THE problem with the Big Bang theory for compromising Christian & Jewish theistic evolutionists like Draco & Gerald Schroeder is that it cannot be reconciled with the Genesis account which states that all the elements were made together, the Earth was formed before the stars, plants were formed before the sun, birds were created before reptiles, and the sun, moon and stars were formed on the Fourth Day after the Earth.

But according to the Big Bang theory, the elements beyond hydrogen and helium were formed after millions of years, the Earth was formed long after the stars, plants evolved after the sun, birds evolved from reptiles, and the sun was formed before the Earth.

:roll:

Why are you bringing up evolution in an astronomy board again?

To which "Big Bang theory", are you referring exactly? Peer-reviewed citations would be nice. From the looks of it, you've lumped several discrete theoretical models under the heading "Big Bang." Was doing so simply a matter of convenience for your agenda?

I'm not a BB theorist (so I'm sure the more qualified on the board will correct me if I'm wrong) but I feel pretty confident in pointing out that the BBT does not address stellar and planetary formation or biological evolution since both occurred long after the BB event itself.

I'm not at all surprised that you can't reconcile BBT with the bible. Pi can't be reconciled with it either.

Neither invalidates the other. They are from completely different frames of reference. However, in this thread I addressed the exact same topic, and here's what I said:

I'm simply saying that it's not too much of a stretch to be able to reconcile BBT and the Bible in part.

I guess I just don't see any good reason to attempt to make the Bible fit the Big Bang theory or vice versa. Two different areas of human concern, governed by two different sets of rules. I see a locked thread ahead. :roll:

Tom, I think we can agree that Genesis teaches that God created a period of time which he labeled 'evening' and 'morning' and then placed the sun (and earth) within that time frame (called a 'day'); but I don't think that's not what Prince is referring to.

He is referring to the instantaneity of creation vs. the long time periods required to believe stellar evolutionary theory based on BB.

And I agree with him. In Genesis we find quite clearly the method by which God created the objects in the universe. He SPOKE them into existence. God "SAID", 'Let there BE light, and there was light'.
GoD SAID, "Let the earth bring forth herbs... and it was so"

God SAID, "Let there be lights in the firmament,......and it was so"

ETC...

This is in stark contrast to that which is envisioned by evolutionary philosophy, and for the Christian & Jew there can be no reconciliation; neither is it necessary. The God of the Bible is an awesome creature with such power and authority that simply at his spoken word all creation obeys Him.

G^2

"The works of the Lord are great; studied by all who have pleasure therein." -- Inscribed in the archway to the entrance of James Clerk Maxwell's Cavendish Laboratory.

This is for Prince:

I've been reading a book which offers another way of reading the Genesis account. It's called God, Time, and Stephen Hawking: An Exploration into Origins by David Wilkinson, a reverend with a PhD in Theoretical Astrophysics. (Monarch Books: London, UK, 2001)

Anyway, there is more, but I don't know how much is legal for quoted text to be placed on such forums. And I appologize for using quoted text, but I knew not how to word this so eloquently.

__________________
"As I lay beneath the Southern Cross, the stars tell more than I could" . . . David Meece

Galileo in his letter to Castelli on Dec. 13, 1613, observed that "scripture deals with natural matters in such a cursory and allusive way that it looks as though it wanted to remind us that its business . . . is about the soul and that, as concerns Nature, it is willing to adjust its language to the simple minds of the people."

Giorgio de Santillana, The Crime of Galileo(Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1955), p. 39.

I think the whole debate this thread deals with is kind of silly. It amazes me that the account of the creation in Genesis is used by people to try and disprove religion and the existance of God. What do you expect it to say? Precisely what would the Hebrews thousands of years ago have thought if Moses had started postulating 20th century scientific knowledge.

