What did you think to Channel 4's 'God's Next Army'?

its not fact.

ALPHA NUMERIC highlighted the fact that the bible said the earth was completley covered in water, which is true.

but their not alive now and surely that amount of pressure on the earth could make rock types change and make lots of other stuff happen?!

you people are far too clever for me, and i'm supposedly clever! hah! not saying i'm agreeing with you though, just don't have the ability to debate very well. All I know is that God did it, not sure how.

Funny how some people have 100% certainty in an unobserved "big bang" but no doubt would lambast someone with a similar level of faith in God

Funny how some people have 100% certainty in an unobserved "gravity" but no doubt would lambast someone with a similar level of faith in the big bang.

Big bangs out of date. String theory's where it's at.

Funny how some people have 100% certainty in an unobserved "big bang" but no doubt would lambast someone with a similar level of faith in God

Of course you know the difference between gravity and cosmological theories.

String theory is about getting a theory to describe gravity in quantum theory. It would then be applied to the big bang model, much in the way relativity is applied to it now.
Lets see, we've got the following things as evidence for the big bang :

Cosmic microwave background
Elemental ratios in precise agreement with nucleosynthesis of the big bang
Non-static universe
Evolution of galaxies and stars
Particle horizon (ie we can only see so far back in time)

Evidence for 'instant creation' ala the Bible's version :

The Bible.

Evidence against the Bible's take on things, aside those already mentioned for the big bang :

Lack of evidence of flooding across the entire globe (aka Noah)
Geological evidence showing the earth is older than 6,000 years
Solar dynamics put the sun was WAY older than 6,000 years
Fossils showing the multitude of extinct species
Human civilisations dating back much further than 6,000 years like the indiginous people of Australia.

NONE of that says "God doesn't exist" and I don't ridicule people for their faith. I ridicule people for completely ignoring over a century of evidence from just about every corner of science and just plain obviousness. If the Earth flooded totally 6,000 years ago killing everyone but Noah, why are there so many 'native people' in other parts of the world (Australia and America for instance) which seem to have been spared the drowning?
Cosmological theories incorporate relativity into them, since much of the universe is influenced by gravity. Given we've an extremely accurate model of gravity, it gives us more confidence when using it to produce cosmology models.

Darwin actually rebuked his theory on his deathbed so that one surely stands strong.

I think you're punching air here - all I remarked on was the certainty with which "the Big Bang" is believed by many who could not stand someone with theistic beliefs.

And the difference is - when people make comparisons with "the theory of gravity" they try to make their opponent look silly because of course nobody denies that things generally fall to the ground. But very few people actually know anything indepth about 'theories of gravity' unless they've studied high-level physics. Everybody knows *something* must be making the apples fall, but not everybody understands what that is. If indeed anybody really does; I don't know myself as I'm not a scientist. Now, applying this to cosmology, of course everybody knows *something* must have happened to produce the universe, but I doubt there is anyone on this board who can say with 100% certainty and convincing proof what that thing was.

And yet the vast majority of sixth-formers and undergrads on these boards somehow 'know' it was some magic "big bang". If anything I'm criticising a lack of knowledge here.

I'm not saying that evolution and the big bang are wrong, because they could well be, but even though theres lots to support these ideas, its not fact. It annoys me when people laugh at others thoughts.

but I doubt there is anyone on this board who can say with 100% certainty and convincing proof what that thing was.

And yet the vast majority of sixth-formers and undergrads on these boards somehow 'know' it was some magic "big bang". If anything I'm criticising a lack of knowledge here.

Ah the old if you personally don't fully understand it yourself assume pretend that the science is not understood by anyone and therefore God did it argument.


Lets apply that logic to another situation.

I doubt anyone on Earth could either, but then would you accept 99.999% certainty? 99%? 98? 90?

There is a point where you've so much evidence that you remove 'reasonable doubt' from the equation and the only way to deny the evidence is by being irrational.
So because 16~21 year olds don't have sufficent knowledge it negates the knowledge of people like Hawking, Turok, Einstein, Hubble, Penrose etc?

Instead of listening to all those people (many of whom have a belief in a God!) about there being shedloads of evidence for the BB, instead some people ignore all that (along with repeatable experiments backing up theory and even technology based on those theories we use every day!) and go with a book which has to be taken as allegory at best or else it's riddled with "That doesn't square up with reality" problems.

The point I was trying to get across is that some people will believe something on a fairly flimsy basis (speaking about their personal understanding) while at the same time accusing theists of wilful ignorance.