Infact I lied about not knowing about not knowing if time had a beginning just to bait you into letting your defense down so I could get something constructive out of you.
I would think that there had to be time before the BIG bang.
I heard someone say time is infinite in both directions, past and future.
In reality this is false. The big bang was the origin of everything in this universe including time. Einstein showed us that "time" is actually a product of this universe. It's a part of the universe linked to space itself. Thus the term "space time" came into being. Time isn't some abstract measurment but is an actuall thing that is part of our universe as einstein showed in his theory of relativity.
Time can be distorted and contorted and dialated by bending space-time itself. This can be done by extreme amounts of speed or gravity. When space-time is bent it dialates time's flow. For instance when someone is traveling at high speeds time from their relative point of view flows slower than that of an outside observer who is stationary.
Numerous studies support this. Studies done on high energy particles with a steady decay rate can be shown to decay slower when their speed is increased than particles that are going slower. Stop watches that are identical in time, One can be left on earth and another in a jet for hours and then when compaired the one on the jet would be a few micro seconds behind the one on earth. This shows time can itself be dialated. It isn't some straight abstract line as newton thought(as you think).
Prior to the big bang "time" can't even be defined. It doesn't make sense to postulate about time existing prior to our universe when the only time as we humans know is the time that we experience within our universe which abides by the laws of our universe. We can't say anything yet about the possibility of any sorts of "time" existing outside of this universe. Not that "outside of this universe" makes anymore sense than "before the universe" in astro-physics.
That's kind of what i was eluding to earlier in the evolution post about the linier conecpt of time and the posibility of God's creations outside the traditional framework of time. If time wasn't real before the Big bang then some thing's creation might not be influfnced by time even through there was a sequence to it's development. And yah yah yah yah, no need to go into the whole facts, evidence blah blah blah. this is about time not evolution.
Time is far from linear. In reality it's anything but. Time can be twisted and contorted depending on the speed you're moving relative to outside observers. So time isn't some set linear thing. It's an attribute of our universe alot like gravity is. Gravity isn't the same for all things just like time isn't the same for all things. Gravity is stronger for object with more mass just as time moves slower relative to outside observers with higher speeds.