(April 17, 2015 at 2:41 am)Heywood Wrote: Let me see you use your puny 3 spatial 1 temporal dimensional brain contemplate a googolplex spatial and googol temporal dimensional being. Tell us what a being, if one exists, is like.

It's a small plant-like animal, with sixteen wings, flippers, a tail made of potatoes and no head. It eats insects, especially dolphins. It can do a marvellous Margaret Rutherford impression. For some reason it has a tremendous fear of spoons. Its favourite colour is grink and its favourite song is the theme from Batman.

(April 17, 2015 at 6:25 am)Stimbo Wrote:

(April 17, 2015 at 2:41 am)Heywood Wrote: Let me see you use your puny 3 spatial 1 temporal dimensional brain contemplate a googolplex spatial and googol temporal dimensional being.  Tell us what a being, if one exists, is like.

It's a small plant-like animal, with sixteen wings, flippers, a tail made of potatoes and no head. It eats insects, especially dolphins. It can do a marvellous Margaret Rutherford impression. For some reason it has a tremendous fear of spoons. Its favourite colour is grink and its favourite song is the theme from Batman.

Every year on April 32nd, it can be heard silently howling at the moon

That one? Yeah, I got three of thos.

(April 17, 2015 at 2:41 am)Heywood Wrote:

(April 17, 2015 at 2:27 am)Surgenator Wrote: A being that is not doesn't experience time cannot do anything because there is no time to do it. Time is what allows for transition in states.

The poster said, "as we know it".  Why can't a being transcend our own time dimension? Maybe that being exists in a separate time dimension or two...or three....or four or an infinity of time dimensions.  Let me see you use your puny 3 spatial 1 temporal dimensional brain contemplate a googolplex spatial and googol temporal dimensional being.  Tell us what a being, if one exists, is like.

The statement is "god is outside of space and time" not "god is outside OUR space and time." Of course you can argue that god is not part of our universe, but exist in a larger universe. But that still requires it to be part of space and time, just not the same one we share.

As far as being part of multiple time dimensions, that seems painful. How would you feel if your toes aged faster than the rest of your foot?

(April 17, 2015 at 1:07 am)nicanica123 Wrote: For me, the simple, "show me evidence of god" argument is lacking. I don't believe that a deity that by logic would be a being that transcends space and time as we know it would be easily defined in that space and time.

"Show me evidence of god" is not an argument, though it's a reasonable request to make of someone who is convinced that god exists.  Any reply that explains that god cannot be detected by traditional means is unsatisfying.  Especially for a believer in the abrahamic god, who makes frequent appearances and takes clear and overt action time and again in the Bible, in both the old and new testament.

Quote:Bashing JWs- I believe strongly that JW's are great people that do have many faults in the organization and the people but overall it is a group of people that try their best to be good hardworking fellow citizens. And I know  all the history that you can find in 10 seconds on google. I don't believe its a cult and that they use brain washing as a tactic.

They are like any other group of people, you have your good and bad.  Since you share a bond over an important facet of your life, it is much easier to relate to them on a number of levels, and they probably make up a good number of your best and closest friends.  As for the part about not being a cult or being brainwashed, do keep in mind how they will treat you if you ever decide to make a break from the organization (or even just from its belief system).

The history is a considerable problem for the Watchtower organization, and they present a sanitized version to the membership.  There is a reason you cannot get copies of the oldest material, including the writings of Russell and Rutherford: they teach things that are different from what the organization tells the membership.  Russell did not predict Christ's invisible return in 1914, for example.  He was convinced that 1914 was the year that the war of Armageddon would be waged and that the kingdom of god would take over the Earth.  It was the first of many predictions that were either directly stated (such as Rutherford's predictions regarding 1920 and 1925) or strongly implied (the 1975 expectations, which included a few disclaimers along the way so that they could insist that they did not make any predictions, though there is evidence that they expected the end before the year was out).

Depending on how old you are, you may be aware of how they used the interpretation of "this generation" from Matthew 24 to imply that the generation of 1914 would live to see the end, and how this explanation changed many times as that generation got older and older and finally started dying off.  One person's 'progressive revelation' is another person's 'cover-up' or 'false prophecying.'

