If you want to say that physicists declare the universe just 13.8 billion years old, then I have a good disappointment for you.
Big Bang specialists do investigate the time before the materialization process, but they are the specialists. This information does not enter the popular scientific realm much, in part because it is harder to explain, physicists do not always agree with one another (with the specialists) about the prior state of the universe and how matter came to be.
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Let’s declare the scientific step you are not taking the same as the last step to get on top of a mountain. Your reasoning is that one cannot take that final step to the top of the mountain because there is then no mountain left next to you. You do have a logical position then. Yet it is not correct. All of the scientific mountain can be underneath your feet. You ought to take that final step, but you are held back by your brain simply because there is indeed no scientific mountain next to you or above you any longer.
You may be scared about not holding on to anything next to you, not seeing anything obstructing your view all around. But trust your feet and you will be alright.
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The logic is on the side of those recognizing there was a source indeed, and the data is overwhelming (more on that in a bit).
Let me quickly mention the options, two of them not available in science, how we got matter.
1. Something from nothing. This is not a scientific pathway but a religious pathway (we can say with ease that God created creation from nothing, not a problem at all). Science does not have this option available.
Even those that try to establish the material outcome from a quantum fluctuation are not able to pull the trick off that it started from nothing; they start with a quantum fluctuation, and it is a silly attempt to make the starting point as minute as possible. Still, that ain't nothing.
No physicists ever (past, present or future) can make something come from nothing. This structural option available in religion is not available in science.
2. All that was prior became all that is now material. This appears more scientific already, but this option, in its accurate description, is also not available.
Something 100% cannot turn into something else 100% and then remain like that secondary outcome for long. The 100% condition will always return to the original 100% state in a jiffy. All cannot become a different all and remain that different all.
For a sustained different outcome, we only have the following option available:
3. Matter derived from parts of the original state.
As long as the human mind does not eliminate the incorrect options, then the human mind will remain stuck in not understanding the process. By declaring an unknown at the largest level, we hold ourselves back for no good reason at all.
That is like climbing an enormous mountain and then not taking the last step to the top for the reason that there is no mountain left above that highest position, so we would not be climbing anymore. Any normal person would walk to the top. So, this refusal to take the last step exists in the human brain for some people. Their brains are functioning incorrectly.
Lastly, the evidence:
In Science, we look for data and evidence. Most scientific facts and theories are about specific subject matters. Yet the largest data bank is the material universe itself.
The evidence is overwhelming, could not be bigger, that a prior state, a source, existed. Yet some folks can’t accept that this overwhelming amount of data is actually usable data.
That is the human mind tricking us at its best, Benjamin. Folks are so lost in the trees that they end up denying there is a forest.
Remember, everyone and their mother agree that we live in a result. Use that position to understand the big picture, and don't end up denying that we live in a result because you claim to not understand the big picture.
That mountain you are standing on is the scientific mountain. Many scientists are afraid to take that last step to the top because it is inherently different, like a tree differing from a forest. But scientific it is, an entire material universe delivering us the evidence that there was a source for this outcome.
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Spacetime is about the behavior of matter. It is not about space or time.
The clocks sent into space, displaying a different time, they showed that matter changed its behavior.
With Einstein, we can say that the clock’s material changed; the time display shows that as evidence.
Time did not dilate; the material of the clock changed.
Pop science vs. science.
Last advice therefore is to not wag the dog. Recognize when your brain can swap the inside for the outside and vice versa.
