Universe's Earliest Light Detected

05/24/2002 10:05 AM EDT

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID

WASHINGTON (AP) - Scientists analyzing tiny variations in the sky's background radiation have detected the earliest light emitted at the formation of the universe.

The detailed new images show indications first bits of matter that would evolve into the stars and planets that exist today.

"We have seen, for the first time, the seeds that gave rise to clusters of galaxies, thus putting theories of galaxy formation on a firm observational footing," said team leader Anthony Readhead of the California Institute of Technology.

"These unique high-resolution observations provide a new set of critical tests of cosmology," he said.

The research, detailed Thursday at a National Science Foundation briefing, was conducted using the Cosmic Background Imager, a set of 13 radio antennas located high in the Atacama Desert of Chile.

The instruments were able to detect minute variations in the cosmic microwave background, the radiation that has traveled to Earth over almost 14 billion years.

According to the researchers the fluctuations are indications of those first tentative seeds of matter and energy.

They added that the measurements provide evidence to support the theory of inflation, which states that the universe underwent a violent expansion in its first micro-moments. After about 300,000 years it cooled enough to allow the matter to form.

According to the science foundation the data collected is also helping scientists learn more about a repulsive force called "dark energy" that appears to defy gravity and cause the universe to accelerate at an ever-increasing pace.

"Each new image of the early universe refines our model of how it all began. Just as the universe grows and spreads, humankind's knowledge of our own origins continues to expand," commented NSF Director Rita Colwell.

The Science Foundation described the cosmic microwave background as a record of the first photons that escaped from the rapidly cooling, coalescing universe about 300,000 years after the explosion known as the Big Bang that is commonly believed to have given birth to the universe.

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On the Net:

National Science Foundation: http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/advance/pr0241-images.htm

-- edit (edit@edit.edit), May 24, 2002

Answers

This is very interesting, Tom. It is proof that Science and Religion can co-exist. Why? Because scientist are now discovering the seeds of the formation of the Earth and stars! What does this mean? Well, if there were seeds, then there surly must have been a planter!

In Christ.

-- Jake Huether (Jake.huether@lamrc.com), May 24, 2002.

Tom, I would suggest that all this being reported is what God knew all the time. '' . . . underwent a violent expansion in its first micro-moments. After about 300,000 years it cooled enough to allow the matter to form.'' -- That ''violent expansion'' was conceivably the moment God said, ''Let there be light.''

-- eugene c. chavez (chavezec@pacbell.net), May 24, 2002.

bye, bye italicize.

-- - (-@-.-), May 24, 2002.

L-O-V-E!

-- Gail (Rothfarms@socket.net), May 24, 2002.

Tom

Simple answer!! He is constantly creating as time evolves. He is constantly renewing the face of the earth as it wears. He knows full well that things have to change as tconditions change when mankind and other things such as asteroids change our atsmopheric and climatic conditions from time to time. AS GOD was before man he shall be after we no longer exist. Do remember the Easter Vigil Candle and the priest blesses it and says the Alpha and the Omega. Alpha means the beginning of all things was GOD and he will be to eternity. Never ending time. Always GOD and will always be GOD.

Blessings.

-- Fred Bishop (FCB@heartland.com), May 24, 2002.

All,

I've left this thread up so far as it seemed an interesting article, but please note that "Tom" is also "Joan" who as an anonymous poster has recently taken to posting quite evil things about the pope and pedophiles etc. I've therefore deleted "her" responses.

Moderator

-- moderator ("Catholic_moderator@hotmail.com"), May 24, 2002.

Fred - Your input of when we no longer exist brings me to ask I assume your speaking of our natural bodies and not eternal souls?

Also as have attempted to point out for I agree with your view of The Father constantly creating Christ was not a revolution rather an evolution.

-- Jean Bouchard (jeanb@cwk.imag.net), May 25, 2002.

Jean

Christ IS GOD. Not a revolution nor evoluion. Secondly I clearly said this. We as humans will cease to exist ON THE EARTH and that GOD will continue to BE. He will continue to exist LONG after we will as humans cease to exist as he did long before we existed. It is quite simple to see. GOD has revealed that much to us.

-- Fred Bishop (FCB@heartland.com), May 25, 2002.

