I'm a big banger, but who knows? Maybe reptilians just flipped a late switch on their latest science project.

God farted and there you go.

I don’t spend too much time dwelling on it, but my theory would be the Big Bang.

Life is much more tenacious than we give it credit for. Yes this planet has shrugged off many life forms in its history but to think that ours is the only planet/place that life can or does exist in the universe is idiocracy. I think that life exists in one form or another in any place it possibly can. Just because it isn't 'human' or 'sentient' (in our definition of it) doesn't mean it isn't alive. I live in the desert of Arizona and all around me I see 'life' coming out of the cracks in the concrete and asphalt around me. No water, no care, no one making it happen. Everywhere I go I see 'life' coming out of the woodwork. "Life" as we know it, will in one form or another exist if it can. If it can't, it won't. Period.

I don't know. it's too deep for me so I keep my blinkers forced on and deal with things that I can do something about.

I lean toward BBT, but really who knows? Altho, BSD sitting around, bored, decides to start a universe but obviously has no solid plan on where to go with it isn't actually an option for me.

Someone asked the Dali Lama if Buddhists believed in the BBT, and he answered, “yes, but bang, bang, bang.”

The Universe has always been here - the Big Bang was a relatively recent event .

Time began at the Big Bang so considering what happened before it is truly meaningless. Sometimes we have to let go of trying to reason an idea and just accept.

[hawking.org.uk]

I believe that the universe has always existed, but has gone through many alternating stages of extreme xpansion and contraction.

What if we aren't the only 'universe' out there? What if we are in just one of many?

Truthfully, I don't care. I don't believe we're ever going to know for sure. At least not in my
lifetime. I'm completely satisfied with the Big Bang.
I have other things to do.

I couldn't do the poll 'cos my answer wasn't an option. The furthest we can go back thus far is the big bang (and all the bits round that), what happened to cause that is.............I don't know.

Awesome, now we shall determine the origin of the universe based on popular opinion.

"Big Bang" isn't an appropriate name for the universe, and was actually a derisive insult, but it stuck. The Big Bang isn't the best theory we've got based on current knowledge.

The best evidence for the theory is that we've made numerous discoveries since the BBT was first advanced that were predicted by it. Cosmic background radiation, rapid expansion, and the temperature of the universe are the biggest discoveries that completely concur with what we should've expected to see if the BBT actually occurred.

Remember, the big bang theory describes only the origin of our universe, not anything prior to it. Don't confuse the origin theory with speculation about the state of our universe or others before it happened.

I like Futurama's explaination. Fry, Bender, and the Professor are in a "forward-only" time machine. They go so far into the future that they see our sun become a red giant, engulf Earth, then dwindle into nothing. As time goes on, other stars go out, and they are left only in darkness. Then an explosion happens. It's the Big Bang! The universe begins anew; and they realize that the universe goes in an ongoing cycle. Big Bang --> death --> Big Bang --> death, etc

Its very simple - the Universe has always been here, and always changing. There was no beginning.

I like to call it the big change instead of the big bang because most likely the mark of time for this universe may have started for this universe at the point of the "big bang" Thinking how things evolve mater and energy has always been will always be, it just recycles over repeatedly. To boot if the universe is expanding it can not just be expanding into nothing some form of matter beyond the universe is being distorted to allow the universe to expand.