Does the Monotheistic God Exist?

Sonofason

MayCaesar said:

@Sonofason

I am sorry, but if this discussion is going to be on the level of "these are merely words", then I am completely disinterested in it. The most basic premise of any meaningful verbal communication between humans is that the humans have a shared understanding of words, and if that is not the case, then communication is pointless.
You defined "natural" a certain way, and I went by your definition. You did not like where that definition led, so you swapped it on the fly. I am happy to see someone repairing their argument - but not to see someone pretend as if the original argument was correct as well and I merely misunderstood it, which is demonstrably not the case.

As for your time question, I believe I have explained my argument quite well. Try to define the concept of time that can exists without a Universe to embed it in. In what sense can you say that something occurs before something else if there is nothing to occur and nowhere for it to occur? The proof you are seeking is in the very definition of "time".
If the theory is flawed, then you are welcome to point out the flaws that make it so. As far as I can tell, it derives strictly from the definition of "time", and the derivation is logically flawless.

I understand...You are a victim of censorship.  Above, when I said, "Agreed...nature is a word.  Human beings occur in nature, yet nothing human is considered natural",
I had actually said "nature is a s-t-u-p-i-d word".  I only provided the definitions as evidence of that fact.  If human's are not natural, if we do not exist in nature, what are we...unnatural, supernatural?  Well, to be more accurate, nature is not a s-t-u-p-i-d word, it is the definition of the word that is s-t-u-p-i-d.  Humanity and everything we do is completely natural for us to do.  We occur in nature, and that is completely natural.  And so you need not go by the definition I provided...that definition is not right.

"With the Lord, a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." 

Time certainly existed before the "Big Bang", but it is pointless for us to try to measure it.  You believe it yourself...you know that the universe is eternal, despite the fact that you can't talk about the moments before the great expansion.  What is a singularity anyway?  It is certainly something, but it is only one thing. It is infinitely smaller than our universe, yet it was sitting there alone in the vastness of nothing for an instant, a moment...a day...and maybe a thousand years,  You can't measure it, because you weren't there.  But God was there.

Sonofason

Barnardot said:

@Sonofason ;Nature and natural are merely words. 

So is God merely a word accept that there is such things as natural and nature.

Nature and natural are merely words, not because what they represent do not exist, but because what the words represent are constantly misrepresented by the flawed minds attempting to representing them.  For some, God is also just a word.  But for me God explains everything that you are incapable of explaining.  Do you accept that
or do you take exception to it?

MayCaesar

Sonofason said:

I understand...You are a victim of censorship.  Above, when I said, "Agreed...nature is a word.  Human beings occur in nature, yet nothing human is considered natural",

I had actually said "nature is a s-t-u-p-i-d word".  I only provided the definitions as evidence of that fact.  If human's are not natural, if we do not exist in nature, what are we...unnatural, supernatural?  Well, to be more accurate, nature is not a s-t-u-p-i-d word, it is the definition of the word that is s-t-u-p-i-d.  Humanity and everything we do is completely natural for us to do.  We occur in nature, and that is completely natural.  And so you need not go by the definition I provided...that definition is not right.

"With the Lord, a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." 

Time certainly existed before the "Big Bang", but it is pointless for us to try to measure it.  You believe it yourself...you know that the universe is eternal, despite the fact that you can't talk about the moments before the great expansion.  What is a singularity anyway?  It is certainly something, but it is only one thing. It is infinitely smaller than our universe, yet it was sitting there alone in the vastness of nothing for an instant, a moment...a day...and maybe a thousand years,  You can't measure it, because you weren't there.  But God was there.

Okay, fair enough: let us not use this word. Let us instead talk about the god being a part of the Universe or not being a part of it. On one hand, allegedly god created the Universe, which implies that, at least, before the creation it was not a part of the Universe. Has it become a part of the Universe upon its creation? And if not, then in what sense can a resident of this Universe talk about god's existence?

