Ted Hoffman

Technos
I believe time is a measure of change / unit for expressing passage of temporal events. Which energy are you referring to in your definition? I dont believe energy / force moves, but rather that it causes movement.
So is this enough to believe that time is a property of the UNIVERSE alone?
What assumptions are made to arrive at such a conclusion? that outside the universe/ universe of universes, there exists no atoms? a vaccum?

Theli

[/QUOTE]Where have I found this???
Do you mean "where is this doctrine evidenced in the Bible"? Well it's so often repeated that there's far too many examples to list, but a few are...[/QUOTE]

Eternal does not mean "Trancend time". The statement made in the bible about an eternal being is very simple and onedimensional. If you were to confront the people who wrote that god is eternal, with the problems and contradictions eternity brings, they would probably not have any good answer or explaination for it.
Another question also rises, what does "eternal" really mean?
Is it something without time, or something with infinite amount of time?

It doesn't really matter what word you use. What I meant was that a being should be considered nonexistant by default. As in the burden of proof.

So the earth is still flat? The human race started with only 2 people?
God covered almost the entire earth in a big flood?
There are many fairytales wich has been proven to be wrong over the centuries. And the further you examinate, the further away god is pushed.

So, many stories in the bible has been proven right?
I would like you to name a few.

I don't buy this. When examnining the nature of the universe, we find that most of it is completely chaotic. There are of course small "pockets" of order, like newtons theory of motion. However, none of these pockets of order suggests a conscious being controlling them.

Ok, now I'm confused. Does Quantum Mechanics have something to do with free will?
Quantum Mechanics is simply another part of the chaos that exists in the universe. It can make matter escape from black holes, and COULD HAVE been the cause of big bang.

That's one of my main reasons not to believe in god. I mean, if scientist can't in any way prove that god exists then how could some men thousands years ago, that thought the world was flat prove gods existance?
In this question, the most plausable explaination is that they made it up to explain phenomenas they didn't understand. People have a way to personify what they don't understand.
To personify death is common. We find it easier to comprehend it if we see it as a conscious being with personality similar to humans. Usually something you can speak to.

I didn't blame all christans for this, that would be quite ignorant of me.
But seems to do it.

Funny you should mention lightning and sun gods. That's another example of humans personifying (?!?!) things they don't understand. In this case the sun, or lightning.

But that is usually the only argument you get for god's existance.

And also not to add new entities wich are irrelavent.

hehehe... Ironic, that I would use his own patented argument against him.

What I find strange is that you haven't presented much of it to me.

Tercel

Jaliet,
Okay, you and Theli seem to have misunderstood what I'm arguing in some places, with the result that you've gone on what look to me like some rather random tangents. So if I'm not quite answering what you thought you were asking please bear with me while I try and untangle this mess.

Okay, a clarification here. I am talking about orthodox aka mainstream aka the majority of Christianity. Yes there's been a lot of heretics over the years and there's always been "Christians" whose only association with the majority of Christianity was that they called themselves such.
In more recent times the Christian Church has had quite a large number of splits based on some disagreement in the minor doctrines. Such disagreements have always existed within the Church with regard to these things, but historically it has been accepted as quite okay for there to be minor differences within the Church. Since everyone could agree on what were considered the important things they were all considered still Christians - and everyone belonged to the Catholic (which means “universal”) Church. However it eventually got to the point where it was felt by some that some major doctrines were being compromised, and so began the attempted Reformation. It was never intended by the protesters for them to separate from the Catholic Church, rather, they wanted to reform it. (hence the names) However, the eventual separation of the Protestant and Catholic Churches seems to have set the precedent that it’s okay to break into specific groups based on tiny doctrinal differences. So, where there were once many different opinions within one Catholic Church, we now have many different Churches each with one opinion.
But as far as all the major doctrines go: These are still the same as they always were. That is why I say we can look at any of the historic Church writers with reasonable confidence that what they wrote is still entirely applicable.

