If they genuinely believed then they believed. To tell people to not eat certain foods, to not wear clothes of 2 different cloth, no seafood for fear of burning forever. I don't know how you would describe it but to me it seems like an obvious device to control the population and keep them in line.

How did mathematics predict it? Infinite time and randomness?

Not atheist, and not trying to answer your question. Just bringing up more questions I never can understand in regards to science.

Always thought there was a rule in science that you can't create something from nothing. So how did the big bang? or was everything all compacted into one tiny ball and exploded? What was outside that ball before it exploded? Nothing? What is nothing? Another universe? Where did that initial ball of energy/matter/ect come from. How does everything in the universe, stars, planets, matter, ect all fit into a tiny spec/ball/whatever the big bang was before the bang.

The universe is supposedly infinite, yet expanding. How can something that is infinite be expanding. What is just past the part that is expanding? Again, another universe? Nothing? How can something just be infinite. How can something never end, but in the same sense, how can something end. What would be at the end of a universe if it could end.

These "big" questions that science is always answering always seem like they have contradictions in themselves, or more questions pop up than questions get answered.

So that would be the Jewish people (pre-Christianity). I'm reading a book about that currently as I never really understood it either. It seems (at least according to this book) that they thought "sin" was something you could catch, like we think of germs today, and so they avoided the things that they thought brought them in contact with it. I'm only part way through so I can't give a full explanation, though (sorry). 

I've read a lot of Christian apology books, and there are a lot of well-reasoned and factual basis for why Christianity is a thing. Of course, as a Christian I am likely very biased. But the fact that so many died at the birth of Christianity (right after Christ died) is a difficult thing to explain away. Clearly the disciples believed Christ came back to life or was the Son of God, otherwise their actions simply don't make sense. Unless they were all crazy? On some kind of drug? I dunno.

Catholics are the biggest hypocrites in the world though. They deserve to get shit at some point.

To be clear, I'm not against the religion. I'm against some who practice it since they just follow something that's convenient for their personal preferences.

The Big Bang theory doesn't state the universe exploded into existence from nothing or basically nothing. That really isn't close to the big bang theory at all.

Forgive my ignorance as it's been awhile since I've studied it. From my memory it was believed that there was one extremely tiny (like, the size of an atom) piece of matter that was insanely dense and it suddenly burst (the big bang) and spread its matter. One fact pointing to this is the universe is expanding at a constant rate, and if you basically (rewind) it to it's beginning it's the logical beginning. 

I admit this is a super, super simplistic view, and also I could be wrong (I read Stephen Hawkings book decades ago). Please fix what I'm getting wrong if you have time.

Millions of people have died for their different beliefs. They can't all have been correct and true.