Does the Bible contradict the Big Bang Theory?

[Neil]

Keep your mind open and have no preconceptions.

There are two answers to this question I have proposed depending on how you perceive the question. If you have a grudge against Christianity in general, get rid of it or don't participate in this discussion.

A lot of people say that evolution and the Bible contradict. This is not so. According to chemistry, everything has evolved throughout the history of Earth. Evolutionists say that species change according to natural selection.

I have been thinking about stuff lately. Not ordinary stuff, but the kind of stuff that deals with questioning our existence. I have grown up in a Christian home my whole life and have seen the kinds of miracles God can perform, but I had to put those things aside while thinking.

The Big Bang happened 13.7 billion years ago. From that came the universe, including the Milky Way, which Earth is part of. The first misconception with non-Christians happens when they read the first verse of Genesis regarding the creation of Heaven and Earth. Understand that it is the creation of Heaven and Earth, not the creation of the universe. Theoretically, the universe was created 13.7 billion years ago. However, the Earth is under 5 billion years old. No contradictions here.

Next, we have the creation of man. It would not be logical to think that God simply pointed at the Earth and created man. It would be logical to believe that between the Earth's creation some 5 billion years ago and man's appearance some 6 thousand years ago, organic molecules bonded to create the necessary structure for a human. Human reproduction cells (sperm and zygote) are created under ideal conditions, and if the conditions were correct, Adam could have been the result of the first fertilization (this does seem illogical, but it's just a thought). The Bible simply states that man was created, although this is quite vague. There is no documentation prior to the first man, as there were no people on Earth to know about that.

There are lots of questions regarding the creation of the universe, evolution, creation of man, and so on. It would require a lot of time, knowledge, and money to investigate what really happened. I'm looking forward to having a good discussion on this topic.

[Mr.Fraud]

just my two cents, religion is one thing and science is another, you basically cannot put the two in a same box because they differ in most things, contradicting each other. Taking serious thoughts on how to connect these two world would just make you crazy. ending up in extraordinary lame theories and stories. and what if both are not true and just made up stories, where would you go...

archeologist can't even go beyond the line connecting these two different worlds. maybe due to lack of resources and more evidences for their theories and analysis. and that if they cross the line they would only end up in a world full of mist where you can't basically see anything.

going beyond a certain level of history is a mysterious place, nobody knows because nobody existed. those level of history has been eaten away by time with no witness to tell the story, not much evidence to justify story.

if bigbang does really occurs, nobody knows. since no one had really encountered or witnessed such thing happening. and that we don't know how to harness enough energy (nuclear fusion power) and concepts of cosmic magnetism of some sort to even try it in a secured laboratory.

i have encountered before a website connecting science to religion, i forgot the site though, but reading the site really shocked me, they are like making a story between a gap of a story. and its pretty weird really, almost mocking concepts from one side to another, theories made within a theory. i guess, humans are borne to have greater creativity than other species.

just my opinion, if you are devout to a religion, believe in it, have it, it's free. if you are inspired by science, do as well, information are free. you can have both, but you cannot combine them as one. don't try to connect two different world, and make theories about it, these conjunctions are only for those crazy people with vast amount of creativity.

one more thing, you do have knowledge and resources about science, analysing the phrases above, yes you do have that talent in science. but there is one question. have you read the bible cover to cover, those thousands of pages and not missing a part of it unprecedented, understood well and enough. if you have... you'll see my point. from page X to page 1 and up to page what-so-ever, the only concept you'll see is miracles which is the essence of it ... or whatever.... with no justification how things are to be explained. and that there is those lines i forgot where, and works something like... "leave those things as what it is, have faith.", it's my perception of those biblical lines i forgot where. i did have a hard time reading book of job though, too much poetry and analogy...can't stand it..can't breathe.. my mind is bleeding understanding its concept of faith and miracles.

and this line.. "be blind to what you see, be deaf to what you here", i don't know if i got that right but somehow it works that way. this phrase never got out of my mind up even now ofcourse, i do still remember it. i think it is written somewhere the new testament. which ofcourse contradicts science, which has a concept of know-what-how-why foundation.
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Im just a "Fresh-Starter"... You don't need to be harsh on me, really... and I got no religion

[Mr.Fraud]

and another thing about the last paragraph. religion does imply to its believers to limit their knowledge, whereas too much information in science will definitely kills anyones faith. it just weird though that it has been foretold right from the past. and is happening now... science can kill religion, as religion can suppress science because of faith. that is its war... i guess.

and how does that happen, because the essence of faith is sole belief, without question... you don't ask why to god if you are a true believer because of faith. but too much knowledge produces amounts of doubt. and a little bit of those doubts will stain your faith. and it goes on and on. more doubts, more questions, more why-how-what-and-when. doubt does kills faith, as faith supresses doubts... much as a cycle.
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Im just a "Fresh-Starter"... You don't need to be harsh on me, really... and I got no religion

[Josh]

I don't think they contradict, no. I personally beleive in it anyway.

Check out progressive creationism.

http://godandscience.org/young.....ssive.html

There are a bunch of other great articles on it at that site as well. Also, answersincreation.org is another good old-earth creationist site.

