Origin of the Universe: Created Universe vs Cyclical Universe

[Silverbackman]

There has been a lot of debating about science and religion on this board, so I thought it would be proper to talk about it in more on a cosmic scale.

The origin of the universe has been debated for a long time. Early science thought that the universe might have been here forever. However most scientific evidence points that the universe had a beginning, and is about 15 billion years old. This really stunned scientists because they had no idea what happened before the beginning of the universe. This really helped the religion side of the debate pointing toward the explanation that a supernatural force created the universe.

While many thought science was actually defeated by religion in this debate science soon fought back with their new theory, the cyclical universe theory. The theory states that the universe has been here forever, big banging into a new universe and big crunching back to it original compact dense state. The big banging and big crunching according to scientist may have been happening for eternity, just cont. the big bang-big crunch cycle. There is even some testable evidence I hear for this theory, though the evidence is small enough to keep it well as a theory.

The Second Law does not prohibit a cyclical universe model. While the Second Law does indicate that all systems loose energy this is only accurate if the system is able to transfer this energy to a larger system because there is no such thing as a perfect insulator / energy transfer.

If the universe is a unique system this means that it can’t bleed energy into a larger system, which is essentially the same as having a perfect insulator. Since energy can’t be created or destroyed it simply expands.

Still, there is still much to be done on the theory. This theory gives atheists hope that perhaps there has been a universe for eternity big banging and big crunching.

So it seems the two biggest causes of the universe cosmologists use is one of two theories. Either the Universe has been here for eternity and has been big banging and big crunching for eternity or some supernatural force (like a God or Goddess) created the universe. Which do you think explains the origin of the universe? Are these two the only way the universe came about, or are there other explanations?

Vote in the Poll and Discuss.