Time before time began... is the big bang hypothesis a scientific hypothesis?

The Bible says something like God created reality in six days, but no man could no how long these days were (and, arguably, each day could be of a different length, etc.)

Now the Big bang hypothesis (and the empirical facts) says that reality was created 15 billion years ago (and these years are relative, and there is no time outside of space, nor center of reality).

Is this not a clear case of science trying to replace religion? If religion is not scientific, how can science replace it?

And what question is answered by the Big Bang Hypothesis?

Religion and Science (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

This tread is not like similarly named topics, but on the specific article linked above, belonging to the Stanford Internet Encyclopedia, titled Religion & Science.


Time before time began... is the big bang hypothesis a scientific hypothesis?


A friend of mine recently commented that Christianity was Creationism. I then asked what the Big Bang Hypothesis was. He said it was not Creationism.


The Bible says something like God created reality in six days, but no man could no how long these days were (and, arguably, each day could be of a different length, etc.)


Now the Big bang hypothesis (and the empirical facts) says that reality was created 15 billion years ago (and these years are relative, and there is no time outside of space, nor center of reality).


Is this not a clear case of science trying to replace religion? If religion is not scientific, how can science replace it? And what question is answered by the Big Bang Hypothesis?

Edit:
I guess I could have used the word 'interpreted' a bit more in this post.

Time before time began... is the big bang hypothesis a scientific hypothesis?

A friend of mine recently commented that Christianity was Creationism. I then asked what the Big Bang Hypothesis was. He said it was not Creationism.

Is this not a clear case of science trying to replace religion?

If religion is not scientific, how can science replace it?

And what question is answered by the Big Bang Hypothesis?

Big Bang Theory is a suggested answer to why all celestial bodies appear to be getting farther apart.

It's a theory that posed more questions than it answered

I know this is a widely held theory within the scientific community but I do not hold that a timelessness generated time. It is a contradiction in my opinion. It would be like trying to click the button on a stop watch without there being time to begin with. You would never be able to push the button without time already being present.

So I theorize that time itself is eternal. The experience of time however; only appears to be manipulated by mass. Sort of like seeing an object in water from the surface seems to bend the object, but the object itself is not bent, it is the light moving through the medium of water which gives the appearance of the object bending. I think mass compresses space which gives the impression that time is being effected but it is an illusion.

Time never stops, time never changes, it's experience is subjective but only within the medium in which it is experienced. So my theory upholds general relativity, that time is only relevant to the observer.



I always found this a little strange. Why would an all powerful god require six days to create something? Why couldn't it just create everything all at once? Seems rather contradictory that it would require six days not to mention there is other contradictory aspects to the days themselves.



See I disagree with this. I think that time is not subject to space and has always existed. It only appears to be manipulated by matter but it is only an illusion of perspective by the observer.



Well if religion is trying to claim that certain things happened a certain way then by all means if it were true, science would be able to support such claims, however; a majority of the time science reveals that religion doesn't have it accurate. So science is not trying to replace religion it just happens to point out that religious explanations are not accurate to reality.



It depends on how you want to look at it. In some ways it answers some questions and in other ways it only causes more questions to arise.

Hi Krumple,

I can find no fault within your post - That is exactly as I see it. My good friend, and devout christian, Mark Gamson has no problem with the big-bang either - He simply suggests that God was behind it.

Thank you, and journey well.

Mark...

Yes that is a possibility but I don't find it convincing enough. What would be the motivation? This is an important question to me despite the fact that a majority of theist scold me and say that I am not suppose to ask such a question.

I find that question to be valid because then it tells you what you should be doing. Once put like this, they jump around with explanations. None of which I find suitable. You can call me a rebel because I do not accept the christian notion that you exist purely to serve god's glory. I find that rather belittling and it makes that god seem to be nothing but a egomaniac.

I am still waiting for an argument for what the motivation was that I can accept as rational. One that I would accept that wouldn't contradict the deity and my own perspective. Perhaps that is impossible to supply, but if it is, it is probably because there was no god behind it all in the first place.

Hi Krumple,

God makes perfect sense to me - ever since I redefined it as "Nature".

Mark...

What predictive power resides in the big bang hypothesis?

You are not confusion description with prediction, are you?

Or are you speaking on how the universe ends or not (all of which seem to be entirely compatible with the big bang hypothesis)?

On a side note, what are the alternatives to the big bang hypothesis?

