God Owes Us Big Time

[allsmiles]

Don't worry about it Mono, customers have a tendancy to break one's attention from time to time.

I hear what you're talking about. As far as predestination goes, I think it's all hogwash.

 

[Lighthouse]

Your god sounds a lot like you Lighthouse.

Your own personal jesus.

:crackup:

Hardly. When I first came to TOL, a little over a year ago, I didn't believe the things I posted. Now I do. All because it was shown to me, in Scripture, by others.

 

[Caledvwlch]

Isn't it safe to assume that if the christian god created all things, including the human comprehension of the idea of time, that simply being outside of time he already knows the outcome? If this were true than the damned be damned for the actions he has not yet seen from our perspective, but has seen from his.

Think of it like this. A playwrite writes his masterpiece. It's shakespearian with plot twists and pointless death scenes. He writes up characters, plot, and and end. He's seen it all already, even though it hasn't been acted yet, and he knows the bad guy was bad because, well, he killed that other guy. Then he condems them all to hell, anyway. This is christian predestination.

The best way to think about predestination, for me anyway, would be to see it as God sitting outside of time. He did not write the actions, but he did see them before they happened. The script wrote itself and he got to read it before we acted it out. It's an issue of perspective: time, and our inability to think outside it.

If you find this post to be meaningless, it's beacuase of the customers interrupting my train of thought, and I'm sorry.

- m -

Forget the time angle monochrome. They hate it when you suggest that God might exist outside of time. Mainly because it totally kills whatever ammo they have against predestination. But I've been around and around on this one, and they refuse to even try to think outside the space-time continuum for a few minutes.

 

[Lighthouse]

Isn't it safe to assume that if the christian god created all things, including the human comprehension of the idea of time, that simply being outside of time he already knows the outcome? If this were true than the damned be damned for the actions he has not yet seen from our perspective, but has seen from his.

God did not create time. It is not of substance to have been created. It is merely the succession of events. Time simply exists, and has always existed.

Think of it like this. A playwrite writes his masterpiece. It's shakespearian with plot twists and pointless death scenes. He writes up characters, plot, and and end. He's seen it all already, even though it hasn't been acted yet, and he knows the bad guy was bad because, well, he killed that other guy. Then he condems them all to hell, anyway. This is christian predestination.

And it's a completely ridiculous fallacy.

The best way to think about predestination, for me anyway, would be to see it as God sitting outside of time. He did not write the actions, but he did see them before they happened. The script wrote itself and he got to read it before we acted it out. It's an issue of perspective: time, and our inability to think outside it.

There is no such place as "outside of time," because time is not tangible. It is not a dimension.

 

[Caledvwlch]

Told ya. :chuckle: They hate it.

 

[Lighthouse]

I use to think God was outside of time. Then I realized what time actually is, and saw how imminently stupid the idea of God being outside of time was.

 

[Caledvwlch]

I use to think God was outside of time. Then I realized what time actually is, and saw how imminently stupid the idea of God being outside of time was.

You didn't realize anything. You changed your presupposition on the matter. I have never realized anything about time either. I'm simply willing to imagine things beyond my own comprehension. The only reason the idea is ridiculous to you is because it flies in the face of your free will theories.

 

[Poly]

Forget the time angle monochrome. They hate it when you suggest that God might exist outside of time. Mainly because it totally kills whatever ammo they have against predestination.

Or maybe we hate it because we tend to think one should be able to back up what he says and not make something up out of thin air that just sounds good or believe something that somebody else made up out of thin air.

 

[Caledvwlch]

Or maybe we hate it because we tend to think one should be able to back up what he says and not make something up out of thin air that just sounds good or believe something that somebody else made up out of thin air.

For someone to say God is bound by time is just as made up. This whole argument is conjecture, which is why it kills me that you guys hate it so much. Can we not just sit together and conjecture? Or are your conjectures the only acceptable ones?

 

[allsmiles]

God did not create time. It is not of substance to have been created. It is merely the succession of events. Time simply exists, and has always existed.

He didn't say that Dimshack -- great, I've lost so much respect for you that now I'm calling you names too -- he said that god created man's comprehension of time.

 

[monochrome]

Hey, I don't believe in predestination myself. It just doesn't gel. As for making things up without proof or simply believing the imaginations of others... I think the christians have the market on that one. I'm agreeing with you, in a really weird way.

But on the topic of God oweing us, I don't think God would need to experience pain to understand what it is like. If he truly is the omnipotent creator, than he invented pain and knows exactly how it's supposed to feel.

- m -

 

[monochrome]

-- he said that god created man's comprehension of time.

Oh, thank you smiles, I was hoping someone would see that.

 

[allsmiles]

You didn't realize anything. You changed your presupposition on the matter. I have never realized anything about time either. I'm simply willing to imagine things beyond my own comprehension. The only reason the idea is ridiculous to you is because it flies in the face of your free will theories.

It's called abstract thought Cal. A mind not well differentiated lacks the capacity for abstract thought.

 

[Lighthouse]

You didn't realize anything. You changed your presupposition on the matter. I have never realized anything about time either. I'm simply willing to imagine things beyond my own comprehension. The only reason the idea is ridiculous to you is because it flies in the face of your free will theories.

Wrong.

I have seen exactly what the Bible says. And what it shows. And have used logic to realize that time is not a substance.

 

[Caledvwlch]

Wrong.

I have seen exactly what the Bible says. And what it shows. And have used logic to realize that time is not a substance.

Well, der. Of course it's not a substance. But there is no logic that rules out the possibility of time being something created and able to be manipulated by God.

 

[Poly]

For someone to say God is bound by time is just as made up. This whole argument is conjecture, which is why it kills me that you guys hate it so much.

God is not bound by time because time is an idea. Just a concept not a created thing as has been made up by man.

Can we not just sit together and conjecture? Or are your conjectures the only acceptable ones.

Pot...kettle...black...

You're confident that time is more than an idea, being something created by God in which He can go in and out of. You don't want to consider that maybe since this isn't biblical and since man has such an imagination, he might have made the whole idea up, coming to a conclusion that simply sounded good. I'm just not in to believing things that aren't scriptural and that are absurd.

Yeah, we can sit together and conjecture... as long as it's not over ideas like "Do flying monkeys exist?".

 

[Lighthouse]

He didn't say that Dimshack -- great, I've lost so much respect for you that now I'm calling you names too -- he said that god created man's comprehension of time.

He's still wrong.

 

[Caledvwlch]

Just to clarify here, I don't believe time is a thing. I just have yet to see a convincing argument that it is not. The Scriptures lighthouse in particular has shown me can be interpreted too many different ways to be offered as proof. I have no proof either. That's kind of my point. You stick so hard to the idea that time does not exist, but you leave no room for other options.

 

[Lighthouse]

I never said time does not exist.

 

[monochrome]

Well, der. Of course it's not a substance. But there is no logic that rules out the possibility of time being something created and able to be manipulated by God.

I suddenly see God wearing a white lab-coat, trying to plug two wires together at the top of a clock tower screaming "Marty!".