2007-12-13 02:46:26 · 24 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Perhaps some background is necessary. I'm atheist. I believe that while my constituent atoms may have always existed in some form (i.e. not necessarily atoms or even matter as we understand it), I only exist as a complex, functioning, biological machine for a very finite time. However, once I exist, from that point on, I will always have existed. That's not to say that I existed before I existed, but that my existence at one point happened and can never be truthfully denied.
Hope that's clearer. It seems pretty simple to me, but again...maybe a little background is necessary for full understanding. Like reading a verse and then reading it again in context.
2007-12-13 03:03:07 · update #1
I think it is an interesting condundrum. But it can be answered just be assuming a finite, normal life span...as eternity progresses, you "have existed" as one point in time, but you do not exist for the entirety of eternity. It is a complicated way of telling the truth.
2007-12-13 02:50:50 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
It's just a statement. You could just as well put it the other way around for example: I did not exist for eternity but for eternity I will exist.
2007-12-18 18:14:05 · answer #2 · answered by justbu40 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
This is why more precise people -- in the past -- used the word 'sempiternal', created once in time but eternal ever afterwards . As you can see, trying to state this without a word like s. is hard to do.
2007-12-18 18:14:05 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
I think that the statement means that your existence was in the thought of God prior to your being born and will continue to be after you die. But your physical being will be gone once you die. You can look at it scientifically too, and say that all the components of your body were in the universe before you were born and will continue to exist as mollicules and atoms after you die, although your body dies and returns to "dust".
2007-12-18 18:14:05 · answer #4 · answered by Holly R 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is interesting. Here eternity, in the first statement, is the subject and you are the object. so viewed by eternity you will(would) have existed, but in second statement you are becoming the subject and eternity is the object and for that object (eternity) you refuse to exist.
2007-12-18 18:14:05 · answer #5 · answered by Md. R 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Honey,
I am a christian and GOD is the only one who has EVER existed and whomever follows him and lives by his commandments will also have an EVERLASTING existence with him. It's all in the most PRICELESS book ever The Bible. God bless you.
2007-12-18 18:14:05 · answer #6 · answered by peternlizh 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
it means that even though your have died,doesn't mean your legacy dies,it goes on for all eternity,your thoughts and ideas get passed down from each generation to the next but not just one of the generations,quite a few of them
am i correct?
2007-12-18 18:14:05 · answer #7 · answered by Bryce 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Whoever said this has it backwards. There is only one person who has existed since eternity, namely, God. You and I and everyone else have a beginning, but our souls/spirits will never cease to exist.
2007-12-18 18:14:05 · answer #8 · answered by Brother Jonathan 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
This is a great saying if you mean this:
Yes, I now exist in Eternity as a beloved son of God in Jesus Christ; but I do not exist FOR eternity; I EXIST (I am for -- dedicated to loving and serving -- our I AM GOD
The Absolute of time is Eternity
The Absolute of space is Paradise
The Absolute of You IS GOD
God in His Eternal NOW I AM sees all past and present and future as NOW. To you here now as a living human faith son of God; God now sees You as an eternal perfected Paradise Son of God ! and also perfecting in the space-time universe of our Master Creator Father-Son-Elder Brother Jesus Christ !
ADDITIONAL COMMENT: Dear TAHSF. Now that you have added a needed explanation; I can further comment.
You now have briefly existed here as a "biological machine" and also as a divinely beloved POTENTIALLY ascending son of God in Truth ! All humans, when they physically die here, will be sooner or later (no problem, dead people are not at all time conscious!) will be taken up into the full Presence of God and Jesus as One Infinite I AM Spirit and then shown more clearly their POTENTIAL Eternal Destiny as a Paradise Finaliter, and always loving to do and share God's will with all others. You then will have to make YOUR Absolute Decision of to Be eternalized or to not be --be quietly, instantlly, extinguished forever. (No barbaric, sub-human "hell fire") Yes, all the primal force-energy allowing your atoms to exist remain in the energy gravity circuit. All good intellectual meanings and spiritual values that you had started, when here on earth, continue on in God the evolving Supreme out here with us (a "process theology" plus) BUT NOT as You Personality "I am of I AM" Aware ! The prior individualized prepersonal spirit you (perfect You to be) goes to some other human personality on one of trillions of inhabited planets -- when the time is right -- "God-speed". Then, that other person has the glorious potential to personally CHOOSE to fully unite with the perfect pre-personal will of God within !
"To Be or not to be ..." Only YOU can choose to accept or to reject your glorious Destiny Adventure without end ! -- choose wisely my now existing Brother in the Family of God here.
I used to be an atheist ages 12-25; agnostic 25-36; NOW Born Spirit Eternal in Jesus in AD1977 and eternally unfolding !
Peace and progress,
Brother Dave, a Jesusonian Christian Truthist
http://www.PureChristians.org/ Gospel enlarging website,
proclaiming worldwide the True Religion
OF JESUS and ABOUT JESUS and IN JESUS
Come and share !
2007-12-18 18:14:05 · answer #9 · answered by ? 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Since time does not really exist, to exist at all is to exist for all eternity.
2007-12-18 18:14:05 · answer #10 · answered by Runa 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