It is possible both are true to a slight degree, not so much a grand conspiracy but as a means for a few folks to prosper behind exaggerated claims swallowed by the gullible.

How did this leak out? Lies, all lies! Global Warming is real and true and happening and people are the cause of it.

It is true because I need that Global Warming Grant Money so I can study climate change from a necessity-based laboratory in the Bahamas.

Guess my senator didn't get the word to keep fanning the flames on global warming. Maybe a bigger donation will help, donation size contingent upon the size of the grant money...

Well put and well said. Excellent to point out Linux is a kernel.

As the speculation on Linux continues, "full of sound and fury signifying nothing", I'll keep plinking away using Fedora 10 not giving a whit about someone's delusions.

That's a false dichotomy. Matter could also have been preceded by something else, or exist in a loop

There is no evidence for this. Pre-matter? ??

some theoretical physicists are interested in the issue and who knows what they might come up with.

Yes, who knows what they'll come up with. Meanwhile, I'm not going to wait around putting my faith in their speculations.

what do we mean "has always existed?" I'll take it that you are meaning that your entity is older than the universe.

God transcends time. He has always existed. God's "age" as you put it is infinite. There was never a "time" God did not exist. There will never be a time God does not exist.

However, time started in the big bang, so in order for there to be a "before" we have to have a time frame outside of the universe, for which we have no evidence.

Time as we know it may have started at the big bang. However, regardless of when, we know now that matter is here. It came from somewhere. What time frame it came about is not the question. How it got here is the question. Not one person on this planet who has ever lived or is living knows the beginning of time. Matter either has always existed or it was created.

I see no reason to go along with the assumption that this other time frame exists (indeed if we accept one unevidenced time frame, why not two, or a hundred, or infinitely many?).

And I see no reason not to. I know matter exists. I don't know when time began or of other time periods outside the universe. I can only speculate like everyone else about that. I see matter. It is here. I can only ask where it came from, not when because I cannot go back in time or trace atoms to an origin.

We must assume that this entity has always existed in (at least) this second time frame rather than biting the dust in it right after starting our universal space-time, which I also see no reason to agree to.

Again, God transcends all time frames. God does not "bite the dust." God does not die. You assume God has not always existed or does not exist, I assume he does. The statement cannot be proven or disproven so it has to be taken on faith in our judgment based on our interpretation of the data: matter exists.

You posit it as a single entity--again with no reason to do so. The rest of your post is only apologetics that not only requires these assumptions, but introduces even more with just as little reason.

I assume, and am certain, God exists based on the premise that I know matter exists and matter had to come from somewhere, that it did not move itself some of it becoming living organisms that can see, hear, smell, speak, and reproduce. My whole belief stems from this certainty. The other alternative is God does not exist and matter moved itself and jumbled itself together by accident. That is not an acceptable or logical explanation.