No, I haven't. You have a recommendation?
Tammy
Does God Keep Time or is Time a Human Construct?
by Band on the Run 52 Replies latest jw friends
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Lion Cask
Yes, Tammy. A Brief History of Time, alluded to earlier on this thread. You need not surrender anything you believe in but reading it will greatly improve your understanding of, amongst other things, relativity theory and the combined dimension of space and time.
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tec
Oh, I'm not afraid of learning about science... it's just often over my head - especially if there are formulas and theories that require understanding of previous theories, etc... - so I leave it alone unless it is essential in my life. Unless something strongly piques my interest and imagination, as did the expanding universe -especially combined with time.
I'll pick up this book at the first opportunity, Lion Cask, thanks.
Tammy
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trevor
Time is real in as much as the speed of light is a constant factor. It travels at 186,000 miles a second. We know how far away other galaxies are by the number of light years their light has taken to reach us. That is still only a measurement.
Time does not exist per say but is a construct. Our perception of time as a humans is subjective. Our knowledge of time is objective. As for God - there are people on this board who claim he speaks to them. Why not ask them what He has to say?
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Band on the Run
Ive tried so many times to understand relativity and Shroeder's cat. Within the past two years, I read a major new biography of Einstein. I can't recall the author. I understood more than I did before reading the bk. Hawkings' bk is a class. One should almost read b/c everyone else reads it. The New York Times is similar.
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Lion Cask
Begin here, BOTR. Relativity is all about what different observers see. That is the key understanding. Hawking talks about a ping pong ball bouncing up and down on a single spot on a table on a moving train. To an observer on the train, the ping pong ball will have moved only short vertical distances but to an observer on the ground looking through the windows of the passing train, the ping pong ball will be moving in gentle, elongated arcs and the time the ball is airborne above the table will be perceived as longer. The two observers are moving relative to one another and will assign different times and positions to the same event. No particular observer’s measurements are any more correct than any other observer’s, but all the measurements are related. Neither time nor space is therefore constant.
To your question, God (if He exists) does not keep time because time is relative to who is observing it and from where. If God is ubiquitous, He will perceive time on a scale of zero to infinity. He would see the pingpong ball on the train bouncing up and down and He would see it frozen for all eternity in one place. Time, therefore, does not exist for God.
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Band on the Run
My larger point is that it is silly to assign 666 or 144,000 to God. Some of the imagery in Revelation is not feasible in any physical world we know. Anyone can find what they wish to read into it. It strikes me that the Witnesses assume that they are the only people to ponder these things. Everyone else was to pagan or hedonistic to do it. Yet I remember they commended William Tyndale, the English publisher of the Bible, who was fried to a crisp in Tudor times. He was NOT a Witness.
I can understand uneducated people believing the Witness stance but the people who write the Witness literature are not unschooled. Joseph Smith's assertions regarding God's prophesies to him always struck me as bizarre and fantastic. Angels masquerading in upstate NY. Of course, we believed they masqueraded in Brooklyn. The egos of these people must be as big as Hitler's. The more I learned, the more I know only a mere fraction. Even if I have some expertise in my field, it must be tied to other fields. Christian humiliity is sorely lacking.
Once you recgonize they have no authority , everything falls. I only learned today that Jesus was not bodily resurrected according to the JW. Yet they are far, from from Gnostic. The last thing a Gnostic would view as paradise would be trapped on earth in a physical body forever. Very strange. I fail to see any coherence or system in their beliefs.
Following their doctrine is like watching a tennis game. The ball is constantly in motion and one must accomodate the new light. Were it not for its impact, I would just laugh.
When does Christian martyrdom end for them? One day Christians fed to lions were great heroes, the next day, a great apostacy occurs and Christians fed to lions are devils. The lions probably found both examples tastey.
My mom always used to ask why Israelites were so heartless. Exodus with Charlton Heston and voila back to worshipping idols in one day. In my day, even after Armageddon people would fall away. Manson had insights and revelations, too.
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Lion Cask
Sorry, I thought we were talking about relativity and time, and your original question.
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Botzwana
Yeah Farkel is on my ignore button now. I will never address him now or in the future. Life is TOO short to be worried about creeps like him. He claims he is dying of a lung disease but that surely hasn't softened him as a human being.
To get back on subject though, you can't avoid time. That's how we as humans measure things. "remember the time" etc. If there is a God he I would think views time in the same way.
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Lion Cask
If there is a God he I would think views time in the same way.
Not possible, unless you dismiss relativity theory.