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The false dichotomy.

Clete

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So, your belief systems includes that fact that you don't have the slightest idea or theory or even guess at how most things that exists today came to be. Thats not very Christian.

It is far more Christian to believe that God created everything, and set into motion his laws of nature that caused everything to be as they are today.

If I asked to to define "Time" what would you say?
I know you didn't ask me but since I've done a very great deal of study on the topic, I thought I'd offer an answer to the question "What is time?"...

Modern science literally defines times as "what a clock measures". They have intentionally conflated time with clocks. In actual fact, time has nothing to do with clocks at all. Clocks are machines that click off, or count a series of arbitrary events.

Time is an idea. More specifically, time is a convention of language used to convey information about the duration and sequence of events relative to other events. The same is true about space, by the way. It too is merely a concept used to communicate the location of objects relative to other objects. Neither time nor space exists outside of a thinking mind.

Clete
 

Trump Gurl

Credo in Unum Deum
. . . . . by the way. It too is merely a concept used to communicate the location of objects relative to other objects. Neither time nor space exists outside of a thinking mind.

Clete

And change in objects too? Like a leaf changing color or a person aging?
 

Clete

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And change in objects too? Like a leaf changing color or a person aging?
Such changes are events. Anything that happens is an event, by definition. Thus, the broadest definition of time is...

Time is the convention of language (i.e. concepts) used to convey information about the duration and sequences of events relative to other events.

Even that is somewhat redundant in that the beginning and ending of a particular event (i.e. an event's duration) are themselves just events that happened in a particular sequence. In other words, the concept of duration is just another way of discussing the concepts of sequence. I like to include it though because it prevents needless confusion about certain issues.

Clete

P.S. The importance of that definition is that it rationally precludes any concept of "before time" or "outside of time" or any other such concept. Time is logically predicated upon the concept of existence. You cannot pre-exist existence. Nor can you exist outside of existence. These are obvious contradictions and cannot be real.
 
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Trump Gurl

Credo in Unum Deum
Such changes are events

So you do not agree with the theologian, that time is a measurement of change? Did you read my quote?

“Let us look a little more closely at what is implied by change. It means that the being which is subject to it is never at any moment the whole of itself: it possesses its being successively, as the philosophers say. You, for instance, are never at any moment the whole of yourself. What you were last year, what you will be next year, all belongs to the totality called you. But last year has gone, and next year has not arrived. It is obviously an overwhelming limitation that one never wholly possesses one’s self, that one possesses one’s being in successive moments and not simply in one act of being, that one is never wholly there. There is no such limitation in God. He possesses Himself wholly in one act of being. This is what we call His eternity. Thus eternity does’ not mean time open at both ends, time stretching away back into the past with no beginning, stretching away forward into the future with no ending. In fact we are back at our earlier principle: that infinity means not only the absence of external limits, but of internal divisions as well. Just as space has parts lying alongside one another, time has parts following one another. The Infinite has no parts, of either (or any other conceivable) sort. Eternity is not time, however much we may try to glorify the concept of time. The philosophic definition of eternity is in two Latin words, tota simul,1 which may be roughly translated as “all at once”. God’s eternity means that He possesses the totality of what He is, not in successive acts as we do, but in one single act.”​
― Frank Sheed, Theology and Sanity
 

Clete

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So you do not agree with the theologian, that time is a measurement of change? Did you read my quote?

“Let us look a little more closely at what is implied by change. It means that the being which is subject to it is never at any moment the whole of itself: it possesses its being successively, as the philosophers say. You, for instance, are never at any moment the whole of yourself. What you were last year, what you will be next year, all belongs to the totality called you. But last year has gone, and next year has not arrived. It is obviously an overwhelming limitation that one never wholly possesses one’s self, that one possesses one’s being in successive moments and not simply in one act of being, that one is never wholly there. There is no such limitation in God. He possesses Himself wholly in one act of being. This is what we call His eternity. Thus eternity does’ not mean time open at both ends, time stretching away back into the past with no beginning, stretching away forward into the future with no ending. In fact we are back at our earlier principle: that infinity means not only the absence of external limits, but of internal divisions as well. Just as space has parts lying alongside one another, time has parts following one another. The Infinite has no parts, of either (or any other conceivable) sort. Eternity is not time, however much we may try to glorify the concept of time. The philosophic definition of eternity is in two Latin words, tota simul,1 which may be roughly translated as “all at once”. God’s eternity means that He possesses the totality of what He is, not in successive acts as we do, but in one single act.”​
― Frank Sheed, Theology and Sanity
I had not read the quote until now.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to be insulting but it is simply nonsense. It's all a bunch of self-contradictory conclusions based on premises which all beg the question. The past does not exist nor does the future. All that exists, exists now. And even that is a redundancy because there is no "now" either. "Now" is a time word. As such, it is a concept. It is an idea that exists in a thinking mind and nowhere else. Thus, it is most properly stated simply, and in the present tense, that, "All that exists, exists." That might sound like a tautology but it isn't. It is just another form of the first law of reason, the law of identity. What is, is. A is A. It is the concept upon which all knowledge and intelligible discourse is based. Any attempt to undermine it makes use of it and is thus self-defeating nonsense.

