Genesis 1 and Big Bang

[otseng]

Split from another thread:

I agree that the BB is compatible with a creator although a creator is not necessary for the BB theory. But is the BB compatible with the God who inspired Genesis 1?

Actually, yes, I think the BB and Genesis 1 is compatible. At least enough for me.

Question for debate: Are the theory of Big Bang and the narrative of Genesis chapter 1 compatible?

[ST88]

I am also curious about the negative gravitational aspects of the WHM. As the mathematical opposite of a black hole, I would expect the white hole to exhibit what you might call anti-gravity --or a repelling force. Not just the force of the explosion (because the Big Bang claims that also), but a true anti-graviton producing event.

I would not know the cause (apart from God) of the anti-gravity force. But, does the BB have an explanation of the cause of the "explosion"?

OK, I'm going to get technical for the sake of argumentation. When most of us say "Big Bang", what we really mean is "Inflationary Theory". That is, there was a Big Bang event, and the rest of the theory: the mathematics, the particle physics, the whole lot of it encompasses the theory. The moment before the Bang is not currently understood by either "naturalists" or Creationists. However, naturalists have the advantage here, because theoretical astrophysicists are working on the problem in using as much scientific method as they can muster. Creationists have quite a different problem to overcome (see below).

The "shock wave" of a momentary white hole seems to me inadequate to explain both the Hubble observations and the idea of a stationary earth here in the center.

I don't grasp your meaning of "shock wave".

Sorry. I meant the momentum that pushed all objects outward from the center. The BB has the unfettered vacuum expansion thing going for it, reaching far beyond the gravitational escape velocities of objects so that they don't come crashing back into one another. But in the WHM, the anti-gravitational force it exhibits would disappear once the event horizon collapsed and the earth appeared. The force of gravity, as I understand it, is proportional to the amount of space between objects, so there would be less and less force the further you get from the WH event, causing material to seek out other sources of gravity instead of the WH. This, along with the collapse of the WH's gravitational field would lead to the material heading ever so gravitationally back to wherever the current center of gravity was and could not lead to the type of expansion that we see now.

I think one basic "problem" with the WHM is trying to know what was supernaturally caused and what was naturally caused. To be consistent with Genesis 1, not everything could've been naturally caused. But, since God also formed the laws of physics, some things could've naturally resulted from the laws of physics.

I am gratified, at least, that this much has been acknowleged. It strikes me as a Red Queen Evolution moment of Creationism, however, in that much effort has been expended to leave us in just the same place we left it: those things which can be explained by physics happened naturally, but those things which can't be explained happened supernaturally. This sounds an awful lot like a reverse version of God of the Gaps where a hypothesis can never be proven false because God can always be invoked when we get stuck.

This, I think, is a fundamental problem with Creationism. Look how viable the WHM is from a God/No God standpoint. From a God standpoint, it sounds perfectly acceptable because God could have guided the process at any given point. From a No God standpoint, it's not viable because there are too many inherent inconsistencies (e.g., the water problem).

But now look at the Big Bang model (Inflationary Theory). From a God standpoint, it's perfectly acceptable because God could have guided the process at any given point. Now let's look at an alternative theory: the supermassive quasar explosion theory. A supermassive quasar inside a warp bubble explodes and creates the known universe. From a God standpoint, it's perfectly acceptable because God could have guided the process at any given point. Another theory: brane intersection. Two negative-space branes collide and create positive space friction, which gives rise to its own positive space brane. From a God standpoint, it's perfectly acceptable because God could have guided the process at any given point.

Do you see where I'm going with this? The WHM was created to solve the time-shift problem -- that light from objects billions of years away could be seen even though the universe is younger than that. But why is this a problem? How come Creationists want to use dreaded science to explain the effects we would not be able to detect without that dreaded science? I do not understand why it's necessary to come up with a Creationist explanation for a scientifically observed effect if God is able to create the universe in any given manner when all he has to do is will that it were so (e.g., the Grand Canyon was created that way because God thought it was pretty -- that is a perfectly reasonable religious explanation as far as I'm concerned).

This isn't just a problem that I can see as an outsider looking critically at Creationism. This should be a major problem for Creationists. Because God can be invoked at any point in the process, it would be impossible to divine at which part of the process God invoked himself. It would be terribly easy to get the wrong answer.

[Curious]

I get your point. In order to understand the message of Genesis, I must first learn a new language. Hebrew. Since I am not a linguistic expert and I was not raised with a knowledge of Hebrew, I can expect that my mastery of the language will be less than optimal and that I will be prone to making the kinds of mistakes that someone not native in a particular language is prone to make.

Therefore, it would be far more reasonable for me to rely on the expertise of someone who knows the language and has known it from birth. My Jewish friend Denise, reads Hebrew fluently, is familiar with the Torah and has spoken English all her life. She cannot find what you are talking about in Genesis either. As mentioned above, neither have many teams of scholars and experts in Hebrew tasked with translating Genesis. What reasonable hope then would I have of finding what these people all have missed? What reasonable expectation should I have that what I find would be more accurate and more valid than what these people who will always be my better with regard to the Hebrew language have found?

OK. I think maybe I misjudged you as this question shows more than a passing interest in the subject. Firstly, you do not need to learn a new language. Secondly, your friend (who reads Hebrew) is as likely to understand the meaning of Genesis as a speaker of English is of deciphering a coded message in English.
Letters have meanings, or to be more precise, Hebrew letters are symbolic representations of archetypes. Translation shows the meaning of a word, it does not forward a represention of the internal structure of the word. You cannot decode a message with translated text if the message is contained within individual elements of the word. This is not a new discovery. Please study this yourself. Study the first passage of the bible if that is all you can. Remember that you have to insert your own "vowels".

What reasonable expectation should I have that what I find would be more accurate and more valid than what these people who will always be my better with regard to the Hebrew language have found?

Maybe you will be more worthy, or more hungry.

[McCulloch]

Curious, are we talking about the recent form of divination called the Bible Code?

[Curious]

Curious, are we talking about the recent form of divination called the Bible Code?

No. We are not talking divination at all. We are talking about human to human. Even if what I say is true about the message in Genesis, it is still only written word. Coded message is not necessarily true. Genesis might agree with TBBT, but this does not mean it is true. I think it is remarkable that both agree on major points but it is far from convincing.

[jjg]

http://www2.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/ti/carroll.htm

As the link demonstrates the Big bang or the universe being eternal cannot affirm or deny God creating as creation and change are two different concepts.