Science Vs. Religion: How Were We Created?

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Final Paper

Science vs. Religion: How were we created?

The idea of creation is one of the most controversial issues we have today. Your age, background, religion, and beliefs are the main characters that effect what you believe created the world. Science believes several theories on the creation but the most accepted is the Big Bang Theory. Religion has their own views on creation, Christians believe that God created the world, Islamic believe that Allah created man but in steps, and Mayans believe that the Heart of Sky created man. I plan on discussing each view in detail and then you the reader may make your decision on what you feel are true.

The Big Bang Theory is the scientific theory to explain the beginning of the world and of man. Scientists have discovered that there was a beginning of time, nothing before and what we call our universe after. According to the theory the universe started as small, dense, and extremely hot. After what they call the Big Bang, the universe cooled and expanded. An example that many scientists use is a balloon. The say that is starts with the popping of a balloon, releasing all its contents. Then the balloon continues to inflate. I would compare it to a raw noodle turning into a cooled, cooked noodle. The noodle was dense and extremely hot into an expanded, cool noodle. There are several evidences that support this theory, the first is that there was a beginning, second according to Hubble's law the galaxies and stars are moving away from us. Hubble's law would support the theory of expansion and that the universe was once compact. Another piece of evidence is the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation that would support that the universe was very hot at one time. The last piece of evidence would be that large quantities of Hydrogen and Helium are found in the universe and supports the models of Big Bang. The Big Bang Theory is the most popular and possible theory for creation, it is not the only one.

Christians view creation as clear and simple, God created the world in six days. According to the bible, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," (Genesis 1:1). "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day," (Genesis 1:31). The main evidence to support this theory is the Bible. If you believe in the Bible and in God than you believe the words and that God created the world. According to the Bible God created light on the first day, on the second he created the atmosphere and ocean, the third he creates land, the fourth is the creation of the sun, moon, and stars. On the fifth day he creates birds and water creatures, and on the sixth day land creatures are formed. The bible gives a step by step description of each day and how everything is created. There are many theories that go along with the bible. There is the fact that we do not know how long a day is according to the bible. Our days are 24 hours, but in the bible it refers to light and darkness. In some parts of the world they have six months of light and six months of darkness. It is hard to say exactly how long it took God to create the universe. Another point to look at is to combine the science and religion theories. God could have created the Big Bang in order to make the universe. Most scientists agree that the creation was some sort of supernatural event and therefore have a hard time saying that God or a higher being didn't have anything to do with the creation. Leon Lederman is a physicist who wrote The God Particle and his first paragraph makes very good points, "In the very beginning, there was a void, a curious form of vacuum, a nothingness containing no space, no time, no matter, no light, no sound. Yet the laws of nature were in place and this curious vacuum held potential. A story logically begins at the beginning, but this story is about the universe and unfortunately there are no data for the very beginnings--none, zero. We don't know anything about the universe until it reaches the mature age of a billion of trillionth of a second. That is, some very short time after creation in the big bang. When you read or hear anything about the birth of the universe, someone is making up--we are in the realm of philosophy. Only God knows what happened at the very beginning" (Lederman, 1).

Islamics view creation similar to that of the Christians. Like the Christians the Muslims believe the words of their form of a Bible, the Quran. The Quran states that Allah created man. According to the Quran, "Lo! Your lord is Allah who created the heavens and earth in six days, then mounted he the throne. He covereth the night with the day, which is in haste to follow it, and hath made the sun and the moon and the stars subservient by his command. His verily is all creation and commandment. Blessed be Allah, the Lord of the worlds!" (Surah 7, Ayat 54-56). The Quran stuns scientists in that it is a very detailed account of the creation that was written in the 7th century. Most of the scientific knowledge found in the Quran has only been discovered by scientists in the last 50 years. This poses a question