Creationism, Evolution, God, Nothingness, Da Big Bang and Da Big Crunch, and More

No lie! This is a response to son_of_disaster's recent blog, Nothing Can't Exist Because There is Always Something in the Nothingness. You could also say it's the "sequel" to Dancing On God's Grave. I felt that some clarification and a blog to really bring all the ideas together could be used. In this, I will be tackling all of the things listed in the title! In case you missed the gigantic title, they are: Creationism! Evolution! God! Nothingness! Da Big Bang! Da Big Crunch! And... More (maybe)! Now then, on with the show. (Beware: huge.)

Let's Get Everything Straight

As for the creation of the great wide universe, there are two main beliefs. They are Creationism and The Big Bang.

WAIT! HOLD UP! There seems to be a frequently mistaken belief amongst people who do not believe in evolution (or those who do, but have been misinformed)--evolution is not a belief about the creation of the universe. All clear? Okay? If you want to know, "then what is it?!", I'll tell you in a little bit.

Creationism is the strict belief that God created the world, as is, with no evolution or eventually development, progression, or regression over time. According to Wikipedia, the classic creation date of the universe, established by James Ussher in 1654, is 4004 BC. Now, to set one thing straight: creationism just doesn't work. Period--it doesn't work. It's scientifically wrong. The earth is obviously much older than 4004 BC, as well as has fossils and living examples (read: every living creature existing right now) of transitional states in between living creatures, which is one of the arguments used in Creationism. While evolution is not a creationist belief, it seems to be linked very closely to the Big Bang in the mind of many people.

The Big Bang is the belief that the world was created by a gargantuan, huge-mongous (and I daresay I must use the adjective xboxhueg) amount of pressure and temperature on matter in an extremely dense point. Then, it all exploded! I'm assuming there was a really big and really loud bang. Anyway, this ties in neatly with the belief in evolution and spontaneous generation (the creation of life purely by chance). The Big Bang is potentially the most largely-accepted explanation of the creation of the universe in the world, and seems to make the most sense since the universe is expanding from a seeming central point (but somebody has yet to pinpoint exactly where).

So, That's All Fine and Well, But...

With these two, and one pretty much rendered invalid, and evolution pretty much proven--many of the God-believing folks may be disgruntled (though, I hope that the belief in the world being created in 4004 BC is becoming less prominent--it's just plain wrong). Of course, they've still got some things going for them. There's also a good amount of religious folks who believe that God caused the Big Bang and used it as a tool for creating the universe, as well as created evolution. Whether you picture the "lazy god" or the "intelligent design god", it doesn't matter--all we're arguing here is God V.S. Science in terms of creation.

Right now, though, let's rule out miracles and acts of divine creation, since the modern world don't swing that way (as much). There's still a problem with the Big Bang theory, though. That's the issue of: what happened before the Big Bang?

Tackling Nothingness

Now, we can assume one thing for sure: before the Big Bang, the laws of physics were still intact. They would have to be, right? We can also assume (I tip my hat to son_of_disaster, here--it would be a top hat if I were wearing one) that nothingness is completely invalid. The law of conservation of energy says that energy (that is, in any form, matter, heat, speed, etc.) cannot be created or destroyed, but can change forms.

What is nothingness, though? It's a tacky subject. The nothingness I am talking about is the absolute void, absolute nothing. It's the absence of anything. By definition (heh), it is impossible to perceive nothingness in any way, and it cannot move or be moved because that would give it a gaseous/liquid property (perhaps even solid, "blocks of nothingness")--which defies the definition of nothing. So, nothing can move it around--and nothing can move into it, because then it would become something. It would not bounce off either, because it's impossible for an object to bounce off of nothing. The only philosophically (and potentially physically, which is impossible anyway) sound interaction would be for something to fade into it, and simply disappear. Spooky, huh? But, the law of conservation of energy says that this just isn't possible.

This concept also brings us to a conclusion that God cannot exist within "nothingness" and create something out of it, because philosophically, nothing is simply that. Nothing. God would have to exist as a non-locational entity, or entirely on another plane of existence, or both, to create the world (if God were to manifest itself as any matter or energy currently known to man. More on this later).

This, of course, does not rule out any possibility of divine creation, at all--because God is omnipotent. Not that I'm rooting for any specific side, but I'm just saying, hope is not lost.

The Universe Before the Universe Was Made

So, with all this, we have revealed to ourselves (with some chagrin for some of us) a fact with a great many implications: the universe existed, in fact, before the Big Bang. This leads us to ask: What happened before that? What made all the matter in the universe condense into one tiny ball? We also might ask: how was the universe before the universe was made made? Then, if we're not satisfied by that answer--we may just simply go into an infinite loop. Then again, maybe that's how it works.

We know this much so far: Classic creationism is nix. Nothingness is non-existent, and invalid as a physical reality. Energy cannot be destroyed or created, only changed. The universe was not created with the Big Bang--rather, the pieces of the universe (all the matter in the universe, surmisably) was drawn into one single point--somehow.

