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Theoretical physicist Hawking explains: “The early universe holds the answer to the ultimate question about the origin of everything we see today, including life.” What exactly is the present scientific view of the early universe?
In the 1960’s, scientists detected faint background radiation coming from all parts of the sky. This radiation was said to be a reverberation coming from the primeval explosion that astronomers have christened the big bang. So enormous was the explosion, they say, that its echo could still be detected billions of years later.
But if the universe suddenly exploded into existence between 15 billion and 20 billion years ago, as most physicists now believe (though that is hotly contested by others), a crucial question arises. Where did the original energy come from? In other words, what came before the big bang?
This is a question that many astronomers prefer to dodge. One of them confessed: “Science has proved that the world came into being as a result of forces that seem forever beyond the power of scientific description. This bothers science because it clashes with scientific religion—the religion of cause and effect, the belief that every effect has a cause. Now we find that the biggest effect of all, the birth of the universe, violates this article of faith.”
An Oxford University professor wrote more pointedly: “The first cause of the universe is left for the reader to insert. But our picture is incomplete without him.” The Bible, however, sets matters straight, identifying “the first cause” by saying: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”—Genesis 1:1.
The simplest lesson the universe teaches us is the most obvious one, one that proud medieval man strove to ignore but one that Biblical poets humbly acknowledged millenniums ago—that of man’s insignificance.
Recent discoveries reinforce King David’s realistic appraisal: “When I see your heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have prepared, what is mortal man that you keep him in mind, and the son of earthling man that you take care of him?”—Psalm 8:3, 4.
Astronomy has unveiled the immensity and the majesty of the cosmos—the stars of Gargantuan proportions, the distances beyond imagination, the aeons of time that defy comprehension, the cosmic furnaces that generate temperatures of millions of degrees, the eruptions of energy that dwarf a billion nuclear bombs. Yet, all of this is well described in the book of Job: “Look! These are the fringes of his ways, and what a whisper of a matter has been heard of him! But of his mighty thunder who can show an understanding?” (Job 26:14) The more we learn about the universe, the scantier our knowledge appears, and the smaller our own place in it becomes. For the objective observer, it is a sobering lesson.
Isaac Newton admitted: “I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
The humility that such comprehension should stir in us will help us to acknowledge that there is One who created the universe, One who established the laws that govern it, One who is far greater and wiser than we are. As the book of Job reminds us: “With him there are wisdom and mightiness; he has counsel and understanding.” (Job 12:13) And that is the most important lesson of all.
2006-06-13 09:45:39
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answer #1
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answered by Level424me 2
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First, we don't even know for sure that there was a Big Bang. We think there was, we see evidence that there was, but we can't say for sure that it really happened. However, I can give you a simple answer. If the Big Bang really happened, then all it was was a scattering of hydrogen atoms through the universe. Everything is nothing but hydrogen, fused together. Each particle is just a combination of hydrogen atoms. Helium, for instance, is just two hydrogen atoms that have formed one nucleus. It goes on from there.
As for God... well, our simple understanding of God, at this time, is not what it used to be. My understanding of God is that what humans call God is simply that which currently can't be explained. For instance, during the black plague, people who survived were thought to have been in God's favor. We now know that there is a scientific explanation for their survival. The Sun moving across the sky used to be God (that's why they had a Sun-god at one time, until eventually people just merged all the gods together to create one God that did it all). Now we have a scientific explanation. Basically, people use God to explain that which they don't understand. Duh, that's why religious people always say that God is unknowable. If He is that which cannot be explained, then He is unknowable. So, what is the cause of God, in my opinion.... simply humans wishing to have an explanation for everything.
However, the two (scientific explanations and God) could very easily go together. Let me try to explain. We'll have to assume, though, that God does exist, so let's make that assumption and move on.
Since the claim is the God intentionally created the universe, he must have known what He was doing. Since He knew what He was doing, it wasn't by accident. It would take an intelligent person to know how to create the universe, thus God is intelligent. Then we say that all intelligent beings are governed by a set of rules, so God must be governed by a set of rules.
