Astronomy Professor: Science and the Bible’s Creation Story Go Perfect Together

Professor Falk sees the evolution of the world in the creation story in Genesis. “God speaks first, then there’s light. Then you immediately think of the Big Bang, and that’s light too,” he says. He sees it as “a prophetic and poetic writing that the world has undergone an evolution.” “First there is the Earth, then the plants, then the animals, then the humans. Evolution has been described. I don’t understand why religious people have a problem with the theory of evolution!”

the great explosion

Falk says that the Big Bang was invented by a Christian priest: Georges Lemaitre of Leuven. “He was a priest, but also a professor. He knew all kinds of important people and talked to Einstein. Based on Einstein’s theories, he calculated what the universe would look like. The universe began with a moment, T = 0.”

Lemaitre was criticized for this: “He was attacked by his colleagues, who said you wanted the Big Bang just because you were religious, we shouldn’t have any of that. Einstein didn’t want to hear about it.” Other physicists said that the universe was eternal and had no beginning moment.

religious experience

She herself says that Van Heemstra is “not very religious”. She studied religious studies and believes that astronomy and religion are very close, because it is all about the unknown, the mystery. “I think that’s a very logical similarity, and I don’t understand why the two are not often combined,” she says.

She says astronauts sometimes experience some kind of mystical experience from space. “People who are in space for longer experience some kind of overview effect. If you look at Earth, you can experience a total change in mentality,” says the writer.

“You suddenly have an insight into a fact that you can’t see from Earth. You see the Earth hanging in space like some kind of animal. And as one living being we are all a part of it. You see how absurd the limits are, all our stresses, what really crazy, when all is Something connected,” she says. “That loneliness, the experience of perfection, is a kind of religious experience. The lifting of the alienation we sometimes feel.”