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[Leafsnail]

I think the scientific model says "Test the hypothesis" rather than "Who knows?" at the end.

[Phmcw]

Andir, it's not a topic on atheism you need right now, but a course on astrophysics.
It's good to have a critical mind, but you need to know the theory you're discussing, else it's useless.

No, he really has a point. The big bang is only surmised from the speed at which galaxies seem to move away from us and eachother. It's a bit shaky at best. However, if the universe is infinite in size and has been around infinitely, the sky would be intensely bright instead of black with a star here and there. Unless photons do decay.
However, time dilation makes photons timeless (the closer to the speed of light you get, the slower your time frame becomes, hence: photons that actually travel at the speed of light do not experience time), so even if they had a half-life of a second, they'd never decay anyway.

... Except that light slows down in a medium. Damn. Ok, forget the last part, but still, who knows?

No, no, no friggin' no!

The big bang theory doesn't come solely from the evidence that the universe is expending. There is a lot of other evidence as well as theoretical hint that none of you could possibly understand (and actually, I can't either, no matter how hard I try.)

The problem is that your mistake "explanation for the public" from "how the theory is actually explained". 

[Sowelu]

We've got a pretty darn good idea of how old the universe is from the amount of elements present in it.  :x  There have been three generations of stars so far, we're in the third one.  The first one is long gone and didn't last for long anyway.  It took three generations to make these heavy metals, but the second generation--with much lower metallicity--is still around.  The numbers add up in a pretty darn clear and accurate fashion, there.  Yes, the age of the universe is known, and it's faaaaar from infinite.

[Andir]

We've got a pretty darn good idea of how old the universe is from the amount of elements present in it.  :x  There have been three generations of stars so far, we're in the third one.  The first one is long gone and didn't last for long anyway.  It took three generations to make these heavy metals, but the second generation--with much lower metallicity--is still around.  The numbers add up in a pretty darn clear and accurate fashion, there.  Yes, the age of the universe is known, and it's faaaaar from infinite.

Er... are you talking about elements as in periodic table elements?  Actually, you lost me.

[Renault]

Yes, he is. He's referring to the fusion of heavy metals out of lighter elements that occurs in stars.

[Siquo]

I think the scientific model says "Test the hypothesis" rather than "Who knows?" at the end.

Who cares?

The big bang theory doesn't come solely from the evidence that the universe is expending.

Ah, it must be getting tired But yeah, it did. We did find other evidence in that direction later, though (as the aforementioned stellar nucleosynthesis, and remember, stars that create heavy metals are called "rock-stars" (although they create anything heavier than beryllium, not just metals)), but the expansion was the trigger. If we now remove expansion from the equation, how much of the theory will be left standing? You're going to have a hard time defending it, if new evidence shows that the universe isn't expanding at all.

[Leafsnail]

I think the scientific model says "Test the hypothesis" rather than "Who knows?" at the end.

Who cares?

Anyone who cares about what the universe actually is.

if new evidence shows that the universe isn't expanding at all.

Just to say this is roughly akin to new evidence showing that people with blond hair don't actually exist.

[Sowelu]

After the Big Bang, the universe was pretty much hydrogen and helium and not much else.  (We have a lot of ways of knowing this; unless you want to spend some time on Wikipedia, you'll have to take my word for it.)

It floated around and formed stars.  With no heavy elements, you only got these big honking massive stars.  They collapsed pretty fast (a few hundred million years?), and when they collapsed, they triggered fusion and turned a lot of their elements into more interesting things.  If I remember right, that first wave was enough to give us elements up to iron or so.

Stars that formed using those new metals lasted a while longer, and plenty are still around today (if old).  There's been enough time for them to collapse and cause more fusion, though, and when their higher metals fused, you get...well, everything we have today.  Our star and planets are made from the output of this second generation of stars.

The physical laws concerning how long stars survive, what materials they're made of, what mass they would have, and what they would make when they fuse are fairly well established.

[Siquo]

Anyone who cares about what the universe actually is.