Once again, the Big Bang theory does not state that "time existed before the Big Bang". One of the essential features of General Relativity theory which the Big Bang theory makes use of is intrinsic connectivity of time to space: if there is no space, there is no time. In the absence of the Universe, "space" does not exist, therefore "time" cannot exist either. Therefore, the phrase "before the Big Bang" does not make a physical sense.
The sense in which I can say that the Universe is eternal is the assumption I make that the world has certain laws/patterns that every entity in it obeys (if that is not the case, then the whole scientific endeavor is a fool's errand). Those laws/patterns go beyond the current Universe and are responsible for its existence - but they are not something we can infer while being inside the Universe, much like one cannot know what it "feels" like to be dead when they are alive. These are completely different types of entities that exist only as abstractions and not physical objects in the physical world.
As for singularity, it certainly is not something that was "sitting there alone in the vastness of nothing for an instant". Singularity is what we get when we extrapolate the Universe's evolution into the past and take the limit timewise as far as we can. It is, again, an abstraction, much like the limit of the series 1/1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, ... is an abstraction (you will never get to 0, yet the limit is 0; think of 0 as the "singularity" of this series).

To your last claim, you are welcome to define god as some abstract entity residing in singularity. This simply is not an entity that makes any physical sense. It is like a non-existing unicorn: a cool abstraction, but something that cannot exist by its very definition.

Sonofason

MayCaesar said:

Sonofason said:

I understand...You are a victim of censorship.  Above, when I said, "Agreed...nature is a word.  Human beings occur in nature, yet nothing human is considered natural",

I had actually said "nature is a s-t-u-p-i-d word".  I only provided the definitions as evidence of that fact.  If human's are not natural, if we do not exist in nature, what are we...unnatural, supernatural?  Well, to be more accurate, nature is not a s-t-u-p-i-d word, it is the definition of the word that is s-t-u-p-i-d.  Humanity and everything we do is completely natural for us to do.  We occur in nature, and that is completely natural.  And so you need not go by the definition I provided...that definition is not right.

"With the Lord, a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." 

Time certainly existed before the "Big Bang", but it is pointless for us to try to measure it.  You believe it yourself...you know that the universe is eternal, despite the fact that you can't talk about the moments before the great expansion.  What is a singularity anyway?  It is certainly something, but it is only one thing. It is infinitely smaller than our universe, yet it was sitting there alone in the vastness of nothing for an instant, a moment...a day...and maybe a thousand years,  You can't measure it, because you weren't there.  But God was there.

Okay, fair enough: let us not use this word. Let us instead talk about the god being a part of the Universe or not being a part of it. On one hand, allegedly god created the Universe, which implies that, at least, before the creation it was not a part of the Universe. Has it become a part of the Universe upon its creation? And if not, then in what sense can a resident of this Universe talk about god's existence?

Once again, the Big Bang theory does not state that "time existed before the Big Bang". One of the essential features of General Relativity theory which the Big Bang theory makes use of is intrinsic connectivity of time to space: if there is no space, there is no time. In the absence of the Universe, "space" does not exist, therefore "time" cannot exist either. Therefore, the phrase "before the Big Bang" does not make a physical sense.
The sense in which I can say that the Universe is eternal is the assumption I make that the world has certain laws/patterns that every entity in it obeys (if that is not the case, then the whole scientific endeavor is a fool's errand). Those laws/patterns go beyond the current Universe and are responsible for its existence - but they are not something we can infer while being inside the Universe, much like one cannot know what it "feels" like to be dead when they are alive. These are completely different types of entities that exist only as abstractions and not physical objects in the physical world.
As for singularity, it certainly is not something that was "sitting there alone in the vastness of nothing for an instant". Singularity is what we get when we extrapolate the Universe's evolution into the past and take the limit timewise as far as we can. It is, again, an abstraction, much like the limit of the series 1/1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, ... is an abstraction (you will never get to 0, yet the limit is 0; think of 0 as the "singularity" of this series).

To your last claim, you are welcome to define god as some abstract entity residing in singularity. This simply is not an entity that makes any physical sense. It is like a non-existing unicorn: a cool abstraction, but something that cannot exist by its very definition.

