The Pope was once a Jesuit priest! Question answered!

Reminds me of a French Abbot, whose name I forget, who was once asked if he believed in Hell. He replies, of course, it is dogma of the Church- but I don't believe anyone is actually there

So true. I have gotten tired of explaining relativity over the years.

Here is part of Mo's post ... The universe is at least 986 billion years older than physicists thought and is probably much older still, according to a radical new theory.

The revolutionary study suggests that time did not begin with the big bang 14 billion years ago. This mammoth explosion which created all the matter we see around us, was just the most recent of many.

The standard big bang theory says the universe began with a massive explosion, but the new theory suggests it is a cyclic event that consists of repeating big bangs.

"People have inferred that time began then, but there really wasn't any reason for that inference," said Neil Turok, a theoretical physicist at the University of Cambridge, "What we are proposing is very radical. It's saying there was time before the big bang."

Under his theory, published today in the journal Science with Paul Steinhardt at Princeton University in New Jersey, the universe must be at least a trillion years old with many big bangs happening before our own. With each bang, the theory predicts that matter keeps on expanding and dissipating into infinite space before another horrendous blast of radiation and matter replenishes it. "I think it is much more likely to be far older than a trillion years though," said Prof Turok. "There doesn't have to be a beginning of time. According to our theory, the universe may be infinitely old and infinitely large."

Today most cosmologists believe the universe will carry on expanding until all the stars burn out, leaving nothing but their cold dead remains. But there is an inherent problem with this picture. The Cosmological Constant - a mysterious force first postulated by Albert Einstein that appears to be driving the galaxies apart - is much too small to fit the theory. Einstein later renounced it as his "biggest blunder"...

There is a WORLD of facts that back up the big bang including the fact that we have photographed it shortly after it happened. The fact that a big bang happened does not prove many more have or have not happened but the truth of the matter is, big bangs are probably not even rare.

However, if one analyses the energy distribution of cyclic big bangs where the universe expands, contracts from gravity, and occurs all over again ... the physics just doesn't work. What would happen is that a percentage of the universe would create a very large black hole as thousands of galaxies poured in until, at some special point, the black hole would explode into a new universe. The force of the new exploding universe would push the rest of the old universe back and mix it with the "new stuff".

If that event had happened, we would see it in the deep space images which now show the cosmic background of the big bang. Since it isn't there now, it would mean that we are in the first of the big bang cycles which does not lead to cyclic credibility.

The math leads to multiverse activity. Two branes bumping together appears to the perfect culprit to create new time/space bubbles that would begin time in our universe but just be another bump on the road in the timestream of the multiverse.

and what makes you believe that he believes?

BTW,he is still a Jesuit Priest!

The big bang theory contradicts science itself,1 and 2nd law of thermodynamics.The cosmos itslf outdates the bb.Science and mere mortals can nt explain the creation,becoz the they dnt believe in da existence of a spirtual realm,which is jst as real as the physical if not even more real.Science is very limited.

Physics-Nobel-price here we come!

No, the big bang study is science itself. Everything works just fine in modern science after the big bang occurs. The unknowns are mostly during and before the event. The situation is similar to the study of black holes. Outwardly, the black hole meets the prediction of Einstein. At the singularity (the center), the math of physics falls apart mostly by being forced to divide by zero.

One of the main areas science has yet to conquer is the connection between the small and the large, i.e., cosmic vs quantum. The cosmic is easy to study because we can see far back into time with telescopes.

We do not have the opportunity to observe the big bang at the quantum level which is why the supercollider at Cern was built. They create tiny "big bangs" to study the conversion of pure energy to matter by converting pure matter to pure energy.

We have a lot to learn but we have learned a lot.

Interesting .......

In Nd Buddhism they talk alot about Cause and Effect and the "mystic Law" the seen and unseen is fascinating ...The chant they do is Nam Myoho Renge Kyo penetrates into the universe into future and is very powerful like a ripple effect ...it goes beyond science ....try it ...it's awesome ...that type of Buddhism believes we are a microcosm of the universe and that we can attract positive change within our lives ...which has a ripple effect changing the universe and protecting it .....

Can we as humans protect the universe?No because we can't even make it to the closest star to us.So that's a acid dropping fallacy.We humans here on earth have dumb conservative fundamental republicans that think a renegade jew will come down and raise them from the dead because they believe in it along with the climate change isn't happening.
Buddhism is cool but still as time went on it's just not realistic.Philosophy is like a perfect world it sounds and looks good but it isn't the real reality.

The big bang is one of the most creator-friendly theories to come out of real science in recent history.


What happened 'before' the big bang?

The big bang theory leaves room for a creator.

Much of what we know about the physical universe otherwise contradicts most other ideas about a god.

So I agree that its kinda odd that modern thumpers are so hostile towards the big bang.

