Here's a bottom line on creation itself.
Scientists can narrow the gap but never (at least in our lifetimes) answer all the questions about how matter and energy came to be our universe and what that matter and energy originated from.
Some of the terms don't quite fit, like "before the big bang" because time did not exist. Getting bogged down on terms beyond simple disagreements doesn't help anyone here. If someone asks about "before the big bang" or where the matter/energy "came from," we should all understand that what is being asked is how or why it existed at all in a state ready to form the universe and how or why it caused time to exist.
Science can only take us back so far, but supernatural belief does no better. The believer allows "God" to do what he cannot accept from the universe without God. God can be always in existence and equal the entire universe or the sum of all of it's matter/energy. When a nonbeliever says "something from nothing" it is not clearly understood, but when a believer says "everything from God" it is equally not understood and is just a way of pushing off understanding.
Seeing as we cannot understand it all at this time, I abandon (beyond trying to help Perry since he really wants us to help him) any attempts to persuade people that the universe does not need "God" to start. The reason I am able to let go of God is because every god of man's creation has never been demonstrated to be existent at all.
So Perry, forget the universe. Focus on the God of the Bible or the God of your mind. Prove HE exists. But remember for every anecdote/revelation, I could find an anecdote/revelation from someone else's God that differs from your.