OK, right..."allegedly", God created the universe.  Indeed, there are many people who would say and who do believe that God created the universe.  I cannot say that I am one of them.  I am not saying that I do not believe that God created all things.  I do.  I believe He has created every "thing" that exists.  And I also believe that He established the properties of every thing that exists.  Some people claim that the Bible tells us that God created the universe.  I cannot say that I agree with them.  I see no terminology in the Bible suggesting that God created "the universe".  I'll get back to that later.  The Bible says God created "all things".  He created "nature" and all of its properties which in turn has brought forth all of the living creatures that have been brought forth on this earth.  I am trying to be clear here, as I wish not to imply that God is not responsible for the life that exists on this earth.  I believe He certainly is.  I believe God is responsible for the existence of the established properties of nature that has brought forth all of the life that has been brought forth on this earth.  Did I just repeat myself?  Perhaps I did.   Nature brought forth life...but it did not do so willingly.  It did not do so accidentally.  Nature brought forth life because that is one of the possible consequences of having the properties that it has.  Perhaps God created those properties.  But I could not say that with any degree of certainty.  It could be that nature has the properties it has because it inherited them from it's creator.  I just don't know.  I also want to be clear that I imply a minor distinction between the life that has been brought forth on this earth, and the life of other living entities that may not have been brought forth on this earth.  I am talking about such entities as angels, who very well could be more direct creations of God, such as in the notion that God spoke them into existence.

But what of this universe?  What exactly is it?  Many people seem to have a very general and basic grasp of the concept.  It is a concept right?  I mean "the universe".
Back to the basics of words I suppose.  Words are symbolic representation of thoughts and ideas.  They are arbitrarily symbols constructed and created for the purpose of representing real and abstract concepts as well as real things, and are intended and used to evoke a visual and conceptual understanding of, and sometime an emotional response towards, the object or idea that the word was intended to represent.  Firstly, in order to get it right, you have to know what it is that the symbol is intended to represent.  Here, we are talking about the universe.  And I am trying to determine if this symbol that we are using is eliciting a conceptual understanding in both of us that represents "the universe" for what it actually is in reality.  I don't think it does.  I'm not sure it can until we know for sure what it is.  I wish I could come up with some sort of comparison, some sort of analogy.  This word we use, we talk about as though it consists of things.  We say the universe includes matter, space and time.  We say that all three are necessary components to the universe's existence, and that there is no place, no time and no thing outside of it.  You suggest that without space, there is no time.  Indeed, without time, there is no existence.  Without matter, time is meaningless.

You say time did not exist before the big bang (unless I misunderstand), yet on the other hand you have given me a wonderful representation using fractions showing the capability of a universe capable of existing for eternity going backwards.  If the beginning of the universe is a limit at t=0, and not an actual moment of a start of the time continuum, then time must have always existed.  And space must have always existed, for if t=0 is the singularity, and it has never been achieved, there must have been space between matter for eternity, and there never was a singularity.

MayCaesar

Sonofason said:

MayCaesar said:

Okay, fair enough: let us not use this word. Let us instead talk about the god being a part of the Universe or not being a part of it. On one hand, allegedly god created the Universe, which implies that, at least, before the creation it was not a part of the Universe. Has it become a part of the Universe upon its creation? And if not, then in what sense can a resident of this Universe talk about god's existence?

Once again, the Big Bang theory does not state that "time existed before the Big Bang". One of the essential features of General Relativity theory which the Big Bang theory makes use of is intrinsic connectivity of time to space: if there is no space, there is no time. In the absence of the Universe, "space" does not exist, therefore "time" cannot exist either. Therefore, the phrase "before the Big Bang" does not make a physical sense.
The sense in which I can say that the Universe is eternal is the assumption I make that the world has certain laws/patterns that every entity in it obeys (if that is not the case, then the whole scientific endeavor is a fool's errand). Those laws/patterns go beyond the current Universe and are responsible for its existence - but they are not something we can infer while being inside the Universe, much like one cannot know what it "feels" like to be dead when they are alive. These are completely different types of entities that exist only as abstractions and not physical objects in the physical world.
As for singularity, it certainly is not something that was "sitting there alone in the vastness of nothing for an instant". Singularity is what we get when we extrapolate the Universe's evolution into the past and take the limit timewise as far as we can. It is, again, an abstraction, much like the limit of the series 1/1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, ... is an abstraction (you will never get to 0, yet the limit is 0; think of 0 as the "singularity" of this series).

