Hence, the idea that anywhere you look you find existence — Derrick Huesits

Right, good one! :smile:

if you had the power of infinite travel you would still perpetually find existence hence the comment "in all directions." — Derrick Huesits

OK, I see what do you mean by "all directions".

the part it seems most people here struggle to grasp is the argument isn't purely physical, it is meant to be a metaphysical argument — Derrick Huesits

Good point!

It is OK for the universe to be finite as long as there is a greater existence within which it dwells and permeates it. — Derrick Huesits

Wow, very interesting position!

We start with the Eternal component--all time--and work our way from there. — Derrick Huesits

Yes. This is much better! :smile:

You can't say "there was a time when there was nothing." That, simply, wasn't a time. — Derrick Huesits

Certainly. A good point too!

***

Now, about "omni-"s: Although you describe them very well, I personally don't like or use these terms, because they don't mean much to me. Well, except maybe for fun: A while ago, thinking about Covid, the big and catastrophic events of the natures (floods in Europe and the USA, fires in Greece, etc.), the wars happening all together in 2021, but of course every year --actually, all the time-- and then about "omnibenevolent God" (The Greek Orthodox Church loves to bring it up all the time), a new "omni-" attribute came to my mind: "The omniabsent God"! Even if taken as a joke, it says really a lot, doesn't it?

I'm not an atheist, i.e. I don't believe that there is no God or a Supreme Being. I'm just not interested in that subject. It doesn't add anything important or valuable to my reality, my view of the world, my knowledge, etc. And most importantly, it has no influence on my reasoning (critical thinking). So I prefer to just ignore the subject.

This was a pleasant exchange! :smile:

-things are separated by things which are not of the same type, so the only thing that could separate existence itself would be nonexistence which cannot exist, thus there must be one undivided existence — Derrick Huesits

I don't understand how you came up with the idea of 'one undivided existence' from nonexistence. Could you elaborate the possible connection between them please?

-this undivided existence must carry all the attributes labeled above. These attributes, when defined as being all-encompassing, define all the omni's associated with God: omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. And perpetual change through creativity: omnificent. — Derrick Huesits

I fail to see logical linkage between those attributes, "defined as all-encompassing" and the undivided existence. Where does this inference come from?

What does "all-encompassing" mean in the real world ?

Like '5-sided triangles' and 'telepathic unicorns', the nonexistent g/G (i.e. skydaddy of theism) simply subsists. (Meinong)

if God is "in" those things he is finite. Perhaps a better phrase is permeate, expand across, or even say those things exist within him. Either way, for the argument to work he would have to be the greatest existence with no limit. — Derrick Huestis

If that's what your response is, your definition of existence is, let's just say, unstable - sometimes it's limited by space, time, and causality and at other times, it isn't. Something doesn't add up.

Non-existence can't exist — Derrick Huesits

The proposition "non-existence can't exist" is a linguistic curiosity and not a path to an ontological truth

Because words happen to be in the form of a proposition, it does not necessarily follow that they have any meaning, at least no more than Carroll's - 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves. Did gyre and gimble in the wabe".

A further consideration is the philosophical problem regarding the proposition "non-existence can't exist". As our knowledge of the world is about "existence" (ie, avoiding the problem of referring to non-existent entities), how can a proposition - a set of words - enable us to transcend to knowledge about "non-existence" ?

I fail to see logical linkage between those attributes, "defined as all-encompassing" and the undivided existence. Where does this inference come from? — Corvus

Undivided existence would have the attribute of "all encompassing" among other things. Perhaps a fun mind game here would be to talk about holes in the fabric of space--something some scientists have proposed as a hypothesis. A hole in space would have no space, so it would be a hole 0 units wide by 0 units tall. Similarly, a "break" in time would encompass no time, so it would be a break of 0 seconds and no fraction.


It has already been extensively argued that there is more to the idea than semantics, if you want to argue this then read those arguments.


I hastily summarized for you while telling you to go back and read past arguments. If you want to argue this, go read them so I'm not forever repeating myself.

This was a pleasant exchange! :smile: — Alkis Piskas

It has been!

The unborn future is inherent in the past,
Its ‘will be’ is real, with no unreal contrast class,
As there’s no opposite to existence—no Nil;
It’s not just that future is going to exist.

