I'm struggling to understand this concept that many people say. The idea of this 'beginning' about 14 billion years ago, the singularity. That matter itself was created through this explosion and cosmic inflation.

Yet I often hear people continually say that it (matter) cannot be created nor destroyed

If matter was condensed into the initial singularity then that matter has existed prior to cosmic inflation.

For some reason, it seems a bit illogical for me to think of time as a linear progression with a fixed beginning but no end.

If matter cannot be created or destroyed, then surely matter has always existed, and if matter has always existed then it has no beginning and no end.

Am I overthinking this? Im just a bit flabbergasted by this idea of an 'origin of matter', a creation out of nothing.

In biology, we very much use biochemistry to see the building blocks of life. Biogenesis is not an 'explosion of life' out of nowhere but a very gradual development of chemical compounds that interact with each other, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Hydrogen, etc...

It almost seems magical to say "bam! Matter was created 14 billion years ago"

"How so?"

"Through an expansion of the singularity"

See what I mean? I can't wrap my mind around the idea of matter just being 'created'