The Different Theories Of How The Universe Was Created free essay sample

There has always been a question that no one has ever been able to answer, and probably will not answer for a very long time. This question is how did the universe, and more specifically, earth, become to be what it is today. For hundreds of years many people were convinced that a higher power created the earth, that their god just willed earth to become, and it became. There are many different theories as to how and why the universe came to be as it is today. Some of these are religion based, and some are scientific based. The religious ones are often based on nothing more than the stories, which have been passed down through countless generations from either a holy book or passed through word-of-mouth from generation to generation. While these stories are from completely different religions, a lot of the points that they have are the same throughout all of them. But also, many of the points that are made are completely different. In some religions an all-powerful being just created the world as we know it now like the Christian religion, or another religion says that there is no way of knowing when the universe was created just that it could be millions of years old, or not. The Islam religion states that god was the one to make the Big Bang Theory happen, so this religion has aspects of both religion and scientific incorporated into their story. The scientific theories of the origin of the universe do sometimes have some scientific evidence but it can never be proven. Mainly because according to most scientists the universe was created millions of years ago. One of the most popular of the theories is the Big Bang Theory, but there are others like the Steady State Universe Theory, or the Oscillating Universe Theory. Whatever theory that they have they will almost never change their minds. They are going on absolute faith, and they just think that everyone else is wrong. Some of the most popular religions in the world is Christianity and Judaism. These two religions share the same creation story shared in the Bible and the Torah. The catholic religion has a few different branches, like Protestant or Methodist churches, and most of the people in those religions do believe in the same creation story. This creation story is from Genesis in the Bible and the Torah. It says that the earth was made in six days. On the first day God created light and separated the light from the darkness, calling light â€Å"day† and darkness â€Å"night. † On the second day God created an expanse to separate the waters and called it â€Å"sky. † On the third day God created the dry ground and gathered the waters, calling the dry ground â€Å"land,† and the gathered waters â€Å"seas. † On day three, God also created vegetation (plants and trees). On the fourth day God created the sun, moon, and the stars to give light to the earth, and to separate the day and the night. These would also serve as signs to mark seasons, days, and years. On the fifth day God created every living creature of the seas and every winged bird. On the sixth day God created the animals to fill the earth. God also created man and woman. And on the seventh day God had finished his work of creation and so he rested on the seventh day, blessing it and making it holy. This story is the same throughout all of the Christian religions. The only thing that differs is how people interpret it. One person believes in everything that the bible says, and they also believe that the earth was only made 6,000 years ago, because that is how the bible was interpreted for them. And so they completely reject evolution and the concept that dinosaurs could have been on the earth millions of years ago. But someone else said that our days and God’s days are not the same. That one day for god could be many years for us. So while they did reject evolution they do accept that there could have been life long before humans came to live on earth. When I asked a catholic woman why she believed in this creation story on such great faith, she told me that it was of how she was raised, her parents taught her and she has never questioned her faith, and she never wanted scientific proof, her faith was proof enough for her. A few of the more liberal Christians do not believe in the creation story in that the garden of Eden is a real place and that Adam and Eve are real people. They say that it is a story to help promote faith in their god. They say that the people who wrote the bible lived in a pre-scientific world, and that it was just a made up story to give people an explanation as to how the earth was created. It is a myth that was never to be interpreted literally. When talking to a girl who does consider herself a part of the Catholic Church, she does not believe in this creation story, she said that it was just a way for people who had no scientific way to prove anything like that, to have something to cling onto as an answer. And she cannot believe that people have not changed their minds, especially in this day of age where we do have scientific evidence of things like the Big Bang theory. The second most popular religion in the world with over 1. 