Why Doesn't the Big Bang Disprove God?

[po18guy]

From Wikipedia ( I know…)
Independently deriving Friedmann’s equations in 1927, Georges Lemaître, a Belgian physicist and Roman Catholic priest, proposed that the inferred recession of the nebulae was due to the expansion of the Universe.[35]

In 1931 Lemaître went further and suggested that the evident expansion of the universe, if projected back in time, meant that the further in the past the smaller the universe was, until at some finite time in the past all the mass of the Universe was concentrated into a single point, a “primeval atom” where and when the fabric of time and space came into existence.
Why would a Roman Catholic priest propose something that disproves God???

The Big Bang, like so many other things in science, explains “how” but does not really explain “why”…God has more to do with the “Why” of things…So in a nutshell that is why there is still room for God…

Peace
James

And, it was Fr. LeMaitre who convinced none other than (((EINSTEIN))) of the theory’s efficacy as an explanation of creation. Einstein remarked that he had never seen a more satisfying explanation of creation theory.

Apologies for the hyperbole.

 

[Jacob18]

1AM here, I’ll probably be back with this tomorrow. I appreciate all of your responses.

 

[maltmom]

Good sir, what I am saying is if the whole of everything is explained - our existance and the universe’s existance, explained by science and physics then there would be no need for a god. Then why should I believe that one exists?

I ask out of ignorance. I want an explaination so I could say with complete faith that I do believe or do not believe. I am hoping for a detailed explaination on why there is a need for God, not sassy comments. No disrespect intended, and it seems like you would be more knowledgable about what I am asking about than most people on CAF.

Why is there a need for God?

For me, even if science and physics explained our existence and the universe’s existence it still wouldn’t explain everything. Where did the laws of physics come from? Where did the raw material come from for the universe to form? Someone/something had to create it. For me, that’s God.

A couple of years ago a study came out that stated that the higher the level of education one received, particularly in science, the less chance there was that the person would believe in God. I guess I was an exception. The more courses I took in biology, geology, etc deeper my faith became. We dissected cadavers in Gross Anatomy. The awe of God’s creation is still with me when I think about the 1st time I held a human brain or heart in my hands.

 

[Julia_Mae]

Good sir, what I am saying is if the whole of everything is explained - our existance and the universe’s existance, explained by science and physics then there would be no need for a god.

“Science” is the name we give to the ones in our culture who provide explanations of the way things work.

If we explain it all, including how we leave this plane and move into the Eternal plane, how is that a problem? Did you think God is some sort of magical being and somehow if we manage to label the processes and explain them the magic is gone? You might understand your car, but I’m willing to bet you had nothing to do with creating it. I find your position lacks logic.

There’s nothing here, by the way. That’s what physics really tells us. That screen you are looking at? Comprises a lot of of nothingness. The Church said it for a couple thousand years. Quantum physics just figured it out last month. (Relatively speaking.)

God is. Believe it or not. If God wasn’t, neither would you be, nor anything that you comprehend as a thing.

 

[Peter_Plato]

“Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life - weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.”
― Lawrence M. Krauss

Just a thought.

Krauss does not go far enough with this. A very strong argument for God’s existence is based upon the nature of the laws of physics, in particular, what are called the cosmological constants.

Hugh Ross, in the article below, identifies 34 of these constants that have been “finely tuned” to allow life of any sort to exist.

reasons.org/articles/design-evidences-in-the-cosmos-1998

Generally, the idea is that each constant, because it came to be within the Big Bang event itself could have been set to any of a wide range of parameters. For example, if one of these constants, say the gravitational force constant would have been even slightly higher, stars would have been too hot and burned out quickly and inconsistently, but if slightly lower the stars would have been so cool that nuclear fusion could not happen and no heavy elements would have been produced.

The significant point of the fine tuning argument is that incredible luck might explain one of the constants being where it is, but how do you explain 34 of them being set so precisely and interdependently that they all “happen” to be at life promoting levels (with tiny tolerances for error)? Chance in all 34 instances?

The analogy would be to winning 34 lotteries at the same instance.

In the article, Ross also adds, for good measure, another 75 parameters, specific to life on earth, that also had to be very precise in order to allow life to evolve on our planet.

 

[Peter_Plato]

This article also provides some thoughts on the fine tuning argument:

geraldschroeder.com/FineTuning.aspx

 

[waanju]

I want to believe in God and I absolutely want to prove you right.
.

