The Universe has always existed

I will begin immediately by explaining the recently created String Theory. Created by Robert Brandenberger and Cumrun Vafa. "In this idea, initially posed in the 1980s by Robert Brandenberger and Cumrun Vafa, the universe began as a tightly wound string with all dimensions symmetrically confined to the Planck length. The strings, in effect, bound the dimensions up to that size. Brandenberger and Vafa argued that in three or fewer dimensions, it would be likely for the strings to collide with anti-strings. (An anti-string is essentially a string that winds in a direction opposite the string. ) The collision annihilates the string which, in turn, unleashes the dimensions it was confining. They thus begin expanding, as in the inflationary and big bang theories. " Right here we have the basis for explaining the big bang and the inflationary period afterwards. Yet this still doesnt explain, why was the matter that the big Bang and expansionary period created from, there in the first place? Was that matter created, or was it always in existence as my peer is arguing? "One controversial conjecture is a cyclic universe model called the ekpyrotic universe theory, which suggests that our own universe is the result of branes colliding with each other. "[1] Essentially what this theory entails is that outside of our universe there a these vibrating membranes, and whenever these strings or membranes collide, a big bang occurs, or, a new universe is created, in other words. This theory would seem to suggest that our Universe was created, not from a small ball of mass that the big bang theory entails, but rather did not exist as anything, and the big bang was merely a by-product of of these strings or membranes colliding. It is important to note the dimensional side of the theory as well, as in string and membrane theory more than just 3 dimensions that we see ourselves everyday, up/down, left/right, forward/backward(depth). In this theory more dimensions exist than that. These membranes are essentially dimensions. that exist outside of our universe. "The ekpyrotic model is divided into various epochs (periods of time), based upon what influences dominate: The big bang The radiation-dominated epoch The matter-dominated epoch The dark energy–dominated epoch The contraction epoch The big crunch"[1] "The story up until the contraction epoch is essentially identical to that made by regular big bang cosmology. The radiation that is spawned by the brane collision (the big bang) means the radiation-dominated epoch is fairly uniform (save for quantum fluctuations), so inflation may be unnecessary. After about 75,000 years, the universe becomes a particle soup during the matter-dominated epoch. Today and for many years, we are in the dark energy–dominated epoch, until the dark energy decays and the universe begins contracting once again. " [1] Thus we see from the membrane theory these things, 1) The Universe was created by two membranes collding 2) The Universe at first expands but eventually will contract back into nothing 3) Until the membranes collide again and a new universe will be created once again. The big one in this is that the universe was created. Now I cant say what theists think of this, but this theory does do a suitable job of explaining the "cause" of the universe itself, something that has confounded scientists and philosophers for generations now. Therefore if this theory is true, the Universe at one point did not exist, and in the future it will be nonexistant again, therefore sucessfully negating my peers position that it has always existed. A notion, I should note that scientists in general disagree with, the disagreeance comes from what created or caused the universe to exist. ----------- Sources: 1) . http://www.dummies.com...