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History and Evolution:
By William E. Steinman:
Part 3, Bang:
April 07, 2003:
For a person interested in evolution, the Big Bang is as far back
as we can sort of go. First, we must realize this Big Bang is
a theory, not a demonstrable fact. In theory, there was a Big
Bang. All the observable evidence points to that. Still, we cannot
be sure it really occurred. There were no eye witnesses, so to
speak. Just the same, we are told a long, long time ago some big
wad of stuff exploded and created the universe.
A childish person like myself has to ask, what caused that Big Bang and what was there before the Big Bang? When I ask those questions what I hear is a resounding silence. No one wants to address them. No one seems to have an answer to that. They don't know, nor do I. What then can I conclude? So far as I know, there is no beginning, there is no end. In fact, our history is kind of like a very bad novel. It has no beginning. There is no apparent end. It seems to have only a middle composed of a collection of loosely related scenes. It's like a series of vignettes.
I think the first step is to admit we don't know. The Big Bang is something that might have happened. We cannot go back beyond that. We do not know what caused it or what it consisted of. We can only speculate. We are partway through something that does not seem to have a beginning and we can only speculate as to the end. We can not predict an end with any degree of honesty.
All of this theory of the Big Bang brings into serious question the fundamentalist's six day creation theory. But, If we are going to question the six day theory, we must also have a right to question the Big Bang theory. I must still ask, what was it that exploded, Where did it come from, and what was there before then? Where is the beginning? I cannot accept the Big Bang or any other event as a beginning with no precedent. It is inconceivable that nothing existed at one time.
Heck, as long as we are speculating, I can speculate with the best of them. Any number of things could have happened. Any number of things could be true. Maybe our universe is just a small eddy in a stream and what we think of as reality is just a small local fluke.
Perhaps some truly enormous giant, hundreds of times larger that the universe, passed flatulence. Maybe God farted and the resultant gas cloud is what we know as the universe. If we could make a perfect telescope and look all the way back to the point of origin of the Big Bang, would we be looking at God's rectum? When you carry cynicism to its extreme it can be humorous. However, in this case, the only thing we can honestly be is a cynic.
Maybe the six day theory is real. Maybe God ran it like any other project engineer would run it. The sixth day could have gone on for eons, being 90% done. We're almost there! Maybe it would finally be done, then what? There would have to be a celebration. That is how all big projects end. All of the Angels and everyone else involved hop over to Abraham's Bar and Grill. Who knows how long a celebration for the creation, the biggest project ever, could have lasted? Maybe it's still going on. That would explain why mankind is so screwed up. God is on Break. He went over to Abe's to have a beer and a cigar. We expect him back Monday. We don't know which Monday.
It's kind of normal to let down after a big project. I know whenever I finish a book I celebrate with a six pack and a good cigar. I usually try to celebrate with someone. I don't have any Angels, but I do have a few friends. God probably has lots of friends.
I think that is enough silliness for one essay. I just want to make the point that we can formulate theories to the ends of our imagination and it is impossible to prove they are wrong or right. In the end, we must admit what we have is speculation, sometimes informed speculation and sometimes not.
Perhaps it will be helpful to look at what we do knew. From observations we can surmise that the universe we know is expanding at a very high rate of speed. Whether it came from an explosion or an orifice it is now acting like a huge expanding gas cloud. In fact, thinking of it that way, perhaps the universe is doing nothing more profound than obeying a variation of Boyle's Law. There are local variations, but the temperature of the universe seems to be relatively constant. What has not been determined is whether or not it will eventually be confined.
Scientist seem to agree that whatever initiated this expansion happened a very long time ago. The numbers I have seen range from 10 to 20 billion years ago. So, the universe began somehow and out of that came the stars, planets, and whatever. Also, out of that came man.
Ten to twenty billion years is a bit of a large window but
it is all we have about the origin of our universe. In a future
essay, I want to look at some of the major events of the cosmos
that may have occurred since then. As we get further away from
the beginning, we can be a bit more accurate with our speculations
as to when and how things came about.
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