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Atheism / Secularism
Creation of the Universe

How was the universe created?

The answer science has is that there was a big bang.

Was anybody there to see it? Obviously that's not a good question. Everyone knows no one was there to see the creation of the universe.

Science is based on coming up with a hypothesis and then doing experiements to test that hypothesis. When you get repeatable results that match the hypothesis, that hypothesis is proved to be true. Can we do this with the big bang?

No. We have no way to replecate the conditions that would test the hypostheis that there was a big bang. We can not do experiements on historical questions.

So how do we find out what happened?

We investigate historical questions as we do criminal investgations (which are also historical questions). We examine the evidence to determine whether that evidence supports our hypothesis.

The Origins of the Universe: When we didn't have the technology to look deeply and clearly into the universe, it did indeed look like the universe resulted from a big bang. It appeared the universe was expanding with everything moving further apart, as it would on the surface of a balloon that was expanding. But as technology has advanced with new devices such as the Hubble Space Telescope and even the Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii, we are finding the evidence does not support a big bang. For example:

The Redshift Desert

We determine how far away an object in space is by measuring the red shift in the light coming from that object. Since light takes time to travel, the farther away something is, the further back into the past we are seeing when we look at it. Thus when we look at objects tat are 8 to 11 billion lightyears away, we are seeing things as they were near the time of the beginning of the universe.

Since it takes billions of years for huge objects such as galaxies to form, if we look far enough back into the past we should reach a point at which fully formed galaxies are no longer seen. Any object further away than 8 billion lightyears was considered to be in the "Redshift Desert" because no massive object, such as galaxies, should exist that far back in time.

What did astronomers see when they used the Gemini North Telescoipe to look into the Redshift Desert? A sky filled with fully formed, mature galaxies, just like our own galaxy. Galaxies that can not exist if the big bang theory is true.

Does Red Shift Really Measure Distance?

There are many "facts" that everyone accepts as true, but which have no true scientific basis (they have not been tested through experimentation). One is that redshift measures distance. How do we know this? Because we have observed on earth that as something moves away from us, the energy coming from it (sound, for example) shifts to lower frequencies.

However, has science ever been able to verify, using an independent measurement, that redshift is an accurate measure of distance (or speed away from us) in the universe? The answer is no. This is an assumption that seems to make so much sense that everyone has accepted it as true. But, if we look at the evidence, what do we find?

We find, for example, the spiral galaxy NGC 4319 and a small quasar, Markarian 205. Based on their redshifts the quasar should be much further away from us than the galaxy. Yet in images of these objects we can clearly see material bridging from the quasar to the galaxy. They are actually very close to each other! So redshifts are not a reliable measure of distance or speed.

The Evidence Does Not Support the Big Bang

The December 2004-February 2005 issue of Creation Magazine lists a few other examples:

• "Elements thought to 'evolve' within the furnaces of ancient stars over many billions of years have been found 'only' 2.5 billion years after the big bang."
  
  
• "Very complex strings of galaxies, claimed to be hundreds of light years in size, have been found when only small, isolated prot-galaxies should exist."
  
  
• "Massively complex galaxies and supermassive black holes have also been found too early in the evolutionary life of the universe to be explained by conventional theories."

There's much more than what we can list here. The point is, the evidence does not support the big bang or any other theory for the natural formation of the universe. You can either have blind faith that the universe was formed naturally, or you can take the word of an eye witness who was there when the universe was created.

Next: Investigate the Beginning of Life

Additional thought: Is the belief in "milions of years" a religion based on faith?