Cosmology, God and the Big Bang

My fascination with the science of cosmology has grown increasingly over the last two years: the evolution of it, the study and science behind it, it’s impacts on the fundamentals of religion, the question of other intelligent life (and occasionally the question of our own intelligent life haha), and the ultimate fate of the Universe. <> Understanding the beginning and end of the cosmos (and everything in between) is for me, part of a larger effort to try and attain some personal direction for finding my faith, so to speak. I mean if heaven and hell really do exist and non-believers are doomed to live an eternity in hell – I don’t want to find myself in the wrong boat for lack of trying.

Battling the question of religion of course is such a huge undertaking – and in truth – one that might never lead anywhere. It is after all, a matter of faith at this point. I’m a details woman who likes to have the facts so naturally the concept of “blind faith” poses a bit of a problem for me. And it really is “blind” faith since the evolution of religion in the context of what we know it to be today is riddled with the stuff of legends followed by dated first/second/and third person interpretations, followed by re-writes and more interpretations (and therefore also misinterpretations), as well as blatant fabrications and half-truths intended to support the agendas of political and religious leaders of the times (think “The King James” version of the bible – a revision of an earlier translation created during a time when support for protestant reformation was in full swing and reforms were underway to change the Christian-community). After all, the teachings of "god" and "religion" are governed by man and it’s a fools notion to believe that after a 1,000 years - man never had his own agenda. Is it possible that religious and political leaders (societal roles that often intertwined back in the day) created a religious doctrine to govern the ungovernable? To create a more civilized society by dictating "the laws of man"..? Possibly. I wouldn't discount it.

In any case, I do not believe that the paths of cosmological and religious studies are mutually exclusive - they’re roots reach back to the same fundamental questions as do almost every major point of revelation thereafter. Fortunately for me, cosmology alone is such a fascinating study that even if I never find my spiritual ground, I will have found plenty else in it’s stead.

Einstein was a spiritual man who believed in the existence of a God – though not a God as a religious deity but rather a God that was, essentially, the sum of all of things in the universe.

Through observational evidence in the last few years we’ve determined that the universe as we know it has a beginning but no end. It was born from a fiery bang, with all the stuff of life and dark matter defined within ten-trillionths of a second, and it will continue to expand forever thanks to gravity giving way to the force of anti-gravity. As the universe continues to expand and the heat of matter eventually begins to cool...we know that one day in the distant, distant [distant] future the state of the universe will be a soup of lifeless, cold, dead matter. It will die an icy-death.

The idea that the universe has a beginning would seem to imply the existence of an omnipotent being who created the universe. But does it have to? Certainly not the first time someone has asked this question but a first for me.. What if the “Big Bang” was a massive explosion that began in the fabric of some other space and time – an explosion so immense that it became point zero for the creation of the universe as we know it. According to the law of energy conservation: the amount of energy that exists before any event must be the same as the amount of energy that exists after the event. It can dissipate, change forms and turn into matter but it cannot dissapear nor can it come from nowhere. If these fundamentals hold true, then isn't it possible that the energy that existed after the Big Bang came from the same amount of energy (in similar or dissimilar form) that existed before the big bang; And if that's the case then wouldn't that very notion overrule the existence of supernatural creation, meaning, the same amount of energy pre-dated the moment the universe was created...

We know that every massive particle has it's opposite twin, called an anti-matter doppelganger. When matter and it's anti-matter collide they wipe each other out of existence. Fortunately (for us) the symmetry between matter and it's antimatter isn't equal. There are subtle differences between the two that makes matter easier to create and thus after the Big Bang - when matter and it’s anti-matter annihilated each other, there was some matter left over resulting in the universe we live in.
Isn't it possible then that an “anti-universe” existed before the big bang...and the unstable “state” of this anti-universe (in that anti-matter could not easily be created to support continued expansion of the anti-universe) eventually led to a “big crunch” which was point zero for “the big bang”???

I don't know; obviously. But it brings up some interesting theory on the need for an ominpotent creator at all..