SecretMethod70

I was just participating in another thread and an idea popped into my head. What if God was really a prankster from the future? What if humans developed without religion and eventually reached the point where time travel was invented? They would, of course, have rules about interfering with the past, but all it takes is one person breaking those rules - one person who thinks "if I go back in time and create a moral code, humanity will surely develop more peacefully and quickly than it already has!" Of course, another person might get their hands on the technology and think, "wouldn't it be funny if I told cavemen some stories about the earth being created in 7 days?!" Maybe Jesus was another time traveler, attempting to ease humanity back on the right path only to have even his message screwed up by people too strongly attached to the old ways.

Could it be that that is how humanity has ultimately destroyed itself? Could it be that humanity's advancement - the creation of time travel technology - ultimately set its own development back by thousands of years or more?!


Note: I seriously don't believe this whatsoever, but what the hell, I figured it might be an interesting discussion!

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Darth_Kettch

Wasn't it Clarke who said that any technology sufficiently advanced, would be indistinguishable from magic? As has been stated in another thread, anyone of us, travelling back in time with a trunk (we're using a DeLorian, of course) full of battery-powered gadgets and weapons could convince any cave man that we were, in fact, all-powerful. It's hard to be a critical thinker when somebody displays unfathomable power in certain areas, even if they display no unusual power in other areas. Aren't there som OT passages where God is shown as less-than-omnipotent, along the lines of being unable to smite some warriors because they possessed chariots and spears of metal?

Anyway, I'm firm in my belief that if time travel were indeed possible, we'd have encountered time travellers long ago

MexicanOnABike

let's say they were you make time travel possible in 1000years, then the timetraveler would have millions of years to visit. you think they would choose 2007 and be careless enough to tell everyone who and what they are? i think if it's possible, you wont ever hear anything about it.

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Willravel

Is anyone familiar with Galactus form Marvel comics? He was a creature left over from the last big crunch. If God exists, it seems reasonable to assume that he has amassed such power because he doesn't age. In the bible, god is described as being without beginning. That would be one metaphor for an entity that has existed since before this incarnation of the universe. If I were such a creature, I might want to use my power to expand my understanding of evolutionary development to better understand my past. That being the case, I might want to experiment ans stifle the development of some intelligent species, and accelerate others. Theism could be an attempt to stifle us.

In other words, the god entity could be as easily from the past as the future. If you prescribe to the idea of circular time, that the universe repeats itself after every big bang, our answer could be one and the same.

Toaster126

I don't remember why I'm thinking this, but I read something along the lines of if time travel was possible, it would only be able to move toward the future. Has anyone read anything along those lines?

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Darth_Kettch

I get your point, but as I see it, there is an infinite amount of future, and a finite amount of past. In other words, every moment in history could theoretically be crawling with time travellers

I'm very familiar with Galactus (love the celestial figures in the Marvel Universe), and this is also a very interesting idea. As Galactus is portrayed, he could easily take the role of any God on earth, and nobody would be the wiser. Have you read Earth X? ***********SPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERS**********Alex Ross' interpretation is that the Celestials crafted superhumans as a defence against Galactus. Earth's antibodies, as it were.***********SPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERS********** I guess any being could be "God", not just our own time travellers onders:

We're all always moving into the future, one second at a time Maybe your thinking of the classic twin expample?

(as I recall it...)
One twin stays on Earth, the other hops onto a spaceship travelling at near-light speed. As you velocity approaches that of light, time slows relative to an observer standing still. So if the twin on the spaceship travels around for twenty years (as observed from Earth), the twin on Earth would have aged twenty years, while the twin on the spaceship would hardly have aged at all. To him, it would appear as if he travelled twenty years into the future.

Toaster126

No, that's not what I was thinking about Darth_Kettch, but now I am left with a wanting to reread the Ender's Game series.

I'm talking about how if we were to make a time travel machine, it would only be able to go forwards in time, never backwards.

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"The question isn't who is going to let me, it's who is going to stop me." (Ayn Rand)
"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers." (M. Scott Peck)

DaveOrion

You may be thinking of the father paradox, if it were possible to travel into the past you could conceivably kill your father before you were born, therefore you never would have existed, so how could you travel back in time to kill him??? Its the classic temperal paradox. The same type of paradox was revealed in the movie "The Time Machine" with Guy Peirce. He built the time machine to travel into the past to save his fiancee from being killed, but had she lived he never would have built the machine to begin with.......

For some reason, when I read this, it reminded of the "Q" from StarTrek NG. While the Q were very nearly omnipotent, Capt. Picard still believed in God, and refused to acknowledge the Q as such. I would have to fall into the same category. Time travelers or ET's from another solar system may have influenced the Bible, I really cant say, its all speculation,but very interesting none the less. IMO God is still God. There may be many advanced civilizations throughout the universe, in many highly evolved forms, but they still arent God. I cant really explain the nature of God, so I'm with Shani on that one.......some things are just inexplicable.....God Just Is....

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Willravel

Picard was an agnostic*, but his lack of respect for Q was what allowed him to separate Q from the concept of god.