5 million in the world is Islam. The Islam version of the creation of the universe was created by their God (Allah), and when he wanted to created something all he said was â€Å"be† and it became. And the chain of events that created the earth does have many of the same aspects as the Christian creation story. The initial creation of it is a lot like the Big Bang Theory. The Qur’an states that creation took six long spans of time, rather than the six literal days. The Qur’an states that God created the world and the heavens, made all the creatures that walk, swim, crawl, and fly on the earth from water. He made the angels, and the sun, moon and the stars. He poured down the rain in torrents, and broke up the soil to bring forth the corn, the grapes and other vegetation; the olive and the palm, the fruit trees and the grass. God molded clay, earth, sand and water into a model of a man. He breathed life and power into it, and it immediately sprang to life. And this first man was called Adam. God took Adam to live in Paradise. In Paradise, God created Eve, the first woman, from out of Adam’s side. God taught Adam the names of all the creatures, and then commanded all the angels to bow down before Adam. While these two religions do have many similarities between them they are also different. Islam breaks somewhat with Judaism and Christianity in explaining why Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. In the actual Hebrew account in Genesis, a snake tempts them to eat the fruit. Extra-biblical Christian mythology identifies the snake with Satan, but in the bible it does not actually make this identification. In contrast, the Quran states explicitly that Shaitan (Satan) tempted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit. One of the oldest religions that is still being practiced today has a very different view as to how the universe was created. They say that the beginning of this world and of life is inconceivable since they have neither beginning nor end. Buddhism never claimed that the world, sun, moon, stars, wind, water, days and nights were created by a powerful god or by a Buddha. Buddhists believe that the world was not created once, but that the world has been created millions of times every second and will continue to do so by itself and will break away by itself. According to Buddhism, world systems always appear and disappear in the universe. To a Buddhist the universe is nothing more than Samsara, which is the cycle of life into death and back into life, their biggest goal is to get out of this cycle. Since elements and energies are relative and inter-dependent, it is meaningless to single out anything as the beginning. The religion Hinduism is another very old religion originally from India. Hinduism has many views on the origin of the universe, but it is an evolution friendly religion. But also it is a lot like the Buddhism religion. Which says that there was no initial start, it has always been and it will always be. While many people do believe their religions, many other people do not have a religious view of how the universe was created. They believe in a scientific theory, one with some scientific evidence to help prove it is actually true. The people who believe in things like this seem to be the kind of people who are seeing is believing. And while there is no actual proof of this occurring, this theory has the most evidence, and seems to most astronomers to be the most plausible answer to the age old question, how did we become? When I asked an atheist what she believed in, she said the Big Bang Theory and I asked her whether she believed it was because â€Å"seeing is believing† or just what she was taught she responded. â€Å"Mostly what I was taught, my parents left religious decisions up to me. I’ve been to church but I never understood it so the scientific way of looking at it made sense to me. † The Big Bang theory is something that happened about 14 billion years ago. At that time, the entire Universe was inside a bubble that was thousands of times smaller than a pinhead. It was hotter and denser than anything we can imagine. Then it suddenly exploded. The Universe that we know was born. In a fraction of a second, the Universe grew from smaller than a single atom to bigger than a galaxy. As the Universe expanded and cooled, energy changed into particles of matter and antimatter. These two opposite types of particles largely destroyed each other. But some matter survived. More stable particles called protons and neutrons started to form when the Universe was one second old. Over the next three minutes, the temperature dropped below 1 billion degrees Celsius. It was now cool enough for the protons and neutrons to come together, forming hydrogen and helium. After 300,000 years, the Universe had cooled to about 3,000 degrees. Atomic nuclei could finally capture electrons to form atoms. The Universe filled with clouds of hydrogen and helium gas. With all of the theories that there are about the very beginning, that’s all they are, theories. No one was ever there to tell us how it actually happened. Right now it is un-known to science. But it seems that a good portion of the population does not need a scientific reason. All they need is their faith. For the Christian religions it is the creation story from Genesis. For Islam’s they do agree with the Big Bang Theory, but they believe their god made that happen. Buddhists and Hindus believe that the universe has always been here and it always will be. And atheists or scientific driven believers think it was the Big Bang theory. No matter who it was they never questioned their belief in what they think happened. They reject any other idea as false. And with no actual proof to back up any of their theories. They don’t need it to continue to believe in whatever it is. Whatever speculation we make regarding the origin of the world, there is no absolute truth in any of our notions.