Again, at risk of being off topic, I think you might benefit from looking at things from another angle. Your problem with belief right now is that you just don’t see the point of God. I faced a similar issue. You don’t see this point because you can see how everything could exist without God. That’s impossible to disprove (otherwise, we’d sort of be compelled to believe in God, which really doesn’t mesh with the whole freely choosing to know Him thing, does it?)
So, are there other areas besides existence where the need for God is a little more obvious? I think yes.
One case would be Free Will, as I mentioned before.
Another would be certain human qualities (like appreciation of beauty/decoration outside of sexual attraction) that do not really make sense because they don’t really aid survival.
OR, one could ponder that as people, we all want for there to be a “why” behind everything instead of it being random chance. This is evident both in your desire to believe (because God would give everything meaning) and your reasons for hesitating (because you can’t see the “why” reason or purpose behind God Himself).
There are a lot of other reasons.If none of these work for you, something will. God’s existence is the truth. There have been countless other very intelligent people who faced similar struggles and the inner tug that made the want to believe the truth. Of course, these people did not want just to convince themselves of a lie, which is why they struggled with belief while it still conflicted with their reason. Once they understood and found out how to believe and why it was true, a lot of them wrote it down. Perhaps try reading some of their arguments?

 

[waanju]

That is an excellent explanation of why atheism ultimately reduces to nihilism and despair. Still, it only proves that God’s existence is more desireable, not that there is any truth in it.

True, it does not prove. I think proof is impossible, actually. That’s the nature of God. As something beyond us, His true, full, complete nature unknowable and therefore not provable. I was merely offering this because he had requested a “why” or reason why God should exist.

 

[laircy]

“Nobody can imagine how nothing could turn into something. Nobody can get an inch nearer to it by explaining how something could turn into something else. It is really far more logical to start by saying ‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth’ even if you only mean ‘In the beginning some unthinkable power began some unthinkable process.’ For God is by its nature a name of mystery, and nobody ever supposed that man could imagine how a world was created any more than he could create one. But evolution really is mistaken for explanation. It has the fatal quality of leaving on many minds the impression that they do understand it and everything else; just as many of them live under a sort of illusion that they have read the Origin of Species.”

–G. K. Chesterton. “The Everlasting Man.”

 

[JerryZ]

I think the Big Bang disproves God. That is the only reason I cannot believe in God.

Why do you think the fact of the Big Bang still has room for God?

Are you kidding us?

It is yet the best evidence from a scientific point that there IS a Creator (God) because for the Big Bang to happen someone wanted it to happen.
Before the Big Bang Science has proven that nothing existed (Nothing that is no Energy/Matter/Atoms/Time/Gravity/ etc.) NOTHING.

From a point the universe sprang up and from Chaos life and intelligence came forth.

The probability that a random event like that would produce a suitable life friendly earth
are 10 (power -99) against. 0.(99 zeroes)1 loooong boring number

And we have not even touched the possibility that life or even intelligent life developed.

In short the probability that such occurence happened by mere chance are so staggering odd against that any sensible person should not even attemp to use it because IT IS CRAZY!

There is a very good website to learn what modern science is learning from the Big Bang.

magisreasonfaith.org/

Here you will find other interesting data:

halozone.com/halozone/appologetics/god_big_bang.shtml#_Toc499567956

 

[Theophorus]

I think the Big Bang disproves God. That is the only reason I cannot believe in God.

Why do you think the fact of the Big Bang still has room for God?

I know you have said a few things already, but why do you think it disproves God?
Do I understand you correctly that it it because you don’t see a need for God therefore there is no God? I just want to clarify not attack.

We can agree that the Big Bang was the cause of the material universe, but what caused the Big Bang? Logic would dictate that an infinite regression of causes would not allow a starting point to exist. There is no evidence that anything can be the cause of its own existence, and if there were no first cause there would be no subsequent causes and so there would be nothing and yet we have scientific evidence of a Big Bang, What caused it?

I stand in the Aristotelian-Thomistic Tradition which posits that such a chain could not have an infinite regression of causes but at some point there must be a cause which is itself uncaused, and this uncaused cause is God.

The only alternate answers that I have heard it that either “stuff just happens” which denies causality and the scientific method, or that “something came from nothing” which is itself logically incoherent as if something has potential(i.e potential to become") then it cannot be no-thing.

I wish you well in your search for the truth

 

[pig]

I think the Big Bang disproves God. That is the only reason I cannot believe in God.

Why do you think the fact of the Big Bang still has room for God?

The BB is a problem. There is evidence that everything began at, and as, a single point.

