The ONE question I have never been able to answer....can You help? (To Creationists and Evolutionist

Okay, this is literally one of the first 'philosophical' questions I remember asking myself, even as a very young child (probably around 5 or 6.)

'How did all of this begin?'

I do believe in God now (and did as a young child too, although I have never been 'religious.)
So let's assume that, as the spiritual teachings go, God is Infinite. God has no beginning and no End. Time is an illusion. Physical reality is an illusion. All that ever has and ever will be is happening right Now.
Okay, cool. I can dig that.

BUT WHAT STARTED IT??

I mean...how did 'God' come in to existence. And again, I know the rhetoric is 'God has no beginning and no End.' But seriously serious here, how is that possible? I don't believe our little human brains can grasp the idea.
But that has never stopped me from trying.

Okay, but then lets say 'God is not real. Only Science and Evolution are at play here.'
Okay, I could possibly get behind that too...but even still...WHAT STARTED IT??

I mean, the theory of Evolution is that everything evolves from something else. But what was THE FIRST 'thing?'

I even remember thinking as a little five year old..."Okay, so if EVERYTHING - me, my parents, my dog, this planet, the solar system, the universe - all 'evolved' from 'something else'...where did that 'something else' come from? Even if it was a tiny speck of dirt that somehow, over trillions upon trillions of years ended up evolving into All That Is...where did that one speck of dirt come from?"
What put Evolution into motion?
What created the first hydrogen particle? What created the first 'energy?' What created the first atom? What made everything start to vibrate?

I would love to hear some theories on this.
The only answer that seems to come to me is something that our little human brains can't even grasp...yet it still is telling me,
"This is all illusion. You do not exist. Physical realms do not exist. God is All That Is."

But then....where did that 'truth' come from and how and why?

reply to post by eleven44

The only answer that seems to come to me is something that our little human brains can't even grasp...

Correct. Father has always been there. His answer to me when I have asked, has been you will not understand while in the body.

The only answer to that question is: "We don't yet know". People make up stories about it, but until we KNOW, we cannot know.

reply to post by eleven44


In my view, it is a child's question that zillions of children ask. After living over thirty years, and reading as much as I can, my conclusion is that it remains a child's question. We just can't know the answer to the presumption that there was a beginning at all.

reply to post by trysts


I do agree, and understand that we can not understand.
At least not now. Not in this body.

But then...I guess I'm just really interested to hear what 'Evolutionists' and Atheist's say.
No science we yet understand could possibly answer that question.

May never know...

Thomas Hobbes
Leviathan

And whereas sense and memory are but knowledge of fact, which is a thing past and irrevocable. Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependance of one fact upon another: by which, out of that we can presently do, we know how to do something else when we will, or the like another time; because when we see how any thing comes about, upon what causes, and by what manner; when the like causes come into our power, we see how to make it produce the like effects.

oll.libertyfund.org...

Observation is knowing and we are unable to observe.

But yet they that have no science, are in better, and nobler condition, with their natural prudence; than men, that by mis-reasoning, or by trusting them that reason wrong, fall upon false and absurd general rules. For ignorance of causes, and of rules, does not set men so far out of their way, as relying on false rules, and taking for causes of what they aspire to, those that are not so, but rather causes of the contrary.

To conclude, the light of human minds is perspicuous words, but by exact definitions first snuffed, and purged from ambiguity; reason is the pace; increase of science, the way; and the benefit of mankind, the end. And, on the contrary, metaphors, and senseless and ambiguous words, are like ignes fatui; and reasoning upon them is wandering amongst innumerable absurdities; and their end, contention and sedition, or contempt.

Originally posted by eleven44
reply to post by trysts

 

I do agree, and understand that we can not understand.
At least not now. Not in this body.

But then...I guess I'm just really interested to hear what 'Evolutionists' and Atheist's say.
No science we yet understand could possibly answer that question.

