I need some answers from Atheists...

Jaxom,

How can you see a paradox in this, and none in a infinitely old god? What's the difference?
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God is Love.
...
Ephesians 3:14-19
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,
15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name,
16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. "

Also, I don't know everything:

1 Corinthians 13:9-10
"9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part;
10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. "

The whole chapter talks about Love. Love is the "perfect" cited there.

When you understand that God is Love, you will understand why I not only believe but also know He exists...:)
 
Cris,

The duration of the present is relative to the subject being discussed.
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Then "past, "present" and "future" are just concepts made by the mind, rather then a rule that the universe always follows. This means that time doesn't exist as past, present and future, but just a present that never begins and never ends.

Before the shuttle was built it was a concept. In your reasoning and your implications the shuttle is not a reality because it was once a concept. The terms 'past' and 'future' are just labels that we assign respectively to reality that was and reality that we expect.
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No. It is not because the shuttle was once a concept, but because the shuttle itself IS a concept. Time is always a concept, be it in the past or in the future. And by th epresent definition of "present", even "present" itself is a concept.

Well of course unless we develop time travel. You seem to be trying to apply 'present' to past and future. We have experienced the past, we are experiencing the present, and we expect to experience the future.
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But "past" and "future" are just concepts.
 
Jaxom: How can you see a paradox in this, and none in a infinitely old god? What's the difference?
TS: God is Love.

Maybe you could explain why that answers the question. Also, I hope you are not saying that god is only love.

Matt 13:40-43
He said to them, "He who plants the good seed is the Son of man.
"The field is the world, the good seed are the children of the kingdom, and the weeds are the children of the wicked one.
The enemy who planted them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels.
Just as the weeds are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be at the end of this world.
The Son of Man will send forth his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all those that are objectionable, and those who commit iniquity,
and shall cast them into a furnace of fire.
There shall be crying and gnashing of teeth!
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Matt 10:34-37
Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth!
I came not to bring peace, but the sword.
For I have come to set a man at odds against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. For a man's enemies shall be his family!
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Psalm 55:23
And you, God, you will bring them
down to the pit of corruption!
Men of blood and deceit will not live out half their lives.
But, I shall trust in you!
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Persol,

In the parable, it is written:
Matthew 13:30
"30 'Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, "First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn."'"

In His explanation...
Matthew 13:40-43
"...
The Son of Man will send forth his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all those that are objectionable, and those who commit iniquity,
and shall cast them into a furnace of fire.
There shall be crying and gnashing of teeth! "

He is still using a metaphor here. The "furnace of fire" is still a metaphor, and it just means a place separate from God, and His Love. That's why the consequence is "crying and gnashing of teeth". God provided salvation to everyone. Whoever accepts will be made sinless. He wants all of us there. However, if you are sinful, you cannot be with Him in the new earth, since there is no place for sin when He comes. To be in darkness and away from His presence is a choice. When the light comes, the darkness will not be there.

Matthew 10:34-37
"I came not to bring peace, but the sword."

One verse:
Ephesians 6:17
"17 And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. "

Is is awesome to know the Bible well... :) I'm pretty sure the first quote would be much easier to answer if I have read the whole Bible... :)

Psalm 55:23
Is the "pit of corruption" made by God or it is just a place where He is not? Cause... imagine this. Imagine there are two identical empty lawns. In the first, people and God builds a beautiful house. In the second, people without God build an ugly and weak house. The lawn given to both were equal in all aspects. Who is to blame? It is the people in the "pit of corruption" that makes the "pit" corrupted, not God.
 
I have 2 questions pertaining to this matter.......
Isn't all of this a more complex yet similarly perplexing argument to the age old question of which came first; the chicken or the egg?


and the second and unrelated question is... How can we travel through time if time is simply a measurement to define and organize our lives?
 
Truthseeker,

Could you at least have a stab at the question, without dumbing it down to scripture tossing? Do you not see that if an infinite god is possible, then it opens up the possibility of an infinite universe as well? Having done that, suddenly god is not needed in the equation to explain "why"...

God is Love is your way of saying you don't know how to discuss the question.

Saying there's no way to have a time before X is just like saying you can't have a number bigger than Y. You know how that works...
 
Aquarian07,

Isn't all of this a more complex yet similarly perplexing argument to the age old question of which came first; the chicken or the egg?
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No. Why would it be? Explain.

and the second and unrelated question is... How can we travel through time if time is simply a measurement to define and organize our lives?
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Your perception doesn't define reality. That's just the way your brain works. The brain needs to measure, categorize and explain all things. It works with concepts. Actually, when we are little kids, it works with concepts. After we grow up, about to our 6th year it starts to work with simbols, which we call words. This slows down the process of actually analizing the concept and interpreting. However, it has a downpoint - it limits not only your perception but also your comprehension about the more subtle things of the world around you. Therefore, the brain just uses time and words to categorize and define things in order to have some order.

I hope I didn't twist your brain...:D

Welcome to sciforums :)
 
Jaxom,

Could you at least have a stab at the question, without dumbing it down to scripture tossing? Do you not see that if an infinite god is possible, then it opens up the possibility of an infinite universe as well? Having done that, suddenly god is not needed in the equation to explain "why"...
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The physical and the spiritual world work through differnet ways. Only because in the spiritual realm infinity is possible, it doesn't mean that in the physical, infinity is possible. I could show scriptures in the Bible, but since you don't want, I won;t show you...;)
 
Careful with that word "fact"...it needs to be used correctly.