But you need to ask yourself where did this point come from?
If nothing else existed but that which the point contained, where did the point come from?
If it always existed as a point, why did it change and expand, as it was always stable before and there was nothing else in existence to add to it to change it?
If the point was not always stable then what force, if none outside the point existed, held it stable until the force was withdrawn to allow the point to expand?
And if the point was not always stable nor was it always unstable but held by an impossible force, - if it was neither of these then we are back to - where did the point come from if everything is within the point?

 

[ThinkingSapien]

I think the Big Bang disproves God. That is the only reason I cannot believe in God.

I think that depends on the god-concept being examined. If you are talking about the god-concept that created the universe 6,000 years ago then yes, the big bang cast that god-concept in a rather dubious light. The god-concepts that have been presented to me that created the world 6,000 years ago also tend to have other questionable attributions, but those other attributes are not relevant enough to be detailed here. This poses no problems for some of the present day god concepts. For some of them there is nothing said about the details of the initialization of the known universe. So theories in this domain don’t lead to contradictions of those concepts.

Why do you think the fact of the Big Bang still has room for God?

It squeezes out some god-concepts, but not all of them.

That’s as cogent an argument as two goldfish arguing whether there is a world outside their bowl.

I am not sure if this is intentional or not, but this analogy seems to be rather fitting with the impacts that the acceleration of the expansion are projected to have on our observable universe. More specifically when the space between pockets of the universe reach light speed and effectively remove those pockets from the parts of the universe we could observe. One day people (whether human or some other non-human intelligent life) could be having an argument of if there exist any universe beyond what we see.

Good sir, what I am saying is if the whole of everything is explained - our existance and the universe’s existance, explained by science and physics then there would be no need for a god. Then why should I believe that one exists?

I personally don’t think humanity will ever reach that point. The world is a complex system. I mean that in both the laypersons’ way and in the mathematical model way.

… For example, let’s take free will. Do you think you have it?..

We have no choice but to have it.

“Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded…"…]

It is a rather interesting thought. It was enough to motivate me to brush off my college physics book and grab a book on astrophysics. Though behind the complex math of it all when broken into parts the explanation is rather simple and understandable.

I don’t know of any scientific proofs, and you may not find any here that fit your standards.

Loosely speaking a “proof” can be anything that convinces (assuming we are talking outside the domain of math or alcohol). Unfortunately in the domain of science there are no proofs in the same mechanistic sense that math has proofs(and many types of logic, which could be said to be a subset of math).

Now ask yourself: Are all things caused to exist by other things right now?

Creation ex materia? We (humans) have yet to observer creation ex nihilo. So right now that is the prevailing thought.

Suppose they are. That is, suppose there is no Uncaused Being, no God…] Everything that exists, therefore, on this hypothesis, stands in need of being caused to exist.
But caused by what?

It’s an unknown. There’s lots of conjecture on the topic. From having read some of the other threads here on the Kalām cosmological argument it seems to be associated with varying amounts of satisfaction (or dissatisfaction).

 

[zro_x]

But, for one of the people who posted earlier, there is one thought in philosophy that insists that everything that does exist has a reason to exist. Something like that. Does anyone know the exact wording?

That sound’s like the Kalaam cosmological argument. basically it goes like this:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause
2. The universe has a beginning, therefore
3. The universe has a cause

The proponents of this argument usually go on to suggest that the only possible cause for the universe must be something immaterial, like a mind.

Basically, Fr. Barron uses the contingency argument that everything in universe must have a cause. But you must ultimately get to something that has no contingency (no cause) that exists outside the universe. That’s God.

For remember, on the no-God hypothesis, all things need a present cause outside of themselves in order to exist.

If nothing else existed but that which the point contained, where did the point come from?

For me, even if science and physics explained our existence and the universe’s existence it still wouldn’t explain everything. Where did the laws of physics come from? Where did the raw material come from for the universe to form? Someone/something had to create it.

However, there are some problems with the first premise.

even though Steven Hawking does seem to have an explaination for it. I don’t particularly like his explaination.

it was something along the lines of “Because there are laws such as gravity, the universe began.”

Granted, Hawking’s explanation is confusing, and I don’t completely understand how it works, The theory is intrigueing. As I understand it, it argues that the first premise of the cosmological argument is invalid.

Anyways, the next question becomes, where does gravity come from? What is it’s source? And he still doesn’t explain where matter came from.

In my view, Hawking really stuck his nose and reputation out on that one. My understanding is that he credits everything coming from gravity.

Suppose they discover the graviton, for which a lot of equations are already drawn up. I think it’s only a matter of time before we do find one.

What then? Did the graviton come before or after gravity?

