The Pope has finally determined that “God was behind Big Bang” and the universe was no accident. (Reuters 1/6/2011). That is rather amusing given that one of his predecessors threatened Galileo with death for believing that the earth revolved around the sun; and it was a catholic priest Father Georges Lemaitre, in 1927, who showed that one of the solutions to Einstein’s equations of General Relativity implied an expanding universe in which a “big Bang” creation is the logical conclusion. I guess however we should be thankful that the church is finally waking up to the what cosmologists have long known; and that is : 13.7 Billion years ago everything in “our” universe came into existence and the explanation for how; is totally explained by the laws of physics. For those curious to know more Steven Hawking’s recent book “The Grand Design” is a good starting point.
The problem with the Pope’s conclusion is the likely scenario from which the “Big Bang” arose is a tear in the fabric of the universe which of course implies that our universe is only one of possibly many universes in existence and if that proves to be the case religion now has to explain how it fits into the grand scheme of things. Our universe alone consists of approx. 100,000,000,000 galaxies each of which contains approx. 100,000,000,000 stars most of which have planets. I find it hard to believe that of 100,000,000,000,000,000.000.000 or more planets in existence we are the only one with living organisms and we were chosen by a primitive god to be distinctive in the universe. The skeptic in me says that this is the height of both arrogance and absurdity.
Our planet has experienced a number of natural cataclysmic events which have resulted in 90+% loss of life, the most recent of which caused the die off of the dinosaurs. It would not surprise me if the next great die off was caused by human stupidity; overpopulation, nuclear war or possibly even disease. When I look around the world, I have to sadly conclude that religion is surely one of the primary factors endangering the existence of this planet. A religious belief based totally on faith is incapable of comprehending and dealing with the enormity and challenges that now face us. Do we go the way of the dinosaurs or are we smatter than that?
