Why God cannot have existed forever. (page 2)

amccullough

Mindchild

You can play even more thought experiments to test the absurdity of God being here forever. Consider this...why couldn't there have been TWO GODS that were here forever, why not 3,4,10, 100, 1000, or 29438573004592332 Gods? If you are going to use magical thinking and assume that one God was always here forever and ever it is just as valid to assume more Gods were there.

This is true but it still does not DISPROVE that God has existed forever. In the rest of your post, you attempt to apply physical attributes to a metaphysical being. That is similar to saying that aliens can't exist because there is not enough oxygen on the other planets.

roybatty

amc,

I agree. As we all know, time is relative. Assuming an Almighty God exists, time as we percieve it, doesn't apply to Him.

JanH

Good thoughts, skipper.

Two more ideas:

Time originated with the universe. Before the universe, there was no time (logically the previous sentence is meaningless, since there was no "before the universe" either). If God is beyond our universe, as someone claims, then God is timeless. Thought and action requires time, since without sequence there is neither. As the saying goes, time is what the universe has to prevent everything from happening at once. A timeless god is meaningless.

God is also postulated as both omniscient (all-knowing) and omnipotent (all-powerful). Those are mutually contradictory. If God knows what will happen tomorrow and for every tomorrow in all eternity, then he also knows what he himself will do for all eternity. God cannot then do anything else. God is totally powerless to do differently, or he was wrong, ergo he is not all-knowing.

Not to mention god must also be omni-bored.

The idea of "God" was postulated millennia ago, and the idea has been developed ever since. As orthodox theism is now, it is totally at odds with logic and science. It is a meaningless and absurd idea that is only entertained because of collective nostalgia, and because "god" is a massive, powerful industry.

- Jan
--
- "How do you write women so well?" - "I think of a man and I take away reason and accountability." (Jack Nicholson in "As Good as it Gets")

Lee Elder

Trying to understand "God", is like trying to explain color to a blind man or a 3 dimensional world to a 2 dimensional "flatlander". If he exists, he or she is incomprehensible in every sense. How much time have you spent trying to explain your existence to your cat or dog? Wouldn't do much good, would it? To me, the intriguing question is why is there something (the universe) rather than nothing?

Believe what you find comforting - just be sensible and honest enough to distinguish between faith and reality thereby limiting the potential for belief systems to control or manipulate you in a detrimental way. The whole point of faith is that it does not require proof or evidence. Believers who try to prove God's existence, prove the Bible is the word of God, etc., have missed the point.

Lee

Erich

mindchild:

If there is no software installed there is no computation going on. Even if you use self programming algorithms they need to have rules, and an outside world to interact with.!

This RULE for self-programming-algorithm is exactly THAT, what means JHWH/YHVH ("I shall be proved"). It is a "teleological principle" which rules the universe. Most of all: life.

Moxy

i think this question falls under the domain of philosophy rather than physics and math.

one thing i will say. whether we are figments of gods imagination or whether we really exist is a meaningless question. by defintion, there is no possible way to distinguish the two.

mox

aChristian

Sleepy,

You say you have been reading a lot of physics books. However it doesn't sound to me like you have read too many.

You wrote: At any point in time we could take, if time went back forever ...

Physics books tell us that time does not go "back forever" from "any point in time."

Physics books tell us that time is only a dimension of our physical universe. And that time did not begin until our physical universe began. Scientists tell us that our universe, along with its dimension of time, began with a "Big Bang" about 15 billion years ago. So, time does not go "back forever." It goes back only about 15 billion years to the time of the "Big Bang." At that exact instant time began, and it did not exist one nanosecond earlier.

Next time you are reading physics books you may want to read about "string theory." At the very heart of "string theory" is the proposal that the cosmos experienced a dimensional split at 10 to the minus 43 seconds after the Big Bang began. At that instant, the ten-dimensional expanding universe split into two pieces: a six-dimensional piece that permanently ceased expanding and never produced matter, and a four dimensional piece that became our dimensions of length, width, height and time. Modern science maintains that only that four dimensional system continued to expand, eventually producing matter and stars. (see Stephen Hawking's A Brief History Of Time, 1988)

Erich

JanH:

Time originated with the universe. Before the universe, there was no time (logically the previous sentence is meaningless, since there was no "before the universe" either). If God is beyond our universe, as someone claims, then God is timeless.

This allegation is not quite o.k.
God is "timeless" in that way that he can evoke TIME and SENSIBILITY for the perceiving of TIME.

Moxy

ok one more thing i will say. we should not take the cop-out that the question is beyond our puny understanding. it goes without saying we will not be able to fully grasp the realities of the universe in the everyday sense we grasp the reality of process cheese. but we can understand the ideas. flatlanders are quite capable of understanding 3D space, just as we are fully capable of understanding space of 4 or more dimensions. we dont quite 'grasp' it the same way, but we can describe it perfectly, performing all manner of geometrical calculations in n-dimensional space, so its not fair to say its something beyond our understanding. same thing with infinity. we cant comfortable contain the thought in our head, but we understand the concept perfectly. mathematics deals with infinities all the time, even distinguishing between different 'sizes' of infinity, aleph-nought being the absurdly named 'smallest infinity.' so lets not just throw our hands up in the air and say 'to heck with it.' lets give ourselves a little credit.

mox

sleepy

A christian I think you missed the point

"At any point in time we could take, >IF< time went back forever ..."

Notice the "IF"

"Physics books tell us that time does not go "back forever" from "any point in time."

Which was the point I was making.

Why God cannot have existed forever.

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