It looks as though you're trying to keep religion out of this thread Jackhammer, and I respect that, however I feel obligated to respond to crukster at least once.
I believe Carl Sagan has put it most eloquently:
"If the general picture, however, of a big bang followed by an expanding universe is correct, what happened before that? Was the universe devoid of all matter and then the matter somehow, suddenly created? How did that happen? In many cultures the customary answer is that a god or gods created the universe out of nothing. But if we wish to pursue this question courageously, we must of course ask the next question: where did god come from? If we decide that this is an unanswerable question, why not save a step and conclude that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question? Or if we say that god always existed, why not save a step and conclude that the universe always existed?"
source:
YouTube - ‪Then where did God come from? (Carl Sagan)‬‏
