"It's five sigma at point two". Now I know how to impress physicist chicks.

In actuality, I'm reeling at this discovery. Finally, solid evidence of gravitational waves and basically staring at the Big Bang. Astrophysics is advancing so fast these days.

Agreed. This article on the Atlantic goes into the background of the video itself. The descriptions of the couple's reactions are great. Really charming.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/03/what-its-like-to-be-right-about-the-big-bang-genesis-of-a-viral-video/284474/

I love the irony of people believing in an eternal, omnipotent, realitydefining being that can't be the driving, creative force behind concepts like evolution or the big bang just because their human written book says so.
It simply illustrates my point: if a timetraveller went back and edited the early biblestories to include Superman instead of Jesus, these people would have the letter S on their necklaces instead of crosses and the Pope would wear a red cape.
They call themselves christians but what they truly believe in is a book and not the people or concepts it talks about. If it isn't in the book, it isn't real. These people live in Fantastica and science is their Nothing.

If there is a God, a truly benevolent God who has given us free will to do with as we wish and would never interfere, then that universe is identical to one where he does not exist.

What I find most surprising here isn't that they have their faith in the face of reality, but rather that they put their beliefs into the science they seem to know so little about. 'Does that mean god is an animal?' is a great example. No.. the entire idea is moot because god does not exist in the first place. 'God hasn't been heard of since the big bang in science' is another.. no god isn't in the equation in the first place.

It's a clear, fundamental misunderstanding of what science is, stemming clearly from an upbringing that ignored anything science related. I wouldn't doubt that many of these people went to schools were biology either isn't taught or is dramatically down played.

The issue then becomes, if we start accepting scientific facts like the big bang and evolution, that moves stories like Adam and Eve, the flood, tower of babel and the like become parables. Which I am fine with, I was fine with that when I was a Christian as that is the most likely scenario, the problem is where do we draw the line at what is parable and what is literal? Why did the creator of the universe make himself known to only one tiny tribe of people in a backwater part of the world some 6,000 years ago, and not to all of humanity around the world, why not have prophets all over? It is either a local deity, like Odin,Athena, Ra and the like, or a racist jerk.

No science will never probably answer what was there before the big bang, time itself didn't exist... That is perhaps the only valid "gap" for a god to fill. We understand how the universe came to be in its present state fairly well, with a few odd issues like dark matter/dark energy to be resolved but those are filling in. Abiogenesis is early enough in the its understanding of life origins to be a small gap, but that is filling, and the process of biological evolution is fully understood and well mapped out.

In the end the problem is that there seems to be no god actively moving on the universe or people's lives. We don't see properly documented limbs growing without science. We don't see a consistent result from praying to only the Christian God compared to praying to some Hinu god to get results (praying itself is slightly better than not, but it doesn't matter to whom is prayed, praying to the flying spaghetti monster is just as effective as praying to Yahweh or Kali). If there is a God, then he is ineffective, and that in the end is a problem for religion... and ultimately what is the point of worshiping a god that only wants people to praise and worship him while giving us nothing in return? Wohoo I believed in God (Yahweh) and now get to spend eternity praising and worshipping him full time with no distractions like work and having fun with the family...basically I get to do the same thing the angels do (and they apparently have a choice in the matter since 1/3rd of them followed Lucifer in praising him over Yahweh)... what's the point of that? To avoid the hell he created for those who chose not to end up being his praise slave 24/7 for eternity? Let me see evidence, let me see him do something for me in my life here and now, then I'll believe.

You'll have to get over the annoyance. It's crazy to think that religion - which thrives on such an entrenched part of the human psyche and is so deeply intertwined with history - will just admit defeat and lay down all of its claims to relevance in the face of any adversity. The best we can hope for is a long and gradual retreat.

I'll take what I can get. Relegating God to merely an abstract influence as the cause of the Big Bang has very little relevance to anyone's day to day life, whereas denying evolution, climate change, etc... is significantly more detrimental to scientific progress.

