Coolbeans, the short answer is; no one knows, so anyone can insert whatever codswallop they want. Or, like me, some are perfectly comfortable with accepting that we just don't know.
We, as Humans, may never be able to answer these questions - they could be unknowable. The questions may not even make sense, for example: "What was before the Big Bang?" Since the Human concept of time only began at the point of the Big Bang, does that render questions of time before said point... pointless?
There are many ideas about the origins of the Universe that I can accept as having valid resoning and a certain plausibility about them; such as an ever expanding and contracting Universe, or an infinite loop Universe being relived over and over again (made possible by the destruction of "time" as discussed previously - and determinism). But I don't accept these as truths, but rather as ideas, which is simply what they are - even though they're ideas based in reasoning.
What is very clear, though, is that you can write of the specific claims of the modern monothestic religions as valid ideas on the origins of the Universe, because the majority of the claims made have been proven to be false over time. Even though it is true that literally anything is possible "before" the point of the big bang, it's evident that none of the modern religious scriptures understand even the age of the Universe. This is to be expected, though, considering the source of the Abrahamic religions.
Also, as a side note; to settle the "which came first, the chicken, or the egg?" question:
The modern day chicken evolved from an egg laying animal, so conclusively and really quite dramatically, the egg came before the chicken. This really is not even close. We're talking millions and millions of years.