51% of Americans don't accept the Big Bang theory

There is more and more evidence for the Big Bang.

Thing is, teh Big Bang Theory (while proably labeled in an unfortunate way) is making predictions about the universe and so far all those predictions we can actually test have been confirmed.

latest evidence is that polarized light by gravity waves ting. not sure I understand that one yet.

But I think the theory predicts gravity waves happening at or shortly after the big bang which causes light to polarize in a very specific way which we have now observed.

 

A theory is just the current best explanation of the evidence. If we discovered a different explanation that was supported by evidence, we'd go with it. It's a constant process. It's not like Christianity (or any religion) is going to discover a new better God and drop the old one. They have their answer and will stick to it.

 

Even IF you believed Earth was 6000 years old, it would still come from nothing. "God did it" = "comes from nothing"

 

I'm not so sure about that.
They can never admit it. But most of today's christian's idea of their god is very very different from what people 1000 or 2000 years ago thought it is.

They stick to their scripture but tend to project their own ideas into it and interprete in such a way that it fits them on a personal level and the dogma that the church can ge away with in this age on a cultural level.

 

Religion is very fluid. Christians are no longer burning witches. At least not legally.

 

Right, that would be why the theory is patched—with inflation, dark matter, dark energy, etc.—every time a new observation comes in. Its track record for prediction has been very poor.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hstum3U2zw[/yt]
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8ijbu3bSqI[/yt]​

 

That's just progress and religion adapting to change slowly. They used to reject interracial marriage, now it's generally accepted. In a few decades they'll do the same with gay marriage. Eventually they'll hold to the same standard as traditional marriage when people start trying to marry sentient robots or whatever the next big issue is.

 

The idea that Jesus died for our sins only arose a little after 1000 AD, as I recall. The previous message was that Satan, who had a claim on all human souls because of original sin, didn't quite realize that Jesus wasn't fully human, and in trying to take Jesus soul down to hell like every other human, Satan encountered "the one" (insert CGI sequence here) and voided his right of first claim to human souls. That central message apparently had trouble maintaining traction because people at the time hadn't seen "The Matrix", and a new explanation was proposed, one that was easier to market and polled better.

 

Original sin never made sense to me. I'm not responsible for anyone else's actions and vice versa, so no one can die to remove my sins. Especially no one who lived 2000 years before I was born. The whole idea that God would judge me for something my ancestors did is deeply amoral. So far, average modern day humans have a much better moral understanding than God in the bible.

I wonder if religion ever catches up with that.

Actually, it would be kind fun to see a human rights institution like the UN human rights comittee take apart the bible tale by tale.

 

Yup, and it shoots the whole free will argument in the foot.
God allows evil because interfering would mess with people's free will.
But all people not able to not be sinners because of what somebody else did, doesn't?

 

Well yes and good of you to provide that dutiful reminder, but when we see rejection of mainstream theories we've kind of gotten used to agendas unrelated to rigorous scientific analysis of the usefulness of the tool in question.

(also, random quote marks!)

 

I honestly have no intention to derail a thread, but just my 0.02 $ since you brought up "original sin" and "responsibility":

IIRC, most people took home that God punished Adam and Eve for their disobedience. But if you really read the metaphor (what I think it is) in the whole context, it becomes painfully obvious that both Adam and Eve are trying to have somebody else take the responsibility (= suffer the punishment) for what they have actually done.

So not only did they not assume responsibility for their own actions, but - worse - accepted someone else suffering for it. My kids still and occasionally show this kind of behavior ("original sin") but I talk this through with them if they do.

Interestingly, I took the issue to their school's Catholic teacher and the teacher, too, felt that it was not about obedience but a test of character Adam & Eve miserably failed.

I think that's an encouraging paradigm shift.

Bob

 

Bob, wasn't there something about the apple being from the tree of knowledge, or am I completely off base?

("Forbidden knowledge" sounds very tyrannical to me, but then such an interpretation may be from a particular period in history.)

 

Of course you are not "off base", you just listened to another of my heretic ideas.

To me it looked like Adam and Eve had the minds of children, so something "forbidden" was especially tempting (I'd find myself incapable of punishing a curious child for that). Then they ate the "apple" and acquired mature aware- and consciousness, but instantly screwed up in handling it.

Bob

 

Ah, you mean Adam and Eve then created the Big Bang theory.

 

Actually, the "apple" was as close as the original Hebrew could come to "an Apple®". What the passage originally meant was that Eve bought an iPad or iPhone and gave it to Adam, who started surfing the web for pr0n.

 

^God was Steve Ballmer, who threw a chair, then threw Adam and Eve out.

 

Did Eden have unlimited broadband coverage?

Also, since the two were the only people around, does that mean he watched p0rn of themselves? XD

 

No, Adam would show Eve videos of his first wife, Lilith, who was reputed to be a real demon in bed.

 

Walk me through this, Metryq. Are you saying that the polarization data finally gives us a useful way of isolating the background from foreground signals in the WMAP data, or are you implying that the polarization thing is yet another straw being grasped by the cosmologists who just spent $20 billion on a series of ultra-high tech science experiments and need something to show for it before they get lynched?