if you like to think of the BIG QUESTION and can imagine to remove one of the 3 similar space dimensions to put in TIME as a substitute, a picture should emerge that you can work with. SO:
1)working into the past from the big bang creation or random event, (like in "100 ABB" or "-100 BB"} , as an atheist, was there a start- up vaccuum oscillation, the casimir effect gone viral,or similar random event , or
2)as a non-atheist was there a Creator that had energy to spare to make matter? and if these scenerios are among the possibilties,
1a)did these vaccuum events happen in time? accelerations without time? or for the Deiists:
3)did the (eternal) God have "time on his hands"? 4) or did he exist without time? 5)if he existed in the eternal past, is he still there or 5a) has he left the past? 6) if he lives in the eternal future, is he already there?,or 6a) is he moving through time with us to get there? if that is so, 6b) does he exist in only half an eternity, the past' and is now off into the future? 6c) does it make sense to have half an eternity? so: 6d) is the future eternal time still empty? in other words: 7) does God move through time the way we do? if yes, 8) is he smaller than eternity in order to have room to move in eternal time? 8a) can he be eternal without filling eternal time? 8b) if only we (and creation) move through time and God does not, is'nt time static, unmoving? then: 9) what moves, we or time? 10) if times moves is there a steady supply of it coming out of the past or 10b) out of the future? or, 11) are we moving through the same static time that God is unmovably existng in? 12) If time is not moving and eternal, why could it not have been present before the universe started to accelerate out of the bb singularity? 13) did space and its material/enrgy content start making the move through eternal time at the bb? if not, 14) why are we always sense moving through time, even when not aware of moving with respect to space or at least some of its content? 15) if you could stick your arm out of our expanding universe into the unimaginable "void", would you feel or measure the expansion as movement in time? 16) is time to you a strechable* dimension, like a direction that you can put a strechable* ruler into, or an all pervasive, albeit fluid property of eternity? 17) do you picture time as the escalator your are standing on as you go down/up to the next floor, or 18) as the one way street that you are driven through to get to the future? Our movement through time is experienced only in the "now." 19) how long is the "now" in duration? 20) its that where you exist? 21) so, better keep moving! right? *all 4 dimensions or their material content undergo relativistic deformation in Einsteins' spacetime. In this model, spacetime, an therefore we, are present only in the present (time). Nothing really "exists" in the past or in the future except God.
what MODEL that deal with these reality** questions is in your Mind? **only reality that pertains to the observable 4 dimension universe.
What further non - smart-alecki, non - frivolis, not-off -topic questions of broad interest would you like see discussed in this context?