We have sensations of time. They are 'of' time, but do not constitute it. . Hence why we can have false impressions - something can appear more past than it is, etc. — Bartricks

Such false impressions are not universal but relative from person to person.

But what they are sensations of, will themselves be sensations, for sensations resemble sensations and nothing else. — Bartricks

Time isn't just sensation, time is real and core part of Einstein's general relativity.
Time can be measured and calculated without any involvement of sensations.

And thus though time is not made of our temporal sensations, it is made of someone's. — Bartricks

Which you claim to be God's sensations in our mind. :pray:

What's I'm saying is God's mind is not our mind.

If time is only sensation in God's mind as you said, then why do we have sense of a time?

You also said:

Sensations can exist in minds and nowhere else. Minds and minds alone have sensations. Thus, the actual pastness of an event exists as the sensation of a mind. — Bartricks

Which contradicts to:

Time, then, exists as the sensations of a mind. And of course, that mind will be the mind of God if God exists (which he does). — Bartricks

can we say unequivocally that the United States is an imperialist country? — Wheatley

Based on definition from wikipedia (and later text):

Imperialism is a policy or ideology of extending the rule over peoples and other countries, for extending political and economic access, power and control, often through employing hard power, especially military force, but also soft power. While related to the concepts of colonialism and empire, imperialism is a distinct concept that can apply to other forms of expansion and many forms of government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism

We can say the US is an imperialist state but not colonialist.

Imagine all this taking place in a live discussion! — Alkis Piskas

EQ would prevail because, behind keyboard it's not straightforward to recognize emotions of others:

People with high emotional intelligence can recognize their own emotions and those of others

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence

Then you're irrelevant because it describes your position, not mine. — TheMadFool

Then what's your definition of God to make your position relevant?

Based on what statistics? — baker

Canada for example:

A total of 57,813,302 vaccine doses have been administered in Canada as of October 22, 2021. Adverse events (side effects) have been reported by 20,818 people. That’s about 4 people out of every 10,000 people vaccinated who have reported 1 or more adverse events.

https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/vaccine-safety/summary.html

Side effects expressed in percentage are therefore 0,0004

According to WHO there are 28,881 cumulative death cases in Canada, with 27,792,564 persons being fully vaccinated:
https://covid19.who.int/

Unfortunately there is no data of how many out of 28,881 cumulative death cases were fully vaccinated persons but what ever math you do it's extremely unlikely that 0,0004 would be the result of death cases of vaccinated persons caused by infection.

For example, assuming ALL of these death cases were vaccinated persons you get the result of 0,001 percent of deaths of vaccinated people, which is higher than 0,0004.
28,881 / 27,792,564 = 0,001

In other words, running the risk of side effects is much lower than running the risk of infection.
Both can result with death outcome but that's irrelevant to decide between 2 risks because for that comparison we have:
20,818 people with side effects and
28,881 death cases (with unknown number of vaccinated persons)

God being spiritual being is the opposite of physical being.

Is time spiritual or physical?

How can God be subject to time if time is not spiritual?
Otherwise, how can God not be creator of time if time is physical?

If time is product of a mind then it's irrelevant to compare it to the nature of God, because "mind" is own to human nature.

You concluded:

Time, then, exists as the sensations of a mind. And of course, that mind will be the mind of God if God exists (which he does). — Bartricks

What about the notion that the vaccine is a tool for extracting money from the population? How suspicious are you? — frank

In us and them perspective, essence to the problem is we are being present with 2 possible bad outcomes, lesser and grater one:
1. Take a vaccine with the possibility of side effects.
2. Running the risk of infection.

Running the risk of side effects is low and less dangerous compared to infection chance, possibility of death is also lower by taking the vaccine.

Therefore it is prudent to take the vaccine.

Extracting money from the population, even if that's indeed the motive of COVID, it doesn't change our choices, so taking the vaccine is still valid.