The present ‘now’ undergoes an updating,
In a fleeting swoosh that passes it away,
For the ‘now’ fades, consumed, as future becomes,
Yet, what will become past can’t just non-exist. — PoeticUniverse

There's a lot of interesting philosophy that can be made here. The past carries its existence in the present so long as as the present is built up on the past. So then, if the universe were to collapse back together and "reset," would the past have been erased? Perhaps the concept that the past builds up the future is a necessary one. This goes back to my idea that time is change, so if there is no change--a reset--then there is a challenge as to if any time passed at all. And I think we both agree at this point that time must be infinite. Or, perhaps a better, "always indefinite"--without borders, continuously flowing.

I still think there needs to be some work into the possibility of time being eternal and linear all-in-one. If you have true determinism, which I've already argued operates against the concept of the infinite in multiple ways and can be derailed by previous arguments about the infinite, then perhaps you could have a true eternalism. But continuous determinism seems to be most logical here, and I would even argue we see this principle in our universe. For example, whether or not our universe would be made up of anti-matter doesn't seem determined, but once it was established to be matter there was no going back, and this is what makes up the whole universe today. This principle of continuous-determinism is ever present in our lives--we make decisions, and there's no going back. You can't "undo" having a child, you can't "buy back" years waisted to drugs, you can't "go back" and fix waisted college years. There is a continuous determination that happens in our life, and that is the principle of free-will, not "indeterminism" as so many falsely claim.

Perhaps a better way of phrasing this is "what is determined exists in eternal time, what is undecide belongs to linear time, and they coexist without contradiction."

I still think there needs to be some work into the possibility of time being eternal and linear all-in-one. — Derrick Huestis

Carlo Rovelli did some work on this. He’s my favorite philosopher/physicist, along with Lee Smolin.

From Rovelli on ‘Neither Presentism nor Eternalism’:

Relativity is not the discovery of a new ontology of simultaneity: it is the discovery that there is no fact of the matter, whether two distant punctual events happen at the same time or not.

Notice that what we directly experience is local becoming, not global becoming. That is: we are directly aware of things happening around us, not far away in the uni- verse. The local becoming that we experience and the becoming well described by Newtonian physics, happen to have a peculiar feature: events can be distinct between past present and future, and labelled by a single time variable t which is tracked faithfully by any good clock, irrespectively from the way the clock moves.

We are always tempted to extrapolate our experience assuming that what is true locally is true globally. Some- times this works (the Maxwell equations, found in England, happen to work pretty well in far away galaxies as well), sometimes it doesn’t (mountains are not always in the North, the ‘up’ directions are not all parallel and the Maxwell equations are modified in the atomic nuclei.) In the case of becoming we are tempted to extrapolate local features of becoming to global features: to assume that all events of the universe can be uniquely and objectively separated into past, present and future, and labelled by a single time variable t which is tracked faithfully by any good clock, irrespectively from the way the clock moves. We have learned that this extrapolation is wrong.

The reasonable choice is to recalibrate the notion of becoming, dropping the illegitimate extrapolations implicit in its old conceptualisation.

This is possible. There is real becoming in the universe. Things happen. The relativistic equations describe this unfolding of happenings. Each individual time-like worldline describes a sequence of events, namely a specific unfolding of local becoming. Distinct local becomings are not independent: they are weaved to one another by the structure described by the four-dimensional pseudo-riemanniann geometry of general relativity. The ensemble of all events of the world cannot be objectively arranged into a single simple succession of global instants.

This impossibility is not the absence of becoming. It is the fact that becoming is more complex than a naive non- relativistic extrapolation assumes. The temporal structure of becoming is not the non-relativistic line with a special point, the ‘present’, but rather the one defined by the causal structure formed by the light cones of a pseudo Riemanniann manifold.

Relativity does not deny temporality, it shows that it is less trivial than we thought.

The different nows at different locations are not simultaneous: they are independent, and in communication via the causal structure of spacetime. They are thus partially related, but not fully. Some ‘nows’ in a distant galaxy are definitely in our past, some in our future. But there is a long sequence of distinct ‘nows’ (different moments of time) which are all neither in the past nor the future with respect to the ‘now here’. This is of course nothing else than Einstein’s key discovery: objective simultaneity is meaningless. We can think of reality as becoming is complex and multilayered [30, 31].

