what is the first thing that exist ? (believing, belief, eternal)

[ancient warrior]

Originally Posted by sanspeur

So who, or what created god?

RESPONSE:

Whatever is eternal (always existed) was not created (by definiton).

Some refer to this as the "uncaused cause" of that which exists.

[ancient warrior]

Rifleman posted:

Like I said....
Quote:
Originally Posted by ancient warrior
RESPONSE:

If matter and energy are eternal, God didn't "create" them.

If matter and energy are not eternal, then God (or some other force) created them.

Or, they simply "fell into place", like a crystal that grows in a solution. Your #2 option above assumes the necessity of some higher power. I don't see that as being an absolute, but I'll assume you require such a supreme being. It's a convenient necessity, leading to such demands from Christians as "Well then, how DID we get here, smarty-pants? There HAD TO BE some force!"

Nope. Why? "had to be"?? WHY?

RESPONSE:

Because if nothing ever existed, there would continue to be nothing.

Question: If something was eternally in existence, what would limit it (without existing before it)?

[Rafius]

Originally Posted by squall-lionheart

Do you mean that you believe or know ?
Since you said that there is a huge difference between believing and knowing .

I know that the Earth orbits the Sun. It is my belief that gods do not exist. Do you see the difference?

[Dusty Rhodes]

[b]what is the first thing that exist ?[b]

Space

[squall-lionheart]

Originally Posted by Rafius

I know that the Earth orbits the Sun. It is my belief that gods do not exist. Do you see the difference?

Yes i can see it clearly .
Ok .. What about lets say human soul ... is it for reall ?
Do you know of it or belief in it ?
have any one seen it .. or even know what its made of ?
where it was befor birth & where it will be after death ?
"Thank you"

[Nozzferrahhtoo]

Originally Posted by squall-lionheart

If you are an atheist then what is the first thing that exist .. ever ?

The question is mostly non-sensical unless you make it more specific.

Words like "first" are temporal based words. That means they are based on the concept of "time". Without time, such words are meaningless.

Given however that time is an attribute of the universe following the big bang, the "first" thing that ever existed IS the big bang, and all the matter and energy involved in it, because that is when time became an attribute of the universe and hence that is where the word "first" can be applied.

The singularity that expanded however we have no reason to think had time as an attribute, so all the idea such as "first" and "cause" and so on do not apply... which of course being temporal beings ourselves, locked into the concept of time, is massively difficult for us to conceive mentally.

[Sizzly Friddle]

Originally Posted by squall-lionheart

Yes i can see it clearly .
Ok .. What about lets say human soul ... is it for reall ?
Do you know of it or belief in it ?
have any one seen it .. or even know what its made of ?
where it was befor birth & where it will be after death ?
"Thank you"

I think you are trying very hard to be polite.
Part of the problem here is that you don't seem to understand what an atheist is.
An atheist has no belief in god or gods.
I can't speak for all atheists, but most do not believe in anything supernatural. So, most do not believe in the existence of a soul.
Many atheists used to be religious, so they know quite a lot about the concepts.

Have you ever seen a soul, and do you know what it is made of?

[Old Gringo]

energy

[rifleman]

Originally Posted by SeekerSA

He's probably following a script and now the response is too complex to disseminate and has run out of options of what to post next.

Ahwww.... be nice now, Seeker . (Tho' it's not hard to imagine a room full of Islamic Customer Service Advocates all banging away on their old PCs, in this case writing threads on forums such as this... )

Originally Posted by ancient warrior

Rifleman posted:

Like I said....
Quote:
Originally Posted by ancient warrior
RESPONSE:

If matter and energy are eternal, God didn't "create" them.

If matter and energy are not eternal, then God (or some other force) created them.

Or, they simply "fell into place", like a crystal that grows in a solution. Your #2 option above assumes the necessity of some higher power. I don't see that as being an absolute, but I'll assume you require such a supreme being. It's a convenient necessity, leading to such demands from Christians as "Well then, how DID we get here, smarty-pants? There HAD TO BE some force!"

Nope. Why? "had to be"?? WHY?