Look I know the hard-core (mostly) American fundamentalists make all sorts of ridiculous claims about creationism and Genesis, but they also try to ban Harry Potter. And I disagree with them. There are many Christians who practice science, and there are many scientists who are religious. Statements such as the Big Bang and Genesis cannot be reconciled are IMHO incorrect and irrelevant. There is no reason to expect the Bible to be scientifically viable and absolutely no reason why its even relevant. It's not a scientific text, nor does it claim to be (fundamentalists make claims of the Bible such as inerrancy which the Bible simply does not make), nor can it reasonably be expected to be, nor does the fact that it is not scientific have anything to do with its value, truth or legitimacy.

What I think is true is that a literal interpretation of the Genesis story is inconsistent with empirical observation.

" Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made from the things which do (presently) appear". Heb.11:3

G^2

"The works of the Lord are great; studied by all who have pleasure therein." -- Inscribed in the archway to the entrance of James Clerk Maxwell's Cavendish Laboratory".

Creature? So you're saying He was created and not the Creator?

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~AstroMike

Nice apologistic quote for the fundamentalists to rally around, G^2. In other words, though we see evidence for, say, an old Earth we can safely assume that God made that evidence appear in a manner which we cannot directly observe.

This is a very head-in-the-sand attitude about science, if you ask me. It's completely unfalsifiable. If you see evidence that contradicts your views of the world, well, you say that God somehow planted it to look that way.

While one may chose on principle to walk by faith and not by sight there is no way to show that this is the way we are meant to understand the universe other than by using circular argumentation.

Nein, Herr Astro. I'm saying He is alive and well. I cannot specify what form or shape except to say, according to scripture, HE is infinite and had no beginning or end, and must be totally awesome to have been able to CALL THINGS INTO EXISTENCE OUT OF NOTHING simply by speaking the word. :wink:

G^2

"The works of the Lord are great; studied by all who have pleasure therein." -- Inscribed in the archway to the entrance of James Clerk Maxwell's Cavendish Laboratory.

I only brought it up because your statement actually confirmed the truth already found in scripture. Sorry you took offense.

Why is it when you make the above statement its OK, BUT when you find out its actually in the Bible, you call it "a very head in the sand attitude"?
Don't you realize when you make such critical statements you are actually criticizing yourself?

However I don't condemn you JP. I would just like you to come to grips with the one sided prejudice and judgemental attitude you seem to display every time someone brings up the Bible.

G^2

"The works of the Lord are great; studied by all who have pleasure therein." -- Inscribed in the archway to the entrance of James Clerk Maxwell's Cavendish Laboratory.

I don't take offense at all. I'm simply saying that there is some real philosophical issues with anyone who attempts to connect the observable with the supernatural for the very fact that once something is observed it's by definition natural. In effect, since faith is based not on observation but on intuition, it can never be verified nor contested by science... until it begins to make claims on the observable.

How do certain fundamentalists do this?

• Through insisting on a young earth (which is observationally impossible)
• Through insisting on a global flood (also didn't happen)
• Through insisting on a cosmology and a cosmogony that is necessarily in-line with the first few verses of Genesis (also not literally true).

These are the claims which are made by certain Fundamentalist Christian groups which can be easily be disproven through simple astrophysical and geophysical considerations.

However, the vast majority of Christians don't make claims on these observational facts and so really have no problem getting along with science.

OK, JP; I think I understand where you are coming from now.

However I cannot speak for all the 'fundamentalists' you been exposed to that may have presented what you consider false evidence.

All I can say is what I believe and tell why it is not inconsisitent with literal view to believe God spoke things into existence and also that you won't always be able to determine origins (as you have observed) by trying to 'make it consistent with what is currently observed.

I guess I could ask God to go back and redo things in an evolutionary way (rather than instantaneously) so we can 'see' how he did it, but I don't think that's going to work.

G^2

OK. But you do realize that a creature is generally defined as anything that is created?

Perhaps "The God of the Bible is an awesome entity" is better?

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~AstroMike

Well, OK, I should have just called Him the Awesome Creator.
Do you think He'll ever forgive me?

