Where did matter/energy come from then? Unicorn farts? It was either created, or it has existed forever. Neither of which make much sense. Science can't explain what happened at singularity -1. Best they can do is get to a fraction of a fraction of a fraction after it occured.
You even use the term 'our local patch of spacetime'. Implying that there are other patches of spacetime out there. If thats the case, then time certainly DOES pass, just perhaps not in 'our local patch of spacetime'. How do we know our local patch of spacetime wasn't created by some super-being from another patch?
I'm not a member of a church. I haven't been to a church regularly in probably nearly 30 years. I guess that makes me a member of the 'religious right' in your mind? What science did you use to make that conclusion? I'm not sure being a douchebag is proper application of the scientific method.
I'd say I would lean 98.44% in your direction on things regarding how things can be explained. But I am also open minded enough to realize that science can't explain everything and that some of what scientists believe is ultimately based on faith. Some of the greatest scientists in the world were quite religious as well. I suspect you wouldn't call them 'ignorant'.
You're muddying the term Faith.
The way the religious practice faith is far different than everyday "faith."
You have faith the airplane pilot will ferry your ass somewhere and arrive without harm. Is this "faith"? I argue it's true faith, not the absurd levels of faith found in belief of divinity.
I personally would not object to a belief in God existing forever, but only in a personal god, nothing organized. Your personal beliefs, just grand, keep it going for however you want to approach the grind of life. Organized religion, filled with specifics and an oft-repeated history of conflict and violence, is just worthless to humanity at this point.
Scientific "faith" stops whenever a theory goes unsupported. Scientific truths and established theories can only exist when there exist repeated trials that result in conclusive evidence. This little tidbit escapes most people - theories are, for all intents and purposes, scientific fact.
Gravity is an oft-repeated example in this case. And for a reason: gravity, as we all know it, is easy to define, we have a mountain of knowledge on gravity. The scientific community, however, is still searching for the one piece of the puzzle that makes it all possible. The higgs-boson, by all accounts of scientists, is the particle that essentially equals mass, whereas other particles provide the means of the other 3 forces (electromagnetism, and the two "weak" forces). The final puzzle to bring everything together, and give a documented definition for mass and gravity, is something we have yet to discover - primarily because making it visible presumably takes a large amount of energy (from collision).
Is it "faith" that the scientific community presumes this particle exists, and base great knowledge around it? I argue no, as with better evidence, theories are adjusted or simply scrapped and replaced with more definable theories.