I think there is a misunderstanding here. Hawking proposes that the reason why things just don’t pop into existence in our experience is because gravity is everywhere in the universe. In the nothingness before the big bang, there was no gravity, so the whole universe was free to materialize out of nothing. He even has some evidence for it. It seems that the negative gravitational potential energy of the early universe roughly equals the positive energy of all the matter within it. This means that all the energy in the universe may actually cancel out. I don’t understand why gravity is considered to be negative energy. I’m not a professional physicist (yet). But I’m pretty sure that Hawking didn’t mean to say that gravity actually caused the universe. This would also explain the “fine tuning” of the universe.

The significant point of the fine tuning argument is that incredible luck might explain one of the constants being where it is, but how do you explain 34 of them being set so precisely and interdependently that they all “happen” to be at life promoting levels (with tiny tolerances for error)? Chance in all 34 instances?

The idea is that since universes can materialize out of nothing, every possible universe, each with its own set of constants, has materialized out of nothing. We just happen to be in one of the ones that can support life.

 

[aragonjohn1]

I think the Big Bang disproves God. That is the only reason I cannot believe in God.

Why do you think the fact of the Big Bang still has room for God?

for one a Catholic Priest came up with the theory

second For members of the general public with no training in the sciences, the “facts” are whatever they are told by the scientific establishment. The problem is, the “facts” are profoundly colored by interpretation, and interpretation is often based on nothing more than a guess. Perhaps this is most evident in the dominance of the Big Bang theory which to this day has not been conclusively proven by imperical or objective proof ( yet another problem with many “theories” )

Space age discovery has almost discredited and challenged the theory, yet within the halls of official science, it is presented as “fact.”

It’s amazing how simple the flaw is in the Big Bang theory. It all boils down to the credibility, or lack thereof, of the Doppler interpretation of redshift. Light frequencies from remote objects in space, when shifted toward the red, are claimed to signify the velocity of the object away from the observer – and no other explanation is admitted.

The Doppler effect is not complicated. Everyone is familiar with the sudden drop in pitch of a train’s whistle as it approaches and then moves past us. The same principle is used in a police radar gun, to measure the speed of an automobile.

The Big Bang has lost its theoretical foundation, which was the Doppler interpretation of redshift (linking redshift to the stretching of light wavelengths as objects move away from us).

It is now known that, while almost all observed galaxies are redshifted, the Doppler interpretation of this shift does not provide a reliable measure of velocity or (indirectly) of distance. Quasars and galaxies of different redshift stand in physical proximity to each other and are observed to be connected by filaments of matter.

Quasars, whose high redshift would place them at the outer edges of the visible universe, are in fact physically and energetically linked to nearby low-redshift active galaxies.

The Big Bang theory has been challenged many times including by direct observation-including a highly redshifted quasar in front of a nearby galaxy!
Nobel laureate Hannes Alfv�n, the father of plasma physics, showed that cosmologists are mistaken when they imagine that magnetic fields can be “frozen in” to a plasma. Electric currents are required to sustain cosmic magnetic fields. And now, everywhere we look we see magnetic fields at work: electricity is flowing across immense distances in space.

At both the stellar and galactic scales, these currents interact with the magnetic fields they induce to create complex structure-strings of galaxies, galactic and stellar jets, and beautiful bipolar stellar nebulas-all with features never envisioned by gravitational theorists, yet corresponding in stunning detail to plasma discharge formations in the laboratory.

• huffingtonpost.com/richard-greene/albert-einstein-and-the-s_b_800936.html
• world-mysteries.com/sci_supr.htm
• real-debt-elimination.com/real_freedom/Propaganda/suppression_of_inconvenient_facts_in_physics-4.htm

:twocents:

hope this helps
Shalom
God Bless

 

[Robertanthony]

“Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life - weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.”
― Lawrence M. Krauss

Just a thought.

1-I like the idea of being truly a stardust, i think God loves me just as much no matter what formed me (my ancestors, that is)

2- Lawrence Krauss, are you kidding me? Could he just do what he does best and stick to physics and astronomy and spare us the ineptness of his theological remarks. We are stardust, the Earth is less than a speck of dust, meaninglesss and lost in a huge, I mean huge universe, these two things are his premises to his Earth-shattering conclusion: God doesn’t exist. Just wow. See, this is the problem: when men of science remove their lab coat and “grace” us with their conjectures (without the elements of conjecture like perhaps, maybe, we can imagine that, it might be, we might conclude etc.) dressed as hard facts. I happen to think the sheer magnitude of God’s creation says more about his omnipotence and almighty-ness than it says about his lack of existence.

