Welcome to Gaia! ::

arrow Did the universe begin, or has it always existed?
It began. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

arrow If it did begin, how do you think it might have begun?
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

arrow And does that mean that at some point, it will end?
At one point it will end.

arrow And does that mean that there have been many universes before ours, and will be many after?
Probably. God is eternal, therefore he was before time. A theory in my head is that there was a universe before ours, and one before that, and so on. God was before time, which does not necessarily mean all time. Our universe was created by God, and one day He will create another one, when ours has ended, and the cycle of universes goes on. Maybe we are the Last Universe. I don't know. I don't pretend to know. But, if that's true, then maybe all of those mythical creatures (like unicorns and fairies and pixies and pegasi, etc.) really did exist at one point in Time (time with a capital T being ALL time... every universe). Then maybe all those stories that people think up really did happen at one point in Time. Maybe all the scientific theories in our time aren't theories, but facts from other universes in other times that, because of the way our universe was created, aren't true in our little segment of Time.

And then again, I might be totally off my rocker. But you did ask.

I dont believe in absolute permanent endings, or things without beginnings (ie: god of the bible). I think all endings are doorways to new beginnings. even if this planet were to be destroyed.. either by our hand (in which case the earth would renew itself eventually and life would eventually begin again) or some catastrophic event such as a meteor or another star colliding with our sun destroying our whole galaxy, another planet out there will hold the building blocks of life. I dont know much about quantum physics, but in quantum physics there is a theory of multiple universes, so if one dies it's conceivable that another will begin.

I believe that the Universe, which I don't believe stretches on forever, Is created when Dark Matter collpases on itself so quickly a hge explosion is created. Only 2 clusters of Galaxies are known at this time, "Local Group" the one the Milky Way is located in, and "Big Cluster" the much much more populous group. One day, long after the Human species has been killed off for good, this Universe will collapse, and another bit of Dark Matter will repeat this process in a similar way, but not exactly the same. This process is supposed to go on forever.

But in a second of my theories, The Human species did not exist since the Universe began, so therefore "Since time began" is not accurate, so this very Universe could have existed forever. But we have nothing to compare that to. Something had to have started it somehow. So technically, my second theory is not very backed up at all. I support my first one 100% and my second one is more of an addition of information.

yes, but then again, can we totally prove any of the theories we post on here about anything?

then you have learned one of my philosophies of life:

"The only true knowledge is knowing that you KNOW nothing" - Socrates

well i believe the big bang theory. but seeing as my parent make me go to church and u always here about the whole god created the universe thing. i just tell them what if god made the big bang happen. i mean i believe the big bang is a more reasonable start then the universe just apearing out of thin air. well all the theories out there about creation r just theories. i dont think we will every truely know how our universe was made.