Not sure what annoys me most. The fact that the religious, condescendingly, finally accept the facts borne out by science, or that they constantly shift the goal posts by acknowledging that their was a big bang but, because science has yet to explain its cause, god must have done it. The "god of the gaps" is diminishing rapidly thanks to science filling the gaps. Soon all they will have left is one question; Why? And that is the same question we all have. I suspect that if that question is ever answered, we will ALL be surprised.

This is only assuming that the universe will forever expand and therefore resulting in "heat death". There are theories that it could also collapse back in on itself eventually creating a new "singularity" and therefore a "new big bang".

I tend to like that theory more than the heat death theory.

Other interesting anti-science partisan issues are GMO/biotech, nuclear power, evolution, big bang, vaccines, AIDS, fracking, organic foods, vitamin supplements, and a host of others. Note that many of those are pegged in liberal circles as well, anti-science is a bipartisan issue, just depends on the issue.

I understand King of Queens was a funny show-But hey-Missed the 90s and haven't done TV since 1986-Do enjoy the few Big Bang Theories I've seen but not so much for Parson's character...

He's been great on The Big Bang Theory.

Was this filmed as part of the special features of a Breaking Bad box set or something?

You sir clearly do not fully understand the nature of entropy (and nor does about 95% of the human race so you can be forgiven there).

You have however stumbled into making a genuinely worthwhile point here (though I must state I think for completely the wrong reasons).

The idea that the universe inevitably moves towards a complete "heat death" is I think incorrect, it fails to account for the effect of ever increasing complexity within the closed systems the universe produces (i.e. evolution which applies as much cosmically as it does to organic life on earth).

If the universe remained with no more complexity than it currently has then yes everything would eventually "burn out" and spread the energy of the universe so thinly that everything would cease to work (if only on a space-time level).

But the nature of the universe does not remain static, it creates ever more complex and actuated systems dialectically. Energies>Particles>Compounds>Nebulae>Stars>Planets>Organisms>Unconsciousness>Consciousness>???>God! (not intended to be an exhaustive list it's purely for illustration)

Evolution does trump entropy IMHO but this is largely because the actual laws of entropy are crazy complicated to understand and most people (including to some extent myself) don;t fully understand the subtleties of how it really works.

If nothing else; to say that the whole universe eventually enters a state of complete entropy assumes that every complex closed system that does or ever will exist will eventually break down. This is far from a forgone conclusion, we alone as evolving conscious creatures are capable of developing means to circumvent or even prevent this. Let alone what other wonders we have yet to observe or the universe has yet to manifest!

In conclusion: The Universe evolves until it reaches God (or dies trying ). God does not then create the universe but rather commits suicide (what else is God to do? Eternity is a very long time for someone that already knows and has done everything...). Process repeats ad infinitum.


Makes a lot more sense that way around don't you think? (and no ancient books of dubious origin need ever be consulted to derive it either)

Saying God created the universe only leaves you with more questions which by their very nature cannot be answered. We would have to be God itself to ever answer them, so we are left with a judgement call. No logical certainty, only faith.

This way around we can by pure rationalism and empiricism arrive at an explanation of how the universe might evolve God via ever increasing complexity of consciousness and actualisation (true post-humans alone would be like demi-gods, it's not a huge leap to keep taking this idea further)

Further to that Ontological mathematics (that is to say "really real mathematics") can assess a framework to understand how the universe itself came to be (we can arguably go pre-big bang with this but that's always going to be a controversial idea here).

^ Now I might be wrong about some or even all of that but it is at least a reductive argument. Using God as an explanation for anything without first explaining God is always going to be a circular argument. If your going to use circular logic you can prove basically anything you feel like!

"God is dead!"

Fox would get ahold of it and would make someone like Ke$ha the host. Nobody would watch it after the first two weeks and it would get canceled.

The only way this would work is if they got like Bill Nye to host it or Neil DeGrasse Tyson or something and even THEN nobody would watch it unless they put it on after Big Bang Theory or something.

The evidence suggests that time, space matter and energy had an absolute beginning at the big bang, so you would have to believe the Universe is eternal contrary to the evidence. So it leaves you with the problem with explaining what the ultimate first cause is. You cannot have an infinite regress of causes, so the buck has to stop somewhere. Either you attempt to conjure something out of nothing or you have to admit that something eternal created this universe.

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