Religious interpretations of the Big Bang theory

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Since the creation of the Big Bang theory, many religious interpretations of the Big Bang theory of physical cosmology have been offered. The Big Bang itself is a scientific theory, and as such stands or falls by its agreement with observations. But as a theory which addresses, or at least seems to address, creation itself, it has always been entangled with theological and philosophical implications. In the 1920s and '30s almost every major cosmologist preferred an eternal universe, and several complained that the beginning of time implied by the Big Bang imported religious concepts into physics; this objection was later repeated by supporters of the steady state theory.^[1] This perception was enhanced by the fact that the theory's inventor, Georges Lemaître, was a Roman Catholic priest.

Contents 1 Buddhist View 2 Christian and Jewish views 3 Hindu view 3.1 AUM 4 Islamic view 4.1 Expansion of the universe 5 Taoist view 6 Western Spirituality view 7 See also 8 Notes 9 References 10 External links

[edit] Buddhist View

Buddha's view of the universe can be found in a Buddhist scripture called "Agganchcha Suttra". According to Buddhism, as everything else, the universe itself is subjected to "Anithya" (impermanence) and therefore has a beginning and an end. When the existing universe is dead, all the beings have to move into a special set of world's called "Brahma Loka", which are independent of the physical universe. Billions of years after, an empty space is created for a being to have rebirth. A being with strong Karma (past action), enters there. He is called Great Brahma. Due to the will of this being, some other beings also get rebirth in this space as Brahma's. However, the state of Brahma's are only suitable for the beings of higher mental state, i.e. who are not attached to sensual pleasure. Therefore, those beings, who are not in this state, want the existence of a physical world. As a result of their collective will, with the help of Maha Brahma, a new physical universe with space and time is created. This is the Big Bang. Then the universe gradually evolves into a state where it can host life, where these beings with the desire to have sensual pleasure can get rebirth. This cycle happens forever, and this total life time of the universe is called "Kalpa".

[edit] Christian and Jewish views

Lemaître himself always insisted that as a physical theory, the Big Bang has no religious implications; and yet the congruence between his scientific and religious beliefs is apparent in his famous description of the beginning of the universe as "a day without yesterday"—alluding to the creation account in Genesis. George Gamow had no compunction in describing the graphs of conditions in the Big Bang as "divine creation curves", and sent a copy of his book The Creation of the Universe to the Pope; yet even he favored an oscillating model in which the Big Bang was not a literal beginning. In recent times scientists like Francis S. Collins in his book: "The Language of God" would favor a divine explanation for the Big Bang. He argues that only a supernatural force that is outside of space and time could have done that. To this day, many people's reactions to the Big Bang theory, both positive and negative, are influenced by how well it can be harmonized with their religious and philosophical world views.

Some interpretations of the Big Bang theory go beyond science, and some purport to explain the cause of the Big Bang itself (first cause). These views have been criticized by some naturalist philosophers as being modern creation myths. Some people believe that the Big Bang theory is inconsistent with traditional views of creation such as that in Genesis, for example, while others, like astronomer and old Earth creationist Hugh Ross, believe that the Big Bang theory lends support to the idea of creation ex nihilo ("out of nothing").^[2]

A number of Christian and traditional Jewish sources have accepted the Big Bang as a possible description of the origin of the universe, interpreting it to allow for a philosophical first cause. In particular, Pope Pius XII was an enthusiastic proponent of the Big Bang even before the theory was scientifically well-established,^[3][4] and consequently the Roman Catholic Church has been a prominent advocate for the idea that creation ex nihilo can be interpreted as consistent with the Big Bang. This view is shared by many religious Jews in all branches of rabbinic Judaism. Some groups contend the Big Bang is also consistent with the teaching of creation according to Kabbalah.^[5]

The 17th Century English poet Francis Quarles in his Feast for Wormes mentions "god's all producing blast which blew up the bubble of the world". Which, presumably by chance, is a concise description of the Big Bang Theory in ordinary language.

