"
At the point of this event all of the matter and energy of space was contained at one point. That doesn't sound like creation ex nihilo to me."
First of all, this is a point in time once the process got under way, not some arbitrary point in time (which has no meaning) before the start of the universe. This still has nothing to do with the presence of matter
before the BB.
Second, one problem in modern physics, as metnioned above, is the disagrement between quantum mechanics and general relativity. So long as you use QM for small things that are not moving too fast and GR for large things, massive things and things moving quite rapidly, you have no problems. However the beginning of the universe is one of those times where you have both a lot of mass and a very small space suuch that you must use both. Which leads to non-sensical answers at the very beginning. Now string theory enters the field. It posits a minimum size to everything. The "point" goes away and so does your objection.
"
nyone seriously wanting to read some of the problems that scientists have identified with the Big Bang concept should go to the following web site.
http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-216.htm
"
The first two paragraphs are misleading at worst and show a misunderstanding at best. It is interesting that they give some supposed headlines and titles of papers, yet when Googles one at random, the only hits I got were copies of the ICR article. But, even taking their claim at face value, they ignore the overwhelming amount of supportive data for the BB which has been pouring in. They mistakenly claim that there were subatomic particles in existance before the start of the BB. They mistakenly assert that it was a literal explosion into a pre-existing space. (The BB is an expansion of space-time ITSELF!)
They then start into the heart of the matter. They claim that the distribution of the galaxies is a problem. Well, in reality, the distribution of the galaxies on a large scale is a triumph of the predictive power of the inflationary concept. Inflation predicts a certain distribution called a power law spectrum. Observation of the cosmic microwave background show the predicted power law spectrum. Furthermore, if you take the predicted and then observed variation in the CMB and scale it up due to the expansion of the universe in the mean time, you get the exact same power law spectrum for the large scale distribution of galaxies. Quantum scale variations from the time of inflation were scaled to the visible differences we see in the CMB which then became the "seed" for the large scale distribution we see today as the expansion continues.
The rest of the ICR article is a mistaken attempt at spin on this premise. They discuss how the CMB was predicted to bu smooth but that it instead shows lumpiness. What they do not tell you is the part I do in the preceeding paragraph. The lumpiness in the CMB is on the order of a tiny fraction of a degree and the magnitude and distribution match both predictions and the distribution of the modern universe.