Different aspects of experiential time depend on different natural structures. Some aspects of our common-sense intuition about time do not carry on to relativistic becoming. Directionality, for instance, is rooted in the fact that we interact with the world via macroscopic coarse-grained variables. It is a property of these variables and it does not belong to the elementary grammar of relativistic becoming. Hence the fundamental becoming I am referring to is un-oriented [6]. Similarly, our vivid sense of the flow of time is a consequence of the functioning of our brain, rooted in memory and anticipation, and so on [30]. But the fact that so many aspects of experiential time depend on approximations, and on complex structures, does not alter the fact that what elementary physics describes is happenings, not entities.

More from Rovelli:

WHAT IS REAL NOW?

What is real in the universe, then? The question is ill defined. Reality has a temporal structure, therefore asking ‘what is real?’ without specifying ‘when’ leads to mixing events that are real now with those that were real.

There is a long tradition of contrary comments by major physicists (‘Events do not happen; they are just there, and we come across them’, Eddington, 1920. ‘The objective world simply is, it does not happen’, Weyl 1949. ‘Each observer has his own set of “nows”, and none of these various systems of layers can claim the prerogative of representing the objective lapse of time’, G ̈odel 1949. ‘An observer is merely a world-line, once and for all, on the four dimensional manifold?’, Geroch 1984. All quoted in [27].) I disagree with them. They played a rhetorical role when the new physics needed to break with old habits of thinking, but they are not the best guide for clarity today. A different case is the commonly quoted phrase by Einstein: ‘For us believing physicists, the difference between past, present, and future amounts to an illusion, albeit stubborn’ (Einstein to Besso’s wife, 21 May 1955), which I believe is misinterpreted, when taken out of its emotional context (on this, see [30], Chapter 7).

Events in the past but are not real anymore. Hence to talk about the reality of something we have to specify a time. But to specify a time it is not sufficient to specify a number. We have to locate a region in the rich temporal structure of the universe. There are facts that are real now on Earth, facts that were real in the past, or will be real in the future with respect to here-now, and there are also facts that are real on distant galaxy at a time which is neither in our future, nor in our past, but nevertheless they are in the past of one another.

This may be hard to develop an intuition for, but it is just the way reality is. Our ancestors had equal difficulty in figuring out how people could live upside down on the other side of the Earth.

The fact that some events can be ‘real now here’ without being ‘real now’ in some other location is no more and no less mysterious than the fact that some events can be ‘real now’ at some time without being ‘real now’ at other times, which so much anguished Mc Taggart [7]. Hence relativity does not really add nor subtract much with respect to the pre-relativistic debate on the reality of time.

The fact that there is no preferred objective foliation of four-dimensional spacetime into three dimensional ‘time instants’ is not a denial of becoming: it is only a a denial of a synchronised global becoming. The ‘third option’ between Presentism and Eternalism is simply what most relativists give for granted: there is no global notion of present, but there is a local becoming, at every point of spacetime. The ‘present’ is not illusory: it is well defined, but relative to a location: in non relativistic physics, it is relative to a temporal location, in relativistic physics is relative to a spacetime location.

The four-dimensional spacetime is only a cartography of the relations between these multiple local becomings.

Einstein’s discovery is that Newtonian space and time and the gravitational field are the same entity. There is a tradition of expressing this discovery saying that ‘‘there is no gravitational field: space and time become dynamical’’. I think that this is a convoluted and misleading way of thinking, which does not do justice to Einstein’s discovery, and has the additional flaw of becoming meaningless as soon as we take into account the fact that the gravitational field has quantum properties.

The clean way of expressing Einstein’s discovery is to say that there are no space and time: there are only dynamical objects. The world is made by dynamical fields. These do not live in, or on, spacetime: they form and exhaust reality.

One of these fields is the gravitational field. In the regimes in which we can disregard its dynamics, this field interacts with the rest of the physical objects as if it were a fixed background. This background is what Newton discovered and called space and time. We can keep using the evocative terminology ‘‘spacetime’’ to indicate the gravitational field. But it has practically none of the features that characterized space and time. Relativistic spacetime is an entity far more akin to Maxwell’s electric and magnetic fields than to Newtonian space.