To your last claim, you are welcome to define god as some abstract entity residing in singularity. This simply is not an entity that makes any physical sense. It is like a non-existing unicorn: a cool abstraction, but something that cannot exist by its very definition.

OK, right..."allegedly", God created the universe.  Indeed, there are many people who would say and who do believe that God created the universe.  I cannot say that I am one of them.  I am not saying that I do not believe that God created all things.  I do.  I believe He has created every "thing" that exists.  And I also believe that He established the properties of every thing that exists.  Some people claim that the Bible tells us that God created the universe.  I cannot say that I agree with them.  I see no terminology in the Bible suggesting that God created "the universe".  I'll get back to that later.  The Bible says God created "all things".  He created "nature" and all of its properties which in turn has brought forth all of the living creatures that have been brought forth on this earth.  I am trying to be clear here, as I wish not to imply that God is not responsible for the life that exists on this earth.  I believe He certainly is.  I believe God is responsible for the existence of the established properties of nature that has brought forth all of the life that has been brought forth on this earth.  Did I just repeat myself?  Perhaps I did.   Nature brought forth life...but it did not do so willingly.  It did not do so accidentally.  Nature brought forth life because that is one of the possible consequences of having the properties that it has.  Perhaps God created those properties.  But I could not say that with any degree of certainty.  It could be that nature has the properties it has because it inherited them from it's creator.  I just don't know.  I also want to be clear that I imply a minor distinction between the life that has been brought forth on this earth, and the life of other living entities that may not have been brought forth on this earth.  I am talking about such entities as angels, who very well could be more direct creations of God, such as in the notion that God spoke them into existence.

But what of this universe?  What exactly is it?  Many people seem to have a very general and basic grasp of the concept.  It is a concept right?  I mean "the universe".
Back to the basics of words I suppose.  Words are symbolic representation of thoughts and ideas.  They are arbitrarily symbols constructed and created for the purpose of representing real and abstract concepts as well as real things, and are intended and used to evoke a visual and conceptual understanding of, and sometime an emotional response towards, the object or idea that the word was intended to represent.  Firstly, in order to get it right, you have to know what it is that the symbol is intended to represent.  Here, we are talking about the universe.  And I am trying to determine if this symbol that we are using is eliciting a conceptual understanding in both of us that represents "the universe" for what it actually is in reality.  I don't think it does.  I'm not sure it can until we know for sure what it is.  I wish I could come up with some sort of comparison, some sort of analogy.  This word we use, we talk about as though it consists of things.  We say the universe includes matter, space and time.  We say that all three are necessary components to the universe's existence, and that there is no place, no time and no thing outside of it.  You suggest that without space, there is no time.  Indeed, without time, there is no existence.  Without matter, time is meaningless.

You say time did not exist before the big bang (unless I misunderstand), yet on the other hand you have given me a wonderful representation using fractions showing the capability of a universe capable of existing for eternity going backwards.  If the beginning of the universe is a limit at t=0, and not an actual moment of a start of the time continuum, then time must have always existed.  And space must have always existed, for if t=0 is the singularity, and it has never been achieved, there must have been space between matter for eternity, and there never was a singularity.

Fair enough. I suppose, in order for this discussion to be productive, we must both agree on the exact claim that we  are debating. "Universe was created as a consequence of the first cause which is god" may be interpreted in different ways based on one's personal interpretation of terms "Universe", "created", "cause", "time"... When we make claims on this nature in physics, we use a language that is somewhat universally agreed upon by all physicists, therefore everyone is in the clear on what, say, the term "black hole" means (there is actually a linguistically precise definition involving presence of the event horizon which, in turn, can be characterized by a precise mathematical equation). But, of course, the language of physics is not the only language people use to talk about it - and religions in particular have had incredible volumes of contributions from various philosophers and theologists, encompassing a large diversity of phenomenologies and terminologies.