Also be careful of the word "sarcasm". :)
 
God is love.... and all the stuff you two were arguing about
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First............ TruthSeeker you did twist my brain but only because it is two a.m. and i was staring at your answer to my time travel question so long you made my screen saver pop up! But God IS love because both are infinate and only exist to the depths that we believe they do. Love is an emotion that we are controlled by equal to the extent that we contribute to it's very existance......... And once again we are back at the very beginning again. even this agrument is infinate..... and so i ask why we were trying to define infinity in a linear fashion instead of a circular one?
 
truthseeker,

Anything is possible in the spiritual world.

In fact... that's right...
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That's because the spiritual world has no basis in reality and is only a manifestation of human imagination where anything can be imagined, even the impossible.

Without the constraints of reality you are free to create any ideas you wish. Problems arise when some people believe that their imaginative ideas are actually real, and cannot tell the difference between reality and imagination. The key to separating the two is evidence.
 
Aquarian07,

First............ TruthSeeker you did twist my brain but only because it is two a.m. and i was staring at your answer to my time travel question so long you made my screen saver pop up!
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:D

But God IS love because both are infinate and only exist to the depths that we believe they do. Love is an emotion that we are controlled by equal to the extent that we contribute to it's very existance......... And once again we are back at the very beginning again. even this agrument is infinate..... and so i ask why we were trying to define infinity in a linear fashion instead of a circular one?
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I guess if we define it circular, then what happened in the past will happen in the future again...:confused:

Still... Time is just a condition of the mind. Mind works with simbols, dividing them into categories and analizing the whole thing bit by bit, instead of the whole picture at a time. If you look at the whole picture at once instead of looking to the bits ( bringing them together later), then you will have a better and more accurate image, although it is harder to concentrate, cause that's not the way the mind is used to work. Also, it si better to work with concepts rather then with simbols. The concepts allow more flexibility and gives you a greater message.
 
heres my idea of whats going on.

Human beings percieve a phenomenom we experience as being time. Well, linear time to be exact. We see the universe occuring in events that fall from the past to the future in a continous stream of movement. But in reality, what we call time does not exist. I guess one has to understand the nature and the laws of the universe in which we exist in. Time is recorded by calenders and clocks. A calender merely records the repeating seasons and the rotations of the Earth around the sun. Everything in the Universe moves in a circular cycle. The Earth, the solar system, and the milky way moves in this pattern of countless repeating. As a result of this movement, everything that exists is in a state of constant flux. Nothing is permanent in its physical state. All things grow and die to be replaced by others. Stars must become supernovas and new solar systems must be born. This constant change keeps the Universe in balance and is governed by universal laws like Gravity, etc...... This is what we call "TIME"- the change in an object existing in space from one state to the next.

Since Time doesnt really exist, there is no past or future, just an everchanging eternal present in which things pass in and out of existence. Matter is not destroyed, but changed into other forms that is beyond our perception.
And since the universe functions in repeating cycles of creation and destruction, then the universe we live in is merely the remnants of a previous one.

What does the creator concept have to do with all of this???
Well, us being the unique creatures we are, were blessed with intelligence, imagination ,and self-awareness. With us being self-aware, we looked at our world and thought about the meaning of our existence. How is it that out of nine planets, ours was the perfect one for life? Is it by mere chance that all the organic properties that are necessary for the development of life happened to come together on Earth and produce an intelligent species? Or does this occur in the universe in many systems on millions of other worlds? Some call it God, others call in Brahmaa or the Great Spirit. Underneath the surface, it is the same thing. Human beings noticed that the laws of Nature and Life on Earth seemed to function in a certain order and balanced that was governed by some unknownable unifying agent. Since we couldnt describe something that was beyong our comprehension, we defined it in human terms and called it a God. There had to be something that makes the universe function and life exist. Or does it all move by itself as the Ancient Chinese tended to believe? Maybe all religions are right. Maybe all spiritual teachings have some aspect of the truth imbedded in each one. Who knows????
 
Welcome to Sciforums, CyberLogic.

I think you phrased that well, time is the perception of the change of state of things. We use that change in devices to count this perception, whether it be gears and pendulums, or counting atomic decay. As long as there was some type of change in the far past, there was time. Before that, you can't measure anything, because of the lack of change. If there was indeed ever a point...
 
Appreciate the warm welcome, Jaxom. Thanks for making my definition more clear. Since Time is merely the perception of the change in the state of things in the universe, then without a change in state of an object, there is no time as we know it. Good observation. Time began as a result of the creation of OUR Universe, our system. Remember there are billions of other galaxies with their own planetary systems that are existing and proberly existed when our universe was created. We are one of many. It is possible to say that other worlds exist in their own timelines. While some systems are being born, others are nearing the end. Maybe the phenomenon we call time is relative to the universe or dimension you live in.
 
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Cris,

That's because the spiritual world has no basis in reality and is only a manifestation of human imagination where anything can be imagined, even the impossible.
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Even the spiritual world has a limit...

Galatians 5:6
"6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love."

Without Love, your faith is powerless.
 
truthseeker,

Even the spiritual world has a limit...
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Only if you consider human fantasies have a limit since the two are indistinguishable.

Without Love, your faith is powerless.
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All faith is powerless, hope has perhaps more power. And love, like most things, has value in moderation.
 
I need an answer from a theist

I think the term atheist is a conundrum. It makes a form of a theist !!! From now on, when you talk about me, say, "he's a natural", and I'll refer to you as anatural.
 
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