How does science relate to Buddhism when it comes to the eternal cycle of life?

[rowanman28]

The universe is eternal according to my understanding of science, moving in cycles of big bang, to big crunch, to big bang again, just like ying and yang, and the eternal cycles of death and rebirth. Unfortunately, the popular scientific opinion today in the west arises from a science community who are most definitely influenced by Christianity. There is no proof one way or the other that the universe is eternal or isn't, just like there is no proof that God exists at all, or that God is everywhere, as opposed to everything. My view of God is simply that the universe is God, and has always existed, simply due to the fact that there is no reaction possible that would create the universe, without time and space already existing.

Take a look at my articles on Associated Content or Bukisa by rowan casey, or rowanman28, explaining how the universe works according to science, and how that fits in perfectly with Buddhism. I came to the scientific conclusion first.

 

[nativeastral]

you're right rowanman, the scientific viewpoint still works on the basis of the big bang then eventual entropic finitude; we really don't know for sure..and yet I certainly think our hermeneutics are a changing within and outwith already entrenched ones, its just taking a wee while to reconfigure.

 

[shawn]

it would be good to see ideas change a bit faster (particularly the bad ideas)
But things do take time.
People can be stubborn about such things and sometimes (as history shows) we have to wait for certain people to just die off before things can move forward.
Sad, but has occurred.

Here is a link which you may appreciate:
Electric Universe theory

This theory is scientifically provable in many ways, yet is facing opposition from the entrenched scientific community (which doesn't like to be shown that the stuff they have been teaching for decades is dead wrong).

>> Voyagers 1 and 2 (V1 and V2 above) reached the boundary of the Sun’s influence in 2005 and 2007, respectively, taking measurements as they left the solar system. Before IBEX, there was only data from these two points at the edge of the solar system. While exciting and valuable, the data they provided about this region raised more questions than they resolved. IBEX has filled in the entire interaction region, revealing surprising details completely unpredicted by any theories. This shows some of the fine detail of the ribbon in the blow-up section. Credit: SwRI [Click all images to enlarge].

The meter-wide, hexagonal IBEX monitors the edge of the solar system from Earth orbit by “seeing” the heliosphere’s outer boundary in the “light” of energetic neutral hydrogen atoms (ENA’s). The news releases of October 15 highlighted the difficulties this discovery causes. “The thing that’s really shocking is this ribbon,” says IBEX principal investigator David McComas of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. Researchers had expected gusts in the solar wind blowing against the boundary to create 20% or 30% variations in ENA emissions, but the ribbon is 10 times that intense—a narrow band blazing across the sky like some Milky Way on fire. Charged particles have apparently become bunched along the ribbon near the boundary, says McComas, but how they got there “is still a big mystery. Our previous ideas about the outer heliosphere are going to have to be revised." “I’m blown away completely,” says space physicist Neil Murphy of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “It’s amazing, it’s opened up a new kind of astronomy.”

 

[shawn]

“Some people in each successive generation believe that theirs is the one that has at last seen everything clearly, that their insights point to the truth, the final answer. Yet scientific discovery marches on and today’s truth will become tomorrow’s anecdotes.” —Gerrit L. Verschuur, Interstellar Matters

The Simple Electric Universe

The big bang was not “discovered” but contrived by mathematicians following the proposal of a Belgian Roman Catholic priest and astronomer, George Lemaitre, for the origin of the universe from a “primeval atom” or “Cosmic Egg exploding at the moment of the creation.” The theory defies physics principles and is unrealistic, needing most of the matter in the universe to be invisible (not even dark) and a mysterious ‘dark’ energy. Even galaxies must have mathematical figments (black holes) at their hearts to explain just a few of their characteristics. Hoyle believed one single, usually simple, observation could unseat a strongly established prejudice like the big bang. But when you believe in theories like the big bang, logic has no dominion and any observation can be accommodated.

 

[rowanman28]

The big bang is a good explanation for why the universe is expanding, and according to studies done on the gravitational effects exerted, dark matter is out there, making up 90% of the mass in the universe. I believe dark matter is either black holes, or something similar, of such great gravity that light cannot escape from it. The question for me is not: Did the big bang happen? As this seems to be a reasonable conclusion if the universe is expanding. The question is, what happened before it? And for me, it's quite obvious that there had to be something before it, as there would be no reaction possible in a void of space/time. I believe that everything that can possibly happen has happened before, and will happen again an infinite amount of times due to the nature of eternity. In perceptual terms, your life and everyone else's could be an endlessly repeating equation. Another good question: If we are reincarnated, are we reincarnated as ourselves, in another version of the universe, or are we reincarnated as everything else?