If any of you are into reading as I am I highly recommend "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. C.S. Lewis once said that someone who is truly interested in gleaning what they can from literature will not just have read many books, but will have books that they have read many times.
I have read this book no less than three times, and each time I have taken something else from it. It has done much to shape my worldview as it pertains to what "justice" is.
Dostoyevsky knew that justice and more importantly injustice were. He was sent to Siberia for a number of years due to his refusal to toe the line on soviet politics in his writings, the result of which is this and other beautifully written treatises, that we all can learn from.
I highly recommend this and other books (such as "Anna Karenina" and "The Brothers Karamazov") by this author. You will be a better person for having read them.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Would God allow Time travel?
Would God ever allow time travel. This is an interesting question. In order to answer it we have to try and look at time from God's perspective which is not an easy thing to do.
In 2 Peter 3:8 it says "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." (KJV)
Time means nothing to God. He is outside of time. Try to picture the entire history of the world from beginning to end as a drawn time-line. It starts with Gods creation of the world, and ends with Gods destruction of the world. You can see Adam and Eve, Noah, Moses and all the rest. You can see what they did...or didn't do. Our limitation is that we can only see what is past and of that not much. Pretend you can see everything that has already happened. God is the beginning and the end "the Alpha and Omega". He has already seen all of Human history, so he can "look back" in this same way and see what to us is unknown future.
Now let's come back to the original question, would God ever allow time travel. No, because he alone can view the entire span of human existence. He alone can see the future as if it were past. That is part of what makes him God. He will not allow a human to mess with the space-time continuum for the same reason I won't let my kids touch the stove...all we would do is screw it up and hurt ourselves.
Now that we are aware of how God sees time, lets take that a step further...
Ephesians 1:4-6 "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved" (KJV)
God knew from the beginning of the world everything that would happen and has already guided it to it's conclusion.
What is the implication? There is no such thing as "time". "Time" is an artificial construct to describe the situation humans find themselves in vis-a-vis our physical world. To God, who is not retarded by the artificial construct of time, the future has already happened...which means there is also no such thing as change. Think about that for a moment. There is no such thing as "change".
I don't know about you, but I find comfort in the fact that God is "timeless" and "changeless", and if something in History needs fixing, I'll leave the time travel to him anyway.
In 2 Peter 3:8 it says "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." (KJV)
Time means nothing to God. He is outside of time. Try to picture the entire history of the world from beginning to end as a drawn time-line. It starts with Gods creation of the world, and ends with Gods destruction of the world. You can see Adam and Eve, Noah, Moses and all the rest. You can see what they did...or didn't do. Our limitation is that we can only see what is past and of that not much. Pretend you can see everything that has already happened. God is the beginning and the end "the Alpha and Omega". He has already seen all of Human history, so he can "look back" in this same way and see what to us is unknown future.
Now let's come back to the original question, would God ever allow time travel. No, because he alone can view the entire span of human existence. He alone can see the future as if it were past. That is part of what makes him God. He will not allow a human to mess with the space-time continuum for the same reason I won't let my kids touch the stove...all we would do is screw it up and hurt ourselves.
Now that we are aware of how God sees time, lets take that a step further...
Ephesians 1:4-6 "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved" (KJV)
God knew from the beginning of the world everything that would happen and has already guided it to it's conclusion.
What is the implication? There is no such thing as "time". "Time" is an artificial construct to describe the situation humans find themselves in vis-a-vis our physical world. To God, who is not retarded by the artificial construct of time, the future has already happened...which means there is also no such thing as change. Think about that for a moment. There is no such thing as "change".
I don't know about you, but I find comfort in the fact that God is "timeless" and "changeless", and if something in History needs fixing, I'll leave the time travel to him anyway.
I thought this was funny
there are 2 headlines today on the network news site for my Job.
the first one is..."Democrat congresswoman says Iraq stragey isn't working"
The second one is "Scores of insurgents killed"
Does anyone else see the irony?
the first one is..."Democrat congresswoman says Iraq stragey isn't working"
The second one is "Scores of insurgents killed"
Does anyone else see the irony?
