Everything has a beginning that we know of except "GOD" however you define the concept of - god. That's a concept i really cant rap my head around? I mean stop and think on that for a minute - god - had no beginning?? Oh sure abra and others may come up with science or JB with metaphysical things but - "no beginning" think on that real hard for a while!! how can something not have a beginning?? If god is "nothing" well, that's a diff story - but "something"??? not having a "beginning"??? seem's totally unbelieveable to me!!

How do you explain the universes beginning?

The problem is in how people think of time. They insist on thinking of time in a Newtonian sense. Like there is a past behind us, and a future in front of us.

That's how people think of time. And for good reason. This is how we seem to experience our notion of time. But what time are we actually experiencing?

Well Einstein has shown us precisely what we are experiencing. We are experience spacetime. Not just time. There is no such thing as stand-alone time. This is what Einstein has shown and experiments have verifed.

To speak of time alone is senseless according to Relativity. You can only speak of the fabric of spacetime. And this means that time as we know it (as we experience it). Did not even exist before the universe was created. The very concept of time as we know it is a manifestation of our very existence.

People want to speak in terms of absolute time. But that's a Newtonian concept that doesn't apply to the actual spacetime that we experience.

I've come to grips with this and I have realized that there is no such thing as absolute time. There was no need for anything to come into being at any point in time, becasue there was never time when it didn't exist.

God is timeless. Eternity is not an endless river that flows from an infinitely distant past into an infintely distant future. Eternity is 'now'. It's always. It's omnitemperol.

We are all eternal. It is impossible to cease to exist because there is no other time in which to cease to exist.

If you exist 'now' you are eternal. Only form changes. It doesn't go anywhere. I just changes.

The past isn't 'back there' to go back to. The future isn't 'out there' waiting for us to catch up to it.

All that exists is 'now'.

There was never a time when you were not.

There is no such thing as time. All that exists is the spacetime of an incarnation. A ruffling of the now.

Sorry, Tribo, I know you didn't want a repeat of relativity, but I couldn't resist.

read your information and conclude its right and say tro yourself - ok i "completely accept this? no question's asked - discussion over??

Everything has a beginning that we know of except "GOD" however you define the concept of - god. That's a concept i really cant rap my head around? I mean stop and think on that for a minute - god - had no beginning?? Oh sure abra and others may come up with science or JB with metaphysical things but - "no beginning" think on that real hard for a while!! how can something not have a beginning?? If god is "nothing" well, that's a diff story - but "something"??? not having a "beginning"??? seem's totally unbelieveable to me!!

Is it unbelievable to you that space has no end? No beginning?

Yes and no.

I think I can say, "yes" the discussion is over as far as notion of time is concerned. So, "yes" to that part.

But does that answer the question of what the eternal timeless now is?

No.

Think of it this way. Let's say that I see a green snake glistening in the pure white sunlight.

You ask me, "How can it be green?"

I go though all the science of discovering that white light is made up of all colors (Isaac Newton was the gentleman who actually did that). Then I discover how pigments work to absorb certain colors and reflect others. I realize that the snake must have green pigments on it's skin.

Then you ask me, "Do you understand how the snake can be green?"

I say, "Yes"

You ask me, "Is that the end of the discussion, you're satisfied with that?"

I say "Yes"

Does that mean that I understand what a snake is? Or what light itself is?

No.

So in a very similar way. I can say, "Yes" I understand how an eternal timeless now makes sense from an absolute temporal point of view.

Does that mean that I understand anything more about it beyond this?

No.

I just understand why there is no past to go back to, and no future out in front of us. Our experience of time is an illusion of an ever-changing dynamic 'now'.

It doesn't flow like a river. It has no beginning and no end. There's no need for a beginning or an end. It's eternal in the sense that it is merely an ever-changing 'now'. There was never a time when it was not because time does not even exist for it in that way.

Yes, I understand that concept on an intuitive level, as well as an intellectual level. No more questions concerning that concept of time. But there are still other questions like what exactly is this thing? Obviously it's what we call God. But that doesn't answer the details.

I'm not even sure if knowing the details would be of any use actually. It's fun to ponder them. But I have no deep need to know the answers. I just enjoy exploring them in the same way that I enjoy listening to music.

I wouldn't bother trying to build a time-machine to go into the past because I know now that it's not back there to go visit. That is one practical thing to know I suppose.

was looking hopefully for other input but none seems to be forth coming.

That('God's' existence) is not able to be proven, nor disproven.

I can offer you some other ideas from a different perspective. I'm not sure if they will help or hinder actually. You mentioned being able to wrap your mind around these concepts. Sometimes that's not easy. Especially if you are already locked into thinking of time in the normal Newtonian sense.

But owl try anyway.

Imagine, you have an object that can become different things.

I'm going to do this in 3-dimesions because this is how humans think. But the actual object would truly exist in zero dimensions. (another concept that is not easy to wrap your mind around)

But let's imagine you have this 3-dimesional object. Imagine that it's a perfect sphere (just for visualization purposes). Imagine also that it's made of a rubber substance that's almost like water. It can transform into anything it wants to become.

This object is all that exists. It's a perfect and motionless sphere.

With me so far?

Question: Does this object exist in time?

Answer: No.

