Originally Posted By: Bill S.
I am trying to ignore any previous knowledge/ideas I might have had about cosmology, and form an opinion based only on the arguments put forward in this specific exchange. So far, I am still on the fence. Don’t stop now!
Ignore what you already know? Some would indeed be gratified. To "form an opinion based only on the arguments put forward in this specific exchange" would be, to put it mildly, unreasonable. So unreasonable, in fact, that I'm sure that's not what you meant. There's a whole universe of research results out there.

"Time is what prevents everything from happening at once" - John Wheeler