To your last point, let me suggest an analogy. Let me ask you what your mind was like before you had the first thought. Let us consider a sequence of all thoughts you have ever had, starting from the very first one. If you move the clock backwards and observe the reverse evolution of your mind, it will gradually become less and less complex. Eventually you get to the point where you have had very few thoughts and did not have any real interpretations of them - your mind was very basic and fuzzy back then. And as you get rid of the very last thought, you mind essentially disintegrates: before you had your first thought, there was no mind.
Yet the first thought had to appear somewhere. How could it appear in something other than a mind? This suggests that there was no point in time at which you suddenly acquired a mind - rather, there was a point in time starting at which you had a mind, but saying that that is the point in time at which you acquired a mind would be incorrect. Nor would it be correct to say that your mind has always existed - although, within the timeframe of your mind's existence, there was no point in time at which it did not exist.

Does this clarify my reasoning a little?

Barnardot

@ProudToBeCatholic ;Atheistic evolution cannot explain existence

I think that you will find that evolution has explained existence a million times over. In fact evolution is the explanation of existence. There have been mountains of evidence that have been properly tested and verified and proven beyond a doubt how life came to exist and it has properly been concluded that there is not one sign of any out side intervention or help whatsoever.

If God believers think that there is some chance that the Big Bang or the energy that formed it has any thing to do with God then they can for get it. Because there barking up the wrong tree. We already know how life came about and completely disproved a supernatural power having any thing to do with it so why do some people keep looking down the wrong street when looking for the origin of matter. 

We will find the answer sooner rather than later and it likely won’t have any thing to do with any supernatural thing. The reason is that of all the research that has been done there is not one single shed of evidence of any thing at all about supernatural. Yet we have tons of evidence that completely puts the kibosh on every single bit of speculation ever made up by supernaturalists. 

The game was up eons ago for any supernatural presents.

just_sayin

Barnardot said:

@ProudToBeCatholic ;Atheistic evolution cannot explain existence

I think that you will find that evolution has explained existence a million times over. In fact evolution is the explanation of existence. There have been mountains of evidence that have been properly tested and verified and proven beyond a doubt how life came to exist and it has properly been concluded that there is not one sign of any out side intervention or help whatsoever.

If God believers think that there is some chance that the Big Bang or the energy that formed it has any thing to do with God then they can for get it. Because there barking up the wrong tree. We already know how life came about and completely disproved a supernatural power having any thing to do with it so why do some people keep looking down the wrong street when looking for the origin of matter. 

We will find the answer sooner rather than later and it likely won’t have any thing to do with any supernatural thing. The reason is that of all the research that has been done there is not one single shed of evidence of any thing at all about supernatural. Yet we have tons of evidence that completely puts the kibosh on every single bit of speculation ever made up by supernaturalists. 

The game was up eons ago for any supernatural presents.

Wow, you know how life came from non-life.  You know the secret to abiogenesis??!!!  That is an extraordinary claim, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary verification and proof.  So make with it.  Create life from non-life and without any use of intelligence to guide it.  Long pause.  Still waiting.

The reason Francis Crick, one half of the duo who discovered the human chromosome, abandoned hope in a naturalistic explanation of life was because he realized that even the simplest single cell organism is much too complex to have originated by happenstance.  That is why he suggested panspermia.  That only pushes the question back one more generation, but it is all he could suggest.  

For the record, I'm fine with God using naturalistic means to create life.  However, your claim is an extraordinary one.  It is not based in science, it is a faith claim, as anyone who knows this issue, knows that it is immensely complex and there has not been a solution found yet for it.

Barnardot

@just_sayin ;Wow, you know how life came from non-life.

Thats right. For once you got some thing right because like every thing else I assert I properly researched the subject. There is no proper research for your wakey assertions because there is no credible evidence any where to research at all. Just myths and tall stories and lies. Thats how come every thing you believe and think is just myths tall stories and lies.

My claim is not extraordinary because it is not my claim it is accepted as correct and proven by just about any one who uses more than half there brain. To put things in context your beliefs are totally extraordinary because they are 100% unproven.

