Creationism v. Big Bang

Something very interesting I just learned about in my astronomy class.

A lot of people think that the Big Bang Theory describes how the universe was formed, which is why Christians give it such a bad rap, thinking that it disputes or contradicts the creation story.  In reality, the Big Bang describes what happened after the universe was created.  Basically, the universe was super hot and super dense and full of energy when it formed (or God created it) but it was expanding and cooling (the more dense something is, the hotter it gets).  Matter was trying to form, but every time a proton tried to form, a photon (light particle) would blast it into oblivion.  After about 3 seconds, the universe cooled enough for protons, neutrons, and electrons to form, joining the photons.  After 5 minutes, the protons and neutrons were able to stick together and form nuclei.  It took (according to scientists) about 400,000 (some big number- don't remember) years before the universe was cool enough for electrons to be able to stick on and form atoms (it doesn't take much energy to blast an electron off of an nucleus) and anyway, that's how they say matter was formed.

big sciency speech...sorry.  I didn't even get into antimatter and matter...that's strange.  Anyway, who's to say that God didn't cause that to happen?  A lot of science stuff that people think contradict what the Bible says can have some sense of truth to it if you look deep enough.  If God created the universe, who's to say that he didn't use something like this to form the Earth and stars?  the Bible never says how God created the universe, only that he did.  And with evolution, (I did a paper on this last year) There was this thing called the "Cambrian Explosion" where all of a sudden, a whole bunch of new species appeared out of nowhere, with no evolutionary ancestors or relationships to anything that already existed (I'm looking at you, turtles!)  Now science puts these time periods into big fancy numbers..."The universe formed 13.7 plus or minus .02 million years ago..." blah blah blah.  The Bible says that God formed the earth and all the creatures on it in 6 days.

• Day 1 - God created light and separated the light from the darkness, calling light "day" and darkness "night."
• Day 2 - God created an expanse to separate the waters and called it "sky."
• Day 3 - God created the dry ground and gathered the waters, calling the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters "seas." On day three, God also created vegetation (plants and trees).
• Day 4 - God created the sun, moon, and the stars to give light to the earth and to govern and separate the day and the night. These would also serve as signs to mark seasons, days, and years.

• Day 5 - God created every living creature of the seas and every winged bird, blessing them to multiply and fill the waters and the sky with life.
• Day 6 - God created the animals to fill the earth. On day six, God also created man and woman (Adam and Eve) in his own image to commune with him. He blessed them and gave them every creature and the whole earth to rule over, care for, and cultivate.
• Day 7 - God had finished his work of creation and so he rested on the seventh day, blessing it and making it holy.

So if God created light (photons) first, that matches up with what scientists say about the Big Bang.  Next comes the sky, or "atmosphere" you could say in sciency terms.  Next comes water, which is H2O molecules... formed by atoms (first come protons, neutrons, and electrons, then nuclei, then atoms, then molecules) and I don't know what dirt is made of, but probably more molecules.  If I'm remembering my evolution right (it's been a year- feel free to correct me) plants and other growing things were the first life forms... seaweed, algae... all of that.  Okay, Day 4 has me a little stumped, but maybe this is when God put the Earth into the solar system.  Theoretically, the sun should form around the same time as the earth... you need sun for plants.  The moon makes sense, and the stars would form the same time as the sun... I'll have to learn a little more about this before I can be sure about that.  Next come the animals, and this is the period scientists call the Cambrian Explosion (in my opinion)  And then human life.

Now the Bible says that God created this in 6 "days"  But I seriously doubt that God's days are 24 hours long.  Time is a funny thing like that and seems relative.  If you're having fun, the time flies.  If you're bored and you don't like whatever it is you're doing, it seems to drag.  We've all experienced it- the faster you want it to go, the slower it seems and visa versa.  God's days could be millions of years long to us, which could explain all the science numbers...

When I first got my Astronomy book and saw the chapter titled "Big Bang" I got a bit wary, knowing that I am a strong Christian (and Catholic- I won't hide it).  But I kept an open mind.  You can't shelter yourself from the world forever, you have to learn how to live in the world without becoming part of it.  If you want to argue your opponent, you have to be informed.  I've always approached things like this, evolution, astronomy, and the big bang, in the same way.  Purely informational.  They're just what science accepts as "facts"  I will memorize them for a test and remember them, learn them, and study them, but not necessarily believe them.  I can look at them and decide how much of it I want to believe and how much I think is garbage.  And I love it when I can say, hey... it's the same no matter how you tell it... as I've just spent the last 20 minutes doing...

anyway, I thought it was very interesting and had the insane urge to blog even though I've already done so today... and I've just remembered I'm meeting a friend... so I'm going to have to go now, but I hope you've enjoyed this... and sorry for the crazy science.  I just got really excited.

Adios
Haili