Talk:Religious interpretations of the Big Bang theory

Introductory Paragraph Needs Rewording

The introductory paragraph for this section subtly lacks some much needed neutrality... It's not blatant, but feels like it needs to be reworded so it doesn't make non-followers of the Big Bang seem denounced or any less credible. This goes for the last sentence in particular. Z Coop (talk) 02:19, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Flying Spaghetti Monster

Does anyone know of any sources stating the interpretation of the Big Bang theory in the Pastafarianism religion. Because that would be interesting... :) Polyamorph (talk) 15:47, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Clearly this theory requires His Noodly Appendage.

Zoroastrianism

I'd say that the article's view of Zoroastrian understanding of the universe is quite flawed and there seem to be no references for it. As far as I know Zoroastrians basically believe that Ahura Mazda created the universe with His Spenta Mainyu and through divine emanations at some point of time from our perspective and that there will be an apocalypse known as Frashokereti which however will not be the end of the world but rather its completion. Therefore Zoroastrianism actually does not conflict with the Big Bang much or at all --80.221.255.80 (talk) 00:25, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Dubiousness of the "Islam" section and reasons for its removal.

I have removed the Islam section from here. There were four references provided all of which are being given a cursory glance below.

The first is complete bogus. Diane Morgan comments that "Many Muslim commentators search through it for passages that seem to parallel findings made by modern science". And that is about it.

The second is by Helaine Selin. Her "reference" is cited here in the light of the following comment - "Bucaille (a French surgeon .... SURGEON??!!) examines the holy scriptures in the light of modern science to discover what they have to say about astronomy, the earth, the animal and the vegetable kingdoms". He (who? .... oh the FRENCH SURGEON) finds that the Bible does not meet the stringent criteria of modern knowledge. The Quran on the other hand does not contain a single proposition at variance with the most firmly established modern knowledge .... " Please pardon my comments which you find interspersed here in the brackets. My points here are - (1) Who is Bucaille besides being a not-so-accomplished French surgeon? He does not merit so much as to be mentioned by his full name. Is his claim to fame being French? Or is it that he is a surgeon who either is an abject failure in his own field or seems to be so fulfilled having conquered all there is to in his domain as to move on to commenting on other sciences and religions as well? (2) How does a surgeon comment on Astronomy, Geo-sciences etc? (3) WHAT exactly are these lack of any variances that he has seen? No specifics as per field or topic or whatever AND certainly no "Big Bang". The whole thing is just gibberish. (4) AND most importantly the writer Helaine Selin herself is critical and almost semi-sarcastic as she writes that entire section where she begins by saying "This is a combination of religious and scientific fundamentalism" and ends with that "Buccalism" is the most commonly resorted to version of "Islamic Science".

The third and fourth are direct quotes from the Quran and deliberately misinterpreted.

I fail to understand how these references and corresponding claims have stayed on the article for so long. These references are meaningless BS quotes that are being misinterpreted by bigots. I also have quotes from present-day top-notch scientists in the astronomical sciences, like Kevin Hurley (UC Berkeley), Scott Sandford (NASA), Steinn Sigurdsson (Penn State) etc, besides the more famous ones like Oppenheimer, Capra, and Sagan, who have directly credited "Hindus" with advanced knowledge more than 6000 years ago, especially in the Astronomical sciences.

If those who wish to see the Islamic section here want, they are free to use the other article they have created, namely "Islam and Science" for this purpose, but IMO, not here. The references are all bogus and actually the authors seem NOT to support the view. At this rate, I could say that prehistoric Indians were building monuments that were a few miles high, as they are often mentioned in the Hindu texts, in maybe an analogous article titled maybe "Skyscrapers in Prehistory", or something of the sort. 117.194.235.218 (talk) 08:14, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I just say nonsense of your removal. There are very good editors, they did not remove, you need to learn first before any edits.Justice007 (talk) 11:31, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I spent time and energy citing reasons for the removal of what was actually utter "nonsense" which you have (I can see for obvious reasons) reinstated. While I gave reasons as to why all the four citations in the Islam section (21, 22, 23, 24) are gibberish you have without any proper arguments just reverted. Just who are these "good editors"? How many people have actually edited here? Without explaining how those references are actually supportive of your claims (when they should be in fact evident at first sight itself) how do you think you can continue to keep what you like to see? 117.194.235.31 (talk) 17:06, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

"(2) How does a surgeon comment on Astronomy, Geo-sciences etc?" a lot of scientists and professionals are multi disciplinary and prominent scientists since before the Renaissance were into philosophy and religion and finding meaning in the universe. "(3) WHAT exactly are these lack of any variances that he has seen?" I think he means the words of the quran have not changed since the begining of islam because they were memorized in full since the days of the prophet across many generations and civilizations. "(4) AND most importantly the writer Helaine Selin herself is critical and almost semi-sarcastic as she writes that entire section where she begins by saying "This is a combination of religious and scientific fundamentalism" and ends with that "Buccalism" is the most commonly resorted to version of "Islamic Science"." and how does that negate the text of the verse relevant to the big bang? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.98.253.204 (talk) 22:09, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

• The objections to the removal do not appear to make sense, since they cite no reason that follows policy. IRWolfie- (talk) 03:29, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

the removal doesn't make sense because this is an article about religious interpretations of the big bang and islam is one of those religions so how come you want to remove the islam section exclusively? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.98.242.233 (talk) 16:00, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

The references all appear shoddy (I'll also note the evident confirmation bias from the search criteria used to find the sources, as evident from the google book links) and represent minority positions. For example, superficially "Encyclopedia of the history of science, technology and medicine in non-western cultures" sounds promising, but a cursory glance at it shows it is written from a perspective against modern science and medicine. I am skeptical about how much these sources actually represent mainstream Islam, IRWolfie- (talk) 11:21, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

I've removed the unsourced section as WP:OR based only on ancient religious text quotations. What WP:Reliable source supports any of this. If the section is to be re-instated, it must be based on solid sources. Vsmith (talk) 00:53, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree with the removal of this section. It's not that the article can't, or shouldn't have a section on Islam's view of the Big Bang, it's that what was in the section is complete POV/OR unsubstantiated by reliable secondary sources. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:54, 20 March 2014 (UTC)