Thank you Moderator. This Joan character, is someTHING else! Thanks for for being on the ball. :-)

David

-- David (David@excite.com), May 25, 2002.

You guys are funny.

-- Jean Bouchard (jeanb@cwk.imag.net), May 25, 2002.

Hello everyone! It's me, Matthew, formerly known as Eugene. We as humans will never cease to exist, of course. That is, if you put your faith in Jesus Christ the Savior alone for your salvation, you will live forever with the Lord, the Alpha and Omega! Fred, I commend you, you hit that part right on the head! Praise the Lord for giving us a Bible by which we can debunk the false teachings of the Evolutionary religion (it is a religion). God is indeed the God of science, and he continually proves himself to us in nature! Amen

-- Matthew (magnificentextravaganza@yahoo.com), May 26, 2002.

PS the Lord created us in 7 days, not millions or billions of years. Just thought I'd clarify that. Thanks and goodnight all!

-- Matthew (magnificentextravaganza@yahoo.com), May 26, 2002.

Just a clarification: if you are to take the seven days of Creation literally, then WE were created on the Sixth Day, not during all seven.

Enrique

-- Enrique Ortiz (eaortiz@yahoo.com), May 26, 2002.

A Biblical commentary I read somwhere said that the HoLy Writer imagined that God, when creating the world, was considered to be a craftsman doing his work, that's why the first thing He needed was LIGHT. I have also read that Biblical Scholars today don't understand the SEVEN DAYS as meaning 24-hour days.

If I am mistaken, please correct me.

Enrique

-- Enrique Ortiz (eaortiz@yahoo.com), May 26, 2002.

See for yourselves what Genesis says:

"27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28: And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." 29: And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. 30: And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. 31: And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day." Gen 1.

In fact on the seventh day the Lord created nothing.

Enrique

-- Enrique Ortiz (eaortiz@yahoo.com), May 26, 2002.

This is due to the use of two different sources: The Yahvist and the Deuterocanical (or sacerdotal). This two sources were put side by side after the return from the Exile in Babylone. The apparent contradictions between the two narrations of Genesis are explained by this composition of the two sources. See for instance the commentaries in the JERUSALEM BIBLE.

Enrique

-- Enrique Ortiz (eaortiz@yahoo.com), May 26, 2002.

My answer refers to your previous post noting the differences between the two narration of Creation. I have to go now. Maybe I'll enter again tomorrow.

Enrique

-- Enrique Ortiz (eaortiz@yahoo.com), May 26, 2002.

The two narrations of Genesis were from the northern Jews (Judah) and the southern Jews (Israel). Yes, they were combined after the Babylonian exile when the Babylonians eradicated the Nation of Judah. It is from the sources written by Lawrence Boadt, Reading the Old Testament, Paulist Press.

-- Fred Bishop (FCB@heartland.com), May 26, 2002.

To All: I had never heard of " Evolutionary Religion until this thread sorry. What I am attempting to being forth is the spiritual evolutuion of man who due to the downfall through Adam has now a second chance to become the pure created being Adam was through Jesus Christ.

-- Jean Bouchard (jeanb@cwk.imag.net), May 26, 2002.

Hey whoever you are

Read the Moderators note above. It is his decision to keep this thread up due to the contents.

THANKS

-- Fred Bishop (FCB@heartland.com), May 26, 2002.

Well, the second creation account is not really a global account at all. After God created Man, he then made a show to the man of his creative powers. That is, the Lord caused the plants and animals to appear so that Adam, not having been around for the first five days of creation, would know sans doute that the Lord had created everything. The rest of the Universe was created for the same reason the Lord does so many things: for his glory! So let's give it up! I, personally, am glad that the Lord has filled this universe with so much awe-inspiring wonder. Rest assured, mankind will be a long time coming trying to discover all that the Lord has done. Who said God was boring?

-- Matthew (MagnificentEtravaganza@yahoo.com), May 26, 2002.

and yes, the Hebrew word "day" literally means one rotation of the earth. if you will notice, the text even goes so far as to spell out each evening and morning.

-- Matthew (MagnificentEtravaganza@yahoo.com), May 26, 2002.

