Talk:Religious interpretations of the Big Bang theory

Introductory Paragraph Needs Rewording
The introductory paragraph for this section subtly lacks some much needed neutrality... It's not blatant, but feels like it needs to be reworded so it doesn't make non-followers of the Big Bang seem denounced or any less credible. This goes for the last sentence in particular. Z Coop (talk) 02:19, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Flying Spaghetti Monster
Does anyone know of any sources stating the interpretation of the Big Bang theory in the Pastafarianism religion. Because that would be interesting... :) Polyamorph (talk) 15:47, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Clearly this theory requires His Noodly Appendage. 72.224.172.14 (talk) 21:08, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Zoroastrianism
I'd say that the article's view of Zoroastrian understanding of the universe is quite flawed and there seem to be no references for it. As far as I know Zoroastrians basically believe that Ahura Mazda created the universe with His Spenta Mainyu and through divine emanations at some point of time from our perspective and that there will be an apocalypse known as Frashokereti which however will not be the end of the world but rather its completion. Therefore Zoroastrianism actually does not conflict with the Big Bang much or at all --80.221.255.80 (talk) 00:25, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Dubiousness of the "Islam" section and reasons for its removal.
I have removed the Islam section from here. There were four references provided all of which are being given a cursory glance below.

The first is complete bogus. Diane Morgan comments that "Many Muslim commentators search through it for passages that seem to parallel findings made by modern science". And that is about it.

The second is by Helaine Selin. Her "reference" is cited here in the light of the following comment - ''"Bucaille (a French surgeon .... SURGEON??!!) examines the holy scriptures in the light of modern science to discover what they have to say about astronomy, the earth, the animal and the vegetable kingdoms". He (who? .... oh the FRENCH SURGEON) finds that the Bible does not meet the stringent criteria of modern knowledge. The Quran on the other hand does not contain a single proposition at variance with the most firmly established modern knowledge .... "'' Please pardon my comments which you find interspersed here in the brackets. My points here are - (1) Who is Bucaille besides being a not-so-accomplished French surgeon? He does not merit so much as to be mentioned by his full name. Is his claim to fame being French? Or is it that he is a surgeon who either is an abject failure in his own field or seems to be so fulfilled having conquered all there is to in his domain as to move on to commenting on other sciences and religions as well? (2) How does a surgeon comment on Astronomy, Geo-sciences etc? (3) WHAT exactly are these lack of any variances that he has seen? No specifics as per field or topic or whatever AND certainly no "Big Bang". The whole thing is just gibberish. (4) AND most importantly the writer Helaine Selin herself is critical and almost semi-sarcastic as she writes that entire section where she begins by saying "This is a combination of religious and scientific fundamentalism" and ends with that "Buccalism" is the most commonly resorted to version of "Islamic Science".

The third and fourth are direct quotes from the Quran and deliberately misinterpreted.

I fail to understand how these references and corresponding claims have stayed on the article for so long. These references are meaningless BS quotes that are being misinterpreted by bigots. I also have quotes from present-day top-notch scientists in the astronomical sciences, like Kevin Hurley (UC Berkeley), Scott Sandford (NASA), Steinn Sigurdsson (Penn State) etc, besides the more famous ones like Oppenheimer, Capra, and Sagan, who have directly credited "Hindus" with advanced knowledge more than 6000 years ago, especially in the Astronomical sciences.

