We have no observational data about anything "before" the big bang. We only infer a singularity because that is where we get when we extrapolate back from the expansion. And as has been mentioned, assuming there was a singularity, it may have only existed for the most fleeting instant between the big bang (after) and whatever had been there before.

I agree that something had to come from nothing seems foolish. Especially when you consider the fact that defining nothing, ontologically, is not a very easy thing to do.

The idea that something has always existed, in the sense that something causally related to the universe has always existed, is not a ridiculous statement. In fact, it is probably the only possibility that clearly rings true once you think it through well enough.

It comes down to the fact we have only one feasible theory.We have not one piece of evidence of anything prior to the big bang.I do believe there is a search going on for evidence but it has not been concluded.
With that in mind our feeble intelligence has trouble conceiving of the enormity of this event.From nothing, if its not from nothing what preceded this event and what caused it to seemly appear from nothing.It came from somewhere and came into our nothing, pretty amazing.
I can understand it if it was created , it makes more sense than this eternal what was before this and what about before that.I can understand beginnings, i cant comprehend eternity because for me it never existed.We could go mad thinking about it, looking at the creator Ive heard can do that.

I can comprehend eternity once I realize that clocks are just human mathematical constructs of events taking place in space-time.

The creationists are chasing a lost cause.

Sauf que you believe that the universe came into being uncaused out of nothing. In that case, good luck with the chance that a horse might pop into your living room uncaused out of nothing. If you really think about it, asserting that things begin to exist uncaused out of nothing is highly irrational.

Of course, the likelyhood is that none of this is knowable.

Check it. Before the universe existed. Everything that consists of matter and energy was comprised in an infinitesimal point we call a "singularity". Now this singularity has been conservatively estimated to have a diameter smaller than an atom's, maybe even a quark's (or at least as large).

It is not unreasonable to assume that before this point, there was nothingness (at least regarding space and time). We know that infinity is not mathematically possible, so the universe MUST have begun at some point. The fact that it had a beginning leads us to rationally assume it was caused by something.

Sauf que you believe that the universe came into being uncaused out of nothing. In that case, good luck with the chance that a horse might pop into your living room uncaused out of nothing. If you really think about it, asserting that things begin to exist uncaused out of nothing is highly irrational.

In summation, the mathematical impossibility of infinity + the cosmological measuring of radiation to prove that the universe is expanding and therefore must have been compressed into a "singularity" at some point leads us to rationally assume that the universe began, and further, that because it began to exist, it must have a cause.

the universe MUST have begun at some point

good luck with the chance that a horse might pop into your living room uncaused out of nothing