Lemaitre was aware of the creationism issues of the day, and he explicitly shunned the idea that his theory should be enlisted as a support for any side of the Creationism culture wars such as they already were at the time. (And that was no minor temptation for some, because it posited an actual beginning as opposed to the prevailing steady state universe model still popular then). Had it not been for the time scales involved, the big bang could have been (and I think was!) spun by some Creationists as a clear victory for themselves. Which may also help explain Hoyleās disdain for it and the bestowed moniker of mockery.
[Simon Singh: āBig Bangā published in 2005 by Harper Collins p. 362. In fact Pope Pius XII was one of the excited devotees latching onto LeMaitreās theory for apologetic purposes - but Father LeMaitre refused to get on that train!]
Itās something I learned about on this forum. Theoretically, the universe doesnāt explode from a specific point like a firecracker, but begins everywhere, and consequently everywhen. It is extraordinarily phenomenal when you think it about. Like a universe that begins in the present. According to Aquinas, by faith we believe the world has a beginning in the past. The alternative is an eternal universe that just keeps going into the past.
I will read your post from Answers in Genesis. But below is an excerpt from space.comā¦and I have seen this position posted elsewhere online ā in AI Overlook and moreā¦Thanks for bringing this up howeverā
The potential problem with distant galaxies isnāt that they exist. In fact, the modern formulation of the Big Bang theory, called ĪCDM cosmology (the Ī stands for dark energy, and CDM is short for ācold dark matterā), predicts galaxies to appear in the very young universe. Thatās because billions of years ago, there were no galaxies, or even stars, at all. When our universe was much smaller and much denser than it is today, everything was much more uniform, with only tiny density differences appearing here and there randomly.
But over time, those density differences grew, with the slightly denser pockets pulling more material onto them. Over hundreds of millions of years, those pockets formed into the first stars, and eventually grew to become the first galaxies.
In fact, one of the main goals of the Webb telescope was to discover and characterize those first galaxies, so finding galaxies in the incredibly young universe is a point in favor of the Big Bang theory, not against it.
Interesting. I donāt know if Lemaitre was YEC (could not see that right off in the article that I have excerpted below from amnh.org ā
It is tempting to think that LemaĆ®treās deeply-held religious beliefs might have led him to the notion of a beginning of time. After all, the Judeo-Christian tradition had propagated a similar idea for millennia. Yet LemaĆ®tre clearly insisted that there was neither a connection nor a conflict between his religion and his science. Rather he kept them entirely separate, treating them as different, parallel interpretations of the world, both of which he believed with personal conviction. Indeed, when Pope Pius XII referred to the new theory of the origin of the universe as a scientific validation of the Catholic faith, LemaĆ®tre was rather alarmed. Delicately, for that was his way, he tried to separate the two:
āAs far as I can see, such a theory remains entirely outside any metaphysical or religious question. It leaves the materialist free to deny any transcendental Beingā¦ For the believer, it removes any attempt at familiarity with Godā¦ It is consonant with Isaiah speaking of the hidden God, hidden even in the beginning of the universe.ā
In the latter part of his life, LemaĆ®tre turned his attention to other areas of astronomical research, including pioneering work in electronic computation for astrophysical problems. His idea that the universe had an explosive birth was developed much further by other cosmologists, including George Gamow, to become the modern Big Bang theory. While contemporary views of the early universe differ in many respects from LemaĆ®treās āprimordial atom,ā his work had nevertheless opened the way. Shortly before his death, LemaĆ®tre learned that Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson had discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation, the first and still most important observational evidence in support of the Big Bang.
Already done, and itās pointless because you either ignore them, somehow donāt see them, or mentally edit them away. How YEC adds to the text has been shown here numerous times by several people, how it ignores the grammar has also, and how it ignores the ordinary use of Hebrew ā and mixing science with theology is something you do constantly, and abounds on YEC websites.
In classical Big Bang theory, both of those are true: the universe begins as a single point, but that single point is āeverywhereā such that as space expands every point qualifies as the center.
āEverywhenā . . . I donāt think thatās part of it.
That insistence is understandable. He didnāt want to make his religious beliefs a target for detractors, well, anymore than they already were. It could very well be that he was inspired by his beliefs, but that doesnāt matter in the scientific sense because he had the data to support his ideas. With all of the back and forth over ID and claims of bias, it is worth noting that a Catholic priest proposed a theory with unavoidable religious overtones, and that theory won the day because the evidence was solid. If the scientific community were as biased as some ID proponents claimed then astronomy would still be ruled by the Steady State theory.
I really love this fact. It ranks right up there with Peter Higgs being in the audience at the LHC when the observation of the Higgs boson was announced.