* In season 2, episode 2, "Where Silence Has Lease", an entity introducing itself as Nagilum took the form of Data to ask Picard about his thoughts on death. Picard readily explains that he recognizes that there is a complexity to the universe that everything has a purpose, but he avoids the idea of an afterlife altogether.

In season 6, episode 15, Picard is heavily injured in an attack, and he either hallucinates or dies and meets Q. Q introduced himself as god, but Picard say if there is a god, Q isn't it.

DaveOrion

I dont think this proves Picard was an agnostic, you could believe in God and not in an afterlife. That really wasnt the point of my post anyway, StarTrek is a fictional series and Picard is a fictional character (although some may disagree! ) It was just an example of a an omnipotent species that was godlike, but wasnt God. I suppose the more advanced a species, the more advanced your "God" must be. The Q would have made a sufficent "God" to stone age humans, but nowadays....you gotta do better than that! Peace To All.

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Darth_Kettch

Zing!

Again with the cosmic entities - if the Q collective had played their cards right, they would easily have been powerful enough to play the role of the omnipotent god. Not that I believe in the supernatural anyway (or maybe their technology was just sufficiently advanced ), but it's a very interesting thought

Ourcrazymodern?

Through time we're on our ways, people.

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Church

This is kind of funny as I just finished watch an ep of Dr. Who, but thats besides the point. If God really was a time traveler, I have a feeling that a prankster would come back and make us all look like fools and have us worshipping mushrooms and orange juice or something. Your theory has merit, I just think, personally from my point of view, that a prankster would have done something more humiliating lol.

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Charlatan

And believing in something as oxymoronic as "life after death" is not humiliating? What about the loaves and fishes or the water and wine thing?

Those are all pretty funny.

Not to forget all the, "don't eat shelfish and pigs"... who in their right mind would give up lobster, shrimp and pork ribs or bacon.

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DaveOrion

The shellfish and swine thing is all about health concerns. I wont list the diseases associated with these, because you already know. The old testament law with all its precepts, doesnt just deal with moral issues, many are related to health and cleanliness. 5000 years ago, people had no idea what caused disease....maybe we could teleport them a microscope???

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Syriana...have you ever tried liquid MDMA?....Liquid MDMA? No....Arash, when you wanna do this?.....After prayer...

Willravel

It's the same thing with women who are menstruating and homosexuality. Of course, some people still stick to their guns on one of those.

DaveOrion

OMG Will!!! We agree on something??? Bound to happen sooner or later....no hard feelings I hope. I also heard someone mention the, "stone your child" deal, another thread maybe, but this one has kinda died out anyway. I remember something like, if your child is an alcoholic and cant be contolled, he should be taken before the people and stoned to death, thus eliminating sin from the people. Sorry, I dont ever quote scripture & verse, seems to be such a turnoff to so many people. So what if they stoned to death some bad seed??? Is this really that suprising for people that were barely out of the stone age??? Applying todays morality to ancient peoples takes these 'laws' completely out of context. The greeks wouldnt tolerate a malformed child and they were left to die or tossed from a mountain top, the chinese often killed female children in favor of males. The list goes on......but yourself in their shoes if you can, but its hard to imagine the world as it was 5000 years ago. Any of us born then, would not be the people were are now.

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Syriana...have you ever tried liquid MDMA?....Liquid MDMA? No....Arash, when you wanna do this?.....After prayer...

Charlatan

Hey Dave...

But if the Bible is the word of God, as some would have us believe, it has nothing to do with health, or ancient ways and everything to do with following the word of God.

You see, I believe it was written by men and then raised in status. I also agree, that the rule in the early books of the Old Testament were written to help a nomadic people survive and thrive. In fact, I can see where Paul was coming from when he had his "vision"...

"Hey! These people I've been persecuting actually have a good religion. I like the ideas but this whole list of antiquated rules in Leviticus and the like are so out of date. I know! I could just scrap them. Scrap them and keep the good stuff about loving your neighbour and turning the other cheek. "

And lo he "modernized" Christianity and allowed it to take seed around the World.

That said, there are still some literal thinkers out there that can't see the metaphor for loaves and the fishes...

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- Old Man Luedecke

DaveOrion

I agree, as I said in another thread, the old testament is all about the law, rules, the old covenant. The new testament is about the 'new covenant' which attempts to change peoples hearts, so they would choose to do the morally correct thing because thats whats right, not because its a law. Its ironic how as soon as Jesus was gone, people once again begain deciding for others 'what was right.' Paul included. Should a woman pray with her head uncovered??? Pauls answer, No she should cover her head (Not a direct quote). My answer," its more important whats in your heart, than whats on your head." Dogma, religious doctrine, endless denominations.....why??? They cant agree on rules that shouldnt matter anyway.

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Syriana...have you ever tried liquid MDMA?....Liquid MDMA? No....Arash, when you wanna do this?.....After prayer...

SSJTWIZTA

Uhh, Can i buy some weed from you?

