Rohith Gopal

Powell
11th Humanities
25 April 2013
Theory Banging Religion
Have you ever wondered what started it all? The air you breath, the people you talk
too, the thoughts you think, the trees you see? Some call it the workings of God, and others
maintain a more scientific approach. Religion and science have always had ideas contradictory to
each other, however the origin of the universe seems to be a topic which is too broad for
stubbornness. One concept that has held much regard in the world of science and religion is the
Big Bang theory. The Big Bang Theory of the origin of the universe is plausible enough to
maintain its integrity while coexisting in both the scientific and religious communities.
In 1929, Edwin Hubble made a discovery that would change the way the world
perceives our universe. He discovered not only that everything in the universe was moving
further away from each other, but that this meant the entire universe is expanding indefinitely
(Big Bang Theory, cwru.edu). This led to the assumption
that if everything is constantly expanding, it must have
started out small and eventually expanded to the size it is
now. This idea is essentially the Big Bang theory; 13.7 billion
years ago, everything in the universe used to be extremely
compacted into an infinitesimal mass before an explosion of sorts set off
the contents to begin expansion (Takahashi). The name is somewhat of a contradiction as no

sound could possibly be carried out in space to produce a bang, but it is more a word to
represent the concept of a trigger that began the expansion. the particles we are acquainted with
today, baryons, photons, neutrinos, electrons and quarks would become the building blocks of
matter and life as we know it (LaRocco/Rothstein), setting the stage for the atomic elements,
light, sound, electricity, and the concept of evolution. These particles which started life are not
shunned by any religion, as they are scientifically existent on this planet and there is extensive
research done on them. It is the place from which these particles came from that is under debate.
To this day, the majority of scientists in the community believe in the Big Bang theory to be the
origin of the universe. The evidence is so extensive, that even the Catholic Church officially
pronounced the big bang model to be in accordance with the Bible in 1951 (Takahashi). This is
a rare instance of religion accepting science, but it deserved acceptance.
The Big Bang theory explains so much about our world today and fits like a missing
puzzle piece to the timeline of humanity. No other theory has been able to explain so much of
our observations in our limited understanding of space. The theory is built of concepts we know
to be true in our own realm of the universe; logically applied to understand how everything came
to be from what we have now (Ball). The origins of where we came from varies greatly between
different religions. Christian belief is that the first of our kind was introduced to a utopian garden
of paradise, along with the concepts of sin and evil. This begs the question, what brought those
human beings to the garden, what force would be able to conjure such a place and make such
intelligent creatures? What force is responsible for the lightning that strikes, the fire that burns,
the water that provides, the animals that kill, or the storms that destroy?

It is widely believed to be the act of a God or Gods responsible for everything we have on this
world, and in the universe. However, central beliefs of most religions remain consistent.
Consistent in the way the universe operates, and how it began to operate; discluding the idea god
from these beliefs. Pope Pius XII preached the idea from Genesis that everything was created
from nothing, an idea central to the Big Bang theory. He believed the theory was consistent with
this idea from Genesis, and Catholics embrace the theory as a way for science and religion to
exist in accordance with one another. Islamic belief states that once the universe had been created
by Allah, the God of the monotheistic religion, it had continued to expand and move in an
oscillating manner. This idea is consistent with the Big Bang theory as well.
The Vaishnavism branch of Hinduism describes the creation of the Universe with an
event similar to the Big Bang. This is explained in the third Holy Book of the
Bhagavata Purana in chapters 10 and 26, which describe a primordial state which
bursts forth as the Great Vishnu watches over it. The Universe then transforms into the
active state of matter and life. (Kurtus)
The Buddhist religion believes in a universe that is a never ending cycle of births and deaths.
Once the universe has reached its ultimate size and development, it will collapse and expand
again, continuing the cycle indefinitely. The Big Bang theory also states that the universe is
somewhat like a rubber band. It is stretching and expanding rapidly and enormously, and will
continue to do so until the fabric of spacetime begins to tear and implode on itself, collapsing
back into the dense and hot matter it once was much like a rubber band would once being
stretched and released. This idea is very cohesive with the Buddhist belief of a cyclic universe.
The buddhist text Agganchcha Sutra states that the universe has a beginning and an end, which is

cohesive with the Big Bang theorys concept of the universe eventually coming to an end from
an expansion (Kurtus).
Religion has always tried to tackle some of the questions raised from phenomena that is
simply incomprehensible to us. The ideas of heaven, divine intervention, afterlife, God, and
creation are all fundamental concepts of most religions. Science has no reason to impede on
these concepts as there is absolutely no way science could prove their existence or nonexistence
at this time. Technology can only get us so far, but somethings need to be left up to individual
interpretation. The questions that bubble up are how did this come to be, how did we get here
and what force made this thing we call the universe? Science and religion both attempt to answer
these questions, and when they do, there is often contradictions and conflicts that arise. It is
important to remember that questioning is not denying, it is simply exploring. To question
religion is to explore religion not exploit it, and the same goes for science. The Big Bang
Theory is a scientific concept that says that the Universe was created about 13.7 billion years ago
when a concentration of mass exploded. This theory has great religious implications of a
Supreme Being creating the Universe. Many Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist and Hindu
religions or sects accept the Big Bang concept. Other religions, such as Fundamental Christians,
some Buddhist and Hindu sects, as well as some atheist scientists, are opposed to it (Kurtus).
There are very few things that are cohesive in the two communities, perhaps the most common
one is the fact that there is a missing link. While the big bang theory can explain the process of
the universe going from miniscule to enormous, religion can explain how it actually got there.
Science just finds it difficult to explain the unknown with the supernatural, it just appears to be

