God, science and the big bang?

Question

According to scientific principle, energy can not be created or destroyed, only redistributed.

For example if you were to push a toy car along a track, you would not be creating the energy needed to push the car but rather applying the potential energy stored in your arm muscles and turning that into the kinetic energy used to move the car, and as such redistributing the stored energy.

(A very dumbed down explanation)

So with this in mind lets look at the big bang and the creation of the universe.

Energy can not be created, so there must have already been energy present prior to the big bang, or the energy that caused the big bang would not have been available and there would be no big bang and no universe and no planets or stars etc.

So could it be said that this energy that caused the big bang is god. Since it is believed by many that god has always existed and that he created the universe and everything and that he existed before the universe was created (coinciding with scientific principle, which states no energy can be created ((as above)) is this energy god, and, If you believe that this energy is god, then does that mean that god now does not exist as this energy has been redistributed across the universe that was created by the big bang

Answer 1

I have to admit, I didn't read your entire novel - but I think our beliefs are similar. You think therefore you are..... :)

Answer 2

Well. I like the general way you go at it. But each time anyone says something that implies the universe was 'created' it's a little bit like nails on a chalk board. It would be most likely that the universe has always existed and will continue always to exist.

First, lets consider that the laws of thermodynamics are the 'scientific principle' you're talking about here and when you go back in time before the 'first three seconds' or when you operate on a scale small enough to understand better how and why things really are - they don't apply anymore.

Such has been a huge drawback in our understanding of the universe that we've had to use 2 different sets of physics to view the world. One for the large and another for the small.

For example, breaking the first law of thermodynamics. Gravitons. Gravity, a form of energy, probably could be said to be created or destroyed at least in that context. As far as we can tell (though still hoping the new, larger atom smasher lets us record evidence) gravitons escape our universe. Technically not destroyed, but for all intents... I'd say it qualifies.

The big bang though, really deals with (some of) the matter/energy within the universe.

Even as humanity looks toward what we're learning from, now unified, string theory where things make so much more sense than ever and yet are so much more bizarre than we could have imagined; the moments leading up to the big bang are the difficult questions to answer - without a better idea what happened any discussion along these lines is a little moot.

There's this great 3 DVD set you might want to check out. Cool visuals, covers a lot of ground - extremely cool stuff. It really gets you thinking. It's called "The Elegant Universe"

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/

I think they've got the whole thing to view online, for free as well: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html

Personally I have a problem with defining the word "God", it's also one word that can be used similarly in so many different contexts - I just don't like to use it, who knows if anyone even gets how I mean when I use the word.

90% of the world hears or sees the word "God" and thinks, "Oh yah, Jesus's Dad. Our Lord, the creator."

Uhhhhhh, no. Heh. If I mention God, I'd much prefer people leave the big, ancient, mis-translated fairytale books at home and try to expand their horizons a little. Does it ever happen? Probably not.

I do like to think of things a little along the lines of one of my favorite B5 quotes;

“We believe that the Universe itself is conscious in a way we can never truly understand. It is engaged in a search for meaning, so it breaks itself apart, investing its own consciousness in every form of life. We are the Universe, trying to explain itself.” (Delenn:B5:Passing Through Gethsemane)

Answer 3

The Bible says that God is Spirit. So, what is spirit, can you measure it? I think of Spirit as being conscious energy ... an entity. Therefore, to me, God is an entity of an enormous amount of conscious energy. I'm both Pentecostal and a logical armchair scientist and I must admit that my logical head does sometimes argue with my evangelical 'heart'. I am constantly trying to figure out the nature of God.

Our massive conscious energy 'God' is, in my opinion, an individual; with abilities that we would call magical. It is conceivable that this being set in motion the event we now call the big bang and then during the process of seven eras of unknown length assisted the universe ... solar system and even the Earth to form into something we would recognise today.

I also believe that He seeded the Earth - and possibly other worlds with minute portions of His energy which is the phenomenon we call the 'soul', which reaches out to touch its original source ... this could account for the fact that ever since the dawn of mankind, every tribe and nation has sought to find God in some form or other.

When we die, the essence is freed and finally finds its way 'home'. It remains the individual it was before death through memories but is transformed into energy and in that way, becomes eternal.

Non-sentient energy is redistributed forever, in that you're right but isn't it possible that sentient energy can remain intact?

Answer 4

No matter how one tries to scientifically argue for the existence of God, they always just insert God at the point where our knowledge ends. Just because we don't know something, it does not follow that God caused it.

Your argument is basically this:

There must have been energy to create the Big Bang

All energy in the known universe is the remnant energy from the Big Bang.

Therefore, it is possible that God was the energy that created the Big Bang.


That is not a rational argument.

Answer 5

Interesting,

I would think that it is possible for a higher power to have started things in motion, but it has done nothing to show itself since that action.

I find it much more plausible that there are certain laws of physics that we have yet to discover, that allow for such an event.

