The Big Bang did not occur

Your first point to support the big bang is the red-shift of light. This does indeed show that the universe is expanding. But to draw the inference that our beginning must've begun with a singularity the size of an atom is a bit of a stretch. From the start there are two problems with this: the first is that there is no explanation as to why an infinitely dense singularity would suddenly explode, and the second deals with the expansion rate. When any type of explosion provides energy to move an object (or pieces of a bomb) it sets that object in motion with an initial velocity. That velocity should not increase or slow down unless it is acted upon by another force. In the case of the expanding universe, galaxies are actually accelerating away from one another. This energy could NOT have been provided by a big bang. Your second point mentions the cosmic background radiation. One of the main problems with this is that the cosmic background radiation should be random if it did, in fact, arise from this big bang. However, it fluctuates more often towards the Virgo cluster than anywhere else. This is not at all consistent with the big bang, and the current answers from the big bang theorists state that this abnormal amount of fluctuations toward this cluster are a mere accident (which is highly unlikely). Your third point was as follows: "We can study the nature of matter as it was in the big bang inside particle accelerators. This study corresponds to what we observe in nature, giving us little doubt that the beginning of our universe was very similar to the collisions in a particle accelerator." I don't know where this information comes from, but particle accelerators do not in any way give evidence that our cosmos were created by the big bang. Now that you have stated these points in favour of the big bang, I will show scientific points against it. Starting out, the big bang claims that at the beginning of the universe this singularity exploded. From there there was this inflationary period in which matter travelled faster than the speed of light. From Einstein's theories, it has been well established that matter cannot travel faster than the speed of light. Yet the big bang theorists must add this to account for our current state of the universe (which according to them is roughly 13.7 billion years old). But to go faster than the speed of light is mathematically impossible according to the Lorentz transformation equations that have been empirically tested and confirmed time and time again. One example is that of time dilation: t'= t [1-(v^2/c^2)]^(-1/2) Note: the carrot indicates an exponent Now in this equation, if any velocity greater than the speed of light is used than the number in the brackets becomes negative. To then take the negative one-half power of this number would lead to an imaginary (and therefore nonsensical) answer. There are also many experiments that show the speed of light as some type of limit. In ordinary events, if a car traveling at 50 mph on the highway were to measure the speed of a car going 50 mph in the opposite direction, the reading would be 100 mph. The speeds are added together. Similarly, if someone shoots a gun from a moving car with a non-moving (in terms of the road) observer, the speed of the bullet measured would be the speed of the bullet plus the speed of the moving car. But when we come to light, it is a whole other story. Someone moving towards light at a fast speed and measuring it will still get the speed of light. For some reason the speeds are not added together. Also, if that same person in a moving car shines a flashlight instead, the road observer measuring the speed of that light would only get the speed of light. Not the speed and the cars velocity added. So this inflationary period is inconsistent with one of the greatest theories the scientific community has ever seen. But this is not all. Physicists have determined more than the age the universe would be if the big bang created everything. In addition to the age of 13.7 years, they have also concluded that the universe would have a certain density. This density is termed the omega value, and according to the big bang it should be approximately equal to 1. Measurements were taken of this value, and it came up as .2, which is nowhere close to 1. So the measurements were taken again more carefully and again a value of .2 was obtained. I'm not sure how many times the calculation was performed, but I know that big bang theorists have tried several times to get this value of 1. After many trials to no avail, the big bang theorists gave up on remeasuring. But rather than throw out their theory, they came up with one of the most ridiculous (yet for some reason popular) fudge factors. Their claim was that the omega value must really be 1. However, they were not able to see all of the matter. This lead to this fictional crock they deemed dark matter. Dark matter has never been seen, can never be seen, and has zero evidence to support its existence. Yet it had to be invented for the big bang theorists to hold on to their sacred model. The claim of course being that there is this dark matter all over the cosmos that would fill in the other .8 to get the omega value up to one. One final point I will make in this round is that the big bang also violates the laws of thermodynamics. The laws of thermodynamics state that energy transfer is always from hot to cold and always takes place between matter. The only time any type of energy can be emitted in a vacuum is with a phenomenon known as black body radiation (and this is extremely inefficient). The big bang claims that during this explosion, every single atom in the universe was spewed forth and all of these things were at temperatures of millions or even billions of degrees kelvin. Yet somehow things cooled. Of course in their chronology, they allow for cooling over a course of millions of years. But even then, if every single piece of matter in the universe was heated up so much, where could the heat have been transferred to? If the big bang created everything, there would be no other matter to receive the heat. And the heat could not have been emitted simply into the vacuum of space. This would violate the laws of thermodynamics. Do they want us to believe that black body radiation cooled everything? I'm not sure, but I do know that it wouldn't really account for such a temperature drop. The big bang theory is clearly incorrect. You asked "This does beg the question however, if the big bang did not occur, what did?" I don't really know the answer to this question. But whatever did happen, it was not the big bang.