And I believe that science can teach us lots of things, but will never be able to tell us what the universe really is.

Just to say this is roughly akin to new evidence showing that people with blond hair don't actually exist.

Hypothetical evidence. I'm just saying the theory kind of hinges on that one observation.

I'm just a sucker for crackpot theories and reasoning how they might be true

[Andir]

After the Big Bang, the universe was pretty much hydrogen and helium and not much else.  (We have a lot of ways of knowing this; unless you want to spend some time on Wikipedia, you'll have to take my word for it.)

It floated around and formed stars.  With no heavy elements, you only got these big honking massive stars.  They collapsed pretty fast (a few hundred million years?), and when they collapsed, they triggered fusion and turned a lot of their elements into more interesting things.  If I remember right, that first wave was enough to give us elements up to iron or so.

Stars that formed using those new metals lasted a while longer, and plenty are still around today (if old).  There's been enough time for them to collapse and cause more fusion, though, and when their higher metals fused, you get...well, everything we have today.  Our star and planets are made from the output of this second generation of stars.

The physical laws concerning how long stars survive, what materials they're made of, what mass they would have, and what they would make when they fuse are fairly well established.

But you are giving the age of stars we know of... not the universe.  (I guess my problem comes from the fact that I define the universe as everything... I realize there are people that define it as everything we can see.  Maybe I should start using another term for it.  Planet > Solar System > Galaxy > Universe > Multiverse?)

[Sowelu]

Well, the "visible universe" is a subset of the universe, but they're the same thing, they necessarily originated from the same event (if you use widely-accepted astrophysical models).  If you want to argue for things outside of the universe--like where it all came from, which may have been around long before the Big Bang--then yes, you can certainly argue lots of other things!  That gets into philosophy.

[Leafsnail]

And I believe that science can teach us lots of things, but will never be able to tell us what the universe really is.

Just randomly putting out crackpot hypotheses and not bothering to check any of them will?

Hypothetical evidence. I'm just saying the theory kind of hinges on that one observation.

Ok, yeah... like hypothetical evidence that blond people don't exist.

It just isn't gonna happen.

[wurli]

Can someone tell me what religion has to do with the big bang, the expansion of the universe or, even if he hasn't turned up yet, Darwin ?
I mean, science and religion are so fundamentally different, that the whole discussion is a waste of time.
On one side you have something that BELIEVES to KNOW the truth already. 
On the other you have theories that have to withstand new discoveries and can be falsified every minute, only to be replaced or altered by new ones.

I don't see a point in this discussion here. And you will never reach one.

[Sowelu]

Can someone tell me what religion has to do with the big bang, the expansion of the universe or, even if he hasn't turned up yet, Darwin ?
I mean, science and religion are so fundamentally different, that the whole discussion is a waste of time.
On one side you have something that BELIEVES to KNOW the truth already. 
On the other you have theories that have to withstand new discoveries and can be falsified every minute, only to be replaced or altered by new ones.

I don't see a point in this discussion here. And you will never reach one.

Huh.  I think the point got muddled a few pages back, but we are still on topic more or less.  Deism offers up the existence of a "Prime Mover", a creator who set things in motion and then got out of the way.  It's not religion exactly, but it's still contrary to atheism.  You also need to use science on both sides of the argument.  This random origin of the universe stuff does have to do with the existence or nonexistence of a Prime Mover; namely, where the hell did the universe come from.  That's one of the big questions religion tries to address, whether it's deism or Christianity:  Why are we here at all?  The deist position is generally that if there wasn't a Creator, there would be no Creation, because the default state is Nothing.

And...I'm not sure what the atheist response to that is, aside from asserting that the default state is Something instead of Nothing.  I don't see how either of those ideas is inherently more sensible than the other.

[smjjames]

Speaking of multiverses, astronomers have recently discovered signs in the cosmic background radiation (rings of cooler areas actually) shich indicates that somehow a previous universe made an imprint on ours when it was born. Although from the article it shows three rings, the cycle could very well be infinite with universes budding off of each other.