3- Don’t worry about creatine. If it doesn,t agree with you, you’ll get (some mild) gastric distress (in that case, try switching sources or stop taking it altogether)

 

[Julia_Mae]

Science is the study of the created realm, anything/anyone beyond it is simply beyond its scope.

Here’s the thing though: outside of God, it’s ALL the “created realm.” Including the Eternity to which we will all be going. Genesis tells us a lot of great truths and also facts in the symbolism of the Garden. Adam and Eve lived somewhere that God was. Where there is no death.

That plane and this one are separated - angel with flaming sword - but science is beginning to crack the glass between those worlds. It happens at every Mass. It happened when the Temple veil was rent and people saw their dead relatives walking about in Jerusalem. It happens every time Mary appears to us. Every time a prayer is answered.

Science is beginning to study that created realm as well.

 

[Kathryn_Ann]

I think the Big Bang disproves God. That is the only reason I cannot believe in God.

Why do you think the fact of the Big Bang still has room for God?

Whenever I think about the “Big Bang,” I have faith that it is our Heavenly Father, the Lord of Life, clapping His Hands:clapping: together in joy, to begin His creation! Have faith! God is the Father of all good things, and Lord of all life.

 

[JerryZ]

for one a Catholic Priest came up with the theory

**The Big Bang has lost its theoretical foundation, which was the Doppler interpretation of redshift (linking redshift to the stretching of light wavelengths as objects move away from us).
**

:twocents:

hope this helps
Shalom
God Bless

Unfortunately the quote that I bolded out is not supported with the latest measurements done with satellites in orbit.

The Big Bang Theory (BBT) as it’s name implies is a Work in Progress. That means that science will keep observing, measuring, calculate, refine until we have 100% certainty of the Theory predictions in which case we declare it to be a Law of Nature or if we find it wanting then we have to come up with a better Theory to explain what we observe.

THAT is a the Scientific Method.

Your assertion that the BBT has been abandoned is totally unfounded and incorrect.

First one of the hipotesis of the BBT was that there should be a “Signature” the remains of the event that should be observable even at this stage in the evolution of the universe.

This signature is the cosmic microwave background (CMB) that is present everywhere we look at in the universe. Observations made here on earth hinted at this and a satellite mission was launched into space to look for it. The name of the satellite is WMAP.

The WMAP mission did find and measure the cosmic microwave backgroud (CMB) and you can read more about this here:

map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_tests_cmb.html

One of the questions we have with the BBT is what is the age of the universe?
Measurements done here on earth gave fairly wide ranges of ages from 9 to 14 Billions years.
The main problem is that the expansion rate is proportional to the amount of mass present in the universe.

By the way Hubble (The Telescope) and other observation satellites in orbit keep returning positive evidence that the universe IS indeed expanding and you can read more info on this here:

nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/news/spitzer20121003.html

Through the mesurements done with the WMAP satellite we have been able to calculate the most accurate aproximation to the age of the universe to date which is 13.7 Billion years with an accuracy of 1% and you can read more on this here:

map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_age.html

So up to now we keep building on the observations and measurements and so far no one has come up with a better theory of why the universe seems to be expanding.
The Big Bang Theory it still is the best model to explain the observable phenomena.

There is no hidden agenda, for what is it to gain from hiding the information from the public?

Hope this sheds some light into the issue.

 

[JerryZ]

1-I like the idea of being truly a stardust, i think God loves me just as much no matter what formed me (my ancestors, that is)

2- Lawrence Krauss, are you kidding me? Could he just do what he does best and stick to physics and astronomy and spare us the ineptness of his theological remarks. We are stardust, the Earth is less than a speck of dust, meaninglesss and lost in a huge, I mean huge universe, these two things are his premises to his Earth-shattering conclusion: God doesn’t exist. Just wow. See, this is the problem: when men of science remove their lab coat and “grace” us with their conjectures (without the elements of conjecture like perhaps, maybe, we can imagine that, it might be, we might conclude etc.) dressed as hard facts. I happen to think the sheer magnitude of God’s creation says more about his omnipotence and almighty-ness than it says about his lack of existence.

3- Don’t worry about creatine. If it doesn,t agree with you, you’ll get (some mild) gastric distress (in that case, try switching sources or stop taking it altogether)

Isn’t that a sorry statement to make to be able to see that yes we are formed of atoms that were created in the hearts of stars and not grasp the creative genius of God behind it all. It truly brings to focus the words of our Lord “They will see with their eyes but they will be blind”
We can do nothing but pray that God grants them the Holy Spirit so they too can really see!