Now, we have no clue where these pieces were in the first place. One would assume that they were not in that state in the first place--rather, they somehow got to that point. Somehow, somehow, somehow. But the question is begged, when were those created? Actually, I think that because of our law of conservation of energy, it may be possible that they were never created.

Comprehending Eternity and Infinity

Your first reaction might be: "Never created? What? But I'm alive right now! Everything is here!" Of course, I don't mean it that way. They exist, sure--but I mean they were never created, since the act of creation implies a certain time. I'm saying that they had always existed, both ways, into the past and into the future.

Infinity and eternity are two concepts that the human mind is simply incapable of fully comprehending. They are frequent topics in Hindu, Zen, Tao, Buddhist, and even many day-to-day eastern everyday lifestyle beliefs. There is no other way to put it as such: the universe either existed since ever and will exist for eternity, or the universe was spontaneously created whole (there's that nifty law going into work). By? Well, my guess is as good as yours.

Time was and always will be a concept created by humans, unfortunately, and we seem to have much trouble grasping anything beyond that.

If we are to assume that there existed something before the Big Bang, that something existed forever. Going by the law of entropy, this means that the universe had an infinite amount of time to decompose into who-knows-what--but most definitely not a super-condensed super-hot ball of matter. Except, of course, for the Big Crunch theory.

The Big Crunch

As I stated earlier, the universe is constantly expanding. In fact, for some reason, scientists have found that the universe is actually increasing in speed of expansion, as opposed to what they expected--a decrease in expansion speed. There exists a theory called the Big Crunch (what does the word crunch make you think of?).

Now, if a star is big enough, it will eventually run out of fuel, be unable to support its own weight, then collapse on itself. The gravity of it will become so strong that it turns into a black hole--and this only happens if the star is about 50 to 100 times the mass of our sun. If this happens, it will form a black hole and begin to suck everything around it into it. It's pretty much impossible to escape from a black hole.

The Big Crunch theory is the hypothesis that when enough stars go black hole, they begin to suck each other together, until they form one gigantic-mega-huge black hole. Black holes have an insane amount of pressure--perhaps, enough, to cause a Big Bang all over again. The Big Crunch theory can either be a view that insists that the universe will end as a ball crunched into one--or a view that insists the universe will end, then start over again via a brand spanking new Big Bang. This is actually large view in eastern belief systems, particularly Hinduism.

This is one viewpoint that seems most plausible to me. Of course, there's always a bunch of other ideas like the Big Freeze, the Big Rip, the Big Bounce, and many others. There's also Armageddon, so don't take my word for it.

We Still Have Questions!

Doubtless, we must wonder--what is outside of the universe? First, the universe has been recorded as a perfect sphere, anywhere from 13.7 to 180 billion light years to the visible edge of the universe (however, Wikipedia officiously opinions that 93 billion light years is the correct date, leaving the 13.7-180 billion bit as part of a statement about inaccuracies--tread carefully).

At the same time, there is also supposably no edge to the universe, nor is the universe actually expanding "into" anything--it's simply like a balloon, and everything seems to be expanding because everything is moving away from each other faster and faster. It also has to do with the curved space-time continuum. Apparently, if you look in any direction into the Universe far enough, you'll see the same thing. If only we had the time to do that!

Anyhow, we're jumping straight into metaphysics now. If there indeed exists something physically "outside" the universe, it would probably be simply, "emptiness". Not nothingness, but emptiness.

Eastern Emptiness Exasperates Eager Interns

Okay, so that title was a stretch, but that's not important.

An eastern belief that seems to underly all of the major beliefs (Taoism, Zen, Hinduism, and Buddhism--let me know if I missed any) there is a belief in "emptiness" and "potential", out of which all things arrive, and manifest. This field of emptiness underlies everything in existence, and perhaps extends even past the universe for infinity and eternity and on. This is interesting when compared to subatomic physics in quantum physics, because when subatomic particles change into other ones, or break apart or form again--they do not actually "change". Rather, they disappear--and then reappear--nearly instantaneously.

This emptiness is supposably the end all, is-is, infinite and eternal one-ness out of which everything is manifested (the relation of this funky wording needs to be carefully compared to the law of conservation of energy). It goes by many names, such as the Unmanifest and Potential, or whatever it is our strange translations call it these days. This is really the only idea I have for anything beyond the universe--if there is anything beyond the universe. If you want to know more about this concept, I suggest you read up.

In Conclusion

I should hope you weren't reading this blog seriously hoping for an answer to how the universe started--since nobody knows for sure. However, I hope this was able to shed some light on the matter and brought some new thought into a rather exasperatingly unknown topic (and still, how little we know). Feel free to leave your personal opinions and ideas about it, or questions, clarifications, corrections... all that jazz. Happy seeking, folks. :)