I'm still not certain I see the contradiction; God made the universe, and the Big Bang was his method, would be a simple reconciliation of the two. So long as God is still ultimately responsible for the creation of the universe, what would be the problem? He still made the universe, but did so through a means thoroughly incomprehensible to us. The process, to him, would be the same as the construction of a candlestick, to us.
As regards the issue of 24 hour days, however, I am forced to refer to Catholic doctrine, which states that the bible and science can never be in contradiction; any apparent contradictions are a result of insufficient understanding of the bible, or an insufficient understanding of the pertinent science. As the science (in my opinion) is quite clear that the stages outlined in Genesis took longer than a single day each(even if God created life in a single day, the natural processes that would need to take place to form the Earth would have taken millions of years), then references to a seven day creation of the universe must in turn refer to something else. What do they refer to? Well, my understanding of the bible is flawed, so I'm not terribly certain. Some say that the translation is flawed; others say the translation are completely accurate, but they were still intended as metaphorical ages; some say something completely different. I've largely left the argument to others, as the passages cited relate little to morals (beyond keeping the Sabbath holy), and my uneducated perspective would likely harm the understanding of others more than it would help.
Summarizing the above; if God caused the Big Bang, wouldn't he still have made the universe, in a very literal sense?
Mildly related addition to the above, does it matter terribly much? A flawed understanding of creation isn't going to damn me to hell, correct? This is a sincere inquiry - while I can understand why evolution/creationism arguments get heated, I've never understood why some old earth/young earth arguments have gotten heated.
My own apologies if I don't seem to be taking this seriously; on discussions that I haven't had in the past, I tend to tread lightly. You're not being too forceful in the least, though :) . So long as it's a polite discussion, a forceful stance from an informed person is likely to be thorough and well sourced - and thus, informative.
The Big Bang theory came from Atheistic Evolutionist's need to explain where
Everything came from
without there being a God.
It also
demands that everything have been totally randomly formed and that our solar system not occupy a preferred position in the cosmos.(scientific evidence has clearly shown a preferred position.)
Most of the evidence for the Big Bang is entirely theoretical whereas the evidence
against it is scientific.
For the Big Bang to work, requires the use of circular reasoning and the
Fallacy of Verified Prediction.
So I guess the simple way to sum up the contradiction is, the Big Bang says there is no God and that the universe exploded from nothing and has no purpose; whereas, God says he made
Everything and that it all has a purpose.
In my mind, these two perspectives are not reconcilable.
First off, I know very little about Catholic doctrine.
That said, the idea seems a little scary to me that Atheistic 'science' should take precedence over the Infallible word of God.
(It is also my opinion that God's word should have precedence over the Church, not the other way around.)
Asking an Atheistic scientist to outline the 'stages' of Genesis is like asking a Wolf to tend the Sheep.
If you would like to gain some insight into the length of the 'days' of creation, I would suggest you read
this.
You asked:
"if God caused the Big Bang, wouldn't he still have made the universe, in a very literal sense?"
If the Big Bang happened, then God did not cause it, because the Big Bang demands that he not be involved in any way.
And:
"A flawed understanding of creation isn't going to damn me to hell, correct?" It is my personal belief that you are indeed correct.
(AIG has an informative page
here. on that subject.)
And:
"while I can understand why evolution/creationism arguments get heated, I've never understood why some old earth/young earth arguments have gotten heated."
When someone claims the Bible says something, weather it be related to evolution or not, that is known from research to be completely wrong.
People consider it imperative to attempt to correct them.
An example would be if someone were to claim that Christ did not rise from the dead.
Educating your self is a good thing; But be careful, the sea of information is full of sharks.