If those who wish to see the Islamic section here want, they are free to use the other article they have created, namely "Islam and Science" for this purpose, but IMO, not here. The references are all bogus and actually the authors seem NOT to support the view. At this rate, I could say that prehistoric Indians were building monuments that were a few miles high, as they are often mentioned in the Hindu texts, in maybe an analogous article titled maybe "Skyscrapers in Prehistory", or something of the sort. 117.194.235.218 (talk) 08:14, 27 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I just say nonsense of your removal. There are very good editors, they did not remove, you need to learn first before any edits.Justice007 (talk) 11:31, 27 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I spent time and energy citing reasons for the removal of what was actually utter "nonsense" which you have (I can see for obvious reasons) reinstated. While I gave reasons as to why all the four citations in the Islam section (21, 22, 23, 24) are gibberish you have without any proper arguments just reverted. Just who are these "good editors"? How many people have actually edited here? Without explaining how those references are actually supportive of your claims (when they should be in fact evident at first sight itself) how do you think you can continue to keep what you like to see? 117.194.235.31 (talk) 17:06, 27 March 2013 (UTC)


 * "(2) How does a surgeon comment on Astronomy, Geo-sciences etc?" a lot of scientists and professionals are multi disciplinary and prominent scientists since before the Renaissance were into philosophy and religion and finding meaning in the universe. "(3) WHAT exactly are these lack of any variances that he has seen?" I think he means the words of the quran have not changed since the begining of islam because they were memorized in full since the days of the prophet across many generations and civilizations. "(4) AND most importantly the writer Helaine Selin herself is critical and almost semi-sarcastic as she writes that entire section where she begins by saying "This is a combination of religious and scientific fundamentalism" and ends with that "Buccalism" is the most commonly resorted to version of "Islamic Science"." and how does that negate the text of the verse relevant to the big bang? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.98.253.204 (talk) 22:09, 1 February 2014 (UTC)


 * The objections to the removal do not appear to make sense, since they cite no reason that follows policy. IRWolfie- (talk) 03:29, 2 February 2014 (UTC)


 * the removal doesn't make sense because this is an article about religious interpretations of the big bang and islam is one of those religions so how come you want to remove the islam section exclusively? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.98.242.233 (talk) 16:00, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The references all appear shoddy (I'll also note the evident confirmation bias from the search criteria used to find the sources, as evident from the google book links) and represent minority positions. For example, superficially "Encyclopedia of the history of science, technology and medicine in non-western cultures" sounds promising, but a cursory glance at it shows it is written from a perspective against modern science and medicine. I am skeptical about how much these sources actually represent mainstream Islam, IRWolfie- (talk) 11:21, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Im curious to hear about both perspectives, as I am not familiar with the Islamic section. ~ PeachyDread99 (talk) 01:53, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

I've removed the unsourced section as WP:OR based only on ancient religious text quotations. What WP:Reliable source supports any of this. If the section is to be re-instated, it must be based on solid sources. Vsmith (talk) 00:53, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with the removal of this section. It's not that the article can't, or shouldn't have a section on Islam's view of the Big Bang, it's that what was in the section is complete POV/OR unsubstantiated by reliable secondary sources. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:54, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Rm. Again. Was it different this time?
I removed the section again (looking, it was that Vsmith removed), because it consisted of:

In the Quran Surah 21 verse 30, the origin of the Universe is described as follows. "'Have those who disbelieved not considered that the heavens and the earth were a joined entity, and We separated them....Then will they not believe?'"

As to the expansion of the Universe, we have Quran Surah 51 verse 47. "'And the heaven We constructed with strength, and indeed, We are [its] expander.'"

Both of those references are to verses, not to secondary sources discussing them. The second is also clearly spurious: the reliance on "We are [its] expander" is purely dependent on the meaning of "expander", which is also rendered as "We it is Who make the vast extent (thereof)" or "We Who create the vastness of [s]pace". So to interpret that verse (which, I'd say, wiki shouldn't be doing: we should be quoting reliable people who do) you'd need to go back to the original arabic, not rely on "expander", which is ambigious. And the first verse, whilst perhaps relevant to creation, isn't obviously relevant to Big Bang at all William M. Connolley (talk) 18:10, 17 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Sources. Googling, I find http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/1560/quran-on-expanding-universe-and-big-bang-theory/. But that's rubbish, because it merely quotes without thinking the "expander" version. Google hit #2 appears to actually deny the BB, though its a bit of a rant.
 * https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Quran_and_the_Big_Bang makes the same point about "expander" that I did William M. Connolley (talk) 18:16, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

