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Okay, bear with me for a moment while I write something retarded.

The older we get, the faster time goes by. This is due to any specified amount of time gradually having a smaller and smaller percentage in contrast with our lives as a whole; when we are five, a month is a certain percentage of our lives, and when we are thirty-five, a month is a much smaller percentage of our lives.

This is relative time. Hell, the past twelve months feels like what a month felt to me when I was little.

Now here’s the retarded question; what does this say about God’s perception of time, and what would that perception mean?

The question could be raised of whether or not God has always existed, as is generally accepted by those who believe in God, in reference to the Big Bang or even before. It would certainly change things if God had a beginning rather than if it had no beginning. Eternity, I hear, is one helluva lot longer than the some-odd billions of years the universe is.

While this is a good question to consider, another one to consider alongside of it is whether or not time will have an end. Certainly time, as perceived by the human mind, will have an end, one way or the other (barring the eternal migration of our species to other galaxies to live before each sun exploded). And certainly, if there is a Big Crunch that does not result in another Big Bang, time and anything else that could exist is ultimately fucked anyway.

So, let’s assume that time had a beginning, at the Big Bang, and will have an end, at the Big Crunch, and that God is eternal. (Which is something of a paradox itself; if no matter exists, or at least is at such a singularity as to be a moot point that there is any matter at all, then where is God? Where is this whole spiritual realm of "Heaven"? It’s an unanswerable question at this point, so let’s leave it be.) Generally, God is perceived as something that is outside of the universe, yet is aware of it and can influence it in various ways. Because of this, God is separate from the aforementioned singularity of matter. Basically, this means that God and whatever spiritual realms there are cannot be physically found anywhere in all the universe. Which leads us to three possibilities; either God, et al, is physically outside the universe, it pervades the entire universe in a manner currently undetectable to our physical senses, or it exists only in our minds, which would mean God dies with us. This problem, in working with the issue of time that I’m taking my sweet time getting to, can be avoided by calling God the one sentient force that existed at the beginning of time and will continue to exist until the end of time, and in that respect, is eternal.

Woof. Alright.

So thus assuming God is eternal in some form, and that time has a beginning and an end, and taking into account the exponential rate of the speed of perceived time, how fast do, say, events transpiring on earth appear to such a creature? In essence, could its perception of "present" time be what would appear to us to be the future? Even more killer, would "present" time be perceived as all time? "Eternal" would then have the definition of always being present at every possible point in time between the Big Bang and the Big Crunch, and time itself would be reduced to a singularity.

Given this, if time were a singularity, then each unit of time would be accessible; thus, God can "time-travel". This makes it far easier to imagine a "personal" God that takes a stalker-like interest in each of us; what would appear to be five billion years ago to us, God took an interest in uncle Timmy from the time of his conception to the time of his death, and what would appear to be five billions years in the future, God took such an interest in our neighbor Sally.

While not discussed directly as such, Stephen Hawking spoke of something similar in A Brief History of Time when he talked about time travel being possible at speeds exceeding the speed of light. Light, of course, is something physical, while perception of time is much more intangible and only exists within minds. But I bring this up to point out the possibility of conception of time being much faster than light, so fast, in fact, as to make the concept of speed itself laughable, whether Poppa Jesse is going eighty miles an hour on the highway or a particular light wave is making its way to earth from the sun.

If you made it this far, you get gold stars and glitter and hugs. There is much more, including problems with my own logic up there, but I'd like to open up discussion at this point, if any are interested.

i am just a tiny bit confused on your point, would you mind clarifying this a bit?

ok so what is it you wish to discuss, I am a little confused myself, so please post what it is you wish to discuss.
Thanks

A question of Theological hypothetical laws of relativity?

How about, does God need a wrist watch? If so why?

You want to know how long God has been around? Is this the question?

I'm not sure of the question here but, the whole idea is that God exists outside of the space-time continuum. Therefore, time is not a factor for God.

God exists: Eternity past, eternity present and eternity future.

We as humans (whether you believe you are human or not doesn't matter) live inside the space-time continuum. Therefore, everything we have done, are doing or will do, has time factored in.

Understanding how old God is, cannot be mathematically equated. Reason being, there are no numbers that go that high. The numbers simply do not exist. Nor will they ever.

The human mind cannot calculate what it cannot perceive.

This is assuming that you are speaking of the Christian God. (not trying to start a religious debate, just stating how I understand it. Don't like my opinion? I'm sure I won't like yours either)

Eternity is a word that gets tossed around all the time yet, no human can or ever could explain how truly long that is.


Hope this made sense. Again, the question being asked was not clear to me.

