to philosophize. This is why philosophy begins where the sciences end. Philosophy seeks the ultimate reason or cause, not just of becoming, but that of being.
 
John10 said:
The fact that it’s been proven that the universe is expanding, this logically means that it had to be all together at one point in the past.
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Exactly. But it does not follow that it was the first point. There could have been other points before that, and the universe is in a cycle of expanding and collapsing back to a point. But it is irrelevant whether there was only one point or many points. It still needs to be explained why there was a point or many points to begin with. In the phraseology of Heidegger, “Why, indeed, is there being rather than nothing?”
 
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Theories with the fewest assumptions are often preferred to those positing more, a heuristic often called “Occam’s razor.”

A one point which exploded and is now continuing to expand is the most simple explanation of the origin of the universe. There may always be an infinite number of alternatives, but those are not very good because they are far more difficult to explain and have to make more assumptions. Of course even if they were somehow accepted they would still have to deal with the “why” is there anything at all.
 
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Actually, the singularity hypothesis isn’t the accepted hypothesis in big bang cosmology.
 
If the singularity hypothesis is no longer accepted in big bang cosmology, then I would be open to other theories, however I would find it very hard to overcome due to Occam’s razor.

What is known however is that the early universe was very dense and hot, because of the cosmic radiation remnant. The very beginning of the universe remains pretty murky, however there is little doubt that the universe had a beginning.
 
www.space.com

Cosmic Inflation: How It Gave the Universe the Ultimate Kickstart (Infographic)

Inflation is the mysterious force that blew up the scale of the infant universe from sub-microscopic to gargantuan in a fraction of a second.
www.space.com www.space.com

Here it is explained by people that do this for a living. The universe as we know it didn’t come from a singularity but from an extant universe (what gave rise to that we don’t know scientifically, but we know 😉) that underwent a very very rapid inflation. It was this inflation that defined our current universe. Singularity big bang itself couldn’t explain many parts of the universe, so this was proposed and worked out instead.
 
This seems very close to singularity, although technically different from it. Instead of everything being condensed in a singularity, the Big Bang arose from an inflation state.

Which of course has two consequences:

1.- The universe had a beginning
2.- Somebody had to kickstart things

So what happened to start inflation off? There’s a tremendous amount of research and speculation about it, but nobody knows.

Both conclusions are no surprise to Christianity as the Bible clearly stated both things a long time ago.
 
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Capta(name removed by moderator)rudeman said:
The universe as we know it didn’t come from a singularity but from an extant universe (what gave rise to that we don’t know scientifically, but we know 😉) that underwent a very very rapid inflation. It was this inflation that defined our current universe. Singularity big bang itself couldn’t explain many parts of the universe, so this was proposed and worked out instead.
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Thank you for the link. I read with great interest the article that you referred to. However, it did not say that the initial singularity hypothesis was no longer the basis of the Big Bang model. It still is. What the article is talking about is the cosmic inflation model, which is an alternative to the Big Bang model. Actually, there are many other alternative theories that have been proposed to the Big Bang. But all of them have problems of their own. The cosmic inflation model, for example, has also been challenged recently. See, for example, these articles:

www.scientificamerican.com

Cosmic Inflation Theory Faces Challenges

The latest astrophysical measurements, combined with theoretical problems, cast doubt on the long-cherished inflationary theory of the early cosmos and suggest we need new ideas
www.scientificamerican.com www.scientificamerican.com

medium.com

Is the inflationary Universe a scientific theory? Not anymore

One of inflation’s cofounders has turned his back on the idea. But practically no one else is following him. Is he right?
medium.com medium.com
 
YHWH_Christ said:
Although scientists still do not fully understand how to solve these problems, many are looking for a solution and there are some theories which predict an infinite universe or even a cycle of universes. Nobody is saying they’re correct yet but they could be and in fact it seems likely that a time in physics will come when we can have an understanding of what “happened” before the big bang. As theists, how are we to respond to this since it is in our faith to believe that God alone has always existed and that it is he who created the universe ex nihilo. Could science really be on the verge of disproving the need for a creator?
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St. Thomas Aquinas said that reason alone, or philosophy alone, cannot demonstrate the fact that the world had a beginning in time. In other words, reason alone cannot prove that the world did not always exist. The fact that the world had a beginning in time is an article of faith, not a thesis of metaphysics or philosophy.

So, it is not surprising to find many scientific theories and speculations that seem to justify the idea that the world always existed (for example, the steady-state theory, the pulsating universe theory, the ekpyrotic universe theory, the cosmic inflation theory). Reason alone cannot prove that these models of the world are impossible. On the other hand, the available empirical evidences merely show how some theories fit the facts better than others.