I believe the creation story is symbolic, yes. Some would disagree, and I think it’s up to everyone to make up their own minds. St Augustine, probably the most famous of all the Church Fathers, offered some good advise on the subject of literal/symbolic interpretation in his book “On Christian Doctrine”:
"But in addition to the foregoing rule, which guards us against taking a metaphorical form of speech as if it were literal, we must also pay heed to that which tells us not to take a literal form of speech as if it were figurative. In the first place, then, we must show the way to find out whether a phrase is literal or figurative. And the way is certainly as follows: Whatever there is in the word of God that cannot, when taken literally, be referred either to purity of life or soundness of doctrine, you may set down as figurative. Purity of life has reference to the love of God and one's neighbour; soundness of doctrine to the knowledge of God and one's neighbour. Every man, moreover, has hope in his own conscience, so far as he perceives that he has attained to the love and knowledge of God and
his neighbour."

However, back to the point. Theli was arguing that Christians push God further and further back into realms yet unreached by science. My response was that no, this has not happened: No major doctrines have changed at all. As you note Christians have split into groups, but as I have pointed out this is on the minor doctrines, and also it is important to note: The splits which have occurred have in the vast majority of cases occurred because of disagreement on what the Bible teaches – not in response to advancing science as Theli was suggesting. The one exception of changing minor doctrines because of science has been creation/evolution which I mentioned in a previous post.

You’ve missed my point again. A deterministic universe would seriously undermine the Christian idea of free-will. Newton’s laws suggested a deterministic universe which was thus a threat to the Christians. QM has revised that and tells us the universe is not deterministic. This removes the problem and makes free-will possible.

Tercel

Tercel

Theli,
So, you're really asking where I got the idea that God transcends time as opposed to being in time but still eternal.
Okay, the answer to that is: It's the conclusion the vast majority of the Church writers and thinkers seem to have come to over the last couple of millennia of debating Christian doctrines. Probably the view was developed because God is also supposed to be Immutable (aka unchanging) and since being in time suggests constantly changing or, at least, having the ability to do so, I suppose it was thus thought that God could not be in time. I'm sorry that I'm just guessing here, but I'm not very well read on exactly why the idea of God's timelessness was developed: Anyway, if it was up to me, the above’s the reasoning I'd have used.

I suppose it could plausibly mean either.

Yes I agree. If someone is making a specific claim it is up to them to prove it. eg I certainly have the burden of proof if I assert the Christian God exists rather than you having to prove he doesn’t. Of course.
However I would suggest that the more general the claim is and the more possibilities it includes and thus the more likely it is to be true, equally the less there should be the default assumption of non-existence. For example if I was to suggest that the world was created by a giant purple squid without any evidence your default position should be that such a thing is nonexistent. However if I was to suggest that there might be something, exactly what I don’t know, beyond the observable universe, then your default position -far from considering such a thing non-existent- should be, I believe, simple agnosticism.

You know it’s nothing new to view some of the stories in the Bible, especially in the older “history” books like Genesis, as mythical, or as having errors or as allegorical. You’ll note from the quote above Augustine, who lived over 1 and a half millennia ago, seems more than happy for some things to be taken figuratively, and many of his predecessors even more so than him.

Okay, so you’re concentrating on Bible stories – I wrote my spiel under the impression you were concerned about evolving doctrines and beliefs to fit science.
As far as the Bible goes, some things have been proven right, others wrong, and some are uncheckable. Most of the mythical creation stories in Genesis as you mentioned above have been shown for myths. And many other stories in the first few books of the old testament are rather problematic and no doubt suffer from large amounts of legendary development, but as with all myths they probably have at their core at least some literally true factual content. The more recently written books in the Old Testament do seem to correlate increasingly better with checkable factual history. (Probably because they were written closer to the time of the events and so there was less legendary development) And finally the books of the New Testament generally seem to correlate in all ways checkable to true literally history. Especially the writer of Luke/Acts, who makes literally hundreds of checkable references to the names and titles of governors at the time, the customs of countries visited etc. Wherever archaeology has had the means to check these references they have been found to be correct. “Ramsay [a famous archaeologist] is but voicing the opinion of the best modern scholars when he calls St. Luke a great and accurate historian.” – the Catholic Encyclopedia

They could, if God revealed himself to them.

No doubt they do, and no doubt may religions are made up by people to explain what they don’t understand. This however, doesn’t actually tell us anything one way or another about whether a God actually exists, or whether all religions are entirely made up.

I agree. It’s good that science removes this mistakes of ignorance. But it still doesn’t have any bearing on whether there really is a God.

