You could have just posted #8. Unless you were trying to save my soul, in which case the polite thing to do would have been to ask first, at which point I would have choked my liberal elite latte up through my nose and told you not to waste your time.

I don't need to explain where the big bang came from, because my worldview isn't dependent upon having an explanation for things that involves them being "created", and I don't need to bother to extrapolate too much as to what came before the big bang, because there is no physical evidence upon which to base hypotheses-- and as such the question is out of the realm of anything but the most theoretical strains of science.

However, while there is ZERO scientific evidence for a magical invisible man in the sky who is obsessed with making sure people are married before they fuck, there IS evidence for the big bang, physical evidence in the form of 3 degrees of background radiation that permeates the universe. So, yes, I do "believe" that everything in our universe came from a big "explosion", because there is scientific evidence of it. As for what came before the big bang, no one knows, obviously, but that hasn't stopped scientists from making educated guesses as to what the larger situation might be which produced the big bang- for instance, the ekpyrotic universe is one such hypothesis.

But like I said- my worldview isn't predicated upon the idea that nothing can exist unless a big bearded white man deliberately put it there, so I don't really need to give a shit about what happened "before" the big bang. I believe under certain circumstances shit can just happen on its own.. (on a subatomic, quantum scale, particles are materializing out of nothingness -or uncertainty- and back into it all the time, if only for very brief periods).. And, really, the so-called "creationists" you quote believe shit can just happen on its own, too, as long as it's called "God" and has a vested interest in making sure they don't fuck before they're married.

The short answer to your question? What we see around us are natural processes. Life on Earth is a result of Natural processes. The sun, Earth, and rest of the solar system formed through natural processes. My guess is that the universe is a product of natural processes, too- natural processes which didn't need a giant white sex-obsessed man to put them there.

And I reiterate- for my money, if you want to claim to be a REAL 'creationist', I mean if the basis of your 'scientific argument' is "Shit, man, how did ANYTHING get here if some giant invisible dude didn't PUT it here?", I SAY you need to answer the question: Who created 'God'?

As for your Athanasians, if you ask me, they're squishy-soft on creationism and creation, because their 'creation' comes with an asterisk.