A central area of discussion appeared to be about whether the idea of God and the problem of evil could be reconciled. — Jack Cummins

I think that's essential to esoteric knowledge.
Various topics about God speak of God as God only, however essential to esotericism is not to remove the evil one.

For example, can we analyze a murder case by removing the killer and only talk about victim (or vice versa)?

Except I didn't "label" @Graveltty because of disagreement with me, but because of contradictory definition of a God.

What sense does it make to distort well established definition? except to undermine entry discussion?

edit:
If you want my apology fine, I apologize.
So what or who is God?
Do we agree on definition of God or not?
This is a moot point that needs to be resolved.

God is omni-contradictory because He is omnisapient. His omnibenevolency stands apart from is but his omni-contradictiveness acounts for Him being omni-malevolent. — GraveItty

Now you start to talk nonsense, fine, wikipedia definition of God is same as God described in the bible:

God is usually conceived of as being omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and omnibenevolent as well as having an eternal and necessary existence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God

You're begging the question because when I rejected your position that only obedience matters, God's goodness is an open question i.e. it needs to be proved and then the scenario you set up is so crafted as if God is good. — TheMadFool

I don't consider that relevant because God being good already is the definition of God.
wikipedia gives an abstract and clear definition, while the bible does not give it clear.

Your allusion of God being sometimes good and sometimes bad seems to be based on God waging wars or asking Abraham to kill his son, which I told you it doesn't help to debate to grasp the garden of Eden because of the sheer size of the content that in the end leads to same definition anyway.

When we began, you said it was only obedience that mattered — TheMadFool

I still say so, but I also consider my self not all knowing because later I tried to redirect my position on that:

According to church teaching (which btw. makes my statement about disobedience toward God less accurate), knowledge of good and evil is before all proper to God, knowledge which God didn't want people to know, that is essential. — SpaceDweller

Now, if you're interested into unlocking the meaning of "knowledge of good and evil" as much as I am then what we should focus on is, why knowledge of good and evil is bad for people, because if there is an answer to this then we'll know whether God is indeed good or not.

I suggest we try to figure out what happens if we are able to distinguish good and evil?
First thing that come to my mid is that we are able to judge.
Does that tell you anything?

Just because you can start punching people on the streets, doesn't mean you would actually do it because you know how that would end.

Omnipotence is not God's only property.
Since God is also omniscient he knows doing so is self destructing.
Since God is also omnibenevolent he knows doing so is not good.

Therefore if God makes him self omni-helplessness then that God is contradictory to itself, that is contradictory to it's omnibenevolent nature, which is no longer a God that we speak of.

You mean that God is OOB, or that He posseses these three qualities? I assume the last, as assigning these qualities to our own species doesn't make us God. If defined as such he can never command contrary to that definition. Which makes Him non-OOB. How can He escape? If OOB, you expect He could. But how? — GraveItty

Good point but doesn't such wisdom lead to "If God is omnipotent let him make stone so heavy it won't be able to raise it again"?

Both available solutions make God not omnipotent nor in possession of such quality, which is not helpful to analyze the garden of Eden.

Yes. A natural knowledge. Satan ordered, by means of the apple, to divert from it, with all horrible consequence. — GraveItty

According to book of Enoch, Satan rebelled against God in an attempt to be grater than God, his failure to do so resulted in God throwing him out of his kingdom.

Satan doesn't stop or repent, his hatred continues distorting God's plans and attacking God's creation.
Garden of Eden depicts Satan's attack on God's creation which is Adam and Eve.

According to church teaching (which btw. makes my statement about disobedience toward God less accurate), knowledge of good and evil is before all proper to God, knowledge which God didn't want people to know, that is essential.

First if you want to draw any conclusions about secret knowledge you need to start wondering why differentiating good and evil should have been better kept as secret.
And secondly, what ever conclusion you come out with, it should not oppose scriptures because this only makes it less credible.

I don't think modern day science can be given same significance as knowledge of good and evil.

Science as we know it was born around 16th century and it still develops today.