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First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for me And there was no one left to speak out for me.
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DaveOrion

I don't advocate the use of elicit drugs, but...... weed is not physically addictive, and the only problem I see is the mental addiction and its ability to rob you of your ambition. Just stay away from crack, coke, freebase, meth, heroin and those hardcore prescription drugs. Use common sense. If you think you have a problem, you probably do. If you think its wrong, it probably is. Moderation in all things. Now this morning, I did happen to burn a fatty.....just to enjoy this beautiful spring day!!!

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Syriana...have you ever tried liquid MDMA?....Liquid MDMA? No....Arash, when you wanna do this?.....After prayer...

warrrreagl

Carl Sagan introduced this idea to me during the Cosmos series back in the 80's. In it, he demonstrated how "Flatland" works. Imagine a world of only two dimensions called Flatland. The inhabitants are intelligent, but they only have concepts of length and width - they've never heard of "up." They don't have any reference point for it.

Suddenly, a creature from the third dimension visits Flatland. The third dimensional creature approaches flatland from above and he can see directly into their closed homes and rooms because they don't have roofs (He can be everywhere at once). If he tries to speak to them, the Flatlanders hear voices coming from inside their bodies inside closed rooms (He speaks to them with a voice from beyond).

So, the three-dimensional creature tries to enter Flatland, but the Flatlanders can only see him as a series of two-dimensional slices materializing one at a time before them (They can never see him in his true form). Finally, the three-dimensional visitor picks up a Flatlander and allows him to float gently back down to his home. To his friends, he was standing there one second and then vanished. Then, suddenly, he reappeared out of thin air. He has no frame of reference because "up" is a concept that is impossible to him. If he tried to explain to his friends what happened and what he saw, he wouldn't possess the vocabulary needed to fully explain it, and they would likely lock him up as being insane.

Increase all dimensions in this story by one, and you have a likely description for a human encounter with God.

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MeltedMetalGlob

Another factor to consider- if someone came up to you and told you they were from the future, you'd probably think they were a lunatic.

Still, the OP's concept that God may have been a time-traveller is a fascinating one.

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DaveOrion

Oh the memories, yep this was an interesting thread & I think Picard was perhaps an Agnostic & "Q" a godlike entity, but still not God.

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Syriana...have you ever tried liquid MDMA?....Liquid MDMA? No....Arash, when you wanna do this?.....After prayer...

Ourcrazymodern?

& if God, time travel...framing questions like pictures requires ignoring or deleting the edges.

@ourownperil, hunter!

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Zeraph

To the OP, I would say no based on no one having claimed (reliably) of being a time traveler. Even people 2000 years ago could understand that.

DaveOrion

I think not, people living 2000 years ago could not differentiate between time-travelers and gods, or God & the the Q, let alone have any clear understanding of someone actually claiming to be a time traveler.

I found this thread mildly interesting, yet based on nothing substantial. Anything the ancients witnessed could have fallen into any category from ET's all the way to weather phenomenon, & anything in between, take your pick.

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Syriana...have you ever tried liquid MDMA?....Liquid MDMA? No....Arash, when you wanna do this?.....After prayer...

Walt

People who are confronted by the realities of red tide, paralytic shellfish poisoning and trichinosis while trying to establish a lasting civilization?

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Calmer than you are...

Zeraph

Sure they could. The Mayan calender goes to 2012 at least. They figured out the days and weeks all the way up to 2012. You're telling me they are too stupid to understand what a timetraveler is?

DaveOrion

Uh, well, the 2012 end date is simply the end of one age and the beginning of the next, not a big deal compared to contemplating the existence of time travel.

I wont go into the many reasons the Mayans were so very good at calculating time, the wobble of the Earth resulting in procession & all that fun stuff, but needless to say when you continually look at the sky & that info is passed down to future generations you often become pretty good at such things, IMHO.

Time Travel is an entirely different thang..............

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Syriana...have you ever tried liquid MDMA?....Liquid MDMA? No....Arash, when you wanna do this?.....After prayer...

WhoaitsZ

if I see A Perfect Circle I will ask Maynard if he time travels or not.

Walt

Were I the hypothetical time traveler and I wanted to speed up the development of humanity I wouldn't attempt to accomplish that in some backwoods desert shit hole. I would want the most bang for my buck and so would take my case to a far more advanced and influential society (like Rome). And knowing that quality of life correlates with technology, my message would be one of lessons in mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics and engineering. If nothing else, I would remove the "God" concept as people interpreting Gods will and using that to justify violence and oppression has proven to be a more likely catalyst for ultimate destruction.

Creation stories weren't a foreign concept at the time.

I'd like to believe that forethought would cause time-traveling Jesus to at least write down his "message" and do so in a way that would not be open to interpretation, rather than have it spread by word of mouth for the next couple of hundred years.

Were that the case, then just prior to the "ultimate destruction of humanity", it would be logical to just go back and prevent the invention that allowed time travel.

Or, when those "in the past" had developed, achieved, and therefore proven the possibility of time travel and its existence at present, sending someone from the future back to that point with a warning of the consequences would be taken seriously by those in the past

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Zeraph

Thank you walt, said it better than I could have. /agree