When I first heard of the big bang I was in grad school studying math and physics. I doubted it. Forty years later I retired and saw Eric Lerner’s book The Big Bang Didn’t Happen. I read it.

You can go to www.newtoeu.com and download a free PFD by Tom Findlay. Titled A Beginner’s View of Our Electric Universe, it too says the BB didn’t happen.

This in the R & S Group. Interesting.

Religion and big bang cosmology both have millions of words by authorities and neither has empirical evidence:

The Big Bang theory was developed as a result of observations. Recent observations tend to indicate that there was something happening before the Big Bang. Google "Hawking Points".

I'm not a scientist, but my impression is that our Big Bang happened as a result of the collapse of a previous universe, in a cosmos of multi-verses. Within the field of space and matter, time and energy, things are always changing. Expansion causes a vacuum somewhere else, keeping everything moving forward in a constant effort toward fulfillment of balance and growth.

Kind of like a volcano erupts as an act of destruction but generates new life in the process. Lots of ways I look at it, and many years ago, I wrote a poem and the beginnings of a book on the idea that our cosmogony could be the basis for a new mythos to inform our understanding of life and the world around us. I find it fascinating to think about.

The quick question is moot...
As to the question, I think the concept of infinity is incomprehensible, tangibly, to humans.

We have posted similar stories in the science group. Most scientists believe an inflation occurred before the Big Bang. That said, you ask why a god would wait so long to create humans? Difficult for any theist to answer, but easy for any Athiest to answer.
[livescience.com]

I don’t know.

Some say that there was no before the big bang, since there was no time then, some think that time on the others side ran backwards, some that the universe formed as a bubble in another universe. But the truth is, that is all speculation. That's a bit like asking what is on the other side of the hill, without going to look, you can fill it with anything you like, and people do, but believing in inventions is not knowledge.

The big difference between a religious mind set and a rational one, is that the rational is about recognizing. "I don't know." As the primary and best answer to most things, while religion is pretending knowledge which does not exist, to bluff others or avoid facing the unknown and your fear of it.

Which brings it full circle back to speculation again, because speculation can be fun, rewarding, informative and good practice for thinking. But you lose all of that value, if you ever lose sight of the fact that it is speculation.

I've no clue what came before the big bang. Such questions are SO far above my education level, it's ridiculous.

But...if we're talking about what I'd LIKE to think, in my own uninformed musings... I like the idea of time starting at that moment. There was no "before", because time didn't exist yet.

I am only thinking 2020

The big squeeze of the previous iteration of the universe.

The question "what was before the big bang?" is like asking what travels faster then the speed of light, and for many of the same reasons.
In fact no one knows the big bang happened for certain even if all the clues say so.
Most Christians believe the big bang too as well as evolution.
So there's no linkage between atheism and any scientific theory.
I just don't believe the religious bullshit, and no one should if they're honest.

The universe always existed in one form or another... We just don't know what form it was before matter came into existence or how...

Atheism is not a philosophy, science, or religion, so I see no reason for ‘us’ to know or have more relevant speculation on perhaps an unknowable event or phenomenon.

It is only a theoretical myth. The big bang isn't exactly proven to say what did or didn't happen before.