[neutralino]

Ok I'm ready to eat a tiny slice of humble pie now, RP. My response that you've quoted in red is not correct. I can't remember saying that last night, and have no idea why I would do, but I did (I checked).

So here's my stance on the big bang. Many people say that there was an "explosion" at some point in space, or that the universe was created from a single point in space. This, clearly, is incorrect (since the universe consists of the spacetime of the universe).

However, one can say that there was an explosion that created spacetime and that is why the universe is expanding in the way we see today. The important things to notice are that firstly, this explosion did not take place in a specific point in spacetime, since this would imply a centre, which contradicts the cosmological principle. Secondly, we note that we cannot run the clock back to time zero and see an infinitely dense point of matter. Thirdly, this explosion is not like any explosion that we would imagine. When we think of explosions, we think of fragments of something being thrown further into space. However, this explosion was an explosion on the universe itself which created the universe (if that makes sense.)

Anyway, talking about explosions, whilst technically not incorrect, gets confusing. I would much rather take the stance that the big bang theory states that the universe was once far more dense than it is today.

So, I apologise to you, RascalPuff, and to anyone else who read my incorrect views.

[As an aside, in future it may be better to get a reference from a non-catholic source if discussing workings and successes of a catholic priest!]