Religion (written one) on the other side started 3000 years BC and ended 100 years AD.
Therefore taking completely unrelated time spans into account, one has nothing to do with the other, Religion does not deal with science neither does science deal with religion.

There are different kinds of building though, and the scientific way is evil. It came into being after Eve bit the Luciferian apple. — GraveItty

You think there is a secret knowledge that Adam and Eve obtained.

I'm open minded to hear that wisdom.

You're assuming God's commands will always be good. I'm not making that assumption and hence reserve the right to defy Him. — TheMadFool

Not necessarily assuming,
If definition of God is "omnipotent, omniscient and all benevolent", then there is no reason to assume God would command contrary to that definition.

Considering garden of Eden, if God could give evil commands then there was no need for the snake to harass man, that same task could have be done by God instead.

I think the real problem here is something else, that same God which wanted good to Adam and Eve is the same God that wages wars later right?
Therefore you change the definition of God to just "omnipotent and omniscient" excluding "all benevolent"

Even if you're able to somehow prove that theory it still won't fit in because of same question again, what's the role of the devil then?
A God that is not all benevolent would raise many questions impossible to answer.

If exoteric is able to attract so many, then esoteric should reverse it with at least equal power.

The issue is that religion is thereby also vulnerable to being tainted by the less luminous, being used as a tool of power — Tzeentch

Figuratively, multiple keys can fit into a keyhole, but only one is able to actually unlock it.
I see Gnosticism and Rosicrucianism as keys that fit into a keyhole but do not unlock.

I think there is more to esoteric part than just that. (I'm not alluding to God)

Go to the heart of any religion and you will find philosophy. What we have come to know as religion is simply an exoteric representation of a philosophy — Tzeentch

Since religions still exist, does that mean esoteric portion is still unknown to outside world today?

Morality has an other-worldly feel to it! The laws of nature are not aligned with morality. In fact morality goes against the grain - why is being good liking walking uphill? Unnatural! Nonphysical! Kant might be relevant. — TheMadFool

Why not using same perspective toward this problem but from different angle, imagine 2 extremes:
1. Doing everything as God commands
2. Doing everything the opposite, defy God in every aspect

Which one of these 2 extremes would be natural?
Complete anarchy, madness, pain and destruction vs opposite of that.

why is being good liking walking uphill? Unnatural! Nonphysical! — TheMadFool

Same as it's so much harder to build the house vs taking buldozer and raze everything to the ground.

If I'm not aware of good and evil, then do I have to believe building is harder than razing? yes I do because if I do the opposite and raze what will happen?
I will know what I did was wrong, but it doesn't stop here, the consequence of that is my house is now razed and it will take a lot of work to build it again, and my knowledge of good and evil won't help me at all except to realize what I did. the snake tricked me.

Morality doesn't distort physical laws, but in this allegory it does, something is physically destroyed because of evil.

We all have reenacted a fatal mistake of eating an apple? Have lost the innocence of not knowing how it tastes? — GraveItty

loss of innocence sounds sensible, however it can't be subject to anger God, for example, before Adam and Eve committed their sin God told them to procreate which involves los of innocence (and discovery of pleasure)

Nowhere does God blame people for loss of innocence but rather for committing sin and disobedience.
For example building the tower of babylon angered God, however there is no shame involved, no secret knowledge etc. the only thing that both stories have in common is commandment violation.
God commanded not to worship other God's, the motive of babylonians however was to raise a temple for other gods.

Then the matter is controversial enough to make your pronouncements very weak. — TheMadFool

What you call controversial I call comprehensive or broader context, my pronouncements are abstraction of that broader context.

The central topic here is the garden of Eden, don't you think knowing broader context is essential to unlock the garden of Eden? Isn't that reasonable?

I don't treat disobedience per se a sin. — TheMadFool

Fine but, how does that fit into the rest of the scriptures?
It's obvious God was angry because his commandment wasn't obeyed (Gen 3,17-19):

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

God didn't curse (throw them out) for obtaining the knowledge but rather because of commandment violation.
Violation of commandments is what angers God trough out the rest of scriptures, rather than people learning and exploring.

