[Serious] Is the Past Real?

[bennyboy]

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Let's get back to the universal question,
 "Why are we here?"
You don't have to agree with my
opinions.  It really doesn't matter
does it?  I'm just illustrating how
a gambler might unravel this mystery.

Think about life for a moment.  There
is only one way to get into this world
and that is to be born.  There is also
only one way to get out of it and that
is to die.  There are lots and lots of people
that help you get from birth to adulthood.
Did you ever wonder if you are part of
a very complex and controlled scientific 
experiment?  One that is very complicated 
and well thought out perhaps.  What are the
odds of all this just being happenstance?

I'm fairly certain that I did not accidentally 
create the universe.  Additionally, I'm pretty sure 
that you didn't either.  So, if I didn't do it 
and you didn't do it, perhaps  God did.  For 
the time being, why don't we go with that 
assumption.  

The bible says that God created the universe in
six days and he rested on the seventh day.  Hm,
that tells us two things initially.  God works and
God rests.  It also indicates that God must be very
powerful because the universe is a very, very big
place with billions of galaxies.  It is virtually 
impossible to calculate the time it would take 
to go from one end of the universe to the other 
end at the speed of light. To think God created 
all this in just six days.  Impressive huh?  

The bible also says that He is the only God.  
Now let's think about this.  He is the beginning 
and the end.  Perhaps we can restate this without
messing things up.  Could it not be said that He
is the only God that we will ever know?  Doesn't
really change the original concept much does it?

If we run with this one, we can ask additional
questions about God.  For example, where did
He come from?  Are there other Gods that
we are not unaware of and are they aware of us?
Is our God young or old for being a god?  Does
He have a mate or friends?  We can already
ascertain that His eternity is not our eternity.
He was here before us and He will be here
after us, supposedly.  Is He the only god left?
We are made in his image, whose image is
He made from?

The big question is, "Is God alone?"  If He 
can create the universe and all of us, then why
didn't He create a partner of some sort?
If He can create the universe, then is He
capable of creating other gods?

Interesting question, isn't it?  Let's try and
figure out the universe then.  For example,
let us assume, so we can understand this
at our intelligence level, that God is a
multi-dimension video game developer.

Suppose in his world, he has a free afternoon
and decides to create our universe and
everything in it to pass the time.  It seems
as though our perception of time is not
his reality of time.  So, consider that our
eternity can exist in His one afternoon, for
example.  He could create our universe and
our perception of eternity within a few hours 
of His time.

So, In terms of us, He always was and always
will be.  He would be the only God that we
would ever be aware of.  

The bible tells us that God does not live here
on earth.  He resides in a place known as
heaven.  Where is heaven?  No one knows.

However, we do know that He is not alone
in heaven.  There are angels and animals of
some sort there as well. And it also appears 
that he does not stay in heaven all the time.

There is an old saying, 'When the cat's away,
the mice will play.'  Lucifer was a high ranking
angel in heaven.  Evidently, he formed a
mutiny and convinced one third of heaven
to follow him.  They all left heaven and wound
up on earth, or so it seems.  Now then, to convince
a large segment of the population to turn against
God and to put Lucifer in power is an epic chore.
Especially considering they were already in
heaven, a perfect place with near perfect angels.
With God present, I believe it would have been
impossible for Lucifer to have accomplished
that feat.  To me, it seems that God was not
present in heaven at the time Lucifer was planning
and plotting for all this to occur.

This brings up to another topic, aliens.  
Since angels are not human, and they come 
from beyond our planet, can they not be 
considered aliens?  Also, how do they get here?  
It is speculated that some, but not angels, have 
wings.  Assuming some could
fly, most would need to be brought here, perhaps
by a vehicle similar to a spaceship.

Makes sense except for the fact, that if heaven is
not close to earth, it would take a very long time for
them to reach the planet.  We live in the Milky Way
galaxy.  It takes approximately 100,000 years traveling
at the speed of light to get from one end to the other.
Star Trek fans know that the federation only travels
in the small alpha quadrant of the galaxy.   Star Trek's
Voyager was cast thousands of light years into the 
delta quadrant of the galaxy.  Considering that the 
speed of light is as fast as you can travel and that 
there are billions and billions of galaxies in our 
universe, logistics becomes a major problem.

