What to believe about creation? Science or Religion?

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The developer of that theory was a Catholic Priest and professor of physics. The atheists of the day rediculed the idea, not because it was not true, but because it seemed inconsistent with their beliefs. The term 'big bang theory' was origionally a pejorative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema ître

Also I see no contradiction between evolution and my religious beliefs.

This is a difficult situation.

Here's the fundamental problem:
1) Evolution says that everything that exists is a result of undirected processes, showing no signs of purpose/guidance/patterns not explained by physical laws, that man's nature is continuous with the rest of the animal kingdom, and that man's imperfections are a result of these natural evolutionary processes
2) Christianity says that God intentionally put the world into order with certain results in mind, that man's nature is not continuous with the rest of the animal kingdom but rather that man is in God's image and with special properties as the imago dei, and that man was made perfect but that the fall caused the flaws of the world including the moral flaws.

The problem is that those two stories appear to have a contradiction.

Evolution says things are undirected, but Christianity says that God directed it. Maybe God directed it in a manner that looks undirected, but that's kind of silly because that's completely not what to expect a purposeful agent to do and at best is confusing and God would have no reason to do that.

Evolution says that man's nature is continuous with the rest of the animal kingdom because the human race evolved from other animals and the properties of being human are a result of this genetic history, but Christianity says that man is special, that man has special properties unlike those of animals(like free will, moral nature, etc). Now, we can argue that maybe free will is an emergent property that evolved from pre-free wills that came about because of the seemingly undirected plan of God, but I don't think the notion of a pre-free will is plausible or likely to emerge from a materialistic evolution, and I cannot construct what pathway this would take to get there. Also, we can argue that the moral psychology that we tend to ascribe to evolution was really a matter of God's plan that appeared undirected, but that we really do have a moral psychology reflecting God's law written on our hearts put in place by this rather unconventional process, but... this will lead to some oddities in that it suggests that God's morality is really similar to what we would expect from selfish genes and their successes, and this seems a bit odd, not impossible with the nature of the planning though.

Finally, as I stated, evolution believes that the flaws and weaknesses of mankind are really the result of an evolutionary process, but Christianity blames the fall. I don't know how to reconcile those two beliefs though. If a fall occurs, then we should expect some(if not most depending on your interpretation of Genesis) traits that are bad according to the Christian religion, but that really did not evolve. Maybe they *appear to have evolved*, but... that just seems odd once again. We shouldn't believe that would be the default state, just as we shouldn't believe we are on the Truman Show http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truman_Show instead of reality, but... it's not impossible; I just don't think it's plausible.

Really, I would suggest that you not just leap to the conclusion "They are OBVIOUSLY COMPATIBLE" because there are real questions. I also will tell you that I think you should not take anybody's post/idea, including my own, as a final answer. Just continue to think about it and explore this tension. I mean, the mere statement "they are compatible" doesn't give you why some people have the question and it doesn't help you become a more informed person.

Occam's razor.

I just think it is either engaging oneself with the natural world or just simply engaging oneself with ancient dogma. I choose the former.

so do i.

it is impossible in my mind that there was a time before there was any manifestation.
many people say there was nothing in the universe before the "big bang", and i can not fit that into my mind.

how can entirity spring from zero? it must have been a miracle if the universe exploded into existence from nothingness.

there is no such thing as nothing.

i do not believe in miracles or accidents (they are on the same continuum of speculation in my mind).
an "accident" implies that something miraculous intervened to cause a problem, and that there was no justifiable or calculable cause. all accidents are unrealized mistakes as far as i am concerned,

miracles can not happen.


if there is a god as people think of, then he is omnipotent, and there is no error at all in his determination of universal unfolding. a "miracle" would imply that he had to fix a bug in his universal program code, and if god is omnipotent and omni sentient, he could not have made a mistake that must be fixed with a "miracle" (cheating).

the fact is that material existence has been in reality for an infinite amount of time.

there can not have been a time when nothing was in existence, because nothing can spring from nothing.

the big bang as i believe is just one breath cycle of the universe that always existed.

i have a universal bubble surface tension theory that explains to me why things seem to be accelerating away from the core of their inspiration, and i believe all matter is drawn to the surface of the universal bubble which eventually pops and the "droplets" rain down into the core again and i am talking on a cosmological scale.

big bangs and big reductions are like a universal respiratory cycle in my mind.

it seems clear to me, but i am not very smart so i will don my helmet in deference to insulters as i go to sleep.

yes i know i am not smart enough to talk in PPR, but i could not care about that,

It wouldn't surprise me if physicists eventually show that there is currently "nothing" if everything in the universe is "summed", in a similar way that mathematical zero can be expressed as something and its opposite i.e. 0 = 1 - 1. From our perspective we are simply viewing/living in a small part of the equation of reality and it appears to be "something".

just a fold in a fractal excistence,

well in truth i like the beauty and simplicity of the new boundary proposal,
there is no outside of this universe and there is no beginning, so no creator is needed.

