We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know
My strong opinions, weakly held:<p>* God is not a good hypothesis for any secondary cause. The creation of space-time as we currently understand it must have had a secondary cause. Let&#x27;s patiently keep looking for a scientific hypothesis (theoretical or empirical) that is an incremental improvement on what we already know.<p>* Religious people who conceive of God as the creator, believing that the word &#x27;creator&#x27; refers to the creation of the universe at some point in the past, are completely misunderstanding the use of the word and need to do some more homework.<p>* Non-Religious people should stop conflating &#x27;metaphysical&#x27; statements with religion. Can we agree that we need to make metaphysical statements from time to time if we are having a conversation to understand something &#x27;about physics&#x27;?