First Posted 27 February 2008

Deep Thoughts With Mortimer

Current mood:depressed

I have been watching The Universe on The History Channel. It's a great series. I really love the science and physics that they discuss, not that I can even begin to totally understand some of the theories and postulations that they delve into. Believe me, even though it's "dumbed down" for a more universal audience, so to speak, an awful lot of it is still over my head.

That being said, I have a problem with what's probably one of the most accepted theories in astrophysics and astronomy.

I don't believe in the "Big Bang".

There, I said it. It needed to be said. Phew, what a weight off of my shoulders!

Now, before you think I have gone all "Bible" on you, I still maintain that I don't believe in hocus-pocus either. I am fully able to accept and love those of my friends and acquaintances that believe in the Almighty and the Word and the Trinity and there are times that I honestly, truly envy those who can live their lives with such unshakeable faith and belief. It's an incredible thing to see someone with that love instilled in him or her through the Good Book.

Unfortunately (I guess), I am not one of them. I have always had an analytical mind, questioning and searching through religions and science to make sense of this world and our existence in it. I have come to some rather stark conclusions concerning these questions and I am fully at peace with my answers. They aren't pretty but they're mine! Those other ideas are for another entry. This one deals with my problem with the universe ejaculated into being.

The Big Bang Theory: I just can't swallow it. It doesn't make logical sense to me (like religions don't make sense to me) and it pisses me off because there is so much about science and physics that makes perfect sense to me…well…scientifically. Evolution is quantifiable. I can see how one thing evolved or transmuted into another, how through millions of years and selective breeding, certain traits are favoured and over time, those traits become so different from the initial species' traits, be they a new kind of flippers, the ability to fly or frontal-lobe intelligence, that a whole new species is created. I don't need a "missing-link" to prove evolution to me. It just makes sense.

One of my problems with the Big Bang is that it doesn't answer the question of what was there before the Big Bang.

My theory is that the universe has always been there, will always be there. I believe it didn't start from a small quantum little infinitesimal…thing that exploded into the universe we know and love. It smacks of religion, actually, that something or someonewilled the universe into being and lo and behold, here we are.

I have always thought that the universe was always here and it has always confounded me that even scientists need to have that beginning, that there must have been a start to it all. Maybe it's ingrained into our humanity since we begin and end, we have watched events in history begin and end. We have to extrapolate that the universe itself must have had a beginning and, I guess, will have an end.

Hogwash! That's what I say!

I have contemplated the evidence for the Big Bang and that still doesn't convince me. There's the idea that other galaxies are moving away from us and that means that we all started from a single point. This is something that greater minds with far more powerful tools than this little Lappy I am typing this essay on have at their disposal and they have discerned these things and found them to be true. I can accept that, to a point. My idea is; the universe is so huge, the colossal distances and physics involved may just make those galaxies within our neighborhood seem to be moving away from us. I believe that it's far too large to fathom these distances with any real certainty. Because, the idea that everything is moving away from us also smacks of those pre-Galileo days when Mother Church taught that the earth was the centre of the universe and the sun, planets and stars revolve around us. It's another thing that doesn't make sense in a scientific way. We know that the earth is just a little blue planet among eight others, circling a rather small, ordinary star, albeit the only one we know of with humans in it's orbit.

Although the world revolves around me, I do know that the universe does not.

Then there's the very fact that the universe is expanding. Expanding into what? What was there before the universe existed? That also makes no sense to me because, no matter how far we look, no matter how powerful our little eyes get that peer into the universe, all we ever see is MORE UNIVERSE! Hullo, maybe that's because that's all there is, folks! Those galaxies that are traveling away from us are simply moving along out into the great beyond. The beyond that has always been there on a path of their own, not one owing to being shot out from a Big ol' Bang!

There are other "facts" that scientists tout to prove the Big Bang but I have seen a few scientists, here and there on the fringes, who seem to doubt this theory that has been etched in stone for so long. And I am inclined to agree.

That's what I think.

The universe: it's beyond old, it's beyond big and we'll never, ever know what it's all about.