Why redefine it, why not keep it as nature? I don't see nature as doing anything intelligent. It makes mistakes, it does not give any value to life at all. It is as if it were blind. It provides no weight at all to your existence nor care that you get everything you need. You are at the mercy of it and it owes you nothing, and you can do nothing to persuade it to provide more for you. It doesn't play favorites and it is not justifiable. It is fair to some and unfair to others. I would even go as far as to say it doesn't even care weather or not there is existence or not. After all I would conclude that nature went a long time before it created life on this planet, so life must not be a priority at all. I can pretty much assume that once this planet is uninhabitable it won't be concerned.

So you are free to call nature god, but I ask, why would you change the name of something for which we already have a name for? Nature. Not only that but you contradict yourself then by saying you are not a materialist or naturalist.

Hi Krumple,I haven't renamed it - I've redefined it.

I have never referred to myself as a materialist or naturalist, what makes you think this? If you've time, let me know?

Lots. There's plenty in regards to dark matter and/or antimatter that wasn't understood until ideas revolving round or deriving from an expansion in spacetime were developed. The likely position of red and blue shift galaxies is easier to predict because of the same. Where you'd expect to find old stars, or new stars, or echoes of supernovas.

No. Not necessarily anyway. It's more like "if spacetime expanded from a singularity billions of years ago what we'd expect to see "stuff" to account for gaps in our mathmatical models of Newtonian forces acting on what we can see already".

And then evidence of that "stuff" is discovered. And because the only theory in town that said "we should expect to find this stuff" was the Big Bang and associated ideas - it makes the Big Bang look more credible than other theories.

Then there would be all the non-scientific alternatives too - such as religious creation stories.

Okay well how exactly have you redefined it?

I mean if you are calling god, nature, then when you talk about god or nature anyone who is listening will not understand what you mean.

So if you call god, nature, then you are basically taking the general definition of what nature is. But you can't just lump some other trait in there on top of nature and still expect people to refer to it as nature.

Like if I say, nature is not intelligent. But you turn around and say well god is nature + intelligence, then you are not talking about nature at all, you are talking about something completely different. So why take the term nature and refer to it as god if you are going to add other traits for which nature does not have?



I was speaking more generally to anyone who would make the claim that god is nature. If you make that claim then by all means you would be referring to yourself as a naturalist. However; if you are saying that god is nature plus something else, then you are not even talking about nature to begin with. Not only that but nature does not have anything outside of materialism. So if you say that god is nature, then by all means god would be material. You can't just say, well god is nature but also immaterial because then you are not talking about nature.

So which is it?

No it isn't - they aren't. Our galaxy is nearing that of Andromeda, for instance. Neither does it model an explosion - it models an expansion of spacetime - which is a subtle but important difference.

Hi Krumple,
Firstly - You neither know my definition of God. Secondly - Nature; So I'll elaborate. To me "Nature is God" - My God is "Nature", not a product of "Nature", but "Nature" itself (Creator, preserver, destroyer), within and beyond the boundaries that science can measure and label. Nature is responsible for the material and spiritual aspects of reality. God is the Author of ALL things.

When I discuss a specific God, I will attach it to its' flock, so the reader will understand what I'm relating to - When I discuss Nature...the same.
God is both intelligent, and unintelligent in my eyes. Nature is either "planned to be random, or randomly planned" in my eyes.

Religion and Science (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

This tread is not like similarly named topics, but on the specific article linked above, belonging to the Stanford Internet Encyclopedia, titled Religion & Science.


Time before time began... is the big bang hypothesis a scientific hypothesis?

Is this not a clear case of science trying to replace religion?

If religion is not scientific, how can science replace it?

And what question is answered by the Big Bang Hypothesis?

Okay so this makes you a deist who substitutes nature for god. I have heard this argument before but it still does not imply that there is any intention behind nature to create anything living. The universe has existed a long, long, long time before any life arose on earth. So it stands to reason that life is not necessarily natures priority. If life is not natures priority then why would there be a specific purpose for nature to create you if it were some kind of god? Just because it was the next thing on the list to do?

But like I said, nature doesn't seem to have any particular objective to accomplish. It just is a flow like water down the side of a hill, it falls according to the contour of the hill. So nature follows the laws of nature and can't go outside of them. I have never seen nature step outside the laws of nature so then nature is restricted to these laws.



Randomly planned? Or planed to be random? I don't see nature as being random at all. It seems to me that nature follows a chain of causality and does not break out of it at any point. I would not call that random. If it were random we wouldn't even be able to notice determinable laws of nature. As soon as you made a prediction nothing would result to back up that prediction so you would never be able to make a prediction. We know that in some cases we can make predictions and they do result as predicted. If it were random that would never happen.