Does the Big Bang do more to prove or disprove a theistic entity?

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Ahimsa said:
The Big Bang theory doesn’t preclude the existence of matter/energy, nor of time, before the ‘Bang’. Check out the recently published Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang.

Like what was said before, the key question is Why is there anything at all? That remains true whether time/matter is ‘eternal’ or not.
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O.K. I’m officially confused. :ouch: :banghead: :eek: :hypno:
 
A scientific theory purporting to explain the origins of the universe (at least since the first 10- 17 or whatever seconds) in a reality where science has yet to even demonstrate that the earth turns or translates nor has a physical explanation for the observed phenomenon we call gravity and inertia certainly does not define God.

I voted “Neither”.

Mark Wyatt
www.veritas-catholic.blogspot.com
 
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cpayne:
Keep in mind neither Aristotle nor Thomas Aquinas knew of the Big Bang, and both proceeded on the more difficult assumption that the universe had no beginning. The cosmological argument does not NEED the Big Bang; nor does it need a “beginning” to the universe.
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The Big Bang actually is not about a ‘beginning’ per se. If you think about it, the boundaries of the universe in space-time are ‘undefined.’ Being ‘undefined’ does not mean that the universe always existed.

It is thought that before the Big Bang, time was a fourth dimension of space. Of course it had to be something other than what we know as ‘time’ because entropy before the Big Bang was zero. Entropy and time are married.

Aquinas was probably at a loss for words to describe something which did not have a beginning but which at the same time did not always exist and therefore was created.
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cpayne:
Having said all that, however, the Big Bang IS pretty extraordinary to think about. What would a “singularity” actually be like, an hour before it occurred?
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Hawking used to think that the Big Bang started in a singularity, but he changed his thinking on that one. In some way there is no absolute ‘minimum point’ in his curve.
 
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Greg27:
The problem with trying to use the big bang theory to prove God’s existence is that scientists might find a theory which can explain using the known laws of physics without needing God’s direct intervention in the natural order. This is a classical weakness of natural theology, as the example of evolution shows us, things which seemed to require a supernatural designer can actually be resolved using a scientific theory.
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Resolving something using scientific theory does not necessarily preclude a supernatural designer.
 
PC_Master said:
  1. Assuming a “rubber band” type setup, where the universe keeps collapsing on itself, doing another big bang, and starting all over again (I’m guessing this is your point), you still are in need of something to set off the first big bang – you can’t get out of the cause and effect rule.
  2. This leads to the concept of an actual infinite – these simply cannot logically exist in a quantized universe, or megaverse, multiverse, etc.
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I am not clear what it is you are saying cannot exist in a quantized universe? What is the subject of that sentence please? To what does “these” refer? Thank you.
 
Ani_Ibi said:
Hawking used to think that the Big Bang started in a singularity, but he changed his thinking on that one. In some way there is no absolute ‘minimum point’ in his curve.
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Ah, yes. Just what I was thinking the other day. 🙂
 
It is interesting that some 4000 years ago Genesis said that it all started with a flash of light. Science finally agreed when they saw the light, literally, in 1960.
 
Hi Laurence,

The Big Bang in itself proves nothing. I assisted at a series of conferences by Hubert Reeves, an astrophysicist who has writtten several general-interest books on his specialty. I remember what he said in his last conference; something like this:

“We can get to within less than a split second of the Biĝ Bang. After that, it’s a matter for philosophy and theology.”

Verbum
 
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