God's nature is beyond human comprehension, to understand a divine being is beyond the limits of the scope of the human mind.

It's not so much a question, as an idea open to discussion. A theory to be extrapolated upon. To put it in question form, what would it mean to have a "time-traveling god"? What logical problems are there in the theory presented? Can you expand the idea?

The idea of gods is a product of mans mind, as soon as something happened enough that humans could not comprehend they attributed it to the the gods, in some cases that god figure would be a person from a nomadic civilization that used technology unfamiliar to the culture they encountered.

History also shows us that organized individuals used engineering to develop animated statues to awe the masses, and collect tributaries, so gods have been around, as long as man has been baffled by natural occurring events, and as long as their has been people who want money for little work.

Okay, for instance. In order for this theory to work, either;

A. God exists apart from the concept of time. Time, as laid out in the initial post, is defined as that unit which began when matter began and will end when matter ends, as time is inexorably linked to matter (i.e., everything that exists, if we have to be semantic, like gases and the general vacuum of space).

or,

B. God had a beginning and will have an end (or has already had its end; how interesting, itself, to think of a being that knows its own death already, and always did).


Which would be the more probable solution, and what supports that notion? Is there a third option?

To the gentleman who stated, basically, that human minds cannot comprehend a god, why should we believe that? Was it Galileo that said something along the lines that if God made us with the capability of reasoning and logic, he would not want us to not use it? Paraphrasing, but you get the idea. Imagine one who may have said that it's useless to try to understand fire. Or, to put it in more silly terms, why be a Juggalo and just shrug and say we don't know how magnets work? Obviously, in that particular case, we could just pick up a book and figure it out. But it's the things we do not currently understand that we must not simply shrug at and figure there's no answer.

Dabbler, while it is within the realm of possibility that a god or gods do not exist, the point of this is not to dissuade or persuade anyone of the existence of a god. It's more a mental exercise than anything else.

FateUnseen, all I have to say is...hah!

I understand that, A Hypathetical Theological Mental Chew Toy, I just don't catch what you hope to arrive at, aside from.. "It's all just so Gorden Knotish" or" It is so beyond understanding.."

a Mental chew Toy, Based on the existence of a the concept of a Creator.

So does God wear a Digital watch, or Watch with Hands?

But only because you inspired me philosophically, while it may appear to be a comical approach, I am venturing the actually question, and relative material as well. I just need to lube the brain a bit.

I am trying to recall a series of articles I read on Models of time relative to various established schools of thought, and the various branches that formed, some models became essential to the modern calendar, and time piece.

So I am not berating thread, though it is many faceted, and somewhat peculiar.

It is very difficult to write a decent response to such posts. How can this proceed in any positive fashion? If I post a response showing that I don't take myself that seriously, which I don't, I open myself to similar behavior in the future. If, however, I post a response showing my ire at the complete lack of respect to an idea that took time and care to write, which I do have, I will come across as a jerk. Either way, the thread would entirely derail, which even this third option has done. You have put me in a difficult position, sirs. Either engage in the conversation or have someone RIA this thread.

Ooh, posted after I saw Dabbler's last post. I apologize. Text loses much of its meaning without the accompanying body language. Please proceed.

Or rather, "before" I saw Dabbler's last post. Again, my most grievous bad.

Here is a summary I found of one article. What say we secure a few Models of Time before factoring in theology.

source wiki.

Cheryl Chen
Department of Philosophy

Notes made available at talk


Two opposing pictures about the nature of time:
1) The Conventional View
"In daily life we divide time into three parts: past, present, and future. The grammatical structure of language revolves around this fundamental distinction. Reality is associated with the present moment. The past we think of having slipped out of existence, whereas the future is even more shadowy, its details still unformed. In this simple picture, the "now" of our conscious awareness glides steadily onward, transforming events that were once in the unformed future into the concrete but fleeting reality of the present, and thence relegating them to the fixed past." --Paul Davies, "That Mysterious Flow"
2) The "Block Universe" View
"Physicists prefer to think of time as laid out in its entirety - a timescape, analogous to a landscape - with all past and future events located there together ... Completely absent from this description of nature is anything that singles out a privileged special moment as the present or any process that would systematically turn future events into the present, then past, events. In short, the time of the physicist does not pass or flow." --Paul Davies, "That Mysterious Flow"
The debate between the conventional view and the block universe view is actually the combination of two debates in the philosophy of time:
1) Presentism vs. Eternalism
Presentism: only things in the present exist.
Eternalism: things in the past (e.g., dinosaurs) and future (e.g., human outposts on Mars) exist too.
2) The A-Theory vs. the B-Theory
A-properties: happening now, happened a week ago, happened in the past, will happen two years from now, happening in the future
B-properties: being two years after the 2000 Presidential Election, happening on July 4, 1776

The A-Theory: A-properties are genuine features of the world. Time passes. The present moment has a special status.
The B-Theory: A-properties are reducible to B-properties. Time doesn"t pass or flow. No moment in time has any special status.
Why many philosophers and physicists believe in the block universe view:

The Greeks Personified Time "itself".

