According to the debut of the Science Channel’s Curiosity program, Did God Create the Universe?, the answer is no. The program ends the question at an appropriate place, the edge of human understanding defined by the Big Bang. That scientific finale, at least for now, notes that if there was no time before the Big Bang, then there was no time in which an antecedent could have existed.

The program begin with a quick jog through the classic work of Anaxagoras (I think) who inferred not just the spherical shape of the earth and the moon and the cause of lunar eclipses, but the existence of distant suns in the form of stars. Hurtling past Galileo and Einstein, the one hour show quickly introduced Stephen Hawking and the origin of space-time. Some may think the program was too gentle, but several commercial breaks had spots for a Christian dating service where viewers were told something like “Sometimes you’re waiting on God, when He’s saying it’s your turn to make the next move”. Apparently we can’t clearly discern the handiwork of a creator in the fabric of the cosmos, even with x-ray observatories and infrared detectors painting the earliest universe with particles of invisible light. But he’s real involved in our sex lives … Let’s just say that commercial helped present the show in a more flattering light!

There was a nice panel following the program featuring several cosmologists including my old friend Sean Carroll. Sean, who blogs at Cosmic Variance for Discover Magazine, made some great points, such as “Does your idea of God affect the universe?” He was nice enough to respond via email, telling me, “It was great to see Stephen Hawking on Discovery stating explicitly what many cosmologists believe, that there’s no room for God in explaining the universe.”

The program is worth watching, fun for the whole skeptical family. But for me the panel discuission following was the best part. I give that portion two opposible primate digits up!