G^2

"The works of the Lord are great; studied by all who have pleasure therein." -- Inscribed in the archway to the entrance of James Clerk Maxwell's Cavendish Laboratory.

Could I ask for some clarification on that statement. Let's take it to specifics: do you see an issue of interpretation with saying that, for example, the Earth formed out of a protoplanetary disk some 4.8 billion years ago well after the 13.7 billion years ago that the universe began and that life emerged at the unicellular level in the oceans and then moved onto dry land over a period of billions of years even though that contradicts the order in which things were created?

I'm confused, so you don't think there is evidence for an "evolutionary" way in which life developed? Do you think that the universe developed the way modern astronomy describes it developed?

I have had this debate recently on "their" boards (baptist discussing reformed theology, et al)

Basicly they now speek of God creating the universe "up and running" complete with fossel record and with light already in route from distant stars.

Of coures if you belive God would do this, why not belive he created the universe "up and running" last thursday and any memory you have before that time was implanted at creation. That is a very uncomfortable thought for them and no easy argument around it.

But it is rather pointless, I agree.

Please! Don't feed the trolls!!

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my opinion,

read it litterally or not, it's still usless, kuz it's a collection of stories/legends borrowed from previous civilizations and/or invented by humans seeking legitimacy, and attributed to God.

God, if really exists, could not hav made such huuuge mistakes, eg. in Genesis (6-day scenario ), Noah (discussed recently ) etc ....

all came from human brain. and humans do make mistakes.

2 billions sheep still following a couple of sheep who wrote the Bible 2500 years ago.
the sheep effect.

( sorry for true believers, no harm intended, just my opinion )

The Bible makes neither claim, they are interpretations. The world-wide flood is an interpretation, which could easily have been a more localized flood covering what was to them the entire world.

With all due respect, a lot of those 2 billion sheep are much smarter than you or I. I think you should stop and think carefully before casually dismissing some very brilliant minds including countless scientists.

Cable, do me a favor and lay off the fake apologies, okay? Calling people "sheep" is an insult, and you know it. You can't insult people and then say "no harm intended."

If you insist on being derogatory, at least be honest about it.

__________________
SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2010 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

Let me see if I have this straight.

The BB and evolution theories are not consistent with the Biblical account of how the Universe came to be.

OK, I'll buy that.

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Perhaps it would have been better if Prince had said, in his original post, that the underlying premises of the Big Bang theory "cannot be reconciled with a completely literal reading of the Genesis account." Much discussion of interpretational doctrine might have been avoided!

Personally, I think that's what he meant to say and I agree with that statement. (I think JS Princeton meant to agree with it too.)

It's just the centuries-old conflict between scientific uniformitarianism and divine fiat. Driving through Oregon's Coast Range today I was thinking that the layers of sandstone I saw in the roadcuts could be interpreted as laid down in a single miraculous Flood, the various angles of the bedding planes as indicating the slopes of gigantic ripple marks, and the various fractures and faults as the result of post-Flood settling. All one has to do is believe that global geologic processes were not uniform in the past: that things like the accumulation of several thousand feet of layered marine sediments covering more than 600,000 square miles of land (just in the US western Coast Ranges) could occur in about one year.

Geology looks at sedimentation occuring now in the world, extrapolates the findings into the past, and says such an accumulation is profoundly unlikely. Just so with the formation of suns and planets: astronomy looks at the theoretical aspects of gas nebulae, observes the structure of gas and dust clouds in the universe, and extrapolates those processes into the past to account for the formation of the Solar System. Cosmology looks at the laws of physics, and at observations of the Hubble recession, and at the cosmic background radiation, and--assuming a predictable, uniform set of processes--accounts for what the early universe looked like and how it became the one we see today.

That's the bedrock issue: Bible literalists assert that divine fiat makes the assumption of uniform processes in the past flat wrong. However, when science tries to understand the past it assumes that processes were uniform (not that they were always identical to what's happening now, but in the sense that they can be understood by examining present-day processes). Science has to make that assumption because it relies on observation and experiment, and one cannot observe or experiment on the operation of divine miracles.

