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raefinlayTime is a funny thing. All things change with time, yet time itself is immutable. It proceeds steadily, measurably, inexorably. We have outwards perceptions of time differentials (the day went by sooo fast...this hour is creeping by...) but in a deep place of subconsious assuredness, we understand these perceptions to be false and we set our lives by a universal clock. Time rules us. We measure our lives and accomplishments by it. We were created by it.
Omnipresent. Immutable. Creator. Destroyer. Infinite. God.
But what if time were merely a property of physics like gravity or distance or energy? What if it had a beginning? (If it didn't...then how did enough time pass for me to get here?) What if *ducks flying words* it's a created thing?
I ran across this verse in the Bible: "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." 2 Peter 3:8
I guess that explains a few things.
Like why he would say "I am coming soon" and 2,000 years later, he's still taking his sweet time about it. It would also explain why he "predestined" those he "foreknew."
Maybe God sees the universe from a perspective completely outside of time. Maybe he can unroll the film of our existence and look at every single frame in our linear timeline all at once. Maybe he created time so our finite brains wouldn't explode from sensory overload.
An old hymn says, "When we've been there ten thousand years bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun." I wonder if this is the psalmist's feeble attempt to comprehend true eternity. Maybe we won't be in heaven for more than ten thousand years. Maybe we'll just BE. I wonder if God will rip open our minds to experience timelessness, complete freedom from the physical boundaries of our universe. I can't say with all certainty that it's a beautiful prospect, because my mind requires measurable time to function. Or so I think. But it gives me a whole new motivation to "seize the day."
End ramble. Now it's time for bed.
Omnipresent. Immutable. Creator. Destroyer. Infinite. God.
But what if time were merely a property of physics like gravity or distance or energy? What if it had a beginning? (If it didn't...then how did enough time pass for me to get here?) What if *ducks flying words* it's a created thing?
I ran across this verse in the Bible: "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." 2 Peter 3:8
I guess that explains a few things.
Like why he would say "I am coming soon" and 2,000 years later, he's still taking his sweet time about it. It would also explain why he "predestined" those he "foreknew."
Maybe God sees the universe from a perspective completely outside of time. Maybe he can unroll the film of our existence and look at every single frame in our linear timeline all at once. Maybe he created time so our finite brains wouldn't explode from sensory overload.
An old hymn says, "When we've been there ten thousand years bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun." I wonder if this is the psalmist's feeble attempt to comprehend true eternity. Maybe we won't be in heaven for more than ten thousand years. Maybe we'll just BE. I wonder if God will rip open our minds to experience timelessness, complete freedom from the physical boundaries of our universe. I can't say with all certainty that it's a beautiful prospect, because my mind requires measurable time to function. Or so I think. But it gives me a whole new motivation to "seize the day."
End ramble. Now it's time for bed.
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Date: 2005-01-29 10:36 am (UTC)and time is not immutable. witness einstein's theory of relativity -- it's not just to do with how we perceive time, it's also to do with how it behaves.
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Date: 2005-01-29 07:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-29 11:40 am (UTC)IMO, Time *is* a created thing. Those who don't believe in God might compare it to the demensions (which I was just thinking about yesterday for my seers, oddly enough). Back and forth, 1; side to side, 2; up and down, 3. And the fourth? Time. It just *is*. Like side to side or up and down, we experiance it regadless of what happens, but our minds had to put a name to it to help simplify it (although demensions one through three are fairly simple already, I think.
/demension ramble
I've heard that verse before. I love it. It reminds me that even though we struggle to comprehend something so steady and unchanging as time, God already understands it!
I heard once that it's easy for us to comprehend no end. I mean, I don't think we actually *get* it, but it's far easier for us to imagine no end than... no beginning.
Another thing I'm thinking about was this series of children's/YA books when I was younger. Um.. Animorphs I think it was called. Man, I wish I knew how all that stuff ended. By the time I moved on to fantasy the lady was on book 38 or something.
Anyway, they had these people. Elemests, or something, that could pause or control time or... I don't remember how they did it, exactly. Well, one time one of Our Heros got to see something about time and they saw all these lines across a sheet of black. Each line was a person's life, and they kept intersecting and running along side other lines, and then seperated. Or some just *stopped*. And as far back as Our Hero looked, he couldn't see a beginning or an end.
Kinda makes me wonder if that's anything like God sees.
Maybe we'll just BE. I wonder if God will rip open our minds to experience timelessness, complete freedom from the physical boundaries of our universe.
Eternity!
:)
(great, thought provoking post)
no subject
Date: 2005-01-29 07:42 pm (UTC)it's far easier for us to imagine no end than... no beginning.
Exactly! When two mirrors face each other, we can see how the reflection goes on and on. When we divide 1 by 3 we can understand how the 3's in .3333333... go on forever. But those of these things had starting points. Never, in all of human existence, have we experienced beginninglessness. Er, is that a word??
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Date: 2005-01-29 02:48 pm (UTC)Anyway, I've had similar thoughts about Time. But it's really hard -- nay, impossible -- for the human mind to transcend that dimension. We have no freedom of movement within it, so we can only observe existence within its context.
A hard-drinking, deep-thinking co-worker of mine shares several mental wavelengths with me. Though we're both agnostic, we seek the comfort of an afterlife. When one of our conversations turned metaphysical, he articulated -- or rather, struggled to articulate -- a thought of mine that resonates with what you've written here. If Time is static somewhere, in some "higher plane," then as long as we exist now, we will always exist -- in that plane.
Ow. Need caffeine.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-29 07:33 pm (UTC)If Time is static somewhere, in some "higher plane," then as long as we exist now, we will always exist -- in that plane.
Yes...another thought I've had. I believe we are all eternal beings bound for existence outside of time, and I believe everybody in the world gets what he/she wants in the end: existence in the presence of God, or existence apart from God. Of course, this belief requires a belief in God. :-)
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Date: 2005-01-29 07:35 pm (UTC)It also requires a definition of God -- and it can be difficult to get people to agree on one. :-)
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Date: 2005-01-29 05:09 pm (UTC)I ran across this verse in the Bible: "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." 2 Peter 3:8
Sort of makes you wonder if the whole 'created the world in seven days should be taken literally, doesn't it? :P
Like why he would say "I am coming soon" and 2,000 years later, he's still taking his sweet time about it. It would also explain why he "predestined" those he "foreknew."
Hmmm...more stuff about relativity in the context of the bible.
Maybe God sees the universe from a perspective completely outside of time. Maybe he can unroll the film of our existence and look at every single frame in our linear timeline all at once. Maybe he created time so our finite brains wouldn't explode from sensory overload.
I've never said I couldn't believe in a god like this. A god so beyond our understanding that the mystery of god is beyond the scope of the literal translation of mere words and that our understanding, as well as those of future generations, must continually evolve towards understanding.
An old hymn says, "When we've been there ten thousand years bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun." I wonder if this is the psalmist's feeble attempt to comprehend true eternity.
Was it really such a feeble attempt to understand eternity? I thought it was pretty poetic myself. I liked it.
Yes Rae, you have contemplated some deep things here. Don't disagree with them. This is why I don't believe the 'young earth' theory. Now to see if OWW is finally back up.
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Date: 2005-01-29 07:38 pm (UTC)*giggling* There is no doubt in my mind that if God chose, he could create humans any darn way he pleased, whether it be evolution over billions of year of otherwise for the exact reasons you stated.
But my belief that evolution is not true has nothing whatsoever to do with God and the Bible. Were I not a Christian, I still wouldn't believe in evolution. It just doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny.
But dude, you know better than to make me think so early in the morning. *headache*
:-)