Monday, May 11, 2009

Big Bang: Fact or Fiction?

There are two main theories explaining how our universe came to be. One says, “In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.” The other says, “Once upon a time, nothingness packed together and exploded, creating the universe.” Which is true, and which is false? Let us examine both theories and make an educated conclusion as to the origin of the universe.

First, the Big Bang Theory, widely excepted by evolutionists, claims that the entire universe came out of nothing. That's right. Absolutely nothing. This nothingness decided to squeeze together into a tiny dot, as small as a period at the end of a sentence. Pressure built up so high in this little spot that the nothingness exploded! It zoomed outward through frictionless space, expanding at an enormous speed. As it rushed outward, it created protons, neutrons, and electrons. These eventually formed into atomic structures and made hydrogen and helium. As these atomic structures circled each other, they formed gas clouds, which slowly pulled together into stars, and all the other heavenly bodies.

What evidence is there for the Big Bang Theory? The main source of “proof” that evolutionists point to is an expanding universe. Science has shown that our universe is rapidly growing, which seems to fit in with the idea that everything exploded from one point, and is still exploding! How do we know that the universe is expanding? It all has to do with redshift.

Redshift is something scientists use to measure light from celestial bodies. A star, for an example, might give off blueshift light or redshift light. Simply put, blueshift means the object is moving toward the viewer; redshift means it's moving away. By measuring redshift, scientists have concluded that objects in space are moving away from us; staggeringly fast! According to the Hubble Law: the greater the distance, the greater the redshift. In other words, the further a galaxy (or other object) is from earth, the faster it is moving from us! But does an expanding universe really prove the Big Bang Theory? We'll return to that thought in a moment.

Another thing evolutionists use to support the Big Bang is the distant starlight problem. There are many stars billions of light years away from us, meaning it would take billions of years for their light to reach us. Yet we can see them on earth, so obviously their light has reached us already. Evolutionists say this proves our universe is very old. How else would the starlight get to us, unless it had been traveling for billions of years? Are the Evolutionists right? Keep reading.

Creationists reveal uncountable problems with the Big Bang Theory. To list a few, nothingness cannot squeeze together. This is common sense. Does nothingness have density, mass, or volume? Of course not! It's nothing! So how does it pack into a little spot? And how does it explode? You can try this yourself. Grab a handful of nothing, squeeze it together real tightly, and tell me if it explodes and creates a universe. I highly doubt it will.

Speaking of explosions, what caused the explosion? There was no ignition. There were no matches, no flame. It couldn't have been a chemical explosion, for there were no chemicals. There was just nothing, remember. There couldn't have been a nuclear explosion, for there were no atoms!

Also, you can't expand nothingness, nor can nothingness produce heat. The Big Bang Theory says that the heat caused by the explosion was what created protons, neutrons, and electrons. But does nothingness produce heat? It doesn't make any sense at all.

Let's just say the protons, neutrons and electrons did magically come into existence, and continued rushing outward through frictionless space. But if there was no friction, how would the particles slow down and begin circling each other, turning into atomic structures? Newton's first law of motion states, in his words, “An object in motion tends to remain in motion at the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an external force.” You couldn't even change the direction of one particle. They would continue to race on for eternity, never changing their speed or direction.

Now, we'll assume that the particles managed the defy the first law of motion and somehow turned into atomic structures, which created the gases hydrogen and helium. The next step in the Big Bang timetable would be for these gases to clump together into gas clouds, and for these gas clouds to form stars. However, gases always push away from each other; either on earth or in space. They never push together. Even if they did push together, gas clouds in space expand, they do not contract; so they could never create stars.

These facts are not only known by creationists. Two evolutionary scientists, Harwit and Novotny, discovered that gas in outer space would never push together into stars. Harwit found that in order for gas, or any type of particle, to clump into one-hundred-thousandth of a centimeter in radius, it would 3 billion years! As that's only with the maximum sticking ability and most favorable conditions. At more likely rates, it would take 20 billion years for one grain of matter to clump together. Evolutionists believe our universe is only 15 billion years old, 20 billion at the absolute most. There's no way all the heavenly bodies could form in that amount of time.

