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Cyclic Universe a Possibility
An Anonymous Coward writes "Spacedaily has a post(from Science) about a new theory at odds with the big bang theory. The researchers claim that this theory of an oscillating energy field could be experimentally tested in the coming years."
The problem with reconciling the Big Bang theory to a religious belief (which is something I actually do) is that it is farily obvious that God existed *before* He "let there be light." God was not created by the bang; He was already there before the first day. There's nothing (in the Bible anyway) that says there was not a prexisting work before He decided to chuck it and make a new one... and if there was, why bother telling us? Maybe the point is that we figure that out ourselves? :)
The latest versions of the big bang theory, with the addition of dark energy or whatever, of an extra repulsive force, predict, basically, the entropic death of everything - the universe as we know it today, with hot stars and habitable planets and the like, exists for some finite period and then disperses forever.
There is certainly a desire - I feel it, myself - that the universe not be that way. It is far more pleasant to think that it will regenerate itself and that complex phenomena like life could re-emerge in some subsequent cycle. However, it is important, as scientists, that we not give in to wishful thinking of that sort.
While these branes are a cute idea in a number of respects - not just because a parallel plane full of dark matter is 100% cool old school science fiction - it strikes me that they answer "how can we match our observations to what we want to be true?" rather than "how can we match our explanations to what we observe?"
Which is not to say that it isn't an excellent theory - merely that there is extreme intellectual danger associated this sort of speculation.
Let me say also - Entropy is a thorough bitch. Whatever the laws of physics turn out to be, and whatever cycles they may allow, if subsequent phenomena depend in any way on previous phenomena (phenomena being the most general term I can manage), there will be a tendency for the whole shebang to degenerate, to move into a more likely state. It is possible that the most likely state for the whole universe involves repeated regeneration of galaxy-rich explosions like the one we all inhabit, but it is also possible that subsequent big bangs would be smaller and smaller in size, eventually dwindling below some critical threshold to generate stars and the like.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
The big bang or any other theory of the universe does not contradict the existance of God, it only contradicts their narrow-minded view of God.
how difficult it is for a new theory to gain acceptance in the scientific community when it flies in the face of a long-established theory.
Yes, this problem is familiar to advocates of creation science.
According to the Bible, God created the earth and life on it in 6 days, not 7. God rested on the 7th day. There are also things written in the Bible about time in relation to God: "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" 2 John 3:8. This suggests that god is external to and not affected by the 'dimension' called time.
Their narrow minded view? Who has the right view of god? Why do you think you know so much about god if the only proof of his existance is a book written thousands of years ago by people (not god) you've never met? At least scientists are working to prove or disprove their theories, religious people seem to be afraid to question their own beliefs (*cough* guilt religion *cough*) and can't look at the other side of the coin, so to speak. My problem with religion is it is never-changing, people dont bother improving upon their theories, their just frozen with their beliefs and never question them.
Is this really new? I don't know where I first heard it, but I know that a "big crunch" has certainly been theorized. I've always thought that it seems likely that a big crunch might cause a big bang to follow. I don't know, maybe I was assuming something.
Be that as it may, one perhaps unusual bit of evidence I've always thought in favor of a cyclic universe is the existence of intelligence life on Earth. First of all, I'm pretty much of the belief that intelligent life is hugely, extremely, unbelievably unlikely. I have a feeling that if we inventoried the universe, we would find a small proportion of single cell life, some but almost nonexistent multicellular life, and higher life forms totally absent except for us.
If you look at the complexity of human beings, it's just crazy how many things have to go right to get intelligence. I mean, it took 2-3 BILLION years just to get us, and no other animal form is even close to us.
When you combine that with the fact that it only takes 2-3 million years to fill a galaxy once you have intelligent life even at sub-light speeds, that means it's probably never happened before in this galaxy.
So given that intelligence almost never happens, and it took about 1/7th - 1/4th the age of universe for it to happen here, I think that gives evidence that we needed a hell of a lot of universe cycles to get it to happen.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Reply to Hallow: There is a slight problem in your logic. If God created the universe, then he is not constrained by it. Since God made the universe, then He controls it, not the other way around. Your break in logic was not assuming that God coincided with the universe--outside of it. Judeo/Christian theology states that God created the Heavens and the Earth... which is the Universe. Since He created it, he encompasses it... omnipresent, by definition. But He is not constrained by the Universe, because He exists outside of the Universe whilst inside of it, watching over us. I'd highly recommend The Bible to anyone who wants to know more.
bah.
Why is it that so many people think I'm insane for not believing in God, yet don't mind that they believe in a God that they can't seem to tell me anything about?
For thousands of years, the devout managed to convince people that the Bible was the literal Word of God. Then we found some stuff out about the world that didn't line up with the claims made by the Bible. So now different religious groups are either telling us that science is wrong, or telling us that it doesn't matter.
I can actually fathom the conservative viewpoint better. I mean, at least there's a weird logic to their position. But liberal religions don't seem to mind jettisoning things like a literal seven day creation, a literal Noah's Ark, and even a literal Resurrection. I understand why someone would give up on such apparent absurdities, but why continue to worship the vacuous concepts that remain?
It's impossible to just talk about "the existence of God" without explaining the nature of the thing being discussed. A conception of God that is "wide-minded" enough to adapt to any sort of evidence that science might present in the future cannot be informative enough to be compelling. If you're going to believe in God without believing anything in particular about God, why not just be an agnostic and be done with it?
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
...into the Anthropic Principle.
Also what's this about `an energy field that pervades the Universe then creates new matter and radiation'? What energy field? How does it get recharged? God of the gaps again? Continuous creation? Didn't we just have an article on scientific something-for-nothing scams?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing