Terry, I already considered that thought, but this becomes a cyclical analogy with ever increasing complexity. Who created the God, which created that God who created that God? Each successive god has to be slightly inferior to the previous God. In the old Live Forever Book, there is a picture of a house and another of the universe. The caption states something to the effect that if the house had a designer than surely the complex universe must have had a designer.
ETERNITY BEFORE CREATION.....THE NON-EXISTENCE.....of GOD!
by Terry 92 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Terry
Assuming that God is eternal, then God exists in non-linear time where the past, present and future coexist. God would have begun his creative work immediately because there was no need to wait for a future time (post tense)
For Peter Pan to fly wouldn't he need wings?
We can't lapse into a coma of metaphor here.
Time, in modern parlance, has become the plaything of science fiction and theatrics.
The past, the present and the future do not exist without specific context. Otherwise, they are empty chairs.
For God to BEGIN HIS CREATIVE WORK there was a BEFORE and a just before the before...etc.
God without context, definition, identity is merely a concept like Peter Pan and creation by God is no more than Peter Pan flying without wings.
In other words, we just make the whole damned process up as we go along to satisfy the theatrics!
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truthseeker
So Terry, let me see if this is what you're trying to say. Before God created he was not a creator. If God had not created anything, except in his consciousness, than he had no measurable power of any kind because he hadn't decided to use it. Are you suggesting that God was in a "weakened state?"
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Sad emo
Actuality has existence in that it demonstrates through being within a time continuum.
What is 'time'? My idea, like some of the above posters is that God is outside of time - God invented it!
Potentiality has no demonstration at all. It does not "exist". What we place before our mind can have the potential to exist or not.
If it doesn't exist - how is it mathematically measurable?
A talent for art is not a thing. It is a skillset which, when employed by action, produces an object.
A talent for art is potential - until the action is carried out. I didn't say it is a thing, I used it an example of BEING without DOING.
A rock sitting on top of a hill is said to possess potential energy. When the balance is upset by an outside force the gravitational equilibrium produces movement downhill.
Whilst the rock is sitting there doing nothing, it is still BEING a rock - you don't have to DO in order to BE.
Can we distinguish the air we breathe from nothingness? Yes, just hold your breath and you'll demonstrate what the lack of it (nothing) can do!
I did say that - you missed my point. What if God might be like that - unnoticed to the five senses, but still there? Let's go the whole hog and say that if we refuse Him we die spiritually?
Listening and thinking...
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Terry
While a jw I was never able to resolve that question in my mind. But my own personal opinion now is that existence simply exists and has always existed. For me no alternative is possible unless I were to accept the contradiction that at one time, existence did not exist. For me that is a contradiction.
For anything to have existence it must also have identity!
Existence? It is a category of something which has identity.
Identity comes from being. Being something!
What exists and has being and identity is distinguishable for all else which it is not.
A God can only exist by force of standing out from nothing.
All our definitions of what God is also imply that the opposite of those definitions constitute what God is not.
When we back up our video tape to just before creation we find that our definitions of God cease to have meaning (i.e. application) and God vanishes.
It is that process of being and not being I want us to think about. If we don't realize that the words we use can become conceptual fluff without application and instantiation---then, we won't realize how easily we are manipulated when an AUTHORITY begins talking to us using these floating concepts without referents.
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Terry
What is 'time'? My idea, like some of the above posters is that God is outside of time - God invented it!
Time is a mental construct to instantiate the distance between events in a quantifiable way. It is a convention.
Potentiality has no demonstration at all. It does not "exist". What we place before our mind can have the potential to exist or not.
If it doesn't exist - how is it mathematically measurable?
Don't confuse mathematics with discussion with words about mathematics. As soon as we stop using numbers and start using words we slip easily into the duality of metaphor and reality. Confusing our words is easy because they are so multi-contextual.
A talent for art is potential - until the action is carried out. I didn't say it is a thing, I used it an example of BEING without DOING.
Talent, as you say, is not a thing. It is conceptual. Otherwise, the guy in the mental institution is potentially Napoleon.
A rock sitting on top of a hill is said to possess potential energy. When the balance is upset by an outside force the gravitational equilibrium produces movement downhill.
Whilst the rock is sitting there doing nothing, it is still BEING a rock - you don't have to DO in order to BE.
The rock is self-evident; the energy is not.
What if God might be like that - unnoticed to the five senses, but still there? Let's go the whole hog and say that if we refuse Him we die spiritually?
Are you familiar with the Fallacy of the Argument from Ignorance?
wikipedia:
The argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam ("appeal to ignorance" [1] ) or argument by lack of imagination, is a logical fallacy in which it is claimed that a premise is true only because it has not been proved false or that a premise is false only because it has not been proved true.
The argument from personal incredulity, also known as argument from personal belief or argument from personal conviction, refers to an assertion that because one personally finds a premise unlikely or unbelievable, the premise can be assumed not to be true, or alternately that another preferred but unproved premise is true instead.
Both arguments commonly share this structure: a person regards the lack of evidence for one view as constituting evidence or proof that another view is true. The types of fallacies discussed in this article should not be confused with the reductio ad absurdum method of argument, in which a valid logical contradiction of the form "A and not A" is used to disprove a premise.
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gumby
First of all Terry, I really miss your avatar of you without your shirt on that showed off your boobies.
The entire concept of this thread comes from the human mind which only holds the answers to what it has been fed. To think a human mind can reasonably figure out what was BEFORE creation is assuming there was a time when there was nothing..........which is a human concept. We know diddly squat about time and eternity so why try to put it in a box that we can understand?
*yearns to see Terry's boobs again*
Gumby
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eclipse
truthseeker:
"Why did he wait in nothingness?"
For God to wait implies that he was limited by the restraints of time.
I couldn't find a better word than ''wait'', as it implies god was in suspended animation... and the concept of an all powerful being would imply that it is not limited by the constraints of time, so that is why I concluded that ''waiting'' or just being in ''nothing'' was illogical for an all-powerful being to do.
If this all-powerful being exists, it would be reasonable to assume that it has been creating since it's beginning, and since it has no beginning....then there is limitless creation...???
The other concept that confounds my mind is the physical universe being infinite. I could never grasp that concept, and I tried! It bothers me to think that I cannot fathom eternity in every direction. I can picture it in my mind, but there is a limited scope of sight, and I cannot see in all the directions at once.
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the dreamer dreaming
in the beginning was the dreamer
and the dreamer was with the Generator Of Dreams
and the Generator Of Dreams was the dreamer
this one was in the beginning with the Generator Of Dreams
and all things came into being by this one and without this one
nothing existed.
--if you dont find it remarkable that reality is capable of dreaming-- being conscious
then you are not thinking.
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Terry
First of all Terry, I really miss your avatar of you without your shirt on that showed off your boobies.
The entire concept of this thread comes from the human mind which only holds the answers to what it has been fed. To think a human mind can reasonably figure out what was BEFORE creation is assuming there was a time when there was nothing..........which is a human concept. We know diddly squat about time and eternity so why try to put it in a box that we can understand?
*yearns to see Terry's boobs again*
You are the reason, dear gumball, that I changed my avatar in the first place!
The context of your post is timely. We cannot possess actual knowledge about real things without our mind being fed evidence of that reality through our senses!
Imagination is a poor substitute for informed senses evidencing outside reality.
When we argue about God we are arguing outside reality and hence: fantasy!
To submit one's life and mind to fantasy is certainly a topic worthy of investigation.
p.s.You should have memorized while you had the chance, Gummo!