So a TBM friend goes off on how the big bang theory is craziness. Though not 100% guaranteed, the evidence is pretty strong. Most TBMs that I know do not discount the evidence. However, this guy seems to revolt against anything that has a scientific flavor. I am not sure what part of red shift and the Doppler effect that causes the confusion for him. It is all pretty simple actually. Sigh...I guess I will never figure some people out.

Yup, I know what you mean. It seems I spend a lot of time explaining the basics to folks. Stanford offers one of their community education level cosmology courses via iTunes University.

...but without citing a reason.
Something that sets apart a scientific theory from a fairy-tale is that the theory WANTS to be refuted. It WELCOMES contrary evidence. It has NOTHING to lose...if it's false then better to get it over with, if it's true it won't be toppled.
So, in typical manner, a TBM says it's not true but doesn't back it up with anything.
I had a close TBM aquaintence who said "we didn't evolve from no chimps", without, of course, adding what evidence he had on it...which was none.
Actually he's right, we didn't evolve from chimps. Chimps and Bonobos and humans evolved from a common ancestor. The split occurred within he past 10 million years or so...but be that as it may, chimps and bonobos are the NEAREST surviving cousins of humans, our closest relatives! But, alas, not our ancestors.
Our ancestors were, well, primates LIKE chimps, then before that more monkey like, then squirrel-like, then shrew-like...then reptile-like...then amphibian-like...then fish-like...then sea-polyp-like...then protozoa-like...then bacteria-like (bacteria ruled for over a billion years, longer than multicellular life has existed)...then replicating free molecules, then...basic organic compounds that occur ubiquitously throughout the universe.
Religion comes so close by saying we were created from the dust, then runs away from evolution.

amos2 Wrote:
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> ...but without citing a reason.
> Something that sets apart a scientific theory from
> a fairy-tale is that the theory WANTS to be
> refuted. It WELCOMES contrary evidence. It has
> NOTHING to lose...if it's false then better to get
> it over with, if it's true it won't be toppled.

In Mormonism if you present compelling evidence that their position is wrong you are excommunicated.

In Science if you present compelling evidence that their position is wrong they give you the Nobel Prize.

The faithful often seem to think that if they are unable to understand a concept, that makes it untrue.

They don't realize that, "that doesn't make sense to me" is a comment about their mental capacity, not the concept.

It's like forensics techs looking at a blood spatter or an embedding bullet and determining from whence it came.

Compare that to the unsupported assertions of a convicted conman.

Oh, I forgot, The Spirit(TM) trumps all that.

I still have a problem imagining an infinite amount of energy or mass concentrated in a point. I just wish somebody would come up with a layman's explanation of how it got that way.

SoCalNevermo Wrote:
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> I still have a problem imagining an infinite
> amount of energy or mass concentrated in a point.
> I just wish somebody would come up with a layman's
> explanation of how it got that way.

Infinite amount of energy or mass? Where does any cosmologist claim that it was infinite?

The singularity as proposed by the "Big Bang" theory is derived from mathematical calculations. The physics math ends up putting no limit on how dense a singularity can be. In other words, no matter how dense a singularity is, it is possible there could be one even more dense. So, like counting numbers, singularities can go on into infinity.

So, when talking about singularities, one can say, singularities (a group of all singularities) can be infinitively dense as apposed to being between density A and density B.

Running the clock backwards (Doppler shift and all that) is pretty straightforward. It does get more smoke-and-mirrors the closer you get to the Big Bang. I think it is safe to say that there is a good deal about the initial expansion, and what made the singularity explode in the first place, and how the singularity came to be at all, that we don't know yet, and what we do know may in fact be wrong.

That said, "you don't know everything about the Big Bang, therefore JS didn't make it all up" is a leap of logic pretty much everyone on the planet is unwilling to make.

"The Fabric of the Cosmos" by Brian(?) Greene.

(in the science departments at least)

I can remember my Astronomy professor discussing this at BYU saying the Big Bang Theory was solid fact even though "the paid clergy" over in the religion department told everyone it was false.

The scientific ideas we have now are not completely, 100% credible. In 100 years, we might have a radically different conception of how the universe was formed.

Hell, 20 years ago, I was taught that the universe expanded and is now contracting. Recently it was proven that the universe is, in fact, expanding and will expand forever (if I understand things right).

A healthy dose of skepticism should be involved when learning anything new, including learning new things about the universe.

Now, having said that, there is room for doubt but it is completely stupid to just disregard evidence based on religious standpoints.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1780234/the_big_bang_the_universe/

Here is an interesting video on how it happened approx. 13.7 billion years ago according to the scientific theory.

Personally I think the "Book of Genesis" was a more effective story than the "Big Bang Theory" would be for helping the Jewish leaders keep control over their peasantry around 2500 years ago. All my studies on power/control throughout human history suggest that there were plenty of powerful people who would promote whatever philosophy worked best to give them more power regardless of how accurate or not such philosophy might be.

Both are physics, so in a way the Big Bang could be described as rocket science! ;oD

If we could be so small, There is a whole universe in a single piece of iron, with lightyears in between the atoms. The distance is so vast that we couldn't cross it in a life time. Yet, the mormon church thinks they have the truth in all things.