• Question: Scientists say that the world started with the Big Bang. Christians believe the world started with the 7 day process of the creation of the world. Which one do you agree with and why?

    Asked by chickenbrap101 to Arttu, Ceri, James_M, Monica, Philip on 13 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by fw3107, amarrr96, izzypeafrizzy, reporter911.
    • Photo: James M Monk

      James M Monk answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      I know plenty of Christians who don’t believe that the world was literally created in seven days, so I think it is unfair to characterise Christian belief as creationism. I suspect, although I have not asked him, that the Archbishop of Canterbury would not advocate creationism.

      The existence of the relic cosmic microwave background radiation is very strong evidence for the Big Bang. In addition, more distant galaxies are receding from Earth more quickly than nearby ones, which tells us that in the past they must have been closer together. From first principles, Newtonian gravity tells us that the Universe must either be expanding or collapsing, therefore in the past the distribution of matter in the Universe must have been very dense.

      All of these provide very strong evidence for a Big Bang or Big Bang-like “event” (I’m not sure the Big Bang is properly described as an event).

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