The Catholic Origins of the Big Bang Theory

[Memento Mori]

One of the effects of the cultural dominance of the USA (and perhaps Vatican II) is the widespread ignorance of the rigorous intellectual and scientific tradition within the Catholic church. Instead of what the Church actually teaches, when one thinks of the terms "creationist" it is the image of what an evangelical protestant in the USA (or the six counties in Ireland!) might think that comes to mind, namely that the world is 6,000 years old. Following this thread, there is a general misunderstanding out there that the scientific understanding of the universe (or indeed science itself) is opposed and irreconcilable to the Christian viewpoint, despite this not being the case.

Perhaps the best example of this is the Big Bang theory, something which was first formulated/discovered by a Catholic priest and is entirely reconcilable with the Catholic understanding of the universe. Indeed, one of the dominant theories among materialist atheists, who made up a significant proportion of the scientific community at the time, was that the universe did not have a beginning, but was rather eternal. The discovery that the material universe as we view it had a definite beginning underlines that most important of questions: why is there something rather than nothing?

The below video presented by Prof. Karin Öberg of Harvard University explores a little more the origins of the Big Bang theory and its relationship to the Catholic understanding of the universe.

[dawg]

One of the effects of the cultural dominance of the USA .....

[Memento Mori]

Have I confused affect vs effect again? I can never get those right.

[isha]

I confess I have not watched the video (at least yet) but it is likely that as with so much of present science it did come from the quiet bright lads studying serious stuff in Medieval monasteries eg plant breeding, genetics, astronomy, medicine, geometry, maths, time keeping etc. They could read for a start, often had good educations and had those greatest helps of all- loads of silence, time and someone else doing the cooking and washing up

But keep in mind that twitter just told me recently that the big bang never happened so ...
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-univer ... icists-say

[Memento Mori]

I confess I have not watched the video (at least yet) but it is likely that as with so much of present science it did come from the quiet bright lads studying serious stuff in Medieval monasteries eg plant breeding, genetics, astronomy, medicine, geometry, maths, time keeping etc. They could read for a start, often had good educations and had those greatest helps of all- loads of silence, time and someone else doing the cooking and washing up

But keep in mind that twitter just told me recently that the big bang never happened so ...
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-univer ... icists-say

Not quite, the theory you link there is that there was something before the Big Bang so the Big Bang was not the definite beginning but rather something that happened along the way. I don't know much about that theory and how widely it is held.

Personally, I do think that there is something eternal, i.e beyond time, at the heart of the matter...

[Memento Mori]

More on the priest behind the Big Bang theory