So, why is there something rather than nothing? "God" is of course not an answer to the question, since asserting the existence of God only raises the same question (where did God come from?). As it turns out, the question produces a paradox, since any attempted explanation produces the same problem. As for me, I am content to say that there does not have to be a reason anything exists. I would assert that the universe exists, and that's all we can know. Any attempted explanation only raises the same questions again.
No one really knows the answer. Anyone who tries to answer it, will probably be doing a guess work.
We do however know, as you stated, that there is a universe.
Something exists.
The question goes much deeper, as we can't really define or agree what something is. So for the sake of the discussion, let's assume when we say something, we mean the physical existence.
By physical, i mean anything that is measurable including forces and energies.
The theory goes that our universe shouldn't have really exist. as there are matter and anti matter, the assumption is that they cancel each other, as the amount of the matter and antimatter is the same (based on the recent experiments we have done), we observe that there is nothing left. the amount is the same causing nothing to remain. yet the question still remains, what happened? how come there is a matter that managed to "escape" and survive?
is the process of creation was deliberate or not is not really relevant for this question unless you ask ask "why" in the aspect of purpose (which i assume you don't).
But the fact yet remains that some deviation caused some matter to survive. random or not, chance or not, the fact is it happened. so without a doubt something caused Something to remain and exist.
As you said, this question can be recursive, so lets leave it at what cause our known, observable universe to exist.
The first "pieces" of matter are assumed to have been created fractions of time after the big bang.
But something was there before. we describe it as a sort of Plasma state where light was trapped inside a very dense and hot state the it couldn't escape. it is nice to find a correlation to the description of light eruption described in Genesis to the scientific theory describing an instant when light was "released" from this Plasma state and suddenly the universe became visible.
But this raises several questions...
Was the universe real if there was nothing to observe it? as the answer might seem very clear, recent studies suggest that reality is nothing more than our perception of things. so maybe the universe exist because we exist?
But lets assume it is not so, and reality exists regardless of a receptive minds.
So we had a state of no matter, and than a state of matter... Something triggered this change.
going back to the question, what caused the energy that caused matter.
Which raises the question of what cause the energy that caused matter.
So the question remains open, but something without a doubt caused Something to happen.