another contradiction. However, with the big bang theory in particular, there has been room for
both communities to express their views and model it into their own belief systems.
The Big Bang theory leaves room for religious interpretations, which is why it is a unique
instance of harmony between the two contrasting communities. The theory does not simply ruleout the idea of there being a supreme being behind the workings of the universe, but just goes to
describe the workings itself. The theory seems to be much validation for many religions, as it
provides a very plausible answer to probably the biggest question in the universe: how did it
start? Religion can only go so far to explain how creation started the developments of nature and
mankind that we see today, but it does not make it anymore clear as to explaining the wide array
of phenomena that is in this world and in space. The Big Bang theory, however, is able to make
logical stances backed by extensive evidence to explain in further detail the origins of our
universe; something that religion was never quite able to hit home. It clearly confirms that our
universe had a beginning, as described in Genesis 1, in which the cause of it is outside of the
physical realm we observe (Ball). Religion and science are like a grey scale pallet, there are
more pronounced shades of gray, some more visible, but the surfaces they cover are one large
gray area. Without scientific validation, religion would be based completely on ones faith and
absolutely no logic. One may ask does one really require logic when looking to believe in
something greater than themselves? Faith is defined as strong belief in God or in the doctrines of
a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof. Science is the polar contrary to this
in that it relies solely on proof and evidence when making a claim. These two clashing ideas are
what make science and religion very difficult to mix, like water and oil. Water is a pure
substance almost like faith, and oil is composed of many lipids and fats to be chemically stable.

To religion, the Big Bang theory is not a prediction to help us better understand the future events
that will occur on earth, but rather a framework for understanding the testimony of the
heavens (Ball).
There is extensive evidence to validate the Big Bang theory. The idea of a bang
occurring setting off an unfathomably dense particulate mass of heat and essentially the contents
of our entire universe would imply an immense amount of radiation to be released in the process.
This sets the stage for the first piece of evidence that the Big Bang happened. Radiation from the
BIg Bang must still be filling the universe, and in 1965 Cosmic Microwave Background
Radiation (CMB) was discovered by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson from Bell Labs. While the
were working with a microwave receiver, they discovered that from every direction they pointed
to in the sky they were consistently receiving noise at the same frequency (cwru.edu). This
discovery is what led to the most conclusive proof that radiation is still being emitted from the
initial bang. Another major piece of evidence is the abundance of different elements in space and
on earth. The theory made a mathematical prediction as to how much hydrogen, helium, and
other elements would be produced from the Big Bang.
In 1948, Gamow predicted that the radiation from the big bang nucleosynthesis must
still be filling the universe. He calculated how hot the universe must have been to yield
the observed abundance of helium, and estimated that the temperature of this radiation
would have lowered to about 5 degrees above absolute zero (5K) in the present
universe. Most theorists at that time, including him, thought that such radiation would
be too weak to detect. (Takahashi)

Scientists have observed nearly the exact amount of those elements to have been produced,
which is impressively even further validation of the theory. The main point the theory addresses
is the expansion of the universe, and there is extensive evidence of this idea. By measuring their
directions and velocities, they were able to determine that the galaxies were moving outward
from a distinct region in space. Using the measured velocities and distances to this center point,
they calculated that about 13.7 billion years ago, all of the
stars of the galaxies seemed to have emanated from that point
in space (Kurtus). From a religious standpoint, there is
nothing amongst these evidences that denies the existence of a
God. As stated earlier, the theory is science that can be
interpreted however the individual pleases. It can coexist with
religion and science simultaneously. The theory has extensive proofs to validate most of its
claims, however, as with all good phenomena, there must always be skeptics. Though all these
evidences for the theory are very conclusive, there have still been other possibilities to consider.
There has been some very viable backlash to the theory, mostly scientific but some
religious. Although there is agreement that the galaxies are moving outward from a given area,
there is dispute on whether it all started with a Big Bang or if the motion is just a phase of an
oscillating Universe (Kurtus). This is the idea that introduces a myriad of other theories as too
how to how the universe started, and these theories are also able to use the evidences for the Big
Bang as validation; but not nearly as effectively. Another major flaw in the theory is that it
violates the first law of Thermodynamics, stating energy and matter can neither be created nor
destroyed. The Big Bang theory works of the assumption that the energy and mass of the