Take it other way around, God knew knowledge of good and evil would hurt people, so he didn't want them to be aware of it, but snake being enemy of people and God wanted to destroy God's plan, Adam and Eve made their choice to listen to snake rather than God.

Those who ask stupid questions are the least able to recognize why those questions are stupid. Indeed, a stupid person asking a stupid question will only really be satisfied when they receive a suitably stupid answer. — Bartricks

No question is stupid, only answer can be stupid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_such_thing_as_a_stupid_question

Spoke in parables, eh? Why indeed? Was it a necessity or was it a preference? A lot depends on the answer. — TheMadFool

11Jesus replied, “Because they haven’t received the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but you have. 12 For those who have will receive more and they will have more than enough. But as for those who don’t have, even the little they have will be taken away from them. 13 This is why I speak to the crowds in parables:

The fall of man in the garden of eden is man's first sin, as descendants we all inherited that knowledge of good and evil, which resulted in apostasy from God, Jesus comes as ransom of that fall, that is reconciliation with God.

"The secrets of the kingdom of heaven" is that salvation from sin, from the fall of man. (apostasy from God)

"For those who have will receive more", That is on top of inheritance of the old testament law and prophecies they are given the fulfillment of it (new testament)
Old testament is nothing else but preparation to revert the damage done in garden of Eden.

"For those who don’t have, even the little they have will be taken away from them."
That is those who don't accept Jesus as ransom stay with the law (old testament), however since the law does not bring salvation, they now lost everything.

This is the meaning of

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Jesus is the truth, that is, ransom for sins which started with the fall of man.
And to "set you free" is freedom from sin that the fall of man introduced.
To be free from sin means to return back to God. (not that we can't sin anymore)

basically it all starts with the fall of man, and ends with salvation from that fall, that is what the message of the whole Bible is.
Hence Jesus savior (Christ).

Why not? — TheMadFool

Because we are talking about 1K+ pages that are subject to debate, framework of which I hopefully laid out above.

Why indeed? — TheMadFool

I'm not historian or literate to give answer to literacy or history of texts, but I know valid answer is given later by Jesus when disciples asked him, why does he speak in parables instead of telling what he means straight away so that everybody would understand his message. (Mt 13, 10-17)

That's debatable. — TheMadFool

Indeed it is, and it wouldn't help much with you original post.

Why choose that particular tree of knowledge of good and evil then? Why not something else? — TheMadFool

In other words, why is Genesis written using imagery? why not just telling straight away what happened, why not just telling straight that Adam and Eve defied God and then God punished them.

Those texts are thousands of years old, so what you're asking is why literature in that time was different from literature as we know today?
Or why did God inspire holly writers to write using imagery.

Your theory also seems to lead to rather dangerous conclusions - if God so commanded that we murder, rape, plunder, atrocities of all kinds, it would be wrong to disobey Him? — TheMadFool

IF God so commanded, but none of the God's commandment command such a thing as far as I know.

Why not. — TheMadFool

Because that apple in the garden of Eden was just an ordinary apple, the act of physically eating those apples isn't what's wrong, instead it's disobedience toward God's commandment not to eat them what is wrong.

This is confirmed later, Adam and Even hide them self in garden later when God come, not because they were poisoned by those apples or anything similar, but rather because of a shame and fear of what would Gad say or do now?

That is the whole meaning of this story, painful and shameful apostasy from God because of disobedience, ex. who are you to tell me what to do? I'm know better than you, I don't need God.

I think that the posters on this forum who propose theist arguments are more inclined to swing my thoughts against belief in God than the atheist ones. I wonder if I am the only person who finds this. — Jack Cummins

Even though my belief didn't weaken as much as yours, I do share your scepticism toward those who proclaim the truth blindly and fiercely, it makes them sound non authoritative and sometimes funny.

I'm not philosopher, my "occupation" is apologetics, and I'm interested to hear how would you explain unfolding events of of Jesus' life?

