(May 13, 2016 at 10:58 am)SteveII Wrote:(May 13, 2016 at 8:02 am)The Reality Salesman Wrote: Do you see that there is a counter intuitive quality in making statements such as this? When you say that God decided to create "x", you imply a state in which God existed, but "x" did not, and then an event occurs that leads to a state where both God and "x" exist. If something is "timeless", there is no timeline or series of events. You have to reconcile this or revise...
I am more than implying that there was a state that God existed and the universe did not. But there is an event that marks the change from one state to another--therefore establishing the difference between previous and current states and therefore a "timeline". There is nothing incoherent about that.
Because, if what is being said is that the beginning of the universe marks the beginning time, how can there be events that transpired prior to? Even within the states of God's mind...1 moment his good with no universe, another moment, "I think I want a universe...pop!" , that is change...a product of time. Without time there is no change and vice-versa. These are all examples of events prior to what you are supposing to be the beginning.
I'm picturing a bearded fella, surrounded in what I can only fathom to be black abyss...His name is God. He's just sitting there, suspended in a vacuum of not-time. Then he mutters some stuff under his breath, and in a giant poof...there's a universe full of smoldering gaseous combustibles, just waiting to form the universe we know today. God sees all of this and thinks-"Only 14 billion years to go, then I'm totally going down there to kill myself."