If no one comes from the future to stop you doing it how bad of a decision can it really be?

[partinobodycular]

If we aren't seeing time travelers then they're either really good at hiding, it was never discovered, or it's impossible.

There's a fourth possibility. Time travel is possible, but you can't go back to a point before time travel was invented. For example, if you create a wormhole through which people from the future can travel back to the point when the wormhole was created, but they can't go back any further.

 

[Sketcher]

If no one comes from the future to stop you doing it how bad of a decision can it really be?

Well, there was that one time Hitler invaded Russia . . .

 

[Mark Quayle]

Why are we not “allowed” to be ignorant of “what caused all this”?

We are. At least, if we want to remain unattached to God.

 

[Mark Quayle]

There's a fourth possibility. Time travel is possible, but you can't go back to a point before time travel was invented. For example, if you create a wormhole through which people from the future can travel back to the point when the wormhole was created, but they can't go back any further.

A fifth: Time travel happens all the time, but nobody, not even the travelers, remember what came "before".

 

[Mark Quayle]

I must admit, I'm certainly curious.



I see that you've taken Aquinas' lead and summarily equated the first one with the second one. With all due respect to Aquinas, Aristotle, and Kalam I'd be surprised if you could make a cogent argument for either.

"...equate the first one with the second one." What are you talking about? And, "a cogent argument for either" —either what? If God is God, he is omnipotent; therefore, First Cause. Definition. No need to prove. I simply refuse to call any other being "God" or to consider any other to be God. Superhumans —gods, perhaps— but not God.

The First Cause, as per metaphysical arguments, and a conscious Creator with free will, while not mutually exclusive, can't possibly be one and the same thing.

I should think that would depend on what "free will" means, there.

The good old "Men freely will what God wills them to will." argument. Hardly convincing, and a tad hypocritical. After all we could make the exact same argument for God, "God freely wills what the First Cause wills Him to will."

You repeatedly seem to assume that God and First Cause are not necessarily the same thing. I'm sorry, but God is not God, if he is not First Cause.

In other words the First Cause establishes the illusion of choice. Both ours and God's.

Why God's? What makes a human think he would know what it is for God to decide anything? Why assume that God even has options? Things come FROM God —they don't happen TO him.

If God has no choice in what He creates, then He's merely acting in accord with something greater than Himself. On the other hand if He does have a choice, then He's not the First Cause because something has to influence Him to choose one thing over another... in other words there has to be a cause for what He chooses. Whenever God chooses to do one thing rather than another it demonstrates that He's not the First Cause. On the other hand if He has no choice in what He does then there's something greater than He is.



Ah, we've barely scratched the surface on the first one.

Are you familiar with the phrase (CS Lewis —Til We Have Faces) —"...the babble we think we mean"? We have this monstrous habit of considering our concepts worthy, nearly reality themselves, and certainly fully representative of reality. WE come up with something by which to describe God, then hold him to our notions of those things.

Several times on this site, I've run into people jeering at the notions of God being omnipotent, or omniscient or any of several different things, only because these jeering folks think their words hold more value than even good thinking does. For example: IF God is God, he is necessarily First Cause (or, at least, I will consider no other God); this implies to some that he has choice, and to others that he does not; but if he is first cause, then he needs no ability to choose, nor does he need options, nor can we consider him at all encumbered by lack of ability to choose. In other words, we shouldn't anthropomorphize God.

FWIW, too, I haven't studied Aristotle, nor do I care much for Kalaam's argument since it doesn't demonstrate that the universe's creator is First Cause, so at best it is simply saying that the only reasonable explanation for existence is First Cause, the Uncaused Causer, and that, only after extrapolation that he doesn't show. I find three of Aquinas' Five Ways weak, because they depend on how we say things, and not on how things are. At best, they should say something to the effect of, "We should believe God exists, since we say thus and such." It's been awhile.

 

[Pommer]

We are. At least, if we want to remain unattached to God.

I thought that God was completely “outside” of this universe?
Or are you asserting that the universe can contain God?

 

[Pommer]

A fifth: Time travel happens all the time, but nobody, not even the travelers, remember what came "before".

I believe that this is explained as “Last Thursdayism”.