For instance there is a theory that the laws of Physics are changing as the Universe expands. This could lead to multiple scenarios in which the big bang could occur without a push from another source.

Attributing cause of life or the big bang to the God theory is a little too easy, and is usually used by people who then go on to tell us not to keep looking for the real answer. It worries me.

Answer 6

There is quite a big difference between energy being 'redistributed', which is incorrect and changed, which is correct. Energy is matter and matter is energy, they are interchangeable.

The Big Bang is thought to have been an explosion of energy transforming from one state, a singularity, into another state, the Universe.

For the person who thinks that this somehow confirms the belief that 'we' somehow survive after physical death. We do, as molecules of the same stuff that the entire universe is made of. There is no evidence to support a 'soul' or spirit, but as we rot in the ground we are transformed back into our basic elements.

Answer 7

Except for the fact you don't understand nuclear physics your outline is somewhat accurate.

There are two quazality factors.

One called an active, intellegent creator. We can call him God or Dr. Robert Oppenheimer.

Dr. Oppenheimer headed a project call the Manhattan Project which was to make an Atomic Bomb.

There were actally three or four factions involved including Dr. Lawrence Livermore at UC Berkeley who was making the Uranium isotopes for the project.

In Chicago there was Dr. Fermi and he proved that if you assemble enough U-235 in one space it would make a chain reaction and that it could be controlled by a special rod of material that absorbed the nuclear particles.

So, Dr. Oppenheimers team decided to separate segements of U-235 and then bring them together quickly by implosion caused by chemical explosives.

They made several bombs from what Materials Berkley and the labs in Illinois could make.

Then Oppenheimer or one of his assistants PUSHED a button to make it explode.

This is called the CREATIONIST VIEW

Someone intellgently designs something and then manually with willful force, turns it on.

Now, The Big Bang, which by the way was postualated by a Catholic Priest who was a physcists and astronomer, has to do with compacting all the mass of the universe into what is called a singularity or primordial "atom"

You take everything out there and turn it into a ball that contracts and contracts.

As MASS contracts atoms move closer together and eventually spontaniously FUSE into each other

Now when you have MASS fusion gamma rays are emmited, photons of light are emitted and under the LAWS of physics HEAT ENGERY is manifested an what happens to mass when it heat.

It expands.

It moves outward.

So you have this Primordial atom of which one grain the size of a grain of salt weights more than the SUN and it compacts and compactus until atomic FUSION occurs at which point it is thrust outward in an explosive atomic force.

Now, when it happens NATURALLY with NO ASSISTANCE we call that RANDOM

The general scinetific view is that this occured RANDOMLY.

The general religious view is that it was done with intellegent, willful thought by Dr. Oppenheimer (God).

And while this is certainly an oversimplification. If you took a bunch of electronic parts and put them into a box and shook them up, how many econs would it take for an IPOD to be made randomly.

Now you give that box of parts to someone with an intellegent understanding of electronics and they put it together, how long do you think it would take.

Randomism can certainly happen, but what are the odds on that process vs the odds on someone like Oppeheimer assemblying a team of geniuses to make something happen and then push a button to make it happen.

That is the God theory, plain and simple.

Nature builds a fusion bomb randomly once every one trillion google millenium.

Humans stock pile fusion H bombs by the dozens in only 40 years by intellgent design.

Answer 8

Sigh. Conservation of energy only applies to normal reaction in normal space, in the normal universe. In the conditions at t0 at the start of the Big Bang, a naked Singularity was exposed. There would be enough raw energy in the tension in the fabric of the supercompressed universe at that point to create all the energy needed.

You guys have to stop thinking that CE somehow invalidates the origin of the universe. You don't think it stopped God, do you?

CD

Answer 9

Well if you want to look at theories on the beginning of the universe as we know it, look into things like string theory and M-Theory. The belief that God caused everything is a link between science and the spiritual world. Science can not show that a god(s) caused anything and they should not be trying either. Personally I think religion will have to start moving towards questions like this if they want to survive because the evidence that science puts forth simply can not be ignored.

That said it will be a long time before we have a real working theory about the beginning of the universe.

Answer 10

When scientists figure out what happened at the very first instant of the Big Bang, I'll answer this question. Until then scientists have a fraction of a second to go to get to the answer.

btw: there are 3,000 beliefs on Earth of deities, so which God are you referring to? You can call the beginning of the universe anything. A friend of mine actually calls it "the God particle", but he didn't come up with the term.

Answer 11

You are a genius, this really shows not only the existence of God as source of all things but also explains the reason for him being eternal. I believe this energy is of God, in the like of the Holy Spirit and thus, God himself as being an extension of his omnipresent essence. I also explain his saying "I am that I am"

So God still exist as the energy used to create the universe is only an infinitesimal part of his glory.

I don't find your explanation dumb, and I wish many peoples and scientists would start viewing things that way. Because we are part of this universe as we are part of one spirit.