I think Prince is right: science as we know it today is not compatible with miracles. Miracles are, by definition, not scientifically explicable.

What I still don't understand, is why people insist on saying that because something is written down in a book, it is absolutely true. What makes the Christian theory on world creation any more valid than Native American or Norse world creation stories?

The Bible and BBT aren't compatible because they run on a separate rule system. Try running software made for Windows on a Mac machine and see how the do.

Yes, perhaps the BBT isn't completely true. It's a theory, and a dang good one. But theories in general are always being worked on when new data comes into the equation.

Whereas the Bible has to be interpreted for the meaning, most scientific text is laid out with the data in place, requiring little if any interpretation of its meaning.

The Bible is a collection of stories that promote a certain behavior pattern and recounta a slanted and exaggerated view on that culture's history. If you choose to believe that an almighty entity created the world by just his words, good for you. The Native Americans had a story where Old Man Coyote made the world because he was bored, and ducks were the first creations. The Norse said the world was created from the body and gore of the Frost Giant Ymir. Why isn't that any truer than the accounts in the Bible?

I don't know, Vermonter, the fundamentalist "creation science" people that I know personally would never admit that they are "interpreting" anything in the Bible. They insist that they are taking the words written therin literally, that there is no interpreting going on. Having studied languages extensively during one period of my life, I know that any transalation cannot be done word for word, but must be interpreted by the translator to make sense.
I agree with you completely on your other point though. There is no reason or justification for trying to make the Big Bang and the Bible agree. Why? If you believe, you believe, and you should not need the justification of science to back up that belief. The only possible reason for trying to reconcile the two is to make it possible to introduce "creation science" into public schools. I have absolutely no problem with anyone out there believing in any god or deity (including Ba Witda) or philosophy that gets them through the day--go for it. It's when folks start insisting that everyone else has to accept their belief system that I get cranky.

Good observation. I really didn't have a problem with religion in general (being from a Roman Catholic church) until I noticed how pushy some people become of what you should believe in. Through studying mythology, some of the old religions were just as bad about which deity in the pantheon you had faith in. That has lead to many problems in the world history. Look at the crisis going on in the Middle East with the different Muslim sects, for instance.

I think that if "Creation Science" as they call it, is let into schools, that would be disastrous from a science POV. There are reasons in the USA why there is a separation between Church and State, and that's one of them.

Bottom line, it has to do with belief in God and who God is. It would be hypocritical to believe in the God of the Bible (as either a Christian or a Jew) and not believe in God as the Creator and sustainer of life and all that is.

I know scientist are frustrated with Creationists for trying to screw-up scientists, but Christians (and Jews -which I am assuming Prince is based on a statement in a prior thread) are frustrated with scientists and philosophers and what-not for trying to dictate their beiefs. (It doesn't matter if that is the intent or not, but that is how it comes across more often than not.) It all boils down to the problem we have as humans of only being able to give so much leeway to beliefs contrary to our own. Even those who are "open-minded" and claim to respect others beliefs draw the line when another's beliefs infringes on their own core beliefs. Thus, an "open-minded" person cannot stand a belief that is "close-minded." Likewise, scientists have a hard time stomaching beliefs that go against science (HB'ers, YEC'ers, etc.). Religion (or at least belief in God) likewise has a hard time with beliefs that cut religion (God) out of the equation.

So, it's like plate techtonics. When a strong forces (belief) collides with another, one of three things will happen. It will either subdue the other and rise higher, be subdued and shrink, or continually rub shoulders (try to work out the seeming contradictions without denying either). That's what makes things so difficult. Science may be inhuman, but scientists are - just as much as religious folk.

Now the person who can get humanity to agree will get the Nobel peace prize.

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"As I lay beneath the Southern Cross, the stars tell more than I could" . . . David Meece