 

[jayem]

I'm not a physicist, but I know a bit about time dilatation. Suppose I traveled around the Milky Way galaxy in a spaceship capable of going 0.99c. On the time clock in my ship, I've been gone 5 years. But when I come back to Earth, more than 30 years have passed. According to special relativity, time passes more slowly for an object in motion as opposed for one that's stationary. But I wouldn't be someone coming from the future. I'd be coming from the past.

 

[Hans Blaster]

I'm not a physicist, but I know a bit about time dilatation. Suppose I traveled around the Milky Way galaxy in a spaceship capable of going 0.99c. On the time clock in my ship, I've been gone 5 years. But when I come back to Earth, more than 30 years have passed. According to special relativity, time passes more slowly for an object in motion as opposed for one that's stationary. But I wouldn't be someone coming from the future. I'd be coming from the past.

Finally time travel that works. Now we just need to build the 0.99c spacecraft...

 

[Mark Quayle]

I'm not a physicist, but I know a bit about time dilatation. Suppose I traveled around the Milky Way galaxy in a spaceship capable of going 0.99c. On the time clock in my ship, I've been gone 5 years. But when I come back to Earth, more than 30 years have passed. According to special relativity, time passes more slowly for an object in motion as opposed for one that's stationary. But I wouldn't be someone coming from the future. I'd be coming from the past.

0.99c compared to what?

 

[Mark Quayle]

I believe that this is explained as “Last Thursdayism”.

That would fit the description, but that wasn't what I was talking about. By the way, I don't believe in Last Thursdayism. I believe God can actually make the world in six days AND also actually in billions of years, if he wishes, both. The only deception being our lack of understanding of time and his sovereignty as first cause —the creator of time and of very fact, itself.

 

[Mark Quayle]

I thought that God was completely “outside” of this universe?
Or are you asserting that the universe can contain God?

Hardly. But a proper notion of his immanence, while contrasting with his transcendence, does not oppose it, both being our poor words to describe him.

God does not answer to form. Thus, measurements, boundaries and logical structures are not descriptive of him. To say "within" or "contain" or "outside of", are only ways for us to put handles on thoughts. When I say he is outside of this universe, I certainly mean that it cannot contain him, but also that its laws are made by him, and do not apply to him.

 

[zippy2006]

If no one comes from the future to stop you doing it how bad of a decision can it really be?

...Rationalization taken to the next level...

 

[keith99]

0.99c compared to what?

You actually understand it!

 

[Pommer]

0.99c compared to what?

Standing “still”, though, in our expanding universe, this has yet to be observed.

 

[Pommer]

Hardly. But a proper notion of his immanence, while contrasting with his transcendence, does not oppose it, both being our poor words to describe him.

God does not answer to form. Thus, measurements, boundaries and logical structures are not descriptive of him. To say "within" or "contain" or "outside of", are only ways for us to put handles on thoughts. When I say he is outside of this universe, I certainly mean that it cannot contain him, but also that its laws are made by him, and do not apply to him.

How nice for Him!
It’s almost as if He needn’t actually “exist”.

 

[Pommer]

That would fit the description, but that wasn't what I was talking about. By the way, I don't believe in Last Thursdayism. I believe God can actually make the world in six days AND also actually in billions of years, if he wishes, both. The only deception being our lack of understanding of time and his sovereignty as first cause —the creator of time and of very fact, itself.

Yes, for an omnipotent God both these time-frame-references are possible.
It must have been an interesting “moment” when God first became Self-aware, huh?

 

[keith99]

Standing “still”, though, in our expanding universe, this has yet to be observed.

The whole basis of special relativity is that there is no one frame of reference that is standing still. All inertial frames of reference are equal and the observer in any such frame of reference is 'standing still'.

And all such observers see light moving at the same speed relative to them.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Standing “still”, though, in our expanding universe, this has yet to be observed.

I expect you mean, that we have no way to anchor anything to the term, "still".

Funny how words don't always mean the same thing. Observing is difficult at the speed of light. And nothing anyone observes has failed to have already happened.

 

[Mark Quayle]

How nice for Him!
It’s almost as if He needn’t actually “exist”.

'Existence', as we understand it, hardly describes him. 'Existence', in fact gets its meaning from him. He is not subject to the principle we know of as existence. That is just our word.

He is not subject to our notions of reality. He "invented" reality. The Omni is HIS arrangement of things. These are HIS facts —or he is not God.