Hohoho, Christmas must be in the air and as always, we have some religious nuts going around complaining about secularism. Now I try to maintain my stance as irreligious in this debate, so I don't usually argue with them, but a really funny question popped up.
"Why do people still believe in the Big Bang Theory when it's been disproved by the Bible?"
Sorry, but if you in some way agree with that reasoning, I am pretty sure you are not a Catholic. Or you are a really terrible one.
No, not because I think that Catholics are heretic whose only real thing they have going is the fact they are around for pretty much two millennia and for a large portion of that time, were the most powerful corporation in the planet.
And also not because I think not being a catholic means you are an heretical protestant that should receive the wrath of Inquisition, as the good old days of the Holy See as the overseer of the world (as opposed to the modern US, which I am also going to assume you are from)
Now, the reason why I know you’re not a catholic is because, as a former catholic, I know one of the things we would pride ourselves is in the fact that the catholic church and/or catholic individuals were innovators in various fields of science. And every catholic likes to brag about it to their protestant and atheist friends. I used to be like that.
Some of the greatest astronomic discoveries were made by catholic priests like the fact that the Earth revolves around the Sun, by Copernicus, which if I recall, is also in contradiction to the Bible (Actually later, Galileo got in some hot water with the Holy See because of this same heliocentric view). Another catholic priest, Mendel, is known as the father of genetics, which, along with many other things, have been used to prove that evolution is an actual thing (again in contradiction to the Bible). And the topic of your question, the Big Bang theory, was first proposed by a Belgian catholic priest, Lemaitre.
So, you have the biggest christian church in the planet, where its members have made discoveries that well may contradict the Bible, which is like the constitution of Christianity. Now you have a few options on what to believe:
A - You take the catholic approach, that is to say that while it may seem like it contradicts the bible, in reality, it doesn’t contradict it at all, since in essence, even though Bible is the word of god, they may have taken some literary liberty in some descriptions. I mean, if you think about it, while the bible doesn’t say anything about evolution, it doesn’t say anything against it, just like with Big Bang. If anything, the only suspicious “theory” here is that the Earth revolves around the sun, when Genesis clearly says the sun was made as a lighter above the firmaments. Although I do think the Catholics are really good with Jedi Mind tricks and Doublespeech.
B - You take my approach, and assume that a Book written (allegedly) over the span of two millennia with multiple writers none of them with the scientific knowledge we have today, and as such, on a bad trip, assumed to have met a “god” who told them words of wisdom. You know, like when Marduk slayed Tiamat and with her body created the world (you should know about them, they were part of Abraham’s first religion, back when he was just Abram). Fairy tails.
C - Or you take the fun approach, the planet X approach, or the flat-earther approach, believing that the catholic church has somehow allied itself with the scientists and the Muslims (even back when they were killing each other in the crusades) in a massive conspiracy to promote heretical teachings that contradict their own word, for the purpose of… making frogs gay with chemicals in the water? On that note, should we open an inquiry on the subject of heliocentric solar system? It seems like Sun worship to me.
Yeah, this isn’t about the scientific reason, because we both know we wouldn’t understand. The reason why I believe in the Big Bang, is because believing in it wouldn’t really hurt me in any way. And if I believe that the Earth revolves around the sun in an elliptical path, then it’s not much of an stretch to believe that the universe is expanding.
So long, and happy Holidays everyone!!