Jmj

Hello, Matthew.
When you post messages on doctrine (teachings of faith and morality), please identify yourself as a non-Catholic. This is a Catholic forum, and current and future readers have a right to know that you are not necessarily presenting Catholic doctrine.

In this case, your opinion does not seem to fit perfectly with Catholic doctrine. Unless I am misreading you, you are stating that a Christian must believe only in a literal reading of Genesis, not allowing any leeway for the author having used figurative language at some points, not allowing for the possibility of any kind of evolution, etc.. Although a Catholic is not forbidden to have a personal belief that meshes with yours, Matthew, neither is a Catholic required to hold a "literalist" belief.

I am going to quote first from the Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC] on how a Christian should seek to understand the Bible and the purposes of the opening chapters of Genesis. Then I am going to quote from an essay by a Catholic layman on those chapters of Genesis.

"CCC 109 In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to man in a human way. To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm, and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words."

"CCC 110 In order to discover the sacred authors' intention, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at that time, and the modes of feeling, speaking and narrating then current. 'For the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression.'"

"CCC 119 It is the task of exegetes to work, according to these rules, towards a better understanding and explanation of the meaning of Sacred Scripture in order that their research may help the Church to form a firmer judgement. For, of course, all that has been said about the manner of interpreting Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgement of the Church which exercises the divinely conferred commission and ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God."

"CCC 289 Among all the Scriptural texts about creation, the first three chapters of Genesis occupy a unique place. From a literary standpoint these texts may have had diverse sources. The inspired authors have placed them at the beginning of Scripture to express in their solemn language the truths of creation -- its origin and its end in God, its order and goodness, the vocation of man, and finally the drama of sin and the hope of salvation. Read in the light of Christ, within the unity of Sacred Scripture and in the living Tradition of the Church, these texts remain the principal source for catechesis on the mysteries of the 'beginning': creation, fall, and promise of salvation."

And now, some helpful paragraphs from an essay by a headmaster named James B Stenson:

"The [Catholic] Church has maintained that the first three chapters of Genesis contain historical truth. Their inspired author used a popular literary form of his day to explain certain historical facts of Creation. These were named specifically by the Pontifical Biblical Commission, with the approval of Pope Pius X in 1909. The official document states that the literal, historical meaning of the first three chapters of Genesis could not be doubted in regard to [the following:

"'the creation of all things by God at the beginning of time; the special creation of man; the formation of the first woman from the first man; the unity of the human race; the original happiness of our first parents in the state of justice, integrity, and immortality; the command given by God to man to test his obedience; the transgression of the divine command at the instigation of the devil under the form of a serpent; the degradation of our first parents from that primeval state of innocence; and the promise of a future redeemer.'

"Note that the Church says nothing definite about how, in specific detail, God created the world and its various forms of life, or how long any of this took. The only 'special creation' mentioned is that of man, who is unique in having a spiritual immortal soul. In the Church's eyes, Genesis deals with historical fact, not scientific process -- with the *what* of creation, not the *how*.

"In 1950, Pope Pius XII addressed the question of man's origins more specifically in his encyclical *Humani Generis*. With a few terse paragraphs, he set forth the Church's position, which we may summarize as follows:
1. The question of the origin of man's *body* from pre-existing and living matter is a legitimate matter of inquiry for natural science. Catholics are free to form their own opinions, but they should do so cautiously; they should not confuse fact with conjecture, and they should respect the Church's right to define matters touching on Revelation.
2. Catholics must believe, however, that the human *soul* was created immediately by God. Since the soul is a spiritual substance it is not brought into being through transformation of matter, but directly by God, whence the special uniqueness of each person.
3. All men have descended from an individual, Adam, who has transmitted original sin to all mankind. Catholics may not, therefore, believe in 'polygenism,' the scientific hypothesis that mankind descended from a group of original humans.

"So, from the Catholic point of view, the scientific questions of evolution are largely left open to debate. Evolutionary hypotheses which attempt to explain the development of living things may be accepted except where they conflict with these few explicit truths.

"This position clearly contrasts with that of many fundamentalist Protestant sects. Unfortunately, [the] stance [of the sects] has often appeared in the media as definitive Christian doctrine. Its details have contrasted so sharply with established scientific knowledge that 'Christian belief' has been held in ridicule."

God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), May 27, 2002.