The Big Bang: Why is it still being taught?

[Kyriakos]

^More like the 99,99999999999...% hidden from view

And an idea is not the same as the supposed object it hints at, in the external world. Surely a unicorn seems dumb to you, but as an idea it is not any less dumb than "tv" or "ant" or so on. Ideas are not formed in relation to their existence or not in the plane of material existence. They are formed mentally, and essentially are collections of various mentally connected phenomena, including emotions and other thoughts. So examining the idea of "god" is not dumb at all, and has nothing to do with whether a "god" exists in the material world or not.

 

[luiz]

It always seemed to me that the Big Bang theory is the most "creationist-friendly" of the valid scientific theories for the origins of the universe. That's why the Catholic Church is quite receptive to it. After all, the Big Bang almost begs the question of who put that big bunk of energy there, what existed before time, etc etc.

The alternative theories (IIRC which mostly postulate that the universe(s) has always existed, in different forms) is far more damaging to the God hypothesis.

 

[Borachio]

I think for a lot of these people there is a balance going on. On one end of the scale is everything they've ever been taught, the people who taught it to them (elders, parents, relatives, teachers, people they respect), the community at large who believes such things, the long history of their church, what they've based their entire life on, and so on. That's some heavy crap!

On the other end of the scale you have people who dare to suggest that some things they believe are wrong. Obviously they must mistaken. There just isn't enough on the scale to tip things the other way, even if you present facts and even though the scientific theory is accepted by modern scientists as the best (and only) explanation we have.

I think for the most part it's an ego and sense of community and belonging thing. They've put their entire lives into this belief - and now you want them to denounce everything they've been taught, paint their elders, teachers, religious leaders, parents, etc. as liars? Or people who don't know what they're talking about? Nah man, it's much easier to dismiss the truth and assume that the community is right. You can't just have the community crumble away like that!

That's how I explain it anyway. These people have their minds made up - God MUST exist and he MUST HAVE created the world. That's the only possible scenario. Everything else is details and people trying to get God out of everything.

That's not how I remember growing up at all. When I was an adolescent the world was full of people of my age jumping up and down screaming at everyone, whether they listened or not, over the age of 30 that they were entirely wrong about absolutely everything. Whether they were really wrong or not.

Have things changed that much? Do young people no longer question their "elders and betters" for no other reason than being older and "better"?

 

[warpus]

^More like the 99,99999999999...% hidden from view

And an idea is not the same as the supposed object it hints at, in the external world. Surely a unicorn seems dumb to you, but as an idea it is not any less dumb than "tv" or "ant" or so on. Ideas are not formed in relation to their existence or not in the plane of material existence. They are formed mentally, and essentially are collections of various mentally connected phenomena, including emotions and other thoughts. So examining the idea of "god" is not dumb at all, and has nothing to do with whether a "god" exists in the material world or not.

Why would you think that I think that a unicorn is a dumb idea? It's a pretty neat idea I think! Same with God.

I don't see where this conversation is going by the way. We seem to agree that you can use psychology to study the impact of the idea of God on the human mind, and that for now you just can't use physics, chemistry, biology, or any physical science to study that idea - because it's just an idea.

I don't get where the iceberg metaphor fits in, because like I said you're just making things up. There are of course things we do not know, but you are convinced that you know exactly how much we don't know - and seem to imply that God is hiding in there somewhere. Is this what you mean? And how do you know? It's pure conjecture, not based on anything.

That's not how I remember growing up at all. When I was an adolescent the world was full of people of my age jumping up and down screaming at everyone, whether they listened or not, over the age of 30 that they were entirely wrong about absolutely everything. Whether they were really wrong or not.

Have things changed that much? Do young people no longer question their "elders and betters" for no other reason than being older and "better"?

Good point, but a lot of the people who speak up for creationism seem to be either adults or people just entering adulthood. They've survived the "I do what I want" stage in life and now want to be seen as upstanding members of society. That means standing up for their beliefs and the beliefs of the community.

 

[Kyriakos]

Why would you think that I think that a unicorn is a dumb idea? It's a pretty neat idea I think! Same with God.

I don't see where this conversation is going by the way. We seem to agree that you can use psychology to study the impact of the idea of God on the human mind, and that for now you just can't use physics, chemistry, biology, or any physical science to study that idea - because it's just an idea.