RESPONSE:

Because if nothing ever existed, there would continue to be nothing.

Question: If something was eternally in existence, what would limit it (without existing before it)?

The limitations in your thinking are obvious, aw. I didn't say that "nothing" existed before. Just not "something" in the form or substance you require there to be, as in: some lonely godly entity floating around in a sea of "nothing", and then pulling "it" all together, again, out of nothing or out of energy. But... why do we need that Holy Organizer, necessarily? Because you want there to be something that will take care of you, especially in a promised afterlife? Well OK then; Gottcha!

The problem, as noted by Nozz below, are that you are hampering yourself with the obvious limits of the human mind. My cat simply CANNOT UNDERSTAND how my laser-run DVD player works, no matter how often I try to explain it to her. Ditto for us currently understanding all the ramifications and complexities of the greater cosmos, the universe, even the parts physically visible to us (tho' our ability to see into it is highly limited right now. Even the Hubble telescope, which has provided astounding clarity, is but a tiny contribution.)

Originally Posted by Nozzferrahhtoo

The question is mostly non-sensical unless you make it more specific.

Words like "first" are temporal based words. That means they are based on the concept of "time". Without time, such words are meaningless.

Given however that time is an attribute of the universe following the big bang, the "first" thing that ever existed IS the big bang, and all the matter and energy involved in it, because that is when time became an attribute of the universe and hence that is where the word "first" can be applied.

The singularity that expanded however we have no reason to think had time as an attribute, so all the idea such as "first" and "cause" and so on do not apply... which of course being temporal beings ourselves, locked into the concept of time, is massively difficult for us to conceive mentally.

Exactly so, Nozz. Well stated! So, you, ancient warrior, are inappropriately applying common peasant-level thinking to our situation, assuming there must have been "something" as you define it, or as your Muslim theorems require, prior to the world as we know it. Remember; we're only at the start of a long path of study, understanding and relevance.

Even by the Creationist concept, we've only been here for about 6000 years, or 2500 if the Noah's Ark silliness were a fact. Hardly much time to gt it all figured out, right? and of that, only about 300 or so years have allowed for scientific research without the scientists being disparaged and or outright killed by the church. Even today, the schoolboards in Kansas and Ohio and Texas want to introduce, by force, fairy-tales as facts into the science class room. Why? Fear is why.

Science has not had much real time to figure all this out, but why not try being patient, unless you are also afraid of the truth.

By contrast to religious findings and pronouncements, the relentless scientific method has, in fact and deed, uncovered an immense amount of new knowledge, to the dismay of the religious fundamentalists. and that rate of knowledge is growing exponentially, which must be truly frightening to the church! Remember that religion wants to maintain our knowledge at some old historic point from the medieval past. No new thinking or conclusions allowed. Do you not see how that stymies (represses and denounces) new and very interesting & useful facts?

Would you rather that we wallow, like pigs, in the mud of inaccurate and story-tale beliefs?

Specifically, WHAT IF the information we've found out is, in truth, factual, that Mohammed's interpretation many thousands of years ago is just that; a mis-guided story?

So, again, why do we have to have some prior existence condition in a format that you understand? What if, like my cat, you simply cannot understand some complex concept? I still have a DVD recorder, despite my cat's lack of understanding. Likewise, the universe may well exist in some format, some state of resonance or crystalline incompleteness, that we humans simply don't get. Yet. Maybe we never will, or it may take some more ongoing intellectual Evolution in order for us to have that epiphany (i.e.: an "AHA!" moment!)

Get it? We don't NEED to know everything right now. At least many of us don't. The devoutly religious do seem to have that desperate need, especially as it applies to the afterlife, of which they are mortally terrified. Me, not so much. That desperate need feeds the desire for Christianity, Islam, and all the other organized and intolerant religions ("Mine is the only correct religion, and I'll kill you if you don't join us!")

[Asheville Native]

There are many theories, yet out of all the theories, there is one that is absolute absurdity and should be ruled out by anyone with an IQ above room temperature. Be there nothing or something, clearly there was no god in white robes that was lonely sitting on his thrown.