Reddit mentions of A Different Approach to Cosmology: From a Static Universe through the Big Bang towards Reality

> I can't tell if they are mocking religion or portraying science as a religion itself.

I think you may be overgeneralizing. To me the cartoon is focusing on qualities and assertions of the standard cosmological model, a.k.a. Big Bang theory. Sir Fred Hoyle coined the term "Big Bang" theory and went to his grave arguing for a more testable scientific approach to cosmology. The fact that in most scientific circles people unquestioningly accept the SCM for the origin of the universe (or in this cartoon exclaim the untestable attributes) implies/presents the practice as being more comparable to a faith based system than rigorous science. Here is one old but relevant citation;

"The theory departs increasingly from known physics, until ultimately the energy source of the universe is put in as an initial condition, the energy supposedly coming from somewhere else. Because that "somewhere else" can have any properties that suit the theoretician, supporters of Big Bang cosmology gain for themselves a large bag of free parameters that can subsequently be tuned as the occasion may require. "We do not think that science should be done in that way. In science as we understand it, one works from an initial situation, known from observation or experiment, to a later situation that is also known. That is the way physical laws are tested. In the currently popular form of cosmology, by contrast, the physical laws are regarded as already known and an explanation of the later situation is sought by guessing at parameters appropriate to the initial state. We think this approach does not merit the high esteem that cosmologists commonly accord it."

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Today's cosmogony (especially concerning the hot big bang and cosmic inflation models) is a history of the universe in its remote past that has been modified several times and is nowadays made from mainstream assumptions that might continue to evolve or even change completely.

Any new theoretical model that emerges and correctly fits all observations and makes accurate predictions is yet considered as fringe science, especially because it needs the assimilation of paradigm shifts and because of the existence of various bogus theories floating around. It encounters hostility from well established inner circles, particularly in the way Science is now organised. Should the Hoyle-Narlikar theory be proven to work as a useful extension of Einstein's general relativity, a cosmogony that is consistent with HN gravity would then be written, not the other way around.

But for the purposes of space propulsion today, for how gravity acts and creates inertia in the present, is what is important. The Hoyle-Narlikar theory boils down to Einstein's general relativity in the limit of a smooth fluid density distribution of the universe, and going to the rest frame of the smooth fluid. The two theories are fully compatible, and they make identical predictions.

Three books to read for those interested in the Hoyle-Narlikar theory of gravity:

• Action at a distance in physics and cosmology, F. Hoyle and J.V. Narlikar, W. H. Freeman & Co. (1974)
  
  
• Lectures on Cosmology and Action at a Distance Electrodynamics, F. Hoyle and J.V. Narlikar, World Scientific Series in Astronomy and Astrophysics (1996)
  
  
• A Different Approach to Cosmology: From a Static Universe through the Big Bang towards Reality, F. Hoyle, G. Burbidge and J.V. Narlikar, Cambridge University Press (2000)
  
  The first two books are highly technical. The third actually nails the subject of mainstream cosmogony down and presents alternatives (like authors' quasi-steady state cosmology). It also mentions in its preface the problem of politics in the field of modern cosmology and astrophysics.
  
  As for the C-field or "creation field" mentioned in the dedicated Wikipedia article, it was added to the steady-state theory so as the universe expands, the matter density remains constant. But it is not required, and recent papers left it out. In her papers on Mach effects, Heidi Fearn does not use it.