"Belief in creation by God" is not mutually exclusive with believing that the Big Bang model correctly describes the structure and evolution of the universe. Belief in creation by God is not another option among an array of cosmological models, since it is not even a scientific model.
Anyway, I'm trying to understand what you mean my there not being a difference in leaps of faith required…
"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. […] By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible."
Perhaps there are scientists that depend on a certain model not being proven incorrect for their own research to be viable, then, they might hope for something that they do not see. If (<- not biconditional ;p) that model stands on a solid basis they might even have confidence and some assurance about its truth. Is this somewhat what you mean?
In any case, I don't think that believing that a certain cosmological model is correct requires someone to be confident with regards to it. The currently predominant model might not be 100% right and that's perfectly fine. Thus, "belief in other cosmologies" might not require one to have faith while the verse quoted above states that it is through faith that someone understands that God is behind the creation.
(Unless you want to say that confidence in the scientific method is required for belief in a scientific model, but then, confidence in history (or God!) might be required on the other side as well, and so on).
Then, at least 1 more leap of faith is required, wouldn't you say? I'm not sure, tbh. :-)
But then, faith being involved in a process is not necessarily wrong (nor necessarily good).
The big bang is a scientific hypothesis. You don't have to believe in it. You can accept it because it was proven, reject because it was disproven or suspend your judgement in between.
Yes, but in practice who follows it to that level of detail?
From a layperson's point of view, are the astrophysicists that much different than a priestly caste?
I believe the physicists, but I don't think that by itself makes me a particularly rigorous thinker. In the ancient world I probably would have believed the priests, because it was what made sense to people.
And for better or for worse we have lots of evidence that people can reject science and still enjoy its benefits. It's not like refusing to believe in the Big Bang gets you blacklisted from using rockets or microchips, or rejecting evolution means you can't get vaccinated.
If I hypothesize that a blue Honda Civic was the origin of space, time and the known universe, physical evidence that blue Honda Civics exist does absolutely nothing to confirm or refute my hypothesis.