Chronos
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not to be confused with Cronus, a Titan. For other uses, see Chronos (disambiguation)




In Greek mythology, Chronos (Ancient Greek: Χρόνος) in pre-Socratic philosophical works is said to be the personification of time. His name in Modern Greek also means "year" and is alternatively spelled Chronus (Latin spelling).

Chronos was imagined as an incorporeal god. Serpentine in form, with three heads—that of a man, a bull, and a lion. He and his consort, serpentine Ananke (Inevitability), circled the primal world-egg in their coils and split it apart to form the ordered universe of earth, sea and sky. He is not to be confused with the Titan Cronus.
Chronos, sleeping on the grave of Georg Wolff, a merchant of unknown notability.

He was depicted in Greco-Roman mosaics as a man turning the Zodiac Wheel. Often the figure is named Aeon (Eternal Time), a common alternate name for the god.

Chronos is usually portrayed through an old, wise man with a long, gray beard, such as "Father Time". Some of the current English words whose etymological root is khronos/chronos include chronology, chronometer, chronic, anachronism, and chronicle.

Ah, he brought out Paul Davies! I like you even better. Yes, having a definitive concept of time first before delving into the other aspects is best.

This thread is going to take time, which is what I had hoped for. Unfortunately I have work in the morning and so I have to go to bed for now. But first...

I would like to bring up the ancient Greeks' view of time, which is opposite to the general modern view of it. We think of time as moving forward; as in, we are facing the future, with the past to our backs. The old Greeks, however, stared the past in the face, moving backward to meet an unknown future. It's an interesting view of mankind on a whole in history, that of seeing them face backwards, then slowly turn and face forward. It seems to me to be in sync with the concept of time moving faster as we grow older, except in this case, it's not just one person, it's the entire history of the species; our awareness of time is growing.

Time for bed.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Did_God_exist_before_or_after_the_Big_Bang

Here is a sample of an open forum on the topic.

One can find stricter less insightful replies as one gets closer to Fundamentalist who deplore anything physics related "tainting" their faith.

God is outside the stream of time: If I understand correctly, then Einstein's relativity theory states that nothing going slower than the speed of light can go faster than the speed of light (and vice-versa). By implication, time traveling would be a problem. Regarding this, there is a neat agreement between Einstein and the references in the book of Matthew 24:3 and 24:36 which helps us to understand creation itself. From this time related question and answer it can be derived that the whole creation is in the stream of time whereas only God is outside the stream of time. God is therefore at least one dimension (the dimension of time) above all of his creation. (Aptly the opening words of the book of Revelation is an example on how time related knowledge is passed on.) If this is the case, then it can be reasoned that God is the architect of time in our universe along with all the other physical laws that are interwoven with time. Only thereafter the rest of the creation (heavens and earth) would follow. We as "Flatlanders" would never have the ability to comprehend a being which is probably many dimensions higher than our own plane of existence. He is a being who existed even before time itself existed.

So with the above, can you "dissect" your preponderance into approachable components?

Ones experience of time maybe influenced by two physical, tangible concepts if a concept can be tangible.
Firstly, since your own birth your own "being" is actually accelerating through time and space. You are moving faster now that when you were a kid and you are getting further apart from the rest of the universe.(which may well be part of you if string theory is correct)
Secondly the neurones in your brain form new pathways for new experiences or reinforce them as your young brain grows.
As you age there are fewer new experiences and you just end up firing the same old neurones - like a boring old man telling the same old war stories over and over.Thus a train journey to a new pop concert seems longer on the way there than it is on the way back.
Time is the pulling apart of the universe you inhabit and it is probably not your friend, unless you like uncontrollable friends.

well... um...
Time is unchanged....
you perception of how time passes may differ...
like how "time flies when ur having fun"
but it doesn't change the fact that a second will be a second
and an hour will be an hour...
that doesn't change...

but Questions about God honestly can be answered
until we are all in agreement that the being exists...
This question is honestly asking if one believes if a god has
some effect on the forces of time... well... how you are asking it
it seems...

I fear there wont be a definite conclusion to this discussion...
good thread though...