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This thread began with the goal to show that, contrary to many people’s opinions, Big Bang Theory is compatible with and supports the view a creator God or Designer was involved at the start of the universe. It was not my goal to prove God created the universe, only that the available science is compatible with and supports such a belief. At the very least, people should not see a conflict between science and a belief in a Designer or creator God.

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There are several problems with this approach.First, you are relying on the Anthropic principle. The confirmation bias inherent to the Anthropic principle is quite obvious. If the universe were not capable of producing intelligent beings then who would be here to notice? Obviously, no one. So it is not that suprising that a universe capable of producing intelligent life has intelligent life in it. Even more, this universe could have been designed by a poor designer, one that was trying to create a sterile universe but failed.Second, by definition any conceivable observation can be consistent with an omnipotent creator, including a steady state universe. An omnipotent designer could create a universe with a false history of steady state conditions. In fact, an omnipotent creator could have created the universe last Thursday, complete with a false history and intelligent beings with false memories. It is a fool's errand to try and find evidence which would falsify a designer since no such evidence can exist.Third, theistic claims have completely failed for quite a few years now. To quote Steven Weinberg:

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Once nature seemed inexplicable without a nymph in every brook and a dryad in every tree. Even as late as the nineteenth century the design of plants and animals was regarded as visible evidence of a creator. There are still countless things in nature that we cannot explain, but we think we know the principles that govern the way they work. Today for real mystery one has to look to cosmology and elementary particle physics. For those who see no conflict between science and religion, the retreat of religion from the ground occupied by science is nearly complete."

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Theistic explanations just don't work. They never really did. We were told that gods made thunder and lightning. They were wrong. We were told that Baccus made grape juice ferment. They were wrong. Over and over gods have disappeared from our explanation of nature. You have now retreated to the few gaps left in our knowledge and have now declared that God exists there. Sorry, not falling for it.

It seems as if you don’t know what a personal attack is or what the words personal attack mean. It attacks your person, not your statements. Personal attack Pointing out exactly where you are not telling the truth is not a personal attack. For example: My answer was: Not at all. People thought that the world was created a few thousand years ago. Compte du Buffon calculated the earth to be 75 000 years old in 1779. John Philips (1800-1874) calculated the earth to be around 96 million years old. William Thomson calculated the earth to be 20 to 400 million years old in 1872. You were thus not telling the truth at all. My answer was: Nonsense. Steady State Theory was only devised in 1948, it was a cosmological theory and had nothing to do with the age of the earth ". I quoted from Wiki, showing you that you were not telling the truth at all. I even showed you who and when Solid State Theory started.No personal attacks. Just your false statements showed you where you were not telling the truth. No personal attacks involved in that. It does show a lot about your character. I still believe that people who write that "in the 19th and 20th centuries, people thought that the earth always existed", belong in institutions. Seeing that you believe the Bible, as did virtually all Europeans, Americans, etc till about 100 years ago, I think that you are certainly twisting the truth to such an extent that you would fly into buildings.Why don't you realize that, the moment you stop telling porkies, you won't experience "personal attacks"?Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

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...I still believe that people who write that "in the 19th and 20th centuries, people thought that the earth always existed", belong in institutions.

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I suspect that designtheorist meant "universe" instead of "earth." If so, he is correct.

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My answer was: Nonsense. Steady State Theory was only devised in 1948, it was a cosmological theory and had nothing to do with the age of the earth ". I quoted from Wiki, showing you that you were not telling the truth at all. I even showed you who and when Solid State Theory started.

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It may be true that the Steady State theory in its current form was devised by Hoyle, Bondi, and Gold in 1948, but the general idea is much, much older. The conception of a steady-state eternal universe has been popular from the time of Aristotle to the mid 20th century.According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
According to Wikipedia:
And according to Wikipedia, steady-state cosmologies were held by Aristotle, Newton, Descartes, Kant, Einstein, and MacMillan.

Hi kbertche, What, they converted because of the Big Bang theory? Really? Because I checked the first three he cited and they were shite. The claim was that they converted specifically because of the Big Bang remember.Did your two convert because of the Big Bang? Because if not, you're making the same mistake that designtheorist is.They're also just bad examples in general. Neither is a physicist. Flew converted after succumbing to senile dementia, hardly anything for Christians to brag about and Smalley is an Old Earth creationist. These are lousy examples to use in an argument from authority. I mean, if you're going to make bad arguments, at least make bad arguments well.Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.Edited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.

pressie,
I did not name you as the person making the personal attacks. I don't have a problem with you pointing out any errors you see in my argument. I want that.I only have a minute here because I'm at work. I hope to have more time tonight. Regarding the steady state theory. I have used the terms steady state and static state as interchangeable. Perhaps that was sloppy of me. The static universe theory was Einstein's view because it was the common view at the time.Static universe - WikipediaI am not sure there is any real difference in the way static universe and steady state are defined. I think Fred Hoyle just renamed the old theory, but perhaps I am wrong on that.I will try to address the other issues tonight.

Maybe. Creationists conflate the ideas of "Big Bang" and "Evolution" and "Geology" all the time. They think it's all the same. Not at all. They certainly didn't think that the age of the earth was "indefinite". They thought it was "poofed" into existence less than 10 000 thousnad years ago. They all read the Bible or Quoran or wherever their culture or fancy took them.Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

Fred Hoyle's solution was "creation field" and "quasi-steady state" theory. Both allowed for an expanding universe with continual creation of energy, and thus matter. This way the universe was eternal and expanding. For C-field and QSS the universe is not static. It is expanding. However, it has an infinite history compared to a finite history for the BB.

designtheorist
Nothing against you. I actually like you, because you are a sincere person in what you believe.Sincere, but misguided (just like I used to be). I really dislike it intensely when people don't tell the truth. Just tell the truth, man. Nobody's going to kill you for it (you don't live in a Village in darkest swamps in the Congo, do you?). People could learn from you, and you could learn from other people. That's what this forum is for. That's how humanity advances. When people don't tell the truth, they are distrusted and made fun of. And fall back into the dark ages.You have to be very careful when writing words down, because words (mostly) do have very specific meanings. People do look them up in dictionaries (I do in the Oxford, because English is not my first language). Sometimes American is Greek to me! However, that's the only way people from all over the world can attempt to understand what a person is trying to convey.
Just tell the truth!