In classical GR, a given solution of the field equations might still have some vague resemblance to the Newtonian’s notions, since it defines a ‘‘continuum’’ which things can be imagined ‘‘to inhabit’’. But the only compelling reason for thinking that ‘‘spacetime’’ is the gravitational field, and not — say — the electromagnetic field, is the contingent fact that we live in a portion of the universe where the gravitational field is sufficiently constant for us to use it as a convenient reference.

Quantum mechanics reinforces this point of view. A solution of the classical field equations is like a particle trajectory: a notion that only makes physical sense in the classical limit. The gravitational field has quantum properties, and therefore it cannot define a spacetime continuum in the small.

Properly speaking, relativity has taught us that the effective way of thinking about the world in the light of what we have learned so far is to give up the notions of ‘‘space and time entities’’ entirely. This is not a dramatically radical view, since it is not far from the way space was commonly conceptualized before Newton. On the other hand, it has a novel twist of great interest, especially as far as time, and the relation between time and space, are concerned.

In Newtonian physics, if we take away the dynamical entities, what remains is space and time. In relativistic physics, if we take away the dynamical entities, nothing remains. As Whitehead put it, we cannot say that we can have spacetime without dynamical entities, anymore than saying that we can have the cat’s grin without the cat (Whitehead, 1983).

For example, whether or not our universe would be made up of anti-matter doesn't seem determined, but once it was established to be matter there was no going back, and this is what makes up the whole universe today. — Derrick Huestis

Thank you, neutrinos, for our universe of matter!

https://www.quantamagazine.org/neutrino-evidence-could-explain-matter-antimatter-asymmetry-20200415/

Undivided existence would have the attribute of "all encompassing" among other things. Perhaps a fun mind game here would be to talk about holes in the fabric of space--something some scientists have proposed as a hypothesis. A hole in space would have no space, so it would be a hole 0 units wide by 0 units tall. Similarly, a "break" in time would encompass no time, so it would be a break of 0 seconds and no fraction. — Derrick Huestis

Shouldn't the space inside a totally sealed cube, container or ball be regarded as divided (separated) space from the outer space?

These attributes, when defined as being all-encompassing, define all the omni's associated with God: omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. And perpetual change through creativity: omnificent.
-add to this the fact that it must encompass all time: eternal, and you get all the labels attributed to God
-thus, the notion of God can be grasped from a purely logical standpoint. — Derrick Huesits

Omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience are only meaningful real attributes, if a subject with such attributes demonstrates omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience in action in front of us any time when asked. 

When the subject has not been coming forward to show it for thousands of years, and when it is impossible to locate for any ordinary living being, a subject who are with the attributes no matter how hard looking and searching every corner of the world for thousands of years, then should we not conclude that there is no such a being with such attributes existing?

Deriving the Narrative of the Cosmos

We’re already in touch with the unknown,
For that’s ever the reach of science shown.
Reality is grasped by focusing
On what interacts with what and the means.

There is a realm of happenings, not things,
For ‘things’ don’t remain the same on time’s wings.
What remains through time are processes—
Relations between different systems.

Quantum fields are the fundamental strokes
Whose excitations at harmonics cloaks
The quanta with the stability
To persist and thus obtain mobility.

The elementary particles beget,
As letters of the cosmic alphabet,
And combine in words to write the story
Of the stars, atoms, cells, and life’s glory.

↪TheMadFool
I hastily summarized for you while telling you to go back and read past arguments. If you want to argue this, go read them so I'm not forever repeating myself. — Derrick Huestis

Good day, I've run out of things to say.

Omnipresence is really meaningful when the subject is visible and contactable whenever required, omnipotence doing and manifesting the right things (divine beings cannot perform bad things by definition?) when required no matter how impossible, and omniscience telling us what is right from wrong, good from bad, and all the controversial topics such as being able to answer how the universe had been created, if it had, what happen to living beings when dead etc. No?

Shouldn't the space inside a totally sealed cube, container or ball be regarded as divided (separated) space from the outer space? — Corvus

If the cube moves, then the space inside the cube moves also, thus it is not technically the same space. It is the same amount of space, yes, but not the same space technically speaking. For example, if that cube is in New York, it is a space in New York. If in Boston, then a space in Boston, etc. And, if we simply chose to demolish the cube, the same space still exists, just now without the cube, it can't be demolished with the cube...

Omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience are only meaningful real attributes, if a subject with such attributes demonstrates omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience in action in front of us any time when asked. — Corvus

This is the definition of magic. For those who believe the greater existence has free will and can choose to completely ignore you if it chooses, then the way to go about this is prayer which may or may not be answered.

