I remember a remarkable conversation I once had with another Elder when I was a missionary.  He and I had been talking about the relationship between God and science, which was a notoriously hot topic in my mission.  Darwin is a dirty word in West Texas, and words like “radiometric dating” and “natural selection” aren’t necessarily swear words, but shouldn’t be used in polite or mixed company.  In the course of our conversation, I mentioned in passing the Big Bang.  He was quite taken aback.  “You don’t actually believe in the Big Bang, do you?” he asked.

I told him that I did.  With some effort, I tried to explain redshift and galaxies and the Second Law of Thermodynamics as best as I could, but he didn’t buy any of it.  To him, the Big Bang was some smart-ass scientist’s attempt at replacing God with some natural mechanism.

The Big Bang didn’t create the Universe.  God did.

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