The Illusion of Time (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Sunday, September 12, 2010, 05:50 (5185 days ago) @ dhw

BALANCE_MAINTAINED: Humans have a nasty tendency towards arrogance, and we arrogantly assume that the ancient civilizations were ignorant and barbaric compared to us.
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> First of all, welcome to the forum, and thank you for reopening this thread with such an interesting post. The comment above strikes a chord of recognition, as it seems to me that regardless of whether God exists or not, our own civilization has lost touch with many of the ideas that our ancestors took for granted ... a healthy respect for Nature perhaps being at the forefront. 
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> However, as I read what you wrote about timelessness, the thought occurred to me that without time existence would be both inconceivable and unbearable. I don't mean relative time, as in your quote from 2 Peter 3, but the total absence. Without time there could be no before and after, and therefore no change. We ourselves may moan about the effects of age, and the passing of our moments of happiness, but imagine being stuck at the same point in your life for ever. If there is a God, the same would surely apply, and I can only suppose that he would be bored out of his mind. Creating life would at least be a distraction from the endless sameness of his existence. There is a similar problem with the concept of an afterlife: what are we supposed to do throughout eternity or in a timeless void? It's only the onward movement that allows life to take on its variety. Without such movement ... which is totally dependent on the flow of time ... we, the rest of existence, and God himself might as well be dead.
> -The Buddhist in me stirs...-No; your concept of how timelessness works here isn't quite right: you are following the fallacy I warned about in the original post. -Buddhist timelessness doesn't make any claims at all that we won't age or that things don't change; only that our concept of time itself is a man-made illusion. It isn't a property of the universe, but a convenient signpost between two measurements. Clearly, Buddhist babies still develop into adults, and Buddhist scientists can recreate past events. So what gives? The difference is on treating time as if it is REAL. Take out a ruler. Is a centimeter real, or did we make it up? Time is no different. -
> A possible rejoinder to this is that we are ignorant, and the universe (or God) holds secrets to which we finite beings have no access. No-one can argue with that (although scientists like Hawking and Mlodinow have their own quasi-religious faith that we CAN unravel the secrets) ... but it's hard to build beliefs on ignorance, and time-based existence is the only one we actually know. There may be "something very intuitive about timelessness", but I think there's also something very exciting and even reassuring about time.
> -We only know it because it is what we are taught; My experience with African culture (so far) has shown me that they simply don't have the same concept of time as I have here in America; Time is relative. If time is relative; is it real?-> Once again, thank you for joining us. I'd be interested to know your own views on the importance of time and timelessness.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"