Omnipresence is really meaningful when the subject is visible and contactable whenever required — Corvus

You can only see what is finite and exists separate from you, so whatever is truly omnipresent extends everywhere so you could never go outside it and never see or contact it externally, everything must occur within it.

omnipotence doing and manifesting the right things (divine beings cannot perform bad things by definition?) — Corvus

I wouldn't use the term "bad" to explain it, but there is an obvious contradiction if omnipotence is used to remove omnipotence thus establishing the reality that the being doesn't truly have omnipotence...In other words, the greatest power is to create, destruction is a lesser power, creating can go on indefinitely but there are only so many things you can destroy--it is no surprise here that in Christianity, the Devil who opposes God strives to destroy all things...

omniscience telling us what is right from wrong, good from bad, and all the controversial topics such as being able to answer how the universe had been created, if it had, what happen to living beings when dead etc. — Corvus

I personally see the word omniscience as a tricky word, and there is a reason this has been used as a way to attack the concept of "God." You could say it means knowing what is going on everywhere all at once, knowing all future, knowing all good and bad, etc. I think the least contested of these would be knowing what is going on everywhere all at once. The reason I am not inclined to not accept the "know all future" idea is because I don't consider an all-existent being as being required to establish all future. It actually creates problems for omnipotence to say this being "decided" all things and can decide no more, but if you open to door to say not all things are decided, then not all future is set in stone, and not all future can be known. Christianity, at the very least, seems to embrace this idea with Bible passages that confuse many people (things were declared changed by God from the original plan).

As far as "knowing" bad, I reject this concept also on the premise that what is "bad" is simply a negation of everything which is "good," and what is "good" is that which is sustainable for an eternity without destruction: a destruction which unfortunately we see all too much of in this world which many religions have described as "broken" or "fallen." To put this simply, lets say you lecture me on a subject, then I go through and change everything you said to be the opposite. For example, you say "climate change is occurring due to the industrial revolution and the use of fossil fuels and is causing great harm" and I then alter it to say "fossil fuels are good for the environment, solar panels are bad, we need to abolish them from all rooftops!" I then study this opposite version and hold my head high at my "knowledge." But you, who realize it is just the opposite of what you were lecturing on, say "it isn't knowledge." I reply, "you think knowing bad things is knowledge, and this is a bad thing, therefore by your own definition I have knowledge!"

knowing what is going on everywhere all at once. — Derrick Huestis

In the Cosmos, there may be some basic ‘knowing’ …

— All is One —

Everything connects to everything else
Through overlapping quantum field patterns,
And so nothing is separate at all, as it seems,
But is one large all-encompassing whole.

— Blake’s Vision Confirmed —

Every part of a hologram contains the whole,
The whole universe contained within a
Grain of sand, all eternity within a moment,
The universe rumbling when an electron vibrates.

— The All Is In the One —

All ‘things’ are connected, entangled,
As in a hologram each part contains the whole;
Everything interpenetrates everything;
The Cosmos is a seamless web of information.

— Seeing All? —

The connection of everything to everything
Is as a rudimentary perception,
But (responders can fill this in).

— Happenings —

Nature draws the world with interactions;
What’s real are relations between systems.
Events ground to the notion of ‘objects’;
‘Things’ are built by elementary events.

— Quantum Memory —

In the brain’s memory, every piece of info
Is cross-correlated with every other piece,
Which allows instant access and association;
Memories could be stored holographically.

— Instant Recall —

Memory does seem to be holographic,
Residing everywhere in the brain,
Every piece associated with others related,
Instantly broadcasting all the connections.

…

— The Will of the Cosmos? —

Where’s horrid Hell and gloried Heaven yon?
Who’s the scribe of my slab written upon?
I ask if I’m the stylus or the slate:
I’m both the dancer and the danced upon.

When the subject has not been coming forward to show it for thousands of years, and when it is impossible to locate for any ordinary living being, a subject who are with the attributes no matter how hard looking and searching every corner of the world for thousands of years, then should we not conclude that there is no such a being with such attributes existing? — Corvus

That the supernatural is supposed to be everywhere but is found nowhere implies that there is only the natural, making 'God' to be more of a Deity who no longer gets involved after throwing some stuff together, which makes Him a great scientist rather than a magician. So, then, while some livable planets or at least one came out of the humungous expanse over 14 billion years due to the odds of something working somewhere by having millions of the right conditions, a lot of good and horrible happenings can go on as a surprise and an amusement to Him.

