[Sethomas]

Time doesn't "operate" at all, it's simply a dimension. Before the Big Bang, time didn't pass because the dimension wasn't yet expanded. Even if the concept of time did exist while the universe was a Planck-sized nugget, you're forgetting the rules of General Relativity which dictate that the time around the pre-Bang universe would pass infinitely slowly. Hence cause and effect relationships could not possibly be established of their own accord. If you want to interject that this isn't so because gravatinos weren't formed until around t=10^-20, I should remind you that current theory presumes that quantum gravity existed before the time of the bang, whether you care to rationalize it via superstrings, supersymetry or whatever else. If you want to further argue that it's only assumption that quantum gravity would perhaps not have the same effects as that which we observe, I'd refer you to Julian Barbour's (sp?) work which suggests that time doesn't exist at the quantum level, making the point moot.

I think that it's a little cheap to automatically assume that just because we can't explain it at the moment with our current knowledge, that it should automatically be attributed to an "outside force/push."

I find it a little irrational to suggest that anything may happen without the elapsation of time.

It's the equivalent of cavemen attributing rainbows to the Sun God because they didn't understand how light refracts.

But we were there when God promised never to drown us all again, silly.