The question of what was there before the universe is not a helpful one. The lack of an answer is more likely to be due current lack of understanding of what started it.
The numbers have a pattern because numbers are like that. Patterns of seeds in a sunflower head etc being Fibonacci numbers are purely because of the way that it grows. It is the same with fractals in leaf shapes etc. The numbers just describe the growing process and should treated as having special significance. I see no need for an intelligent hand in any of the universe.
You would also have to wonder at the purpose of 'God' creating the universe. Was he bored with all his toys? Why does he let awful things happen to people and children in particular? This all powerful, all knowing 'God' would be fully aware of the terrible consequences of giving people free will. That being the case, 'God' would be complicit in outcomes. The response I have had to that from religious people is the phrase "It is not for the pot to question the potter"; very convenient.
The standard answer in the Catholic catechism is as follows
1. Who made you?
God made me.
2. Why did God make you?
God made me to know him, love him and serve him in this world, and to be happy with him for ever in the next.
3. To whose image and likeness did God make you?
God made me to his own image and likeness.
If you want to read the rest (it only gets worse)
http://www.proecclesia.com/penny%20catechism/index.htm
I think it was a natural thing for early man to invent a being who was looking after him. When good things happened then he must have pleased this being and when bad things happened then he must have displeased the being and had been 'bad'. Of course it was difficult to know what was good or bad in relation to the being. This must have led to choosing people who's job it was to divine these things. In time 'priests' appeared. Of course, these priests had to justify their existence. Now we have a feedback system with the priests dreaming up more and more rituals and rules and reacting to crop failures, weather, disasters, and disease with more rules.
We are now a short hop skip and a jump from the present day and all the harm that religion does.