Big Bang: Is there room for God?

[Sammi79]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

"Confident" in what regard? On what do they base their confidence? Anybody can have an idea, and their ideas are certainly more educated than mine, but from where I stand it still looks like pure guesswork.

Mainly advanced mathematical models I believe. And I did state they are simply ideas, but they are the only working models so far. Recent evidence regarding dark matter/energy are pointing away from a singularity. Consider the universe is not only expanding (which logically led us into the big bang concept), but we know now the rate at which it is expanding is increasing. Logically if you reverse time and follow it backward, there is now plausibly a point at which the universe was not expanding. So possibly no big bang at all.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I understand that concept, but what evidence is there for what went (or didn't go) before?

Everything that came after.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Which puts it back into the realm of guessing, not theory.

Quite. String theory and M-theory etc. although very educated are exactly that. The standard model, however is a Theory that explains the evidence gathered from several billion proton/proton collisions. No test designed to falsify it has ever succeeded, and there have been nearly as many tests as collisions. I'd like to see a religious person seriously attempt to falsify their belief because It is very rare and the result is normally atheism. It starts like this - if god doesn't exist then x should logically happen/not happen/be observed/etc then perform the test, record the result and repeat a million times. Take your results and pass the experiment on to an objective third party and have them repeat another million times. At all times you must be prepared to accept the evidence rather than cling on to your desired outcome. publish the method, results etc. and let other folks read and repeat it, find flaws in method or not, add more results. That's the first test done, now think of another one and repeat, then another and repeat etc. a million times. By that time you should have a level of certainty about the evidence for or against god that barely approaches the certainty of the standard model.

And I will take any assertions you make about god seriously.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

But is there any clue at all to what the "nothing" was like before the universe existed? If not, then again all the speculation in the world still means...well, nothing.

The universe is the only albeit massive clue.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

And as for "Deicide"? well, my God can beat up your God! How do I know this? Because I believe it, so there!

Oh, I won't be bringing a god. It'll just be little dead me, but I fight dirty, and I fight to kill. Your god will give me oblivion immediately upon the point of my death or receive his own after I've spent eternity catching hold of him, that's a promise. He's got it coming.

YOU HEARIN' THIS YOU OMNIPOTENT WIMP?