My question:
Why would someone after having a chance to evade painful death penalty insist on his teachings?
Jesus had the chance to evade mortal accusations multiple times yet it didn't care, instead he even predicted his own fate.
Interestingly, even after being on the cross he didn't ask for mercy but still persist.

Anyone in such situation would do anything to avoid painful death, why was Jesus different?
What's your opinion? or how would you explain Jesus?

What I'm getting at is a unique way of gaining knowledge - not by reading/listening to books/lectures but, dare I say it, by eating and touching and smelling, and so on.

To illustrate: Just by touching a crystal, I could figure out it lattice structure, the molecules present, the forces at play, etc.. By smelling a gas, I could divine the chemical composition of that gas, its concentration, etc. You get the idea. — TheMadFool

You seem to be suggesting that scientific approach gives insights into areas which religious forbids.

I think central point in the story of "The Fall Of Man" isn't to give any secular insights, but rather spiritual ones. Insights which can't be empirically measured or proved.

'God' denotes a person who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent.
And time is made of the properties or relations of pastness, presentness and futurity. — Bartricks

God being omniscient is the opposite of us being limited in knowledge.
If we are limited in knowledge (compare to God's knowledge) we can conclude the knowledge of God is unlimited or infinite.
The opposite of infinite is finite, therefore saying God's knowledge is finite is contrary to it's omnipotent nature.
My point here is I see no problem with assigning infinite property to God compared to finite one. (God is not God if limited)

Same way, we can't say time is finite, because of the question "what was there before that time?"

God and time are therefore infinite in every aspect, however obvious is, while God is omnipotent this does not apply to time.

So yes God made time and is not subject to time.
We came to same conclusion without scriptures or scientific view of time.

There must be some definition of God and time, or background literature of either, how else do you define God and time then?

Or within what framework should one interpret your question regarding God and time?

Sorry no, my sub question wasn't to set you a trap, I get your point that human condition is intellect, which is what makes us humans.

You said:

Thus good and evil enter the world in the form of the implementation of choices of imagined possible futures. Such is the human condition — unenlightened

We can have many choices in specific situations, some are better than the others, however no matter how many choices we have all of them can be grouped as either good or bad.

I'll say within single group of multiple good or multiple bad choices is where human intellect takes place but not between good and bad on it's own.

For example we can examine which of the available options would be most good or most bad, but knowing what's good or evil is separate and already known, independent of intellect.

For example evil vs good choice is subject to examination of conscience, while multiple possible solutions (and which one to choose) is subject to intellect.

But if God created time, then time was not needed for that initial act of creation. We can conclude, then, that there can be creation without time, for otherwise time itself could not have been created. — Bartricks

Whether God created time or not, from religious point of view is debatable, because "In the beginning God created..."
That in the beginning could mean the beginning of universe or it could mean the beginning of time.

Scriptures literary talk about first version, the beginning of universe (heavens and earth) rather than the beginning of time.

From scientific point of view we know the mechanics of universe involve time, ex. space time.

This gives us conclusion that the beginning of universe implicitly also means the beginning of time as we know it.

Logical question is, is there some other time in addition to time that we know?

Science has some theories such as multiverse, while from religious point of view, God is unfathomable because human wisdom can not reach the wisdom of God beyond what is revealed trough scriptures.

According to scriptures (ex. 2 Pt 3,8; Ps 90,4) we know God's time is different from our time therefore our version of time (space time) is useless to measure subjectivity of time and God.

But one is sure, God did create time that we know as human beings.

The Bible is good art to me, religion to you, perhaps we have different interpretations. — Varde

I believe there is nothing wrong with attempting to interpret the bible as an art rather than trough faith.

If we try to interpret the Genesis with many possibilities, ex. several possible truths (or messages), then the issue is with the rest of story (whole bible), which simply won't fit in.

This is what taking out of a context means, it makes the whole story not fit into any of possible interpretations however true they may sound like on it's own.

I would keep that in mind to develop my own interpretation, which would take a lot of time.