Any space vehicle used to transport angels would
essentially have to exceed the speed of light to
be functional.  Or could they just imagine themselves
from one place to another, who knows?

Now it is time to discuss the major players God
has sent up for earth.  Of course, Himself and
Lucifer who commands the fallen angels (demons)
on the planet.  What is their role?  They influence
humans to make wrong and evil decisions.  

Lucifer has only appeared to God and Jesus.  Lucifer
is incapable of appearing in the flesh in this world.
Same thing goes for his demons.  He used a serpent
to talk to Adam and Eve because he couldn't do
it by himself.  So how does he influence humans?  
He can't kill us, he can't appear before us?  He 
can't hold a conversation with us?  
He can't cause any physical destruction or intervention.
So how does he and his demons ruin our lives?  I'm
not really sure, but it does seem as though they
do a pretty good job of it.

So, Lucifer and his demons can be thought of as aliens.
What about Adam and Eve?  God created Adam from
the earth and Eve from Adam's rib.  Why?  Well, it seems
as though to allow the games of life to begin.  Adam and
Eve were created as adults, they could converse, they
were intelligent and they could fully function as human 
adults from the get go.  But didn't it have to be this way?
Evolutionary theory states that life could automatically
begin on earth.  Okay, but we live in a practical world.
Tell me how a baby could survive on it's own without
any intervention.  If you have ever had children of your
own, the answer is obvious.  The creation story actually
does make sense when you look at it in those terms.
Evolution does not make sense.  The eye lens requires
96 perfect states to work properly.  Charles Darwin was
well aware of this fact but merely chose to ignore it.
How convenient to be inconvenient.  

Scientists tend to ignore the technical aspects
of evolution and only consider the biological
ones. The discovery of DNA really screws things up 
for evolution.  Cells can be considered to be 
computers and DNA can be considered to be their 
programs.  DNA consists of millions
of lines of code, basically, instructions to tell 
the cells what to do.  Not a computer person, 
then consider a cell to be like a television set.  
The DNA part would be the shows that you can access 
and watch.  Without the shows, nothing
is seen and nothing happens.

Another problem with evolution is the human eye
once again.  To simulate 10 milliseconds of the 
complete processing of a single nerve cell from 
the retina would require the solution of approximately
50,000 equations.  Considering there are at
least 10 million such cells interacting with
each other, it would take a minimum of 100
years to simulate on a super computer what
takes place in your eye many times every second.

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Adam and Eve are from this world but they were not born.
That leaves us, we are born, we live and experience
life to a certain point, and then we die.  But we aren't
the only ones.  The earth is full of animals, both wild
and domesticated.  It appears that they were here even
before we were.  So, I think it can be safe to say that
God enjoys all creatures, great and small, on land and
in the sea.  We have our pets which mostly consist of
little dogs and cats, God had his which included dinosaurs
and raptors.  Hmm, makes you wonder doesn't it?
  
A couple of side notes.  The Christian concept of God
is the Holy Trinity:  three gods in one.  How can that be?
Well, actually there is a physical example that we can
used to illustrate this.  If you heat water to 212 degrees
fahrenheit, water becomes ice, steam and water all
at the same time.  Further, there is the law of physics
that states that energy cannot be created or destroyed,
only transferred.  So why is this important?  Because
God promises all of us eternal life, which I interpret
as self-awareness after we die.  The energy within
our bodies doesn't end, it simply changes states.

We have identified heaven, we are on earth, so now let's
try and find hell.  All humans are given free choice to
believe in God.  No one can force you, it is entirely
your decision.  It costs you absolutely nothing and
guarantees you a happy eternal life. 

On the other hand, if you chose not to believe in
God then what happens?  Well, some believe that
you simply fall asleep and never wake up again.
It's my believe that at the end of our eternity,
that probably does happen.

However, until then, one would seem to have a
whole lot of time to kill.  Catechism states that hell
is defined as the absence of God.  So, if you are
self-aware and, let's say, are not on God's team,
hell might be described as waiting, by yourself,
for eons and eons, possibly in light or darkness,
being self-aware and maybe even being aware
of other beings that also exist.  More on this in
the next chapter.

Then why does God give all of us free will?
He wants us to believe in Him without proof.
He wants to be the good guy.  I can understand
that concept.  Is that the only reason?  I don't
think so.  It seems to me each one of our 
lives is a story, a movie perhaps.  God seems
to enjoy good stories, especially the ones
where there is struggle and the good guy
wins in the end.  

