Is evidence for the "big bang" superior to evidence for "god"?

Question

The question needs little elaboration. Perhaps the big bang could be called an "event in spacetime," yet it is also prior to spacetime. God too is described as "causa sui," with no "before." Neither is "provable" in any old fashioned sense. Each is singular.

As for evidence, Locke, the father of modern empiricism, considered the Gospel or "four independent witnesses" about as good as evidence gets. Less trivially, a pragmatist appeal to reported "experience" and "consensus" would indisputably favor "god." Evidence for the big bang is arcane, recent, almost entirely mathematical, and accidentally corroborated by the single predication of primal background radiation.

Does this mathematical coherence, falsifiability, and predictive correspondence of big bang, however slight, trump all? Or is historical consensus and human "self-reporting" of experiences of god actually the stronger "empirical" case? Because "big bang" is not yet precisely defined, I leave open and/or conventional the definitions of "god."

Answer 1

This isn't an answer, because it's a difficult question; but there is some interesting qualifications which might posited as part of a genealogical perspective - in the sense that Foucault, and earlier Nietzsche make use of it - on the question that might throw further light on it.

I recall reading it was a Belgian priest Lemaitre that posited the Big Bang ie the Comic Egg in the 1920s; a notion that's also prevalent in other cosmologies; but he also called it the primeval atom - which suggestively links it up to Parmenides notion of the One; an interesting question would be what influence Hegels History of Philosophy had here - as this makes it remarkably similar.

When Einstein came up with GR, the notion of an eternal universe was the prevailing opinion which is why he chose a static spacetime; it was Hubbles evidence that the universe was expanding - to be more specific every star was moving away from every other star that helped tip the balance towards the Big Bang theory.

It was apparently because that this notion was so reminiscent of the creative act in Genesis 'Let there be light' that motivated Hoyle to modify the notion of the Steady State universe to take into account Hubbles evidence; but accumulating theoretical and observational evidence pushed mainstream opinion decisively towards the Big Bang.

However it's also important to notice, I think, that this notion has a certain affinity with the notion of the multiverse - for example in Smolins version - in the older theory new matter is continuously created; in the newer theory, new universes are.

Answer 2

There is, in fact, much more evidence that people have various subjective religious experiences than for any ideas about the big bang singularity. The difficulty is in establishing the connection between these experiences and what most people mean by "god". If you define "god" as only related to these internal effects then you are on pretty safe ground epistemically; however once you start adding more features to "god", e.g. that he/she/they exist outside of people's minds, then you're making a model for "god" that is no longer well supported by the evidence.

A different way to say it is "there is very good evidence for the psychological phenomenon of 'god'"; the issue is in using a model for "god" that goes beyond just the psychological phenomenon, and has evidentiary support.

Some commentary on the premise of the question

My read is that the question is in regards to the "Big Bang Singularity" (my term) -- extrapolation of current models back to "the very beginning". There is no well supported theory for that idea. This article provides a good summary of the issues:

• There are 4 independent lines of evidence supporting the idea that the early universe was hot and dense; and is currently expanding away from that state. But these don't tell us anything about about times much earlier than the time of the cosmic background radiation.
• There can be different definitions of the big bang -- the point at the end of inflation, the start of inflation, and some point before inflation (this implies that there is one inflation model -- though constrained, there are many open questions about this model).

To say that "the big bang", which as I interpret it's use in the question is a reference to the big bang singularity, is scientific and supported by evidence is not an accurate reflection of the state of the science.

Basically, the sensible epistemic position about the big bang singularity is "I don't know".

Answer 3

Our communication in comments frames my answer, so it is reproduced here (emphasis mine):

I would like to know how you would like us to treat the phrase "evidence is superior." For example, if we were to choose to do it mathematically, we could declare there is a poset of such events, ordered by the quality of the evidence. Then we could spend time discussing what it means for one set of evidence to be "better" than the other. As a crude example, one could argue that belief in God is "superior" because it has been in use longer, and thus has had more time to prove its worth. It is worth noting that your ordering may be different from that of others. – Cort Ammon

That's a good question, but I'm not sure I want to get more technical or "define away" the question. I am thinking broadly of the standard validations of "evidence" in science. Prediction, control, coherence, falsifiability. Evolving along some Bayesian line. To which the history of science has added a big dose of consensus or "paradigm" inertia. Big bang, like god, is a "first cause" prior to any possible experience. Is this problematic for the old standards of validation? – Nelson Alexander

By assuming a scientific stance, you have to understand that you will naturally arrive at an answer biased towards science's result. However, if we look at a slightly broader issue, I think there is still some room to breathe life into the counterargument.

Let's look at the underlying assumptions. After all, belief in a big bang is really a result from our mathematical models of the universe, and belief in God is really a result from the reading of the Bible. So let's dig at the underlying tricky axioms that neither outlook really likes to look at. Science, with its mathematical models, explicitly assumes that the "laws of nature" are invariant. The laws of nature you experience within your lifetime are the exact same as were experienced in the era of Jesus, and all is explained with those laws (or at least "most" is explained, depending on how hard lined your scientific stance bends towards deterministic physicalism). What evidence do you have to defend this? Well, the laws haven't changed during your life, or you'd have noticed.... right? Well... maybe? Sort of? Did you ever feel Deja Vu? Perhaps the Matrix changed when you weren't looking? Such troublesome questions are the subject of a great deal of philosophy, and worth reading into if those questions are interesting to you.

Likewise, a belief in God typically is deeply entwined with a belief that the Bible is Truth. What evidence does one have to defend this? Well, the wordings vary from individual to individual, and there's fair argument that they should vary. However, it turns out that no assumption they have to make is any less defensible than the argument that just because we've never perceived the laws of physics change doesn't mean they change (you happen to mention Bayesian statistics... Jeffery's Prior deals with this frustrating aspect of Bayesian thinking, at least as best as can be done).

So, in the end, whether the evidence for one approach is better than the other is highly subject to the particular metrics you choose to apply to it, from a "truthyness" perspective. If I may expound, I would argue there is another metric which one might use instead: how does the application of this belief improve your life? Both outlooks have very intriguing ways to improve your life, and they differ greatly. Many would not trade God for Science, and many would not trade Science for God. There may be something to both. It might even be worth one's time to explore them both!