Thus good and evil enter the world in the form of the implementation of choices of imagined possible futures. Thus is the human condition, for example, that we currently see the possibility of destroying the environment, whereas the buffalo do not see that they transform nature, or imagine that they could do otherwise; we do, and thus are condemned to choose. — unenlightened

How do you define human condition? Is it something that includes conscience and soul?
Or is it based human desire and instinkt?

Your interpretation of Adam and Even and the garden of Eden seems misinterpreted.

for example:

Adam and Eve want to be beautiful to God — Varde

No they don't want to be pretty, it's God that wanted to make them in the image of God (himself)

God puts them in a Garden of Eden where there is the apple which is knowledge of beauty — Varde

No it's knowledge of what good and what's evil.

Premise 2: God decides which is pious or not because he is all knowing.

Deduction: if God decides somethings as pious and somethings as sin, he, before hand, was endowed with knowledge. — Vanbrainstorm

No, God does not decide, it's dishonorable one that accuses you of sin, and all that God does is judgement based on those accusations.

He was programmed to be this God that labels some actions as pious and others as sin. — Vanbrainstorm

No, God gave free will, therefore the one that makes wrong choices is the one that labels it self.

God is love as opposite to hate, therefore God does not seduce man.

Does God have free will?

Yes, otherwise it would not be almighty.

A more appropriate question would be, why God gave free will?

EDIT:
I'm basing this on specific God, unless there is some other God you're talking about?

Some will say that evil is evident, and preexisting. — PseudoB

Evil is evident but surely not preexisting.
Evil is rather product of free will, or more precisely, a wrong choice.

The belief of the existence of evil, at all, is what allows for the infinite manifestations of evil that we experience daily. — PseudoB

If you don't believe evil exists then what's the point to acknowledge good exists?
evil is the opposite of good.

How do we determine if we are right or wrong? How can we be certain that our actions are actually beneficial and not counterproductive? — Average

Question with many possible if\else answers, but the core to decision making is prudence.

Mixing beneficial and not counterproductive, I believe in addition to material benefit of an action it should also be morally acceptable?
Because an action that is morally not acceptable may produce consequences one way or the other.

If so then, if you need to weight material benefit over consequences of immoral it all boils down how much of risk you can take or what is moral for you or society you live in.

Morality is never in the treatment, but only and always in the reason for the treatment. — Mww

Well, you can put it another way, "Treat others as you would NOT like others to treat you."
Wouldn't such behavior result in immoral actions?

Isn't that the reason?

You may very well have no issue in treating me as a big fat ugly slob — Mww

Sure, but first I would have to imagine my self as being a big fat ugly slob, and then assume how would others treat me for being an idiot?

My point is that if you're a big fat ugly slob then you're immoral toward yourself, and as such nobody is going to help you.

I don't think there is any logic in emotions because of factors that an not logical.

Emotions are:
1. hereditary
2. learned from close people during child age
3. influenced by others

This results is each one of us acting differently in different situations, either a lone or in social interactions.

But, I kind of developed new emotions. I used to live with severe depression, and would hardly feel much of any emotions apart from some happy states of mind and a lot of anxiety. — Shawn

Developing new emotions because of mental issues is an indicator of good IQ but can potentionaly lead to new problems hard to get rid of later, like instead of expressing or sharing personal issues, pushing them or expressing trough emotions.

Medicinal herbs like Lavender or mixtures of herbs can help more than anything else.

Do you mean in social situations, you're nervous. Or just nervous generally?

And what about that makes you angry? Are you angry at yourself? — counterpunch

Almost always In social interactions and almost always toward another person.
The reason for getting angry when the other person is:
1. lazy
2. not thinking logically
3. not taking care of priorities
4. not giving practical or better suggestions
5. lack of interest in finishing the job

These are the things that make me really angry.
Btw. I consider my self emotionally not intelligent because I don't know how to handle these things.

Any suggestions?

I don't know. Do you think it is? — counterpunch

I know it is because I'm nervous person. I get angry often but I don't want it.