Novotny wrote about the problem of “gaseous dispersion” in a book published by Oxford University, in which he explained that gas in a vacuum expands, it does not contract. It can not form into stars, planets, etc.

Another blow for the Big Bang Theory is the Law of Entropy, which says that anything organized becomes disorganized over time. Our universe is an extremely orderly universe. Did you know that if our planet received just 1% less energy from the sun, it'd be too cold for life, and if we received just 1% more energy, it'd be too warm for life? We could not exist on earth without laws precisely the way they are, and our galaxy and beyond is governed by order and perfect design. How could these laws be established with a Big Bang? How could the universe start with chaos (a great explosion) and end in order and precise laws? This completely defies the Law of Entropy!

However, Evolutionists would point to the fact that our universe is expanding. As we asked earlier, does that prove the Big Bang? Remember that the Hubble Law states that the greater the distance of a celestial body, the greater the redshift (or the faster it's moving away from us). However, the astronomer Halton Arp discovered that the Hubble Law was wrong. He found galaxies in outer space that were connected by bridges of matter, but each having different redshifts! According to the Hubble Law, this would mean that the two galaxies should be greatly far away from each other; but they couldn't be, because they were literally connected to each other!

If the Hubble Law is wrong, than what is redshift? How could two galaxies be connected and yet have different redshift? We will return to this mystery in a moment, but before we do, let us examine the second theory on the origin of our universe: the Creation Model.

Creationists believe that everything – our planet, our galaxy, and the entire universe – was created by God. Over a six-day period, He spoke the world into existence; first light, then the sky, then the land and sea, then the plants, then the stars and heavenly bodies, then the animals, and finally mankind. According to the account in Genesis, it seems that God made most of His creation in mature form. Instead of infant humans, He made a man and woman that probably appeared thirty years old; even if they were less than a day old! He also made trees that looked like they had been growing for years; even if they were recently created. To answer the distant starlight problem, he probably did the same with stars; He caused their light to already be twinkling in our atmosphere at the moment He conceived them, as if they had been doing so for billions of years. But they hadn't been.

In fact, there is great evidence for a young universe. One example is the moon. Our moon is very slowly moving away from us. This isn't much of a problem, for it won't get anywhere in a long time; but it is a problem for people who believe in an old universe. They believe our earth is many billions of years old, but only one billion years ago the moon would have been touching us! Obviously our world must be a lot younger!

This brings us to redshift. How could two connected galaxies have different redshifts? Dr. John Hartnett, Ph.D., for Answers in Genesis, proposed a theory to answer this question: redshift does not mean that an object is expanding away from us! Instead, God made some galaxies at the beginning of history, and each galaxy created more galaxies, which created more galaxies; and they continue to expand further and further like fireworks. Dr. Hartnett's theory concludes that matter is not expanding from one point (as a result of the Big Bang) but from many parent galaxies. Thus, redshifts do not mean that an object is moving away from earth, but from its parent galaxy.

Clearly, there is more scientific evidence for the Creationist Model, and more evidence against the Big Bang. But it is up to you to decide what you will believe in. What will you choose?

Sources Consulted

Hubble, Bubble: Big Bang in Trouble, (Dr. John Hartnett, Ph.D.), Answers in Genesis

Creation and Cosmology, (Dr. Danny Faulkner, Ph.D.), Answers in Genesis

Creation Astronomy, (Dr. Jason Lisle, Ph.D.), Answers in Genesis

Richards, Lawrence O., It Couldn't Just Happen, Nashville, TN: Tommy Nelson, Inc., 1989

Ferrell, Vance, The Evolution Handbook, Altamont, TN: Evolution Facts, Inc., 2005

Steele, DeWitt, and Gregory Parker, Science of the Physical Creation, Pensacola, Florida: A Beka Book, 1996