question to think about

[Spawn_Retard]

[Jools]

Watch more Star Trek!

[Sausage]

[Master-Athmos]

There's an obvious solution to every contradiction - you just didn't think long enough:

[Argh]

It actually did explode... along with everything else in the entire universe... and then took another few billion years to reform into what we recognize as a planet.

We presume God was taking a leisurely nap while it "baked" in the cosmic oven, but there's absolutely nothing about the Big Bang that suggests the presence or absence of a Divine Creator / Creators / Flying Spaghetti Monster.

IDK, I guess these attempts at bumper-sticker humor are a lot funnier / more interesting if you don't live in a place where better than 75% of the population identifies themselves as practicing Christians, and probably 25% or so are of Fundamentalist varieties who take their Calvinism seriously.

[Pxtl]

Except the obvious question of where the hell did that divine predecessor come from, and where they reside.

Oh, and want to read something nice and depressing (if you don't already know the details of heat-death)? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_ ... g_universe - details on how the universe will slowly die. Newton's laws of motion and the stuff about conservation of energy get all the press, but Newton's second law of thermo is the real nasty one.

[Argh]

Naw, the doctrine on that is pretty simple: God is everything, so there is no "come from", since that would imply there's something larger than God. I'm fairly certain that all serious Christians agree on that point, which is one of the areas where Christianity posits a substantially different position of the Divine than Hinduism or the Norse religions, amongst others.

And from a Fundamentalist POV I guess if everybody's in Heaven / Hell, a little thing like the heat-death of the universe is irrelevant. I know you folks in mainly-agnostic Europe probably think it's quaint / amusing, but I live in a place where people have bumper stickers that say things like, "if this car suddenly no longer has a driver, it's because the RAPTURE is here"*... and they mean it.

I don't really think much about that crap, tbh. I have stuff to do, and I'm not remotely Calvinist in my outlook

*(meaning that they've been recalled from their physical shells by God and their souls have been moved into Heaven, for those of you who aren't familiar with the concept of The Rapture, which is a mainly American Fundamentalist reading of the Book of Revelations)

[Spawn_Retard]

people dont know how to get trolled anymore.

spring you dissapoint.

[Gota]

people dont know how to get trolled anymore.

spring you dissapoint.

heh

[Pxtl]

people dont know how to get trolled anymore.

spring you dissapoint.

Whatcha mean? We saw a troll post, spotted it, and instead decided to use it as a start-off point for some interesting conversation?

[Spawn_Retard]

people dont know how to get trolled anymore.

spring you dissapoint.

Whatcha mean? We saw a troll post, spotted it, and instead decided to use it as a start-off point for some interesting conversation?

no.

[KaiserJ]

big bang theory, what is this a trend?
you ask a girl out and your universe extends

[Master-Athmos]

Big Bang Theory is a great show btw...

[1v0ry_k1ng]

[AF]

But the earth DID explode

It exploded an infinitely infinite number of times in an infinite number of ways, in an infinite number of places.

Its just that we exist in another quantum universe.

[Sucky_Lord]

But the earth DID explode

It exploded an infinitely infinite number of times in an infinite number of ways, in an infinite number of places.

Its just that we exist in another quantum universe.

And every time it reforms out of matter. I think that is the simplest answer to the stupid question.

[Jools]

The big bang happened before the earth formed.

[Teutooni]

Christians: If God exists, did he create himself?

[Tribulex]

yay nethack in big bang thread! (thats a big leprechaun hall)

[SinbadEV]

Christians: If God exists, did he create himself?

Easy question, No. The whole "God created everything that exists" thing is just poor wording.

Unless you are talking to someone with a very weak understanding of Christian theology it is generally believed that God existed before time and space and created the universe from nothing. Christian Scientists/Intelligent Design people tend to believe that God created the universe by establishing the laws of quantum physics, creating the big-bang singularity and letting things run their course until humans showed up at which point (because humanity has free-will) he started interfering with the up until now perfectly self-sufficient universe. Essentially it was like a program that procedurally generated the entire universe and everything in it based on some initial rules and variables.