Admitted? We may never know for sure how everything began?

jdk- Given the innumerable amount of just-so cosmic collisions that had to have occurred in order to produce just the current Earth/Moon system and given that we don't know how to test that claim, why would anyone try to pass off such a concept as science? Or are we not teaching our kids that is how it all happened? ET

But I don't have a position about what is "beyond" the known universe, other than I don't think we can know. I am a strong agnostic as to this subject. I agree that theism, and any strongly held metaphysical belief system, is a held because of a faith-based choice, not because of any "proof" (or even substantial evidence) that can be given. jdk

Faith is belief without proof. So if you’re an atheist and you cannot prove your position, whatever you believe you believe by faith. john_a_designer

I don't think that the subject of this discussion is amenable to proof": that is the point implied in the OP, and certainly my point in 1. jdk

AK @ 9,

I don’t understand why that would be.

Theism begins with the premise that something cannot come into existence uncaused from absolute nothing. Therefore, since the universe exists, it cannot have just popped into existence uncaused from nothing. Something with causal agency must have “preceded” it, though preceding it does not necessarily mean temporally preceding it. This leads us to the idea of a transcendent, self-existing or necessary being. So, if the atheist wants to believe that the universe had a beginning in an absolute sense he must believe that it either just popped into existence uncaused from absolute nothing or there is some transcendent cause whose existence cannot be proven empirically. If I am wrong, just provide the proof. That will be game, set, match. You win. john_a_designer

OK if the evos are right and we can't know then why is Intelligent Design off of the table? What they really mean is "we don't know but we know (wink, nod) that it wasn't by Intelligent Design". And that is beyond pathetic ET

Allan Keith said "And it may very well be the flatulance of an interdimensional lawyer. That is my point. We can never know." But Allan, flatulence has physical properties - within your intestinal tract. The BGV theorem (Inflationary spacetimes are not past-complete) has proven that nothing physical is eternal to the past in expanding universes. So we know flatulence is ruled out as existing before the universe along with the red beans & rice dinner that caused it. :) Therefore all physical things(matter/energy) had a beginning. Even in a multiverse, there had to be a "mother of all beginnings" according to Alan Guth. C Williams

JAD,

Apparently the idea that the universe has a beginning makes some people uncomfortable. Why is that?

I don’t understand why that would be. Theists are fine with it. Atheists are fine with it. I think what people are uncomfortable with is that the universe would have an end. But the discomfort is at the gut level, not the intellectual level. Allan Keith

Our universe had a beginning: not much of a question about that.I don't think the Big Crunch/Big Bang again hypethesis has many followers these days. What I, at least, am saying (as is the OP implying) is that we really have no idea what might be the case about anything beyond/before/outside/etc. of the universe. Given that total unknowability, I don't think we even know whether "beginnngness" is a relevant concept, as the underlying concept of time may not apply either. jdk

Apparently the idea that the universe has a beginning makes some people uncomfortable. Why is that? john_a_designer

CWilliams,

Allan Keith, and that something that existed before may very well be a transcendent, non-physical, supernatural, enormously powerful & intelligent Higher Being.

And it may very well be the flatulance of an interdimensional lawyer. That is my point. We can never know. Allan Keith

Allan Keith, and that something that existed before may very well be a transcendent, non-physical, supernatural, enormously powerful & intelligent Higher Being. The oscillating models are addressed in this paper below, and have been for the most part, ruled out. Craig, W.L., Astrophysics and Space Science 269: 721. "The Ultimate Question of Origins: God and the Beginning of the Universe" https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1017083700096 (free full copies can be found at Google Scholar) C Williams

AK writes,

If the big bang is true, which evidence suggests it is, this only tells us that our universe had a beginning. But that doesn’t mean that something didn’t exist before our universe began.

Yes, quite true. That is one thing I had in mind when I wrote comment 1 above. jdk

If the big bang is true, which evidence suggests it is, this only tells us that our universe had a beginning. But that doesn't mean that something didn't exist before our universe began. There is the big bang/big crunch theory in which the universe ocillates back and forth. I think that our psyche would like this to be true as it implies a level of permanence, even though our bodies couldn't survive the transitions. Allan Keith

If it never had a beginning then it's a dead cert we'll never know how it all began. Seversky

I agree with the title, without the question mark. We can't gather evidence, so no matter what speculative hypotheses we develop, and even no matter how consistent they might seem with what we see in the universe, such hypotheses are untestable. We have to be content with not knowing. jdk