The only reason anyone who calls themselves a Christian believes a syllable of that quotation is because of Aristotle's philosophy which was imported into Christian doctrine by Augustine of Hippo. It has nothing to do with anything the bible teaches nor with plain reason. All of that sort of talk is predicated on, and serves as a rescue devise for, the doctrine that says that God cannot change in any way whatsoever (i.e. Classical Immutability). And, by the way, the irony of Aristotle being the one given credit for coming up with the laws of reason is not lost on me but he didn't invent the laws of reason, he merely understood them and wrote them down. A feat of philosophy so awesome that it dwarfs into obscurity all the fast quantity of nonsense that he spewed either prior to it or afterward.

And to answer your question directly, no, time is not accurately defined as "a measurement of change". What if something doesn't change? Can one not still ask, "How long has it stayed the same?" Conversely, if something changes, one might ask, "When did it change?"
In short, change implies the concept of time. Thus, to use it as the basis for it's definition would be to get the cart before the horse and employ circular reasoning. Further, since change implies time, to talk about any sort of change (or even the lack thereof) outside of time is to commit a stolen concept fallacy (i.e. to contradict yourself).

I didn't expect it to come up so quickly but this is the sort of thing I was referring to when I said it is helpful to included the concept of duration in the definition I've offered. Any event, including both change and the lack thereof is covered by my definition.

Clete
 

Trump Gurl

Credo in Unum Deum
I'm sorry, I don't mean to be insulting but it is simply nonsense

Well, you and I certainly come from two very different places. Sheed is old school which is reflected in his style, born in the 1800,s back when soap box orators were big, and he was one with the Catholic Evidence Guild . He and his wife Maisie Ward were famous for "Sheed & Ward", publisher of Karl Adam, G. K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc and more, and he has a doctorate in divinity. I doubt if "nonsense" is the word for his work. But, to each his own.

 
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Stripe

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Such changes are events. Anything that happens is an event, by definition. Thus, the broadest definition of time is...

Time is the convention of language (i.e. concepts) used to convey information about the duration and sequences of events relative to other events.

Even that is somewhat redundant in that the beginning and ending of a particular event (i.e. an event's duration) are themselves just events that happened in a particular sequence. In other words, the concept of duration is just another way of discussing the concepts of sequence. I like to include it though because it prevents needless confusion about certain issues.

Clete

P.S. The importance of that definition is that it rationally precludes any concept of "before time" or "outside of time" or any other such concept. Time is logically predicated upon the concept of existence. You cannot pre-exist existence. Nor can you exist outside of existence. These are obvious contradictions and cannot be real.
I like the definition of time like this:

"The distance between events."
 

Clete

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Well, you and I certainly come from two very different places. Sheed is old school which is reflected in his style, born in the 1800,s back when soap box orators were big, and he was one with the Catholic Evidence Guild . He and his wife Maisie Ward were famous for "Sheed & Ward", publisher of Karl Adam, G. K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc and more, and he has a doctorate in divinity. I doubt if "nonsense" is the word for his work. But, to each his own.

I'm not casting doubt on his intentions or his character. I have no doubt that he totally believed every syllable of what he said there. Indeed, there's no doubt at all that he did. He believed what he was taught to believe just as most Christians do.

The point is, however, that his education, devotion, intentions, sincerity or whatever has nothing to do with whether what he said makes any rational sense. In fact, I'd bet dollars to donuts that he would have readily admitted to you that it doesn't make rational sense. There are millions and millions of Christians, especially professional Christians, who don't believe that doctrine has be rationally coherent. They have a term for a doctrine that is clearly irrational. They call any such doctrine an "antinomy". "Antinomy" literally means "contrary to law" and in the context of doctrine it quite intentionally means, "contrary to the laws of reason". They (i.e. Catholics, Calvinists alike (a.k.a. Augustinians)) are happy to be irrational if that's what it takes to preserve the notion that God is utterly immutable in the classical sense of that term. It is THE bedrock doctrine upon which their entire theological worldview is built.

I, on the other hand, proclaim to you that the truth cannot be irrational and that contradictions do not exist in reality. If you think you've found one, check your premises. You'll find that one of them is wrong. In fact, the word "truth" actually is synonymous with the word "consistent". Something is true when it is consistent with both itself and the rest of reality and that's all sound reason is about, conforming one's mind to the limits of reality and that all the laws of reason are about.

The laws of reason...

1. The law of identity.​
A is A.​
What is, is.​
2. The law of excluded middle.​
Any truth claim is either true or it false. (i.e given a specific context).​
3. The law of contradiction.​
Any two truth claims that are in contradiction to one another cannot both be true. (i.e. given a specific context.)​

There is no such thing as a truth that violates any one of those three laws. No one can even begin to utter any argument against any one of them without instantly using all three of them to utter the first intelligible syllable of his argument. Any such attempt is therefore self-defeating. These laws are therefore utterly irrefragable.

