You're unusually slow today? Outside the universe, it was something made up of cause without internal effect. It caused the universe, as an experiment, to see what effect was like.
Your logic is broken. Causality doesn't work like you're describing, it's a physical concept. You're generalizing the concept, and then not checking the generalization (because you can't). That's just not scientific, whatever you may think.
From what we know, there was just no time as a concept at the start of the universe, so there's no point in trying to talk about causality as we understand it.
Also, you talk about "outside the universe" but that's anti-scientific crap: the universe is the concept of everything from the scientific perspective, so if there was something "outside" the universe, it wouldn't be out but part of the universe.
Anyway, of course you won't understand anything of what I'm saying. It's in your religious interest to reach your preconceived "truth", your archaic belief about a zombie jesus etc.
https://i.imgur.com/xeqSGHc.jpgSince nobody can think about everything, either in pieces or as a whole, how in the world will anyone ever be able to think about something that is outside of the universe? Or how would anyone KNOW that there isn't something outside the universe?
Since everything has a cause, and even the idea that something might not have a cause has a cause, what is the cause of the universe? Even Hawking, in some of his final writings, says that there was a cause that caused the universe.
Before the universe existed, something was there that gave the universe its existence. We can say "before," because "after" the creation there was time. So, we can say before, because time exists now, after, and we are within that time, saying "before."
Playing with the Jesus-idea is not relevant to the idea of atheism. "Jesus" is an idea that comes after there is understanding of the existence of God. You might as well say Pete, or Sam, or Joe if you don't understand that God exists. So, why bring Jesus into it?... except that you naturally know that God exists?
In the universe, complexity is not known to come from something simple, except that something way more complex "programmed" the simple to produce the complex. This means that whatever created the universe was way more complex than the universe. And since the mind of man is here, the Creator was mentally way more complex, as well.
Make it easy on yourself. Call it God, because "God" fits the definition of that greater complexity. Calling It God doesn't mean that you know everything about It.
As science expands, and as more and more people become scientists, these scientists are logically following the above pattern. They might not be using the word
God, but they are describing Something/Someone that fits the basic idea of the definition. It's only logical from the things that exist that God exists, by whatever name you want to call Him.
There isn't any pure random that we have found. Everything has a cause. Why doesn't God have a cause? Because God, being outside the universe as shown by the fact that He caused it, doesn't fit our ideas of cause or effect. God is different than universe things. If He has a cause within Himself, it is so different than our idea of cause, that we can't understand it, just like we can't understand outside-the-universe.
"Atheism" is the simplest, poorest, silliest religion around. Atheists don't want to acknowledge the fact of things staring them right in the face. "Don't want." An atheist is such because of his desires, not because of logic.
