Does the universe have a beginning because it was created by God?

If the Universe is expanding, and science says it is, than it is unreasonable to believe that the universe has an infinite past. If you were to hit "rewind" and watch everything collide back together it would all just cram back up into that 'ball' of matter everything started out as before the Big Bang.

And the idea of a "revolving" or accordion universe doesn't make sense either - the ide that the universe goes through cycles of expansion fails the laws o f thermodynamics as there is no (known as of yet) reason why the universe would not lose energy through every expansion.

Zarathustra,

Yes, the universe has a beginning, but existence came first.

Existence made God, God made the universes, etc.

This is my opinion, anyway.

Contemporary logic models are flawed to the extent that the "time before something" question is, despite Lawrence Krauss' assertions otherwise, purely speculative. Quantum Mechanics is showing us that our logic models are insufficient to depict an objective reality. We are then left with the positions of nihilism, sophism, and theism as the only logical alternatives. The second and third options present a sensible view of nature. The first option is only viable if it's held as a faith based position that our philosophers and scientists will render the currently incomprehensible comprehensible.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Yes, because the Universe did not create it self and nothing does produce an object.

Just because they refer to the event that started our current universe doesn't mean that

billions upon trillions of these events didn't occur even before that - we simply have no data before the last

event nor was there anyone there to observe the event ....so we will never know.

My personal assertion is that everything always existed and has simply gone through cycles:

Expansion>collapse>expansion

Yes - even science gives the universe age - indicating that it had a distinct beginning

Our universe apparently stems from an event called 'the big bang', popularly, and more correctly, 'the initial expansion of a primordial singularity'.

The 'god' bit? There is no tangible, verifiable evidence that any 'god' exists.

No, the Big Bang theory is not that simple...look it up. God is not necessary for the Big Bang to have occurred.