Many scientists are trying to prove that the big bang was the start of the universe and many spiritual leaders are trying to prove creationism. Many religious people do not need scientific proof and accept creationism on faith and many atheists accept the big bang theory on scientific merit. And many religious scientists are trying to reconcile the two theories and prove that they both have merits and if one of them is right it doesn’t mean that the other one is wrong.

Which one we believe is a personal choice and no one is obligated to believe either. Most people take the best bits of each and believe that, and some have other theories altogether about where it all started.

My theory, like these other two, cannot be explained easily, it will take me the best part of fifteen minutes to do so.

There is a vrillion tonnes of matter in the universe (that’s a billion scillion). There always has been and always will be, no more, no less. OK, maybe a little more or less! But however much there is the amount remains constant.

This matter is all made up of tiny atoms flying around, and the atoms are made of even tinnier particles. And it’s the way that these atoms join together that forms the different things we see around us, and lots of things we don’t see.

They aren’t stable, though, these atoms, they don’t like to stay together for too long and that’s why things come and go. For instance, if a group of atoms have got together to form a tractor they will be a nice, shiny tractor for a while and then some will leave and others will join and the tractor will become a pile of rust. We call this type of change corrosion but actually it is merely the shifting around of these tiny atoms. Some atom combinations make nice, shiny paint and other combinations make rust.

Even the speed at which the atoms fly around can change the matter. If you have a kettle of water and you turn it on, the atoms fly around faster and eventually the water turns to steam.

Similar changes happen all over the place and they’re not all bad. In fact we can use them to our benefit, like turning water into ice or milk into ice cream. Some of these changes are really great, I love ice cream.

The point is that nothing is permanent, even people and animals. Fortunately, us people last a lifetime which is all we care about, but when our life comes to an end and our bodies turn to dust the atoms that made us continue in another form and the amount of matter in the universe is maintained.

It would be wrong to think that when I die I’ll become a cat or a boat, or a single drop of rain, but some of the atoms that made me what I am might well become part of a cat or part of a boat or even a part of a single drop of rain, it all depends on the other atoms that the ones that were part of me join up with.

Life might end but the universe will continue forever. And that’s another story, if there was no beginning, which my theory suggests, there will be no end. So how long is forever?

There are two words from the Christian bible that are often associated with “the end of the world”, Armageddon and apocalypse. They don’t mean the end of the universe though, Armageddon is a name of the location of the final battle between God and Satan and apocalypse refers to the destruction of the world and the second coming of Christ. The universe won’t end though, even if all life in it does.

The most popular scenario that these words are used to describe is a nuclear holocaust that ends all life and the speed with which nuclear physics is developing makes it easy to believe that one day all the matter in the world will become radio active and there will be no life as we know it. But even if this happens the world will still be here and the universe will still be made up of a vrillion tonnes of matter, there will just be more dust.

And if the conditions are right one day, be it tomorrow or in a million years’ time, the atoms will start mixing with each other in a way that will bring life back to the world again and the cycle will continue.

This sounds a lot like the theory of evolution that relies on the big bang as a starting point, but who’s to say that there is not a superior being controlling it all. Perhaps a god or perhaps nature controls which atoms get together. Perhaps nature and god are one and the same?