No there does NOT have to be a time that there was nothing. Everything we see has come from something before. Never has anything ever come from nothing. We have no reason not to think everything always was.
As one believer to another, I think you should leave this one alone because that just doesn't make any sense. The question of whence god was created, emanated whatever you want to call it remains a thorny issue you cannot just dismiss with sleight of hand thinking.
Hawking claims the universe spontaneously created itself from nothing and you were defending him earlier, so which is it?
Yet again you contradict yourself: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=3467379#post3467379
Well the fact that you can't wrap your head around the idea that everything always was, does not make it any less possible.
Please. I could put up a whole page of links like this where I exposed your colossal STUpidity. Not only are you a STUpid ignoranus, you're a hypocrite and a liar who can't ever admit when he's wrong. Grow the fuck up. For example, here you got the 96% / 4% split of dark matter & dark energy versus everything else BACKWARDS. Pretend all you want but you know less about science than many children do. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2952513#post2952513
When Hawking says "nothing" he is using the term figuratively. There is nothing in the big bang theory that says there was nothing beforehand. Hawking would say the same thing. The very nature of the big bang makes it impossible to do so. We can only "see" back to the singularity beyond which we haven't clue.