It's not opinion. Both science and logic demonstrate there was a beginning. The BGV theorm is a mathematical proof that an expanding universe must have a finite space time boundary in the past.
If that beginning consisted of an explosion, ie Big Bang, it doesn't really make sense that the universe is speeding up, not slowing down.
Basic logic tells you that if the universe was infinitely old, today would never have gotten here.
Ok.
Explain precisely why religious belief requires the Earth to be perfect, idyllic, completely free of risk.
Nobody said completely free of risk. What I said, among other things, is that the Earth's primary light source causes cancer. There are faults that cause earthquakes and tsunamis. The core of the Earth is made of molten metal that periodically shoots out of the core, killing people and animals. The Earth is so flawed that 99% of all species of life have died off. Weather patterns cause tornadoes, hurricanes, mass flooding one minute and drought the next.
Does that sound like the intelligent designer talked about in the Bible?
So you just don't like the anthropomorphic gods of ancient human tradition, but you leave open the possibility that there is some kind of rational agency underlying all of physical reality.
Again, I'm simply saying I don't know.
Explain precisely why religious belief requires the Earth to be perfect, idyllic, completely free of risk.
You aren't providing any explanation for the origin of mathematical laws of physics, the comprehensibility and rationality of the universe, the unlikely convergence of the universal physical constants.
The universe does what it does, for reasons that we don't completely understand. The fact that we are able to explain it doesn't mean the universe is as you describe, it just means we've managed to explain some things.
Just throwing your hands up in defeat and declaring "that's just the way it is!" is not an intellectually satisfying answer.
You aren't providing any explanation for the origin of mathematical laws of physics, the comprehensibility and rationality of the universe, the unlikely convergence of the universal physical constants. These are legitimate philosophical questions.
Just throwing your hands up in defeat and declaring "that's just the way it is!" is not an intellectually satisfying answer.
The atomic matter comprising the ball are highly organized and obey mathematical principles.
Yes, but dropping 100 balls off a roof, even if we can explain, after the fact, why they did what they did, doesn't make the situation any more organized.
Why do we live in a universe where matter, motion, energy, time obey comprehensible mathematical principles.
Again, you have it backwards. The universe does what it does and we've created ways to explain it. That doesn't mean that our explanations were originally plans.
There are many physical scenarios where a universe could just be composed of energy, plasma, hydrogen; or where atomic matter couldn't even exist.
An all powerful being could have designed the universe in a way that we've never even considered.... because it's an all powerful being. Instead, it apparently used an explosion, scattering pieces that crash into planets, at least one time possibly ending most all dinosaur life and rendering the entirety of the rest of the known universe uninhabitable. That's the best it could do?
Doesn't sound very intelligent to me.