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| Mwha-hahahaha |
Many of us have big questions when it comes to God and science:
Does God like science?
Does God believe in science?
Does He disagree with science?
Does God believe in... the Big Bang Theory....? (gasp!)
I'll confess a bit, my main reason for writing this post is because I'm a bit frustrated. I've heard too many Christians who completely refute entire fields of science - fields that have spanned hundreds of years of intellectuals, and millions of dollars, and have made dramatic and amazing discoveries that's caused us to lead a more technologically advanced life. All because they have been trained to draw conclusions first, and when failing to match evidence and secular belief to their ideals, disregard what science has to say.
And then they wonder why they are not taken seriously by the entire academic and scientific community - the very souls who need to hear about the grace and salvation found in God! The way many Christian's approach science actually pushes scientifically minded individuals away from God... while it is in fact God's heart to draw even scientists near to Him!
My purpose is to act as a mediator... standing in the middle of the debate and shedding light on both sides of the argument.
In essence, I need to rebuke my brothers and sisters in love. By the work of His Holy Spirt, God has given me insight into both science and Himself, and I feel that God's heart is to reconcile science and Christianity. Sometimes, we need to just face to music and admit that maybe we have some things wrong. I hope you are able to have an open mind!
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First, can I say something? God loves what science has discovered! He intended on scientists making those very discoveries! He didn't place all of this false evidence on earth, just so that there could be a debate between science and Christians. And don't get me wrong. We definitely need discernment when weighing scientific 'evidence' and claims. There are some serious wackos out there!
To get back to my point, did you know that many of history's renown scientific intellectuals were also very devout believers (Newton, Galileo, Pascal, to name a few)? When they were making these grande discoveries, they viewed science as non-separate from religion. Moreover, they agreed that science was a natural way to view the work of a supernatural Creator! They were both (science and religion) viewed as separate sides of the same coin, if you will. Both seeking truth of the world we live in. It was only when science began discovering adaption of animals and evolution of organisms that the church began to disregard what science has to say.
Did you catch that...? It was the Christians who started the "fight"... not the other way around. And I'm going to be real, when Christians disregard an ocean of scientific evidence and observation, they are doing even further damage. They harm the credibility of virtually anything else that other well-meaning Christians attempt to teach and bring to the world of science.
Let's focus on one of the hottest issues between Christianity and science: The Big Bang Theory. Yes, I whole-heartedly, unashamedly believe in the Big Bang Theory, as science gives it to us in our current understanding.
I'll begin by explaining first about scientific theories. Popular belief says that theories are weaker than laws. However, they are NOT weaker than laws, and they will NOT graduate into laws, as if they can gain enough support and somehow achieve the status of law after enough supporters. Theories are actually conclusions based on numerous observations, and often repeated experimentation. Simply put, theories are valid and highly supported. So whenever Christians make claims such as...
"The Big Bang Theory is merely a theory, and therefore we cannot prove it or give validity to it..."
To a scientist, this is as ridiculous as saying "objects fall up"...! The layman's vocabulary usage of theory is all wrong. We cannot simply tack on 'theory' to the end of a claim, and make it suddenly unreliable. The reason that the Big Bang (and evolution for that matter... but that's another post for another time!) is a theory is because it took meticulous and detailed observation and evidence to come to that conclusion. Theories are - by definition - reliable! So Christians, stop saying that the Big Bang Theory is false, because it is 'merely a theory'!
For those that are unaware (or misinformed) let me now explain the major components of the Big Bang Theory:
- 12-14 billion years ago the Universe was incredibly dense, hot, singular point in space (known as a singularity)
- There was a sudden expansion (not explosion, rather a rapid expansion of heat and energy), called inflation
- Over time this matter (mostly hydrogen and helium) condensed due to gravity and formed today's earliest stars, planets, and galaxies
- Scientists have traced back the history of the Universe to a minuscule age (when the Universe was less than 10–12 seconds old...) and the formation of the first matter (particles)
- As it expanded, it cooled
- There is a remnant of this heat left over (about 2.73 K) that is still cooling, called Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (similar to how a fire is left out over night, and you feel the warm, grey coals leftover in the morning)
- No one agrees what 'sparked' the big bang
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| A satellite image of the CMB radiation |
One piece of evidence that led to the big bang was what we call the Cosmological Principle. It states that the Universe looks the same no matter who, or where, you are. Simply put - one side of the Universe isn't lumpier than the other. Its density is fairly uniform (signifying it has expanded evenly): about 6 hydrogen atoms per cubic meter. It also has a fairly uniform (taking an average) temperature throughout. So, it has expanded evenly in all dimensions.
