fayfreethinkers.com

DAR
Interesting:

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Scientists announced today new evidence supporting the theory that the infant universe expanded from subatomic to astronomical size in a fraction of a second after its birth.

The finding is based on new results from
NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite, launched in 2001 to measure the temperature of radiant heat left over from the Big Bang, which is the theoretical beginning to the universe.

This radiation is known as the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), and it is the oldest light in the universe.

Using WMAP data, researchers announced in 2003 that they had pieced together a very detailed snapshot of the universe as it was about 400,000 years ago, and that they had determined things like its age, composition and development.

The previous data showed that the universe was about 13.7 billion years old. It also revealed that it wasn't until about 200 million years after the Big Bang that conditions were cool enough for the first stars to form. Scientists were also able to conclude that the universe is composed of about 4 percent real matter, about 23 percent dark matter, and about 73 percent dark energy. Nobody actually nows what dark matter or dark energy are, however.

Read the rest HERE

DOUG
So slowly but surely, scientists are gathering clues about the origin of the universe, formulating hypotheses, testing them against the evidence, rejecting some of them as the evidence warrants, and creating a theory of the universe we can say is supported by the evidence.

And the theists? What are they doing to show that the universe appeared by the will of a divine being?

Note the disparity.

what I've never understood is why the theists have a problem with the big bang theory. Even if God did create everything, he would have had to do it SOMEHOW. He could have made the Big Bang to create, you know, the universe and whatnot.

Betsy wrote:what I've never understood is why the theists have a problem with the big bang theory.

It doesn't line up well with the Genesis account. It also eliminates a significant "gap" for any God of the Gaps argumentation, which tends to be a favorite amongst fundamentalists. While I perfectly understand your point, Betsy, many theists probably consider such a theory blasphemous.

well, that's just silly. they need to get with the program.

DAR
A lot of theists really like the Big Bang theory (a term which Fred Hoyle coined in order to make fun of the idea). Some young earthers may not like it but a lot of them made a big deal out of this discovery because it meant the universe had a beginning, a moment of creation if you will, and this refuted the idea that it could have just existed forever in some form and thus wouldn't need a God to "make it."

D.

Darrel wrote:DAR
A lot of theists really like the Big Bang theory (a term which Fred Hoyle coined in order to make fun of the idea).

DOUG
When it was first proposed, the creationists didn't like it because it sounded too scientific, too naturalistic. (Remember, they're slow.) But after a few years they came to embrace it as God's way of creating the universe. Now few creationists still denounce it.

The same happened with dinosaurs. Creationists used to hate them because they were not mentioned in the Bible. But about 10 years ago they started loving dinosaurs because kids really liked them, especially after "Jurassic Park," and they could be used to lure church kids into agreeing with creationism. Creationist hack Ken Ham called dinosaurs "missionary lizards" for this reason.

Wait til somebody hits them (the theists) with the "bouncing big bang" theory!!

In today's paper, Lowell Grisham has a column in which he points out that religion doesn't have to exclude science; in fact, it should embrace it. He made basically the same point I did. What a smart man that Lowell Grisham is

My grandmother was a very spiritual woman (not necessarily religion, although she was brought up fundie), who used to say, "God gave you brains to use." She lived the culture shock from horse and buggy days through space stations and SSTs, two world wars, a bunch of undeclared ones, one major and several minor depressions, plus a few recessions - never lost her faith (don't ask me how or why), never thought we should have stopped somewhere back around the time she was 10, either. But then, she always said people must take responsibility for what they've done (or not done) with those "god-given brains".

"I do not believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." --Galileo