Here's how I see it:

On the one hand, we have religion expressing several creation stories with the admonition that you should believe them or you are committing a sin, especially if you can refute the stories with reason and verifiable facts.

On the other hand we have science proposing a sequence of theories that account for life, the universe, and everything; plus science provides access to the evidence and invites refinement and even refutation of those same theories.

On the gripping hand, each individual must ultimately decide for him- or her-self what to believe.

I believe I'll have another beer!

I think that if you want to make sense of the apparent disparity between science and religion you have to be able to separate out fact from truth. The scientific method is brilliant for uncovering facts and explaining in practical terms how the universe functions, but regretfully it does not show us the whole picture. Religion must be use to add colour to that picture and to help us find the underlying truths which shape our world. Both look at the same world from complimentary viewpoints. This is not just me being diplomatic; it’s how I see the world. I love science, learning and rationality; they are the means by which I control and order my life; they are as important to me as breathing. But spirituality, identity, meaning and purpose are just as important; they are the things that tell me who I am and where I am going; they are the things which show me why my life is worth living.

I believe physically existing stuff we observe (even time itself) has only been around for 13.7 billion years. So time cannot possibly be older than the physical universe.

Last edited by stgiordanobruno on 25 Dec 2011, 10:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think it had to come from something else. I cannot accept the notion of something from nothing.

ruveyn

Nothingness itself is such an unstable equilibrium we got everything from nothing for the simple reason there was nothing to prevent everything from happening. Nothingness cannot possibly be permanent; otherwise it would be something - Something that gives nothingness some semblance of a "lifetime". Nothingness would be just that, it would not only have no mass and physical dimensions but also no dimension of time, so even a Planck time unit of time would make it something and destabilize it. So far from invoking the concept of a God to create the universe you would have to invoke the concept of a God to prevent it from happening.

im an athiest so i'd go for science(there is more evidence for scientific theories) but i used to be catholic and a pagan and i still believed in both religion and scientific explanations for creation. the thing about the religious version and genesis was that we were always taught that that part of the bible was not to be taken literally. it was meant to say that god created the world but not like that so it didnt really completely contradict theories like the big bang, abiogenesis, darwinism if you worked hard enough to reconcile the two. which i did back then by asking "who set all that in motion?" i never had a problem meshing the two together. it was never "science vs. religion: who will win?" for me.

I have lost count of the questions that theist ask, "Why is the universe something rather than nothing?" My answer is reasonably straight forward, and that is the necessary reality of a multiverse paradigm. Multiple universes exist in every possible physical combination of physical laws so we inevitably find ourselves observing one of those universes where those physical laws are possible. It is a cosmological version of the Goldilocks effect where we inevitably find ourselves in a universe which exists that is friendly to our existence just like the planetary version of the Goldilocks effect where we just happen to exist on a bio-friendly planet because the universe is replete with every possible condition which allow every possible form of planet to exist and as such earth-like planets become a guaranteed certainty. So to answer the question why is the universe something rather than something, the answer is, the universe is everything physically possible. Just as there are planets which are too hot or too cold, there are a plethora of failed universes which are also too hot or too cold for a conscious observer. We do not need God to create one specific type of universe because there is plenty of tell tale evidence that Goldilocks effect works at least on the planetary level. I just feel if there is a God why does he like dead planets? A more satisfactory answer is universe does not need God because it is replete with every possible physical accident.

We don't need God for on a mathematical level for every possible combination of certain lottery numbers to exist inevitably leading to a few winners. Some people winning lotteries attribute divine intervention to their win, but there would be thousands of theists who have just as much faith but failed to win anything, but we never hear of them.

It is impossible to answer that question. To answer any question one must implicitly assume there is some basis on which to answer it, which means the question of something v nothing is begged.

The question itself is nonsensical.

ruveyn