I must have read or seen renditions of the Big Bang a hundred times by now. Thought I pretty much knew what it entailed. However, last night while watching Stephen Hawking’s show, I learned something new.
Let me explain for all you novices out there. (*smirk*). Okay, so I’m no expert. I am however, pretty good at relating information that I may not actually understand all that well.
So. Once upon a time all that is our universe was compressed into what is called a singularity. A meaningless concept to astrophysicists and cosmologists (having nothing to do with hair–that’s cosmetologists, but they might be related given the change of but one letter which seems really odd to me, but I digress).
Singularities are pinpoints of “space” which are giganticus when it comes to matter. Got that? Well, I agree it’s much easier to visualize a pinprick of a head like Glenn Beck’s with NOTHING in it, but try to imagine a tiny tiny dot which contains all that is in our universe today.
Kay. Now for no reason we know, it explodes. And with no light mind you, cuz light requires a fusioning sun and we ain’t got there yet. So anyway, all these particles (sub-atomic, meaning smaller than an atom) are spewing out in all directions. Now, if that was all that happened, well, nothing ever would have happened and you wouldn’t be enjoying this post. The various laws such as electromagnetism, strong and weak forces and gravity would exactly balance out, and all that spewed out stuff would have just sat there.
But, and here is the NEW INFORMATION: the “stuff” didn’t spew out EXACTLY evenly. It had a few places where it was a little more or less dense. And thus, gravity could operate and cause the heavier concentrations to be stronger and thus attract more and the weaker, less, and well you get it I’m sure. When they got dense even, these particles were banging into each other harder and then faster and then all that caused heat, and then one turned on–it’s hydrogen began to fuse and energy was given off, and then there was LIGHT!
From there some really big stars went through a process of getting so hot and compressing and fusing into helium and then on and on until carbon and oxygen and all the elements were formed in it’s tummy until it blew up and spewed (word for the day!) all over the place. From this our sun and our earth (iron!) were born.
Phew! Okay, so from all that, we learn that the only way that we came to be is because the universe from it’s very beginning was IMPERFECT. Had to be so. And thus we came from imperfect beginnings.
I immediately thought of Plato and his forms. Now I will no doubt screw this up, so you brains out there who are philosophy freaks can come in and clean up my analysis. But Plato talked about what he saw as obvious: there was a material world and there was a real one. Note that folks. The material one was the one we see and feel and taste and so forth. The real one is the one we don’t. For every horse in the material world, there was a form horse in the real world–a perfect horse, the idea of what a horse is, and presumably a perfect horse.
Smart people, according to Plato, sought to mold their lives toward the ideal variety. They, being thus the smartest, should govern, since they were not burdened like most folks with materialism. Sound like us today?
So given that our universe is imperfect by definition, I mean could Plato have been wrong about his ideal forms? I mean is there perfect beauty? Or perfect compassion?
We certainly attribute such perfection on say Jesus don’t we? He was at the least perfectly obedient wasn’t he? Perhaps we need conclude that only God holds all perfection? Horror of horrors, he does not create perfectly except in a metaphorical sense, of things being created perfectly to accomplish his goal of creating a living, growing universe.
Now, the atheist would argue (ignoring the entire Plato thing no doubt) that it was random chance that our universe turned out to be imperfect thus allowing it to develop. They would claim that perhaps kazillions of other universes exist, and thus every range of possibility is met. So in some, a steady state of nothing exists, in others they went crazy and cycled through in a week, so sentience lasted maybe three minutes. You can see what they mean.
On the other hand, one can say, “wow, what an amazing God we have. Who but God could have realized that his perfect laws needed a push.” Kinda of like dipping a finger in a placid bowl of water, he disturbed the chaos which wasn’t really chaos, just enough to set the dominoes a crashing.
I take great comfort in that notion and in another one as well. I mean, given that the material creator (the workings of natural laws) that created me was flawed, well heck, how can I be expected to be perfect either? That takes a lot of burden and weight off me I tell ya.
Next time I burn the roast and the Contrarian looks at me with consternation (never happened yet but it might!), I can shrug, and say, “hey, who knows but this imperfection is exactly what is needed to keep the universe ticking away.”
Ya never know, I say. Ya never know.
Thanks God, you always have my back!
