Big Bang?

[jbor at bigpond.com]

On 28/09/2005 Michael J. Hußmann wrote:

> Given that there was no "before", how can we even ask about what was
> before the Big Bang and still make sense? It is not like any religion
> has an alternative framework for talking about this

I agree with you. All I'm saying is that the atheist's Creation myth is 
no more credible or empirical than the Genesis story:

"Once upon a time there was The Nothing. Suddenly, from out of Nowhere, 
there was a Big Bang, and then The Universe appeared ... "

Believing in this takes as great a leap of faith as the whole "On the 
seventh day He rested" hypothesis.

Bottom line should be tolerance of people's beliefs (race, religion, 
creed etc).

best


>> I don't see much if any difference between a priest-caste of 
>> scientists
>> fantasising, with no proof or logical explanation, that the universe
>> magically appeared from nothing, and another group of equally
>> reasonable and intelligent men and women positing the existence of a
>> Divine Creator. They're equally implausible hypotheses, in my opinion,
>> with no reason to justify the imposition of either the one or the 
>> other
>> worldview as gospel.


> For one thing, modern physics doesn't really claim that the universe
> appeared from nothing, magically or otherwise. Rather, it is outright
> impossible to even post something like this as a scientific question.
> Given that there was no "before", how can we even ask about what was
> before the Big Bang and still make sense? It is not like any religion
> has an alternative framework for talking about this; Genesis, for
> example, recounts physical events within an essentially historic 
> time-frame.
>
> The other thing is that physicists don't require us to believe in some
> hypothesis. Hypotheses evolve into theories, and theories make
> predictions; that's what makes them so useful. If these predictions 
> turn
> out to be true, the theory has established its usefulness. That doesn't
> make it immune against doubt, and certainly not immune to falsification
> -- in fact, any theory must be open to falsification, or it wouldn't
> count as a theory. No religion I've ever encountered meets these
> criteria: neither do they make verifiable predictions, nor are they 
> open
> to falsification (actually, both requirements of a theory amount to the
> same thing). As a layman, you may choose to simply accept what
> scientists tell you, without questioning it. But that is hardly the
> scientists' fault.
>
> Debates such as this always remind me of the old joke about scientists
> hunting in a pitch-black room for a black cat, philosophers hunting in 
> a
> pitch-black room for a cat that isn't even there, and theologians
> hunting in a pitch-black room for a black cat that isn't there, but
> always shouting "I've got it!"
>
> - Michael
>
>
> Michael J. Hußmann
>
> E-mail: michael at michael-hussmann.de
> WWW (personal): http://michael-hussmann.de
> WWW (professional): http://digicam-experts.de
>