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Let me introduce a distinction. I've been speaking of the universe as 'all there is', purposefully to include other 'universes' there might be. But it seems like, from Martian's comments, it might be useful to use the word 'universe' to speak of this particular space-time that we're in. But I still want to be able to refer to 'all there is', so lets call that the 'world'.
It's true, as Martian argues, that other universes might have different physical laws that what our universe has. But he goes on to argue that they might have different logical laws as well, and that's just impossible. Let me look at two possibilities: either the laws of logic apply to all universes, or they do not. If they do, then QED. But if they don't, we can't possibly say anything useful about them. The laws of logic are a prerequisite for us being able to talk about anything at all. So if we're actually going to talk about these other universes, we have to assume that the laws of causality apply to them, or any assertion we might make about them will be meaningless.
None of the above should be taken to entail that the laws of causality entail a 'before' and 'after', simply because causality as such doesn't require it. But we can still speak of a logical ordering. We might say, for example, that before God created the world, he surveyed all the possible worlds, and picked this one. We don't mean that he did so before creating the world, because God is (probably) outside of time and because there's no 'before the world was created', as many have pointed out. If you like, you can say that this occurred 'simultaneously' with the creation of the world. But there's a logic to talking about things in this order, and because we are inside of time, it's natural for us to do it that way. So it's not the cause that asking what caused the world is the same as asking what came before the world.
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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."
"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
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