The Great Scientist Deity sits back in his plush chair to watch this long great adventure movie or soap opera that He's never seen before…

The Great Scientist Deity sits back in his plush chair to watch this long great adventure movie or soap opera that He's never seen before… — PoeticUniverse

Scientist deity to some, teacher deity to others. This "adventure" without him could be a lesson or it could be a show. It could have a point, or it could be pointless, meaningful or meaningless. The concept of "Love" gives eternal meaning to things across all time, it is an infinite concept and thus exists in eternal opposition to death. It promotes creation and rejects destruction, thus we see it as the desire preceding family and the desire rejecting war and death. If this infinite existence truly is aimed in the direction of infinite creation, the true fulfillment of omnipotence, we can assume it carries this trait, "love." And thus, perhaps we can assume this is a lesson and not a show, and a powerful one at that as we see our own constant aim against the principles of the infinite across time in history. Our "Death" is simply the manifestation of our desire against the infinite coming true for us at last.

Scientist deity to some, teacher deity to others — Derrick Huestis

Sometimes you and I gravitate toward the same conclusion, humor aside, that the universe is allowed to go on without pre-determination, as hands off by 'God', and so that is like a Deity. It is also that a 'God' would not be bound to time, plus many don't see him operating in time, doing this, doing this, Himself changing all the time, dumbly bumbling through 13 billion years to get us to come to life.

https://iep.utm.edu/god-time/

I'm taking it that 'God' is timeless/changeless, aka eternal, absolute, fundamental, 'IS' and thus a 'God' operating in time would be a changing 'God'. This is akin to the quantum fields ever remaining as they are, which they have to.

So now I have to invent a word, 'Theity', which isn't in the dictionary, for the unlikely 'God' who operates in time, as many think He does, such as when they pray to Him to change His Perfect Mind.

At least with the Deity notion, the believer doesn't have to stumble over the dilemma of why 'God' acts exactly the same as nature does and as nature would without Him as we well see through the science descriptions of what went on after the Big Bang.

The processes are of understandable laws of physics, chemistry, and biology, with no extra-natural of miracles. We know what happened in the first fractions of a second after the supposed Big Bang and can predict the course of the Universe to its thinned out future. After the start the progress was very slow, just as it would be naturally; it took 13+ billion years for life to appear on Earth.

So, 'God' the Deity is not a personal 'God'. God’s Good Plan would operate at the general, universal sense, not at a specific, personal sense. Example: water is good but also necessitates floods and drought; a farmer wishes for rain and the wedding party across the street hopes for sunshine. And so forth, as self-explanatory as what’s best for all.

Human nature must be imperfect. There can be only one 'God', plus perfection would be boring, and creatures and their natures are of a non personal general-for-all recipe of ingredients that can let life happen and be lived.

If we were Angels, life would be so just;
Instead, we try, we push, we climb, we lust,
We dance, we dream, we feel, and love with zest;
Yes, all this, thanks to the beast within us!

We have lesser abilities than the Whole/'God' because we have to be of smaller extent than it and also so as to be able to operate in the world. There can be only One Whole/'God', with the designs within or without necessarily having to be of less dimension in our lesser realm.

The 'God' not operating in linear time would be the Block Universe and we would be inside 'God'; however, I've given up on the Block Universe… allowing for some presentism.

Now after Now

Life’s a web, of whos, whys, whats, and hows,
Stretched as time between eternal boughs.
Gossamer threads bear the beads that glisten,
Each moment a sequence of instant nows.

No matter how one tries to shake from boughs
The fruits of truth from the Tree of Knows;
Computation makes not yet the morrows;
There’s naught else but lone, resultant Nows.

Memory’s ideas recall the last heard tone;
Sensation savors what is presently known;
Imagination anticipates coming sounds;
The delight is such that none could produce alone.

To future columns we stretch our present row,
By a lifeline of tenuously spun vow.
Oh, how soon the weighted web begins to fail;
The only real time under our feet is now.