Thus, any doctrine that is found to be irrational is false, by definition. One's education or sincerity doesn't come into it nor does how many others believe the doctrine. If the bible is found to teach the irrational as truth then the irrational doesn't become true by virtue of the bible! On the contrary, the bible would be falsified by virtue of the nature of reality.

Clete
 
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Clete

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I like the definition of time like this:

"The distance between events."
That's not a terrible definition but it doesn't seem as precise. By "distance" you're simply making reference to the duration and sequence of events, right? So, it works but I like to spell it out for the sake of clarity.
 

Stripe

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That's not a terrible definition but it doesn't seem as precise. By "distance" you're simply making reference to the duration and sequence of events, right? So, it works but I like to spell it out for the sake of clarity.
I can't define it as the "time" between events. :D
 

marke

Well-known member
Oh, I see. So you don't take the creation narrative literally (that is good) but you also reject any sort of Evolution. That presents quite a problem. How do you explain earlier versions of man, or the fact that some species that exist today did not exist millions of years ago.
Evolution is unscientific. Don't be fooled by the myth which has been massively supported by decades of biased bad science and erroneous assumptions by the dung cart load.
 

marke

Well-known member
You'd better, otherwise you find yourself in the same boat as the atheists. "Well, if there was a big bang, then do you know where all the stuff for the big bang came from?"

The atheist replies, "I don't." Everyone chuckles.

Since you admit that don't know then you cannot slam the door on some form of evolution, isn't that right
The big bang postulates that all matter once existed in a single point in space the size of a basketball. There was a bang and then billions of light years of separation between billions of planets and stars. How did that happen? The secularist who is determined to discount and disrespect God says, "I dunno. It just happened. It was a miracle."
 

OZOS

Well-known member
The big bang postulates that all matter once existed in a single point in space the size of a basketball. There was a bang and then billions of light years of separation between billions of planets and stars. How did that happen?
More importantly, WHERE did that happen?
 

marke

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More importantly, WHERE did that happen?
Good question. Apart from quantum science fiction, all matter could not have started at one small point in the universe and then exploded into trillions of heavenly orbs like secularists claim, and obviously do not understand. Let's apply simple math to the theory. Science says the universe is expanding. OK. That means that the universe was once more contracted and the orbs were closer together. Since we don't know the amount of time the universe has been in existence because secularists don't plug any specific speculation into their overall guess, let's say the universe is eternal and had no beginning. If so, how much closer were planets and stars in the infinite past, 2 miles apart? All bumping together?

Big bang nonsense speculation is riddled with big holes.
 

OZOS

Well-known member
Good question. Apart from quantum science fiction, all matter could not have started at one small point in the universe and then exploded into trillions of heavenly orbs like secularists claim, and obviously do not understand.
What "universe"? Those who adopt a creation story, by any other means, than that which God has revealed to us, logically must conclude that matter and energy are eternal. They worship what they observe.
 

marke

Well-known member
What "universe"? Those who adopt a creation story, by any other means, than that which God has revealed to us, logically must conclude that matter and energy are eternal. They worship what they observe.
God created all things in heaven and in earth (Colossians 1:16.) I am not capable of speculating about matter and energy which may exist outside of heaven and earth.
 

Clete

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The big bang postulates that all matter once existed in a single point in space the size of a basketball. There was a bang and then billions of light years of separation between billions of planets and stars. How did that happen? The secularist who is determined to discount and disrespect God says, "I dunno. It just happened. It was a miracle."
Not quite. It actually much worse than you suspect. A basket ball sized universe would literally be infinitely larger than the big bang nonsense would have us believe. It teaches that the whole universe erupted from a singularity. A singularity is a preposterous notion of a "point" with no dimension whatsoever. A singularity has no volume - none. And as a result, any mass at all in such a place would have infinite density. And its really even worse than that because density is defined as mass divided by volume and if the volume is zero then the density wouldn't actually be infinite it would simply be undefined because any sixth grader knows that you cannot divide by zero and still be doing real math.

It's complete slobber-mouthed moronic nonsense.
 
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marke

Well-known member
Not quite. It actually much worse than you suspect. A basket ball sized universe would literally be infinitely larger than the big bang nonsense would have us believe. It teaches that the whole universe erupted from a singularity. A singularity is a preposterous notion of a "point" with no dimension whatsoever. A singularity has no volume - none. And as a result, any mass at all in such a place would have infinite density. And its really even worse than that because density is defined as mass divided by volume and if the volume is zero then the density wouldn't actually be infinite it would simply undefined because any sixth grader knows that you cannot divide by zero and still be doing real math.

It's complete slobber-mouthed moronic nonsense.
It is nonsense to surmise that matter and energy created themselves with no help from God.
 
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