I don't get where the iceberg metaphor fits in, because like I said you're just making things up. There are of course things we do not know, but you are convinced that you know exactly how much we don't know - and seem to imply that God is hiding in there somewhere. Is this what you mean? And how do you know? It's pure conjecture, not based on anything.

What? I never claimed that "god is hiding in there somewhere". I am agnostic, remember?

As for what we know: i do indeed think we know currently very little (up to almost infinitesimal) of what there is to know. Definitely your "90%" unknown seems to be hugely miscalculated.

 

[El_Machinae]

^More like the 99,99999999999...% hidden from view

You cannot estimate how much is hidden from view.
I can just as easily declare that only 10% is hidden from view, and it's wrapped up in 'currently unknown psychological tendencies'

 

[Kyriakos]

You cannot estimate how much is hidden from view.
I can just as easily declare that only 10% is hidden from view, and it's wrapped up in 'currently unknown psychological tendencies'

You could. Do you actually believe so?

I mean probability theory does not support you on that either, given that even if one more factor was unknown, that in its connections with the factors we already do know would rather create a lot more than just a fraction of unknowns

Eg (very general, of course, just to illustrate the point) if you knew of factors A, B, and C, and then discovered there was a D there too, then it would be pretty wrong to claim that you just needed 10% more cases to cover than before, even if we could assume that the rest were fully explained and that the D was merely an added factor and not one which inhibits systemically the previous known ones as well.

So even in such a scenario you would be looking at more than 100% new unknowns, just from a sole new factor theorised upon/modelled in.

 

[El_Machinae]

Yes, I am reasonably sure that we have the majority of the information already to explain the psychological urge to believe in a god.

 

[Kyriakos]

Yes, I am reasonably sure that we have the majority of the information already to explain the psychological urge to believe in a god.

Great.
But who cared about that? (even if one forgoes the urge to notice how ill-chosen the term "explain" was on your sentence).

Personally i was talking about what remains unknown from the cosmos, to our current science. "God" as an idea is part of the mental world, and science is an intricate rise from the human mental world as well.

 

[Borachio]

Yes, I am reasonably sure that we have the majority of the information already to explain the psychological urge to believe in a god.

Isn't religious belief really good at treating anxiety?

http://catholicexchange.com/religion-and-anxiety

 

[Bulldog Bats]

Think I've said it before in other posts, but I don't see Genesis and the Big Bang/evolution as mutually exclusive. Unless you hold that a Genesis day is the equivalent to a 24 hour earth day, the descriptions are not that dissimilar:

"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." (Genesis 1:2-3) - sounds like the big bang to me

"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters" (6). " And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good." (9-10) Sounds like high school science talking about how the planets were formed.

And so on from there - Genesis sounds like how the earth developed. Even land animals coming after sea creatures, then man.

Instead of insisting that they are mutually exclusive, why not consider how it dovetails?

 

[warpus]

What? I never claimed that "god is hiding in there somewhere". I am agnostic, remember?

As for what we know: i do indeed think we know currently very little (up to almost infinitesimal) of what there is to know. Definitely your "90%" unknown seems to be hugely miscalculated.

You seem to be sure of the fact that we don't know squat about anything and you seem to imply that the parts that we don't know squat about contain magical stuff of some sort.

Isn't it better to leave stuff we don't know about alone until we figure out what it is or if it even exists?

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I think the main thing that needs saying here is that all the flaws and unknown factors and fudges in the Big Bang theory are pretty much always taught alongside the theory itself. You're presented with the known facts, you're presented with the most widely accepted model that fits those facts, you're shown where the model either doesn't fit or what allowances had to be made to make it fit, and you'll be taught about (rational) alternatives. At this point it might even be suggested that the people being taught may like to enter the field and try to answer some of these outstanding questions themselves. Encouraged to be part of the process, rather than simply lectured to.

The day the Big Bang theory is taught as a doctrine that must be learnt, worshipped, and never questioned, is the day Creationists will have a leg to stand on in this "debate".

 

[History_Buff]

It always seemed to me that the Big Bang theory is the most "creationist-friendly" of the valid scientific theories for the origins of the universe. That's why the Catholic Church is quite receptive to it. After all, the Big Bang almost begs the question of who put that big bunk of energy there, what existed before time, etc etc.