That's understandable, and I do believe both that Evolution is an excellent theory to build upon for the origins of physical changes in organisms through circumstance, and I'm also godless. But, it sounds like you would like theories of a 'beginning' from those who adhere to the theory of Evolution, and who are atheists. I'm pretty useless there. Sorry

reply to post by eleven44


Good.

You are asking a question that you basically know the answer to. Or, at least, you know about as close as an answer as you're going to get.

It's a matter of accepting that answer.

You must understand that this universe is a subset of reality - reality is not a part of this universe - this universe is a part of reality.

Reality is existence.

There is only One who exists. That is God. All other things exist because of God.

God is the infinite dimension within which this universe is created. Remember, Jesus Christ said that the Father is in Him and He is in us, and yet also that we are in Him, the Father.

If we are in Him, and the universe is a part of creation and not the Father Himself, therefore, the universe is within the Father.

For this universe to reside within the Father and to be above it and around it and outside of it, knowing all the qualities of this universe, we have but one conclusion:

This universe is a subset of the Father. It is focused thought, if you will. God is so great and powerful... it is nothing for Him to have created all things with an instant thought if He wanted.

But as we read, we understand that God manifested Himself into spiritual and physical forms so as to interact within the universe which He created. He performed many of His acts of creation by interacting with the universe in whatever form He chose.

He has chosen the Spirit of God form, the Word, which part of God became Christ Jesus in the flesh, marrying us little humans, us pieces of clay, into His family - and then He died in the flesh, only to be resurrected in the flesh, killing the bonds of death, the opposite of creation, on the human flesh. Then He changed, transformed, into a Living Spirit Himself - the form which He will grant all of us at our resurrection of the living (or, that form which He will not grant to those at the resurrection of the dead).

It is simple.

If you fancy yourself a mathematician, it can be said like this:

God = Infinite Consciousness = Infinite space + eternal time + Everlasting life
This universe = finite consciousness = finite space + temporal limitation + temporary life
(One must realize that without an observer, all of this universe would not exist. The observer helps to define the observed. This is apparent in that if there were no intelligent life forms to observe this universe, the discernment of it would be pointless and impossible. Let me say this more simply and clearly then: this universe could not have been observed had God not observed the creation of it because the observation of it is what led to its become a part of reality. God MUST pre-exist the universe in order for it to exist. It is impossible any other way.)

So because this universe is finite in every way (although it would appear that this universe is infinite, it is not yet - however infinity can and will pervade this universe soon, when it is time - so the only thing that is not finite about this universe is its POTENTIAL - but all physically measurable things regarding this universe all, regardless of how large the numbers might become, are still finite) - then this universe is only a subset, or a thought, of God, if you will.

But God's thoughts are much more interesting than ours. Being as great as He is, His thoughts present to us as reality - because He IS reality.

His thoughts are so great that He has created us with the ability to move around freely in His thought, if you will.

But also not so in a way. Because we must understand, like it is written in Job, that if God were to take back His breath that all flesh would immediately fall without life. So therefore we have the ability to move around freely, but rather we are only able to move because of Him.

He is in control of all things. The sooner we realize this, the better. When people start to think that they are living in their own reality or that they are in control of themselves, they have become, if you will, rogue images, rouge thoughts within Him. These will be destroyed.

You see, He made this universe real. He made this universe to exist because it is a part of Existence Himself. He manifested it all.

It is also written that He put eternity into our hearts.

Eternity is what you are experiencing now. Everlasting life is what you experience He has pervaded this universe with His Being, which He has to a small degree, but He has not yet completed it. It will only be made full when He casts out evil which speaks against Him and His glory.

So, when you try to imagine infinity, do not try to imagine nothingness as many suppose and attempt. That is not true. Pay attention to what you are seeing and hearing. Become aware of your present state; for this is eternity.

But we only perceive it for we ourselves are yet mortal until He changes us.

