Oh, so now the problem is only theological?
No, p-lease. Think about it. Why did an infinite amount of past passed before anything happened. This is not a problem isolated to theologians. This is a fundamental philosophical paradox. An infinite past takes forever to become present for a theologian and for an atheist AS WELL. To deny that is like turning a blind eye to the problem.
We all share that one, mate...
The Infinite Past is only a PROBLEM for the Creationist. There can be no doubt about that.
Let's forget about the theologian and the atheist and the theist and the philosopher and the mathematician, for the time being. Why do you find the Infinite Past very troubling? It's because as you stated above an "infinite past takes forever to become present". This is almost always the TROUBLE that pops into one's head upon the first encounter with the notion of Infinite Past. And it's unbelievably startling and psychologically disturbing and destabilizing. I totally sympathize with you, truth-seeking 'BROTHER'! This problem is really serious. And so, it should be analyzed and discussed seriously and without any 'tiny-brain', 'no-one-knows', 'bullshit-bullshit' and the like of childish objections.
To have a firm grasp of the notion of Infinite Past, one must take into account the following considerations:
[1] The notion of Infinite Past is implied as a necessary logical consequence of the notion of Eternal. That is to say everything eternal implies necessarily an infinite past. And since the notion of Eternal is logically consistent and free of contradictions, the notion of Infinite Past must be logically consistent and free of contradictions as well.
[2] To get some feeling for the logical consistency of the notion of Infinite Past, you have to contrast it and think about it in conjunction with the notion of Absolute Beginning. This latter notion is far more troubling, because it leads to the immediate collapse of causality, logic, and reason. By contrast, the notion of Infinite Past is the ultimate guarantor of the absolute consistency of the Causality Principle and the laws of logic and the principles of reason forever and ever.
[3] You should not give a privileged and central ontological status to any moment of time. This very important point can be clearly illustrated by considering the notion of Infinite Space. No geometrical point of Infinite Space is entitled to being the center of the Universe or the absolute origin of its spatial co-ordinates. In the same way, no moment or instant of time is entitled to being the central moment of Eternity. The present moment, therefore, is not a privileged instant of Eternity.
[4] The usual way of arriving at the notion of Infinite Past is to start from the present and regress into the past endlessly. This procedure can be misleading in two ways. It can lead to the illusion of getting closer than the present moment to the Infinite Past. And that is illusory, because no matter how long any past is, it is always an exact ZERO in comparison to the Infinite Past. The regressing procedure, also, can make the imagination very tired and craving more and more for an absolute beginning. And of course, what the imagination wishes for, it can just make it happen, even if it is illogical and illusory!
[5] There is one specific mistake of logic that gives the idea of Infinite Past its nasty first feel. And the mistake is this: one looks at a finite thing and asks, how could it happen, if its past was infinite? But that is a mistake; because every finite thing is a part of infinite totality of things. It's precisely this infinite totality of things that requires necessarily an infinite amount of time to happen and to come into existence. In other words, infinite things need necessarily an infinite period of time to happen.
[6] It's absolutely necessary to keep an eye on the notion of Beginning and think about it constantly and explicitly at all times. Otherwise, this insidious notion is going to interject itself unnoticed into your thinking and ruin your philosophical deliberations about the Infinite Past. Look once again at this statement of yours: "An infinite past takes forever to become present". Can you spot what is wrong with it? Well, it's clear that the idea of the past for you always implies an implicit beginning. And so you've combined this implicit assumption of a beginning for every finite past with the idea of no beginning for the Infinite Past; and you've gotten a paradox. And hence, the paradox is only in your argument about the Infinite Past, and NOT in the notion of Infinite Past itself. Why should every past have a beginning? There is absolutely no logical justification for that implicit assumption. Get rid of it! And remember; beginnings are always for finite things; and non-beginnings are always for infinite things.
