Dear Atheists: what would convince you God/Christ is Real?

[emjay]

Right, well it's in that overarching, comparative sense you've described that a 'thing' is meaningful to my own questions of why, and how, something not nothing. So I'm asking 'how can any 'thing', regardless of type or even kind, material, immaterial, knowable or unknowable etc, come into existence from nothing or exist eternally?'. Call this question 1.

Whereas the question from theology would seem to be different, more like 'how can one type/kind of thing - material things - come into existence from nothing or exist eternally?' and with the answer given 'by being created by another type/kind of thing - unknowable, spiritual, Platonic etc - that does come into existence from nothing or exist eternally'. Call this question 2.

From my perspective then, question 2, and its answer, is not satisfactory in the slightest because it does not address question 1 in the slightest. So I was basically asking if question 2, and its answer, is wholly satisfactory to you, and if so, why you and theology in general seem to have no interest whatsoever in question 1 (correct me if I'm wrong)? To me, question 2 is at best kicking the can on some questions, but not the key questions, and at worst, a red herring.

Well, gee -- you're only asking the biggest and most difficult metaphysical questions ever asked. There may be people who can give concise and persuasive answers to these, but I don't think I'm one of them.
[...] 

I'll mull over the rest of what you've said separately, but for now, just to address this point; I'm not expecting you or anyone to know the answer to this question... we can perhaps, or even probably, never know, but my point was not about what the answer is but what the question is, and whether you ask the same one I do... ie question 1, instead of or at least as well as question 2. Your response here suggests you do ask that question, which is good to know, because it means we at least have some potential common ground.