The big picture

Darksyde says that "I can’t for the life of me wrap my head around creationist objections to the Big Bang. If ever there were a nexus of the biblical creation story and science, that would be it. If ever there were a logical place to posit a Prime Mover, there it is." I can wrap my head around it, well, a part of it anyways. A "prime mover" isn't necessarily currently interested in humanity or has ever been interested in humanity, nor does "And god said 'BOOM' and it was good" occur anywhere in the Bible. Those creationists prefer the story that they already have for their own reasons, some of which I rather admire...

He writes that, "I can’t imagine a better place for God to work his will than the long-hidden secrets that Hubble and COBE revealed." But what about will in the lives of individual humans? What makes space inherently a better workplace for God than in the lives of his followers? The big bang is distant and long past, but many people want a god that is close, intimate, and current.

"Nor can I envision a greater testament to the brilliance of any Creator, than the creation of the universe with a single act, which would in turn initiate countless processes, all unfolding over eons, to produce this glorious, star-studded, breathtakingly beautiful universe." Again, I can imagine the testaments of human thought, love and life, to be a greater display of brilliance in a Creator for people who believe that that's how God works. Meanwhile, the stars and universe can be thought of as chance creations of cold-heartless laws of physics.

" I know some of you are religious, so you tell me: is this not inspirational?" It can be. But there are many things that I find inspirational.

"Is this not worthy of your Creator?" If I were highly religious, would I believe that I were worthy enough to determine what is worthy of God?

" Does this grandeur not humble you, make your hairs stand on end, and fill you with immense pride and thankfulness for the genius of your Creator?" I have been stopped dead in my tracks at the beauty of a sunset over the trees surrounding a band practice field, or the perfect white of wet dogwood blossoms surrounded by dark green woods after a storm. And by heartfelt words of love, or a perfect line of unexpected harmony in a bout of spontaneous music with friends.

But I wander, too, what makes us think of things as beautiful?Is beauty useful to us somehow? Does it help us survive? Or does it just lift our moral and entertain us? Help keep our brains active and alert? I doubt that anyone knows for certain. But the fact is that I find a lot of things fill me with pride and thankfulness more than the vast unknown of the universe and the big bang do. But while beauty may be part of why I believe in a creator of some sort (I'm increasely less and less attached to the idea of the trinity and traditional notions of God from Christianity) I believe for a lot of reasons other than just awe over creation...

The big bang is great on paper, but it still leaves readers with so many questions: where did the mass of the universe come from, why did finally explode, how did it come to be so densely compacted, are there any other big bangs in history or far far away, will the universe expand forever or will it fall back on itself and contract for another big bang,... millions of unanswered questions that we'll probably never know the answer to--at least not in this lifetime. Some people find more satisfying answers in religion.

This religious sidetrack that Darksyde takes is distracting, it feels like a random attack on religion in an attempt to prove that his thoughts about the big bang prove that some of these religious people are stupid or something (and some of them very well may be stupid or stubborn) but I don't get the point of it in this chapter...

In fact, I had a REALLY hard time seeing the point in any of chapter 18. It was really confusing and frustrating trying to draw connections to it and within it. The main thing that I got was that the universe is old and that we could see into the past in a way, which is nothing new at all, they taught us that way back in elementary science classes. And then there was something about "dark energy" that would probably make a lot more sense if I were reading about it from somewhere else, a science journal perhaps, some source with less sidetracks and less fussing about Young Earth Creationists.