All of the people I know who have left the Jehovah's Witnesses are very convincing in their testimony that it is a cult.  
And its history and doctrine support that.
Also, their prohibition of blood transfusions makes them stupid, cruel, and heartless.

There's been a few JWs on the streets round our way the past couple of weeks, handing out leaflets - basically another way of saying "here, throw this away for me". I haven't bothered.

(April 17, 2015 at 5:20 pm)Stimbo Wrote: There's been a few JWs on the streets round our way the past couple of weeks, handing out leaflets - basically another way of saying "here, throw this away for me". I haven't bothered.

I let my dog bark at them.  Seems to do the trick out in my rural area.

(April 17, 2015 at 11:26 am)Surgenator Wrote:

(April 17, 2015 at 2:41 am)Heywood Wrote: The poster said, "as we know it".  Why can't a being transcend our own time dimension? Maybe that being exists in a separate time dimension or two...or three....or four or an infinity of time dimensions.  Let me see you use your puny 3 spatial 1 temporal dimensional brain contemplate a googolplex spatial and googol temporal dimensional being.  Tell us what a being, if one exists, is like.

The statement is "god is outside of space and time" not "god is outside OUR space and time." Of course you can argue that god is not part of our universe, but exist in a larger universe. But that still requires it to be part of space and time, just not the same one we share.

As far as being part of multiple time dimensions, that seems painful. How would you feel if your toes aged faster than the rest of your foot?

I can't fathom what existing multiple time dimensions would be like from a human perspective.  It is not logically impossible though and can be coherently describe with math.  So it is certainly not out of the question or whimsical thinking.

I do believe in God but with that being said, I do find many theistic positions to be untenable.  The position that God is outside of reality for instance. Intellect outside reality is nonsensical.  Intelligence is about knowing, understanding, navigating, a reality.  Intellect cannot exist outside a reality. God cannot exist outside a reality.  However God can be outside our sub reality.

---

(April 17, 2015 at 3:51 am)Alex K Wrote: Ok, let's back up a little. Do we assume that time exists independent from the universe, sort of as a frame on which creation happens? If no, then the notion of energy does not exist without the universe and hence there is no argument. If yes, we can talk.

In general relativity, conservation laws of any kind pertaining to particles are related to symmetries, e.g of spacetime, and conservation of energy is violated in nature because spacetime is not static - just think
of cosmological red shift, which steals energy from photons. Now, the curvature of spacetime can be assigned energy in order to compensate, and in fact in our current universe, it contains negative energy in this picture. The total energy of this universe can be zero, so it could even be created without violating energy conservation. In absence of space but in the presence of time, who knows though, what contributions to energy there are  - our current notion of conserved energy breaks down in absence of space.

If God is everywhere as many theists claim then there must be space. Our observations tell us there is space. Claiming that conserved energy breaks down in absence of space doesn't further your refutation because it obvious that space isn't absent.

In order for your refutation to work, it seems like you have to invent facts or contrive situations which while are logically possible.....we have no reason whatsoever to believe they are actualities.

(April 17, 2015 at 6:17 pm)Heywood Wrote:

(April 17, 2015 at 11:26 am)Surgenator Wrote: The statement is "god is outside of space and time" not "god is outside OUR space and time." Of course you can argue that god is not part of our universe, but exist in a larger universe. But that still requires it to be part of space and time, just not the same one we share.

As far as being part of multiple time dimensions, that seems painful. How would you feel if your toes aged faster than the rest of your foot?

I can't fathom what existing multiple time dimensions would be like from a human perspective.  It is not logically impossible though and can be coherently describe with math.  So it is certainly not out of the question or whimsical thinking.

I do believe in God but with that being said, I do find many theistic positions to be untenable.  The position that God is outside of reality for instance. Intellect outside reality is nonsensical.  Intelligence is about knowing, understanding, navigating, a reality.  Intellect cannot exist outside a reality. God cannot exist outside a reality.  However God can be outside our sub reality.

A single being existing in multiple time dimensions is a contradiction. Time is a measure of change of states. So someone changing at two (or more) different rates doesn't make sense unless different body parts are changing at different rates. Hence, that would probably hurt.