[MineralMan]

"When scientists can write book after book saying nothing preceded the big bang, "

Hmm...could you point me to one of those books, please? I haven't seen any such statement in a serious book on astrophysics.

Perhaps you found this in a creationist's book or website. It doesn't sound much like what an scientist would say. A scientist might say he didn't know, but he's unlikely to make a statement like that one.

So, a reference, please?

[Williams]

I'm really not in the mood for finding references right now. But I don't read creationist literature. Most scientists absolutely state that they cannot know anything that preceded the big bang. This is because all time and space was collapsed, for some odd reason they cannot address because it is unknowable, into a tiny singularity described as being infinitely dense and of various sizes down to infinity but all smaller than the earth. Within this singulartity there was no time or space and of course nothing surrounded it. This burst forth because (hmm good question) and the "stuff" that happened in the subsequent milliseconds randomly decided all the forces of nature, particles, etc we know today. None of these existed before that big bang.

It is impossible for scientists to look before the big bang. It's similar to the singularity of a black hole. We can only study what emerged.

Stephen Hawkings came close to stepping outside this view, In one of his books, he talked about time taking place throughout the universe as if observed from outside the universe. But none of this can be called science as opposed to religion. It is all an attempt to stretch one's mind around concepts that are unknowable, at least to us now.

You must think I'm for creationism and against science. Nothing could be farther from the truth. But I won't allow religion or science to pretend they have figured everything out, when they quite clearly have not.

If you want, get me some cites to scientific discussion of the universe preceding the big bang, and preceding the primordial egg, and explaining how where when and why the primordial egg existed. And when you do find a scientist or two taking a stab at those questions, make sure they provide empirical proof. By definition they can't and most won't try because just prior to the big bang there was no measurable time or space and they cannot devise any method of "looking" to a "time" before that.

This is standard scientific theory I have spent a lifetime reading scientific literature, not creationist literature.