There are a lot of very interesting similarities that nueroscientists are making between what they study and find out and what Buddhism says about the mind. Many such scientists find it remarkable that the religious teachings appear to have been so close with describing parts of the mind. Who knows what the Buddha or Christ actually knew, and I find it unfortunate that the science vocabulary wasn't around as a jargon at the time, i think the stories would have been told quite differently if it had! I've heard that Yoga goes beyond science as well, which makes me think a thing or two. 1. Science needs to catch up. 2. Perhaps science is used wrongly when applied to such matters, and what we call science was invented to do so. It might not want to anwser an inner question. 3. Scientists shouldn't believe anything. So it is limited. But a time of sufficient reason, where explanations for questions like 'Why anything at all' is upon the age. Tendencies like why matter forms and why people protect themselves may form a likeness; some of the comparisons may be very fruitful, others are not accurate, but that they are being made is progress in my book.

Riskit, that is one way to look at religious adsurdities, but it might skip over some of the grey areas inherent in such an emotionalsubject... Would you ask current Buddhas if it works for them? I heard praying helps the brain activate certain regions even if the person is an athiest. I don't pray, but many religious practices are like going to the gym, even if you say this isn't going to work, muscle breaks down, no? If a temple is well designed, anyone will go into a meditative state, and such temples exist in India, but i admit most western buildings, even churches, are built stupidly. So just because it is perfect, doesn't mean it doesn't work. And why the emphasis on the real reality? That seems pretty redundant, saying that there is some quality of being real that must go before realitiy. It is my guess that the sense of real as observable, factual, documented by science, will not go past the state of science found today, which everyone woulod agree has its problems. Instead, a reality that includes inner facts and outer might push science along.

Since religious ideas were brought up, Shiva is lounging throughout the cosmos, and i think an infinite one, So there was no matter or structure, but it was opaque. Then energy excites certain levels and particles organize, and when that happens there are many big bangs, and galaxies brought into existence. But they are not realities- they don't have inertial, and this is given when another interaction happens with energy that orders it to be stable. So those are religious ideas, but my point is that if these old eligious genuises could have been alive today to talk to scientists, perhaps they would have aggreed and that it is also likely a distortion from what they really knew when they made stories for the people of their time, stories which also were subject to many retellings and translationsin most cases.

MetalWing is correct.

If you have an anti-science agenda, I'd be careful using the word 'contradict'.

Riskit, that is one way to look at religious adsurdities, but it might skip over some of the grey areas inherent in such an emotionalsubject... Would you ask current Buddhas if it works for them? I heard praying helps the brain activate certain regions even if the person is an athiest. I don't pray, but many religious practices are like going to the gym, even if you say this isn't going to work, muscle breaks down, no? If a temple is well designed, anyone will go into a meditative state, and such temples exist in India, but i admit most western buildings, even churches, are built stupidly. So just because it is perfect, doesn't mean it doesn't work. And why the emphasis on the real reality? That seems pretty redundant, saying that there is some quality of being real that must go before realitiy. It is my guess that the sense of real as observable, factual, documented by science, will not go past the state of science found today, which everyone woulod agree has its problems. Instead, a reality that includes inner facts and outer might push science along.
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Of course it works for them cause they chose to believe it.Point is i can sit under a oak tree with a legal pad and write all kinds of philosophical reasons of how i see things.Some can be proven others can't.Others is nothing more than common sense.
My real reality comment was simply stating in her post that how buddahs perspective of what humans can do and we are actually able to do are two different present time observations.Also real reality is real not a made up reality that some create.

There is an objective reality that is whether you believe in it or not.
The irrationals try to twist the natural world into their own social construct so they will use phrases like, "well, that's your opinion" when you are in fact stating an objective fact.

Of course they are those people who create for themselves a little illusion of the world in their head. They will have a complex ideology and a dogmatic belief in it to make it appear real.
They will scream and shout and be angry with anyone who threatens their view and they will resort to tactics like censorship and slander to silence those who speak an objective truth.
Often large groups of such people will come together is a communal delusion.(from another Site)

i agree, but the big bang is far from an "objective fact"...

And here i though we were talking about the series on TV

lol... sheldon believes in the BBT...

These are intersting points. It is important to say one's way of viewing the world when claims are made about that world. I think it must be something of a given by now that all ideas, physics concepts and mathematical models, are free creations of the human mind. If you've read the back story of modern science, of Relativity and Quantum theories, this is more easily noticed. The world isn't made of math, and the concepts and theories themselves aren't the constitutes of the universe, they just happen to get damn close to describing it sometimes, like a tight glove fitting a hand. Alternatively, however, that there is an actual arrangment behind the appearances is an intuition that is needed much currently. So it is a type of back and forth, give and take between belief in the power of ideas to describe nature, and the nature that is revealed as fact. As the view gets closer to an ultimate world system, i think that belief will diminush for the most part. If you really get something, what need is there for belief? This is why i don't think that many religious practices are inneffective or don't work, but that at the same time will be replaced with a religious feeling that does not use a belief system.