If that’s the only argument you’ve ever seen, no wonder you don’t believe. But surely you’ve at least heard of others!?! What about:
Personal testimony of religious experiences, testimony of miracles, scientific investigation of miracles, Argument for the Resurrection, the Trilemma, other Biblical arguments, the Cosmological arguments, the Fine Tuning argument, the Teleogical argument etc. the list goes on.

I’m not in the habit of presenting every piece of argument I have at once. All of it together would take weeks to write out and would amount to thousands of words. I have had a thread before where the average post size was about 7000 words (just to give you an idea of size: this post is 1300 words) and we were only discussing the Bible’s authority and a tangent of what arguments existed for God (we didn’t actually debate any of them in detail). I certainly don’t want to repeat that all the time – or ever.
So, choose a single specific line of argument you want to discuss, and I’ll discuss it.

Tercel

Ted Hoffman

Tercel
I would be very interested in knowing how you came to this conclusion.
Is there a general guideline we can use in deciding what is actually symbolic and what is not?

Please tell us what eating the apple actually meant.

Please tell us what you (an individual) considers to be the major doctrines/ major issues.

They could say the same about you.
Did you say you were an Armenian? Calvinist? whatever group you associate yourself with, you are just one of the many. Who are you to decide who the real christians are and which people are merely labelling themselves as "christians"?
Frankly I dont think its for you to filter out groups who dont identify with the so called "early church fathers" and dismiss them as fake christians. Even the early church fathers were just men. What makes St. Augustines interpretations of the doctrines more superior to anyone elses? If the bible laid itself to different interpretations by being inconsistent, self-contradictory and and ambiguous you cant blame a group for clinging to one part they find particularly important to them can you?
For example the Jehovahs witnesses, they believe giving the God they worship a name is very important and they find it important to outlaw blood donation based on the ordinances Moses was given concerning blood and blood contact.
That is their interpretation of the scriptures and its that simple. You can disagree with them, just like they can disagree with you. If the bible was clear, it could be easy to tell who is right between you and them.
Some can't agree on whether Jesus was God or the son of God and you simply cant dismiss this as a minor doctrine.
Your statement here shows that you don't embrace science for the truth content in it, but because it agrees with christian ideas.
Based on this kind of reasoning, if I got my PHD in small particle physics then went on to concot a theory that would explain how some miracle took place, christrians like you could really use me to support your doctrines, whether my theory is false or not. You could just use me to tell others : "there see - even science says so.

And I think that is complete bullshit (with all due respect).

Scientific theories, should be examined on their own merit, not on the basis of whether they conform with religious doctrines or not.

And QM falls in the domain of theoretical physics. That may or may not tell you something.

The problem of free will is still impossible if God knows every future action we will make. If he knows, it's already determined. Pure and simple. We are merely actors in a movie scripted by God.

Ted Hoffman

Tercel
In the bible God regrets, he changes his mind,he loses his temper and kills people in the process, he "goes down" to confirm the sins being comitted by the people of sodom and gomorrah etc.

To say that God is unchanging, specifically the God of the bible, is simply dishonest.
He had to wait for Mary to be born before he could make her pregnant didn't he? or was she born pregnant?
It is simply impossible for any being to interact with a temporal being without that other being acting IN time. Unless the temporal being can also transcend time (for a while) in order for their interaction to be possible.

Draygomb

Eternal = For All Time.

If time is infinite then eternity is infinite.
If time is finite then eternity is finite.

Thus a god can't be both eternal and transcend time (which is to exist without time).

xoc

Jaliet,

OK. I don't think I was trying to argue that "time" is only a property of "this" universe but rather that a specific dimension of time, what we call "time", is not absolute beyond the universe. The 3d world is reckoned by the 3 Cartesian axis, x, y and z. Time is then reckoned by t. (or x1, x2, x3, and x4 for the lot). The distinction between "time" and "space" dimensions is a perceptional one. Basically there could be more than one "timelike" dimension but we could be flat to it. Minkowski space posits the x1, x2, x3, and x4 cooridinates and makes no important distinction between space and time; there are just coordinates and transdimensional shapes. A being that would be transcendent of a "time" dimension can look at it as easily as a space dimension, measuring it's length and seeing the multiple "events" simultaneously- although it is hard to picture. So are any shapes beyond the 3d, although of course math and string-theory etc. have positied the reality of these kinds of shapes for a while.

