Look above, there’s multiple universes, notes that time is never negative, quantum fluctuations, different infinities, and so forth. That’s hardly “I don’t know”.
Really, I think it’s all shorthanded by the answer, “Anything but God”. I think an answer like that is based more on belief than fact and that’s as dogmatic as deism.
…but I’m leaving GQ territory on this so I’ll shut up…
Not one, single person in that GD thread is a cosmologist.
You’re being flip, but you’re dismissing an actual answer to your question by so doing.
Saying “what’s north of the North Pole” is a way of pointing out that there are alternatives beyond “goes on forever” and “has a boundary”. The surface of the Earth is not infinite. The surface of the Earth has no starting point. The fact that the the the surface of the Earth is finite does not imply that the surface of the Earth must have a starting point.
Similarly for the universe. You seem to be stuck on the idea that the universe is either infinite in time or else had a boundary: a beginning, with a well-defined period “before” the beginning. But those are not the only two possibilities. There is a third possibility, that the universe is finite but without boundary. There does not need to be a moment before the Big Bang. There is no reason to assume that “t=-1” must exist, any more than there is reason to assume that “latitude=-1” exists.
Numbers (the real numbers anyway) are infinite and unbounded, but the surface of the Earth is finite and unbounded. Finite and unbounded is just as valid a concept for the universe.
Only in a non-causal universe.
That’s allowed in theology - I guess I’ve yet to be convinced that it’s allowed in macroscopic physics.
This sounds to me like “common sense” reasoning. You are assuming that there is something special about “the present”, and that the concepts of “past” and “future” have some absolute meaning.
I suggest that “the present” is no more a special point on the timeline than zero is a special point on the number line. Saying, “I’m going to start at the lowest integer and count my way up to zero” is nonsensical because there is no lowest integer. But that fact does not prevent us from pointing at zero on the number line.
Just so, if time is infinite it’s nonsensical to say “I’m going to start at the beginning of time and wait for the present”. But that, in and of itself, is not proof that the present doesn’t exist, nor is it proof that time cannot be infinite. It’s infinite, it didn’t start, but that doesn’t prevent any arbitrary point on its “line” from existing, just as any arbitrary point on the infinite number line can exist.
Using “common sense”, we can’t really grasp the concept that there was no time before t. Using “common sense”, we can’t really grasp the concept that time is infinite, either.
And so we get back to the same question that is always asked when people with religious beliefs refuse to consider the evidence provided by scientists: what kind of evidence would convince you that it’s not dogma?
Frankly, you lost me.
OK - here’s my mental picture…
I’m a surfer with a movie camera, at 0.0000000000001 seconds from the big bang, I start riding the wave that marks the boundary of the expanding universe filming the whole mess. I’ve been doing this for 13.73 Billion years.
Now, I thread that film in the projector backwards and watch the film backwards. As I watch, all the galaxies unwind, the stars stream inward and we end up at the beginning of the film.
What do I see?
Is it a oatmeally lump of stuff that just reached a critical mass (mass being used somewhat loosely here)? is it two particles colliding? Is it a bearded man with a fused black ball marked “bomb”?
If I could go back another frame - what’s in that?
I guess I don’t see what they can’t be another frame before the first.
First, you say that you “cannot begin to believe that an event can occur without a precursor” but your deity has the same problem, so isn’t a satisfying answer, either. It’s quite strange that a lot of believers using the same argument, and who have put a lot of thought to it, still don’t seem be bothered the slightest bit by this issue.
Second, what’s the problem exactly with “we don’t know”? Why should an arbitrary explanation, any arbitrary explanation, be in any way superior to an admission of ignorance?
It’s very possible that we’ll never be able to find an explanation. Or it might be that we eventually will but that this explanation won’t make any logical sense to our limited brain in a way similar to the famous answer “42”. Or an explanation that will raise even more confusing questions. But this doesn’t allow us to just make up one randomly, especially one that doesn’t even answer the very question we’re wondering about, like replacing an uncaused big bang by an uncaused god.
No it isn’t. What came before god?
It’s difficult to explain any better than the “surface of the Earth” analogy that’s already been given. To be blunt, you’re stuck on the idea that time must be like a line, continuing infinitely in both directions; infinite and unbounded. But that’s not a given, that’s an assumption. The “surface of the Earth” analogy is meant to illustrate the fact that the question “what’s before the Big Bang” is likely as meaningless as the question “what’s north of the North Pole”. Assuming that there must be a “before” for every moment is presupposing facts about the nature of time that are likely not true.
There was a time in human history when the Earth was generally believed to be flat. And why not? It looks flat. During such a time, one could probably imagine that if you travelled north, there would be one of only two outcomes: either you could keep on going north forever, or else you would run into some kind of barrier, like a wall or a sudden drop at the edge of the world. Now go back in time and tell a person living then that there’s a point on the world’s surface where it’s impossible to go north any further. But there’s no wall or cliff face or giant dragon threatening to eat you: there’s just a point where there’s no further north to be had. It’s not even marked, for crying out loud. If that hypothetical past-person has trouble believing you, it’s because that person is working under a wrong assumption: that there must be a “further north” for every point. But that assumption is wrong, because the world isn’t flat even though it looks that way to us.
Demanding that there be something “before” the Big Bang is making exactly the same assumption.
You should hear my pessimistic view of the universe. 
It’s hard to imagine an effect without a cause, but that’s just due to how we experience time. Our consciousness depends on the passage of time. We know time passes because we notice differences between instants of time, even if they’re just our own thoughts. But imagine there is nothing. No matter, no space, no universe. How would you notice the passage of time? You wouldn’t. Nothing would be changing, because there is nothing. The concept of time has no meaning.
Now, how did time and space suddenly come into existence? No one knows. It probably involves some concept of physics that we can’t even begin to imagine. Just try and explain the basics of quantum theory to someone 100 years ago and they won’t have a clue (and modern physicists have barely made progress in that regard). Time having a beginning doesn’t make intuitive sense to us, but neither does quantum tunneling or the double-slit experiment, and nature does what it does regardless of human confusion.
God as an answer for all this is not arrived at by any means of scientific inquiry. “God” as an answer is short hand for, “We have no freaking idea and are left with some dude just magicking it all up.” God also comes with just as many, if not more, questions that puzzle you here. Where did God come from? What was before God? If God had no “t=-1” cause then why does the universe need it?
Cosmologists will freely admit that they do not know all these answers. However, they can make educated guesses based on the best evidence they have to date. While the evidence may not be conclusive it is suggestive and gives them reason to believe certain aspects must be true and then hypothesize to fill in the blanks while remaining consistent with the overall picture.
What happened between an inch below the bottom of a beach ball and an inch above the bottom?
I hope Belrix appreciates this difference. Science says “I don’t know, but we’re trying to find out, and here are some ideas we’ve been working on.”
Religion simply makes shit up and declares that to be the Truth.
As stark as that is, that’s the basics of the two ways of thinking.