A timeless being cannot create

[Belacqua]

I really do wish to understand. My intent isn't to attack strawman. That can happen due to ignorance though I realize.

I respect that! I have a lot to learn, also, and I find that attacks seldom help.

This forum is pretty much only for insults these days, or fellowship among people who already agree. 

I'm told that the web site 

https://discourse.biologos.org/c/open-forum

has more conversations, and it claims, anyway, to stay on topic. Also there are more Christians posting there, so if you want the views of church-goers, instead of wannabe scholars like me, that would be more useful. I haven't signed up there, so I can't really vouch for it, though. 

Good luck to you!

[mcc1789]

I really do wish to understand. My intent isn't to attack strawman. That can happen due to ignorance though I realize.

I respect that! I have a lot to learn, also, and I find that attacks seldom help.

This forum is pretty much only for insults these days, or fellowship among people who already agree. 

I'm told that the web site 

https://discourse.biologos.org/c/open-forum

has more conversations, and it claims, anyway, to stay on topic. Also there are more Christians posting there, so if you want the views of church-goers, instead of wannabe scholars like me, that would be more useful. I haven't signed up there, so I can't really vouch for it, though. 

Good luck to you!

Me too, and no they usually don't.

Well, insults are rife on the Internet, but it is Atheist Forums after all.

I'll check that out, thanks.

[Anomalocaris]

He is only eternally himself if he is absolutely static and does nothing whatsoever. 

It is like saying god is by definition 2+2=5 and never wrong in his math.

Concocting a definition does not make the ill conceived ignoramus fantasy Less ill conceived, less revealing of the ignorance of the fantasist, or less of a fantasy.

That a definition like this can be claimed only shows how shallow the concept of god is, and how pathetically besotted the adherents to this fantasy have become.

As Gae pointed out as well, I thought it was a commonly understood definition but apparently still needed to be pointed out. This isn't a definition I concocted or had to do word salad to line up.  Let me show you an example,
"You are only eternally yourself if you are absolutely static and do nothing whatsoever." Doesn't that seem a little ridiculous? You are yourself always, whether you're inside or outside or cleaning a toilet. The fact you clean toilets for eternity doesn't make you any less you. In the case of this argument I am that I am.

Not true.   You have hardwiring that lumps all your perceptions of self into one completely artificial category called self.   In fact you are not all of that yourself which existed just a moment ago, and very little of what had been yourself when your were a toddler.    So you are not only not yourself always, your are never yourself from any other moment.

So you might say “but the artificial construct call self is what I a talking about”.    But that artificial construct is purely an artifact of your neurological wiring.   We have very good idea why we, evolved as we did from our evolutionary lineage, come to have such wiring.

Can you propose why your putative eternal god who presumably is subject to no evolution and no selective pressure, come to perceive his entire existence as one single self?

[mcc1789]

I think there's a logical argument to be made against God's existence here on the basis of incompatible properties. God is outside time, we're told. He's not only eternal (existing forever) but also unaffected by temporal changes. He is after all the creator too, and that includes time. Yet when something is created, it comes into being. That entails a previous instance where it didn't exist of course. Yet if time itself was created, that makes no sense. To speak of a time "before" time is meaningless. Moreover, how does a timeless being create while outside time (and space as well)? A creation involves a change in space and time. It's enough to see how this could be done by a lesser being. How though could it be with a timeless being? I suggest it's incoherent, and the very fact that things do exist shows that such a being (i.e. God) doesn't. What do you think?

If He is a personal God that "walks in the garden" with his creation, your fault is in your definition of "unaffected by temporal changes" . God is eternal, consistent and He is eternally Himself is usually the definition.

It's not my definition, and I can't address every view of course. However, this is a standard attribute that God is given. That's what I'm addressing. I don't think being both eternal and personal makes more sense though.

[WinterHold]

Our understanding and our brain capacity cannot understand or interpret a universe outside the edges of the discovered universe. It doesn't mean nothing is there; but it means our minds cannot understand or translate things but in this primitive, basic way.

The future, the present and the past might exist at the same time

https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/...belltitem2

Okay... I'm unclear on how that relates to this.

I will elaborate, in the OP you said:

Yet when something is created, it comes into being. That entails a previous instance where it didn't exist of course. Yet if time itself was created, that makes no sense.

But there is evidence that the past,present and future are actually existing at the same time, but your primitive mind as a human can only see the illusion of the three states being separate entities.

In other words; there might even be other states of time that we can't even see or even imagine in other dimensions.

My belief is that God exists in another higher dimension. So he is not limited to our basic 3 states of time. That's the rephrasing of my post.

[mcc1789]

Okay... I'm unclear on how that relates to this.

I will elaborate, in the OP you said:

Yet when something is created, it comes into being. That entails a previous instance where it didn't exist of course. Yet if time itself was created, that makes no sense.

But there is evidence that the past,present and future are actually existing at the same time, but your primitive mind as a human can only see the illusion of the three states being separate entities.

In other words; there might even be other states of time that we can't even see or even imagine in other dimensions.

My belief is that God exists in another higher dimension. So he is not limited to our basic 3 states of time. That's the rephrasing of my post.

Okay, so are you suggesting everything would be co-eternal with God? Because otherwise I don't know how this changes things. I'm aware of eternalism, which seems to be what you're positing here, but other dimensions of time seems pretty different from "timeless".

[The Grand Nudger]

A god who exists in some other dimension sounds alot like a god that doesn’t exist in this dimension.

[mcc1789]

A god who exists in some other dimension sounds alot like a god that doesn’t exist in this dimension.

I think this leads us to another incompatibility, of God being both transcendant and omnipresent.

[vulcanlogician]

A god who exists in some other dimension sounds alot like a god that doesn’t exist in this dimension.

The problem is, Gae, that you don't despise this dimension enough. Only frornicators like you would think that this dimension is any good.   God's dimension, while perhaps lacking in all that awesome fornication action... is "made of pure light" or some shit. How can you compete with that?

[The Grand Nudger]

Even more degenerate fornication? I’m just saying that it’s worth a shot.