The alternative theories (IIRC which mostly postulate that the universe(s) has always existed, in different forms) is far more damaging to the God hypothesis.

Well the Big Bang model doesn't actually state that the universe hasn't existed forever. What it does say is that before our universe looks like it does, it used to look like that huge, dense ball of energy, and we can't say what was happening then, or what happened before, because we don't really know much about how things work at those preposterously high energy levels. I personally suspect we never will, and that that totally doesn't matter.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I think the main thing that needs saying here is that all the flaws and unknown factors and fudges in the Big Bang theory are pretty much always taught alongside the theory itself. You're presented with the known facts, you're presented with the most widely accepted model that fits those facts, you're shown where the model either doesn't fit or what allowances had to be made to make it fit, and you'll be taught about (rational) alternatives. At this point it might even be suggested that the people being taught may like to enter the field and try to answer some of these outstanding questions themselves. Encouraged to be part of the process, rather than simply lectured to.

The day the Big Bang theory is taught as a doctrine that must be learnt, worshipped, and never questioned, is the day Creationists will have a leg to stand on in this "debate".

Manfred Belheim, douze points.

 

[Bulldog Bats]

The day that ANY scientific theory is not open to further question is when we are in trouble.

 

[El_Machinae]

Instead of insisting that they are mutually exclusive, why not consider how it dovetails?

We did consider how it dovetails. The order in Genesis is too different from what we saw in reality, so I don't see what's really to consider.
"Stopped clock right twice a day" is hardly a headline. Nearly any listing of a creation order will have by chance one or two placings that look correct.

 

[Kyriakos]

You seem to be sure of the fact that we don't know squat about anything and you seem to imply that the parts that we don't know squat about contain magical stuff of some sort.

Isn't it better to leave stuff we don't know about alone until we figure out what it is or if it even exists?

Not what i claimed.

I claimed something far closer to noting that if two elementary schoolers try to prove or disprove Riemann by using mere arithmetic, well, regardless of their method, they won't actually provide a proof.

Likewise, if we have by now formed only a small part of the terminology we would need to ever approach the issues of cosmic importance, it follows that currently we cannot make the claim that we are set on a good path.
I mean even the theory of gravity, along with the math ideas it shaped specifically (related to the usual limits to infinity/infinitesimal amounts and differences etc) was not around until 400 years ago. And those maths that Newton created, are being viewed as part of the issue with the theories of cosmic origin. It seems fairly obvious that if those notions are altered, even a bit, the new theories and models will be quite different.

Like Bane said: It doesn't matter who we are; what matters is our plan

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." (Genesis 1:2-3) - sounds like the big bang to me

In what way?

There was water, and a shapeless Earth which was void before the Big Bang?

"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters" (6). " And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good." (9-10) Sounds like high school science talking about how the planets were formed.

Hang on a couple of minutes. How does this describe the gas to dust to rock to planetary impact to cooling down process of planets being formed?

It only says there was water, then land appeared. That is a pretty far cry from high school science on planet formation. At least I hope so for high school's sake.

The passage merely says: There was a lot of water, then land appeared. And if you're talking planet formation, there first was a whole lot of land. Hot volcanic sun cream factor <big number> land. Then water appeared. Then there may have been a time when Earth was covered with water, but there hardly is conclusive proof.

Furtherfurthermore, the waters did not gather in one place to make land appear. Land went ambitious and reached for the, pardon the term, heavens. I'm claiming you've got to really want to have Genesis describe the actual events to claim it described the actual events.

Now if you claimed, the Big Bang and a Divinely created Universe are not mutually exclusive, you've got a point. If you are going to try to make the specifications lined out in Genesis fit what we know about the creation of the Earth and the Universe, you've got another thing coming. I accept the possibility, however remote, that the Universe is Divinely Created. More accurately, I cannot contest it. I will not accept someone telling me precisely how this was done with only his or her say so to go on. Science doesn't claim the Universe was created by the Big Bang. Science claims it's an explanation that best fit the observations. In this regard Science is honest where Religion is not.

 

[Borachio]

I agree.

Genesis is a poetical, allegorical creation myth, and not to be confused with a scientific description at all. Even an inaccurate scientific description.

They belong in different categories, imo.