[edit] Hindu view

Science writers Carl Sagan and Fritjof Capra have pointed out similarities between what they consider the latest scientific understanding of the age of the universe, and the Hindu concept of a "day and night of Brahma", which is much closer to the current known age of the universe than other creation myths (when taken literally). The days and nights of Brahma posit a view of the universe that is divinely created, and is not strictly evolutionary, but an ongoing cycle of birth, death, and rebirth of the universe. According to Sagan:

The Hindu religion is the only one of the world's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which time scales correspond, no doubt by accident, to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long, longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scale still.^[6]

[edit] AUM

Some Hindus believe that with the "AUM" sound, known as "pranava manthra", the Universe was started, similar to the big bang theory. "Omkara", the sound of Oham, is very important in Indian religions.^{[clarification needed]}

Capra, in his popular book The Tao of Physics, wrote that:

This idea of a periodically expanding and contracting universe, which involves a scale of time and space of vast proportions, has arisen not only in modern cosmology, but also in ancient Indian mythology. Experiencing the universe as an organic and rhythmically moving cosmos, the Hindus were able to develop evolutionary cosmologies which come very close to our modern scientific models. One of these cosmologies is based on the Hindu myth of lila—the divine play—in which Brahman transforms himself into the world.^[7]

The Hindu cosmological view of a cyclic universe has received further support from recent activity in loop quantum gravity theories [Bojowald 2007; Corichi and Singh 2008] that postulate that the existing universe is identical in terms of its physical laws to a previously contracting universe across the Big Bang window.

[edit] Islamic view

When describing the creation of the "heavens and the earth," the Qur'an does not discount the theory of a "Big Bang" explosion at the start of it all.^[8] In fact, the Qur'an says that "the heavens and the earth were joined together as one unit, before We clove them asunder" (21:30). Following this big explosion, Allah "turned to the sky, and it had been (as) smoke. He said to it and to the earth: 'Come together, willingly or unwillingly.' They said: 'We come (together) in willing obedience'" (41:11). Thus the elements and what was to become the planets and stars began to cool, come together, and form into shape, following the natural laws that Allah established in the universe.^[8]

[edit] Expansion of the universe

The Qur'an also does not rule out the idea that the universe is continuing to expand.^[8] "The heavens, We have built them with power. And verily, We are expanding it" (51:47). There has been some historical debate among Muslim scholars about the precise meaning of this verse, since knowledge of the universe's expansion was only recently discovered, but there are also numerous other scientific facts in the Qur'an which have only recently been discovered in the last four decades.^[8]

[edit] Taoist view

It has been proposed by some that a suggestion of a Big Bang can also be found in Taoism, a branch of Chinese philosophy. The first verse of the Tao Te Ching is:

"… It was from the Nameless that Heaven and Earth sprang; The named is but the mother that rears the ten thousand creatures, each after its kind."^[9]

[edit] Western Spirituality view

Barry Long, an Australian spiritual teacher and writer, held an original perspective on the Big Bang Theory, of which the following quote is quintessential:

“

It (the Big Bang theory) would be really effective, and an astonishing scientific advance, if the theorizing observer realized that as intelligence he is reducing all that he is seeing and imagining, including himself, to within a split second of the non-existent now-point in his own brain, the point of reality and the emergent point of the whole universe as far as man and sense can perceive it. Then the theory would be absolutely correct. The scientist would not be concerned with a fabricated beginning billions of years ago but with himself, intelligence, being only a split second away from the pre-existent state, his own and everything's source - the motionless pure intellect or consciousness. Universe and man as intelligence would then unite in one sublime realized truth and the way would be open for scientific entry into the new epoch of time and knowledge beyond light-speed, sense and past.[10]

”

[edit] See also

• Big Bang Theory
• Qur'an and science
• Issues in Science and Religion

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Leeming, David Adams, and Margaret Adams Leeming, A Dictionary of Creation Myths. Oxford University Press (1995), ISBN 0-19-510275-4.
• Pius XII (1952), "Modern Science and the Existence of God," The Catholic Mind 49:182–192.
• Ahmad, Mirza Tahir, Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth Islam International Publications Ltd (1987), ISBN 1-85372-640-0. The Quran and Cosmology
• Long, Barry, The Origins of Man And the Universe Barry Long Books (1998), ISBN 1-899324-12-7. The Origins of Man And the Universe

[edit] External links

• More universe theories
• [1] Varg Vikernes' "Irminsûl" (Germanic paganism view)