Another piece of evidence is lighter elements are much more common than heavier ones. This signifies that the Universe started with very light elements, and as time went on, began to form heavier (and more complex) ones due to heat and gravity.
The last one I will mention is the biggie. Since the Hubble Telescope was placed in space, we've been able to easily predict, and then observe and confirm the cosmic microwave background radiation. Not only that, but the Universe is indeed expanding! Specifically, the empty space between distant objects is getting bigger. And, the farther away an object is (galaxy, star, etc.), the faster it is traveling away from us. And as it is expanding, it is continuing to cool off. Interesting... The conclusion is as follows: if the Universe is expanding today, it must have been smaller, and hotter, yesterday - eventually starting from a super-hot, finite point in space.
There's the Big Bang Theory, as I teach it to my high school students! Ha... I love this stuff.
Now what's interesting to me is that scientists have miraculously been able to trace back the stages of life of the early Universe, but are baffled as to what may have begun it. Do you think Christians have anything to say about this?
I think so! (However, this does not and should not provide a crutch or stopping point of which we become content. Curiosity and creative problem solving reveal the nature of God and the world around us, so let's keep on learning!)
You see this is where we come in. If we would only put aside our preconceived notions, and imagine what it would look like for a science that belongs to God, we would see that there is so much mystery to the vastness of the world we live in that can only be explained by a Divine Creator. Sadly though, the overwhelming majority of Christians stop at 12-14 billions years old to even consider what a miracle even the Big Bang is!
"But doesn't the Bible give a 7-day account of creation? There's no way Earth is the product of a billions-year old process!"
There are many possible explanations for this.
- First of all, much of the Bible includes various forms of literary techniques: poetry, narratives, historical facts, etc. It's possible (not that it has to be true) that the story of a 7-day creation is one of those forms other than historical fact.
- Also, just as God created Adam and Eve (as Genesis records) not as babies and infants, but already in adolescence, is it possible that God created the Earth and the Universe with age (and beyond infancy)? And all the evidence we find prior to the beginning of humanity is similar to viewing Adam and Eve as infants, prior to their adolescence.
- And yes, isn't 1 day as 1000 years to the Lord, and 1000 years as a day? (2 Peter chapter 3) It is my belief that this scripture is not showing that an equation for how God sees time (1 day = 1000 yrs and vice-versa), but rather Peter is trying to get the idea across that just because you think God seems slow to keeping promises, doesn't mean He actually is slow - for His timing is different than our own!
- And for that matter, when you look at the Genesis account of Creation, the first thing that God creates (after the heavens and the earth) is light. And those of you who've studied physics immediately recall a concept known as time-dilation. According to Einstein and special relativity, time-dilation states that: "clocks that are moving with respect to an inertial system of observation are measured to be running slower. This effect is described precisely by the Lorentz transformation." This basically means that for objects moving really, really fast (close to and at the speed of light) time is warped for observers at different reference points (and this has been experimentally observed). So our time and God's time is thrown off right from the third verse of Genesis 1!
The truth is virtually every academic, educated individual that I know of that has looked at the evidence supporting the Big Bang could not deny it. There's so much evidence sitting right in front of us, that to completely refute it makes us just look silly in the eyes of intellectuals. Those of us in the realm of science have painstakingly read, dissected, and expanded our mind to accept things that we weren't comfortable with, and when Christians who haven't taken a fraction of the time to read anything that opposes their preconceived notions (or even opposite a Christian's point of view for that matter) speak out against it, it shuts us off.
I live in a world in which God is richly complimented by the existence and discoveries of science. Just as science betters technology and helps us to appreciate life a bit more, science also adds to my faith, tremendously. I love learning about the most detailed organisms, the smallest particles, the vastness of the billions of galaxies that exist! And I see it all as the hand of God. For I see science confirming the validity of God rather than disproving Him.
Will my brothers and sisters join me in exploring the realm of science without fear? I'm confident this is a journey not ending in a conclusion apart from God, but rather ending in a conclusion in which God is the only explanation for the mysteries of the Universe!
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| Cosmological Timeline |
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For a quick word on this from one of today's leading and most outspoken astrophysicist, watch the video below:
And for further reading, be sure to check out these resources:
And for further reading, be sure to check out these resources:
- The Science of God - by Gerald Schroderer
- HowStuffWorks article on The Big Bang Theory
- ScientificAmerican article by Erik Leitch on Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation
- The Expanding Universe article from Sloan Digital Sky Observer