Sonofason

MayCaesar said:

Sonofason said:

MayCaesar said:

Okay, fair enough: let us not use this word. Let us instead talk about the god being a part of the Universe or not being a part of it. On one hand, allegedly god created the Universe, which implies that, at least, before the creation it was not a part of the Universe. Has it become a part of the Universe upon its creation? And if not, then in what sense can a resident of this Universe talk about god's existence?

Once again, the Big Bang theory does not state that "time existed before the Big Bang". One of the essential features of General Relativity theory which the Big Bang theory makes use of is intrinsic connectivity of time to space: if there is no space, there is no time. In the absence of the Universe, "space" does not exist, therefore "time" cannot exist either. Therefore, the phrase "before the Big Bang" does not make a physical sense.
The sense in which I can say that the Universe is eternal is the assumption I make that the world has certain laws/patterns that every entity in it obeys (if that is not the case, then the whole scientific endeavor is a fool's errand). Those laws/patterns go beyond the current Universe and are responsible for its existence - but they are not something we can infer while being inside the Universe, much like one cannot know what it "feels" like to be dead when they are alive. These are completely different types of entities that exist only as abstractions and not physical objects in the physical world.
As for singularity, it certainly is not something that was "sitting there alone in the vastness of nothing for an instant". Singularity is what we get when we extrapolate the Universe's evolution into the past and take the limit timewise as far as we can. It is, again, an abstraction, much like the limit of the series 1/1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, ... is an abstraction (you will never get to 0, yet the limit is 0; think of 0 as the "singularity" of this series).

To your last claim, you are welcome to define god as some abstract entity residing in singularity. This simply is not an entity that makes any physical sense. It is like a non-existing unicorn: a cool abstraction, but something that cannot exist by its very definition.

OK, right..."allegedly", God created the universe.  Indeed, there are many people who would say and who do believe that God created the universe.  I cannot say that I am one of them.  I am not saying that I do not believe that God created all things.  I do.  I believe He has created every "thing" that exists.  And I also believe that He established the properties of every thing that exists.  Some people claim that the Bible tells us that God created the universe.  I cannot say that I agree with them.  I see no terminology in the Bible suggesting that God created "the universe".  I'll get back to that later.  The Bible says God created "all things".  He created "nature" and all of its properties which in turn has brought forth all of the living creatures that have been brought forth on this earth.  I am trying to be clear here, as I wish not to imply that God is not responsible for the life that exists on this earth.  I believe He certainly is.  I believe God is responsible for the existence of the established properties of nature that has brought forth all of the life that has been brought forth on this earth.  Did I just repeat myself?  Perhaps I did.   Nature brought forth life...but it did not do so willingly.  It did not do so accidentally.  Nature brought forth life because that is one of the possible consequences of having the properties that it has.  Perhaps God created those properties.  But I could not say that with any degree of certainty.  It could be that nature has the properties it has because it inherited them from it's creator.  I just don't know.  I also want to be clear that I imply a minor distinction between the life that has been brought forth on this earth, and the life of other living entities that may not have been brought forth on this earth.  I am talking about such entities as angels, who very well could be more direct creations of God, such as in the notion that God spoke them into existence.

But what of this universe?  What exactly is it?  Many people seem to have a very general and basic grasp of the concept.  It is a concept right?  I mean "the universe".
Back to the basics of words I suppose.  Words are symbolic representation of thoughts and ideas.  They are arbitrarily symbols constructed and created for the purpose of representing real and abstract concepts as well as real things, and are intended and used to evoke a visual and conceptual understanding of, and sometime an emotional response towards, the object or idea that the word was intended to represent.  Firstly, in order to get it right, you have to know what it is that the symbol is intended to represent.  Here, we are talking about the universe.  And I am trying to determine if this symbol that we are using is eliciting a conceptual understanding in both of us that represents "the universe" for what it actually is in reality.  I don't think it does.  I'm not sure it can until we know for sure what it is.  I wish I could come up with some sort of comparison, some sort of analogy.  This word we use, we talk about as though it consists of things.  We say the universe includes matter, space and time.  We say that all three are necessary components to the universe's existence, and that there is no place, no time and no thing outside of it.  You suggest that without space, there is no time.  Indeed, without time, there is no existence.  Without matter, time is meaningless.