But, granted for the sake of argument that the world is everlasting, - that means, it always existed and will never end, - it still does not necessarily follow that we can dispense with, or get away without, a Creator. For, an eternal world can also mean a world that is eternally dependent on God. To disprove the need for a creator, scientists would have to come up with reasons more convincing than mere ideas about how an eternal world behaves – by endless expansion and contraction, or by being in a perpetual cycle of moving toward each other, colliding, and bouncing back ad infinitum. They also need to show why this is happening, and why there is a universe that expands and contracts, or that moves and bounces. Science has not come up with an adequate explanation for all these. Often, the elements of the theory (such as the matter and energy of the world, the elementary particles, and even the laws of physics themselves) are merely postulated rather than explained.

To your question, could science really be on the verge of disproving the need for a creator? The answer is NO, science is very far from it. It is the wish of many unbelieving scientists, and the song of many scientistic charlatans, but it is not what we see from their evidences.
 
The fail here is that our understanding of physics is grossly restricted. We think as man does and not as God does - thus, we tend to make things up which please us.
 
Aquinas11 said:
Yes. Science explains matter , but not why there is matter.
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To say this another way, science is all about the what, the how, and the when, while philosophy and / or theology is about the who and the why.

D
 
These are both fantastic ways of putting it!

As an aside, what is the atheist’s response to this premise? I understand the agnostic’s point of view but how can the atheist who is absolutely sure that there is no God explain the “why” for the existence of matter?
 
Eh. We just don’t know enough about the properties of certain physical interactions to make predictions or determinations about the advent of the universe. It’s not us thinking with men’s brains about God’s issues, but that we don’t know enough yet. The universe is just wildly complex.
 
Welshrabbit said:
These are both fantastic ways of putting it!

As an aside, what is the atheist’s response to this premise? I understand the agnostic’s point of view but how can the atheist who is absolutely sure that there is no God explain the “why” for the existence of matter?
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The question doesn’t arise. It would be like me asking why God exists.
 
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Not sure I follow. Matter exists, right? Matter could as easily not exist.

Why does it exist as opposed to not exist?

Who/what caused that matter to exist?
 
Welshrabbit said:
Not sure I follow. Matter exists, right? Matter could as easily not exist.

Why does it exist as opposed to not exist?

Who/what caused that matter to exist?
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The first question as to why it exists, as I said, makes no sense to me. The second, as to what caused it to exist (the ‘who caused it’ makes no sense to me either), is: Nobody knows.

I’m incapable of imagining something coming from nothing (I’m actually incapable of imagining nothing) so I have a tendancy to think that existence is eternal. Never ending. As per Sir Roger Penrose’s cyclical universe: New evidence for cyclic universe claimed by Roger Penrose and colleagues – Physics World
 
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I don’t know about you, but this is what common sense tells me.

I study neurobiology at college, for reference.
They tell me I’m supposed to believe in evolution, that man came from apes. Bullshit.

It seems to me, seems to me, that it is IMPOSSIBLE for nature as we know it to exist without a creator.
Take the spinal cord for instance. The spinal cord is routed like an ‘S’ for structural support, if it were a straight pipe, it would be very susceptible to injury, and would make bending over very difficult. There are redundant structures in the spine as well. This way, if someone sustained a back injury, he/she wouldn’t lose function. Furthermore, there is decussating at the pyramidal cells, which I assume aids in structural support and stability.

Furthermore, the human brain is far too complex for anyone to claim that it all just ‘happened.’ The human brain folds in on itself. SMART! Why? Because you increase the surface area that way more neurons can be packed in. This is essential, because no other being on earth possess the intellectual capabilities of mankind. A rat’s brain is rather smooth with little folding. The olfactory (smell) cortex is linked to olfactory receptors in the nose directly, instead of routing through the thalamus like the other senses. Why? Humans needed to quickly smell things so that they could tell food from poison. And the path to the olfactory cortex is shorter if routed directly from nose to brain. Everything is so optimized. How come? Chance?

As of October 30, 2019, science FAILS TO UNDERSTAND where thoughts originate. For instance, when I felt like coming to catholic answers forums today. How did I initiate the thought? Science FAILS. There is no explanation or understanding. All they can do is understand how my brain is controlling my fingers as I type, and my eyes are looking at the screen. We do not yet understand where the intent to do something comes from, according to my professor - a respected researcher in neuroscience.

Also, the universe as we know it follows a paradigm - atoms and molecules. The electron can behave as both a particle and a wave of light (electromagnetic radiation). Think about that. The metal on my laptop has electrons, and these can behave as LIGHT?!?!? There’s probably a reason God said “Let there be light” before he created us all. I can see how everything else depends on it.

The amount of thought and planning put into human beings and our universe is enough to convince me that anyone claiming that God is fake is full of crap.
It doesn’t take a genius to see and understand that. Basic science tells you that God exists.
 
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