Evolution, Creation, and You

[Deacon923]

Good for the kid. As for the Senator: :rulz:

 

[Junebug]

What Came Before the Big Bang?

http://boingboing.net/2014/05/20/what-came-before-the-big-bang.html

Very interesting. Obviously, creation/the beginning/whatever you want to call it is an area of thought where, more than any other, the line between physics and metaphysics is blurred. At least for me, it's not always so facile to keep the who/how distinction at the fore when thinking about it like it is in other areas of scientific inquiry (like evolution, for example).

Regardless, I'm heartened to see that he acknowledged Augustine as the originator of the idea that time came into existence at creation/the beginning/whatever you want to call it. From the Confessions:

Behold, I answer to him who asks, “What was God doing before He made heaven and earth?” I answer not, as a certain person is reported to have done facetiously (avoiding the pressure of the question), “He was preparing hell,” says he, “for those who pry into mysteries.” It is one thing to perceive, another to laugh, — these things I answer not. For more willingly would I have answered, “I know not what I know not,” than that I should make him a laughing-stock who asks deep things, and gain praise as one who answers false things. But I say that Thou, our God, art the Creator of every creature; and if by the term “heaven and earth” every creature is understood, I boldly say, “That before God made heaven and earth, He made not anything. For if He did, what did He make unless the creature?” And would that I knew whatever I desire to know to my advantage, as I know that no creature was made before any creature was made.

But if the roving thought of any one should wander through the images of bygone time, and wonder that Thou, the God Almighty, and All-creating, and All-sustaining, the Architect of heaven and earth, did for innumerable ages refrain from so great a work before Thou would make it, let him awake and consider that he wonders at false things. For whence could innumerable ages pass by which Thou did not make, since Thou art the Author and Creator of all ages? Or what times should those be which were not made by Thee? Or how should they pass by if they had not been? Since, therefore, Thou art the Creator of all times, if any time was before Thou made heaven and earth, why is it said that Thou did refrain from working? For that very time Thou made, nor could times pass by before Thou made times. But if before heaven and earth there was no time, why is it asked, What did Thou then? For there was no “then” when time was not.

***

Of course, the Confessions has a lot to say about the implications of this conclusion on how we live our daily lives. In that respect, anyway, science hasn't brought any closer to finding the answer today than we were 1600 years ago.