However, God might not have to follow the rules that an intelligent man does. Being God, He’d be able to get around that. So, the explanation requires more.
Being intelligent, He wouldn't just be throwing things together and accidentally design the universe, would He? Then He wouldn't have intelligently, or intentionally, created the universe. He must have known what He was doing. To do that, He must have had some guidelines (or rules) to follow, just like a person making a house doesn't just throw stuff together, he has a blueprint to follow.
Basically, what I'm saying is that in order to intelligently design something, He must have used plans, otherwise it was just blindly throwing stuff together until something happened. If that's the claim, then you can't say that God had a purpose in making the universe. By that, we conclude that He must have had a plan, a purpose, and carried it out. That plan, or purpose, required carefully following the directions (even if He's the one who made them, just like a cook making spaghetti will follow the directions, even if its his own ingredients).
Otherwise, it would seem that we're all just an accident, not God's intention at all. In fact, this whole thing was just an accident. So, that would discredit any belief that says that God has(d) a purpose.
This also explains why the theory of evolution makes sense. There'd have to be a plan, and as I explained earilier, everything is built up of the simpliest things, and just built up from there. That's most likely how God would create everything, if I had to guess, which would seem to mean that evolution makes perfect sense. I'll not go any further. I got away from the main point of the question, I think.
I hope that makes sense. If not, I'm sorry. This is all just my own personal observations and opinions. I won't use the Bible, because to do so would indicate that the Bible is the correct word of God, and would discount all other religious beliefs. I'm not about to do that, since God is unknowable, and being unknowable, if we make the distinction that we know what religion God prefers, we indicate that we know God, so God would be knowable, but that would contradict just about every religion. So it doesn't make sense, to me at least, to use the Bible as proof of anything, or as a reference to anything in dealing with such a situation. I prefer to remain an objective as possible, and hope that some help may have been offered in my explanation. Good day.
2006-06-13 09:31:33
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answer #2
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answered by rliedtky 2
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The most believed theory on the cause of the big bang is that matter and energy became so dense that the only possible occurence was a massive explosion scattering the compressed debris. Much the same way a balloon pops you fill it with so much it can no longer contain it and it pops. Gravity could no longer contain the matter and it exploded..
If you follow the crunch theory the universe continues to expand from the big bang until it reaches a point it can no longer expand and begins compacting again which will start this process anew.
The cause of God is that early peoples needed ways to explain natural occurences i.e. lightning, mountains, oceans etc. and had no understanding of their world at the time.
2006-06-13 09:16:33
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answer #3
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answered by Anonymous
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In the Bible, in Genesis 1:1 (the very very first words in the Bible), it says: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." So that answers your first question--the universe began when God created it. There was no "big bang".
To answer your second question, what is the "cause" of God, Look at John 1:1-3: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Min nothing was made that was made." The "Word" they are talking about is Jesus Christ. Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit were all together at the beginning of the world. They had no beginning, and they had no end. They always were, always have been, and always will be. So to answer your question, God just always "was". He was never created or caused by some big explosion; he was just always there.
I hope you found my explanation useful!
2006-06-13 09:34:18
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answer #4
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answered by Anonymous
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If you follow the M-theory then the cause of the "big bang" is the collision of our dimensional "sheet" of existence and another different "sheet" of exisitence. Therefore the "big bang" has happened other times and will continue to happen again and again but not neccesarilly in our "sheet" of existence. Plus since the "big bang" is a collision of two "sheets" that also means there is probably another universe that was created at the same time in a different dimensional "sheet". Each sheet is a dimension with its own properties and laws, ours has 3 physical dimensions plus time and our laws of physics (ie gravity electromagnetism, etc..) so the other universe could be totally different from ours. Strange stuff but it makes sense when you really look at the M-theory.
