If "The State Formerly Known As Nothing" (TSFKAN) is really a boiling bubbling brew of virtual particles, popping in and out of existence in a time so short that we cannot detect them directly, does it still make sense to use the word "nothing" to describe it?

Hey, that sounds like a philosophical question to me.

It's also a common claim that space and time began did not exist before Big Bang. But if we ask ourselves the philosophical question "What is time, anyway?" I do think that adds something to the discussion.

If we have a state where absolutely nothing changes, it would be like time was frozen. So time and change seems to be linked. Where there is change from one state to another, there is a passage of time.

But in Big Bang there seems to be a change frome a state where Big Bang did not happen to a state where it did. How could there be a change from one state to another if there was no time?

It is one thing to claim that spacetime as we know it began to exist, but a different thing altogether to claim that there was no kind of time at all.

Philosophical reasoning, it seems to me, is in fact very much necessary in order to sort these issues out.

Strauss says things like "I have never been sympathetic to the notion that creation requires a creator." and "I find the possibility of living in a universe that was not created for my existence, in which my actions and thoughts need not bend to the whims of a creator, far more enriching and meaningful than the other alternative" but he doesn't seem to realize that thinking about such issues is philosophy.

So perhaps Strauss should take some time to think about how many important questions actually require some philosophical thinking. But of course, that would require some philosophical thinking.