So "time" as time rather than "space" could almost be an issue of consciousness rather than physics. It might be a neccesary framework to have consciousness, or the sense of a coherent "World." Much of our sense of time is rooted in memories. These replications form a quilt of what appears a "framework" of life, and give "events" the power to transcend themselves as meaningful things, rather than just existing in-themselves as themselves. That is our "meomories" keep the past from being wiped out, it is different than just things moving in space as without "time", if we still could move things here or there, the lack of record of this would make it meaningless and irrelevent. A "time" dimension allows there to be change and a dynamic element, and choice. We could posit that in an instant(unmeasureable) unit of time, that would be like a base unit(chronon) which is indivisble, the Earth went across the universe and came back. IT would of course be irrelevent as it could never make a record on our consciousness. We could not say that things only move in our "time frame" but that only things that move in our "time frame" could be relevent to us. It is the freedom of God, as it would be to any being with "greater-time power", to interact "with" someone's time stream but that would not mean he was entrapped in it. Saying that God is very "timeful" or "timeless" usually means the same thing in that when we say "timeful" we mean the power that a being has "in" time and if we say "timeless" we mean not limited in the ways we are limited "in" time. For God to be omniscient, both time and space must be "translucent" to Him and be knowable as not ultimately distinct, rather just organised in a way to be reckoned as distinct. Time and space are distinct to the conscious mind, but both can just be drawn out as Minkowski mappings, forming timespace shapes. If we substitute the x dimension for the y, we only turn the paper 90 degrees. If the Minkowski interpretation is trustable, it is the same thing; turning a paper 90 degrees and substituting the time for space.

The idea of "multiple time dimensions" as I posited above is not something I made up but is reckoned by physicists like Arthur Milne. Trying to make a clear "physical" distinction between time and space is more difficult than the obvious conscious distinction we have. Another interesting thing is the "flat" dimensions that superstring has uncovered- 15, 27 or less depending on the accounts(I'm not too up to date on it). But we can still say we live in a 4-d World. This is the same problem we have when contemplating whether or not a 2-d being (who magically lives on a sheet of paper) could be said to be truly only 2-d; it is just the extensions in the "height" dimension is flat and homogenous around the board that it is irrelevent. However that "flat" dimension is not so flat to us and would allow us to transcend the space between and interact with the "being" through a dimension he would not have conceived of as existing. (whatever that means)

I can't get into this stuff too deep right now, I'm kind of "Time-limited" as it is. (and I'd definitely need to bone up some on this). You might want to get your hands on About Time by Paul Davies (he's kind of a n ew-Deist astronomer-philosopher). It's well written and easy to understand and he tackles the questions of time from both the physical and philosophical angles. I gathered from it that it still is not decided or "known" what time really is; that is whether the entity "time" is really ultimately different from "space." The most important physical distinction is time's arrow and the laws of thermodynamics; the 2nd law certainly "points" to things going a certain way unidirectionally.

Ted Hoffman

Xoc
I would say time is an issue of perception. We perceive it, thus it exists. The same applies to the other three dimensions. I would say that the other 20+ dimensions exist in our universe, but we cannot perceive them in our normal state with our naked eyes and senses.

This is a good argument. I believe without change, even God cannot know whether he has created the universe or Not. And there CANNOT BE ANY CHANGE without time.
I wonder what Amos or LinuxPup or Trecel would say to this.
How can God know that he is omnipotent? If he hasn't known that from experiencing change through his actions, then God assumes he is omnipotent. God assumes he created the universe etc.
Assumptions are not the foundation for true knowledge.

Amos

[QUOTE]Originally posted by jaliet:
[QB]Xoc

Amos does not hold that God created the universe and God does not know that he is omnipotent omniscient or omnipresent. God is leading edge of evolution which is the intelligence of the created through which change takes place.

Time is an issue of perception and is created (not perceived) by our conscious awareness. It is because our conscious awareness created time that it does not exist because if it had existence we could perceive it and describe its essence with attributes. Time is an illusion arrived at through our observation of change and is based on our memories of the past. In our eternal mode of existence we can predict the future based on the projected experience of the past but must create the time and wait for it to happen on its own evolution of events. For example, we know that flowers may bloom but not as a result of the passing of time. It is the physics that count and they are determined by its metaphysics of which we understand the essence to make the prediction.

This same is true with space and with God. Before any change can occur it must be observed with intelligence, in time and in space.

Amos