(August 22, 2020 at 7:22 am)Grandizer Wrote: But do you have a link to the primary source and section/verse(?) in source that states what's in bold? Just wanting to confirm, that's all.

The 5000 BC date comes from the idea of the Six Ages of the World. It's not spelled out explicitly in Genesis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Ages_of_the_World.

(August 22, 2020 at 7:51 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(August 22, 2020 at 7:22 am)Grandizer Wrote: But do you have a link to the primary source and section/verse(?) in source that states what's in bold? Just wanting to confirm, that's all.

The 5000 BC date comes from the idea of the Six Ages of the World. It's not spelled out explicitly in Genesis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Ages_of_the_World.

Yep edited my post to add link to page.

(August 22, 2020 at 5:35 am)Fake Messiah Wrote:

Quote:the universe started at a finite, and not very distant, time in the past. One argument for such a beginning was the feeling that it was necessary to have “First Cause” to explain the existence of the universe.

As has been discussed, the Thomist first cause is not like this. It is not a beginning in this sense. 

Quote:he said that time was a property of the universe that God created, and that time did not exist before the beginning of the universe.

People say the same about the Big Bang. That it's nonsense to talk about "before" the Big Bang, because time didn't exist yet. I don't know if that's true, but it's interesting that Augustine came up with the idea first. 

Quote:But in 1929, Edwin Hubble made the landmark observation that wherever you look, distant galaxies are moving rapidly away from us.

The Reverend Monsignor Georges Lemaître published this observation two years earlier. Hubble confirmed it and calculated it more accurately.

"In 1927, two years before Hubble published his own article, the Belgian priest and astronomer Georges Lemaître was the first to publish research deriving what is now known as Hubble's law."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble%27s_law

Quote:[Lemaître] was the first to identify that the recession of nearby galaxies can be explained by a theory of an expanding universe,[3] which was observationally confirmed soon afterwards by Edwin Hubble.[4][5] He was the first to derive what used to be known as "Hubble's law", but since 2018 has officially been renamed the Hubble–Lemaître law,[6][7] and made the first estimation of what is still called the Hubble constant, which he published in 1927, two years before Hubble's article.[8][9][10][11] Lemaître also proposed what later became known as the "Big Bang theory" of the origin of the universe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaître

What a merry myth maker. Saint tom didn't come up with the idea that time began, lol.

(August 22, 2020 at 10:47 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: What a merry myth maker.  Saint tom didn't come up with the idea that time began, lol.

Augustine*

And no one here said Augustine (or "Tom" for that matter) came up with the idea that time began.

Yes..... Grand, Bel most certainly said as much, but for him it's just a pattern of behavior. Right up there, post you kudos-ed..so we know you read it.

(August 22, 2020 at 11:40 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Yes..... Grand, Bel most certainly said as much, but for him it's just a pattern of behavior.  Right up there, post you kudos-ed..so we know you read it.  

Yes, that's the thing. I read it. I didn't skim through it and then resort to mocking.

So you know that it was said, and just straight up lied in your last post. Good for you.

(August 22, 2020 at 11:57 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: So you know that it was said, and just straight up lied in your last post.  Good for you.

Yes, it must be because I'm lying instead of the other way around. Context matters.

I'm going to elaborate for anyone who cares:

In response to this quote in FM's post (he referring to Augustine):

Quote:he said that time was a property of the universe that God created, and that time did not exist before the beginning of the universe.

Belaqua said this:

Quote:People say the same about the Big Bang. That it's nonsense to talk about "before" the Big Bang, because time didn't exist yet. I don't know if that's true, but it's interesting that Augustine came up with the idea first.

So the idea being referred to here isn't that time had a beginning, but rather that it doesn't make sense to talk about "before" the beginning of time. And "first" of course shouldn't necessarily be understood to mean "absolutely first in the history of mankind" but rather first relative to modern "people who say the same about the Big Bang".

The real point here, though, let's make an effort to be as fair as we can be in interpreting what other people are saying, especially those you may be prone to disagree with on many things. Hopefully all of us are learning new things in these discussion and we continue to improve in both contents of our beliefs and in our attitudes. Because we're definitely needing this more and more in this time and age.

(August 23, 2020 at 12:11 am)Grandizer Wrote: So the idea being referred to here isn't that time had a beginning, but rather that it doesn't make sense to talk about "before" the beginning of time. And "first" of course shouldn't necessarily be understood to mean "absolutely first in the history of mankind" but rather first relative to modern "people who say the same about the Big Bang".

It's not at all controversial to point out that Augustine changed the way people think about time.

http://research.iaun.ac.ir/pd/fahim/pdfs...M_6840.pdf

Quote:Saint Augustine provides a new and modern interpretation about reality of time. He considers time as an aspect of soul and mind. Contrary to ancient Greek thinkers which imagine the time as a dimension of nature, Augustine considers time as extension of soul present in memory and expectation. [...] But Augustine does not consider time as imagination or personal fantasies. He considers time one dimension of human nature and soul and considers time as mind awareness toward transient and variable matters.

Modern physicists also consider the possibility that time is a result of the way people experience the universe. I have no idea how widely accepted this is among scientists.

This paper:

https://www.ijhssnet.com/journals/Vol_6_...2016/4.pdf

looks at both Confessions and On Genesis and compares Augustine's two analyses of how time works. While one considers time to be objective and the creation of God, the other analyzes the human experience of time. 

The Greeks generally held that time is infinite. Augustine re-opened the discussion in ways that are still being discussed -- for example, the degree to which time is a mind-independent phenomenon vs. how much it is a human experience. It's not unusual to hear that he is the most important philosopher on the subject of time, in that he raised the topics that are still being discussed. 

Quote:Augustine develops two accounts of time.
1. Time is a creature of God.
2. Time is a phenomenon of human consciousness.
The first account of time, that is to say, time seen as a creature of God has three characteristics. First, time is not eternal. Second, time is objective in the sense that time does not depend upon human consciousness. Third, time is related but not completely identical to the motions of the heavenly objects. Augustine’s second account of time, that is to say, time seen as a phenomenon of human consciousness, suggests that time is present in the human mind.

The same paper summarizes his view on how it is incoherent to talk about "before" there was time.

Quote:Since time had a beginning, the question, “What was God doing before He made heaven and earth?” is meaningless (Augustine 2006, pp. 241-242). The question itself is meaningless because there was no time. Augustine states, “if before heaven and earth were made there was no time, then what is meant by the question, ‘What were You doing then? If there was not any time, there was not any ‘then,” (Augustine 2006, p. 242). The question involves a category mistake. The term “before” and “after” signify relations between occurrences in time. If there is no time, then it would be pointless to talk about what happened before a certain event. We can only talk about “before” and “after” once time has began. This suggests that time, as a creation of God, had a beginning.

It would be interesting to hear that someone before him had suggested similar ideas. I don't happen to know of anyone.