I thought this was good.
I know we have all gotten this one in an email at one time or another. It's funny, but at the same time. to a certain extent it's true.
The Plan for Peace:
1) The US will apologize to the world for our "interference" in their affairs, past and present. You know Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tojo, Milosevic, Noriega, Hussein, and the rest of those "good 'ol boys", we will never"interfere" again.
2) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting with Germany, South Korea, The Middle East, and the Philippines. They don't want us there. In fact we won't send our troops anywhere unless we are attacked first. This includes places like Darfur. We will instead station the troops at our borders. No one is allowed to sneak through the holes fence anymore.
3) All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and head home. We'll pay for the trip. After 90 days any illegal alien found will be forcefully removed from the country. Any resistance to this will be met with deadly force regardless of who they are or where they are from. They're illegal They can go to France.
4) All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days unless given a special permit. No one from a terrorist nation will be allowed in at all, if you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide here. Asylum will never be available to anyone ever, We have enough Cab drivers and 7-11 clerks.
5) No foreign "students" over the age of 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don't attend classes or they get a "D" or below, they are on a plane home.
6) The US will make a strong effort to become self sufficient energy-wise. This will include development of nonpolluting sources of energy in the long term; but will also require some drilling in ANWR in the short term. The caribou will have to cope for a bit.
7) Offer Saudi Arabia and other Oil producing countries $10 a barrel for their Oil. If they don't like it we'll go elsewhere. they can go somewhere else to sell their production. (About a week or so of the loss of sales to the US should do it.)
8) If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world we will not "interfere". They can pray to allah or whoever for seeds, rain, cement, or whatever else they want. Besides even when we send em stuff, the army steals it. The people who actually need it never get anything.
9) Ship the UN Headquarters to France or some deserted island. We don't need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides the UN building would make a good place to lock up illegal aliens. we could even torture some of them for fun.
10) All Americans must attend charm and beauty school. that way no one can call us "ugly Americans".
11) We speak ENGLISH. Learn it or leave.
"The statue of Liberty is no longer saying give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses longing to breath free. She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling "YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME?"
The Plan for Peace:
1) The US will apologize to the world for our "interference" in their affairs, past and present. You know Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tojo, Milosevic, Noriega, Hussein, and the rest of those "good 'ol boys", we will never"interfere" again.
2) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting with Germany, South Korea, The Middle East, and the Philippines. They don't want us there. In fact we won't send our troops anywhere unless we are attacked first. This includes places like Darfur. We will instead station the troops at our borders. No one is allowed to sneak through the holes fence anymore.
3) All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and head home. We'll pay for the trip. After 90 days any illegal alien found will be forcefully removed from the country. Any resistance to this will be met with deadly force regardless of who they are or where they are from. They're illegal They can go to France.
4) All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days unless given a special permit. No one from a terrorist nation will be allowed in at all, if you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide here. Asylum will never be available to anyone ever, We have enough Cab drivers and 7-11 clerks.
5) No foreign "students" over the age of 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don't attend classes or they get a "D" or below, they are on a plane home.
6) The US will make a strong effort to become self sufficient energy-wise. This will include development of nonpolluting sources of energy in the long term; but will also require some drilling in ANWR in the short term. The caribou will have to cope for a bit.
7) Offer Saudi Arabia and other Oil producing countries $10 a barrel for their Oil. If they don't like it we'll go elsewhere. they can go somewhere else to sell their production. (About a week or so of the loss of sales to the US should do it.)
8) If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world we will not "interfere". They can pray to allah or whoever for seeds, rain, cement, or whatever else they want. Besides even when we send em stuff, the army steals it. The people who actually need it never get anything.
9) Ship the UN Headquarters to France or some deserted island. We don't need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides the UN building would make a good place to lock up illegal aliens. we could even torture some of them for fun.
10) All Americans must attend charm and beauty school. that way no one can call us "ugly Americans".
11) We speak ENGLISH. Learn it or leave.
"The statue of Liberty is no longer saying give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses longing to breath free. She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling "YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME?"
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