There will be no memory of the former time

Originally posted by jhill76
reply to post by eleven44

 

The only answer that seems to come to me is something that our little human brains can't even grasp...

Correct. Father has always been there. His answer to me when I have asked, has been you will not understand while in the body.

When He tells you this, He is not telling you that the answer cannot be revealed to you.

He is telling you that you must listen to Him in the Spirit - not in the flesh.

The way I look at it is that the universe is the creator and god, it doesn't need a beginning or end. It always has been and always will be. Our big bang wasn't the first and won't be the last. Time is infinite just as math is infinite.

Don't kill off your body just yet. You might need it.

There are many more plausible theories than the God theory. One only needs to consult the oracle Google to learn about them. But you're right to ask these kind of questions.

Oh yeah Op, I think once a seeker, always a seeker.

Knowledge of the mind is key here, I think. Lol

God is one and the all.

God is the eternal thinker whereas never with a beginning or end as we measure " time" on Earth. It's a materiel thing.

Stay with me....

God being the eternal thinker has his true nature in the power of thought.

Thoughts become manifested, hence the word/ creation.

God is the projection ( thought) and manifestation ( word) of the eternal thinker. :-)

He is without form as all things are the form.

He is without proportions and dimensions of which all proportions and dimensions reside within its own nature( eternal thinker and power of thought).

He is the master mathematician, the master scientist and creates through the power of will.

Our goal is to think with him and not of him.

Our story has been created in thought before we became manifested from the word, meaning WE were around before the creation of man/ spirit.

Within your mind..... Is your soul.

Your subconscious holds each rebirth you have ever had within time.

reply to post by TarzanBeta

When He tells you this, He is not telling you that the answer cannot be revealed to you. He is telling you that you must listen to Him in the Spirit - not in the flesh.

I know of this more than you can fathom. But, I needed to articulate my point to the OP in a way that is easily understood. You must not follow my posts here on these forums.

reply to post by eleven44


What it comes down to is a matter of default. My opinion is this: If a cloth is said to be Not dry, then by default it must be in some state of wetness. If a baseball is said to be Not stationary, then by default it must be in some form of motion.

Now, if it can be said that there is no such thing as a state of absolute nothingness, then by default there must be something. Seeing that space would collapse if there was absolutely nothing in it, that something has to be energy. It could be pressure, like when you blow up a balloon. That pressure inside the balloon is energy.

How that energy transformed into everything we see today, I have NO idea. I can only assume that energy is always moving, so maybe it took trillions of years to clump together, causing differences in temperature that started to swirl into the first black hole. The black hole started sucking in more and more energy until it finally exploded into the Big Bang. I dunno. Just a way-out-there guess.

Originally posted by eleven44
I mean...how did 'God' come in to existence. And again, I know the rhetoric is 'God has no beginning and no End.' But seriously serious here, how is that possible? I don't believe our little human brains can grasp the idea.
But that has never stopped me from trying.

I don't think that one need understand it -- if you believe that God is eternal and external to the universe, that's about all you need. "No beginning and no end" isn't rhetoric, it's a description of what "eternal" means. It's difficult, if not impossible to sort out what "eternal and external" means, in practical terms, but that's because they are, by definition, not material concepts, so our understanding of reality doesn't accommodate them.

Okay, but then lets say 'God is not real. Only Science and Evolution are at play here.'
Okay, I could possibly get behind that too...but even still...WHAT STARTED IT??

Well, that's an even trickier proposition, because it demands an answer that does not include "eternal and external", and there is no material process that gets the universe to the state that it was in prior to the Big Bang. We know from recent cosmological observations that the universe is not cyclical, so it didn't get into that state by an infinite regress of expanding and collapsing universes. We know that, in terms of methodological naturalism (the scientific view) there is no explanation, whatsoever, of "something from nothing", so we're left with the statement that we don't know how the universe got into the state that it was in prior to the Big Bang, and we cannot know, because our method of observation, methodological naturalism, say that it cannot have happened.

