Surprised no-one at least pitched an answer his question yet. Call yourselves debators?
tl;dr, the first particle is the previous universe squashed up really tiny. There was no 'first' universe, because time is a phenomenon that exists only within universes.
Just on the big belief =/= knowledge thing that keeps resurfacing: You can have misinformed knowledge. If the person is aware of reasons why what he thinks could be wrong, it will be a belief in his eyes. If from the day he was born he has been told something is a fact and given proof, it will be a fact to him, ergo he will know it. Proof can be fabricated, certainly... but if it is presented as a fact, it can be known.