Why are we here?  To have an opportunity to
be the good guy in the end and to believe
in a God that we can't prove exists.  Hmm,
perhaps it's not about being the richest,
the best looking, or the most successful.
Your choice.

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Moderator Notice
Post placed in hide tags in case anyone needs to quote this insanely long drivel in a reply.

Boru

Sir, this is a Wendy’s.

I think you just won the internet.

[Jehanne]

This should convince anyone and everyone that the past is real:

Astronomy Picture of the Day -- 2022 October 17

[Silver]

This should convince anyone and everyone that the past is real:

Astronomy Picture of the Day -- 2022 October 17

Brilliant point, actually. Media, photo taken or video filmed in the past when viewed later in the future is the evidence that the past is real.

[polymath257]

This should convince anyone and everyone that the past is real:

Astronomy Picture of the Day -- 2022 October 17

Brilliant point, actually. Media, photo taken or video filmed in the past when viewed later in the future is the evidence that the past is real.

And since information only goes to the future light cone, we don't get such from the future.

But does that mean the future is NOT real?

And, just because *some* aspects of the past are real, does that mean that *all* aspects are?

Are there some aspects of the future that are real because of their almost certainty?

[Anomalocaris]

This should convince anyone and everyone that the past is real:

Astronomy Picture of the Day -- 2022 October 17

It seems to me the reasons many people think past is not real is of much the same nature as the reasons for believing the Bible is literally true.     These reasons usually can not be defeated by either reason or evidence.


Also, the possibility that the past is not real really can not be excluded.   It is just that the past being real is so much simpler an explanation for why there appears to be a past,  so it deserve to be given a much higher probability estimate.

[Jehanne]

This should convince anyone and everyone that the past is real:

Astronomy Picture of the Day -- 2022 October 17

It seems to me the reasons many people think past is not real is of much the same nature as the reasons for believing the Bible is literally true.     These reasons usually can not be defeated by either reason or evidence.

The past can be predicted, though, in a testable manner! Namely, the light echos from a very distant event, or, better yet, through gravitational lensing.

[Angrboda]

I have to wonder if you can have a theory of causality consistent with denial of the past. I don't think it's necessarily the case that causality as a concept has to survive, but if it's a fiction, it would be one of the more difficult fictions to give up.

[Aegon]

Personally, I ponder the nature of time often and yet I really don't have a firm position. My symathies lie with presentism because I feel the past is truly gone and to the extent it exists it is in presents ghosts. Then as time goes on those ghosts fade while the set of possible paths that could have led to this moment increases. Then I think, certainly there is the way things actually happened so in some sense the past exists in some immutable way...from a god's eye view so to speak...regardless of whether from an objective reality (i.e. there are past objects) or an Akashic record.

Anyways, I was just curious what others thought about time.

Apologies if this idea was already said because I'm not going to read through 9 pages, but this is relative, no? For us the past has to exist. The present moment is a cumulation of past moments. If everything that ever happens is cause and effect, the present effect must have had prior cause. The prior cause happened prior to the present moment, thus it happened in the past. The past is real.

Now, what I just said is based off of our homo sapien understanding of linear time. It's my understanding that relativity has already shown that there is no distinction between past and future, and all time is happening at once. So in that way I'm not entirely sure the past is "real."

[Anomalocaris]

I have to wonder if you can have a theory of causality consistent with denial of the past.  I don't think it's necessarily the case that causality as a concept has to survive, but if it's a fiction, it would be one of the more difficult fictions to give up.

certainly, a theory of casualty unchanged from how we normally understand it works perfectly well in the scenario where our perception of the past is all the artifact of a computer simulation which creates illusion of causality, but the computer itself resides in a real world with an real but entirely different past which we can not perceive, but which also follows the same manner of causality.

[Silver]

Brilliant point, actually. Media, photo taken or video filmed in the past when viewed later in the future is the evidence that the past is real.

And since information only goes to the future light cone, we don't get such from the future.

But does that mean the future is NOT real?

And, just because *some* aspects of the past are real, does that mean that *all* aspects are?

Are there some aspects of the future that are real because of their almost certainty?

This cone thing is something I don't understand, but I imagine it's a scientific concept against an omniscient witchy deity as well as human woowoo psychics.