universe was already there, but it poses the question - how did it get there, if matter or energy
cannot be created? This is probably the biggest gray area for science, and the best point for
religious intervention. The idea of a supreme being, capable of everything, could be the creator
of this energy and infinitesimal mass, but it will never really be known unless the first law of
Thermodynamics is disproved, a very unlikely possibility. Some critics say that the formation
of stars and galaxies violates the law of entropy, which suggests systems of change become less
organized over time. But if you view the early universe as completely homogeneous and
isotropic, then the current universe shows signs of obeying the law of entropy (Strickland). This
is a clear display of the conditional backlash that has been pushed on the theory, but it holds up
as a strong counter if the backlash introduces a contradiction to a scientifically recognized law.
A scientific law is a statement based on repeated experimental observations that describes some
aspect of the world. The motion of the galaxies expanding at the rate of the universe expanding
would imply that it is moving faster than the speed of light, a constant that was once to believe
the fastest speed possible. However scientists have recently found that there is a higher speed
possible and so this claim is no longer valid (Fox).
The factor of the theory not being quite
able to explain everything is why it can be so
cohesive with most religions. For religion, the
aspect of creation is essential, it is the gray area
from creation to present which is what religion
has a hard time explaining. For science, it is the
period before creation that is the gray area,

something that religion explains by one word unanimously: God. These two unknowns between
the two communities complement each other well, and solidify both in fundamentals. All of
this punching and counter-punching is revealing the hostility between those who hold to
traditional Christian beliefs and those who believe that modern science has rendered the
Christian faith merely empty mythology (Ball). With modern science, the ideas become much
more complex as opposed to philosophical when it comes to religion. With all of the complex
ideas science has been coming up with, it can be hard for one to interpret text from religious
sentiments to be true. It seems that what is true is held hand in hand with what is logical, with
few exceptions. People are more willing to accept something seemingly logical as the truth as
opposed to something illogical. Some may interpret religion to be illogical, and some see it as a
way to devote yourself to the unknown. One scientist makes a very good point by essentially
saying that as the bridge between science and the unknown, science and religion becomes closer,
the range of thinking should be broader and less narrow than it is now.
...the big bang doesn't address the creation of the universe, but rather the evolution of
it. The other reason is that since the laws of science break down as you approach the
creation of the universe, there's no reason to believe the first law of thermodynamics
would apply. (Strickland)
This quote appeals to the logical mind to rethink its opposition to the illogical, it provokes a very
interesting thought process. If the first law of thermodynamics does not apply when talking about
the origins of the universe, it brings up a whole new line of thinking, along with a whole new
line of questioning. The purpose of scientific laws are to add some consistency to the way the
community interprets phenomena. As the phenomena becomes to gray to interpret, there need

not be the necessity of scientific laws to base predictions off of; whos to say? Atheist scientists
oppose the big bang theory for implications that there must ultimately be a supreme being behind
creation. These individuals do not want to see any room for religion in science, and believe the
two work off of completely different principles and ideas. This is true, but it goes back to having
a broader mindset when attempting interpret such unknown phenomena. These scientists prefer
the oscillating model of the universe, as a way to explain the observed measurements of a
presently expanding universe and to avoid religious implications (Kurtus).
There have been numerous other models that explain the origin of the universe,
including:
The steady-state model of the universe which suggests the universe always had and
will always have the same density. The theory reconciles the apparent evidence that the
universe is expanding by suggesting that the universe generates matter at a rate
proportionate to the universe's rate of expansion. The Ekpyrotic model suggests our
universe is the result of a collision of two three-dimensional worlds on a hidden fourth
dimension. It doesn't conflict with the big bang theory completely, as after a certain
amount of time it aligns with the events described in the big bang theory. The big
bounce theory suggests our universe is one of a series of universes that first expand,
then contract again. The cycle repeats after several billion years. Plasma cosmology
attempts to describe the universe in terms of the electrodynamic properties of the
universe. Plasma is an ionized gas, which means it's a gas with free roaming electrons
that can conduct electricity. (Strickland)

Some of these models are more far fetched than others, and are more obscure than the big bang
theory. They are all acknowledged by the scientific community, but the big bang theory is held in
higher regard than any other. Scientific implications are rare to find in religion, and vice versa,
and a Christian physicist makes an interesting comment on how Consequently, most Christians
accept a view of origins without any input from science, particularly since this is seen as sacred
ground reserved for the Bible alone to address. Scientific theories which appear to conflict with
Biblical teachings are rejected (Ball).
If religion tries to counter science, it raises dispute and ignorance. Religion should try to
embrace science and consider its validity as there are some very intelligent people behind the
claims being shunned. So far, the big bang theory seems to be in accordance with most religions
ideas on the fundamental beginnings of the origin of the universe. It seems like it will always be
a gray area until more conclusive evidence is found. There is no possible way science will be
able to interpret and explain all the phenomena it discovers, and when attempting to explain it, a
broad and accepting mindset should always be implicated. There will be many new scientific
theories and principles that religion will not acknowledge, this is certain if history repeats itself.
Very few things are able to coexist between religion and science, however the big bang theory is
not one of them. Despite the constant culture war with religions and their beliefs, It would be a
beautiful thing for religion to find homage in science, and perhaps give birth to a more
acceptable and promising investment of faith for people in both the scientific and religious
communities.