[Nick1337]

Like it has been said before it really depends on how you perceive The Bible. I personally believe in Progressive Creationism. It seems to make sense if you think of the fact that time in God's eyes and time in our eyes is enormously different. What also influences ones opinions on creation is the doctrine they believe in. I am a Mormon and they really leave areas like this open-ended. Many of the notable members have written numerous books on end-times and creation type stuff. All of this is their own opinions supported by doctrine.

Once again the "alleged" contradiction absolutely depends on how strong your faith is and what you beleive in.

I am sure some of the stuff I said has probably already been stated but I am just voicing my opinion. Thank you

[Xtreme]

Short answer: no.

Better answer: by no logical measure at all do the two contradict.

Even better:

The Big Bang Theory was originally propsed by a Catholic priest. Granted, the details have been refined, but the point is that a person who has dedicated their life to theology and growing closer to God probably didn't think that His scientific idea presented any insurmountable theological problem. Otherwise he wouldn't have published it based on the understanding that True theology and true science cannot contradict.

[Grimoire]

xtreme could have summed up what he meant a lot more easily than that. Basically, as far as he's concerned, anything that science discovers, even if it completely contradicts the thinking of theists in the past, can immediately be explained by saying 'that's the way god designed it to happen, so I'm still right and god still exists and did everything, and anyone who says otherwise is just a BIG FAT LIAR'
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Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.
- Emil Zola

[Xtreme]

[Grimoire]

THE fact is, that as a believer in god, and therefore a believer that god created everything, your point of view must be that everything science discovers about how things work must be seen as god's work, and therefore, you can buy into it 100%.
It shouldn't matter to you want science comes up with, it's only up to you to decide if what they're saying has been arrived at though logical methods, but regardless, it should make little difference to you.
When you have an outlook as simple as 'god did it all, and that's that' no further explanation is necessary.
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Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.
- Emil Zola

[linuxdoctor]

This question really boils down to the conflict between religion and science. As the adherents to science berate religionists for their belief in God and challenges them to prove His existence, the average person never bothers to ask the science adherent to prove the truth of science.

This, of course, is an impossible task. Science cannot be proved to be true. In fact, it can quiet easily to shown that science can never know the truth at all. This can easily be done by noting that the empirical sciences rely on observational data to verify their theories. The precision of the science is limited to the precision of the data. If you have crude data, your resulting theories will also be crude. Witness the progress from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican, Kepler and Einsteinian view of the solar system. Each relied on progressively more accurate observational data to arrive at a more accurate picture of reality.

However, the process of refinement in accuracy is itself finite and therefore one can go only so far in being able to get the true picture. The impossibility of attaining infinite precision means it is impossible for science to attain absolute truth.

Science then relies on faith that it is correct. Scientists believe in the process of science if not necessarily its results. In fact, considering the history of science and attitudes towards it by scientists themselves, science has been notoriously inaccurate in its theories. Fifty years ago Plate Tectonics was nonsense, today it is the accept theory for the behavior of the Earth's crust.

One must, therefore, question anyone who insists on sneering on those who believe in God while accepting science as true. It isn't, and I challenge anybody here to prove that it is. I am, after all a mathematician and scientist, so I should know.
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Misanthrope: someone who realizes that humans really are as stupid as they appear.

If you think I'm 'politically' incorrect you have the wrong politics.

[clpo13]

I don't think it's necessarily about truth. Certain people accept science because it's more testable than religion. I mean, if you're dubious about gravity, you can perform a simple test to prove it. Science is about hypotheses and experiments (with a little bit of faith for the far-fetched stuff). Religion, on the other hand, is all about faith. You can try to test God, but what kind of experiment can you devise to prove God? Science may make wild claims, but they can be tested. The claims of religion, though, rarely can be tested.
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"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." --Thomas Jefferson

[img:cd1c8454aa]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y57/clpo13/anothersig1.jpg[/img:cd1c8454aa]

[linuxdoctor]

[Grimoire]

Absolute and complete nonsense.
The hearsay, anecdotes and fantasies of the random collection of nutcases who have been dead for a few thousand years, and had as much knowledge about the world as a 5 year old child has today, is worthless.
Therefore, any conclusions based upon 'the scriptures', no matter how good the logic used, is worthless by definition.
You may as well make a hypothesis about the universe and meaning of life based on the movie 'Men in Black', since it would carry as much relevance as basing it on scriptures or prophets.
And what a pathetic tactic, pointing to the few issue in science which are still in debate. That's the beauty of science, that people don't close their minds and are happy to accept new evidence and change.
You forgot to mention what science has achieved, it's made the modern world we all enjoy today, and leaves us better off that any time in history.
That is evidence enough that the scientific method works, all the results that are constantly produced using it prove that beyond a dougbt, unless you're suggesting that they're all just blind coincidences or luck.
Of course there is a long way to go, science has only seriously been around for 400 years, and the universe is an immense and complicated place, but sooner or later, all the bit and peices will be brought together into one big explanation of everything.
A lot more than religion will, or can, ever achieve, It'll just carry on arguing over which mad prophet said what 2000 years ago, and what it means.
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Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.
- Emil Zola

[LP-SolidRaven]

Research, Test it, Criticise that's the way of science. Religion at the other hand requires no doubt and doesn't want critic.

The fact is that being able to give critique is a part of being yourself, being an individual person.
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[linuxdoctor]