You say time did not exist before the big bang (unless I misunderstand), yet on the other hand you have given me a wonderful representation using fractions showing the capability of a universe capable of existing for eternity going backwards.  If the beginning of the universe is a limit at t=0, and not an actual moment of a start of the time continuum, then time must have always existed.  And space must have always existed, for if t=0 is the singularity, and it has never been achieved, there must have been space between matter for eternity, and there never was a singularity.

Fair enough. I suppose, in order for this discussion to be productive, we must both agree on the exact claim that we  are debating. "Universe was created as a consequence of the first cause which is god" may be interpreted in different ways based on one's personal interpretation of terms "Universe", "created", "cause", "time"... When we make claims on this nature in physics, we use a language that is somewhat universally agreed upon by all physicists, therefore everyone is in the clear on what, say, the term "black hole" means (there is actually a linguistically precise definition involving presence of the event horizon which, in turn, can be characterized by a precise mathematical equation). But, of course, the language of physics is not the only language people use to talk about it - and religions in particular have had incredible volumes of contributions from various philosophers and theologists, encompassing a large diversity of phenomenologies and terminologies.

To your last point, let me suggest an analogy. Let me ask you what your mind was like before you had the first thought. Let us consider a sequence of all thoughts you have ever had, starting from the very first one. If you move the clock backwards and observe the reverse evolution of your mind, it will gradually become less and less complex. Eventually you get to the point where you have had very few thoughts and did not have any real interpretations of them - your mind was very basic and fuzzy back then. And as you get rid of the very last thought, you mind essentially disintegrates: before you had your first thought, there was no mind.
Yet the first thought had to appear somewhere. How could it appear in something other than a mind? This suggests that there was no point in time at which you suddenly acquired a mind - rather, there was a point in time starting at which you had a mind, but saying that that is the point in time at which you acquired a mind would be incorrect. Nor would it be correct to say that your mind has always existed - although, within the timeframe of your mind's existence, there was no point in time at which it did not exist.

Does this clarify my reasoning a little?

Not even a little.
Mind is defined as the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought.
This is quite an abstract concept, and a mind is not something that actually exists in nature.  We have brains, and within our brains there is a certain set of processes that take place that we have appointed the word mind.  The brain receives stimuli, it processes that stimuli to the best of it's ability in order to make sense of it, and to the extent that it deems necessary, it responds to it.  There is no mind...nothing needed to exist other than a brain, prior to having a first thought.  I didn't have a mind before my human body was conceived, and I don't have one now.  I have a brain.  If for any reason this brain of mine had not yet experienced anything, it would have nothing to process.  If there is nothing to process, then no processing occurs.  If no processing occurs, no response is directed.  Yet the experience is recorded for a rainy day.  Indeed, at some point this brain of mine had become sufficiently developed to perceive stimuli, and at some point after that, it perceived stimuli.  Having no experiential knowledge or memory prior to this moment in time, things would certainly be very fuzzy.  Not quite knowing what to do with this new information, the experience is filed away.  At some point in time connections are made between previous events and current events.  The brain is constantly reassembling bits and pieces of past experience in order to make sense of what's going on, and makes determinations based on those past experiences of what the best response might be.  

Brains are not eternal entities.  They do not exist prior to the existence of the creatures they inhabit.  At some point in time the brain does become capable of perceiving stimuli, not sure anyone knows when that moment is...is it when one synapse makes a connection...I don't know.  Is it at the moment of conception?  Probably not, but I don't know.  But there was definitely a moment in time when my brain began to exist.  Or perhaps we get a bit more philosophical, and suggest my mind existed prior to my conception, because as nature has ordained it, it was already determined that my mind was going to exist.  And since we have determined that the universe is eternal, since t=0 is a limit and not the actual starting point of the universe, my mind was also eternal.