I believe you are describing Hoyle's later position, after the CMB radiation was discovered in 1965. This is the position some came to call "steady bang," although I don't think Hoyle ever used that term. Prior to 1965, Hoyle had publicly defended the Steady State Theory. As far as I know, Hoyle's view was not appreciably different that the Static Universe view described in the Wikipedia article I linked earlier. I could be wrong on that. I will have to do a little more reading to find out.

pressie, by pleading with me to tell the truth you are implying I have not been. It is the same as calling me a liar. I'm not sure who called me a liar, but I consider that a personal attack. I don't see any point in it. If you think I'm wrong, point out the wrong. I truly want to be corrected. But it doesn't help your case to assume the worst about me or plead with me to tell the truth.I may be wrong on occasion (as possibly in the case of thinking static universe and steady state theory were synonyms), but I have never knowingly lied here. What's the point in that?

kbertsche is correct. I simply wrote the wrong word. Sorry I did not check it more closely before submitting the comment. No, I don't conflate these ideas. I do see and use the word "evolution" in its broadest sense, including the evolution of the universe. It does not apply strictly to biology as some people think. pressie, you are conflating my views with the views of young earth creationists. I have never expressed such a view here.

Maybe the problem here is that one can appear to be using gaps in current knowledge as "evidence" to support the existence of a designer. In fact, all a "gap" is is lack of evidence or knowledge one way or another.Perhaps one could say that given what we know about cosmology, astronomy, geology, etc, there are certain models of deliberate creation that are falsified (as in Young Earth models, or that North America rides on the back of a giant turtle). But as a previous poster mentioned, this is probably just an extention of "God" being pushed further and further back as our knowledge of the world around us grows. We don't look for God in storm clouds now. Nor do we in the formation of solar systems or globular clusters. So he has to be hiding somewhere - so far back that we now have to use painfully meaningless phrases like "before time began".That said, what I don't think you could *ever* prove is design with humans as an end goal. When I read Lee Strobel's _The Case for a Creator_ I was dismayed to read some very weak arguments towards the end of the book. I can't remember who he was interviewing (I don't have the book in front of me) however the arguments were dismal. That we are in a position to view eclipses was one particularly strange argument. The entire universe was created, with our own particular (and rather insignificant) solar system set up as it is, just so we humans could view solar and lunar eclipses. Not to mention badly outdated information on extra-solar planets.Another issue (I'm not necessarily charging the OP with this) are vast logical leaps made. Even supposing that one could deduce that the universe was designed, there is a vast gulf between that conclusion and that the designer is also YHWH who sent his son (who is part of himself) to be sacrificed to atone for sins which YHWH defined.What about the possibility that the universe is not a deliberate creation by this "being" (if we allow for this entity's existence for the sake of argument) but rather a cosmic accident? After all, if the thing is omnipotent, the universe could very well be an unnoticed side effect of something else it was up to. You know, like the flotsam from some sneeze. Nod to Douglas Adams.

Dirk, complexity is easy to recognize but not as easy to quantify. Just as the vastness of the ocean is easy to recognize but more difficult to quantify. A child can say "The ocean is big!" But ask a scientist how big and he will ask for a research grant.Debating complexity is not the issue right now. Right now we are debating the fact the standard cosmology of the Big Bang supports the idea of a creator God or Designer of the universe.But perhaps it will help you to know how complexity is recognized. Living things are more complex than non-living things (by a LOT!). Complexity requires organization, purpose, function and information.You can also think of a mobile home park. You may not like the look of it, but it does have some organization, purpose and function. Then think of what the mobile home park looks like after a tornado or hurricane has hit it. The organization is gone and the purpose and function are destroyed.

Strictly speaking you are correct. There are many different kinds of evolution. However, if you want to avoid confusion when talking about any kind of change other than biological, I suggest you modify the word "evolution" with an additional descriptive term, such as stellar evolution. Particularly at this forum, when someone uses the word "evolution," they are usually referring to biological evolution.You should also keep in mind that there are many creos who simply lump together all the sciences they don't like, the Big Bang Theory, the Theory of Evolution, geology, into something they refer to as "origins." Then, they pretend that any criticism of any of those theories undermines all of them. If you are imprecise in your word usage and appear to conflate terms, many here will assume you do not understand the difference.Of course, the choice is yours.

Well, given that earlier you had to guess that a human was more complex than a tree (Message 179), it can't be that easy... You must be joking. The Indian Ocean is 73,556,000 km2 and contains an estimated 292,131,000 km3 of water. On the other hand, the North Sea is 750,000 km2 and contains 94,000 km3 of water (source: Wikipedia) and is therefore smaller. These are quite easy and straightforward ways to quantify vastness. As long as you - and any other creationist out there - are unable to quantify complexity in a similar way, and to find a way to define and quantify the complexity, of say, rock Stumpie (see Message 30), there is no way that you can use it as an argument in any scientific discussion whatsoever. Just saying that something is more complex, like you do, is not enough. You need to prove it by measuring something that is indicative of complexity, just like people measure surface area or volume as an indication of size.But you are right, this discussion is not about complexity. It is about whether the being before the big bang was Zeus or the god of the gaps... Message 150 Edited by Dirk, : No reason given.