You've got it backwards. "Existence exists" is metaphysical, at the axiomatic level. Then (in philosophical order) comes epistemology and further to the physical sciences.
Physics coveys to us the conservation laws of mass-energy. momentum, angular momentum, charge, lepton number, and so on. They are the conclusion to the primary of existence, not some primary that enforces existence to exist. The conservation laws don't prove existence, but, as they must be, they are non-contradictory with existence.

Transformation of mass to energy or energy to mass is hardly some special case of anything. Nuclei are constantly intra-trading minute amounts of mass-energy. Mass "transforming" into energy is merely a re-reference of equals, per E=mc³. It is no different from a kilogram of vegetables transforming into some equivalent number of pounds of vegetables. Or in the style of a current presidential campaign, "My genitals are not a mere 6 inches. My measurement is terrific. It's 152,400 microns, and that's an awesome number."

Something can't come from nothing.
And lo it came to pass that old dino volunteered to face a firing squad.
And I'll still freakin' say something can't freakin' come from nothing!

Get over yourself. What I cited is right out of Atlas Shrugged. I used AS as a shorthand like almost everyone else does in here. Naming Rand as the author of Atlas Shrugged is so obvious in this forum as to not need stating.

I despise secular progressives. I know enough about Lakoff to know that I reject him thoroughly. I certainly don't agree with the idea that there is a special class suited to rule.

The Socratic method is what I have always followed, long before I had ever heard of Rand.

Why does Tesla get a thumbs down? He invented or discovered Alternating Current ,wireless telegraphy ,
Remote control . World changing inventions.

Not only by the early Church (implying Christianity), but by all other religions since human beings began worshiping rocks and looking for answers to everything that they could not understand.

To be honest, I don't know enough about Plato. I agree the term is "PC", but it is probably the best shorthand for describing how I integrate my own experiences and those throughout history (including recent history in the Gulch and in science) into an understanding that is as consistent as I can make it.

Because in my experience, inanimate things do not create other things. The only life form we know of that is capable of developing complex tools is humanity. Yet there is much in this universe that is beyond our capacity to design, let alone create. This points to a superior, not necessarily infinite in any way, intelligence with powers beyond our own. I don't ascribe eternity or even morality, just creativity, as traits of such an intelligence.

"There is no place outside existence for anything to come from, let alone existence itself." This is the foundational premise around which atheism, as Rand defines it, is based. Epistemologically speaking, "How do you know that?"
The answer is that it is the best answer that you have at this time, but at this time, you cannot know whether "There is no place outside existence for anything to come from, let alone existence itself." with undeniable certainty. Thus I will classify this as a premise, NOT an axiom.

One of the more intense debates in physics currently is the possibility of multiple universes. If such a concept is considered, then the possibility of the existence as we know it could indeed come from a parallel universe. Such a concept has been formulated into a testable hypothesis.

http://www.sciencealert.com/the-paral...

I await the answers, and I think I will find them out during my lifetime.

However, the Objectivist philosophy forces (word chosen carefully) us to reject the possibility of multiple universes (or the possibility of Earth being a colony of an ancient, distant world) because it allows an arbitrary claim to enter an Objectivist's cognitive context. This automatic rejection of "arbitrary claims" is what I find most unscientific about Objectivism, and is my reason for not being a student of Objectivism. When there is data that is currently unexplained or data for which the underlying cause is unknown, a scientist will formulate and test a range of possible hypotheses, eliminating those that are inconsistent with the data as properly designed experiments are conducted.

Excuse me, but you are wrong on multiple points here. First of all, as BeenThere correctly points out, a change in form is not creation or destruction. Second of all, the conservation laws of mass, energy, and momentum (i.e. the physics as you call it) are the physical world basis for "Existence exists". The conservation laws are the primary data upon which the conclusion that "Existence exists" is drawn. No logical conclusion can be more fundamental than the underlying data that are its foundation.

The only thing that, at my level of (mis?)understanding things, I can honestly point out for you to reexamine is: why you seem to not accept the eternity existence but seem to accept the eternity of a preexisting creator.

You either misunderstood or intentionally misrepresented what I said regarding a "logical fallacy". This is the nth intentional misrepresentation I have seen you make, where n is now beyond count. While you often have much that is useful to add, your continual intentional misrepresentations of what others write is self-defeating.

I am willing to listen to a reasoned argument. The best that I have heard on this subject is "Nothing can be proven one way or the other, so why waste time on it?" This is a reasonable response.

Quite right. Thanks for adding to the discussion.

"Existence as such does not "come from" anywhere. Existence is everything that is, has been or will be. There is no place outside existence for anything to come from, let alone existence itself."

"The question of how the universe as it is now evolved is a scientific question,......."

Agree with both.