What created the universe?

One of the arguments of theists is that since the universe had a beginning, something had to create it. However, no one has ever proved that the universe had one specific beginning. They also ask where the matter for the universe came from. However, no one has ever said everything came from nothing. These are strawman arguments on the end of theists. It is also ironic that they want to claim that the universe needs to be explained, yet god does not. It is just as probable to assume that the universe has always existed as it is to claim that god has always existed. The difference is that there is evidence for the universe always existing. There is no evidence that god exists. If the universe has always existed, then the energy and matter in the universe have always existed as well.

As Stephen Hawking writes: "the quantum theory of gravity has opened up a new possibility, in which there would be no boundary to space-time and so there would be no need to specify the behavior at the boundary. There would be no singularities at which the laws of science broke down and no edge of space-time at which one would have to appeal to God or some new law to set the boundary conditions for space-time. One could say: "The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary." The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE." Hawking, A Brief History, p. 136.


On the following two links, there is information that shows a theory of repeated big bangs. There is also information showing that there is signs of prior big bangs in our universe. Now, is this proof that there has been multiple big bangs? Of course not. But it does show that there are rational alternatives to the idea that "god did it"

 

http://cosmologytalk.tribe.net/thread/50163ecd-973b-47c1-80ac-6aa0534a34e7

Under his theory, published today in the journal Science with Paul Steinhardt at Princeton University in New Jersey, the universe must be at least a trillion years old with many big bangs happening before our own. With each bang, the theory predicts that matter keeps on expanding and dissipating into infinite space before another horrendous blast of radiation and matter replenishes it. “I think it is much more likely to be far older than a trillion years though,” said Prof Turok. “There doesn’t have to be a beginning of time. According to our theory, the universe may be infinitely old and infinitely large.”

http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-scientists-glimpse-universe-big.html

However, Penrose and Gurzadyan have now discovered concentric circles within the CMB in which the temperature variation is much lower than expected, implying that CMB anisotropies are not completely random. The scientists think that these circles stem from the results of collisions between supermassive black holes that released huge, mostly isotropic bursts of energy. The bursts have much more energy than the normal local variations in temperature. The strange part is that the scientists calculated that some of the larger of these nearly isotropic circles must have occurred before the time of the Big Bang.