In the book of Genesis God created the world in 7 days, technically 6 since he rested on the 7th. On the 1st day he created the heavens and the earth, the earth is described to be without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
This is the claim of the bible depicting what happened on the first day of existence. I’ve heard arguments that this and what science claims the Big Bang theory to be are the same, excepting of course that in this situation there is someone controlling and guiding the process, instead of it just being an explosion. This idea usually comes from the more opened minded people who are trying to settle science and religion within themselves. I live in America however where there are many of the other sort of Christians who take everything the bible says as literal truth. This faction often asserts, God stood (or existed in some form) in the sky, that didn’t exist yet, and created something from nothing at all. I’ve attempted asking people like this where God came from if nothing existed at all and that line of questioning quickly becomes circular and pointless.
One of the main problems I’ve had with the creation myth is that, if nothing existed where did God come from? Fundamentalists who tell me that the Big Bang is impossible because you can’t create something from nothing will also tell me that God created the Universe. Well if he did that, where did he come from? At some point something had to have come from nothing and if it didn’t there is not a current theory that is capable of explaining that.
Einstein was quoted to have said “Did God have a choice when he created the Universe?’. When he asked this question he is said to be referring to: could the universe have been created differently from the way we assume it has been. This seems like a very reasonable question but as I am not a physicist, and would have no idea where to even think of looking. I do not think Holy books of any sort are the place to start an inquiry of this magnitude. I also find (as did Einstein) an anthropomorphic representation of a God or Gods to be unrealistic and rather ridiculous. There can be no literal man in the sky, we’ve checked it was one of the first things looked for when telescopes where developed.
4000 years ago it was common place to make the assumption “sky persons” existed because it was the only place we couldn’t look for them. The humanization of our planet was something that our ancestors did in order to understand their environment. It is an understandable stage in the natural development of our species as it is a stage of psychological development in children. Understanding this should help us move past the idea that we need a God to exist or that we needed one to create the earth. It however has not yet become the case or this would not be such an incensing topic for most people.
fromsintoscience 