Part of the trouble with understanding the Big Bang theory (which of course may or may not prove to be correct, although it does a good job of explaining the observed universe) is that pop culture has fixated on the idea of an explosion. We like explosions; we know what they are, we know how dramatic they are, and we can understand them. But the Big Bang wasn't an explosion in the same sense, and in fact I think it's seriously misleading to think of it as an explosion. It was a rapid expansion of spacetime out of a single point (0-D space). We do not know what triggered the expansion, and although cosmologists have speculated a great deal, ultimately physics as we know it breaks down when you get back to those very early times. This is probably a limitation in our current understanding of physics, not neccesarily an indictment of the Big Bang theory. We *know* our understanding of physics is not complete, and that it breaks down at tremendous densities (as in the center of a black hole); it is thus reasonable to expect that our current understanding of physics would be inadequate to really grasp the beginning of the Universe.<br /><br />By the way, if we're talking about scientists who are religious, some consider that original point to have been God. Others say that God made the point. Obviously it's not possible to test these notions, but since they are describing events prior to the beginning of the observable universe, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference which one believes, if any. Either way, they don't affect the science of it.<br /><br />There are other theories, of course, some wilder than others. Some feel the universe is cyclical -- it starts as a point, which expands, then contracts, then expands again. Others feel there is a sort of hyperuniverse in which many universes coexist; these universes all start as points and expand within their own spacetime. There's really no good way of testing any theories about what lies beyond our Universe, h <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em> -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>