Yet, still,

We, of the endless forms most beautiful,
Are stunned that our glass to the brim is full,
Life’s wine coursing through us, as magical,
On this lovely, rolling sphere so bountiful.


Of course, the Deity God could be outside of time. Or He just lets the universe alone that He started in time to do what it does (this relieves 'God' of having to be so slow-minded that cosmic and biological evolution took so mind-numbingly long.)


As for 'God's' Love, it is also for sure that it would Unconditional Love… and we can do that in our lives, too, and do:

Higher Consciousness

The three lower consciousnesses that are
Obsessed with the securing of objects,
With the chasing of sensations, and with
Power/control will never ever be enough.

There are NO actions of people that can
Justify our becoming irritable
Angry, fearful, jealous or anxious if
We give them our unconditional love.

Stress is the difference between what we
Expect to happen and what does happen,
Especially when we put our needs ahead
Of other, oft resulting in needless anger.

If we don’t accept the unacceptable,
Then we lower our level of consciousness
Our response will mirror their uptightness—
Which can spread the bad moods onto others.

Conscious Awareness, which can but witness,
Is a safe haven from which to observe
The drama of our lives playing in our minds,
Granting us a sobering distance from it.

From a safe subjective place that’s free of fear,
Our soul, our conscious awareness, can witness
The strange thoughts and emotions that surface
On the mind, sent by the subconscious brain.

Putting ourselves in the place of others
When hurtful things are done to us,
Expands our consciousness, compassion, and love
Since we can come to know why they did it.

When we converse with ourselves, it is our
Higher Consciousness—our Conscious Awareness
Or I, that questions our lower consciousness
Impulses toward securing, sensation, and power.

Seeing the big picture of life and its stages
And connections lets one not get annoyed, say,
At being cut off in traffic, for s/he
May be old, learning, lost, growing, or angry.

Putting the needs of others ahead of
Our own produces the byproduct of
Happiness and reduces stress, for we
No longer have unrealistic expectations.

Some fall for their thoughts, hook, line, and sinker:
Conditioned responses, reflexes, or
Overwhelming emotions, some spurious,
Or ancient, planted by evolution, or unbalanced.

Emotions are slow to react to logic,
Like molasses or slow forming crystals,
Or not at all, like rocks, blocking them.
Unless and until they change, progress halts.

Reason and emotion are hard to coordinate,
Each having a separate pathway to the mind,
That, perhaps, is all there is to tell about the
Miseries and follies of human history.

From its safe subjective place that’s free of fear,
The higher self, our Conscious Awareness, can witness
The strange thoughts and emotions that surface
On the mind, sent there by the subconscious brain.

First-level thoughts are beliefs and desires,
But second-level thoughts are beliefs
And desires about the beliefs and desires,
Becoming able spectators of the scene beneath.

Higher Awareness, which can but witness,
Is a safe haven from which to observe
The drama of the lives playing in the mind,
Granting one a sobering distance from it.

This detachment allows
The ‘thinking about a thought’
Without the thought itself
Trying to steal the show.

(soul acronym = spirit of unconditional love)


So far, we have both been eliminating what is impossible in order to better corner the truth, and this is where I think we are:

Oh, those imaginings of what can’t be!
Such as Nought, Stillness, and the Block’s decree,
As well as Apart, Beginning, and End,
Determinism, Blame, and Theity.

The omniabsent God"! Even if taken as a joke, it says really a lot, doesn't it? — Alkis Piskas

What does it say? That He is just absent and lets us go our way?

I'm taking it that 'God' is timeless/changeless, aka eternal, absolute, fundamental, 'IS' and thus a 'God' operating in time would be a changing 'God'. — PoeticUniverse

Can a God who encompasses all time be timeless? Or encompass all change and be changeless? These words operate differently on different properties, and thus I'm not convinced you can wholly establish either stance. Some aspects of this concept "God" could interact with time with no contradiction (think omnipotence), other aspects no (we can interact within omnipresence, but not with it as a separate entity), and some aspects require such interaction as "that which has no effect nor affects anything doesn't exist." Perhaps this is part of what has the concept of a three-in-one God intrigue me, that there can be an element which is timeless and distant, such as the "first person" of the three, with progressive interaction from the second to the third.

Human nature must be imperfect. — PoeticUniverse

If there is an all-existence God which owns all perfection infinitely, then creation without him would necessarily be imperfect. But, we aren't completely and totally imperfect, we haven't destroyed ourselves (yet), so if this is true then there must be at least a little of this infinite perfection present and not a true absenteeism.

