A simple challenge for atheists

[Davka]

My impression is that the consensus among cosmologists is that our universe is not infinite in the past so you must be saying that the universe (time and space) could have popped into existence uncaused?

Your impression is false. There is no consensus among cosmologists as to what may have happened "before" the Big Bang. There are various ideas floated out there, but they are still primarily ideas. Here are some of them:

- Time was expressed as a spacial dimension during Planck Time. This would make the Universe's temporal beginning "curved," as well as removing the Singularity from contention. The universe would have been extremely tightly compressed, but not all the way down to a singularity.

- Time can be seen as a pair of cones, with their tips at the singularity: >< The 'cone" we are in exists 'after' the Big Bang. The other cone exists "before" the Big Bang. Time, as we understand it, is running backwards in the other cone.

- Quantum fluctuations are creating Universes fairly regularly, but since each is distinct from all the others, each one has its own unique space/time.

Those are just a few. One thing I have never, ever encountered as an argument from cosmologists is the claim that the Universe had a "beginning" at the Big Bang. They all agree that the Universe as we know it began to inflate rapidly around 13.8 billion years ago, but nobody seems to be saying that the Universe simply popped into existence.

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Nothing can exist before time and space. You the theist would have to give the evidence of something existing before the big bang.

Of course there was something before the big bang. Whatever caused the big bang.

How can cause and effect mean anything without space or time?