Monday, February 16, 2015

We Think We Know

In October 2014 General Conference, President Uchtdorf explained the nature of unchanging truth by recounting humanity's evolving understanding of the nature of the universe.  He indicated that as man developed instruments sensitive enough to discover distant galaxies and they came to our knowledge, "The immensity of the universe didn’t suddenly change, but our ability to see and understand this truth changed dramatically."

Sometimes, science and religion do not get along.  I see that as a great tragedy because I believe that the Almighty Creator uses natural laws and processes to accomplish his works.  When a miracle occurs, we call it that because we do not understand how it happened.  That does not mean that the laws of physics or biology or anything else had to be suspended or violated for the thing to happen--it only means that we do not understand how it happened.

One particular area where science and religion butt heads is the creation.  I personally do not see the problem.  As I read the bible, I find no verse that precludes the possibility of a "big bang" and believe it would be pretty close to blasphemy to say that God could not have used such an event in his creative process.  At the same time, I believe our scientific understanding of the beginnings of the universe are problematic because the theories (like the big bang) do not explain some ubiquitous physical properties (like gravity).

So when I saw a YouTube video posted on the notoriously religion unfriendly Discovery News channel about the Big Bang theory possibly being wrong, I was intrigued.  It is refreshing to hear that there are still scientists willing to admit that scientific theories are not absolute truths.  One intriguing bit about this video is that the new theory postulates that the universe is of infinite age...something that resonates with certain religious teachings.  But remember, the same critiques can be made of this theory as the last ones--it is simply incomplete because we lack sufficient evidence (so far) to prove or disprove it.

Anyway...here's the video:


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