Can a God who encompasses all time be timeless? Or encompass all change and be changeless? — Derrick Huestis

They can. But you can't imagine because you are bound.

They can. But you can't imagine because you are bound. — VincePee

I'm doing a bit of a play on words here. Not timeless, all time, not changeless, all change, but these operatives don't necessarily have to leave a direct influence on the thing which holds them.

Perhaps I should give an analogy:
A glass full of water is different from a glass which is empty, even while the water has no direct effect on the glass itself. The glass can revert from the former state to the prior state with no distinction.

Perhaps I should give an analogy: — Derrick Huestis

Analogies don't work wrt to gods. They can be timefull and timeless at the same time.

The omniabsent God"! Even if taken as a joke, it says really a lot, doesn't it?
— Alkis Piskas
What does it say? That He is just absent and lets us go our way? — VincePee

It says that God is not interfering with human affairs. It says that God created Man and left him to chance. It says that the "humanized God" (God with a human-like face) that man has created does not actually exist (hence "absent"). It says that this God has nothing to do with a Supreme Being that governs the whole Universe and not the Earth alone (in which God seems to rule according the egocentric Man and his tales).

I could mention more, but I'm sure you got the point.

Analogies don't work wrt to gods. — VincePee

I hear a statement of belief, not a logical argument.

It says that God is not interfering with human affairs. — Alkis Piskas

What is this "it" and and what are the arguments for it? Or is it just a statement of your beliefs.

I have a feeling that the sentence "nonexistence exists" is not well-formed.

Nonexistence exists = Nonexistence is a thing AND that thing exists.

What kinda thing is nonexistence? I know of only two planes/worlds a thing can be of:

1. The mental world: The world of ideas. Nonexistence is an idea and in that sense, nonexistence, the notion, exists. Ideas are things.

2. The physical world: The world of objects that our bodies can bump into. Nonexistence is not a physical object like a stone or an elephant. Ergo, nonexistence doesn't exist in the physical plane. Physical objects are things.

The follow-up question: What does nonexistence mean/refer to?

It means/refers to,

3. The state of not being part of the mental world. Nonexistence is about non-things.

OR/AND

4. The state of not being part of the physical world. Nonexistence is about non-things.

Thus, to say "nonexistence exists" is to claim that nonexistence refers to a thing (mental/physical or both) which is a category error; there's no point discussing the alleged contradiction.

If the cube moves, then the space inside the cube moves also, thus it is not technically the same space. It is the same amount of space, yes, but not the same space technically speaking. For example, if that cube is in New York, it is a space in New York. If in Boston, then a space in Boston, etc. And, if we simply chose to demolish the cube, the same space still exists, just now without the cube, it can't be demolished with the cube... — Derrick Huestis

  I think you need to clarify more in detail what you mean by undivided in "undivided existence" before going into "all encompassing" too.  Is undivided meaning impossibility and immunity of physically separating, or enclosing, or totally severing off and detaching one part from the chunk of the whole part? Or does it mean something else?

When you say something is all encompassing, it suggests the all encompassing subject is later than the object what is encompassed in time, because an object must exist first before something can encompass around it, unless again encompassing means something else. This sounds like "all encompassing" is some sort of a posteriori and artificial plastic blanket rather than religious or something divine nature, would you not agree?

This is the definition of magic. For those who believe the greater existence has free will and can choose to completely ignore you if it chooses, then the way to go about this is prayer which may or may not be answered. — Derrick Huestis

If that is the case, then it sounds like a being with some emotional problems deciding to ignore his seekers by irrational freewill. (How do you prove the omnipresent being also has freewill?)
Why should you pray to a irrational emotive being who would hide away and ignores you with no reason?

Omnipresence is really meaningful when the subject is visible and contactable whenever required
— Corvus

You can only see what is finite and exists separate from you, so whatever is truly omnipresent extends everywhere so you could never go outside it and never see or contact it externally, everything must occur within it. — Derrick Huestis

Surely if a being is omnipresent, then it must be both inside and outside of the perceiver, and the perceiver should be able to feel what is inside the perceiver, if unable to see the omnipresent hidden inside the perceiver, and surely what is outside of the perceiver must be seen and perceived?