'Who cares? It doesn't make any difference.'

Most Christians never think about the Big Bang. It's irrelevant to them They look bewildered if anyone even mentions it.

If asked what they believe about the Big Bang, Christians typically shrug off the question by saying something like:

'All I know is that the Bible says God made everything. It's very clear, and we don't need any new theories.'

Or, 'It doesn't matter to me whether the earth is young or old. Big Bang, or not. It doesn't make any difference to me.'

Or, 'With all the big problems in the world today, I'm not going to waste my time thinking about that. It's all just speculation anyway.'

Or, 'I think it's just another way of chipping away at the Bible and saying we don't need God.'

But these responses miss the real issue: It's not about ME! It's about THEM! The real issue is what doubters and unbelievers think about the Big Bang and how it affects what they think about the Bible.

The Christians most annoyed by the subject are the ones who know little or nothing about the Big Bang and don't want to reveal their ignorance in conversation. Mostly they just assume that the Big Bang is anti-Christian and not worthy of discussion.

Most Christians don't see the big picture

In the United States, Christianity is losing ground steadily with each new generation:

This is a seismic change occurring around us right now, a collapse from one generation to the next, accompanied by a frog-in-the-kettle kind of apathy among Christians.

What most Christians don't seem to understand – or refuse to accept – is that a very large and growing segment of the U.S. population believes that Christians are either uninformed, brainwashed, or stupid.

Respect for Christians is falling precipitously in America. Christians with strong and open faith testimonies were once in prime positions of leadership in education, business, medicine, engineering, law, media, and politics. But not today. It's becoming increasingly difficult, often impossible, for outspoken Christians to get and hold these positions. Christians are pushed aside if they speak publicly about their faith.

The strong social pressure to shrink Christian influence is succeeding.

Why is this?

A contention on this site is that over the centuries church tradition has made the Bible say more than it actually says. This makes Christian belief seem unnecessarily weird and convoluted to the modern mind, thus setting up roadblocks to faith and allowing tradition to constrain objective study of scripture.

Christians have been told by other Christians that all they need to do is simply tell their personal story (testimony), because that's something no one can refute. That's true, but it's also true that a Christian testimony to Millennials and GenZs today – the majority of the U.S. population – is likely to be met with a thought or comment like this:

'That's cool! You have your story. I have my story. She has her story. He has his story. Everyone has a story. It's so beautiful that we can each find our own path.'

What's missing is the authority of scripture. When anyone quotes the Bible today, a common response is '... if that's what you believe.'

The Big Bang is a prime example of how some Christians think they are defending the Bible by opposing science, but inadvertently they are actually undermining the Bible.

Why the Big Bang is a critical issue

‍For the past 30 years, students in virtually all public schools and universities everywhere have been taught the Big Bang theory.

'Theory' in the scientific sense means more than just an idea, guess, or proposition. It means an explanation, a governing law of physics, like the Theory of Gravity or Einstein's Theory of General Relativity.

The Big Bang theory is regarded by nearly all scientists as a basic fact of life, backed by a massive, growing, and consistent body of evidence.

But this sets up a conflict:

BIG BANG SAYS: The universe began 13.8 billion years ago.

CHURCH TRADITION SAYS: The universe began less than 10,000 years ago.

Who to believe?

Except for children in strong traditional Christian families, nearly all young people today choose to believe the Big Bang ... and thus reject the Bible.

If the Bible is wrong about the origin and age of the universe, doubters and unbelievers conclude that it's probably wrong about other matters, too, and that the Bible cannot be trusted as a book of truth.

Surveys show that the Bible has little no credibility for most Americans today.

What does the Bible say?

While this flap is going on about which is right – Big Bang or church tradition – hardly anyone investigates to see what the original Bible manuscripts (without tradition) say about the time when God created the universe.

BIBLE SAYS: Silence. No answer about the specific time when the universe began.

When the Bible is silent, we are free to follow the evidence from any source wherever it leads.

So why do we let tradition destroy the credibility of the Bible in the minds of millions of people when the Bible doesn't give a time? Why are we afraid of extra-biblical information to help us better understand and to remove this barrier to faith?

However, some Christians say the Bible DOES give us a specific time. They say that the universe was created in the same week that Adam was created ... that Bible genealogies say Adam lived about BC 4000 ... so, therefore, the universe began approximately 6,000 years ago. This statement is almost laughable to well-educated people today. There are critical flaws in that research and thinking, as examined in the Bible study on God's six days of creation.

Good spiritual conversation with doubters and unbelievers today requires more than just unloading a testimony and some Bible verses. It requires sensible dialog to demonstrate that Christians know what both the Bible and modern knowledge actually say – not just parroting indoctrinated concepts and phrases from church traditions – and the ability to correct misunderstandings as necessary.