Spooky and others -
  What you are proposing is an infinite regression.  Infinity works as a concept but you cannot have an infinite number of things, such as events, because if you did there would be a whole host of absurdities as a result (again this material is almost directly stolen from William Lane Craig). 
  Imagine for a moment that you have a hotel, with an infinite number of rooms, and the rooms are all full (this was put forward by David Hilbert, a German mathematician).  Now imagine a new guest shows up.  'But of course' says the proprietor, and he immediately shifts the person in room #1 into room #2, the person in room #2 into room #4, the person in room #3 into room #6, and so on, out to infinity.  As a result of these room changes, room #1 now becomes vacant and the new guest checks in.  But remember, before he arrived, all the rooms were full!  It gets even stranger as you continue this line of thinking out - including an infinite amount of people added to this hotel of infinite rooms.  An actual number of infinite things cannot exist because of the absurdity of their logical consequences.
  The problem with what you're suggesting is that a beginningless series of events in time entails an actually infinite number of things.   We can logically say then, that a beginingless series of events in time does not exist, and like you pointed out, it is somewhat meaningless to try to string out an infinity of causal relationships before there was time - and it still has the problem of infinite regression not being possible because of the absurdities created.

Lets get back to what we do know.  We know the universe had a beginning, and with that space and time was created.  We know that something outside of space and time created this.  So whatever this thing was, it or they was/were very powerful - powerful enough to create space, time, matter, and energy.  If we take this along with the anthropic principle, we know this thing (God, group of Gods, whatever), chose to create rather than not create, was intelligent enough to create a universe with physical laws that permitted life (which is highly unlikely just based on chance), and was powerful enough to do all of this.  It sounds like an outrageously intelligent and powerful being or beings did this, since we have the universe rather than nothing at all, the universe has been fine tuned for the possibility of life, and the fact is that we live in a universe where things always have a cause.

If you are saying that this does not point to the Christian God necessarily, I would mostly agree with you.  It points to either polytheism or monotheism, not necessarily of Christian nature.  But if we take Ockham's razor, and say the simpler explanation is usually better, then monotheism would have a slight advantage here.  And lastly, taken with the revelation of Jesus in the bible (that I think is largely valid but others may disagree with me on my last point), it seems to be more reasonable to believe in a sort of Christian God (more or less) than to be a materialist.  I guess at this point you could argue for another religion other than Christianity, but my message has been more like it's more reasonable to believe in poly / mono theism rather than a beginningless or totally naturalistic cosmos.

I have read also that there were a number of things the Buddha either refused to give a view on, or was basically agnostic about, including how the universe began. According to a "Buddhist Glossary"site I just found "Whoever speculates about these things would go mad and experience vexation" so don't bother if you don't want to be "vexed"  

I find it refreshing that a great spiritual leader could admit to not knowing everything. But also, I agree that my understanding is he basically said much speculation on such things wasn;t helpful to the goal of working on yourself to be a better and freer person. Which also sounds sound advice. I like the fact BUddhism advocates spiritual effort to be a better person rather than emphasizing doctrines and rituals

What caused the original Big Bang or (what preceded the Big Bang) to be?  It is counter-intuitive to believe that the originating energy of the universe is simply an "unintelligible brute fact."  Of course, when God or an intelligent Designer is plugged in to fill this void, the skeptic immediately applies the why question to God, and discussion grinds to a halt.  Clearly, there is only one way out.  Something must have in its own nature the answer to the question, "Why is there something rather than nothing at all?" Put differently,  something must have in its own nature the reason for its existence.  By default, only God seems to qualify for such a lofty requirement.  Still, even this answer seems unsatisfactory when we pose the question, "Whether the First Cause is God or the universe, how can it ever seem more logically inevitable that either God or the universe just is or has Being?  Something is wrong with this form of conceptualizing.  God can neither be consider a Being among other beings or even as that which exists.  In my view, the solution to the problem lies in this insight: God does not exist; rather God is the ground of all existence.  "Ground" here means that God is the why for every existent thing, but is not "Himself" any thing.  This way of talking expresses the standard approach to Theology, but is still far too murky to constitute anything like self-evident Truth.  Still, it is interesting to observe that the original meaning of the Hebrew term "Yahweh" (God) is "the One who causes to be."

I guess these comments muddy the metaphysical waters even more!

Don (or am I just a thought in the mind of "God" with no reality of my own?  Duh!)