just something to think about

In January, 2015, National Geographic Magazine ran an article, “First Glimpse”.

It was an article about dark matter in the universe, but it also talked an awful lot about the Big Bang & our universe.

I wish I could import the graphic they have in the article (A History Shaped by Dark Matter) which illustrates the beginnings of the universe, but it's only available to those who subscribe to National Geographic.

Here's what the captions say under each illustration in the progression of the universe's beginnings.

The big bang

13.8 billions years ago

Our universe blossoms from a hot, dense state smaller than an atom. Within milliseconds it inflates enormously.

(dan note: Of course, I want to know what caused it to inflate, where did it come from, & the immensity of the universe happened in less than a second from a speck of matter smaller than an atom?)

Dark matter forms

First seconds of the universe

Dark matter emerges in the first second interacting with particles of normal matter through gravity, it begins to pull them together.

Stars light up

100 million years after the bug bang

Clouds of hydrogen assembled by the gravity of dark matter collapse to form the first scattered stars. Nuclear fusion inside them creates heavier elements - & lights space.

The expansion slows

one billion years after the big bang

Stars clump into galaxies, galaxies into clusters along a scaffolding of dark matter. The mass of all matter, most of it dark, is so great that its gravity slows cosmic expansion.

Dark energy rises

4.8 billion years after the big bang

After slowing for billions of years, the expansions accelerates again. Why? A mysterious repulsive force, dubbed dark energy, has begun to counteract the pull of dark matter.

Ever outward

Today

The universe hurtles outward toward an uncertain future.

Now, I'm not making any kind of value judgement about this article or what it postulates.

Here's what I thought about when I read this.

Why is it a seemingly easier thing & more intellectually acceptable to buy into this thinking?

There are some BIG steps of faith to believe all this stuff happened in the way it says it happened, from the origins from which it came, & the directions it has all seemed to move under it's own volition.

Why is it okay to have that kind of step of faith with this thinking?

And why is is not okay to have a step of faith in believing that however this who thing came about that it was directed by God?

Think about that, will ya?