It is such a SHAME that islamophobia is also present here in islamophobic and islam-hating pages like WikiIslam are quoted

To understand the religious view one HAS TO quote verses from the religious fundaments

Why ist the Hindu Puranas in the Hindu section not removed

Rubbish ???? Every Arab know that LA-MUSI´UUN is the expander

Heaven and Earth being adjoined together and then beeing seperated is a clear reference to the Big bang

And this verse should not be missed out

NO ISLAMOPHOBIA PLEASE !!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wrk786 (talk • contribs) 14:49, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Please read WP:reliable sources carefully. If that is a clear reference - then there should be reliable sources discussing such. Vsmith (talk) 14:59, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Ok the one verse has been attached to a secondary source which is reliable by the standards in the link — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wrk786 (talk • contribs) 18:25, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't consider the recent secondary source you added reliable because it is to a personal blog and the blogger does not even hold himself out as an expert on the subject. Your reference to the  Ahmadiyya Muslim faith, in my opinion, is both a primary and a valid secondary source.  If we were researching the Ahmadiyyas, the reference would be a primary source, but since we are researching Islamic interpretations of the Big Bang that use the Quran as its primary source, the Ahmadiyya opinion is a secondary source.  You continue to delete the opinion from an academic journal from Kyoto University.  It is a valid secondary source, and there is no reason to delete it. Waters.Justin (talk) 03:17, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Relative to other faiths it is unfair to write that only nowadays it has been understand this way but the truth that the word samawaati has always been understand not just as the sky but the universe as the Qurans written in Urdu in the 13th Century translate it as "Jahaan" which is universe — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wrk786 (talk • contribs) 13:13, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Restored as it is properly sourced. We go by what WP:reliable sources say. Fair/unfair is a subjective opinion and not a reason to delete content. See WP:I don't like it. Vsmith (talk) 16:20, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Cosmology sidebar
I'm not sure I understand your edit summary:

You appear to have two objections to this template: I would like to get more opinions on whether or not to include this useful navigational aid in this article. It stood the test of time quite well until you removed it this past March. I cannot deny its visual presence; however, that is the point, isn't it? This template is used in every single other article that is linked within the template. It draws the readers' attention to other articles that are not only relevant, but also interesting to anyone who wants to learn more about cosmology. This article about the religious interpretations of the prevailing theory of the beginning of the universe is quite fascinating and relevant enough to be linked in the template, so the template should be relevant enough to be available to readers in this article. I really don't understand why you prefer to deny readers access to other pertinent cosmology subjects?  Paine  01:56, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * 1) dominating visual presence
 * 2) not relevant

There is another template, a navbar, that applies and is much less of a dominating visual presence. We can place it at the bottom of the content page and even collapse it if you think that would be better. When collapsed it looks like:

Would this be more agreeable?  Paine  12:03, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Paine, I suppose I'm fine with the navbar, as opposed to the "Physical Cosomology" info box (or what ever it's called). Note, however, that the content of this article is only barely about anything that the reader would find in a physical cosmology article, other than, yes, that the big bang happened. Beyond that there is virtually no overlap. Also, this article has no figures or pictures. To have the one and only picture be for an info box for physical cosmology doesn't seem balanced to me. And, then, finally, I changed some of the text in the article concerning creation from nothing. The big bang is not necessarily about something coming from nothing. We can only backward extrapolate the laws of physics to a time known as the Planck epoch, when the laws of physics breakdown. Before that we don't know what was happening. Or, at least, that is my understanding. Anyway, Paine, thanks for putting up with my distraction. I would be interested to in reading about what other editors think. Bye, Isambard Kingdom (talk) 13:56, 18 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Pleasure!  Paine 

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