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Author Topic:   Is there life before birth?
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 3 of 24 (108490)
05-15-2004 10:51 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by mogur
05-15-2004 9:55 PM


Does god have free-will? Or does his omniscience not include his own actions?
Interesting question, but if we assume that God is non-temporal, there's no difference between God knowing what he's going to do and God having done it. There's no difference for God between the knowing and the doing, between will and realization. He's kinda like Bruce Lee in that way.
This message has been edited by crashfrog, 05-15-2004 09:52 PM

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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 5 of 24 (108547)
05-16-2004 1:39 AM
Reply to: Message 4 by mogur
05-16-2004 1:14 AM


But doesn't a non-temporal god have a problem in 'dealing' with temporal beings that have an arrow of time, and a cause-and-effect experience?
No, because time isn't moving for him.
It's like if you took each frame of Casablanca and stacked them on top of each other. At any point in the stack you can see an instant of the movie, you can go back and forth, you can even examine several instants at once. You're under no pressure because the instants themselves aren't doing anything.
It might be difficult for him to understand cause and effect, because to him the arrow of time is just an arbitrary way of looking at instants. But then again we assume God is pretty smart so I imagine he deals.
Their lifetime is so short, compared to mine, that I 'verge' on (but not quite) appear non-temporal to them.
Yeah, to them you're temporal but eternal.
That would make my playtoys very uninteresting to me at the very least.
It depends on what time is like. If there's only one future, then it's like looking at the stack of Casablanca stills - no matter what you do to the frame at the beginning of the movie, Bogart still doesn't get on that plane.
On the other hand, if all possible futures exist, then it's like building the best possible Casablanca stack out of an enormous pile of possibilities. I guess that, to me, the creative potential could be pretty interesting.

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 Message 6 by DC85, posted 05-16-2004 2:45 AM crashfrog has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 7 of 24 (108564)
05-16-2004 2:55 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by DC85
05-16-2004 2:45 AM


I don't see how anything can function and make decisions outside of time...
I don't think God would be conscious in the way that you and I are, where we reflect on problems with internal monologue before coming to a decision and taking action.
For God I imagine that observation, decision, will, and action are simultaneous. God is will made manifest. Maybe he has the ability to spawn a consciousness in order to deal on our level, but I doubt that's his day-to-day MO.

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 Message 8 by Cynic1, posted 05-16-2004 3:16 AM crashfrog has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 9 of 24 (108569)
05-16-2004 3:27 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by Cynic1
05-16-2004 3:16 AM


The problem is though, that in the Bible, God seems to plan, anticipate and react.
The problem for you, then, is that the Bible obviously isn't the word of God, or even the history of God, but rather, just some folks' thoughts about God and his relationship to the Isrealites. I don't necessarily see the relevance of the Bible to this discussion.
If the argument is valid, then it automatically rules out a timeless God, because it necessitates a God existing within time.
Imagine if you will that you're sitting in front of a yardstick. You have long enough arms to reach any point on the yardstick, and since you have two arms, you can put pushpins in the yardstick at two places at once.
Does the fact that you're outside the yardstick mean you can't put a pin at 6" and 24" simultaneously? Of course not. If you put the pins in simultaneously, does it mean you put them at the same place? Of course not.
God interacts with time at every point in time at once. If he does something at Monday and at Wednesday, we see two events separated in time, but he sees two events simultaneously.

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 Message 12 by Cynic1, posted 05-16-2004 3:38 AM crashfrog has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 11 of 24 (108571)
05-16-2004 3:36 AM
Reply to: Message 10 by mogur
05-16-2004 3:28 AM


From the perspective of our physical world, the flow of time only comes to a grinding halt when an entity reaches the exact speed of light.
True, but I don't see why we need to make the assumptions that 1) time applies outside of our physical universe, or 2) God resides within the physical universe.
Biologists usually don't reside within their Petri dishes. Why would God?
We're just playing around with language, of course. That's generally what happens when you talk about God, because in my experience there's absolutely no difference between "theology" and "making shit up."

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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 13 of 24 (108573)
05-16-2004 3:51 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by Cynic1
05-16-2004 3:38 AM


Oh, we aren't talking about the Biblical God then? I'm sorry. Just out of curiosity, how was I supposed to know that?
No offense, but presumably you would have known that by the fact that nobody in this thread mentioned the Bible until you did.
A God who interacts with every point in time at once is not a God outside of time, but a temporally omnipresent God.
Fine, however you want to put it, that's fine. It's the same thing as what I've been saying.

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 Message 14 by Cynic1, posted 05-16-2004 4:00 AM crashfrog has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 19 of 24 (108592)
05-16-2004 8:22 AM
Reply to: Message 14 by Cynic1
05-16-2004 4:00 AM


Generally, a mention of God means the Judeo/Christian God outlined by the Bible.
Well that's certainly open to debate. Plenty of people who aren't Judeo/Christian talk about God, and hold beliefs about God that have nothing to do with the Bible.
Don't confuse monotheism with Christianity. There's a bevy of monotheistic religions that have nothing to do with the Bible.

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 Message 20 by Cynic1, posted 05-16-2004 8:36 AM crashfrog has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 23 of 24 (108668)
05-16-2004 4:46 PM
Reply to: Message 20 by Cynic1
05-16-2004 8:36 AM


It is through a limitation in my own experience that I have only heard people refer to the Judeo/Christian God when they mention a divine being only by the name, "God."
If there's only one god, what else would you call him? Most of the names for monotheistic deities actually mean "God" in their respective languages, anyway.
Consider, then, my post not as an attempt to refute yours, but as a statement of my beliefs as to the nature of the Judeo/Christian God's relationship to time.
Understood. I have found our exchange fascinating so far, though I don't believe in any gods.

This message is a reply to:
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