2006-06-13 09:22:15
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answer #5
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answered by phxem 2
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The law of cause and effect demands that there is no First Cause (as every cause is itself an effect). So there is no start point. Of course, "cause and effect" is a simplification, as there are no separate links in the chain - just as there are no separate drops in a stream. The universe, like a stream, may seem to originate somewhere (in the "cosmic mountains", so to say), and may seem to end somewhere (in the "cosmic ocean"), but the "stream", i.e., the universe as we know it, is part of a closed circuit: the water in the ocean will eventually flow from the source again.
2006-06-13 10:25:53
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answer #6
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answered by sauwelios@yahoo.com 6
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Strangely sufficient, Chris M's reply could make feel. Fortunately, "me" will also be interpreted as any one, and even any factor, within the Universe. If you seem on the universe because the three-D item that we will be able to understand at any time, it sort of feels first-class to don't forget it a vast item and not using a begin factor and no finish factor. If you may have a vast number of items of finite period, it's viable that the gathering be limitless despite the fact that each and every unmarried detail is finite. e.g., take the lenth [n, n+one million), for instance from 6 to 7. It has a period of one million. It is finite: it has a begin factor and an finish factor. The quantity line is made of a vast quantity of such finite periods, but itself is limitless (there's no such factor as a "biggest quantity" constructive or terrible). If you don't forget the universe as a four-D item (the 4th size being time), then there looks to be a begin factor: The second in time known as "Big Bang". Of direction, no longer everybody consents that the universe used to be created at that second from a singulatiry (unmarried factor of limitless density). Some feel that the second effortlessly marks the begin of a brand new cycle, following a "collision" of membranes. Others nonetheless push the concept that the universe is everlasting. Still, should you had been to run backwards the relative motion of that element of the universe that's seen to us, you would come to the realization that all of the subject we will be able to see used to be all piled up in an excessively tiny neighborhood a few 14 billion years in the past. So, the universe that we all know had a few type of begin factor in time, 14 billion years in the past. There remains to be debate as as to whether the universe has an finish factor in time. Is there sufficient mass that gravity will purpose the universe to break down onto itself? If sure, then our universe is a "closed" universe and can have an finish factor after a finite time. If no, then our universe is an "open" universe in an effort to retain to broaden endlessly (no finish factor in time). For a whilst, it used to be inspiration that the universe used to be precisely among the 2 choices: a flat universe whose finish factor, in time, used to be "precisely" after a vast time. If you don't forget the universe as a three-D subspace of a bigger size house, then it's viable that the universe is "boundless" with out being limitless. For a crude instance, don't forget the outside of the Earth as a two-D item curved upon itself in a 3rd size that might be undetectable. The floor of the field has no finish factor: you'll be able to journey in a given course and certainly not achieve an finish; nonetheless, you can also realize that you've got lower back on your beginning factor, having certainly not became round. ---- The purpose that "me" will also be any factor will also be defined with the quantity line: We take, as conference, that the centre of the quantity line is zero. Yet, you would positioned the centre at any place. It would be, for instance, quantity one zero five. From that factor (or every other factor recognized with a finite quantity), it's inconceivable to inform that there are extra numbers on one aspect than the opposite. A fast evidence? Take the customary quantity line. Subtract one zero five from all of the positions on it. You get a brand new quantity line with a 0 on the historic one zero five role. There are nonetheless infinitely many numbers toward the constructive as there are toward the terrible, accordingly the brand new zero (the historic one zero five) may be a centre.
2016-09-09 00:59:50
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answer #7
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answered by vanderbilt 4
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The cause and effect assumption is a purely Western concept. We have to also be open to the possibilty that there is no beginning and end and that we live in an existence of a. expanding-contracting universe. The theory is sound but for the Western Mind's simple distaste for the concept of infinity.
Sorry to be headwrecking.
2006-06-13 10:36:31
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answer #8
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answered by Anonymous
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There has to be an uncaused first-cause. At one time people thought this was the universe itself, but now because we know the universe has an origin, this would point to God as our starting point.
2006-06-13 09:22:43
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answer #9
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answered by webdebutante 2
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The big bang is science fiction.
The universe was always there. No begin, no end.
2006-06-13 10:57:11
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answer #10
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answered by Thermo 6
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