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The Vatican Invites World's Leading Scientists To Discuss Cosmology (independent.co.uk)
In 2014, Pope Francis declared that God is not "a magician with a magic wand" and that evolution and the Big Bang theory are real. Now, the Vatican has sent an invitation to the world's leading scientists and cosmologists to try and understand the Big Bang. The Independent reports: Astrophysicists and other experts will attend the Vatican Observatory to discuss black holes, gravitational waves and space-time singularities as it honors the late Jesuit cosmologist considered one of the fathers of the idea that the universe began with a gigantic explosion. The conference honoring Monsignor George Lemaitre is being held at the Vatican Observatory, founded by Pope Leo XIII in 1891 to help correct the notion that the Roman Catholic Church was hostile to science. In 1927, Lemaitre was the first to explain that the receding of distant galaxies was the result of the expansion of the universe, a result he obtained by solving equations of Einstein's theory of general relativity. Lemaitre's theory was known as the "primeval atom," but it is more commonly known today as the big-bang theory. The head of the Vatican Observatory, Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno, says Lemaitre's research proves that you can believe in God and the big-bang theory.
How is that not retarded?
Take a look at their bank accounts and other holdings.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Similarly, on the Protestant side, Sola Fide and, particularly, John 3:16 within Sola Scriptura makes one's stance on creationism versus evolution not a criterion for salvation.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Highly interesting (I'm a physicist myself, versed in quantum mechanics, but I don't know jack about cosmology and big bang besides from what I've heard on discovery channel...).
But you shouldn't start looking for God where the physics fails -- that's a recipe for misunderstanding. Essentially, that's what everyone before already did: ancient times looked for god in nature catastrophes and anomalies, middle ages looked for him in the stars and (by today's standards) simple chemistry, and now we're looking for him at the inception of big bang or in "quantum physics" -- in other words, always at the boundary of our scientific understanding. The concept failed before, and it will fail us, as our understanding of the world inevitably advances. (I'm shamelessly assuming that one day we'll understand how the universe holds together, physically... ;-) ).
Don't mix god and science. God is not there to fill the gaps in physics books. It's the humanistic side of things rather than the scientific, he's there to help us understand the "why" rather than the "how." Every time God or religion appears to meddling with scientific education, it's because somebody's not asking the right question.
Religion and science go together wonderfully as long as the other doesn't try to diletantly invade the domain of the other. (BTW, this view is not new in the Catholic church, I've learned this in religion classes since the 6th grade. It's just that the current pope is now being explicitly clear about it. And judging by the number of misunderstandings that bubble to the surface I'd say it was about f#@%$ing time, too.)