The orgins of the universe

Christian beliefs about the creation of the universe

• Creation story in genesis - God created the world in 6 days then rested on the 7th
• Fundamentalist christians- believe literally, others believe that the seven days describe seven long periods of time
• Liberal christians- believe that the creation stories are symbolic, where the main message is that God created the universe, they may also look to science to understand how God did this

Muslim beliefs about the creation of the universe

• Muslims believe the universe was designed and made by God out of nothing, most refer to that 'six days' refers to six periods of time, no indication and no mention of a day of rest.
  
• 'Your Lord is God who created the heavens and earth in 6 days...he created the sun, moon and stars...all creation and all command belongs to him'

The Big Bang theory

• Started with a tiny dense hot 'something'
• Over 13.8 billion years it expanded to become the cosmos as we know it
• It continued to expand and cool
• Matter that had been flung everywhere became stars grouped into galaxies

Both creation stories and the Big Bang theory leave many questions unanswered and neither can be proved