What is time?

[Gracchus]

You are aware CF is a Christian web-site aren't you ???

In the fifteen years I have been a member it may have come to my attention.

In addition, this isn't your personal thread, is it ???

No, but it is open to me, and I can post my opinions until the mods say I can't, which is their right, since it is their heifer.

I believe CF member "dad" started this thread, and if you notice each one of his posts ends with the tag line, "God Was Right All Along"... Which IMO also qualifies as "preaching".

It's more like posting a brand name or a trademark. Indeed, "dad" is almost a brand name.

So I think you are a little "out of line" telling other people what the topic of this thread is limited to.

It might be better situated in "Physical and Life Sciences" than in "Creation and Evolution". But religious preaching in a science thread is about as appropriate as a dump in the living room. There is an appropriate place for it.

I suggest, If you want to limit the topic of a thread to "science" only.. you start your own thread and specify that in your opening post as a prerequisite for the discussion. Then you'll be HAPPY.

Actually, it is not the OP who determines whether a subsequent post is appropriate; it is the mods. Since this is a forum we can disagree. If you don't want people to disagree, don't post.

I believe since post #55 deals with "time" (albeit biblical), it adheres to the subject of the thread.

I am sure you believe a great many things.

 

[stephen583]

If you don't want people to disagree, don't post.

Nor do I believe it's any of your business to tell someone else whether or not to post something. As you put it, It's about as rude as "taking a dump in someone else's living room" not to mention a bit "arrogant" for someone who isn't even a moderator.

However, I'm going to discontinue this argument, as it violates the CF rule of addressing the subject of the thread and not the individuals posting in it. As well as its' content clearly being both "baiting" and "flaming" in nature.

 

[Hoghead1]

Dad, I think time is movement, change, something happening. I think time and space are one. We have no experience of timeless space or spaceless time. Also, it's hard to just think of something out there in space and not wonder what the time is, when it is or was there. I think we are in time and in space, but I don't think they would exist were there not things happening.

 

[dysert]

Time was created.

Says who? At least as far as creation week when our universe was created? I don't see the bible say that. It talks as if time were here already.

I disagree.

2Ti 1:9 -> who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began,

Tit 1:2 -> in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began,

So the Bible does teach that there was a period before time, and since God created all things, He also created time.

 

[Moreso]

Nice that Jesus gave us eternal life.

Yes it would be if it was true, but that's your belief so for you I guess it is true, isn't belief wonderful? people feel they will get so much more simply by believing they will it's childlike, especially when you won't know until after you're dead, the belief could stay with you for your entire life at which time no one will know if you got it or you didn't.

 

[Oafman]

a period before time

A period? How can you describe a period in which time doesn't exist? It's like saying, 'there was a time before time'. It's a contradiction.

If there was no time, there can have been no period. By definition. So there was not a period before time.

 

[Moreso]

I believe since post #55 deals with "time" (albeit biblical), it adheres to the subject of the thread.

Time like religions is a human construct, time is a measurement of life and religions are life's pacifiers.

 

[dysert]

A period? How can you describe a period in which time doesn't exist? It's like saying, 'there was a time before time'. It's a contradiction.

If there was no time, there can have been no period. By definition. So there was not a period before time.

Semantics. There was *something* before time, whether you want to call it a period or not.

 

[stephen583]

Time like religions is a human construct, time is a measurement of life and religions are life's pacifiers.

"SCIENCE WITHOUT RELIGION IS LAME, AND RELIGION WITHOUT SCIENCE IS BLIND".

ALBERT EINSTEIN


I'm guessing this guy was just a little bit smarter than you.. So I'll go with what he says.

 

[Oafman]

Semantics. There was *something* before time, whether you want to call it a period or not.

It's not semantics, it's logic.

The *something* before time can only have been instantaneous, existing only at the start of time. So it wasn't "before time", it was the state of things at the beginning of time. It's not semantics to point out that 'before time' is impossible.

 

[dysert]

It's not semantics, it's logic.

The *something* before time can only have been instantaneous, existing only at the start of time. So it wasn't "before time", it was the state of things at the beginning of time. It's not semantics to point out that 'before time' is impossible.

We obviously disagree. I'm basing my belief on the Scripture I posted above (e.g., God made a promise before time), but I realize you don't acknowledge that.

 

[stephen583]

Strictly from a scientific point, I don't believe backwards time exists. Once matter is transformed into energy and lost, I don't believe it is recoverable, or that it exists in any temporal sense anywhere, anymore. Past history can only be relegated to the pages of books, there is no way to revisit it. Although I must admit, I am totally in favor of allowing Civil War re-enactors to use live ammunition. That might finally put an end to the fascination with that gruesome period in American history.

Time travel into the future may be a scientific possibility, but time travel into the past is just the stuff of pseudoscience.

 

[greenguzzi]

The faster your go, the more time slows for the person going fast, but only for the person going fast.

Nope, that's not correct.
Velocity is relative to the observer. So provided that each observer is not accelerating, then each would observe the other as travelling slower in time. There is no absolute spatial reference, so there is no way of determining which observer is "going fast", therefore both observers would see time travelling slower for the other. Which in turn proves that there is also no absolute time reference.

 

[AV1611VET]

It's not semantics to point out that 'before time' is impossible.

How about "outside of time and space"?

You know ... one of God's attributes?

Is that "impossible" as well?

 

[Moreso]

"SCIENCE WITHOUT RELIGION IS LAME, AND RELIGION WITHOUT SCIENCE IS BLIND". ALBERT EINSTEIN
I'm guessing this guy was just a little bit smarter than you.. So I'll go with what he says.

As you are religious it's only natural that you would be more than willing to take the quote completely out of context to bolster your belief.
This is the full quote:
“Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

Einstein laid out his agnostic views on religion late in his life, when on 3 Jan 1954, he wrote a letter of thanks, in German, to Jewish philosopher Eric Gutkind, who had sent him a copy of his book, Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt. In this correspondence, written in the year before his death, Einstein explained his view of religions as “childish superstition:”

“The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.”

“For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions,” the letter continues. “And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.”

 

[AV1611VET]

Einstein went to aitch when he died.

 

[greenguzzi]

Once matter is transformed into energy and lost, I don't believe it is recoverable, or that it exists in any temporal sense anywhere, anymore.

Nope, mass is never converted into energy.
Mass is a property of energy. So all that is happening is energy moving around and changing its form.
Otherwise the universe would get "used up".

 

[Oafman]

How about "outside of time and space"?

You know ... one of God's attributes?

Is that "impossible" as well?

It's less of a logical contradiction than 'before time'. I'm reluctant to describe most things as impossible, but I would be keen to see a demonstration of how it might be possible to exist outside of space and time. All I've ever heard have been assertions that it is possible, never an explanation of how. Perhaps you'll surprise me...

 

[Gracchus]

How about "outside of time and space"?

How would that be different from "outside reality"?

You know ... one of God's attributes?

Who determined those attributes and how did they go about it?

Is that "impossible" as well?

It is just as possible as Hogwarts, no more, no less.

 

[greenguzzi]

It's less of a logical contradiction than 'before time'. I'm reluctant to describe most things as impossible, but I would be keen to see a demonstration of how it might be possible to exist outside of space and time. All I've ever heard have been assertions that it is possible, never an explanation of how. Perhaps you'll surprise me...

Whenever we ponder Minkowski space-time we are thinking about the universe from "outside space-time". So if we can conceive of such a state, then why could not an entity (God) exist in such a state?