Why not? Because it's motionless. There is nothing to keep time. Nothing has changed. There's no need to even have a concept of time. Nothing is changing. It doesn't make any sense to say, "Well it's been sitting there for an hour now and noting has changed". That idea assumes that there is something outside of it that does experience change, or at least owns a cheap pocket watch.

But this object is all that exists.

We already gave that as a premise. So if we have an object that exist by itself and it isn't doing anything at all, then for it there is no such thing as time.

So it's meaningless to say that this object exists "in time". It just exists. There is no need for any idea of time.

Now look at the object. It as changed. It now has pimples all over it. But it just sits there motionless with pimples all over it.

Has anything changed?

Well, yes, the sphere 'now' has pimples.

But has anything else changed about our original observation?

Not really. Now it's just a pimpled sphere sitting there doing nothing.

Remember there is no need for any concept of 'time' for something to just sit there doing nothing.

But you say, "It changed! That implies time has 'passed'"

Maybe yes, maybe no. What does time mean?

Look at it again!

No pimples! They've vanished and it's just a pure sphere again.

Now what do can say?

Can we say it moved 'forward' in yet more time?

I could argue that it went 'backward' in time. Because 'now' it looks like it did "before" it grew the dimples!

Do you see the problem here?

All you can really say is that the thing "Changed". You can't say anything about time. Time is an illusion. An illusion that in our world is made to have direction because of entropy (but that's a whole other concept that doesn't apply to this magical sphere). Entropy is a very deep concept of thermodynamics that has to do with the behavior of spacetime in our incarnation.

We don't need entropy to talk about a dimpled sphere because we're not even discussing the concepts associated with the energy it took to become dimpled.

We're merely interested in the concept of time here.

What's next?

LOOK!!! The sphere is alternating back and forth between being perfectly smooth and having dimples!

"Ahhhh!", You scream!, "Now there! That some real time oscillations"

But what's it doing? Is it progressively moving 'forward' in time? Or is it merely oscillating back and forth between today and yesterday?

If the perfect sphere was the original state, then every time it returns to that state it must be going 'back' to the time when it was a perfect sphere.

You see, we still have a problem with speaking of any kind of absolute time. All we can talk about is relative states of form.

Now look! The sphere has blossomed to look like a rose, and butterflies are flying out of its center and its changing colors and humming birds arise the petals of the rose, and angels appears to sing "Sweet Jesus" and all sorts of complicated things start happening.

What do you do know?

You run and grab a notebook and you record all these millions upon millions of changes and show me that they are all different, and even the rose appears to be getting 'older' and the angels become corrupt and turn into little devils. And you say, "Now we have some TIME we can sink are teeth into!"

I say, "Yes you do. But in reality, it's all happening right now". There is no such thing as time. All that exists is change. We record the change, and then use the list of recorded change to claim that this happened 'before' that and so on. But it's all an illusion of the ever-changing now. There is no such thing as time. All that exists is change in the primordial now.

The good angels that sang "Sweet Jesus" aren't still "back there" singing "Sweet Jesus" in the past. They are here right now being little devils. They simply changed.

Do you see what I'm trying to get at? There is no such thing as time. Time is not a thing it has no existence of it's own. All that that time is, is our way of listing and labeling the events that occur in the ever-changing now.

The only way that it would be possible to "travel" back in time, would be to get the 'now' to reshape itself to be the same as it was in some previous state.

The past isn't 'back there' to go to. But it may be possible for God to remember previous states and resurrect them. If God has any sense of 'time' at all it can only be as a list of 'previous' states of the now. In that sense time does exist. But in that sense time has no existence of it's own. It's nothing more than a list of previous states. It also would make no sense at all about talking about having a list of future states since the now has not 'yet' formed them.

Yes, in "THAT SENSE" and only in "THAT SENSE" can you speak about giving time any kind of meaning. Only in the sense of a memory of God. But in that context even God could not 'remember' the future because even God hasn't taken that form 'yet'. In other words, it can't be on any 'list' called "THE FUTURE".

So in the sense the pervious states of the now can be listed, the past can exist in that sense only. But it doesn't exist in the sense of being 'back there in time'.

~~~

Have I made any sense at all Tribo?

God itself has no need for time. No need for a beginning or an end. For God all that exists is now.

Well James,

Whomever irrefutably proves the existence of 'God' will be the first to do so.

Spinoza has came the closest, although if one truly understands his writings they will not get the 'God' of Abraham out of them...

Read Ethics I...

Perfectly compiled inductive argument for the existence of 'God'... necessarily so...

Well James,

Whomever irrefutably proves the existence of 'God' will be the first to do so.

Spinoza has came the closest, although if one truly understands his writings they will not get the 'God' of Abraham out of them...

I agree, the very definition of the concept of 'God' could utlimatley lead to whether or not it might be provable.

I mean, you have to know what it is that you are trying to prove before you could possibly prove it.

I'm not concerned about the God of Abraham. "If such a supposedly all-powerful personified diety existed it could only be proven if it permitted itself to be proven."


CORRECT MY "Q" MARKS NOT ABRA'S

However, the story of such a God has already disproved itself. The book claims that the God is all-powerful, all-wise, all-loving, all-knowing, and all-perfect. And then it goes on to decribe it doing things that are not all-powerful, all-wise, all-loving, all-knowing, and all-perfect. In other words, it's a self-inconsistent ""story"" and thus disproves its own claims. There's not much left to disprove after it gets down with itself.