PHILOSOPHICAL LANGUAGE & THOUGHT
We don't really know how seriously people believed in these myths. Most scientists and philosophers supposed that the universe was infinite - it had always existed and always would, but from time to time it was demolished then reformed in some sort of apocalypse or war.
|
In the 1920s there was a shocking discovery. First, Georges Lemaître, a Belgian priest, published a mathematical argument for the universe having a beginning. Lemaître suggested the universe had expanded out of a "primeval atom" or "cosmic egg". Lemaître's views were rejected by most scientists. Even Einstein (whose theories were the basis for Lemaître's calculations) was dubious.
However, a year later Edwin Hubble published the findings from his Mount Wilson Observatory. Hubble confirmed that the visible universe was expanding - galaxies were getting further apart. His observations made it possible to work out how fast the universe was expanding and then "work backwards" to the beginning of the universe, 14 billion years ago. Like most scientists, Hubble resisted Lemaître's conclusions; scientists in the 1920s and '30s preferred the steady state theory of an infinitely old and stable universe, but the theory of the expanding universe gathered more and more evidence. |
Georges Lemaître, priest and astronomer
|
|
|
6 minute video outlines the "Big Bang" Theory
|
7 minute video outlining our current scientific knowledge
|
|
|
10 minute video outlining problems with Big Bang Theory and one alternative - plus jokes
|
9 minute video outline 5 alternative theories - and lots of jokes
|
YES
For centuries, religions claimed that the universe had a beginning because it was revealed in their sacred texts. Then science proved them right! The most powerful and accessible Cosmological Argument is the Kalam Argument and this always claimed the universe had a beginning but now there is evidence to support that.
Following science and logic all the way back to the moment of the "Big Bang" but then not looking for one more cause - the ultimate explanation - is the Taxicab Fallacy. It's an example of following science only as long as it agrees with your atheist beliefs then "jumping out" when it points to the existence of God.
|
NO
The "Big Bang" doesn't prove that the story in Genesis is true: it was 14 billion years ago and it didn't last 6 days. The fact that the universe has a beginning doesn't prove it was caused by someone or something outside the universe. It could just be a "brute fact". Expanding for no reason might be something universes just do!
Scientists conclude that the conditions inside the 'singularity' that produced the "Big Bang" did not observe scientific laws: there was no cause-and-effect and no before-and-after. This means you can't propose things to "come before" or "cause" the Big Bang. These ideas only work within the expanding universe, not inside the singularity.
|