What's your narrative about how the existence of the universe came about? How can something just randomly appear out of nowhere? I guess the universe has to have already existed forever

Time just exists within our universe, so there is no "before the universe existed" or anything like that.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to say, "I don't know." Ascribing supernatural significance or explanations to what was likely a natural phenomenon isn't helpful.

What you are asking for is a "first cause", or "a reason why everything exists, at all", rather than simply not existing. This question is often presented by religious people in order to make the cosmological argument, which would say: "the Universe couldn't come out of nowhere, there had to be an original cause for it to exist", which then they claim it is their god.

However, the problem is trying to adjudge the first cause to something that exists, has existed or used to exist other than the Universe itself simply pushes the question forwards, because for that very thing anyone else could ask: "And what created the first cause?", therefore "So the Universe exists because God created it. So what created God?". When it comes to religious explanations, this problem only grows, because you're pushing the first cause from something we know it exists (the Universe itself) to something we do not have proof of its existence, which ironically makes it even a weaker explanation.

In the end, there is probably a physical reason, but we just don't know about it.

My take on it is that there was simply too much nothing so it exploded.

Tbh, it really could just have randomly appeared out of nowhere. Could you accept that if it were proven?

I tend to take a route of absurdism through life, so I would frankly be delighted if that were the case.

The best answer is “We don’t know”.

The superior answer is “Through Jesus all things are possible, so write that down…”

Mine comes from my own terrible interpretation of wave existence/ string theory. I don't currently think things where this dramatic but it's still fun to consider.

There was a dimension, one far far smaller then our own. It is energy, hotter then any quazar. It's not at all stable.

The little universe became too small for the energy it contained and exploded. It ripped a hole into (one or many) neighboring dimensions. Like drops of blood in gigantic pools of water, the engery is dissipating into the void.

Now if you must belive in a "god". Think of how we are beings with millions of tiny lifeforms living on us. Not just our cells but an entire ecosystem of bacteria, virus, parasites, and other micro beasties we try not to think about. Those have life forms living on and in them. If this dimension of energy was like a living being like us, perhaps the proto life forms that built us where some of the things living on it. A tiny virus that was living on a cell of foot fungus living under "god's" toe nail before it exploded into our dimension and eventually became us.