(Lawrence Krauss recently wrote a book called "A Universe From Nothing", which proposed an answer to how something could have come from nothing, a book Richard Dawkins foolishly stated was "on a par with Darwin in importance", but once other physicists started digging in, it was obvious that Krauss had demonstrated "something from something", and done a pretty poor job of that, and he's now admitted that his book title was not accurate and had been used to "generate interest in the book.")

The only theory that I've come up with is that the universe was in a pre-Big Bang state that consisted of nothing, including the laws of physics and all the energy, and then something happened which created something, including the laws of physics. By being in a state that did not include the fundamental laws of reality, something could have happened to kick it off, but what that something was, how it worked, and why we have the universe that we do, that's something that's impossible to know, and pointless to speculate about.

I think you need to understand the consequences of infinity. You know the adage about monkeys and typewriters?
Give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters and eventually they will reproduce the works of Shakespeare word for word.

Seems impossible, but it's not, just highly unlikely. But on an infinite timeline, it WILL happen.

Same with the universe. It may have taken an infinite amount of time before the Big Bang, or Creation, whatever you want to call it. But after all that time, we got Shakespeare.

Of course the problem with the monkeys is that immediately after they write Macbeth they're just as likely to slip back into gibberish.

Originally posted by ZeroReady
I think you need to understand the consequences of infinity. You know the adage about monkeys and typewriters?
Give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters and eventually they will reproduce the works of Shakespeare word for word.

Seems impossible, but it's not, just highly unlikely. But on an infinite timeline, it WILL happen.

Same with the universe. It may have taken an infinite amount of time before the Big Bang, or Creation, whatever you want to call it. But after all that time, we got Shakespeare.

Of course the problem with the monkeys is that immediately after they write Macbeth they're just as likely to slip back into gibberish.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I starred your post while I was lol!!

That was a pretty good and very funny analogy and even holds truth!!!

Love it, and thanks!

Originally posted by ZeroReady
Same with the universe. It may have taken an infinite amount of time before the Big Bang, or Creation, whatever you want to call it.

No, I think that you're demonstrably wrong there. Yes, significant lengths of time are necessary for processes like evolution, but even infinity doesn't explain how something can come from nothing. If there is, truly, nothing, then there is no process which can turn that nothing into something, because there are no laws, no processes, and nothing for them to operate on, even if there were laws and processes. To presuppose laws, processes or something for them to operate on is to change the premise from "something from nothing" into "something from something", and all that's been done is to move the goalposts of an answer.

I don't have a problem with infinity. I have a problem with beginnings and endings. I can't imagine a universe in which I didn't exist. Even before my birth, I was. Even after death I will still be. My God, I'm God!

reply to post by eleven44


We've all heard the tale about flatland. Where a 3 dimensional being just appears out of nowhere in front of a flat lander.

How can the flat lander prove what he saw, without using the words left, right, front, back? How could anything just appear out of no where without first coming from the left, right, front or back? In flat land, left, right, front, back are only concepts, but it's a concept which has formed their reality as they understand it. The truth, however is much bigger than their understanding. In their world, the reality of UP and DOWN can never be explained. Because FIRST, there must be a left, right...front back. The same goes for time. We create the concept of time. In reality, there is only NOW. Past and future, beginning and ending, are all concepts that we define as our reality. Yet, no one has ever lived in the past or the future. They may live there in their minds, but it is never an existential reality. NOW can never be explained because in our 3d society, there must first be a beginning and an end.

It's impossible to explain "no beginning" and "no end" using a language built on the concept of time and space. Similar to the fact that UP and DOWN can not be explained in flatland using a language built on the concept of left, right, front, back. As such, any philosophy, or explainations grounded on the concepts of "time" and "space" are all equally inferior to the ultimate truth. More damaging to your quest to know the truth than helpful.